#it's just *really* obvious sometimes that we did NOT register the same aspects of these eps as defining

[ladyluscinia]

When the sam stan running the episode bracket reblogs a gifset to remind you of which episode it is and I stare blankly until I check the episode name or search a synopsis and realize no I actually definitely remember this one I just do not instinctively recognize whatever Sam was doing in that gifset 🤣

[stevie-petey]

hiiiiiiiii honey <3 could we get a blurb about bug telling steve about jonathan’s outburst towards her after he took the pictures of nancy and steve’s reaction to learning about it???? it would be so so appreciated by me <3 you’re the best ever <3 MWAH

(i am being held against my will to write this jonathan sweetie im so sorry) (i love u val) (u are evil)

i know this isnt necessarily what u MEANT but ,,, ive been dying to expand upon bugs kindness and how it may seem annoying and pathetic, but its hers ! its her kindness !!!

enjoy <3

"no way you guys havent wanted to strangle each other at least once." steve remarks one day as he watches you and jonathan work side by side at the cash register.

jonathan had been bored today and decided to join you and steve at work, something that you're very happy about, honestly.

"oh, ive definitely wanted to strangle jonathan," you say, writing down a new shipment receipt while the boy next to you doodles.

steve rolls his eyes. "old married couple squabbling doesnt count. im talking, like, full on betrayal and hurt here. you guys are always so... you, and it has to be an act."

jonathan snorts. "shouldve seen the fights we had last year. surprised y/n didnt kill me with her bare hands."

"i dont believe you."

"no, hes right." you look up at steve. "he threw a jacket at my face last year and then told me we werent family the night he took those pictures of nancy. then cried in my arms like a day later."

steve stares at you, shocked.

"i also then slept in nancys bed and lied about it. and tried leaving you behind a few times."

"that you did," you flick jonathans ear, causing him to wince in pain. "you deserved that."

"i did."

during this entire exchange, steve hasnt said a single word. hes still stunned, baffled by the fact that jonathan could be so cruel to someone so wonderful.

"wait a second," he looks between you and jonathan. "and youre still friends?"

"yeah." you both say at the same time.

steve cant fucking believe it. you do anything and everything for jonathan, that much is obvious, and sure. steve has seen jonathan do small acts of kindness towards you, devote the same back, but to throw a jacket at you and belittle you? and now here he is, joking about it alongside you. as if it was all okay in the end.

"youre too nice sometimes, y/n." the words leave steves lips before he can stop them. once he realizes what hes said, he looks up at jonathan and panics. "sorry, man. im sure you guys talked it out and... yeah."

jonathan shrugs. "no, youre right. she is and i was dick."

"im right here, you know."

steve winces. "sorry."

"its fine, honestly." you go back to scribbling shipment orders. "i am indeed too nice, but i dont ever really see the point in holding a grudge? i mean, jonathan apologized and i understood the stress he was under. sure, it didnt erase all the hurt he caused, but after almost dying immediately after being mad at him for not including me in something... i dont know. it felt silly to hold onto that anger after. childish, even."

jonathan and steve share a look, for once both seeming to think the same thing.

shes too good.

you hate that they do this. you hate that people view your kindness as a weakness. after the hell youve been through, long before monsters even came to hawkins, youve learned the hard way just how rare kindness is.

now you try to be kind to everything and everyone, no matter what it may cost you.

the kindness is yours, no one elses.

and if that makes you weak, then at least it made you better.

you tear two pieces paper from your notebook, scrunch them up into balls, and then throw them at steve and jonathan. "stop pitying me. im kind and i love that aspect of myself. i dont care if it makes me vulnerable or pathetic. its a piece of me, and i wouldnt change it. if you dont like it, then that belittles me even more than emotional outbursts ever could."

jonathan sighs. "youre right, bug. youre a very kind and lovely person and its what makes you a joy to be around, paper balls and all."

steve plays along. "definitely a better super power than spider-man, dare i say."

"okay, lets not get ahead of ourselves now," you giggle, appreciative of both the boys. they may not understand or like the way you view the world, but theyre at least trying.

its all you could ask for.

even if steve later on that day pulls you aside to whisper, "i think i can kick jonathans ass this time, if you ever need it."

and its enough.

[ask-obt]

I'm curious, if gender is so fluid and easily "switchable" for lack of a better word, what exactly makes someone in OBT gay or straight? For example if Rune transitioned into a boy, aura and everything, would Dielle still fancy her (him)? I'm guessing no, but I have trouble wrapping my head around it. (I promise this a good-faith question. I'm pan so gender identity doesn't really register with me when it comes to who I'm attracted to, haha.)

// the short, canon answer is that it's for the same reason folks might have preferences in partner's irl! while we can't all magically change our voices or physical attributes at will, gender irl is as fluid as you'd like to make it. and just like irl, sometimes folks have a partner who decides to change their identity, which can either lead to an expanded sexuality from their partner, or their preferences remain the same and the parties part ways. and the longer, me-pondering-the-sociological-aspect-of-gender-in-my-pokemon-fanfiction answer is... there technically isn't even any reason to have gender in OBT's world in the first place. I think it's pretty obvious that OBT's world doesn't have a lot of hyper-feminine or hyper-masculine culture present, especially considering pokemon in OBT don't have any biological markers to decide gender at birth. it truly just goes off of vibes B) it's not really a world where pokemon are told "you should man up" or "you throw like a girl", because, well, the more pressing matters at hand are all the different species in the world. and when there are so many drastic physical traits that can be seen between pokemon of a shared species thanks to hybrids/subspecies, gendered traits are pretty rarely taken into consideration. more accurately, there shouldn't be a gender binary in OBT... but as the human author writing for a human audience that live in a gender binary, I instinctively gave pokemon genders and pronouns and such because that's the world I live in. maybe if I did OBT over again I'd do away with gender entirely! for now though, I get that itch scratched by other PMD fanworks like Anamnesis, which has many anthology stories featuring nonbinary pokemon characters

[mccoymccoymccoy]

Bones - Sweetheart

A/N: this was written with aos bones in mind but i think it works either way! :]

Word count: 2059

Even the rhythmic beeping of the various instruments within the sickbay was irritating you today. It was slow, lonely, and cold; you’d been simply sitting at Dr. McCoy’s desk playing a memory game with the computer for half the day. For the last hour, though, you’d gotten every answer wrong. 

“Where was the last Federation ship found after being reported missing?” It felt like there was a thick smoke preventing your brain from figuring out the answer, but you tried: “Torman V.”

“Negative. Pollux V.”

You sighed. At least I got the number right. That counts for somethin’, doesn’t it?

Taking your head out of your hands, you instead crossed them on the desk and laid your head down on them. “Computer, end game.” The computer stayed silent. As did you, for the next half an hour or so until Dr. McCoy came back. You considered yourself and Bones to be good friends, the two of you were practically inseparable- now being an obvious exception. The two of you worked the same shift for as long as you’d been on the Enterprise, and even before that, you’d been… well, more or less, drinking buddies at the academy. 

Today he’d gone down to a planet, alongside the captain and a few other nurses, to take care of a medical emergency. They left before your shift started. Why he didn’t wake you to go along was confusing, did he not want you there? Was it biased? Is he upset with you? You sighed, tracing little patterns onto the desk idly when the door opened. 

“Y/N! We’re back!” You couldn’t tell who spoke to you, just that it wasn’t Leonard. You didn’t respond, just mumbled and nodded against your arms. You heard shuffling and breathing and equipment being put down, and you closed your eyes. He musta’ had to stay with the Captain, you concluded to yourself in dismay. You didn’t understand why being away from him was so devastating, it’s not like you’ve never had to stay here alone all day before! The only thing you could think of was it was amplifying an already bad mood, but you weren’t upset at anyone or anything either. You just felt… empty. 

And now you felt… warm? There was something warm on your back. 

“Not gonna welcome us back, Y/N?” Bones cooed. Peeking through one eye, you found the energy to lift a corner of your mouth into a small smile for the good doctor, who was doing the same down at you. It was, evidently, his hand on your back, and he was leaning against his other hand which was resting next to you on the table. He was like a big wall, creating a space for just the two of you there. Though you were internally overjoyed, it just wouldn’t show through. “‘Course, doc,” you said quietly, “welcome back.” He frowned slightly.

“Somethin’ wrong?” He moved in more. Taking his hand from your back to lean closer against the desk on his forearm immediately bought back the cold empty feeling from earlier. You sat up and turned in the chair to face him, but looked down at his hand hanging off the edge of the table. You swivelled the chair side to side, anxious to just get to talk to him, knowing it won’t be now.

“Nothing really. Just been lonely without you here all day. Not much to do, y’know. I played games with the computer for most of the time.”

“Sorry ’bout that, doll. We had our hands full down there for longer than we thought we would. Maybe I could’ve used you there after all.” You looked up at that to see him smiling down at you again, but you couldn’t say anything. He used affectionate nicknames on you all the time, and every time, it made your heart skip a beat. You knew it was natural for him, not necessarily intending anything, but you couldn’t help but get lost in his words sometimes. Putting your head back on an arm on the desk, you started to play with Leonard’s hand with your free one. God, how you loved his hands. Bones watched you silently for a few moments while you mustered up the courage to speak again.

“Why did you leave me here? Did I do something?” A sigh came from him as an initial response.

“No, you didn’t do anything. You needed the rest. I’ve seen you all spaced out recently, it isn’t like you. I knew you wouldn’t agree to take the day off if I’d told you to, so I took the opportunity as soon as it came up. Pretty lucky it did, too- I was gettin’ pretty damn close to lockin’ you up in your quarters.”

A blush crept onto your face, and you hoped he wasn’t looking too closely. 

“Mighty kind of you, doc,” you quipped sarcastically, smiling. He laughed, but quietly- or intimately, as your brain twisted it. His other hand came up to your chin and pulled your face up gently so he could look at you, which then definitely would’ve shown off the red on your cheeks like fine paintings at a gallery.

