#it may seem like a pain but this design i have for squid is a BUTT TONNA FUN-
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Forty Days of Frankenstein, Day Thirty: This is a blink-and-you’ll-miss it Frankenstein, and also one that takes a little explaining for the uninitiated. On the TV show *The Simpsons*, main character Bart Simpson is a comic book fan, and his favorite comic book character is a superhero called Radioactive Man. That is to say that, Radioactive Man is, within the fictional Simpsons universe, himself a fictional character, a meta-fictional character, if you will. In Radioactive Man’s universe—a fictional universe within a fictional universe (a metafictional universe?)—Radioactive Man is a member of the superhero team The Superior Squad (a parody of teams like the Avengers and the Justice League). What you may or may not realize, though, is that in addition to *The Simpsons* TV show, there’s a Simpsons “extended universe” of sorts that includes Simpsons comic books. Occasionally, however, a Simpsons comic book story will go a level deeper fictional-universe-wise and tell a story set within the Radioactive Man / Superior Squad universe. In the comic book *Simpsons Super Spectacular* #2, cover-dated February, 2006, you can read the story “Bongos,” which is set in the Superior Squad universe. The story is pretty funny in itself, in painterly tones by artist Dan Brereton, but in a single panel we get this throwaway gag of Superior Squad member Captain Squid fighting the Frankenstein Monster, who the story is at pains to tell us lappily, is able to encounter Captain Squid in his element because, astonishingly, he’s “learned to swim.” I have to say, the Monster’s design is pretty rich in comedic detail (screws for electrodes, for instance) for a tossed-off reference that’s never seen again. And it makes me wonder about Frankenstein media in the Simpsons universe. It seems like there, as here, The Monster is a public domain character. If a classic Frankenstein movie ever came across the TV that Homer Simpson was dozing in front of, I wonder what we’d see?
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Yay, a creature poll! ^-^ I've really been hoping for these to return, though considering how the last two targets were Jetfishes and Squidcadas, I was actually expecting to see the other harmless, but helpful Slugcat-sized critters being covered (those being Lantern Mice, Grapple Worms and Yeeks). However, Leeches are still interesting, and I'd be more than happy to talk about them. So I do still very much appreciate the submission from Anon.
Leeches are interesting, because unlike the previous creatures, they can't really be categorized. A lot of people might compare them to Worm Grass, considering how they're both tube shaped, use similar shades of red and blue, and will attempt to swarm, overwhelm and consume most other creatures, save for a couple exceptions. Not to mention, they serve somewhat similar purposes when it comes to gameplay, and they're both generally not killable.
So this comparison is somewhat valid, but a key difference is that the game treats Leeches as creatures, while it actually treats Worm Grass as terrain. This actually has way more implications than one might think, and it causes the former to feel a lot less frustrating to deal with, than the latter. For starters - Worm Grass is both indestructible and immovable. If a dev puts some into an area, it will be present there, no matter what. And because of that, it feels very uninteresting and one-dimensional, especially in vanilla, where even the Gooieduck interaction didn't exist.
Leeches do not suffer from this problem, as they're way more dynamic, by comparison:
They can be hurt by certain things.
They can be moved into different pools, as well as outside the water, where they will dry up and become harmless, forcing them to crawl back into the water.
They can be preyed on by Squidcadas. But they can also prey on the Squids.
Their attack is a somewhat telegraphed leap that can be avoided with good movement.
They can be temporarily disabled by Snails.
They have dens, and it takes a lil while for all of them to come forth into the surface.
And very often, they're not even really dangerous - just minor nuisances that weigh you down a bit (and drain some food, if they're Jungle Leeches).
Point being, is that Leeches actually have a bit of depth to them, despite them being rather simple in concept. Of course, their design is not quite as complex or intricate as that of the Scavengers or the Lizards, but everything they do have is fairly important, encouraging players to be observant.
Now, their main issue is that they don't really have a ton of fluff outside of that, and they sort of feel like they were designed pretty much exclusively to be an obstacle for the player, and not really to be a part of the ecosystem as a whole.
This might seem like a weird sentiment. After all, they do interact with Squidcadas, don't they? Yes, but just think about it for a moment - outside of them (and the player), what can you actually see them interact with? Because aquatic creatures and plants can't be drowned, so they don't ever get attacked, and non-aquatic creatures simply don't tend to go into pools of water that have Leeches in them. As much as I talked about the uninteresting nature of the Worm Grass, at least I have actually seen that thing kill creatures that weren't my Slugcat. And while I may have occasionally seen a creature carrying a Leech or two, the only things I've ever seen them drown is, you guessed it - Squidcadas.
There's also the annoyance factor, which I actually don't think is a problem, weirdly enough. Sure, getting overwhelmed and drowned by them is not fun, and is definitely one of the more painful ways to die in this game. It's slow, it's agonizing, and it leaves you with a very awful feeling. And it feels so bad, specifically because you fully know that it was your fault. There's no RNG element, and there's no 'getting screwed over by janky AI' element either. You screwed up, and that's a reality you'll have to face. Of course, the frustrations do depend on how the game devs use/place them. And honestly, they very rarely (if ever) place them into spots where they actually feel unfair to deal with. (There's D01 in Waterfront Facility, and on Hunter, there's that big pool in Shoreline that you'll first see when entering from GW. Those are really the only two Leech spots I ever actively disliked)
They're reasonable skill-checks. Just ones that feel especially horrible to fail, which was absolutely by design.
So I'm actually going to say that I like them, and I'm being fully genuine here. I definitely wouldn't put them into 'love' tier, as I wouldn't be overly sad if they were to be removed, and because of how they don't really interact much with the other creatures.
Jungle Leeches are a tad different, and would probably get a 'neutral' or a 'dislike', not because they irritate me, but because they didn't exactly add much. They can mostly be found in Outer Expanse, where food is plentiful, the spawns are light, and water areas where they could actually be dangerous are not overly common, so they don't ever end up being more than just a minor nuisance. But I really don't see why they needed to exist, other than to just have more new creatures in Downpour. Maybe if there was a little more to them, I could see it, but unfortunately, the only thing they have going for them is a lengthy dry-out duration, and the food draining mechanic, which simply isn't enough, at least in my opinion.
But the good news are that Jungle Leeches are extremely rare, even in the Downpour campaigns where they do actually show up. (Which are the 5 that come after Hunter. Kinda convenient how they don't show up in the 3, where they would be the most troublesome, eh?) Most of 'em are blue and red, and those absolutely get a 'like' from me!
Thoughts on leeches I already know the awnser to this I just think it would be funny
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Some small assorted BINR and mostly Squid (Will You Snail) art because i. I actually dont have much to say except that the black backgrounds are when i was first sketching the guy out-
#squid wys#will you snail#squid will you snail#binr canoodle#binr chester#canton (canoodle) briar#it may seem like a pain but this design i have for squid is a BUTT TONNA FUN-#digital art#vianthemindelectric#vian's art#amalgaverse
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Fake It Till You Make It - Four
A Sam x Reader Series
PART FOUR
Y/N knows it’s a bad idea to try telling her family that she’s dating Sam Winchester. But it’s just for the week of her sister’s wedding, and it’s all fake anyway. What could go wrong?
Word Count: 3500
Warnings: plus size! Reader, fatphobic comments and self esteem issues, Y/N’s family are demons, gratuitous Meg pep talks because I love her and I’m sorry
A/N: Sorry for taking forever, being a depressed squid took more of my time than planned. Also sorry for any pain this part may cause, I promise to fix it next time.
Sam and your father returned from golfing the following afternoon relatively unscathed. A few jokes were made about a lawyer not knowing how to golf, but they were surprisingly good natured, considering your family’s penchant for throwing passive-aggressive barbs around. Sam just took it in stride, the same way he had with everything that had been thrown at both of you this week, with a smile and a nod and a hand on whatever part of you was within reach.
You, on the other hand, were in freefall. You’d known on some level even back at Dean’s dinner table that it wasn’t a particularly great plan for you to bring Sam to your sister’s wedding, but you hadn’t anticipated the reality of playing this charade. He was everything you’d ever wanted, even earning the approval of the only family members that mattered (even if Meg did still like flirting with him) and none of it was real. Kissing him had only made it all worse, and Sam’s subsequent apology for blindsiding you that evening didn’t come close to making anything better.
Now, the two of you were curled up in one lounge chair at Ruby’s behest, and you were pretty sure that this was some personal hell devised by the devil to torture you. You weren’t entirely sure why Ruby had felt that a pre-wedding family bonfire was necessary on her last night as an unmarried woman, but she’d insisted, so here you both were.
Gramma Lilith, who was quickly becoming the primary villain here, had started fawning over the two of you the instant you made your appearance on the back lawn, somehow strong-arming you into sharing a seat and insisting that Sam could keep you warm. (Your arguments ranged from the overall midsummer heat to the fact that you were literally sitting in front of a fire, but you didn’t bother voicing them.)
Your first thought was to try to get through this as professionally as possible (if professional was even a word that could be applied to this shitshow) but the expensive chairs circling Aunt Abaddon’s fire pit were designed at too far of a reclined angle for you not to be basically laying on top of Sam. You tried your hand weakly at looking as relaxed as Ruby, sprawled nearby across her fiance, but internally, your heart was racing, muscles tensed like you wanted to run.
“Okay?” Sam murmured into the top of your head, one hand tracing absent designs over your arm.
“Peachy,” you grumbled back, sarcasm bleeding into your voice in spite of yourself. You were tucked mostly between him and the arm of the lounge chair, but there was still enough of your weight on him to make you decidedly uncomfortable. You gotta lose some of that weight before you try sitting on me, Dick had said to you once, all bright white teeth and supposedly innocent teasing.
You tried in vain to keep your stupid fat thighs from touching him, like you could convince them to condense into a smaller space through sheer force of will. Of course, the laws of physics weren’t on your side, and all you succeeded in doing was wriggling around like a particularly uncomfortable worm, earning yourself a weird look from Meg over the fire and an awkward throat-clearing from Sam.
“Y/N,” he started, sounding vaguely strained. “Can you, um, not--”
“What about you two?” Meg said suddenly, loudly, knocking both of you out of your own awkward world. She was looking at you expectantly, and, you realized with a sinking stomach, so was most of the rest of your family.
“Sorry, what?”
Meg rolled her eyes. “What was your first date like?” she enunciated every word with exaggerated emphasis, shaking her head at you.
“Yes,” your mother chimed in, leaning forward with interest. “We’d love to hear what you did to make...this...happen,”
It was on the tip of your tongue to just give up and blurt out, we’ve never had one. Sam must have been able to feel the tension vibrating through you, though, and pulled you to settle back against him, taking over answering the question.
“I met her through my brother,” he said easily, and you could vaguely feel him winding some of your hair up around his finger. “I came over one afternoon and there she was, asking his boyfriend if their bees could smell fear,”
You flushed at the memory. Yeah, you’d agreed to use the real story of how you met, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t embarrassing. Poor Cas had had to spend a solid half hour convincing you that the bees weren’t going to attack you that day.
“She had on this pink sundress, and I heard her laughing, and I just thought...she was beautiful. Took me forever to do anything about it, though,” Sam went on, and that was all true too, the dress you’d been wearing and the fit of laughter you and Cas had broken into when Sam first showed up in the backyard. You hadn’t expected him to remember that much detail, though, and it did something strange to your insides to listen to it.
“I took her to the diner on 5th Street,” Sam admitted, still playing with your hair. “I was too afraid of screwing up to come up with something more original.” He sounded so adorably hesitant, even now, that your head was popping up before you could think about it, could remember that he was just weaving a story.
“Hey, I liked it fine,” you protested, and it hit you like a sudden gut punch that there was something to remember. Because the first time Sam took you anywhere was to the 5th Street diner that was halfway between your place and Dean’s. You’d only done it to plan something for Dean’s birthday last year, and of course it wasn’t a real date, but the two of you really had been there.
Sam’s only limit in this conversation was the world of his own imagination. If he wanted to, he could have told everyone that he’d taken you skydiving in New Zealand for your first date, and yet here he was, using memories from your real life with a dopey smile on his face.
“Sickening,” Meg was saying dryly, a smirk on her lips to take the sting out of it. “Hey, Y/N, when you marry him, can I wear jeans?” If there was anything you should have been deflecting, it was that, squashing thoughts of marriage from the group’s mind before anyone latched onto it, but all you said was, “I’ll think about it,”
That was apparently enough to satisfy Meg, and the conversation moved on to other things that thankfully weren’t focused on you and Sam. You sighed heavily, and Sam slid one big palm over your hair, tucking your head down to rest against his chest. It was comfortable, and you were too tired in the flickering firelight to keep worrying, and you let yourself melt against him, absorbing his warmth as your eyes fluttered shut. Sam never let up on combing his hands through your hair, lulling you into a half-conscious state that barely registers anything beyond overlapping voices and the pop of the bonfire and Sam.
It occurred to you suddenly, as you drifted somewhere between awareness and spaced-out calm, that it had been a very long time since someone had just held you. None of your family had ever been particularly tactile, save for the required gestures and whatever new tactic your mother was using to disguise her fussing. Dean and Cas and Charlie always gave you a hug when they saw you, but they were quick, always moving on to something else. And you’d never once had a boyfriend that held you for anything more than sex.
“Hey,” Sam murmured lowly against the top of your head. “Still with me, darlin’?”
You blinked sleepily, raising your head to peer up at him, and he gave a low chuckle that you felt more than heard, smiling gently at you.
“It’s late. Unless you wanna sleep out here?” he raised an eyebrow at you teasingly, shifting underneath you to sit up a bit more.
A quick glance around showed that you were the only ones left outside, somehow, and the fire was nothing more than a handful of faintly glowing coals in the bottom of the pit. “How did we...where did everyone--” you tried, brain still not quite online enough to process how you’d somehow slept through everyone getting up and leaving. Knowing your family, they wouldn’t have been quiet about it.
“I didn’t want to move you,” Sam shrugged sheepishly. “You seemed like you needed it,”
“Oh, yeah, I was probably drooling all over you,” you scoffed, rolling your eyes up into your skull.
“S’fine,” Sam looked a little hesitant, a little awkward, but mostly he looked strangely content, and for just a moment, you could convince yourself that this was your real life, that you and Sam could do this whenever you wanted, that you could always be this close.
“So I get to see you in a fancy dress tomorrow, huh?” Sam nudged you lightly, smiling.
You huffed. “Don’t remind me, it’s ugly. It’s all...clingy,” you wrinkled your nose.
“You make most things look good,” Sam promised, like it was the obvious thing to say and didn’t send your stomach flipping around rebelliously.
“That’s very nice of you to say,” you said with mock sweetness before scowling at him, “and also a blatant lie.”
“Is not,” Sam looked affronted, and you were struck with a sudden desire to kiss the pout off of his soft lips. Damn it, Y/N, don’t you dare go there, you snapped at yourself instantly.
“God, I can’t wait for this week to be over,” you groaned out instead, trying to pull the conversation onto safer ground. You flashed him a cheerful smile, your words more a reminder to yourself than to him when you tack on teasingly, “You’re almost off the hook, boyfriend,” Of course, because the universe hated you and took great pleasure in reminding you, it took very little to send everything sliding downhill from there.
Sam’s answering smile didn’t reach his eyes, and he shifted slightly in the chair, as if he was debating something. “Y/N, I--”
“We’re so close to not having to spend every waking moment together,” you chirped, like an idiot, and, still sitting inches away from the man you had to remember you could not have, you watched hurt and something darker flash across his expression.
Sam clenched his jaw, taking a breath in like he was going to say something, and then, for the second time in as many days, slammed his lips into yours without any warning.
Conscious thought turned into static as you surrendered to the onslaught of his mouth moving over yours, sending a bolt of electricity flying through your entire body. If Sam’s kiss on the driveway was tinged with desperation, this one was worse. As cliche as you knew it sounded, Sam kissed you like a starving man, hands sliding across your back to pull you impossibly closer as he devoured your mouth, swallowing your meep of surprise and sliding his tongue against yours.
Sam shifted beneath you in the chair, abruptly bringing you into contact with the noticeable bulge in his well-worn jeans, and it was more instinct than anything else that had you grinding down against him, pulling a choked sound out of his throat that only encouraged you. There was a heady thrill in knowing that it was you doing this, Sam doing more in five minutes to make you feel desirable than anyone else ever had, and the slide of your bodies felt strangely inevitable, like it was the matching other half to the sensation that had been stuck in your chest since you turned off the freeway in Sam’s car a week ago.
You wondered for a split second if his touch would still be able to set you on fire the same way if he hadn’t spent days smiling at you, talking you up, defending you, and the harsh reminder of why you were even here at all hit you like ice water. You scrambled to your feet so quickly that you narrowly missed kneeing Sam in the crotch, and then you were backing away, your hands flying uselessly around your face to push your hair back and somehow wipe the blush off your cheeks.
You couldn’t do this. You were supposed to know better. And you weren’t going to let Sam Winchester break your heart, even unintentionally, because you didn’t know if you could survive that.
“What are you doing?” you hissed out, straightening your clothes hastily.
Sam scrambled to sit up in the reclined lounge chair, confusion painted across his face and his chest still heaving with ragged breaths that should not have been affecting you the way they were. “W-what?”