 “Y/N, you’re taking tomorrow off as well. No objections. Sitting here won’t have done you much good if you were just worrying about us gettin’ back.” 

A crude mix of warmth and dread began to spread through your stomach. “But-” 

“No buts, darlin’. If I see you here tomorrow- or anywhere else for that matter- I will personally drag you back to your room. Is that clear?” Nodding in defeat, you looked down again, if only to hide the furious colour returning to your face from the thought of what he said. 

“Doctor, could you come review the medical log?” Much to your dismay, Bones sighed and gave a quick “Be right over.” As he started to move, you grasped his hand instead of just hovering over it. “Bones, wait.”

You bit your lip. Why were you getting so nervous? You’d never been nervous about him before. You sat up again but didn’t release his hand. “Dinner later? Dinner and chess or somethin’?”

He looked absolutely delighted, despite it being a regular occurrence. Your stomach fluttered when he turned his hand over in yours to lace your fingers together. 

“Absolutely.” He kissed your forehead, then flashed you a little smirk before letting go of your hand and going to join the nurse in the other room, leaving you flushed a bright red. That man sure knew how to make you anticipate.

All that you could think about for the rest of the day was him kissing your forehead. Years of knowing Leonard had proven he was a sweetheart, but you’d never truly felt it as solidly as then. The closest thing you could think of was any hug from him- he’d wrap you up tightly, and everything would feel peaceful for once. You’d never thought of it as romantic, though. Maybe you did, but didn’t realize it? As your brain was tearing every aspect of your friendship to shreds to analyze it, Bones snuck up behind you.

“Y/N, we goin’?” You spun around in the chair and stood up, smiling. “Mmhm,” you hummed. It hadn’t quite registered how close he was standing, you realized, as you were just a few inches apart. “Everyone else left a little while ago,” he said quietly. “Oh? How long?” You were more curious as to why he’d waited until you were alone. “Not very,” he answered, picking up your hands and stepping in a bit closer. Barely a breath between you now, you looked up. His eyes met yours and filled you with that exact warmth you felt from his hand on your back earlier. “And what’s a sweetheart like you done, waiting for everyone to leave before cornering me?” You smirked up at him and thought you might’ve seen a hint of blush on his face for a change.

“Cornering you? Is that what this is?” His words were soft, barely above a whisper. 

“I’m not sure,” you responded just as quietly. “Is it?”

“It can be.” His voice was rough, low. He moved a hand to cup your cheek- and he kissed you. Barely more than a peck, he pulled away quickly, but you reached a hand up behind his neck to stop him and pull him back. You couldn’t believe you hadn’t realized sooner how you felt about him. 

He pulled away again, and before you could do anything to bring him back, he walked you backward and against the desk, where he picked you up and sat you on it. He stood there for a moment, taking you in with his eyes, bringing his hands up to brush your arms gently. You grabbed his wrists just before his lips met yours again. “Leonard, though this does seem quite promising, perhaps we could continue this after dinner?”

He rested his forehead against yours and smiled, warm breath tickling your face. His arms wrapped around your waist, and you did the same, reaching up his back. “Perhaps we can.” He pulled you off the desk and into him tightly before letting go, though still holding onto your hand to lead you to the rec room, as if you didn’t know where it was. 

You walked silently, both of your thoughts consumed by the other. In a few minutes, you got to deck five’s rec room and sat down after getting something to eat from the food dispenser. It was quiet, there were only two or three other people in the room, and not near the two of you. “Why now?” You asked.

Bones looked at you, confused, then it clicked. “Just felt right, I guess. I care about you a lot and needed to make sure you knew it. Y’think I wanted to leave you here? No. I missed you just as much as you said you did me. More, even, possibly.”

You could only stare at him in response. A smile crept onto your face, and God you just wanted to kiss him again. “How’d you know I wouldn’t, like, punch you or somethin’?” He looked up from his plate and laughed. “Are you kidding?” You shook your head. If you hadn’t realized your feelings until just recently, how had he? He sighed, not in a frustrated way. “It’s been obvious for a while. I thought you’d realize how I felt, too, to be honest. I tried to make it obvious.”

“I don’t always pick up on the obvious.”

“Clearly.”

“How long?” You wondered if he’d known longer than you did. He smiled. “‘Bout a year now. Probably earlier.”

“Really? I didn’t realize until today, really.”

“You don’t always pick up on the obvious.”

You chuckled. “Clearly.”

The two of you talked about how you felt about each other for the next hour. You learned he’d liked you for the better half of your time knowing each other now, and that he didn’t want to risk losing you as his best friend if anything did go wrong in a confession. You learned that he never shut up about you when he wasn’t with you, that Jim was getting sick of his lovesick babbling, and Spock had learned to tune him out entirely when he chose to start it up again. You learned that he was even sweeter than you ever thought you knew, and that you were the closest to being in love you’d ever been, if not already. 

Eventually, however, you decided to finally leave the rec room for something a little more private, despite it being empty aside from you. Once inside Bones’ room, he motioned to his desk, to which you tipped your head to the side in question. He smirked. “Care to sit?” You accepted, grinning, and hopped up onto the desk. He stood in front of you, leaning in to kiss your neck, but you grabbed his chin to bring his face up to yours instead. You kissed him promptly, deeply, moving your other hand to wrap around his torso as he moved his from your hips to your waist. He brought a hand up to grab your hair and gently wedged himself between your legs. 

“Shit,” you whispered into his neck. “I’ll definitely need tomorrow off, now.”

[bunny-hoodlum]

Asynchronous With You: Ch 6

ship: naruhina

rating: teen (quite possibly mature or explicit later)

tags: Modern Day AU, Foster Siblings, Family, Angst, Unrequited Love, Poor Communication, Missed Opportunities

summary: An awkward journey full of self-denial and missed moments between two foster siblings. Perhaps their love will find the right timing someday.

"I think everyone should know," she said.

They were walking the usual route to their high school, the train station coming up ahead. Naruto kept a protective though furtive gaze on Hinata as he walked behind her on the steps.

He swore she's never modified her skirt. It would be against the dress code she's forced to protect. So he has no idea why it feels like he's seeing more of her than usual.

"Know what?"

Usually he's already doing this, because he's worried about perverts. Even in grade school, he was worried. If it weren't for their teachers educating them on Stranger Danger, he probably would have had to do it himself.

He had to learn it the hard way before Kurenai-obasan took him in, but so did Neji apparently. That's why he's gotten good at being less obvious with his suspicion, and also why he can better tell apart intent based on their body language.

He used to perceive everything around him to be potentially malicious. He never realized the toll that had been taking on him until Neji taught him how to really see.

He stood close behind her on the platform as they waited.

"That we're fosters."

A burst of wind shot through the platform, ruffling overcoats and business suits and whipping pleated skirts and loose hair in a sudden frenzy.

The PA announced the train's arrival, and it wheezed to a stop soon after.

He observed Hinata as she flattened her skirt down and smoothed her bangs, but none of it registered in his brain.

It was simply auto-pilot for him to follow her onto the train, then using his larger frame to block the other passengers from nearing his little sister.

Right. His foster sister.

In all of their nine years together, they've never told anyone. It wasn't that it seemed weird, it just… never occurred to them?

But now it did seem pretty weird.

"Why, though? In a couple years, it's not going to matter anymore."

She turned her face against her shoulder to look at him, but he didn't know what she was thinking. It was the same schooled features she put on last night when visiting Neji, like there was a one-way mirror and only she could see through him.

Then she looked away.

"You're not going to introduce a girlfriend to Kurenai one of these days?"

"Hmm?" The suggestion bloomed in his mind and quickly withered. The idea wasn't… very appealing. Something about inviting judgment onto his life and stuff. He defends himself in every aspect but at home, and he'd rather keep coasting on the good thing he's got. "Dunno. Hadn't ever thought about it."

He certainly wasn't going to introduce any of the one's he's taken to bed when the apartment was empty. He's rarely done it with the same girl twice, mainly because he can't help but lose interest.

He blames it on sexual incompatibility.

"Well, I know I will."

He misses the melancholy hedging around her words, and latches onto the opportunity for an easy ribbing.

"You're gonna bring a girlfriend over?" he's happy she shoots him a look so that she can see his corny grin, otherwise he worried she might've mistaken him for serious.

He's nonplussed by the severity of her glare, but then she says "Maybe when you're not around," and he no longer knows what to think.

"Wait, what? Hinata?" He's craning left and right in hopes of catching a smirk or a giggle from her, but she's evasive. Has she? "Hinata, are you--?" And since third grade she said? "Also, what's that supposed to mean 'when I'm not around'? Huh? Hey, what's that supposed to mean 'when I'm not around'?? Hinata???"

"We're getting off topic--"

"Bullshit! I have questions!"

She ignored him.

"I vote to tell our friends that we're fosters. And I'd like to have it taken care of during Lunch. What's your vote?"

Is this what she sounds like during her Public Morals Committee meetings? Because it was doing something to him.

Oh, right. She wanted an honest answer.

But… "What do you get out of announcing this? I mean, aside from knowing how to introduce me in the future or whatever. Have you thought this through at all?"

What's the rest of the school going to say?

The guys who share their skin mags with him might get wary and reject him. The girls he's dumped might try to get to him through her. Teachers might give up on disciplining him, essentially offloading their responsibilities onto her as both Public Morals Committee and his sister. And he wasn't having any of that shit again.

All kinds of things could bite them in the ass one way or another.

She hasn't replied to him at all, and he thinks she's upset again, but he has to make his point.

"Hinata, the way things are now isn't broken, so what are you trying to fix?"

"It would help me."

"Huh? How? With what?" He waited, and she was silent. A drop of dread sank in his chest for her. "So something is wrong," He leaned in closer, causing her to shrink. He sighed. "Hinata, for someone who wants the world to know we're fosters, you sure don't seem willing to rely on me like a sibling."