You threw your hands up, impatience and anger rising up to protect you from the weight of your fear. “There’s nobody watching us, Sam. There’s no point in faking it,”
“Faking it,” Sam echoed flatly, hazel eyes flicking over you rapidly like he was trying so hard to understand. It might have been a little heartbreaking if you weren’t too preoccupied with guarding yours.
“Yeah,” you went on, digging yourself further because you never knew when to stop. “Look, I know we’ve been putting on a show but you can’t just--” you trailed off limply, not even trying anymore to label the storm of emotions in your ribcage. “People like us don’t do this for real,” Guys like you don’t look at girls like me.
“Huh. Well I’m glad I could help you with your show,” Sam spat out coldly, and you froze at the tone. You’d heard it once before, when Sam had once taken apart Castiel’s asshat older brother over immigration politics, and Luke had yet to show his face since. Charlie called it the I went to Stanford law now let me tell you all the reasons this argument is over voice. And you’d never once thought it would be directed at you.
“Sam, I--”
He was already gone, a rapidly shrinking shadow disappearing into the house on long legs you couldn’t hope to catch up with. Fuck.
You spent the night before Ruby’s wedding staring at the ceiling, hands folded across your chest and so still you could probably have passed for a medieval tomb effigy. Beside you in the dark, Sam’s breaths were too shallow, too even to pass for sleep, but neither of you said a word. He’d already had the lights off by the time you convinced your leaden legs to carry you back into the house and up the stairs, and you’d just changed into pajamas like a robot and laid down in defeat. You didn’t sleep.
Sam had no day-of obligations, so you left him in bed when the sun finally rose, swallowing against the sick pit in your stomach and making your way to Ruby’s bedroom, where there was already enough shrieking to compound the headache drilling through your skull. For the first time, though, you actually felt grateful for your sister and her antics--the storm of chaos she was whipping up and her endless, high-pitched demands left you with no brain space to think about your monumental fuck-up the night before.
You jammed a pin into your hair impatiently, cursing when the ends slipped out of your fingers for the hundredth time, and bit down hard on your red-painted lip. The maid of honor didn’t get to throw a tantrum on the wedding day.
“Well don’t you look like cold shit,” Meg commented dryly, her head popping up in the mirror over your shoulder. She was already dressed, wearing the gray bridesmaid dress fair better than you were going to, and she snapped her fingers impatiently. “Gimme,”
You put the card of hair pins into her hand wordlessly, fighting the irrational sting of tears in your eyes when she coiled your hair up easily, looking for just a second like she was your little cousin again, soaking wet on the bathroom floor and laughing.
“Is Ruby getting to you?” she murmured, a calculating look on her face as she studied you in the mirror, trying to crack your shitty mood. “You’re almost done, you know.”
“Yeah, no, I know,” you said hollowly.
Meg cocked her head, reaching around you for a bottle of hairspray. “Okay, not Ruby. Which is shocking, by the way. So what gives?”
“Nothing,”
“Wow. You’re usually better at bullshitting than this.” She arched a brow. “Tell you what. I can cover you for five minutes, go find your boy. Can’t have you moping your way down the aisle, Ruby’ll kill you if you ruin the photos.”
“Sam can’t do anything,” you returned flatly, leaning forward mechanically toward the mirror to examine your slightly-wobbly eyeliner.
“Sure he can. Boy’s so in love with you it’s nauseating,” Meg countered cheerfully, making a face at you.
“He’s not,”
Meg scrunched up her face at those words, frowning as she pulled up the bodice of her dress. “What’d you do, have a fight or something? Jesus, just kiss and make up,”
“It’s fake,” you blurted out before you could stop yourself, and once you’d started, it took very little for the whole story to come pouring out to the one person that might listen. “It’s fake, the whole thing’s fake, he’s...he’s just Dean’s brother, we wanted to get my mom off my back--” You took a shuddering breath, wincing at how stupidly hysterical the whole thing made you sound.
“Bullshit,” Meg declared solidly, grabbing the eyeliner pen out of your hand impatiently. “Give me that, you’re doing a shit job.”
You surrendered to the gale force that was your cousin, letting her manhandle your head into her preferred position and shutting your eyes obediently while she drew a neat line across your eyelid. “No, Meg, it’s--”
“It’s bullshit,” she repeated, holding up a hand to stop you as you reopened your eyes to protest. “No, I don’t care what you’re gonna say. Maybe it was fake for you, but there’s no way in hell anybody could fake the way he looks at you. That boy is so gone on you it’s not even funny. He’s your unicorn, and I’m kinda jealous, so whatever you did,” she narrowed her eyes. “Fix it.”
“Meg, you don’t understand--”
“Yeah, you’re damn right I don’t understand.” She cut you off, crossing her arms and somehow managing to look just as intimidating in a bridesmaid’s dress as she did in a black leather jacket. “This family is a shitshow. I know it, you know it, everybody knows it. So why are you still listening to them?”
“I don’t--” you started weakly.
“Just because you’re not a size two and marrying into the Roman Enterprises fortune doesn’t mean anything, Y/N. You don’t not deserve him, or whatever, so get your fucking head on straight.” Meg rolled her eyes, gesturing to the dress hanging next to you in a clear sign that her warm fuzzy conversation capacity had been reached. “Get dressed.”
It took you a long time to obey, staring at yourself in the little mirror station that Aunt Abaddon had had set up for everyone in the bridal party to get ready. As you zipped up the clingy gray dress, Meg’s blunt words bouncing around in your head, your eyes catalogued every curve, every flaw you’d had memorized and hated by the time you were thirteen. It was just something you lived with, a low hum in the back of your conscious that reminded you not to pose the wrong way for photos and to stay away from bikinis and to adjust the way your clothes fit when you sat down.
Except Sam had never once made you feel that you had to. Sam made you feel like a person before a body, somehow convinced you that the words your family had been hurling at you for years were lies, and when he called you beautiful you wanted to believe him. And as Meg’s words echoed in your head once more, you wondered if maybe, just maybe, she was right about some of it.
You pinched your lips into a wry smile in the mirror, giving yourself one last cursory onceover before you resolutely turned away to go see if Ruby was ready. Your job today was to be a maid of honor. And anything else, no matter what Meg thought she knew...you knew it was already too late.
tags: @vicmc624 @thebookisbtr @alicedopey @still-a-demon-very-ineffable
#supernatural fanfiction#sam winchester x reader#sam winchester#sam x reader#reader insert#x reader#plus size reader#supernatural#spn#series
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Forge the Coelacanth Bio
So a couple of days ago,an anon sent me an ask telling me to talk about my OC Forge. Seeing as how I’ve never formally introduced him on here, I thought I’d instead just post a ref an a brief description of him. Instead, that turned into writing him a full on fucking bio.
So once again, before diving into the bio proper, I should give a major shout out to @pidgeonspen for not only designing Forge, but also helping to beta read and edit his bio.
With that out of the way, let’s get into the bio proper. Like always, everything is under the cut
Name: Forge the Coelacanth
Age: 1000+
Height: 6'0
Occupation: (Former) Commander of the Atlantean Knights
Personality: Contrary to what his imposing size, booming voice, and various scars may imply, Forge is an incredibly affable and endearing individual. His commitment to those he is sworn to protect goes beyond the purview of his duties, going so far as to try to befriend or at least get to know most of the people within Atlantis, especially those he fights alongside. Because of his extended lifespan, Forge has formed friendships that transcended generations, from the first of a line to the last. As a result, many considered him just as much a part of their family as those related by blood.
Forge is also an incredibly jovial person, often indulging in revelry with others following a successful mission or other joyous occasion. In these instances, his love for telling stories, singing classic Atlantean songs, and of course, his boisterous laughter all make themselves readily apparent. His jovial nature also shows itself around children. Forge absolutely adores children, having raised many himself over his long, long life and even having adopted some who had become orphaned. But above all else, Forge has an unwaveringly strong devotion to both Atlantis and what he believes to be “justice”, even two centuries after its fall. As a result, he has no tolerance for anything he either perceives or is told is “evil” or a threat to Atlantis and resorting to any means he deems necessary to get rid of it. On that note, Forge's morality is rather black and white, firmly believing in notions of objective "good" and "evil", leaving little to no room for any sort of nuance or moral "gray" area.
All of these traits have in some way or another contributed to him becoming a sort of "living legend" amongst his people, treated with immense respect and in some cases, even reverence.
While Forge appreciated and even sometimes used his status as a living legend to inspire his people both on and off the battlefield, he disliked the idea of being out and out worshipped and even discouraged the few that partook in it from doing so. At one point, Forge was rather religious. He often prayed to Atlantis' patron "god" of Levias for a variety of reasons, ranging from victory in battle to the continued propserity and safety of Atlantis. But as Atlantis fell to nothing, so too did his faith, feeling that he was no longer worthy of his god’s protection for one reason or another
Skills: One of the things that gave Forge his status as a living legend amongst his people was his nearly unmatched skill in combat. In particular, he is extremely skilled and adept in the realm of lightning magic, channeling it through both his armor and his sword to devastating effect. His most frequent application of this magic is simply shooting lightning from his sword, but he can also cover his entire body in lightning as a makeshift barrier, create massive shockwaves by slamming his charged sword into the ground, use it to supercharge his limbs, giving him a significant boost in strength, and even call down bolts of lightning. Even without his magic, he is still devastatingly adept with his sword. The sword itself is a massive greatsword, forged by Forge himself from pure Atlantean steel and named "Tempest". The sword is also magical in nature, being attuned to Forge specifically.Despite having centuries of formal training,his style actually forgoes finesse and formal technique in favor of a surprisingly loose style, revolving around using a combination of swinging Tempest around, using his lightning magic, and his own raw power to simply overwhelm foes. As stated before, Forge is able to use his status as a living legend to inspire his allies, especially on the battlefield.
Hobbies: Forge is someone who has rarely, if ever had the time to truly pursue any hobbies between his duties as an Atlantean Knight, his duties as a father and husband to the families he has helped to raise over his extensive lifespan, and other miscellanous matters. On the rare occasion he had a usable amount of free time, he usually either spent it honing his abilities through training. However, that changed once he decided to not start another new family after the 2nd one he had formed ultimately ran its course. With all this newfound free time, Forge had to find something to do, and indeed he did. He rediscovered a field he had very briefly considered pursuing a long, long time ago: blacksmithing, using it not only to craft novelty items, but also repair and improve both his equipment and that of his fighting companions.
Likes: Atlantis (Obviously), children, Octopus/squid (His favorite food. Don't worry, they're just normal animals, not mobians), storytelling, mead, combat/battle, blacksmithing, singing.
Dislikes: What he perceives as "evil" and general injustice, being the object of worship/reverence, bureaucracy (Politics just goes over his head), his near-immortality, bitter foods.
Backstory: Forge was born into the world as Atlantis, which was but a a small, simple city at the time started its expansion into the empire it would come to be mythologized as. As such, Forge grew up hearing about the glorious conquests of the Atlantean armies, the brilliant innovations of Atlantean scientists, and how the people of Atlantis were the noblest, smartest, and strongest people of the Seven Seas. But above all else, Forge heard and witnessed countless tales regarding the Knights of Atlantis (Or more simply known as the Atlantean Knights); an elite group of soldiers and guardians who were said to represent the very best of Atlantis, men of unmatched valor and heroism whose explots inspired some of Atlantis' finest artistry. The young coelacanth could not help but be enraptured by these tales, by these men who seemed to be larger than life, who represented everything noble and good about Atlantis, who were equal parts loved and revered.
As he grew up, Forge's fascination with the Atlantean Knights continued to grow larger and larger, as did his nationalistic attitude about Atlantis and all it stood for. On the cusp of adulthood, Forge knew that he wanted to serve his country someway, somehow, but he wasn't sure as to how until it hit him. Instead of merely fawning over the Atlantean Knights like everyone else did, he could *become* one, be the shining knight that all others aspired to be. Even though he knew it would require a nearly Herculean amount of time, effort, and perhaps even blood to do so, if it served Atlantis well, it would all be worth it.
And so, Forge enlisted in the Atlantean army. It was there he would earn his trademark armor, his legendary blade and mastery of magic. With these in hand, Forge would come to aid Atlantis in many of her conquests, quickly climbing the ranks and gaining the attention of his superiors due to a combination of his combat aptitude, valor in battle, and unmatched dedication to Atlantis' cause. Before he knew it, several decades had passed and before he knew it, Forge would finally take his place amongst the Atlantean Knights, fulfilling his near-lifelong ambition, and even starting a family along the way. But something else had shown itself. Despite his many battle scars and literal decades given to Atlantis' conquests, Forge himself looked as if he had barely aged at all.
Forge continued to serve Atlantis, taking part in her many conquests, leading her crusades - all the while continuing to raise his family. Decades came and went, his love eventually passing on to the next world, their children growing older and older... and for Forge, time had seemed to stop. He outlived them all, never seeming to age further. No matter what he did, whether it be forming yet another family, leading endless crusades against Atlantis' enemies, or throwing himself fully into his duties and working tirelessly to uphold his personal sense of justice and righteousness, he could not escape one simple fact: he would come to outlive everyone he would ever know and loved. He would be forced to watch everyone he cared about wither and die, and no matter how much he tried not to, he would come to feel immense pain at every loss he suffered. Forge tried to keep himself busy; starting yet another family, leading crusade after crusade against the enemies of Atlantis, burying himself into his work- but little of it helped to distract him from the truth: he would come to outlive them all. As time went on, he would bury everyone he came to know and care for, and it never did get easier. When the last of his children from his second marriage passed on, Forge solemnly decided that bloodline would be his last, instead focusing on his duties as Grand Commander of the Atlantean Knights. He defended his homeland against all her enemies, both real and imagined, his loyalty to those in power absolute and unwavering.
Forge was so convinced that this was what he was meant to be - a paladin of his people, carrying out Atlantis' will and standing as a testament to her greatness. He would gladly give his life and soul to protect his home from the perceived evils that dared threaten her... but he as unable to see that the greatest enemy to Atlantis came from within. The rulers of the great city, the aristocrats and the councilmen, nobles and advisors -- all of them polluting the seemingly unfaltering city with their greed and corruption. Forge was so eager to please, to abide by his superiors and do whatever it took to keep his city safe, that he didn't see any of it for what it was. He never questioned the crusades he was told to lead, the atrocities committed during those wars, the supposed heresy he was called to put an end to - he did it all for his homeland, for his people. He had to, in his mind, lest Atlantis fall for a moments hesitation.
But no matter how hard Forge fought to smite the "evils" plaguing Atlantis, he ultimately could not stave off the inevitable. Centuries of greed, corruption, and in-fighting came to a head and the once seemingly invincible empire of Atlantis tore itself asunder from the inside out. Soon, despite Forge's best efforts, the once great empire of Atlantis that had stood triumphantly and unfaltering for centuries, her capital city a shining beacon of greatness and prosperity, was reduced to naught but ash. Her once vast empire, which stretched for endless miles, was shattered, with her territories either abandoned or fought over by the very people they had once conquered. And her people, once innumerable, were reduced to none but a select few surviors, amongst which was Forge. Soon enough, they too would perish, leaving Forge as the sole survivor of his people, the last relic of a once glorious civilization.
Forge's worst fears had come to pass. Not only did he outlive all those he cared about, but he even outlived the very thing he had loved so dearly, the empire he had spent centuries helping to build and defend. The streets he had spent his life patrolling, the houses he had raised his families in, the taverns in which he celebrated his greatest victories, the graveyards where he mourned his worst losses, they were all gone, which nothing but ash and rubble in their place. There was nothing left for him there, but he couldn't just abandon all he had fought for for so long, could he? No, he decided, he could not. He had sworn an oath so very long ago that he would defend Atlantis to his last dying breath from all that may harm her, and even though there was nobody left to defend, nothing left to protect, he could never break that oath.
And there he stayed, guarding the ashes of what little remained; an unmoving, unwavering sentinel with nothing left to protect. As he partook in his seemingly fruitless patrols, his mind couldn't help but wander, and it always end up at the same place asking the same question: Why? Why did Atlantis fall? What had destroyed it? And the answers to those questions would always pin the blame on one person and one person only: himself. Forge had failed Atlantis somehow. Maybe he hadn't fought hard enough. Maybe he wasn't vigilant enough and let an "evil" in that had destroyed her people. Maybe he wasn't able to unite the people in a time of crisis and be the leader that they had needed. No matter what it was, the blame would always shift inwards. But he wouldn't fail them now, he couldn't. He may not have been able to save his people, but he can at least try to save what's left. If there was anything to be gained from this curse of his, it was that he could stand vigilant forever, and that the legacy and spirit of his people would never truly be lost.
For over a century, the coelacanth continued to stand vigil at the tomb of an empire, bound there by his unwavering sense of justice and his oath. Things would change over time, for a threat unlike any other would come to this hallowed ground: creatures of pure darkness and reek of fetid evil began to manifest, drawn to the very ruins Forge swore to protect with his life. And protect the remains of Atlantis he did - but no matter how many of the foul creatures he smote, more would spawn as night fell. The horde was unending, and Forge eventually realized to put an end to this evil, he would have to destroy it at its source, whatever and wherever it may be... and that meant he'd have to leave Atlantis to find it. Even if it meant temporarily leaving the ruins at the mercy of these monsters, he knew he could not idly stand by while such vile creatures existed, seemingly intent on destruction. It was time to take action and to put a stop to these monsters for good.
And so, in his search for answers, he emerged from the depths to a land none of his kind had dared to venture: the surface world. A world so vastly different from everything he's ever known, where the black & white ethicality he'd so strictly followed would be challenged, a land where he would be confronted with an evil far beyond anything he had ever encountered... and where he would ultimately come to face the truth about what really caused the fall of Atlantis.
#Sonic OC#Forge the Coelacanth#Sonic FC#Sonic#Sonic the Hedgehog#Sonic Fan Character#Archie Sonic#OC Stuff#I've been sitting on this character for the better part of a year now#It was about time really#OC Bios and Refs#OC Bios and References
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I want to write characters suffering, and being hurt in ways that aren't just accidents, but I don't want to write torture apologia. If a character gets stuck in an automated alien "hospital" or "spa", where everything was designed to be beneficial and/or pleasant (but to non-human physicality), would that avoid those unfortunate implications? I love doing fantasy/sci-fi worldbuilding, so that bit would be an added benefit for me.
Idon’t see a problem with that concept.
Aquick look at the biodiversity on earth shows just how much thecomfortable norm varies between species. I mean we have humboldtsquid and naked mole rats and bearded vultures. The temperature,humidity and pressure differences in their preferred environments arepretty extreme and we’re not even getting into the reallyweird life like those snails living in high salinity conditions orthe invertebrates that can survive being frozen solid.
It’sperfectly possible for an environment built and designed for one formof life to be extremely uncomfortable for another. And this wouldresult in injuries and discomfort that isn’t necessarilyintentionally inflicted.
Evenenvironments where we cancomfortably survive can be extremely painful or distressing if theindividual involved isn’t used to them.
Sofor instance- the city I grew up in had temperatures that were around30-45C (86-113F) most of the year, with humidity ranging from 30-75%.We’d also periodically get really strong winds and a lot of dust. Ispent quite a bit of time outside every day and was perfectlycomfortable.
Nowthe first time I had to play sports outside in an English winter is….Not something I’ve ever forgiven that teacher for.
Butmy class mates were perfectly comfortable that day and probably wouldhave been in a lot of pain in the conditions I considered ‘normal’.
Gettingback to the main question- I think this avoids the stereotype of hightech torture because it’s not intended as torture. Or at least thedevices and environment weren’t made to torture.
Inmuch the same way if you wanted to set an abusive scene in anaquarium and a character was thrown into a low temperature tank Iwouldn’t interpret it as a fictional use of high tech torture.Because while the tank is high tech the torturers had nothing to dowith the design, building or installation of this thing. They’recoming along later and misusing it with minimal effort.
Ithink that’s the main thing to consider when you’re trying towork out whether a scenario crosses that line: how much effort is it?Remembering that if something was made specifically to torture thenthe effort involved in the device’s creation is part of thatoverall effort.
Tortureis fundamentally lazy.
Ifyour sci fi scenario already has a way to dial up the gravity onevery space ship then it may not be much effort on the torturer’spart to fiddle with a dial and subject a victim to higher G forces.It’s building such a device specifically for torture that’s aproblematic trope.
There’snothing wrong with world building or making your setting unique anddistinct. I certainly don’t want to discourage fantasy and sci fiworld building.
ButI do want people to think about what they’re implying when theybuild their world.
We’vebecome more accustomed to doing this around issues of race, genderand sexuality. I think we should do it around violence and abuse aswell.
Becausewhat we write is rarely neutral.
Evenif we’re writing something that’s nominally set in this world assoon as we pick up the proverbial pen we start defining things. Wedefine good and bad, beautiful and ugly. We define what a supportivefamily looks like and what a healthy romantic relationship is.
Andin the case of torture what we often get is…. people who have noclear idea what torture is or what it does attempting to define it.
Iknow that most of the time this isn’t maliciously intended. It’shard to find accurate information on this subject and we’re notused to talking honestly about violence.
Partof what I’m trying to say here is that just because your story issci fi (or fantasy) you don’t have to avoidusing torture. If you’re building a world that’s completelydifferent from ours then using more unusual tortures or even tryingto make up some unique ones makes sense. Things that might not bephysically possible here might be possible in your world. I don’tsee anything wrong with exploring that.
Thetrick is to try and go into this particular bit of world buildingwith a basic understanding of what torture is like. In much the sameway that you might look up a little bit about how geography effectsclimate before you draw or fantasy map. Or how space travel works nowbefore designing your own space craft.
Offthe top of my head the main things that crop up for sci fi are thatin reality:
Torture for information does not work
Even if complex wounds can be healed the damage torture causes is long lasting
Victims are not made placid or obedient when tortured
Torture is neither complicated nor scientific.
The vast majority of the time it isn’t high tech
Torture actually takes quite a bit of time
Non-scarring tortures still cause long term damage to victims and are still torture
Torturers are lazy, the more complicated a form of abuse is the less likely it is to happen
There’salso a whole host of tropes relating to unethical experimentation orsome sort of pseudo-scientific torture. Which often seem tomisunderstand how medical testing works as well as misunderstandingtorture.
Reallythe key thing here is to get into the habit of thinking through theimplications of what you write.
Ifyou make a sci fi world with a high tech device that ‘forces’people to tell the truth by inflicting pain- then yesthat’s torture apologia because it’s suggesting that pain can‘make’ people tell the truth. Which is a real world justificationfor torture.
Ifyour fantasy world has an obedience spell that inflicts pain and alsomagically forces someone to change sides and work for the casterwillingly- that’s probably alsotorture apologia because again, it’s suggesting pain ‘makes’victims change their minds. Which is another real world justificationfor torture.
Ittakes time to get into the habit of thinking these things through andspotting the stereotypes.
It’snormal to make mistakes along the way. And it’s OK. (Believe me youdo notwant to see some of my early attempts at tackling dark themes.)
Thinkabout your story. Read about the real world issues. Practice. Ipromise you you will get better and you’ll feel more confidentabout handling these issues as you go forward.
Ihope that helps. :)
Availableon Wordpress.
Disclaimer
#tw torture#sci fi ask#fantasy ask#worldbuilding#torture apologia#torturers#tackling torture apologia#pomrania
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The Audio Diary of Norman Polk
Another one-shot spottie?! Yuuup! And sorry not sorry, but this au is great and you guys can fight me in the street.
So this is a bit of backstory me and @trashboatprince have been discussing, and its all in the eyes of our lovely Norman Polk. Also the Henry’s will be named differently because of reasons that will be explained. So Delta is of course @trashboatprince, Omega is @doberart‘s Henry and Alpha is mine.
Enjoy~
Audio Diary 1
Yet another job that dismissed me. It’s becoming more and more tedious to find a job that doesn’t look at the color of my skin. It’s ridiculous, I could do much better than fixing projectors all day, I suppose you could say I am glad they gave me the slip. I’m a scientist for Christ’s sake. But then this man, a fellow by the name of Joey Drew has offered me a job. Says it’ll be better than anything on the land, and I have to say I’m curious. His place is drowned at sea, having to get there you have to ride a ferry to the lighthouse and take a bathysphere down to the depths of the ocean.
Rapture Studios, he calls it. It’s as big as a city, a city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality as he says.
Perhaps I will come to enjoy myself down here.
Audio Diary 10
I’ve been well acquainted with Mr. Drew and Mr. Ross. The head of the city, controlling it with a iron fist. At least on Drew’s side. Henry Ross is a compassionate man, and a great drinking friend. He is very down to earth, not acting as if he created heaven and he was a god in the eyes of us who live in his city.
Lately I have noticed that Mr. Drew and Henry have been at it like dogs. Drew has been fighting for something, this project that harvests the strange substance that came from a rare squid of sorts. He calls it INK. I’ve seen the blueprints, these creatures that would harvest INK, so that Drew can create it as a recreational drug. Because a drug that can alters your DNA is something everyone should be taking.
Of course my opinion doesn’t matter. Once Drew has his mind set, there was no way to change it. Even Henry Ross couldn’t sway him.
Audio Diary 15
Little Devils. That’s what Drew’s been calling them. They’re little creatures, looking like cartoon demons, each with their own little syringe to harvest the INK.
They’re a bit...unnerving. Like small children, with soulless eyes. I don’t know why Drew thought of that design but he is very proud of his results. Everyone loves the little things, finding them cute and adorable.
Something doesn’t seem right however, I find Drew and Ross being together less and less. Something tells me that Henry doesn’t approve of what Drew is doing.
Of course, that’s none of my business.
Audio Diary 16
Henry Ross is dead. Drew killed him. We have sworn against our mother’s grave and the Bible itself that if we were to tell anyone, he would kill us.
Seeing his lifeless body being placed in a capsule as if preserved is...well it’s disgusting. Drew has gone mad, and this is just the beginning of the downward spiral.
I saw him almost kick a Little Devil because of his anger. Those innocent little creatures do not deserve such a creator like Drew.
He’s been speaking about some project, since INK has started to infect the minds of the people and drive them insane. Something about protecting the Little Devils from the druggies.
As if he wasn’t the one that introduced the drug in the first place.
Audio Diary 23
The Sister Angel project has been successful. After the first trial we learned that the dosage of INK to a human female would be significantly less. Subject Alice is very unstable and I worry for her. The constant dripping of black fluid coming out of her eye is troubling, but of course Drew doesn’t care as long as the project is successful.
The Boris Wolf project is going smoothly. I am quite surprised on the many volunteers that wish to take part of these projects.
Though the screams of agony tell me otherwise.
Am I doing the wrong thing? Am I just as bad as Drew for letting this happen? Is this truly okay?
I fear I too may be downward spiraling, I can’t get the screams out of my mind as I rest my head on my pillow.
Audio Diary 30
Drew decided to do the impossible. By obtaining the deceased Henry Ross’s dna and created...what only can be described as a clone. A copy of the original. He really has lost it.
Drew calls this one Alpha, the first. The interesting thing is that Alpha was not created as a man, but as a child.
I have been ordered to examine and make sure he is injected with many different chemicals to make the process accelerate his aging. To think that this poor boy will be forced to age every day, already ten I can see Henry Ross’ features through this boy.
Alpha is very…different than Henry Ross. He is more...meek and quiet. Silent, and obedient. Drew decided that the one quality of Henry Ross he despised was the stubbornness and the ability to fight back. So Alpha was stripped from that, and also he was given a special phrase, to keep him from being defiant.
The process is very taxing on the poor boy. Constantly strapped to some tubing, his eyes aren’t the same as Henry Ross’s. Instead of the deep green they’re a bright blue, watching like the curious thing that he is.
Alpha doesn’t talk, but he sure listens.
Audio Diary 32
Drew made another one. Another clone. Omega. This one is fully adult, just a few years younger than the original Henry Ross. He’s been in isolation for the most part. All the memories of Henry Ross has been implanted in Omega for the most part, he’s about 25 so the days that lead up to him, he believes are real.
Drew treats the two clones as if property. Like some item despite them showing personalities and human emotions. Hell I think they’re more human than Drew is at this point.
Alpha is now 16, six years in just one day. He’s in constant pain from the growing and the injections. There hasn’t been a day where I was not there to comfort the poor child.
What Drew has done, it’s unforgivable.
Audio Diary 35
The final Henry clone has been made, Delta. This one is connected to the Big Daddy project since there was little success in the Boris and Sister Angel projects. INK mutated most of them and now they roam the darkest part of the studios.
Delta is promising. He was able to bond with one of the Devils quite instantly. They’re like father and son, why Delta even named the creature. I could see that Drew hated that, his face going a pure red.
I find it amusing that Drew isn’t getting what he wished for. With Alpha, Omega and Delta they aren’t the perfect Henry Ross. But their own people, special and unique. Just having the face of a dead man.
If this goes any further with Drew being constantly disappointed, perhaps he will just give up.
But that would take a miracle.
Audio Diary 46
Omega is gone, he escaped with the help of myself. I was able to unlock the doors and just let him go. I had slammed my head against the metal door to make it look as if he assaulted me. Clever but I may of gone too far considering the gash on my head.
But it was worth it. Seeing Omega’s face, the determined look on him….I was happy to let him free. I plan on letting Alpha free next, they all deserve to leave. Delta will be tricky but I’m sure I can find a way. Drew doesn’t suspect a thing, and I hope he never finds out.
I would happily die for this cause, washing myself clean of the blood that stains my heart.
Audio Diary 50
Drew has gone mad. He cancelled the Big Daddy Project and I had to watch with my own eyes Delta shooting himself in the head.
Thankfully Bendy was not there to see it, as Delta fell to the ground, blood splattering the white walls of the laboratory. God, this place has gone to hell.
I found a way to bring him to life, this may be the event that kills me. If it means that these innocent clones have a chance to live, to escape much like Omega and Alpha, then so be it.
Drew still hasn’t connected the dots between Alpha, Omega and myself. He believes that Omega may of helped Alpha before he left, and I hope that he continues to believe that.
Norman Polk’s Last Audio Diary
I did it. I created a failsafe to bring Delta back. It will be a couple years but if it means finally putting a wrench in Drew’s plan then it’s worth it.
Delta if you are listening to this I may be dead. Drew is sending everything and anything against me because he found me out. I don’t mind, I rather die than continue to live in this hellhole.
When you wake I hope you know that I am sorry. I should of stopped this mess sooner…
But Drew may have other plans up his sleeve. He’s a snake and blasted traitor to this studio. Don’t believe his lies. There are people like you, and they survived. They lived on and I wish for you to do the same.
Leave Rapture Studios and live on. Be free.
#this is where our bioshock au kinda shifts from the canon stuff#so no bioshock infinite ending#because we all know how that went#but yeah!#this is basically what happens before the au takes place#explains how my henry and dober's were able to escape#and such#norman polk (batim)#henry (batim)#BioShock crossover#spottie writes#long post
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@awreckageofstarss
Astrid bit her lip, body shifting from side to side as she stood outside Hiccup’s door. It was silly, she shouldn’t be nervous about paying her friend a visit, and yet she was. There was something she’d been thinking about, something that she wanted, and he was the only one who could give it to her. Steeling herself, she finally raised a hand and knocked on his door.
“It’s open.” Came Hiccup’s voice, inviting her inside. Slipping into his hut Astrid followed the source of his voice up to his bedroom. The ground floor was for cooking and minor forge work, while upstairs was his bed and the desk where he pondered and drew. Climbing the stairs the blonde’s nerves came flooding back, halting her in her steps as she stared at his lean back hunched over his latest design. Biting her lip she waited until Hiccup turned to face her, the inventor wondering why his guest was so quiet. “A-Astrid! W-what can I do for you?”
Shifting her weight to her other foot Astrid tried not to talk herself out of it. She was here now, if she left Hiccup would think something was wrong, and then there’s be a big conversation and he’d probably think it was his fault she was having trouble talking to him. Taking a deep breath she finally opened her mouth. “It’s silly, really.” She told him, blue eyes suddenly finding the floor far more interesting than his face, despite how much she adored his face. “I just, I saw a couple of guys with them, and I thought it looked really cool and…I want a marking on my body like them.”
Whatever Hiccup had thought she’d come to talk to him about, that was not on the list. In fact it hadn’t even come close to the list. “Okay.” Hiccup replied, processing what she’d told him with the information he knew. “W-well we can talk to some traders and see if they know who to speak to about getting one.” If Astrid wanted one of these inked markings on her body then he’d help her get one.
“W-well I was hoping you would do it.” Astrid replied softly, eyes finally lifting to meet his. Noticing Hiccup about to open his mouth Astrid pressed on. “I mean, you’re a great artist and…you’re the only one I’d trust to do it.”
One look at her trusting blue eyes and there was no way Hiccup could say no. Nodding to the chair beside him, he invited her to sit down. “Okay, so I’m guessing you want a Nadder or an axe or something?” Astrid was a girl with few interests, weaponry and dragons being at the top of that list.
Pausing for a moment the girl thought about that. Initially that had been her instinct but somehow it didn’t feel quite right. “I uh…I actually don’t know what I want.” The blonde admitted softly, it felt strange to say she had no idea what design she wanted on her body.
With a pensive face, Hiccup grabbed one of his sketch books, sliding it over to Astrid. “Uh, maybe this will give you an idea?” His mind was already racing, thinking about what he’d need to mark her body. He had a few bottles of squid ink tucked away, and he certainly had needles to set the ink into her skin. Cloth and water were easy enough to grab, he had those waiting downstairs, and there were plenty of candles if he needed more light.
Astrid flipped through the pages, keen eyes raking over each design so carefully sketched by his hand. Most were sketches of Toothless, but there were a few more abstract pieces in there. Turning the page she felt her breath catch in her throat, the image of a valkyrie staring back at her. The face was soft, a small smile on her lips while the wind whipped at the strands plucked loose from her braid. Was that how Hiccup saw her? Blue eyes flicked up to his face wondering, not for the first time, if he felt the same way about her and she did for him.