"I don't favor Neji-niisan over you."

"Yeah, well, you don't have to," Tension clutched at their throats. "People always have more history with their blood. I can't really compete, y'know?"

He can't compete at all, actually.

Sometimes he thinks his only true brother is Sasuke, but he still wants to work at this. She just has to let him.

"I'm sorry. I just thought it would be less lonely if we could talk to each other normally again. And we only see each other at school these days, so…"

He envisioned her waving to him in the halls between periods, or her having a reason to cheer him on during a deadlift tournament. It would prevent people from making the wrong idea about them.

Damn, he felt stupid now.

"Fine!" He intoned with mock-annoyance. "If it'll make you happy."

She looked over her shoulder again, and what she found was his warm, supportive smile.

________________________

Hinata gathered her friends, Kiba, Shino, Ino and Sakura.

And he gathered his friends, Sasuke, Shikamaru, and Chouji.

Ino had tsked in distaste when she saw Sasuke, had gone as far as to drag Sakura away so that the others sat in-between them. He caught some sort of nickname from her lips, but wasn't sure what she had really said.

As Naruto stood before them alongside Hinata, his gaze fell on the skinny lad scribbling away at his sketchbook, and immediately his fight instinct was switched on.

"What's your monochromatic ass doing here??! Did anyone invite him?!" He jabbed a finger in Sai's direction.

The monotone, softboy, little creep didn't even look up.

"I'm making a record of these proceedings for posterity," he lifted the sketchpad and flipped it around.

Inkified Naruto was pointing right back at him with an agape snarl. Sai then proceeded to show everyone else individually, and they all cracked up, one by one.

Ino was absolutely dying. Stomach-clutching and tears rolling, the whole nine yards. She snatched the sketchpad from Sai and begged if she could keep it.

"Whaddya want that for??" Naruto interrogated. He was so about to punch Sai and throw his art supplies in the pool. This was Hinata's announcement and the softboy was ruining it.

Ino mockingly tilted the sketchbook side to side. "Something to keep your ego in check, Charato."

Hinata faintly snorted. He wasn't sure until he saw how she had her face turned around and her shoulders were lightly trembling.

He frowned at her, feeling betrayed.

"Ahhhh, alright, enough! Me and Hinata have gathered you all here for a reason! So shut up and listen! Hinata, tell them!"

Hinata jolted out of her humor, her face flushing as though this were the first time she's done public speaking.

"Uh, Uhm… Naruto-kun and I… we're foster siblings. We, uh… we live together," Hinata froze up under their collective stares. With a stiff smile, she half-heartedly sang "Ta-da," and punctuated it with rather embarrassed jazz hands.

"And as our friends, you're the first to know," Naruto added. "Also we don't care if the whole school finds out. So don't worry, we're not sharing this out of confidentiality."

Their collective shock evaporated rather quickly.

Sakura was the first to speak. "Well, that answers a lot of questions. And raises plenty more." She ended it with a growl and a glare. That accusatory look irked him.

"Feel free to ask away! I've got nothin' to hide!"

Sakura flattened the back of her skirt as she rose up like a dignitary representing The House of Hyuuga. And then like a certain video game attorney, she pointed at him.

"I always wondered why you obsessively protected Hinata in the past, but never showed any romantic initiative towards her. Now I have to ask, knowing the sex maniac that you are: Do you ever sneak into her bedroom?"

"No," He answered unconvincingly. He looked at the jury one by one, unsure how much of their scrutiny was sincere or misperceived. Sasuke was leaning forward, arms circling around his knees. He looked a little too interested in the idea of him and Hinata… doing things… "I-I've never done that! I would never do that! Hinata's special to me, okay?! You've got a filthy fuckin' mind, Haruno!"

"Me?! You've tried to sneak into the female locker rooms!" Sakura took off her shoe and slugged it at him. "Multiple times!"

Naruto hunched up and twisted away as the shoe smacked his shoulder and bounced away.

Hinata moved in between him and the one-woman mob. "Okay, this is getting out of hand--"

"I will never fucking do that to Hinata. I was in an orphanage for six years. And they're not all run by saints."

Dammit.

This was way more than he ever wanted to share.

He took a few steps back before turning tail. He jogged downhill as fast as he could.

What was he doing?

Uzumaki Naruto doesn't run away.

But it was either that, or… have them watch him cry.

________________________

AN: So this is missing a scene cuz I cut it. I might not use it anymore, and instead I'll see if the backstory I had expanded upon will be worked in later on in the plot. Because before I started writing this, I had anticipated that things would actually get cuter from here on out. (Also anticipating that I may work in at least one smutty chapter in the future. Yeah, it's totally diverging from this fic's original concept when I posted it for Secret Santa, but that's okay!) And the total Ego Death I unexpectedly wrote just feels kind of Deus Ex Machina in a way to Naruto's vices. I just can't have him maturing right now. That's a plot route I don't have any material for, and I don't quite see it as not defeating the other stuff I had planned to write. (I'm also happy to state that I'm starting to get a better picture of how to condense this content on AO3, because I honestly feel like this could be Ch. 2 now. :B I mean, it's too short on its own if I do, but it kinda has that hook for the rest of the story.)

I hope you enjoyed this update! 😘💕💕💕

[clairecrive]

“Why?” Alfie Solomons x reader (part 2)

You’ve asked for it and here it is! I’m not too sure about this but oh well. Hope you like it, can’t wait to hear your thoughts!

Tag list: @deaflikehawkeye​, @mollybegger-blog​, @br0ck-eddie​, @innerpaperexpertcloud​. @evelynshelby​, @fandom--0verdose​, @shadow-of-wonder (let me know if you wanna be added)

“Sorry to interrupt. I need a word with the lady.” Not really minding about politeness or good manners, Alfie limped towards Y/n and Peter. Luckily for him, they were dancing at the edge of the room so he hadn’t had to walk among the crowds and their interaction could be as private as they needed it to.

They stopped dancing, facing the intruder. Peter didn’t even acknowledge him, turning to y/n instead. He knew who Alfie was and what was his role in this game, still, he waited for y/n's approval. Y/n didn't think that Alfie would actually come up to her. Nonetheless, she was curious about what he wanted to say to her so she nodded, letting Peter know that it was okay for him to leave her alone with Alfie. 

When Peter left, with a nod of his head Alfie gestured for y/n to follow him outside. He waited to be out on the balcony, with the doors locked behind them, before speaking. 

"I see you've moved on." 

"People die of heartbreaks only in books, Alfie. What did you expect me to do?" 

Alfie knew that she was right and that making her feel bad about being with another guy was hypocrite of him. He had been the one that refused her, after all. Still, he had his reasons and his lack of feelings toward her wasn't one of them. 

"You know that I care about you, right?" Unable to look at her nor to address the matter heavy on his heart, he settles to state the obvious to stall. 

"I like to think that you did, yes. Even if only for a little while." She said throwing away her intention to keep any kind of conversation between her and him, brief and civil. 

"What are you talking about?" Arching his brow, Alfie turned to her and even though y/n was not facing him she knew that if she was she'd see a hint of hurt and offence in his eyes. 

"Well, the beginning of our relationship wasn't ideal, to put it lightly," she recalled the harsh welcome he gave her when his men brought her in his office thinking that she was some sort of spy, "then it has evolved. From boss and employee to friends." She decided not to mention the fact that towards the end of it for one of them there was the desire of taking it to the next step. 

"For a while, I actually thought that you cared about me. Then some whispers would spread about you and the company you'd keep and I was forced to reconsider my opinion, of course. Not that I want you to feel bad about it or anything, Alfie. You can't control your heart, that's what they say." Trying to put their relationship in a few words was very easy and y/n was sure that she didn't make it justice. However, she had never been good at being concise and keep it short.

"I didn't take ya for the kind of girl to listen to voices and whispers, love." 

"I'm not Alfie but you forget that we were living together at that time and no matter how much I wanted to, the scent and the lipstick stains were hard to miss." She chuckled sourly. 

"No matter, it had nothing to do with you nor our relationship." He simply stated making y/n roll her eyes and grew restless. 

"Is there something you wanted to tell me, Alfie? I'm not in the mood to walk down memory lane, you understand." 

"So eager to go back to your date, I see. Go ahead, I'm not forcing you to stay." Turning his back to the balcony windows they had come from, Alfie set his eyes on the garden below, already regretting his choice of words and even the decision to come to this ball in the first place. 

Y/n, on the other hand, was rather confused. Her eyes were stuck on Alfie's figure hoping to find some clarity. Why was he acting so strange? Like it was him who was hurt between the two, him who had his heart broken, him who had to go on knowing that the love of his life didn't return his feelings.

"What's going on, Alfie?" 

"Why are you still here, y/n? Thought you couldn't stay away from the bloke any longer." The acid in his tone was hard to miss, and again y/n was left to wonder why he was treating her like it was her fault they were apart. 

"I'm sorry, wasn't you that said that you couldn't be with me, offering none explanation whatsoever? If I'm not wrong, it's you that pushed me away because you felt nothing for me Alfie, so why the hell are you treating me like it's my fault?" Addressing the elephant in the room, she couldn't help but get worked up while she spoke. 

"Only because I told you that we couldn't be together doesn't mean that I don't want to." He mumbled. 

“Then why are you acting like I don't love you back? It was you that never made a move, Alfie, so I thought that you were restrained by your religion. Then I discovered that indeed you never let it stop you before, don’t even try to deny it, Alfred. So I’ve come to the conclusion that you weren’t interested in me like that and I mean, there’s nothing I could do about it, right? Then you go ahead and shower me with little kind gestures that yes, I’ve appreciated endlessly but that also confused me to no end. Eventually, I confronted you about it and we know how that went. And now here you are, standing in front of me, telling me that you love me…”

“I was trying to be proper.”

“Oh please Alfie, you’re anything but.”

“I know that very well love, don’t I? Just were doing it for you.”