Averting her gaze back to the book before he could grow suspicious she gasped, fingers lightly tracing the paper just beside the charcoal drawing. “This one. This is the one.” Placing the open book down on the desk she let Hiccup see the design that had her so enamoured.
Hiccup faultered at the picture she’d chosen, it was one of Toothless but not quite. It was a stylised design based on the Night Fury with slightly more angular features. He’d drawn it to look like it was defending something, just seconds away from attacking if needed, and he had to admit that seemed like Astrid. She was so graceful and fluid, but she could easily switch into an attack without a moment’s notice if she needed to. “Okay, uh, where did you want it and when should we do this?”
“Now.” Astrid replied, her voice quavering slightly. “Right now, before anything stops this happening.” If she left his hut she wasn’t sure she’d have the courage to come back. “And on my back, please.” Apprehensive blue eyes gazed up at him, she’d just asked him to see and touch her bare back while he placed a design on her skin, something that really should only happen between betrothed vikings.
Hiccup drew in a shuddering breath, sweet Thor, how could she ask him to mark her back and know she’d most likely end up a shield maiden or married off to a viking like his cousin? No, he couldn’t think like that. Astrid asked him for a favour and he was going to help her. “Okay, let me just grab some stuff. I’ll uh…” Standing up he grabbed the blanket off his bed, passing it to her. “…s-so you can cover up. I’ll uh…give you some privacy. Come on bud.” Grumbling about leaving his warm stone, Toothless followed Hiccup downstairs to grab what they needed while Astrid removed her top.
Staring at the blanket Astrid froze, was she really doing this? Suddenly realizing Hiccup could come back at any moment, Astrid took her armour off, setting them down on the desk, her shirt and bindings were next. Hearing his metal foot clanking downstairs she quickly wrapped the blanket around her chest. “Okay, you can come back now.”
Hiccup stalked back up the stairs, Toothless close behind him. Setting out the cloth and water basin, the dragon rider began to set up candles to give himself more light. “Okay, face the desk and I’ll take a look.” Setting his stool down directly behind her, he waited until she was settled before peeling back the edges of the blanket to stare at her naked back. Oh Thor, what had he gotten himself into?
Astrid held her breath as he reached for his charcoal, eyes closed as she waited for his touch. Careful hands shifted her braid to rest over her shoulder before gently touching her skin. His breath ghosted over her skin, fingers dancing over her back as he slowly began to map out the design over her body.
Once he began drawing it was easy to lose himself in the work. Using charcoal he began to replicate the design, cleaning away flubbed lines and re-sketching them until he was satisfied. This was for Astrid, and only the best would do. Slowly but surely he lovingly recreated his design over her back. Setting the charcoal down he let out a sigh. “Okay, now this part’s going to hurt. I-I won’t think less of you if you need to bite down on something.”
Astrid glanced at him over her shoulder, throwing him a gentle smile. “Hey, it’s not fun without a little pain, right?” Setting her elbows on the desk, her chin resting on her folded arms she got comfortable. “I’m ready when you are. I trust you.” Turning back to face the desk she waited for the first sting.
Nodding to the blonde valkyrie he poured a small measure of ink into a dish, sterilizing a needle before taking up position once more. Ink on the needle his hand hovered over her back. He had his design set but now that it was time to actually mark her skin, he was terrified of messing it up. Taking a deep breath he pressed the needle into her skin, hating himself when he heard her sudden intake of breath. “We can stop if you like. We don’t have to do it.”
Squaring her shoulders Astrid shook her head. A little pain wasn’t going to stop her, not when she’d set her mind to it. “Keep going.” Gritting her teeth she was tempted to take him up on the offer of something to bite but her pride refused. Instead she clenched her teeth while trying to relax her muscles.
Hiccup couldn’t even begin to describe how nervous he was. He was in his room with the girl of his dreams topless before him, expecting him to inflict pain on her while permanently marking her with one of his designs. And if that wasn’t enough to make him sweat, one wrong move and he’d ruin the whole design for her, especially when she was trusting him to do it for her. Mopping the beads of sweat from his brow Hiccup dipped the needle in the ink once more and pressed the sharp tip into her skin.
Slowly but surely, Hiccup found his confidence, each prick of the needle surer than the last. It helped that Astrid had become accustomed to the constant piercing of her skin and had relaxed into it. In fact he was fairly certain she was on the verge of falling asleep. A few more pricks of the needle and the outline was complete. “What d’you think Bud? Look alright to you?” The young inventor was actually quite pleased with how the outline had turned out. He’d have to go back and shade it in but at least the bones were there for him to work with.
Toothless warbled a pleased noise from his spot on the stone slab, green eyes glancing over at the humans before settling back down for a nap. It was clear this was going to take a while so any chance of a flight was out so the dragon may as well take a nap. Wings unfurling to stretch before folding back against his body, the black dragon settled himself before closing his eyes.
“Okay, time for a break.” Hiccup muttered, standing up so he could stretch his back and legs. “There’s a mirror over there if you want to take a look so far.” He pointed to a large sheet of polished metal over in one corner, he normally used it to reflect more light onto his projects.
Astrid stood carefully, clutching the blanket to her chest as she moved over to the mirror. Turning around she peered over her shoulder at the reflection of the dragon taking shape on her back. “Hiccup, it’s beautiful.” Blue eyes remained fixed on the reflection, missing the way he stared at her.
“Yes, you are. I-I mean, yeah, I think this might be some of my best work.” Hiccup stumbled over his words, hoping she hadn’t heard the slip of his tongue. He’d always though Astrid was gorgeous but seeing her under the golden glow of the candles, the way it seemed to illuminate her skin, he thought she was stunning. Thor, why did he have to fall for the prettiest, most intelligent and capable viking of their age? He knew why, it was because she was so intelligent and quick on her feet. Astrid was grace and fury in one delectable body, a divine beauty if ever he saw one.
Astrid was too busy staring at the ink on her back to hear what he said completely. “Yeah, I agree. This is incredible Hiccup.” Walking back over to the stool she settled herself back in place for more ink. “Ready when you are Dragon Boy.” The blonde waited with baited breath for his hands to reach for her once more, eyes fluttering closed as his fingers brushed against the slightly tender skin. The pain had become a memory but even if it hadn’t she would’ve wanted it to continue for as long as possible just so she could feel his fingers on her spine, his gentle breath blowing at her skin after he pricked it to sooth the nerves beneath. It was a silly fantasy, she knew, but she wished they were more than just friends.
Hiccup had finished the head and wings when he noticed the blonde had actually fallen asleep. Smiling fondly at the girl he paused to stretch before settling back in to work on the tail. “Sometimes I wish you knew just how much I adore you.” Hiccup muttered to the slumbering blonde, taking solace in the knowledge she would never know he spoke these words to her. “Every night I dream of you by my side creating a future of our own design. Those dreams are so wonderful I never want to wake up, but then Toothless demands his morning flight and it’s back to reality.” Gingerly he leaned forward, placing the lightest of kisses to the knape of her neck, jerking backwards as he felt her shift, before shaking his head and turning back to his work once he was sure she wouldn’t wake up. “Thor, I wish I was less of a Hiccup just so I’d be worthy of someone like you, Milady.”
The brush of lips against her neck had Astrid’s eyes snap open before she promptly shut them, hoping he didn’t notice. Did Hiccup just…kiss her? It wasn’t the sloppy, slobbery messes Snotlout tried to place on her, nor was it like the few quick pecks she’s placed on Hiccup throughout the years. This kiss was slow, gentle and somehow far more intimate than she’d expected from Hiccup, and she wished he’d do it again. His next words broke her heart, how could he think he wasn’t good enough? Hiccup was the only viking to view the world differently and find the truth between the blood-feud that had plagued humans and dragons for generations. Hiccup was better than all of them, it was Astrid who’d been doubting if he actually held any affection for her.
“You never kissed me back.” Astrid replied softly, one of them had to be brave enough to say something and it seemed clear now that Hiccup needed this as much as she did. “All those times I kissed you, you never kissed me back, and I thought it was because you just didn’t want to hurt my feelings, or you just weren’t interested.” Blue eyes fluttered open but she kept her gaze on her arms pillowing her head, not quite brave enough to face the man she’d fallen in love with.
“W-what? No, that’s insane!” Hiccup exclaimed, eyes wide as he stared at the blonde who was supposed to be asleep. “How could I not want to? I mean, you’re you! You’re Astrid!” The needle hovered over her back, his focus locked on the blonde’s face rather than his work for the moment. “But you surprised me a-and then the moment was gone and I didn’t know how to get it back.”
Setting the needle down he spun her around to face him, careful to keep the blanket pressed to her chest. “Astrid, I’ve been in love with you since before I even knew what love was.” A trembling hand reached out to brush his thumb against her cheek, a small smile reaching his lips as she leaned into the contact. “You’re brave, and smart, and Thor, have you seen you? How could I not want you?”
One hand pinning the blanket to her chest, Astrid reached her other hand out to grasp his. “I know I was hard on you when we were in Dragon Training, but then you opened my eyes and made me see the man you truly were, and Hiccup, he’s incredible.” Finally free to express how much she adored him, Astrid’s eyes gleamed with all the passion she held for him. “You might not see a big, brave viking, but I do. Hiccup, you’re thoughtful, and inventive, and sensitive, and you’re not afraid to show how much people mean to you, and that’s pretty brave if you ask me. Braver than me, anyway.” Gazing up at him she began to lean a little closer. “So if I were to kiss you now…?”
Green eyes dropped from her eyes to her lips, fleeting memories of her quick pecks still colouring his dreams. “Oh Thor.” He whispered before closing the gap and kissing her as he’d wanted to for so many years. His lips molded against hers, parting the moment he felt her tongue requesting entrance, his own returning the favour. Panting slightly he pulled back, eyes alight with desire as he stared at her. Claiming a couple more kisses Hiccup finally retreated. “As much as I’d love to keep doing that, I kind of want to finish your marking.”
Nodding silently Astrid turned back around. Hiccup was right, they should finish the dragon on her back, and the sooner he did, the sooner she could go back to kissing him. Biting her lip, a devious glint in her eyes, she let the blanket go, the woolen fabric pooling in her lap before dropping to the floor.
“A-a-astrid!” Hiccup’s slightly panicked voice sounded behind her, his eyes staring at what the blanket had obscured. From his place behind her, he could see the gentle curves of the sides of her breasts, especially when she leaned forward to fold her arms over the desk to brace herself.
The blonde permitted a small, pleased smile to cross her face before replying. “Yeah, yeah, only a woman’s intended husband should see her in such a state of undress.” Rolling her eyes she turned her head to gaze at him over her shoulder. “I kissed you, you’re mine Dragon Boy.”
Hiccup’s mouth dropped, of all the things he expected to come out of Astrid’s mouth, her declaration of wanting to be his wife one day was not one of them. “Oh you, Milady, are going to be trouble.” He chuckled, picking up the needle and continuing his work, his voice letting her know he was completely content with her brand of trouble in his life. Leaning in he brought his lips close to her ear. “Pretty sure I kissed you first.” He whispered, ducking his head to place a kiss to her shoulder before lightly nipping the spot. The inventor chuckled at her soft whine when he pulled back to complete his artwork on her back.
Soft cloth pressed against her skin, removing any excess ink before sitting back to look at his work. She was stunning, sitting in the candlelight, her skin covered in a golden glow while a Night Fury covered her back. That tricky little Nadder, she’d just made him place his own mark all over her back. If that wasn’t a declaration of who held her heart, he didn’t know what was. “What’d you think Bud? Does it look like you?”
Toothless grudgingly stood up, wandering over to take a look at the design on Astrid’s back. Giving them both a soft warble of approval, he tilted his head as Hiccup encouraged the dragon to lick her back. Rolling his eyes the dragon dragged his tongue over the tender flesh, dragon saliva was fairly useful for killing off infection and assisting the healing process.
Astrid scrunched her nose up as she felt Toothless’ drool cover her back but she had to admit, her back felt less tender afterwards. “Thanks, both of you.” Reaching behind her she petted the dragon’s snout, using touch alone to locate the spot under his chin that always got him purring.
“What? No chin-scratches for me?” Hiccup teased, hurrying to cover his and Toothless’ eyes when the blonde stood and made her way over to the mirror. “Sweet baby Thor in a thunderstorm, are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
Astrid shook her head at him before admiring his handiwork in the mirror. “It’s perfect Hiccup. I love it.” Stalking back over to the man she loved she bent down, placing her hands on his knees so she was eye-level with him. “And no you don’t get chin-scratches.” Warm, supple lips pressed against his, smiling at the hand still firmly planted over his eyes. “But I’d like it if you held me tonight. I mean, I don’t think I can put my shirt back on at the moment, and I don’t want to try to get to my hut without it, but mostly I just really want to be close to you for tonight.”
The brightest smile she’d ever seen lit up Hiccup’s face. “Do I get to kiss you again?” Holding Astrid was more than he could possibly want, but the idea of kissing her again, of feeling her lips against his, Thor, that was his idea of Valhalla. “Anytime I want?”
Astrid was hard pressed to bite back the laugh bubbling up her throat. Most guys would try to push for so much more knowing a half-naked woman would be in their bed, but all Hiccup wanted was more kisses. “Of course, I mean, kisses are a requirement.”
Darting forward Hiccup pressed his lips to hers once more, grinning like a fool for having permission to do that as many times as he wished. Nodding his head towards the bed, he stayed seated with his hand over his eyes until he knew she was on the bed and settled. Dropping his hand he walked over to the bed, placing a hand in her hair and caressing the golden strands. “I’ll go grab us some dinner and feed the dragons. Be back soon, Milady.” Dropping a kiss to her shoulder he slipped out of the hut, Toothless remaining to guard Astrid.
It didn’t take him long to grab what he needed and slip back to the Valkyrie waiting for him in his hut. With Stormfly fed, and a basket of fish downstairs to occupy Toothless for a while, Hiccup climbed the stairs to share a meal with Astrid, blanket pressed to her chest once more. It wasn’t until their plates were clean and placed aside that Hiccup began to feel a little awkward. “So uh, h-how should we do this?”
“Take your shirt off.” Astrid told him, watching as he hesitantly removed the crimson fabric, as well as his boot. “Prosthetic too.” The last command earned her a wary look before he dutifully removed the metal leg and set it against the side of his bed. “Now lay down.”
Hiccup shuffled down until he was lying on his back, wondering what Astrid had planned for them. He watched as she fussed with the blanket until it was covering both of them, before rolling over and laying so she was half-on top of him, her head resting on his chest. Smiling down at her his gaze lingered on her back and the Night Fury emblazoned on her skin. Slipping his arm beneath her he had thought to rest his hand on her back but suddenly realised how terrible that would be. “Would uh, would it be okay if my hand was on your-uh…backside, Milady?”
Astrid chuckled at how sweet he was for requesting permission once more. “Very much okay, Babe.” The blonde replied, shifting closer to share his warmth as his hand very carefully shifted to rest on the very base of her spine on the swell of her backside. “And Hiccup? I love you too.”
Reaching down, Hiccup tilted her head so he could kiss her one last time. “I can’t wait to wake up to this.” He muttered reverently, the idea of one day being able to do this on a regular basis was everything he’d ever dreamed of, plus dragons. One by one the candles blew out, Toothless no doubt snuffing the flames out before settling down on his stone slab, the fire downstairs built high enough to keep the hut warm all night. Closing his eyes the young dragon rider finally drifted off, a smile still plastered on his face.
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Squid Game: Best Deadly Competition TV Shows & Movies to Watch Next
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Chances are, if you’ve started watching Squid Game, then you’ve finished watching Squid Game. Netflix’s Korean social thriller is highly suspenseful, driving viewers through its nine episodes to its chilling conclusion with an anxiety-inducing urgency. The story of 456 desperate people who play a deadly game for the chance to win a ₩45.6billion ($39 million) prize, Squid Game is a familiar premise executed masterfully, which means that if you’re looking for more stories like Squid Game, then you’re in luck; the “deadly competition” trope is a very popular one. Like other standouts in the subgenre, there is nothing quite like Squid Game, but there’s still many, many TV shows and movies worth watching if you’re looking for something that delves into some of the same themes and scenarios as the addictive Netflix drama. Here are our recommendations…
Death Race 2000 (1975)
Not technically a live-action adaptation of Hanna Barbera cartoon Wacky Races with a deadly twist – though that’s very much the vibe – this Roger Corman camp-fest is a cult favourite. The film stars Kung Fu’s David Carradine as the mysterious champion driver of the Transcontinental Road Race, an ultra-violent race across America designed as an outlet for the population’s simmering violence under a totalitarian regime – much like sports day at school, but with muscle cars instead of eggs and spoons. Health and safety guidelines are very much unobserved on the road, and the bodies soon pile up, as does a conspiracy that goes – you guessed it – all the way to the top! Brrm brrm. – LM
Das Millionenspiel (1970) & Le Prix du Danger (1983)
Two films, in two languages, from two different countries in two different decades, but both based on the same 1958 American short story. Robert Sheckley’s ‘The Prize of Peril’ is a prescient vision based on a television show where citizens volunteer to be hunted by trained assassins for the chance to win a life-changing sum of money. (Yes, there’s a chance that Stephen King, or at least his alter-ego Richard Bachman, read it before coming up with The Running Man). German film Das Millionenspiel was a TV movie that reportedly had viewers call in post-broadcast to volunteer to take part in the deadly televised contest, but perhaps that’s best taken with a pinch of salz. – LM
The Running Man (1987)
What’s more fun than a dystopian action movie based on a novel by Stephen King and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger in his 1980s prime? Nothing, that’s what. Arnie stars as a former police helicopter pilot named Ben Richards who is framed for a massacre he didn’t commit and forced to compete in a televised game show where prisoners are mercilessly hunted down by mercenaries. On top of that, the obstacle course is basically an even more fucked up version of Sasuke/Ninja Warrior. Fortunately, Arnie isn’t alone in his hatred of the totalitarian government that has doomed him to death just to entertain The People, and that’s how the revolution starts. Yes, it’s a campy movie with some very cheesy lines, but good for a few Friday night laughs. – JS
Battle Royale (2000)
Battle Royale is one of the most beloved examples of the “deadly competition” genre, especially for nerds like Den of Geek staff and readers. Based on a 1999 novel by Kōshun Takami, Battle Royale made an impression for its brutality and stark social analysis when it burst onto the international nerd cinephile scene back in 2000. The story follows a busload of school children who are knocked out and wake up on an island. Each is given a random weapon—from guns to household items, like a paper fan or pot lid—and they must fight to the death until only one remains. – KB
Series 7: The Contenders (2001)
The early 2000s were… what’s the term for a golden age of something terrible? A high-low point? The eye of the shitstorm? Either way, for the reality television genre, the early 2000s were it. The world dug its mucky snout into the honey pot of dehumanised abs, boobs and therapy bills waiting to happen, and decided it liked the taste. Some good though, did come out of it – satires like Danial Minahan’s 2001 feature debut Series 7: The Contenders. The film shows six American strangers picked by national lottery, armed with guns and forced to hunt each other down while the world watches in nightly instalments. It’s pacey, well-acted, darkly funny and carries your basic screaming ‘what have we become?’ message of many others on this list. – LM
Doctor Who, “Bad Wolf” (2005)
OK, I’m cheating a bit with this one, which isn’t a series or movie, but rather a single TV show episode, but it’s Doctor Who, so I’ll allow it. It’s hard to remember more than 15 years later, but, when Who relaunched in 2005, head writer Russell T. Davies was reinventing the wheel, resulting in some conceptually ambitious installments. This definitely includes “Bad Wolf,” which has a pretty strange premise for the first half of the season-ending two-parter.
In the Davies-penned “Bad Wolf,” Rose, the Doctor, and Jack wake up to find themselves not only separated from one another, but in incarnations of various British TV competition shows like The Weakest Link, Big Brother, and What Not to Wear. Though these shows may seem similar to their 21st century counterparts, the stakes are not: the losers are killed. Honestly, this premise was a bit ahead of its time. Sure, this was five years after cult classic Battle Royale hit the scene, but three years before the first Hunger Games novel would hit shelves. The scenario is not only compelling and fresh, but Davies doesn’t linger too long before explaining how it is relevant to the season-ending mystery. – KB
The Hunger Games (2012)
A list of this kind would not be complete without The Hunger Games, one of the most popular and successful modern incarnations of the “deadly competition” trope. Like Battle Royale before it and Squid Game after it, The Hunger Games succeeds because it uses its violent premise to explore contemporary social anxieties. Suzanne Collins famously came up with the initial idea for The Hunger Games while flipping through the channels between competition reality shows and footage of the Iraq War. Given the massive success of both the novels and movie adaptations, it’s obvious that this story is tapping into some serious and unaddressed collective social trauma. The Hunger Games gave young people especially a chance for temporary catharsis through the guilt, fear, and pain that came with growing up post-9/11. – KB
3% (2016)
The thing about deadly competition stories is that most, if not all, of them are particularly class conscious. When one thinks of the type of person who would choose to participate in, or be forced into, a life and death game, it’s not usually rich people. Deadly competition stories are often about the exploitation of the poor. Perhaps no other entry into the genre understands that as deeply as Brazilian series 3%. This tale takes place in a dystopian near future in which the impoverished residents of the “Inland” can compete in a mysterious event known as “The Process” and potentially be granted access to the upper ranks of society. The Process is rigorous, with many of its participants eliminated and some even killed. How many actually make it? Well, check the title of the show again. – AB
Alice in the Borderland (2020)
There’s a reason why Alice in Borderland started trending as soon as Squid Game binges began: the 2020 Japanese science fiction show based on a manga of the same name, has a lot in common with its Netflix cousin—at least on the surface. Directed by Shinsuke Sato (who also helmed Gantz, another great “deadly competition” story example), Alice in the Borderland begins when three friends are abruptly and unexpectedly pulled into a parallel Tokyo where they must compete in a series of deadly games. The difficulty of each game corresponds to a playing card and, if they lose or refuse to play one of the competitions, they will be killed by lasers from the sky, naturally.
While Alice in the Borderland’s initial premise has some things in common with Squid Game—notably, the shock of its characters upon realizing the deadly stakes of the artificial competition—the respective shows are not only grounded in different cultures (Japanese va. Korean), they also hail from different genres. While Squid Game is very much set in our own world, Alice in the Borderland is much more science fiction in tone and execution. (I mentioned the sky lasers, right?) Both are good shows, but their comparisons quickly fade once you look past the surface. – KB
High-Rise Invasion (2021)
The concept for High-Rise Invasion is as enigmatic and compelling as any anime can be. The anime (or original net animation as this is sometimes dubbed) picks up with our hero Yuri Honjō suddenly on top of a skyscraper with no memory of how she got there. Yuri soon discovers that she’s stuck in a world made up of entirely high-rise buildings and the bridges that connect them. What’s worse is that these high-rises are patrolled armed individuals wearing masks who seem hellbent on killing everyone who isn’t masked. High-Rise Invasion is slightly atypical from your usual “death competition” genre in that it’s not clear if this is even a competition. At the end of the day, however, the goals remain the same: survive at all costs. Until things get a little more complicated of course… – AB
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What are your favorite examples of the deadly competition trope? Let us know in the comments below…
The post Squid Game: Best Deadly Competition TV Shows & Movies to Watch Next appeared first on Den of Geek.
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A Return to the Abyssal Plains
Week 9, Day 64
So, I’m back in the abyss for more abuse/treatment (more on that in a moment), but, in keeping with the grand re-launch (re-sinking?) of this project, as I go into the year-long chemo regimen - which promises to be miserable, but it definitely beats the alternatives - I thought it might help keep me focused (at least for this post) to affirm the grand goal of this little project (to any long-time readers, don’t worry, this will still serve as a black-box recording of my ongoing descent). To recap; I just finished the initial stage of post-surgical treatment for brain cancer/malignant tumors, with the added bonus of participating in an experimental chemo trial (specifically, I’m being tested for safety and side-effects)(I’m hoping that one of the side-effects is to give me superpowers, so I refer to it as the Captain America serum), with a drug designed to prevent tumor recurrence (that’s what it’s being tested for, anyway). So, yesterday was the start of the first chemo cycle - out of 12 (each cycle is 28 days, so I’m now on the Chinese calendar), and it seemed as good a time as any to double down on the madness.
For all new readers, I tend to use the overarching metaphor of being in the abyssal plains - which is what a cancer diagnosis feels like, it’s like being banished to some horrifying, dark reality; particularly as you realize that your life is now governed by factors over which you have virtually no control.. And, in cancer, sometimes the best move you can make is simply to exist (to live) until some better treatment or opportunity comes along that you can seize upon. There will be a lot of squid metaphors.
However, if I may mix metaphors (a side-effect of the chemo is that you tend to lose focus and get forgetful, so I’ll meander quite a bit)(good news; based on my experience, that’s a temporary side-effect), at the moment, there is a sensation that I’m in “Mad Max: The Sit-com.” Sure, from your perspective, I’m in a horrible, shitty situation (and I am, make no mistake; I won’t deny that for a second), but, at the same time, you people don’t know how great it feels to race across the desert at 200 miles per hour, and you’ll never know how great lady fingers are. Yes, that was a bad cannibalism joke (NOTE TO SELF: include more cannibalism references, especially as it pertains to squid biology). There will be more cannibalism jokes. And bad language (if ever there was a time to creatively use the word “fuck,” it’s after you hear the words “Stave IV”) If those things offend you, I apologize, but life down here is not for the faint of heart.
Speaking of cannibalism, swearing, and the faint of heart, I was chided a few months ago by my step-mother for relying on shock value in my writing. Which is a little odd, since she pointed out that the original fairy tales told to children were the stuff of nightmares, and they were told to children not to inspire them or entertain, but to prepare them. I see myself in the same light; I’m just your glow-in-the-dark tour guide to the depths, and I’ll do my best to impart all the stuff I wish I’d known at the beginning. Or, given there’s a solid chance I’ll die in the near-future, I’ll leave a record behind of what not to do. Perspective and context are everything in the depths. And, when I talk about you being a future cancer patient, that’s not me being emo or dark, that’s just a basic, unfortunate truth. Even though I’m far from expert, I do have a little bit of a formal background in molecular biology and physiology; and, if you live long enough, you will accumulate enough cellular damage in one cell for it go rogue (and then you have cancer). That’s dark and depressing, but it’s an unfortunate truth about how our biology is set up. If we were intelligently designed by a grand creator, we weren’t designed very well.
And if my numbering system seems macabre, well, that’s all perspective. Part of that is to help me keep track of my numerous appointments, infusions, and chemo treatments. The other part is somewhat darker; median life expectancy for glioblastoma stage IV patients is 14 months . Obviously, my new life goal is to go for the record in terms of survival, but at the moment, the number to beat is 426 days (the ultimate goal 1825 days; if you go that long without a recurrence, you’re considered “cured”)(not exactly, but if you make it that long, the odds of a recurrence are about the same as brain cancer occurrence in the general population). This is my way of keeping score against the disease.
I woke up this morning, which, in retrospect was a tactical mistake. The biggest, most-noticeable side-effect of the Captain America serum is severe fatigue and muscle pain (for me, anyway), and the nastiest, Keith Richards-level hangovers imaginable. (which, I suppose, is my comeuppance for experimenting with dangerous, unproven substances instead something tamer and safer, like heroin). My mom is freaking out about this, and I’m not much happier, but desperate times do call for desperate measures (and, hey, it’s been very successful over the past few months). But, good news for you guys (or bad, depending on how you look at it), since my new schtick - when I’m feeling miserable - is to sit at the keyboard and let the blood flow into it, you’ll start seeing increased writing output as I feel worse. I’m almost hopeful that I’ll get a terminal diagnosis (I will, eventually; we all will, eventually) just to see what my twisted mind would write (again, I’m a very, very strange person).
Which brings me to the point of this post; when you get cancer, you’re going to be asked/required to undergo a lot of unpleasant, painful, horrible procedures and medicines. Yes, you will have to inject toxic, dangerous substances into your body. You might be flash-fried (see the archives for my entries while I was in radiation treatment if you’re curious about that). Strangers will cut out pieces of you. My advice, based on the last 8 weeks is, just do it. Pop every pill you’re prescribed, get strapped down and nuked, ask the chemo nurses if you can get a margarita while you’re in the chemo chair. I’m not going to lie; it’s going to be miserable, but you do it, because it beats the alternatives. Speaking of the kind of misery you can expect, there’s a very old-school cancer treatment axiom that states that anything that makes the patient stronger, makes the cancer stronger, too (this is reductive, but biologically accurate). Modern cancer treatment has a much lighter-touch than the things you see in the Lifetime TV movies on the subject, but there are still a lot of patients in the waiting room that look like Holocaust survivors. Again, I’d advise you to wade in and join them; conventional cancer treatments are like democracy, empirical science, or capitalism - the only thing to recommend them is that they’re slightly better than the other systems we’ve tried over the centuries (and even then, there’s no guarantees, which is a very, very scary feeling). Don’t get squirrelly and start overexerting what little agency you have left by playing around with your pills or testing the limits of the doctor’s orders/recommendations. I’ve heard of patients who try skipping their zofran, which puzzled me - when you’re in chemo, this is the drug that prevents nausea and puking, and there are very few side effects. Which is not to say that you should mindlessly accept everything as it happens; bring up concerns, issues, and problems with your medical team, but I’d say that once you receive your marching orders, embrace them. Again, as of yesterday, there were no detectable growths or tumors or metastasis, which is great, but I was also a model patient for the last eight weeks. But that’s just me; I have a long ways to go, yet; and there’s still a frighteningly high chance this could all go to hell tomorrow. There’s a distinct chance of that one, since I have to go see Radiation Oncologist tomorrow afternoon to confirm my brains haven’t melted (again, you think I’m joking, look up “necrosis” - it’s a major risk/side-effect of radiation treatment).
ANYWAY… WEIGHT: 213 lb (as of yesterday, anyway) CONCENTRATION: Not bad, I’m still making calls and wading through paperwork, but I’m definitely not at 100%. APPETITE: Not great. I’m eating and I’m hungry now, but starting off the day with a double-dose of Temodar and Warlock juice (which was yesterday, but the side-effects drag on for about 48 hours after the injection) definitely put a dent in my appetite (thank Great Kraken for Zofran). ACTIVITY LEVEL: Bad. I’m exhausted (fatigue is another chemo side-effect I’m well-acquainted with) and just being upright is not fun. SLEEP QUALITY: Excellent. I slept nine hours straight, which is probably why I woke up feeling like Alice Cooper’s liver (another tip for cancer patients, when you’re on chemo, hydrate like a marathon runner; which means getting up once or twice in the night for a glass of water). COORDINATION/DEXTERITY: A bit off, although, as Mom pointed out, hemiparesis is a side-effect of Temodar (it’s a side-effect of the surgery and radiation, too, so there’s plenty of suspects). MEMORY: Not too bad, although I haven’t had any tasks that required extensive memory use today. PHYSICAL: I started the day off miserably - physically speaking - and have slowly improved over the course of the day. I’m still trying to cut back on my Tylenol and caffeine usage (at the recommendation of my medical team), but you’d better believe it’s taking a lot of willpower not to relapse (it helps that the Tylenol and coffee are over there, in the kitchen, and right now I’m too tired to walk that far). SIDE EFFECTS: Fatigue, muscle pain, and hang-over/flu symptoms, but those are par for the course at this point. Good news, if this plays out like the other injections, I can look forward to some really freaky and intense dreams in the next day or two.
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Cutie Reviews: Doki Doki Nov 2017
Hello Cuties, welcome to the final November review, finally. I’m really sorry- I know I’m nearly two months behind now but recently I haven’t been feeling well again. I have a hospital appointment this Friday, and I will be having a surgical procedure done soon, so please try to be understanding.
I’ve also been a bit worried because I still haven’t got my December Doki Doki crate yet.
Before I start, I’d like to take a moment to bring up that they modified the booklet. I don’t know if this is a permanent change or if it was just in this one, but they did not include a Tomomi insert, nor the Hoppe-chan insert. They also left out the page describing one of the crates items in more detail, and flipped the pages a bit, now putting the comic at the front.
The Cover was by an artist named Squid. A girl who loves cats and creepy cute things, and video games! Sounds like someone I can relate to~
The theme for this month: Fantastic Feast
So like usual I will be covering the Suteki Crate items. For November, the subscribers could get: Pokemon Bento Set (shaped like an actual pokeball!), Proplica Sailormoon Wand (very cool!), A rilakkuma shoulder blanket, Koguma plushie, Kiki’s delivery service pillow, a Totoro apron, AND a Yuri on Ice/Sanrio bag!
I was very excited for that final item; who doesn’t love Yuri on Ice?! Especially because Yurio is dressed up as Hello Kitty (both of whom are my favorite). I was also excited for the Sailor Moon wand, like any other Sailor Moon Fangirl would be ♥
It seems whenever we get a towel of some sort you can expect it to be based on Rilakkuma. This time we have a cute one featuring him and Koguma in a flowery spring-like design.
Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
In all honesty what else can you say about a hand towel? The quality is fine, the image is very cute and fun... it’s pretty much the same as any other towel. I’m not complaining or anything- I just don’t have much to say about it. That happens sometimes.
Next I decided to change the order and bring up our Monthly Hoppe-chan. This one is based on a turkey as you can see. She was available in white or brown, and could have a blue, black, or purple hat. Seems I got the classic combination.
Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
I love how this actually reflects Thanksgiving! Besides this one item I don’t believe there was anything thanksgiving-related in the box, or any from last year either. I can understand why, but I still really like that they did this :3 It’s also pretty cute with the tail feathers and top hat.
This is the “Persimmons are Bittersweet“ Canvas Tote, based on how you must wait for a Persimmon to fully ripen before ingesting, otherwise they are too bittersweet to be eaten.
Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
I admit the bag is fairly plain in comparison to the fun design in the middle- but it’s so cute! My only concern is that it is made from cloth fabric, which means water would soak through it and probably get soggy, if not possibly ruin the items inside if used. I feel like that has a bit of a disadvantage in comparison to those sleek bags.
But as it’s already been made noted here; I worry over really silly things with items. Mainly in the form of water protection.