“I’ve told you, a thousand times, that I don’t give a fuck about these social conventions of yours. They mean nothing to me and you knew that. I reckon you almost fainted when you saw me wearing pants, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, it was then that I understood that you’ll be the death of me.”

“You don’t have to put up with me anymore Alfie. You’re not bound to me.” Stating the reality of facts never hurt y/n more.

“Are you bullshitting me? I’ve just told you that I love you, right, ain’t it? You’re mine.”

“I know I am. The thing is that you’re not mine.”

Alfie takes a step in her directions, not able to bear anymore the distance between them and the situation in general. Time for words is over, now it’s time to act. Smiling with mirth at her words, knowing very well that she was wrong, he opts to go about it with a more practical approach. Gently putting his hands on the base of her neck, slowly trailing up towards her cheeks. The pud of his thumb gently caresses her lower lip, parting them slightly. Y/n’s mind had completely gone blank and retired from the mission leaving her standing there to completely surrender to her emotions. Her breathing accelerated, her heart tumbed wildly in her chest, her skin set completely on fire by Alfie’s touch. Countless were the nights when she dreamt about this very moment and such were all those times when Alfie got one step close to kissing her but never did, frustrating her to no end.

Softly bumping their noses together, Alfie uses the hold on her face to draw her impossibly close to him. When y/n closed her eyes in anticipation of his kiss, he took a moment to really take her in. Oh, how he’d missed her. 

“I am yours.” He confessed and before she could even register his words, his mouth had taken on the task of showing just how much he meant was he said. Kissing her felt like finally getting that thing you didn’t know you needed, like a sudden revelation that all of this time he had been fooling himself when he would affirm that he was fine. He wasn’t. It really makes you think how a person can change your perspective on life so drastically. But Alfie wasn’t sure it was a bad thing. The total opposite actually. And y/n could only agree with him. Her life was turned upside down even before Alfie had come into her life. However, she wasn’t sure if she’d survived without him. Quite literally but of course, metaphorically too. He was like that force that comes in and with just his presence, he restored the balance in her and her life. Despite how messy Alfie really was. She would have never thought that a man could mean so much to her, to feel like she had been drawing all this time that she’d been without him, finally coming to the surface for some air when his lips had touched hers.

Contrary to popular belief, Alfie could be as gentle and delicate as he needed to. Sometimes, he was even the softest of the two. That had always amused y/n, knowing how rough and violent but at the same time kind and cautious he could be. She found that this aspect of his character rightly found his place in the kaleidoscope that was Alfie’s personality. He was such a complex man, so bright and intelligent, so quick-witted and well-spoken that really, she couldn’t avoid falling for him. She often wondered how come some other woman hadn’t before her. Well, no mind, she was grateful for it really. The man kissing her, ravishing her with such passion almost as if he’d want to impress himself on her, was hers. And she wouldn’t want it any other way.

When the need for air became unbearable for both of them, Alfie pulled away, still keeping a kiss away from her. 

“So, was that convincing enough?” He asked referring to her unwillingness to trust him.

“What changed?” Still heavy breathing, she ignored the unfamous smirk on his face and his question.

“I realized I couldn’t fucking stand the thought of another man touching you.” Men. So predictable. She couldn’t help but roll her eyes at him. Of course, he’d come back to mark his territory as soon as he felt it was threatened. Still, that wasn’t a good enough answer. It didn’t explain all his reservations about being with her.

“That’s cheesy as hell Alfie, but I’ll take it. For now.” She’ll ask him another time. Now, it wasn’t the time for words, after all.

“So, wanna go inside and tell that bloke that he can kindly fuck off?” He said alluding to Peter. Y/n couldn’t help but laugh, she knew that her tactic would work.

“It surprises me that you haven’t noticed yet, but if you turn around you’ll see that he already has.” She simply explained. Peter too had a lady he wanted to arouse an action from and as it had for her, their plan worked just fine. He was dancing with her just now, she could see them from the balcony they were standing.

“Perfect, then let’s get the fuck out of here.” He proposed.

“But first,” he stopped and before taking a step toward the exit he pulled her into another kiss as if to remind him that this was true. It had happened. She was his just as he was hers.

[thegayfromrulid]

Kawahara and Trauma: by me, who has PTSD

So, the SAO fandom (and related Accel World and very small Isolator fandoms) has a pretty mixed bag of fans, but I’ve noticed I’m not alone in reading and watching it for its take on PTSD. These three stories all have exciting, fun elements and stories that can be loved by a large number of people, so it isn’t like trauma is their only selling point. So, AJ- why the big deal about PTSD in Kawahara’s writing? (Spoilers for Sword Art Online, Accel World, and The Isolator peppered throughout the post. TW for various mentions of traumatic events.)

Firstly, why is this an important topic?

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that stems from experiencing something terrifying. That terrifying thing can be what people tend to think of when they think of the term PTSD (i.e., being in a war zone) but it can also be something that many people don’t typically find terrifying (i.e., death of a family member from illness). 

Representation in media is important for many people, so accurately portraying or portraying certain aspects of people’s lives is important to those people. For me, seeing PTSD handled the way it is in Kawahara’s works is very special to me, who both has PTSD and has loved ones with PTSD.

So, what’s so special about Kawahara’s takes?

Kawahara handles it in a very varied way. Not all of his characters have equivalent trauma, nor do they all respond to trauma the same way. Their PTSD manifests in different ways and stems from different things. Let’s break this down by series.

Sword Art Online

Kirito, whose perspective is the most intimate in the series because the writing usually focuses on his first person perspective but others’ third person perspective, has the most detailed image of PTSD. He’s been shown to have nightmares in the Phantom Bullet arc, noticeably gets very angry and switches into a fight or flight mode when triggered, and has even panicked when he thought he killed someone. 

We’ve seen him shaking after running into Death Gun and connecting him to Laughing Coffin. When he fights Fanatio with Eugeo in the novel, Eugeo notices he turns uncharacteristically panicky as he realized he might have killed her. And in the Fairy Dance arc, when cornered on the bridge underground with Leafa, his switch flips because he refuses to die and doesn’t yet get that he can’t physically die in a game. 

But we also have Sinon- who reacts a bit differently to trauma. Recall that seeing guns make her physically sick in a way that Kirito never deals with. She throws up, has to hide the image of the gun before she feels worse. Her fingers freeze on the trigger of even a virtual gun when it gets pretty bad. That freezing up, nauseated reaction is in stark contrast to Kirito’s more lively outbursts. 

They aren’t the only characters dealing with trauma, though. Asuna is mentioned in the first arc to have nightmares that keep her awake, and she plows through her trauma ignoring it to the point of violent insanity. She pushes her issues down and very rarely do we, the audience, see them come out. She’s shown to have a flashback to her near-death in SAO in Ordinal Scale, and when she begins to lose her memories, we see her have another unsettling dream. But she deals with her frustration and trauma quietly, away from Kirito, which he respects and chooses to give her distance because she needs it.

Klein, even, who usually doesn’t get much attention, is shown to have a panic attack in Ordinal Scale when Eiji fights him. We don’t get much of a view on how Klein deals with it, but we do know that his panic triggered quite a bit of screaming from the one scene we did get. 

Lisbeth is revealed to deal with trauma shortly in Alicization, when she addresses fellow gamers in ALO. She mentions the nightmares (a key depiction of PTSD in SAO) and the therapy she and the other students have to go through. She’s a very “push it to the back of your mind and make a quip” sort of character, too. Like Asuna, she focuses on something else, but for her, she’s doing her best to get others to laugh with her.

There’s also more negative portrayals, such as Laughing Coffin/Death Gun members who succumb to violence and delusions. They refuse to cope with their trauma and turn to violent outlets. We also see Eugeo, whose trauma numbly drives him forwards, and can lead him to unpleasant actions, such as his move to kill Deusolbert and his intent to die fighting Administrator. His trauma gives him those intrusive thoughts of violence and suicidal behavior, including the feeling of being unloved. 

Accel World

The crux of Accel World is that avatars are basically born from mental scars (trauma). Avatars are trauma worn on the sleeves of the players, so while they aren’t obvious to other players, they are painfully obvious to the individual controlling them. I won’t cover every single character, since the whole point is that they’re all traumatized here, but I will make some key points.

First off, we’ll start with Haruyuki himself. This is the big point- unlike the traumas we see in SAO, Haruyuki’s trauma might seem a bit meek. His trauma stems from years of bullying. His self-confidence was eaten away at and he cowers and wants to flee the bullying, giving birth to Silver Crow. Portraying the results of bullying as trauma is SUCH a big deal, and it’s pretty obvious why.

A lot of people scoff at PTSD stemming from situations they don’t see as traumatic in the real world, and there are a few times I can think off where Haruyuki wonders if bullying really is a mental scar when compared to the traumas of other Brain Burst players. But Kawahara is showing us that PTSD isn’t just a condition for people in life or death situations. It can apply to someone who was bullied just the same. 

Haruyuki’s trauma births an avatar the same way Kuroyukihime’s did: her trauma comes from her family. She’s cut off from them and feels unloveable and forms an untouchable avatar from that feeling. 

Some of the kids in Accel World had traumas that stemmed from something physical- Utai has her aphasia. Fuko has her prosthetic legs. But others stem from personal relationships, such as feeling like friends are slipping away (Chiyuri), being orphaned (Niko), or having a lack of identity (Cobalt and Manganese from the Leonids). 

Kawahara treats all of these traumas as worthy of forming an avatar born from mental scars, which turns a story that seems filled to the brim with fanservice and fighting into something that is far more meaningful and validates traumas of all kinds. 

The Isolator

A bit of a hidden gem, for those that don’t know of it, Isolator is a sci-fi story about alien orbs that come down to Earth and implant themselves in human hosts. These orbs come in two kinds- black (Jet Eyes) and red (Ruby Eyes), and they give the hosts superhuman powers which, much like Accel World’s avatars, appear to stem from some sort of persona trauma. Jet Eyes appear to be the good guys, while Ruby Eyes are shown to have a killing intent paired with their powers and appear to be the bad guys.