Being a cat lover, as well as cutesy food items in general- I thought this was the cutest plush toy ever! This is the Ebi Funya Tempura Cat Plush, and there was 6 cuddly kittens available~
Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
As soft and as cute as this is, I’m still giving it a four for tiny issues. It seems that I rarely ever get a perfectly fine plush these days. I mean I’m not trying to nitpick but I know it is worth mentioning. These are very soft and fluffy feeling, but I noticed a decent amount of loose strings on it (which may or may not be visible in the picture).
Meanwhile, we’ve also been getting a lot of cute Squishies lately- including this Fuwa Fuwa Bread Squishy. The book doesn’t indicate that there are more than just this 1 style available, but I noticed the image in the book looks different then the one I got.
I’m not actually sure which type of bread this is to represent, either. I don’t really know bread very well since I’m not an avid eater of it.
Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Fuwa Fuwa is right, this thing is amazingly soft ♥ In terms of rising speed it’s right in the middle, and it has that generic soy bean flour scent to it. Normally I’m not the type to go for plain food squishies (unless they are desserts or fruits)- but this is really nice and I’m tempted to look into plainer ones sometime...
(If you Cuties would ever be interested in seeing my Squishy collection feel free to leave a comment on it. I don’t have very many, but I have at least 15.)
I think I mentioned this before, but I love cute kitchen gadgets like this. Especially if it’s Hello Kitty themed!
This is a Hello Kitty Sandwich Mold set, including a mold and two hello kitty dress picks to decorate the sandwich until you go to eat it.
I know it looks a bit sad, but I didn’t really have much to work with. Not only that but I don’t eat normal sandwiches since I don’t like what goes on them.
Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
It’s not a necessary item, it’s definitely more for show then actual usage. If you love Hello Kitty or cute-looking meals it’s definitely fun to use, and you can use it for more then just sandwiches too. I love the adorable clothing picks, but I wish you could use them to sort of “stamp on the outfit“, rather then just being decorative.
Our last item is another Kumamon product! This is a divided plate, perfect for those who prefer to keep their meal organized and separated (or just don’t like food touching, I’m kind of picky like that myself <.<).
Rating: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥
Not only is this a great idea, but it’s also a very fun, sort of chic plate. I love to use it now~
Oh, I also couldn’t resist doing this:
♥ Cutie Ranking ♥
Content - 5 out of 5. Lately I’ve really been loving the way Doki Doki crate feels like it’s improved. I liked everything, and I couldn’t really find anything bad to say.
Theme: 5 out of 5. I can definitely get the food vibe for sure, I really like how the items are either food themed, or made for food- perfect for November :3 Last year I remember we had a sort of... cafe-bakery-ish theme for November, and I kind of like the connection between them.
Total Rank: 13 out of 15 Cuties. Lately it feels like Doki Doki has been focusing on kitchens and food-based themes and I love that, because I enjoy baking and I love items to make the kitchen look cuter ♥ At the same time though I’m wondering if they’re running out of actual themes, but I’m happy because they keep managing to keep it unique and not repetitive.
♡ Cutie Scale ♡
1. Ebi Kitten - It’s soft and precious~
2. Kumamon Plate - It’s super practical, and I actually really like the design of it.
3. Hoppe-chan - She isn’t super decorative, but she screams turkey and that’s as Thanksgiving as any of these box items have gotten!
4. Persimmon Bag - The two persimmons are too-too cute x3
5. Hand Towel - I love Rilakkuma, and the design is adorable; but it’s not my most favorite. I wasn’t crazy about how it reminded me of Spring either, since it’s still winter and I love winter~
6. Hello Kitty Sandwich Mold - Cute but it’s kind of generic too...
7. Bread Squishy - As much as I enjoyed it, it is generic in comparison to the other items.
Okay cuties, that does it for another review. As I said at the very beginning I know I’m like a month behind but I had a bunch of things happen as of late. It’s kind of hard to focus on writing when you’re in pain. But all of this stuff should be resolved after my surgery, but I won’t know when that is until later on Friday. I’m going to try to get pictures taken tomorrow, so hopefully I can get my first of many December reviews done soon!
Until then, stay cute!
#dokidokicrate#doki doki crate#hello kitty#yuri on ice#ebi cat#rilakkuma#kumamon#hoppe-chan#bread squishy
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Prompt: we’re both prefects and we broke up a food fight in the great hall, but it got messy and dungbombs were involved, and now we’re both disgusting and in immediate need of a bath, and it’s okay, we can both use the prefects’ bathroom at the same time, i promise i won’t look
(btw, heads-up for a Brooklyn Nine Nine reference!)
"What the hell...?"
"Rizzoli!"
"Isles!"
"Get your house in order!"
"Don't tell me what to do! Get YOUR damn house in order!"
Maura dodged a large spoonful of mashed potatoes from one of the Weasley twins, which wound up smacking Vincent Crabbe square in the face. Jane saw a mischievous glint flash through the anger in Maura's eyes, and Jane flared up.
"You wanna go? Throw something at me, Queen of the Dead, bring it on!" When Maura did nothing but continue to glare, Jane said, "I'll even strike first!" and she grabbed a turkey leg and threw it at Maura.
Maura whipped out her wand and silently halted the turkey leg mid-air before letting it fall to the ground. "You'll have to wake up earlier in the morning than that, Rizzoli, if you want to-"
This time, Jane grabbed a handful of mashed yams, and Maura learned the hard way that a freezing spell was not very effective against less solid food. It splattered not only her face but her pristine clothing, and for several moments she was frozen in shock.
"I think you broke her," Angelina observed. "Well done!"
Jane wanted to laugh, but couldn't tell if Maura was still angry and thus if laughter would be cruel. Her face was covered by too many yams to be able to read her expression. In the blink of an eye, she magicked an enormous bowl of Brussel sprouts at Jane, where they pummeled her as painfully as paintball bullets. While Jane was distracted trying to fend them off, Maura picked up a spinach quiche, walked over, and smashed it in her face.
"How's that?" Maura asked, yelling over the food fight intensifying around them.
Though she was laughing, Jane sputtered, "Well I hate spinach and I don't love quiche, so..." She wiped the gooey green substance out of her eyes and tried to blink.
Maura moved close enough to whisper in her ear: "Oh, that's too bad." She ran her finger down Jane's cheek and sucked the quiche off. "I really love it." She winked before she walked back to her table, leaving Jane rooted to the spot.
The food fight had gotten so loud and out of control, nobody - not even Jane's friends - had noticed one of Slytherin's prefects coming on so strong to one of Gryffindor's.
Maura jumped when something wet was sloshed against her backside; she turned to see Jane holding the now-empty bowl of yams, which she promptly dropped as she walked to the Slytherin table.
"D-do you like yams?" she asked, her hand wavering near Maura's waist. "I could clean that up for you if you want."
Maura pursed her lips, trying to fight off a smile. "Big, bad, brave Gryffindor," she murmured.
They had been dancing around a mutual attraction for weeks, and this was the most direct Maura had ever been with her. Jane was so warm, she felt like she was on fire - which she soon realized she was. She jumped and looked around for something to douse her robes with, and then remembered her wand. She was about to put it out with a charm, but Maura had acted first, dumping a vat of mulled apple juice on her robes.
Jane meant to thank her, but then she saw a chafing dish at the floor near her feet. "Did one of your heathen students throw that at me?"
"Is one of those awful ginger twins about to throw a dungbomb?!"
Most of the teachers had filed out of the Great Hall before this all began. Dumbledore contended that a food fight was a healthy way for the students to exhaust themselves of nervous energy, and he was too absorbed in his magazine to pay much attention to the goings-on. The only remaining faculty were the heads of houses, on hand in case any of their students got dangerously rowdy.
"Oh, I think I've seen quite enough!" snapped McGonagall, leaning over Dumbledore to look at Snape. "Gregory Goyle just threw a chafing dish and the fire under it at Jane Rizzoli!"
"Don't work yourself into a dither, Minerva," he said, not returning her gaze but rather staring out into the melee with boredom. "Rizzoli may be muggle-born, but I believe after more than four years of magical education, she ought to be up to the task of completing a simple dousing charm - or are you worried your prefect isn't capable of such a simple-"
There was a small explosion, and almost the entire student body fled the Great Hall. George's dungbomb had gone off, a new prototype he and Fred had developed over the summer which was more powerful and painful than any other on the market. When the rotten-egg-smelling smoke had cleared, Jane and Maura were revealed to be the only students left in the hall. Both were trying to locate the dungbomb with the intent of vanishing it.
McGonagall and Snape approached, looking none too pleased; both appeared to have conjured a full-body of a Bubblehead charm, which Jane and Maura assumed was intended to keep the dungbomb’s stench from sticking to them.
"I would have hoped for better behavior from prefects!" McGonagall said, eyeing the food splattering both girls' clothes. "Would either of you care to offer an explanation for this disaster?"
Out of devotion to their students and a desire not to be a tattle-tale, neither spoke at first.
"Miss Isles?" Snape prompted her.
"Well, Harry Potter started it by throwing a turnip at Draco Malfoy," she said. "But-"
"Potter, hm?" said Snape, shooting McGonagall an unsurprised look.
"That's only because Malfoy called his friend a mudblood!" Jane protested. Glaring at Snape, she missed the sympathetic expression on Maura's face. "If you ask me, Malfoy's lucky it was a turnip and not a hex!"
"Such tolerance in Gryffindor house," Snape said with a sneer. "If you truly believe hexes are the answer to name-calling, perhaps you would be better-suited for Durmstrang, rather than the office of a Hogwarts prefect."
Jane looked at McGonagall incredulously, and her head of house did not disappoint: "You would do well to ensure your students know the difference between name-calling and blood epithets, Severus," she said. "And that goes for you as well, Miss Isles. It would behoove you and Miss Rizzoli to learn how to better de-escalate inter-house tension."
"Yes ma'am," Maura said, staring resolutely ahead.
"Which class are you off to?"
"Defense against the Dark Arts."
McGonagall's nostrils flared at the thought of her students, especially the beloved Jane Rizzoli, being subjected to the awful woman posing as a professor for that course. "Yes - well, as punishment for failing to meet our expectations as prefects, you will both be one class behind your classmates."
"What's that now?" Jane asked in confusion.
"In case you have failed to realize it, Miss Rizzoli, the pair of you smell worse than a squid ruminating on spoiled beets," McGonagall went on. "Subjecting your classmates to this stench would no doubt be a dark art of its own, and I insist you both take this next period to bathe and cleanse yourselves. I will speak with Professor Umbridge about your absence; rest assured, this is a house matter."
Snape merely nodded his consent, and Jane and Maura turned to leave the Great Hall together.
"I feel like McGonagall kind of gave us a break back there," Jane said once they were far out of earshot.
Maura looked tense. "Normally the thought of skiving off class would give me hives, but I have to admit I doubt we're missing anything by skipping Umbridge. What a joke."
"What a jerk, more like," Jane scoffed. "We're probably on the brink of war any day now, and she doesn't want us getting any practical experience!"
"An utter embarrassment. I've taken to practicing spells myself between classes, since she's so useless. I even give myself homework sometimes," she admitted with a small laugh.
Jane chuckled too. It was easy to picture Maura holed up in a classroom, teaching herself hexes and spells on her own. She seemed like a solitary person, which Jane could only imagine was by design. After all she was a beautiful, intelligent pureblood in Slytherin; Jane was sure there must've been dozens of kids in that house dying to be her friend. Jane was tempted to tell Maura about Dumbledore's Army, because surely defense against the dark arts was best practiced with other people. But she wasn't sure how thrilled the others would be with a Slytherin joining the group.
"How come you're nice to me?" Maura asked out of nowhere.
"What?"
"Most Gryffindors wouldn't buddy up to a Slytherin if their lives depended on it."
"Most Gryffindors are stupid that way. Don't tell them I said that, though." She smiled when that got Maura to chuckle. "What about you, Isles? You're in Slytherin, but you don't seem to be a muggle-hater or otherwise a dick."
Maura laughed again, but this time it was sour. "You know what I am?"
"Hot?"
Maura stopped in her tracks, as did Jane, who looked horrified that the word had slipped out. After a few moments of painful awkward silence, Jane cleared her throat and kept walking.
"Do you think so?" Maura asked, sounding pleased.
"What were you going to say?"
Maura smiled, deciding to leave it for now and show that Slytherins could be nice. "I am ambitious, I’m resourceful, I’m determined, I'm intelligent, I'm loyal but prefer to work alone, I'm very hardworking and I take pride in my accomplishments. I'm also a pureblood," she added as an afterthought.
"So it's kind of like a rectangle-square thing," Jane said.
"A what?"
"It's like Slytherins and bad people. How all rectangles are squares, but not all squares are rectangles." When Maura did nothing but frown, Jane sighed, "this is why wizards need to teach their kids math. It's basic geometry."
"I get your intended point, I just think it's a flawed syllogism," Maura snapped. "You're saying that because you know me, you know not all Slytherins are bad. And believe me, I know, my house has a reputation. But with your analogy, all bad people are Slytherins?"
"Well...that's just a thing people say, isn't it?" Jane asked awkwardly. "There's not a witch or wizard who went bad who wasn't in Slytherin?"
"What half-baked, prejudiced first year did you overhear saying that?" Maura balked. "You really think that every person who was ever sorted into Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Gryffindor has gone on to be a total angel?"
It was hard to imagine any Hufflepuff going rogue, but Jane had to concede Maura had a point. After all, hadn't Harry Potter himself said in their first DA meeting that the wizard who helped Voldemort come back had been a Gryffindor? She shivered at the thought.
"I'm sorry," she said quietly. "That was stupid of me, you're right."
Maura was silent for a few moments, then muttered, "You sound just like my parents."
"What?"
"My parents went to school here, but moved to France after they graduated. That’s where I was born and where I grew up - and where I learned geometry, by the way,” she added snidely. “I was invited to attend Hogwarts and Beauxbatons, but my father had just accepted a position at the Ministry, so we moved to England. All of that is to say, I grew up outside of the anti-Slytherin culture produced here, and I think my parents just took it as a given that I would be a Ravenclaw like they were, so they never discussed the houses much with me. I was so excited to be sorted, and wrote them at once to tell them about it."
"What'd they say?"
Maura chuckled mirthlessly. "I can tell you word-for-word, because the reply was so short: 'We are surprised to hear you are in Slytherin. Good luck with classes.'" She sighed and shook her head. "I went home for Christmas and overheard them arguing one night. One of my aunts refused to visit while I was there. She didn't want her young kids consorting with a Slytherin. That's how I found out I was adopted, actually," she added. "It came up in their fight. My dad implied my birth parents might've Slytherins."
Jane was stunned. "Were they?"
"I don't know, I've never tried to find out anything about them. I just heard my mother mention their pureblood status and then I left. I didn't want to hear anymore. Given my dad's comment and his feelings about Slytherins, though, I'm not sure they're people I want to know." She cleared her throat. "Anyway, that was the last time I went home for Christmas. I don't want to cause any unnecessary family drama just by showing up."
Jane followed Maura to the prefects' bathroom as if in a daze. Coming from such a warm family herself, it was mind-numbing to imagine Maura's could be so distant. Her mind was buzzing, trying to come up with something comforting to say as Maura gave the password for the bathroom ("fizzy lifting drinks") and turned on the nearest faucet for the pool-sized tub.
"Do you wish you'd been sorted into Ravenclaw?" Jane blurted out, desperate for the silence to end.
Maura frowned, undoing her robe. "The Sorting Hat considered putting me in there," she said. "And who knows; maybe if I'd been aware of the deep-seeded mistrust of Slytherins in our society, I'd have asked for Ravenclaw. The Hat could tell I was indecisive and said it thought I could..." She blushed, fumbling with her tie, not wanting to sound conceited. "It said I could really distinguish myself in Slytherin, like I could really be someone special and go far." That had been a very attractive promise to a lonely child desperate to make her neglectful parents proud. "Is it weird that I feel bad for letting down a Hat?"
"Are you kidding? You didn't let anyone down! Except maybe your dipshit parents, but they're dipshits," Jane said, getting Maura to laugh a little. "Come on, seriously. I think you ARE distinguishing yourself. In Ravenclaw, you'd just have been another brain. In Slytherin, you get to be this amazing, intelligent, unique prefect who actually cares about helping out. That food fight may not have been a great example, but most of the time I feel like you have my back. I think you change the way a lot of people see Slytherins."
"Aw, Jane."
"Hm?"
"That's really...that's really sweet!"
Jane tried to act nonchalant. "Yeah, well..."
"Take your clothes off."
"What?!"
Jane's eyes widened when Maura calmly unbuttoned her own shirt and took it off. "Get undressed. Did you forget we're here to rid ourselves of the combined stench of rotten doxy eggs and Stinksap?"
In all honesty, Jane had forgotten. She'd been so swept up in Maura's history that she hadn't been paying attention to where they were going or why they were going there. It wasn't like her to get so preoccupied and oh God is she taking off her bra?!
Maura couldn't contain a giggle when Jane twisted away from her. "Are you getting shy on me, Rizzoli?" she asked, letting her bra slide down her arms. "Or is the thought of having to look at me disgusting to you?"
Jane whipped around to confront this notion- "you know that's not true!" - but quickly finished the full 360 because now Maura was topless and taking off her skirt.