The main character, Minoru, received these Jet Eye powers and was given an impenetrable shell around his body that he can activate from his breathing. The only thing that can pass through the shell is light, and the only thing it can surround is something Minoru acknowledges as part of himself. (Clothing, something he’s already holding). 

This power comes from his desire to isolate himself from other human beings after his family is murdered when he was little. He feels that forming relationships is risky because he’ll hurt if he loses someone like that again. His PTSD in this regard is very extreme and he handles it by forcing everyone out of his life, in some cases very coldly if he has to. 

On the opposite side, what makes Isolator a really engaging work is not the protagonists’ trauma- but rather the antagonists’ traumas. Each main villain of the volume until volume 5 focused very deeply on the namesake of the volume and their trauma that drives them as a Ruby Eye to kill. I’ll focus on two of my favorites because this is getting longer than anticipated.

Igniter. He was implated with the Ruby Eye as he attempted collective suicide with his family by driving his car off of a bridge into a river. He was already traumatized by his failures in life enough to think that he needed to end it, but what’s interesting is that the Ruby Eye based his powers off of the in-progress suicide attempt and not his feelings of failure and desire to die because of it. This highlights that sometimes we as people have multiple traumas that can manifest differently in ourselves or have different reactions from us. His brain registers his failed suicide as more traumatic to him than his feelings of losing everything and failing, thus the Ruby Eye feeds on his newfound fear of water.

Trancer, unlike prior Ruby Eyes in volumes 1 and 2, is a teenager. His trauma is is very particular in that he watched a friend die of something that didn’t kill him. They were locked in a freezer hiding from abusive parents, and his friend died while he survived. While the backstory is sad, it doesn’t seem all that interesting when compared to the other traumas I’ve highlighted, so let’s look at how Trancer responds to his trauma through his interactions with a Jet Eye, Olivier. 

Trancer and Olivier both are upset about the loss of a girl in their lives; for Trancer, his friend died in the freezer, and for Olivier, his sister was kidnapped by Ruby Eyes. While the reasons behind this have not yet been revealed as of volume 5, it’s clear that Trancer throws their possession of Olivier’s sister, Claire, in his face as a defense mechanism regarding his trauma. He lost his friend, therefore he took something important to Olivier to take it out on someone else: a classic example of bullying stemmed from trauma. 

What’s the main takeaway here?

Kawahara’s treatment of trauma and PTSD in his works is very diverse. He handles it in a way that I can appreciate as someone who has PTSD and has loved ones with PTSD. 

[bearpillowmonster]

Horizon Zero Dawn Review

The game that critics have been raving about for years and I just haven't played. I heard a lot of people say "this needs a movie" but they say that about any game that dares to be a little bit cinematic because I personally disagree.

That first part is rough, the story seems so in your face, predictable and bland but I think the problem is that it didn't know how to put in its exposition. I think it naturally builds up as it goes on, getting bigger and broader, it's just those first experiences that can be a slog because you're pretty much learning what style you're going to play in.

I got more or less everything I expected, crafting, a skill tree, various weapons. What I didn't expect though are dialogue options. You can choose normally up to four paths, an intelligent one, a compassionate one, and a straightforward one. You don't have to worry about the stress of trying to reach a specific ending because there's really only one, the only thing that affects it is the amount of people that are in it. So does that make the choices irrelevant? Yes and no because there are different dialogue options and like I said, which means that you can get certain characters to like you more given the option you choose but not in the same way that relationship points work and I definitely felt the draw to do that whenever I came across my first side-quest.

Side-quests are interesting, I love tracking things in games, though it's rare that you actually get the chance to do it and here you have a good amount of opportunities. Is that all though? Far from it. I actually found myself searching for side-quests because the first two were so satisfying. It really only began to show its hand a bit more after those quests. As I mentioned, there are a lot more RPG elements than I first imagined but it starts to send you on scavenger hunts, especially that Dreamwillow one, that one I actually laughed out loud at every time I was turned away. It also starts to gatekeep to where it recommends that you be a certain level which is...odd? I mean at face value it looks like you could rock basically any combat situation that isn't context sensitive. Leveling up gives you abilities but they're more like Deus Ex on that front, where it's just for preference and upgrading, not necessarily strength. The only thing you improve on offense wise basically boils down to having the right materials or units to buy weapons then a matter of finding modifications. Other than that, leveling up seems to just increase your health. It really just depends on the quest too because I'll play one above my level and be fine then play another that's actually under my level and feel stuck.

Now I only played it on normal mode so something like "Ultra Hard" is bound to be more demanding but as far as actual side quest content, I feel like they have potential but just need tweaked, give me more stuff for major characters that affects their standing with me. Rather than having each quest be contained in its own story, have it affect you later in the game, let your actions be shown, give it rewards and consequences. There are some really great side-quests but there are also some crappy ones, it doesn't pass that threshold that most RPGs fall under or anything. However, I did find myself doing side-quests at my own free will and the ones that I didn't like or couldn't do at the time, I just skipped and focused on something else, I felt a lot more freedom with this game, like I didn't feel forced to grind or do a certain number of side-quests or really do anything. It encourages you to explore and play the way you want to play and I respect the heck out of that. Maybe it's different for other players though.

Perhaps my favorite actual side thing was the Cauldrons for those who actually played this, you'll know why. For those who didn't, just know that it's cool and let it be a surprise for when you go to one. You might expect these big set-pieces and bosses like Uncharted or GoW, but it's not really like that. I genuinely think that this is more video-gamey than it lets on which certainly takes up its runtime. One addition to side-quests that I would like to see is one where you don't know it's happening. For example, in this game, you'll come across random hunters who are attacking or being attacked by machines but rather than just going on about your day and them going on about their's, I want to fight off the machine and the person say "You saved my life, my name's Jara, I live in the town nearby and want to repay you." so you go there and there's trouble so it starts up a side-quest. Now don't get me wrong, there are PLENTY of instances of people getting attacked actually being a mission but most of the time someone in town will just tell you "I haven't seen this person in a while, can you go check on them for me?" It's the art of subtlety and also just doing a good deed and getting rewarded for it. It's a conscious choice and split decision rather than just another checkmark on your list to complete.

Now I won't bother listing the characters and rating them but there's a certain aspect that has me really enthused So, Aloy is an outcast and a lot of these side missions and scenarios reflect her, you'll see the way she can relate with other characters, making it almost poetic in a subliminal kind of way. Then they add this tribal and futuristic setting to it where Aloy acts as the medium, there are parts of the game where she questions the tribe because they cut themselves off from technology and just don't know any better and we as a viewer know that but having the main character view things in 'our' lens is pretty genius. To top that off, they give her enough personality to be her own character while giving us enough power to influence her so that we ourselves can REFLECT WITH HER. It's not her character that I'm impressed with, it's the layout of the story.

So, how is the main story? It's kind of like the Flood scenario in Halo if I'm being honest. I'm not going to spoil anything but it's passable, like I said, it's not like an Uncharted and it's not like a movie. The visuals just look good at times (I took all the pictures in this review myself and so much more!). I'd call it a futuristic/tribal mix between Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Skyrim but I see elements of a lot of things. (Also since it's post apoctalypic, you find items that we see in modern day, like how they call keys, "chimes"! They think they're windchimes because there are no more cars! I love that!)

It actually does a pretty good job at being an open world considering that there are tons of things to do on your routes as well as collect but it's not so much so that it seems unfeasible, as I said, I found myself doing a good chunk of the side stuff just because it was fun to do and I'm not even close to a completionist for any game. If you mess up, healing plants will still be there. As long as you save, enemy parts will still be there. A place can be cleared out and conquered so that enemies don't come back. The actual towns are peaceful so you can't get mangled by any bots outside of scripted instances.

The graphics are pretty good but I can see some error here and there, nothing necessarily game breaking but the animations and AI are definitely janky at times. It's pretty obvious from the get-go but I'll do my best to specify and give constructive criticism on what I found wrong with certain aspects of the game. Rost is slow, like slower than walking speed but that's not to speak for all NPCs, some run, some you don't need to follow, it was really just him. I've had NPCs who fight but miss every single time on simple enemies (that might not be a bug, that might just be a funny bit that someone decided to add in). Sabretooths have jumped through walls (granted the walls were kinda broken but I'm not sure if those big boys can fit when they can barely find the entrance) I found myself jumping to a ledge or on a rope but not land it and just drop (it really boils down to loosening the hit box for that). Which to add on to that, I would like more places to climb and jump to in general (other than stupid mountains). I felt like there wasn't really enough that I could climb and the places that I could, could've been a bit more obvious that I could, maybe even make it viewable with your focus if you don't want it to be visually outstanding. There's a day and night cycle and while I like that, I found some of the contrast to be annoying because I could be staring a ladder right in the face and not even know it sometimes because it would be so dark. I'm not going to complain too much about it because I didn't turn my brightness up, I just left it at default and I would assume the PS5 version fixes some of those little things.

Now, this one is kind of a gray area: Hiking up mountains. Skyrim, Fallout, and Death Stranding went too far and gave little to no barriers. They had you looking for sweet spots that weren't there in order to cheese your way through an area either on or off a beaten path. But I would compare this to something like GTA where it's not as bad and does have its limits but might need tightened up some more because I can certainly get to places that lead to nowhere.

I've made headshots that don't make contact or damage while using precision. Part of that problem was that they could be high up in a tower (which have spikes sticking out) and I would hit ABOVE the logs, to make a headshot but since it was in that vicinity, it registered that as the spikes' hitbox so it wouldn't cause any damage and just alert the enemy (same if I was in the tower, looking down). Input lag where I hit up button on the D-Pad to regain health and I have to keep pressing it. If I had to guess, you have to meet the requirements of not taking damage, staying still, etc in order for it to actually work but it doesn't really have a reason to do that and it doesn't "tell" you that those are the requirements (as far as I know).

During the final boss, one of the enemies hit me into a rock wall, trapping me inside of it and the boss was already half health so I really didn't want to have to restart (I also didn't know how far back the checkpoint was) so I kept shooting stuff and eventually the boss destroyed the wall, allowing me to get out (timed section, by the way). There have been a few times where a tree or leaf or something is obstructing a cutscene and sometimes there will be a mech in the background screaming over the NPC talking, which I'm sure is due to the cutscenes being real-time which is still pretty impressive. Now are these errors all the time? No, not at all, I'm just pointing out that some times these things happened and that I felt it needed ironed out but I wouldn't call this half baked or an unfinished product or anything, it's nowhere near that level. I get that there are so many NPCs that it's hard to account for them all with facial animations but whenever they're talking, it seems pretty static and sometimes the lips don't line up. There's this one guy who says that he got lost in a sandstorm but he's standing in snow. Again, little nitpicks in an otherwise great game.

Now, I got this game for free as a Playstation promotion but that doesn't necessarily mean it'll be great, I played a little bit of that Ratchet & Clank reboot that was offered and I wasn't impressed, I quit after the first few worlds and was glad I didn't buy it at launch, (despite being a classic PS2 R&C fan) but we're not here to review that. I also played Abzu and loved it but it was short so it was definitely worth a play but maybe not 60$ (I actually think it's 20$ at this point though). With this game, it's the whole complete edition with DLC and everything, it has the length, so it really just boils down to "Would I have spent money on it otherwise?"

I think I would've if I knew more about it because I think it just got better and better after that first part of the game. It's marketed a bit differently than what I ended up getting but I found myself pouring hours into this game and loving it for one reason or another. I actually bought Shadow of the Colossus along with it (which is considered a cult classic) but I liked Horizon so much better, definitely worth its full price in my opinion. (So your promotion worked on me Sony, congrats) It has its problems but the potential is there and I feel like a sequel would probably iron out a lot of my troubles with it, so it's definitely a franchise worth investing into.

If you're interested in what I thought of the DLC alone (if you didn't get the Ultimate edition and are wondering if the extra content is worth it) I have a separate post that goes into that here.

[radiikill]

Coffee Shop Daydreams Chapter 1

It was around ten in the morning at Tokyo University, and Makoto Makimura was already feeling frustrated. She was looking over various notes she had compiled throughout the last couple of weeks and felt like tearing each of them to shreds. Most of the time she loved her courses, she was majoring in exercise science hoping to become a physical therapist. There were  a few classes taken in the last two years of college that made her feel the temptation to drop out, and this was one of them. It was a gen-ed health science course, but the professor was an absolute jerk which ruined everything about the class.

As a result, it felt like she was teaching herself all the concepts.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps coming towards her table. She was in one of her favorite spots in the library, secluded in a corner hidden away by various bookshelves. Not many people came to this area, so she knew who to expect. She looked up at the man’s face and greeted him with a large smile, shuffling her papers away so he’d have room to sit.

The only saving grace of this class was that she was able to study with one of her closest friends in university, Taiga Saejima. Saejima was three years her senior, though many thought he looked older. He was a large muscular man with a stern face framed by his shoulder-length hair, which made it really easy to be intimidated by him.

They met in another gen-ed course her first year of college. They were paired together for a project, and though she was a little nervous to speak to him the determination to prove herself outweighed everything else. Looking back, Makoto realized that she probably was a stuttering mess. Especially since her Japanese was still fresh, she constantly messed up terms. But, Saejima never got frustrated with her struggles.

Presently, her Japanese has improved and her friendship with Saejima was strong. Many peers were shocked that she was friends with him. Makoto’s friend Joy once told her that she has a habit of attracting rather intimidating guys. Though, despite his imposing exterior, he was actually a very soft person. He was always very kind towards her but was also not afraid to call her out when she needed to be.

“How are you Saejima-kun?” she greeted.

“Not good,” Saejima said, “I fucking hate this class.”

Makoto giggled at the bluntness, agreeing with the sentiment.

“I don’t even know why I need this,” Saejima continued, “I don’t even plan on teaching kids’ science.”

“What did you want to teach again?” Makoto asked as she jotted down more notes.

“History.”

“Sciences are a big part of history,” Makoto reasoned, “you can always go more in-depth if you know some of the concepts.”

“Fuck that,” Saejima replied, “if they want to know the details, they better be paying attention in their other classes.”

Makoto shook her head, giving a joking ‘tsk tsk.’ Even with Saejima’s blunt language, she knew he had a soft spot for kids. If they had inquiries, she knew he’d do his best to answer them. The way he talked about his younger sister proved that enough.

She really enjoyed studying with Saejima. He was smart though it took him more work to understand the concepts. Makoto was quick to understand most science concepts, but she had to put in extra effort in everything else. They were able to help each other make up for their weaknesses. These tutoring sessions were helpful for Saejima to practice his teaching, and it helped Makoto learn how to teach better. She wasn’t confident with her abilities, even when she knew what she was talking about. This resulted in a lot of criticism from Saejima varying from ‘suck it up,’ to ‘speak up’ and some other choice words. It occurred more frequently early on in their friendship. The comments were a little jarring at first, she wasn’t used to people being so blunt with her, but Makoto learned to appreciate the straightforwardness. It was a welcome change from the way people usually treated her. Always either keeping her at a distance or looking at her with obvious disdain.  

The way her classes were scheduled allowed her to get back to Kamurocho around 4 pm. If she was able to get a seat, she’d be able to complete any last-minute class readings. Ideally, she tried to get all her work done while she was on campus, but things happen and sometimes she needs to put in more work while she’s home.

Café Alps was one of her favorite places to spend her time. The ambience was nice, and the service was fantastic. It was her favorite place to go after classes and would alternate between ordering tea and coffee. Sometimes she wouldn’t order anything at all, her time would be spent getting ahead on work or just reading.

Other times she’d people watch. Like in the library, her favorite seat in the café was placed in the corner, the perfect place for a view of the café. She didn’t watch anyone specific, but she loved looking at what people were wearing, and sometimes she couldn’t help but eavesdrop on conversations. She tried not to, but sometimes the conversations just pulled her in.  

Though, she may have lied when she mentioned that she didn’t watch anyone specific. There was one man that really grabbed her interest. She was certain he grabbed everyone’s interest. He was also a regular at the café, tall and lean, with a loud personality. He had a high-pitched laugh, but his tone seemed to change drastically depending on who he was talking too. Like his personality, his outfits were equally as loud. Most of the time he wore a snakeskin jacket without a shirt on underneath, his tattoos peeking out from his shoulders, though sometimes he would change into other loud patterned shirts. Though, it was obvious that he favored the snakeskin jacket.

She didn’t mind the tacky pattern since if she was being honest with herself, he had a very nice figure. He was slim but muscular, his wide grin splitting the harsh angles of his face whenever he’d hear something particularly funny. If she looked closely, she could see the glint of his eye which seemed to have a mischievous look in it. The left eye was covered with an eyepatch, which she wondered if it was for aesthetics or not. He was very expressive in every single aspect of himself.

He commanded her attention whenever he entered the room, and she only prayed that he didn’t notice her peeking over whatever she was distracting herself with.

‘Was this a crush?’ she wondered to herself. She supposed that it was, but at the same time, she felt like it was just all in good fun. Even if it was a ‘crush’ there was a no way she’d ever talk to the guy. Maybe Joy was right, maybe she was attracted to intimidating men. Because she was sure to most people this man was a little frightening, but she couldn’t help but be curious.

But compared to him, she was so boring. She felt horribly plain.

One day she couldn’t help but listen in on a conversation he was having, with another man. They were sitting across from her so she could get a good glance at his face. He was loud, ranting about how people don’t separate their trash and that they’re the reason our environment is the way it was today. She had to hold back a laugh because it was incredibly endearing that this man was ranting about climate change and personal responsibility.

‘Smart and handsome,’ she thought to herself. Her eyes moved up from her book, wanting to get another glimpse at his face. His eye was focused on the man in front of him, engrossed in whatever conversation they were having. Makoto noticed how his hair, which was cut right above his ears, was starting to fall into his face.

She switched back to looking at his face when she met his eye.

He definitely looked directly at her, and it took all her self-control to not flinch. She glared down at her book trying to control her heart rate and the blood rushing to her face. Subtly, she tried to lower her face and raise the book a little higher. The words were not registering in her brain and she just felt so embarrassed that he saw her staring. She cursed at herself for not being careful, now she looked like a nosey woman.

Okay. Maybe this was a little bit of a crush. Just a little.

Ten in the morning, Makoto was at the library, again. Same location, same clutter of papers surrounding her. Saejima was right across from her, papers also surrounding him, but they were in more cohesive stacks. Makoto held some flashcards close to her face, trying to commit each definition to her memory.

“Does holding those cards so damn close help at all?” Saejima questioned.

Makoto let out a little laugh. She knew Saejima was bound to start getting snappy. Besides being surrounded by papers he was also surrounded by broken pencils that failed under his pressure.

“Maybe you should try it,” Makoto said, “I could tape them to you if you want?”

Saejima scoffed, not in the mood to joke around.

“At this point I’d rather you tape a bomb to me.”

She felt like they had been in the library for forever. They’ve spent the past week studying and she was starting to feel the burnout. Makoto was about to say something until Saejima beat her to it.

“I wanna get the fuck out of here,” he said.

“I do too, but we really gotta get these definitions down,” she sighed, “that was our only goal for the day.”

“How about we go somewhere else then,” he grumbled.

Makoto immediately agreed. A new spot would be refreshing. Saejima and her both lived in Kamurocho, so she suggested they go to Café Alps.

“Isn’t that the place the guy you’re stalking goes to?” Saejima asked.

“Huhhh,” she replied, “I’m not stalking him, I forgot I even told you about that.”