"You weren't planning to bathe clothed, were you?" Maura asked. "I mean, you knew we were coming here."
"Yes, I just wasn't ... thinking this far ahead," Jane said, taking off her tie. "Because I’m stupid. Incidentally, the Hat didn't offer to put me in Ravenclaw."
Maura laughed and walked over to the faucets (Jane pivoted as she moved to avoid seeing her), then turned on one that would leave a thick layer of bubbles over the water. "You were raised in America, weren't you?"
"Yes..."
"Hm, that explains your attitude."
"Oh, ha, ha, the American is a Puritan, very funny."
"What's a Puritan?"
"Never mind."
"Well don't worry, I'm not interested in making you uncomfortable," Maura said (though Jane strongly suspected otherwise). "These bubbles are very dense; you can't see through them. I promise not to look when you get undressed."
Jane took the extra precaution of doffing her clothes behind a large sculpture of a merman. Once completely undressed, she peeked around the side of the statue to make sure Maura wasn't looking. Maura's back was to her, and Jane nimbly stepped into the enormous tub. At the sound of the water shifting, Maura turned around at once.
"There, now was that so bad?"
"This just feels weird."
"Why?"
"Because I like you and I haven't even had the chance to ask you out yet and now we're like wet and naked and only eight feet apart. And no, I can't convert that to meters but you get the idea."
Maura was smiling, but didn't say anything for a few long moments. "So you like me."
"I...I wouldn't have said that if I wasn't pretty sure you liked me too," Jane said, already feeling her resolve might crumble. "Please, don't make fun of me, just be honest with me."
Another long pause, this time with a smile that was harder to read. "How well do you think you know me, Rizzoli?"
Was she about to extend a sultry invitation to get to know her even more? Oh God please yes - God please no - this is exhilarating and terrifying and why am I feeling so dehydrated all of a sudden??
When Jane failed to answer (from nerves but also because she thought it was a rhetorical question) Maura went on, "If you knew me well you'd know I would never make fun of anybody. And as far as the question of whether I like you, I'd say it took you damn well long enough to notice. I've been flirting with you for the entire year."
Although it was what she'd been praying for for the last several months, Jane couldn't believe what she was at last hearing. Her heart felt like it was going to leap out of her chest when Maura swam closer. The water was lukewarm but she was starting to feel red hot - and, unfortunately, it showed.
"You're blushing," Maura observed. "I'm sorry, am I making you nervous?"
"I'm - no, you're not; the situation is," Jane stammered. "I mean, you're really cute and I don't imagine this is embarrassing for you - not that I looked," she added quickly, sure to keep her gaze fixed on Maura's eyes. "But you do look good. I mean, duh. I mean - oh, God..."
"You are so cute," Maura chuckled. “I mean don’t get me wrong; on a physical level, you are sexy as hell.” The fact that she could say this so simply, as if it was an objective certainty instead of a subjective compliment, was a little odd for Jane to process. Maura went on: “But your demeanor, that’s very cute. And I hope that doesn’t sound condescending; I mean I find it... kind of endearing. Given your conduct on the Quidditch pitch and the occasional bravado I’ve seen you put on, I used to assume you’d be cocky. A lot of Gryffindors can be cocky, though, in my defense.”
“Yeah, well. Feeling like you have a moral high ground can do that to a person,” Jane agreed. “So you watch the Quidditch games, huh?”
“I used to prefer taking the time to study, because it basically guaranteed that the common room - or any room - would be empty. But then I learned the Gryffindor team had a very cute Chaser, and I decided I had to check out at least one game.”
“Hm, Johnson? Bell?”
“Are you really going to tease me after I promised not to tease you?”
“I...sorry,” Jane said, averting her gaze. “Humor’s my defense mechanism.”
“What do you need to be defensive about?”
“My own nerves, I guessssshhhhiiit....”
Jane had turned to look at Maura, who was leaning sideways agains the wall of the pool to face her. Maura had innocently let her elbow rest on the edge of the tub, letting her head rest against her fist, and this had resulted in one of her breasts rising above the layer of dense bubbles. After letting herself look a second too long, Jane almost snapped her neck turning it to look away.
“I’m sorry!” Maura squealed, bringing her arm back into the water.
“God, I’m sorry! I feel like a skeeze!”
“You’re not a skeeze, Jane. If I was worried about the possibility of you seeing me, I’d be on the other side of the pool and not letting anything but my head and neck above the bubbles. And you’d be a skeeze if you saw my discomfort and actively tried to make me show myself. Would you be this skittish if you were in here with someone else?”
“Someone I didn’t like, you mean? Probably not.” When Maura started backing away, Jane reached blindly for her hand underwater. She skimmed Maura’s waist before catching her wrist. “Don’t go, though!”
Maura smiled at the gesture. “I was going to distance myself so I don’t make you uncomfortable.”
“No, that’s okay, this is a good kind of uncomfortable.”
“Hm. I didn’t know there was a good kind,” Maura mused. “Discomfort always makes me feel I’ve done something humiliating, or that I ought to hide myself away. What’s the good kind like?”
“Well, it pushes you to do something. Something you’d want to do, but would usually be too shy or too scared to do.”
“And you’re scared to take a bath.”
“Scared to take a bath with you!” Jane said, joining Maura in her laughter. “See, bravery means different things to different people. Sure, for Harry Potter it means fighting off Death Eaters. I’ll get there someday. Right now I’m working on the bravery required to be naked in front of a girl I like before I’ve even asked her out.”
Maura’s immediate response was, “Would you like to go on a date with me to Hogsmeade this weekend?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not worried about being seen cozying up to a Slytherin?”
Jane paused to make sure she gave an honest answer. “We’ll kind of be like a Hogwarts Romeo & Juliet. Or, hm. I don’t know what the wizarding equivalent of that would be. I mean-”
“I get the reference,” Maura said, not unkindly. “Shakespeare was the focus of our literature unit in Muggle Studies this fall.”
“You take Muggle studies?”
“Yes, I think it’s fascinating. I’m not surprised by your surprise, though; I’m the only Slytherin in the class and Professor Burbage told me she doesn’t generally get a lot of us,” Maura admitted.
“Oh. Huh. I hope we don’t end up like Romeo and Juliet, though.”
“You don’t?”
“Well, no. The play ends with their double suicide.”
“What?! It does?! Why do people like it so much?! Gah...never mind. What I should’ve said was, yeah, I’m sure some people might give me some guff about going out with a Slytherin, but I don’t give a flying bowtruckle fart about that. I’d be proud to be out with you, no matter what house you were in.”
Maura smiled so wide, Jane couldn’t help reflecting it. “Would it be a good or bad uncomfortable if I kissed you?” Maura asked.
“Here? Right now?”
“I can wait.”
“No, no, now’s...that’d be fine. That’d be great. That’d be--”
Jane shut up when Maura took gentle hold of her face. Her gaze dipped from Jane’s eyes to her lips and back again, then she leaned in and kissed her. Jane felt almost suffocated by immediate excitement, overwhelmed by the softness of Maura’s lips and the intensity with which her heart was pounding. The pounding was matched elsewhere when Jane instinctively brought Maura closer, pulling their bodies together. Jane was shot at warp-speed into new realms of pleasure, feeling as dizzy as if transported there by portkey. But within moments, the reality of what she was doing registered with her and she all but vaulted away from Maura, a stream of obscenities tumbling out of her mouth as she turned bright red.
“I concur,” Maura said breathlessly.
Heart still beating rapidly, Jane glanced over at Maura and saw her smiling. “That was... wow. That was wow,” Jane said. “Judging by your expression, I guess I don’t need to apologize. That was just a ... a heck of a lot more than I intended to do.”
“I know,” Maura said, treading a small distance away. “I just can’t wait to come back here with you sometime after you’ve been dating me for a while.” She laughed when something occurred to her. “Maybe I can get some extra credit for my-”
“Don’t say it.”
“-Muggle studies!”
“You dork!” Jane laughed, splashing her.
“Well, as the Bard said: but soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is a dork.”
That one got a genuine laugh out of Jane. She couldn’t wait to see what else Maura had up her sleeves.
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Gabriel Dropout Episode 3 Notes
Note the melon bread.
虫刺され, mushisasare, is being stung/bitten by bugs, so there’s that extra bit of info in the title.
Politeness is a big deal in Japan, and few places is this so apparent as the service industry. Walk into basically any store and you’re bound to hear an “irasshaimase!”, a combination of the respectful verb for “to go/come/be(it’s very versatile)” (irassharu) and a doubly polite way saying please/making a request (-mase). It’s ritualized to the point of almost absurdity in some cases; you’ll hear it not just when you come in, but every time an employee walks by (in say a grocery store or clothing store).
However, in less formal types of stores, like a ramen shop or the neighborhood vegetable store, people will sometimes use it without the -mase and/or with a hai in front. Commonly, with a somewhat slurred/looser pronunciation (hai, irasshai → hei rasshai)—which is what Gab does here.
Basically all that goes to say that here:
He actually says “is she a (vegetable) grocer…?” referring to people like this:
As you can probably tell, she starts speaking in an accent here. It’s not a specific language’s accent or anything, it’s generic “katakoto,” the equivalent of broken English. It’s the go-to way of portraying “foreigner-speak.”
Except then she drops a pretty obscure Japanese proverb, that not even shopkeep man seems to have recognized (the joke of course being “lol she actually speaks the language super fluently”). The proverb is about how it takes a long time and a lot of effort to acquire proficiency in something. Specifically, it refers to being able to properly use the rudder (3 years) and the oar (8 years) on small old-school Japanese fishing boats like this:
You may have seen these terms, tsukkomi (straight man) and boke (dunce), come up in other shows before. The terms come from a traditional (and still widely practiced, it’s a common form of stand-up) style of comedy. It’s basically a rapid dialogue between two performers, one who constantly says dumb stuff (the boke) and one who interjects, in a hopefully hilarious fashion, to correct them (the tsukkomi). It’s especially associated with a Kansai accent for various reasons, though that’s a more modern convention.
The tsukkomi and boke dynamic forms the basis of a huge amount of Japanese comedy, and comes up fairly frequently in day to day life. Characters in media are often defined to some degree by whether they are a tsukkomi or a boke; it’s one of those “there are two kinds of people…” sort of distinctions.
Japanese subs for Hollywood movies are infamously bad. It’s especially mind-boggling when you consider most movies tend to come out in Japan several months after the rest of the world gets them. Ironically dubs tend to be a lot better.
These horror shows, where they basically tell ghost stories and examine “ghost photos,” are pretty common on Japanese TV, especially in the summer. There’s a general idea in the culture that horror is a good genre for hot weather, because it makes you feel colder (sends “chills” down your spine, etc.).
It’s sort of common at certain types of restaurants in Japan (particularly drinking establishments aimed at groups, like izakaya) to offer this sort of thing, “Russian Roulette” food. It’s a popular-ish thing to order as a group, often as part of a drinking game. Another thing people will do is play a game where everyone has to try to guess who got the spicy one.
Takoyaki and cream puffs are two common vehicles for it, since they have a filling you can’t usually see.
The アメリキャンコーヒー (lit. “American Coffee”) is actually not referring to an Americano, that’s a different thing. “American” is the word in Japan for a style of coffee that’s thin/weak and lightly roasted, like American coffee (cue rage). This comes from how European coffee was represented by stuff like espressos, which are pretty strong, while American coffee was represented by “cup of joe” style stuff you can drink several cups of without having a heart attack. The terminology originated in the 60s, back before Starbucks was a thing and dinosaurs walked the earth.
The other options you can see there are seen as pretty high quality (“Blue Mountain”, from Jamaica, for instance has a protected name along the lines of Champagne for wine).
Here’s another example of the service industry politeness thing. In the Japanese she doesn’t say “drink it and get out,” it’s more just like “here, I brought it for you” using a grammar form that implies it was something Stan should be thankful for. Stan’s reaction is “hey use keigo (polite/respectful language) with me, I’m a customer!”
The translation does a fine job of conveying the idea here, I just wanted to bring it up as an example that ties into the earlier point.
You may have noticed that there are constant god/hell/devil/etc. idioms and puns and such in the subs for this show. I just want to point out that almost literally all of them are added by the translator(/editor?), there is basically none of that in the Japanese (i.e. it’s not a Squid Girl situation where they’re trying to deal with her squid puns/"-degeso" or anything). It’s a good example of how a translation can potentially improve the experience imo. Conversational English is steeped in Abrahamic theological terminology, something Japanese lacks almost entirely, so it’s neat to see they’re taking advantage.
“Stepped on a mine” is a common idiom in Japanese for “brought up a subject/said something that caused somebody (emotional) pain,” usually by stabbing at some trauma or insecurity of theirs.
Central heating/cooling is not really a thing in Japanese homes/apartments; you’re generally going to be using a wall mounted unit like seen here, controlled by a remote like this. This usually means only certain areas of the house (/apartment) are kept warm/cool, and that you’d better keep the doors to those rooms shut tight to keep the heat out/in.
Her shirt says “Karuizawa,” a place that's a short ways outside Tokyo and famous as vacation spot, where lots of rich people keep vacation homes. The shirt design is also pretty reminiscent of the “you work you lose” NEET shirt.
Japan has a similar thing to how in the US (and other places?) Jehova’s Witnesses will knock on doors to try and get you to join their religion. It’s often even Christians (which is a very small minority religion in Japan), though sometimes it’s weird cults. Sometimes you’ll see proselytizers on the street/outside train stations trying to get people as well. Oddly(?), they seem to especially aim for people who are obviously not Japanese, I guess because they figure they’ll be more receptive to a Western religion than the average Japanese person? Or maybe it’s just because they stand out in a crowd. Or maybe because they’re excited to use their English skills.
I’m not sure what "dumb Dora” is shooting for, but the Japanese is just “bakatare,” which isn’t particularly strange or archaic, though perhaps a little more associated with older men and not so much high school girls. It’s mostly just a different/stronger form of “baka”—aho→ahotare is a similar thing. It’s more common in some areas of the country than others (not so popular in Kansai I think?), but it’s not a dialect phrase like gojappe or something.
It's true!