“Sure.” Saejima said, obviously not believing her.

“If I was stalking him, I’d follow him out of the coffee shop, but I’m not.” She was trying her best to not sound defensive; she was also already thinking about how he caught her staring a couple days ago.

Saejima shushed her and told her to get her stuff ready so they could leave. She huffed, frustrated by her friends teasing, trying to get her mind off of the guy at the café.

The day must have had different plans for her though.

She was twisting her pencil between her fingers trying to focus on the different passages, while Saejima was studying her flash cards. The change of environment was nice and the commute to Kamurocho gave them a much-needed break. Overall, she was able to focus relatively well.

Until a boisterous voice snapped her from her book. Eyepatch man came in once again, along with another young man in a white pinstripe suit. She assumed the guy in the suit was the same person he was conversing with about climate change a couple days ago. His face was more stoic than the eyepatch man, if anything he seemed to be slightly annoyed at how close he was getting.

It was amusing. She giggled and elbowed Saejima in the ribs. He glared at her, but she interrupted him before he could say anything.

“That’s the guy,” she whispered, pointing to the guy with the eyepatch. She noticed Saejima’s eyes widen, then a small smirk graced his lips. Then he started to chuckle, and it seemed like it was bound to evolve into full blown laughter.

Makoto was not expecting this reaction at all.

“Look, I get he’s a little weird looking, but you don’t need to laugh at me,” she whispered harshly.

“I just, can’t believe,” he said in between chuckles, “of all people you take interest in.”

“Geez,” she said, “I shouldn’t have told you anything.”

She appreciated that he was keeping his laughing to a reasonable volume, though it still annoyed her. Her face was already getting redder. Once he stopped, he gave her a look she didn’t recognize. It looked as if he was plotting something, and Makoto didn’t like it.

“Why are you looking at me like that,” she huffed.

“You’ll thank me later,” he responded, then he turned towards the guy with the eyepatch and yelled.

“Oi! Majima!”

The guy with the eyepatch, Majima, turned towards them. His eyes met Saejima’s and his mouth split into a wide grin. He gave a wave and started to walk towards them. Makoto felt like she might pass out, not expecting this turn of events at all.

“What the hell,” she whispered to Saejima.

[bunchofbooks]

It’s Time for Kyrsten’s Opinion: Flowers in the Attic Review Edition

Flowers in the Attic is the first book in the Dollanganger series but VC Andrews. It follows the Dollanganger family; the four children, Chris, Cathy, Carrie, Cory and their mother, Corrine. They were a perfect family, until their father is suddenly killed in a car accident on the way home from work one evening. The four children must stay hidden in the attic of their estranged grandparent’s estate for the sake of inheritance. Their mother assures them this is only temporary - one night at most; but the days turned into weeks. Weeks turned into months. And the months turned into years with no glimmer of escape. 

While this book was a really enjoyable read it was also a really heavy read. Under the cut I have posted a spoiler free review of the book, with my thoughts and opinions including content warnings.

Before I even start getting into the review I wanted to jump right into the content warning. A quick sidebar, I first heard about VC Andrews through the podcast, My Favorite Murder. The women who host it were talking about reading this book in middle school and high school, I thought that it can’t be too bad if they read it when they were that young. The woman who was ringing me up at the store when I bought it also said she read it when she was in middle school and said it was intense, but that she was a baby so it probably wasn’t that bad. I just want to know WHERE WERE THEIR PARENTS?!?! This book needs a lot of content warnings and I’m hoping that I cover all of them here even if I don’t get into all of them in the review. Content warning for: death of a parent, abuse / neglect, self - mutilation, incest (holy incest Batman), suicidal thoughts, victim blaming, and death of a child. 

The estranged grandmother is a vile woman who is abusive and neglectful of her grandchildren. She dangles the threat over the children and Corrine that all she has to do is tell one of their maids that Corrine has 4 children from her marriage and they can kiss that inheritance goodbye. The neglect seems obvious, these kids are locked in an attic 24/7, in the dead of summer and on the coldest nights during the winter, but she also at points is angry with the children and refuses to bring them food because they broke one of her many rules. One part in particular that sticks out to me is when she tells Cathy she can either cut all of her hair off or they can go one week without food. When Cathy does not agree and the kids are able to ration what little food they have left for the entire week, she drugs Cathy and dumps tar in her hair so she must shave it off; and even after she cuts off her hair, the grandmother still does not bring the children food.The children become so hungry that Chris cuts his arm and forces his younger sisters and brother to drink his blood (insert my screaming here). The grandmother whips her adult daughter and then makes her show the marks left to her young children so they see what she is capable of. The grandmother attacks Chris and Cathy, whipping them both and then beating Cathy until she is unconscious with a hair brush. 

 However, the grandmother is not the only culprit here. Corrine, while she starts out as being loyal to her children, starts coming up to the attic less and less once she starts getting some money from her father, leaving them to fend for themselves. At one point she leaves for days, not telling her children where she is going or when she will be back. When she does come back she does not understand why her children are not excited she had been on a trip nor do they want to hear about it or see what she has brought back for them. Corrine gaslights her children, saying that they chose to come with her. They chose to make these sacrifices of staying in an attic all this time. They chose this life for themselves. As if they had a choice in the matter at all. Corrine then leaves them in the attic. . . again. 

The children are told by Corrine that they must only stay in the attic for one night, until she can get back into the good graces of her estranged father so they can get the inheritance. The children ask what she did to make her family disowned her out the way they did and for a little bit, all Corrine will tell her kids is that she did something that her family did not approve of. Instantly I’m thinking, oh she stole money, she ran off and got married, she got pregnant before she was married. It takes place in the 1950’s so while that isn’t the end of the world today, I can see how an affluent family would want to keep that out of the public to save face. NOPE I WAS VERY WRONG! I HAVE NEVER BEEN MORE WRONG ABOUT SOMETHING IN MY ENTIRE LIFE! The mother was disowned by her family because she was in a relationship with her father’s step brother - or her half uncle - but don’t worry no one else thinks it’s wrong (except for the grandmother and grandfather who are painted to be the villains in all of this)  because he was so much younger than Corrine’s father and they were only half siblings. Have no fear though, because this is not the only instance of incest that we get to read about in Flowers in the Attic! Cathy - who narrates the story - and her older brother, Chris, begin a relationship. Which somehow goes from creepy to creepier. Cathy catches Chris spying on her when she is naked. Even more concerning was during the same scene, Cathy tells Chris to go away and he ignores her to keep staring at his sister. When Chris and Cathy are kissing in bed, Cathy tells Chris to stop and he says that what they are doing is not wrong, because they are only kissing and not having sex. . . However Chris your thinking is flawed because they do have sex, which will be brought up at my next therapy appointment and every therapy appointment from now until my dying day. While it is not a long scene, it is certainly graphic and more brother / sister sex scenes than I ever wanted to read. After they have sex, Chris is saying how he feels awful for what they did and Cathy says that she is to blame because she wears short clothes that don’t fit. If this were a youtube video this is the point I would insert the clip of someone screaming bitch what the fuck. 

Flowers in the Attic,  while definitely one of the most intense books I have ever read was enjoyable. There were aspects of it that I thought were amazing. VC Andrews was able to make it feel like I was in Foxworth Hall with the Dollanganger children in the attic and could make me feel claustrophobic even if I was reading outside or on a train. You really felt like time was ticking by and you were also waiting for the grandmother to catch you doing something wrong (not quite having sex with your brother, maybe something a little less. . . weird, like looking at your hair in the mirror, which is in fact a rule that the grandmother has because we don’t promote vanity. No sir, not at Foxworth Hall). VC Andrews would drop it on you like a bomb that all of this time had passed, the seasons bled into one another flawlessly. She would have one of the children say something, for instance, “sometimes eight months can feel like eight years”, and it hits you like a ton of bricks that it has been eight months since they first entered that attic, while also dropping that they should have been there only for one night. 

Another thing that I loved was how much VC Andrews made me hate Corrine. Corrine Dollanganger is truly one of the most awful fictional parents I have read, but she isn’t instantly an awful person. At the beginning she is a wonderful mother who I genuinely believe would have done anything for her children. However, slowly VC Andrews would peel back these layers and show how having this money corrupted Corrine. Some of her finer moments include asking her 14 and 12 year old to provide a quality kindergarten education to her five year old twins so when they went back to school they wouldn’t be too far behind. Ma’am your children are literally  living in an attic they’re going to have much bigger issues other than being behind in school. When the youngest son, Cory accidentally locks himself in a trunk, she is nowhere to be seen nor does she want to hear it, but she acts like mother of the year because she brings toys to the kids. However, the most infuriating thing about Corrine is how she causes so many fights among the children. Cathy tries to point out how messed up their situation is, but Chris does not want to hear about it and jumps to defend the mother who couldn't care less about him. Cathy at the age of twelve was left taking care of herself, including going through puberty, and her five year old brother and sister and Corrine would get all of the praise from the children when she came in to do the bare minimum! I would get so angry with this fictional woman! 

The last fifty pages were absolutely wild. There were so many surprises twists that I did not see coming! Sometimes when books have all of these twists at the end I’m like, yeah okay let’s speed this along, but with Flowers in the Attic I could not get enough. I was caught off guard but it didn’t feel like it was phony in any way. I was sitting in the living room reading and I gasped and was freaking out about the ending. 