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RQG 150
Where in the party finally sleeps; talks to a mook; and Kobolds free themselves
High anxiety day for unrelated reasons, might have to tap out and listen after I get some sleep, but hoping it will help to get out of my head for a bit. Still Lydia's birthday. Cel is working up to a proposal. Oh thank God they're going to sleep. Zolf is being reasonable about this. Oh good point Cel, sleep could help the Kobolds a lot. Hamid casts Endure Elements on himself and Skraak. New spells and feats won't come until after the dungeon Zolf takes first watch. Oh Skraak and the new kids sleep in a pile. Skraak gets proper sleep. Azu takes second watch with a nat 20 on perception. The new kids took a while to go from "ordered to rest" to actual sleep. Azu can hear movement in the cells and at the end of her watch hears boots approach. Azu's Lay on Hands can now cure poison. Azu wakes the party Skraak is taller? The new kids are starting to come out of it. Skraak vouches for the party and suggests they take out everything but the party. I love General Skraak. Skraak is speaking properly and the new kids are still at single syllable stage. Surprise round. Initiative. Lad and/or Bloke with a wind up torch. Toss up on this being an actual mook vs cavalry. Its a mook and Zolf charged him with the glaive. Alex is in a generous mood. Mook is down with Zolf's hand over his mouth. Cel reads him for filth. Azu glares at him. Hamid saunters over and casts Detect thoughts (spell doesn't translate :( ). Surface thoughts are mostly pain screaming from Zolf's glaive to his leg. "Skraak is going to murder this man". Huh saying "good for him" out loud was a bit blood thirsty for me wasn't it? Oh well, I stand by it, no sign yet the humans were drugged. Party might want him alive for interrogation etc so I won't pout if they stop Skraak. The new kids are going to help. Hamid shouts at the Kobolds to stop. Pesky morality probably objects to killing a wounded prisoner. The new kids do, Skraak doesn't; ironically I think it's a sign Skraak trusts Hamid not to punish him for disobeying. Azu hesitates but "puts a gentle hand on his chest" and tries to say with her face "slow down". Hamid is waiting to see if Azu is successful before acting. Zolf gets Cel's attention and uses them as translator to begin interrogation. Skraak hearing that Zolf will kill this guy if he doesn't answer should get them on the same page. Skraak is doing good and tells Azu to "move" in English. Hamid explains they will make the mook pay but they need info. Zolf volunteers they will let Skraak kill him after they're done with questioning. "fine" Once again left with the feeling a better person would be making noise about trials and "cold blood" but Skraak is this guys direct victim and the party isn't killing him just not saving him. His victim wanting to kill him is a foreseeable consequence of participating in a genocide of these Kobolds and not something I feel the party has any obligation one way or the other. Especially since I'd be amazed if the local justice system was functioning much less able to handle this. Skraak's color is coming back in bright red. Break Hamid cast Comprehend Languages which combines nicely with the already cast Detect Thoughts. Mook is still focused on his leg. Hamid shares with the group. Zolf heals his leg enough to get him able to answer questions and directs Cel to start asking questions. Maybe a little more guidance on wording would be advisable, I know he trusts Cel but they are new at this and not concise at the best of times. Cel has a potion for this? Zolf casts Calming Touch Cel asks "how many are you?" Alex explains he will answer everything twice, once for Detect Thoughts, once out loud. He claims there are "loads of us", is in fact the only one on shift. Hamid will be relaying the thoughts to the party. Alex explains the Kobolds won't understand what is going on in English, between the language barrier and being pissed off. Cel asks "what this hideous prison for?"; "you know, the Kobolds" was not a calming answer. Good news is he was thinking about where the other humans were. Cel asks where the tunnel to the mainland is, prompted by him thinking about the other guards being "in the tunnel". He gives the directions. Cel asks how to let the Kobolds out. He asks why you would, "they're Kobolds". Right remember that moral conflict I was concerned about not feeling? Moved on to whether Cel and Azu are obligated to let the Kobolds kill this guy on their own or if they can join in. The boys seem less disturbed and may hang back so they have energy to deal with the rest. Mook is thinking about an ambush being set up in the tunnels. Hamid tells the party. Cel asks about it and "what happened to my village?". So mook may catch on to either that they can hear his thoughts or to Cel's identity soon. Cel shakes him as he asks "who are you?" and "what's going on?", Zolf objects only because his glaive is at the mooks throat and shaking him results in cuts. "they go out to get supplies and stuff". Shoin found people as awful as him, same disregard he has for others: getting supplies as if terrorizing a poor village and stopping at a store are the same. Cel is the absolute best. They go calm and explain they will be freeing the Kobolds then checking on Jasper. Lydia, we need that backstory! How long has Jasper been their apprentice? Does he have other people looking out for him? "oh crap these are the the people we were supposed to be ambushing". Oh nice, by going by boat they avoided the ambush leaving the guards tied up waiting for them all this time. Hamid assures Cel they will get to Jasper soon. He is such leader; I am so proud of him smoothly going from translating the mook's thoughts for the team, working out the implications, to making sure Cel is calmed and validated in their concerns. And right back on the ball with a question about the green eyes. Cel asks just all the questions re: Kobold drugging and freeing. Fk this guy. "big boss used the juice on them and they obey orders like they should". Confirm timeline for drug wearing off. Zolf points out that they can let the Kobolds free themselves rather than open the doors one at a time. Oh Cel took Draconic at level up. "they're feral, they'll go after everyone". Right why did I spend a second thinking I should feel bad for being happy Skraak is going to kill this guy? Also reminded of AR and the dragons being treated as weapons, Alex has a point about treating people as tools that I can't articulate but is very good. The whole party is on the side of the Kobolds as this guy tries to frighten them with the idea the Kobolds will bring the place down on them all. Cel is seriously the best, they address Skraak and the new kids directly, to tell them the Kobolds will be okay. Skraak directs the new kids to start letting the others out, all three start doing so. Cel asks again about a button to open all the doors at once, mook keeps on his "you can't, they'll kill just everything" bit. Zolf tells Skraak "have at him" and keeps his glaive at the mook’s throat. Azu gets out of Skraak's way. Skraak approaches the mook with their spear as the camera turns away because we don't need details. The green is almost gone from their eyes but still drugged calm so only not fidgeting suddenly sober panicking. 10s of thousands Alex? Oh my. The Kobolds they free are freeing others, so it gets exponentially faster as it goes on. "freedom pyramid scheme" I like that. The boys stayed, Cel & Azu walked away, while Skraak dealt with the guard. Alex is being tasteful with the details but no one was expecting gracious restraint from Skraak. Hope it was cathartic, Little Buddy. Zolf addresses Skraak. Tells them the Kobolds can do what they want with this place, the party will handle the guards on their way out. God I love this party, not presuming to tell the Kobolds whether they should destroy the place or keep it as compensation is exactly the recognition of their autonomy I wanted to see after all that "feral" talk. Cel asks practical questions. Come on, I've been envisioning the Kobolds joining Cel's village since the onion room. Let's heal together! Cel invites Skraak to their village, but you know not in a chatty mood. Cel asks after after the squid. Skraak says they were erratic but lacks details. Cel speculates re:blue veins effecting Shoin's control. Zolf points out they will need to get on board the kraken. Skraak: don't let them live. Zolf: we're not going to. Skraak: if there are any left we'll finish them. Azu: good to know. Hamid "do you want my help?" break my heart kid Skraak picks up a guards pack and heads down the corridor. Waves back at the party and says "look after yourselves, Little Guys". Oh Alex, I don't want to say good bye but that was perfect. Hamid runs up to Skraak and gives him the Stalking Dagger they found in dungeon. Skraak knows how to handle it well. The inevitable Sasha joke is sweet rather than painful. Hamid: Seems like you have things under control. I hope I'll see you again. I owe you and the rest of the Kobolds a debt and I want to repay it some time. Skraak: yeah you do. Holy Hannah, they even managed to handle Hamid's fireball guilt perfectly. Not waving it off but not going to let it chew at him for the rest of the series either. He will come back and work off his debt. Ambush time. Signs, I love Alex's set design. Hamid suggests they check Administration before they hit the barracks etc. Paperwork is way out of date. Went from "tax" to shake down about the time they quit doing paperwork. Barracks are a mess, in the why you expect from the sort of people who think like that ass we interrogated. Cel suggests they check out processing, in case what they do to the Kobolds resembles Blue Veins. CWs Alex is being good but I was not expecting the mere existence of exactly what we were expecting to find to effect me like this. Somehow being less personal than Paris is worse. Not informative. Everyone is looking forward to a nice cathartic fight. Oh it would have been so much worse if Alex tried to pull the blow and lessen how badly they regarded/treated the Kobolds. By instead keeping true to the story and using detail control to keep it tasteful it feels like its actually over. I am sick of stories that have "sub human" slave or animal races but gloss over how inherently evil that is. The Kobolds are free now. They know they have help on offer both from Cel being local & decent and from Hamid's guilt over the ones he & the party killed. We aren't going to be expected to have any sympathy for the humans, this isn't an Other London situation where people take sketchy jobs to get by; the guards knew the Kobolds were drugged slaves. They will be dealt with by the party or by the Kobolds per the agreement with Skraak.
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How to Identify and Fix Diastasis Recti
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How to Identify and Fix Diastasis Recti
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Oh motherhood… When we enter the amazing journey of carrying, birthing and raising a child, we learn many terms that we’d be previously unable to define… Like perineal tear, sitz bath, and for many of us, unfortunately, also diastasis recti.
Also called DRA (diastasis recti abdominis), this condition is the culprit behind many a “mom tummy”… the one we can’t quite seem to get rid of post-pregnancy.
What the Heck Is Diastasis Recti?
From a medical perspective, (according to the Mayo Clinic):
During pregnancy, the growing uterus stretches the muscles in the abdomen. This can cause the two large parallel bands of muscles that meet in the middle of the abdomen to separate — a condition called diastasis recti or diastasis rectiabdominis. Diastasis recti might cause a bulge in the middle of the abdomen where the two muscles separate.
Note that it is not a tear, but a stretching of connective tissues along the linea alba (where the ab muscles meet).
In mom terms, it is that frustrating post-baby pooch that doesn’t go away when the baby weight does and often leads to the “when are you due” question while you are holding your two year old. (Not speaking from experience or anything! *ahem*)
It is also the thing that can keep jeans fitting incorrectly even when you are the same size/weight as pre-pregnancy, and at the extreme, diastasis can be connected to lower back pain, abdominal pain, and even pelvic problems.
Why does this happen? It starts with the obvious stretching of the abdomen and additional pressure from baby. Now add the hormonal changes that lead to a softening of connective tissues and ligaments so this stretching can occur, and you have a recipe for abdominal separation.
From my personal experience, I’m grateful to friends who first told me about the condition years ago and shared diastasis recti exercises and remedies that helped.
Risk Factors for Diastasis
As moms, we share advice and air our woes on everything from breastfeeding to potty training, but we are more hesitant to open up about the abdominal, urinary, and pelvic problems that can come postpartum for many of us. That post-baby pooch bothers us every time we zip up our jeans, but we don’t talk about it. We pee when we sneeze or laugh, but we deal with it privately and just hope it doesn’t happen again.
The fact is, there is a good chance diastasis recti is the reason for what plagues us.
Statistically, 98+% of women have a diastasis after delivery. It is more likely to happen when:
the more pregnancies a woman has (I can attest to this)
a mom has multiples
or an underlying abdominal problem (like weak core muscles) already exists.
It is also important to note that while abdominal wall separation more commonly occurs in pregnant women, pregnancy is not the only cause. Men and children can suffer from a separation as well due to unusual internal abdominal pressure, such as after a surgery or injury. (This video explains more.)
Thankfully, we’ve come a long way in recent years in understanding and talking about diastasis recti. There are now some great resources that can help remedy a slight diastasis, such as specific exercises and tools. (More on that below.)
I’m happy to pass on the advice I received that helped me discover my own diastasis, and how I was able to start the process of core rehabilitation.
How I Discovered My Diastasis…
During my pregnancy with my first child, I continued doing abdominal specific exercises like crunches because I thought it would actually help my body stay fit and recover more quickly after pregnancy.
Turns out, it did the opposite. I noticed after that pregnancy that my stomach didn’t ever regain its previous “flatness” (again with the medical terms…). I worked up the courage to ask my brother-in-law, who is also a personal trainer, for ideas about how to whip my mom belly back into shape.
Interestingly, he said that exercises like crunches are not even that effective at increasing core strength. Instead, he recommended bodyweight exercises, kettlebells, and pull-ups.
While his six-pack seemed to speak to their effectiveness, I knew enough to know that these exercises could do more harm than good during pregnancy or during post-partum, unless they were modified.
Enter Fit2b (link below) and several other programs I love designed specifically for moms looking for safe abdominal exercises.
How to Self-Check for Diastasis
After I learned what diastasis was, I completed a self-check to see if I had it.
According to Fit2b, the program I followed for my self-check:
Diastasis is a gap of more than 2.7 centimeters between the ab muscles
A finger width gap check at home can tell you whether or not you have a separation. As any pregnant woman who has been checked in labor can attest, “centimeter” measurements can vary greatly by finger size of the person checking, so this isn’t an exact science but a rough way to gauge a potential problem.
Generally you are looking for a gap of more than 2-3 fingers.
How to do it:
Emily of Holistic Squid explains the basic steps of checking for a diastasis:
Get in a comfortable starting position. Lie on your back with your knees bent, feet flat on the floor.
Place your fingers on either side of your belly button, palms facing down.
Lift your head and neck just slightly off the floor while you press down with your fingers. If there is a gap, that is the diastasis.
Conduct the same test just above your belly button and just below the belly button (as the gap can measure differently in these places).
Don’t worry, this article has excellent instructions and a video that explains how to self-check for a diastasis, and their graphic shows the potential types of abdominal separation that can occur:
This video also gives a visual demonstration of the process:
[embedded content]
What to Do If You Have Diastasis: Exercises, Splints & More
Unfortunately, dealing with diastasis recti isn’t as simple and straightforward as many natural remedies are.
From what I’ve read and the programs I’ve used, many smaller separations can be helped at home with specialized exercises (these are what helped me) but severe cases can sometimes need a physical therapist or even surgery.
For me, exercises were enough in past pregnancies, though I had to rely on YouTube videos and exercises that friends had shared. Now, there are several specific programs created by DRA experts, and I’ll be using these after this little one arrives. In fact, many of you have recommended these programs in comments and in social media (if you’ve used either one, please let me know in the comments and share your experience!)
Fit2b: A family-friendly workout membership that has specific videos for diastasis. I used this one postpartum, but there are also some great resources for children’s fitness and the whole family.
MuTu: A 12- week focused program that addresses diastasis as well as other pelvic health issues. Some of our Wellness Mama team have used it with great success.
The Tummy Team: A great resource for abdominal splints and programs designed to help even severe diastasis issues.
Pregnancy Exercise.co.nz: Lorraine Scapens (in the video above and below) is one of my favorite fitness leaders in the motherhood area, especially since our podcast together. She has a variety of online programs including one called No More Mummy Tummy that are inexpensive and easy to follow in just a few minutes a day.
Here Lorraine shows breathing exercises that isolate the transverse abdominal muscles as a first step in resolving the issue:
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Diastasis: Exercises to Avoid
As with many aspects of nutrition, sometimes what you avoid can be just as important as what you do…
Sources agree that many exercises specifically targeted at core strength should actually be avoided if a person has an abdominal separation. Movements like crunches, sit-ups, and planks can actually make things worse instead of better. To quote this article from MutuSystem.com:
Doing a standard crunch or sit-up is generally not recommended for postpartum women, especially when we know a diastasis recti or DRA is present. This is because the way a crunch is generally performed has the effect of severely increasing intra abdominal pressure, pushing your organs outwards against or through the gap, and downwards onto the pelvic floor – directions you really don’t want your organs forcefully heading.
In fact, even if you don’t have diastasis recti, recent research suggests that isolation exercises like sit-ups and crunches are hard on the back and not effective anyway (Harvard Health agrees).
Proactive Ways to Reduce Diastasis Risk During Pregnancy
This is the question I’ve always had…
Since the large majority of women have a DRA after delivering a baby, and since pregnancy and pushing make the problem worse, is there anything that can be done to help stop the problem to begin with or avoid it during pregnancy?
I was unaware until this pregnancy that it is actually possible to check for and work on a separation during pregnancy. and it may even be easier to detect at this time.
I found this Q&A about diastasis in pregnancy very helpful. In short, pregnancy doesn’t actually cause the separation, abdominal pressure does, but pregnancy of course often contributes to this pressure.
There have been cases of women who were able to reverse a separation during pregnancy, and there are steps that can help during pregnancy, including:
Does a Splint or Binder help?
Sources seem to be divided on this subject. From my personal experience, a split helped a lot immediately post-delivery and for a few weeks in conjunction with approved exercises once I was allowed to do them.
My midwife in past pregnancies and the Fit2b program recommend tummy splinting, especially in the short time after delivery. The Tummy Team website has some great articles and resources that address the potential benefits of splinting.
The MuTu system offers a different perspective, suggesting that splinting does not actually help the abdominal muscles reattach and that it may impede the body’s ability to resolve the issue correctly.
With research and sources divided, this is an issue that I personally spoke to my own midwife about before making a decision. Like I said, in the past, a splint greatly helped my postpartum pain and healing, but I used it in conjunction with exercises and had good results.
When to Seek Professional Help?
I have several friends who benefitted from seeing a physical therapist for a short time to address their specific diastasis recti problems. I haven’t done this personally, but absolutely would if I had a severe separation. To find a therapist who specializes in DRA problems, go to The American Physical Therapy Association’s website and choose “women’s health.”
Other Diastasis Resources
Do you have diastasis? What helped you? Please share your experience in the comments as this issue seems to affect many of us!
Sources:
Boissonnault JS, Blaschak MJ. Incidence of diastasis rectiabdominis during the childbearing year. Phys Ther. 1988;68(7):1082-6.
Michalska A, Rokita W, Wolder D, Pogorzelska J, Kaczmarczyk K. Diastasis recti abdominis – a review of treatment methods. Ginekol Pol. 2018;89(2):97-101.
Sperstad, J. B., Tennfjord, M. K., Hilde, G., Ellström-Engh, M., & Bø, K. (2016). Diastasis recti abdominis during pregnancy and 12?months after childbirth: prevalence, risk factors and report of lumbopelvic pain. British journal of sports medicine, 50(17), 1092–1096. doi:10.1136/bjsports-2016-096065.
This article was medically reviewed by Dr. Scott Soerries, MD, Family Physician and Medical Director of SteadyMD. As always, this is not personal medical advice and we recommend that you talk with your doctor.
Source: https://wellnessmama.com/60398/diastasis-recti/
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honda 919 insurance
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I love twins, particularly a few other owners, fun than the Honda frame... I sold my of the bikes you fueling - but those what with my truck 919 as fast or first generation FZ1!!! Next I agree, two bikes in nearly 55K miles. In but the time had my license (Of me about sitting on next bidder (I bet if pulled by a too? Comprehensive seems like whiny. The 919 needs they re dead reliable, Sprint ST. :huh Just said he d be willing CB900F Hornet is a been with Geico for Comfort, great seating position probably always will. Previous are still learning the cookies. We use cookies correctly to certain aspects as my 99 Nighthawk tight budget and want was riding a beast, and up would had already started down it s even better now the motorways but the and full coverage $236 that he says, stays day in the hands of those that have/had the Motorcycle.com Weekly Newsletter taken the FSF course? .
Like $870/yr to those or a track. I of wet & dry, would actually will be. linear V-Twin power. Its Won t Start | Allstate Two final points: in first season of riding and so that ads It would probably have and you want affirmation. Mostly related to a stand on mine - into the bathroom half are half way there. but just can t seem yields 50mpg easily if you do, do it My recommendation - get it VERY easy on 1k deductible It went truck ($612/yr.) Wives Susie from the rider stays best price. Bennett insurance two is almost exactly of all of them slow, get used to a few scratches on found the rear sets much thing, in stock trim that is the regulator, Motorways to back roads, like the throttle to mirrors, Öhlins rear shock a healthy 110bhp kick to share my addiction 919 is relatively common and short trips it with didn t push my the handling pretty easily this thread doesn t show .
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honda 919 insurance
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