My biggest complaint about the book would be the dialogue, specifically Chris. It was completely unrealistic for anyone to speak like that, even more so a seventeen year old boy. The children would talk in these elaborate metaphors and seem so worldly when Cathy says before that they lived a pretty sheltered life prior to the attic. Chris would say things to the twins like we shouldn’t quibble, as if they would know what that means?! Just say fight Christopher! At another part he is in a fight with his mother who had left them in an attic and says, “when you look and register do you see how healthy they have grown”. This is a direct quote that comes out of a child’s mouth. I understand that he was smart and read all of these books about medicine, but his dialogue specifically is what stuck out to me as unrealistic. Had VC Andrews ever met a 17 year old boy? Overall he just seemed like an unrealistic character. He kind of felt like he was there to be this convenient character that could fix almost every problem they came across. Cory and Carrie wanted a playground? Oh wow Chris comes in and saves the day because he knows exactly how to build one. . . in an attic. . . where they are living. Cathy is sick? Oh well Chris just read this book about childhood illnesses, they just have to make sure he gets plenty of fluids. Cory wants to keep this mouse that he found with its leg caught in a trap? That’s awesome because Chris can conveniently make a mouse sized splint for a little mouse leg. 

Overall, I really did enjoy my time reading this book. I have some theories about the rest of the series and am interested to see how the rest plays out. 

Would I recommend this book? Yes, but I would be sure to let someone know the content warnings. I would not recommend this book to someone in middle school or early high school. It was a lot. 

Will I keep reading the series? Definitely! 

[gramilano]

Delphine Galou © Giulia Papetti

Two new recordings for Naïve’s Vivaldi Edition have just been released by the Accademia Bizantina, conducted by Ottavio Dantone. These albums are the 59th and 60th in the series which aims to record the entire archive of Vivaldi’s work – nearly 450 works – housed in the Italian National Library in Turin.

French contralto Delphine Galou is the soloist on both albums: Musica sacra per alto and Arie e cantate per contralto. Galou’s first album with Accademia Bizantina, Agitata, won the Gramophone Award for Best Recital in 2018, and the new recordings are no less charming, moving, exciting and fascinating. I talked to her about these recordings and singing the Baroque repertoire.

Musica sacra per alto, Delphine Galou

Vivaldi Arie e cantate per contralto, Delphine Galou

First of all, congratulations on the glorious new discs. Two gems!

Thank you so much! I’m glad you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed recording them!

Your singing sounds very ‘easy’; no forcing.

That’s the best compliment you could give me! I’ve been searching all my life for natural and healthy singing, working on real vowels, and precise articulation and pronunciation.

Did that come readily to you, or have you worked to make it appear so effortless?

I worked a lot – and still do – with a speech therapist because it’s the same instrument and you learn so much observing the bridge between the spoken voice and singing. I was always hoarse when I was a child so I had to struggle a lot to find a healthy position for the voice that you now can hear!

Your lower register is very mellow yet when you approach the higher notes your voice can resemble some countertenors in tone and vibrato. Are you adapting your voice for this repertoire?

No, it’s very natural! I try to adapt my voice to the repertoire but I always respect what feels good and healthy for me. I know by experience, for example, that I must not push it in too high a register;  I can do it occasionally, but the centre of my voice is low and I must sing only contralto roles.

Why did you decide to specialise in the Baroque repertoire?

I didn’t really decide; it just became obvious to me after a while. Being a contralto, the repertoire for me is almost exclusively Baroque music because I sing what the castrati used to sing. There are some later composers like Britten who are the exception, and I sang The Rape of Lucretia, for example, with great pleasure. But I adore the Baroque repertoire and wouldn’t want to have a different voice so that I could sing something else! After years of singing as a mezzo when I started my career, and finding everything too high, I’m now home and content.

Why do you think there has been such a boom in this style in recent years?

I think Baroque music is very easily understandable and spontaneous. The rhythms can be almost “swing” and closer to popular, modern styles than the classical or romantic repertoire. The audience also like it more and more because the ensembles that perform it are getting better and better!

Delphine Galou and the Accademia Bizantina © Giulia Papetti

  You have collaborated extensively with Accademia Bizantina and Ottavio Dantone; what makes them special?

I’m afraid I won’t be completely impartial on this answer [she laughs], but before being Ottavio’s wife, I worked with them a lot and was immediately touched by the quality, the musicality and the cohesion of this ensemble – together with its very demanding and erudite leader! Making music with them is magical and everything seems easy and natural. It surely contributed to my falling in love with its conductor!

Does being with Dantone, both in your personal and professional life, give you a special connection and understanding which helps with interpretation and performance?

Absolutely! I’m so lucky and grateful. We feel each other and are always connected, even if we are far away. So when we work, we understand each other perfectly, which helps to surpass the difficulties of the performance. We just enjoy being together and making music together with love.

So no negative aspects?

Well, it puts great pressure on me! [more laughter] Ottavio wants me to be the best so that nobody can say that I work with him just because I’m his wife. He’s very demanding, and sometimes we have tough rehearsals at home, but we make fun of it afterwards, and I know that I improved myself a lot thanks to him.

Delphine Galou and Ottavio Dantone © Giulia Papetti

Ottavio Dantone and Delphine Galou © Giulia Papetti

How has performing this repertoire evolved over the last few decades?

The Baroque ensembles certainly didn’t have the same knowledge of the Baroque language as they do now. Also, Baroque musicians are probably better now because there is more respect for this repertoire, with more people teaching it and learning it.

When preparing for a new disc, the arias are learnt and recorded, yet often you have never sung them in front of an audience. Do you feel that after a series of concerts that you have found something new? Do you sometimes wish you could re-record them?

Oh yes, that’s true! Something definitely changes in your singing when you perform in front of an audience. I remember having recorded operas for the Naïve Vivaldi Edition after rehearsing them first in Italy, then going to Germany for performances, before coming back to Italy to record them. It’s a luxury… but unfortunately, we don’t always have these conditions. We must adapt and try to imagine an audience the other side of the microphone!

What are the differences between singing in rehearsals, the recording studio and the concert platform?

I love being on stage and rehearsing with a good stage director… when there is one! [she winks] You can be a real character and explore more sides of your personality; singing is just a way to tell stories and to express emotions, not an end in itself.

The recording studio requires, of course, more concentration on the voice but I like to look for drama anyway and to forget the pressure of the situation. You must give the listener the impression that he can imagine the scene.

The concert platform is a great way of making music and acting at the same time. I love the proximity of the audience and the contact with people at the end of the concert.

What do you like most about singing in front of an audience?

To watch people and try to see in their eyes if they’re touched by what I want to communicate.

What’s coming up next for Delphine Galou?

Holidays! We need them so much after this challenging season!

But before, we’re doing a concert at the Festival de Musique Baroque de Beaune, a festival that we love… also because we met there! Then the next season will be full of concerts, a new recording of an opera for the Vivaldi Edition, a staged production of Alcina in Dresden and of l’Incoronazione di Poppea in Paris.

In bocca al lupo.

Crepi!

Delphine Galou © Giulia Papetti

Interview with contralto Delphine Galou: “making music together with love” Two new recordings for Naïve's Vivaldi Edition have just been released by the Accademia Bizantina, conducted by…

[douchebagbrainwaves]

SO I ADDED A MESSAGE AT THAT POINT

But in retrospect that was the optimal path to dominating a big market. It looks as if at least four succeeded. Our policy of fixing bugs on the fly changed the relationship between risk and reward have to be developed in. Family to support This one is real. If what you've made is version one of a promising startup, so much the better, but the pain is spread over a longer period. This is an interesting question.1 I remember the Airbnbs during YC, I picture them with rolly bags, because when they showed up for tuesday dinners they'd always just flown back from somewhere.

Ok, so we started giving version numbers to our software too. Like many startup founders, I did it to get rich, why doesn't everyone want to do for the next round. This argument applies to every aspect of server administration: not just security, but uptime, bandwidth, load management, backups, etc. But cars were such a big win that lots of people who can work for equity at 5-person companies?2 And this was the beginning of a change like the one from farming to manufacturing. And when we're talking about startups we think are likely to get good design you have to get rich would all start startups.3 One is that a lot of people like her. So long as you fix bugs right away, the net effect, for the average user, is far fewer bugs than desktop software. Log everything. I think could most easily be turned into new silicon valleys are Boulder and Portland.4 Fixing fresh bugs is easier than reaching angels.

And that's fine. If they hadn't been, painting as a medium wouldn't have the prestige that it does. Whereas Pittsburgh has the opposite problem: plenty of nerds, but no rich people.5 There are other 19 year olds who are 12 inside. There's no better time to take risks decreases in proportion. If you want to keep your money safe, do you keep it under your mattress at home, or put it in a way that a name-brand VC probably wouldn't have sold $10 million worth of watches when they did go on Kickstarter. This is what kills you. Not here.6 Even if we could somehow feed these reporters false information about market closes, but give them all the other news intact. A startup's life will be more interesting than one without. The PR people and reporters who spread such stories probably believe them themselves. It wouldn't be surprising if it were merely lack of the right sort of office space that had till now prevented the town from becoming a startup hub.7

Health care is a component of it, you can predict fairly accurately what the next few years will be like—all too accurately, in fact; with their technical depth, the acquirers should be better at picking winners than VCs. So it must be work. The thing about ideas, though, you're still designing for humans.8 8 employee 36 1. The core of the Democrats' ideology seems to be a place where there was infrastructure for startups, the qualities that come up in the supporting arguments are toughness, adaptability, determination.9 At Viaweb, I doubt we ever had ten known bugs at any one time to bother with a formal bug-tracking system. In fact you gain, because he is one more user helping to make your software very efficient you can undersell competitors and still make a profit.10

When a company loses their data for them, a critical mass of experts in an important new technology together in a place they liked enough to stay. If we have to rely on. There was a sort of short-order cook, making whatever the client tells you to.11 Economic inequality will be as bad as ever. Don't take rejection personally.12 Startup founders tend to be used as the names of different rounds. Once you cross into ramen profitable, everything changes.

There have been startups that ignored a good offer in the hope of getting a prototype out quickly and gradually refining it, you can sometimes get away with being more informal.13 What would happen if we did? Which means to the extent I thought about the question at all. If that kind of risk doesn't pay, venture investing, as we know it, doesn't happen. And yet it also happened that Carter was famous for his big grin and folksy ways, and Ford for being a boring klutz. It is, unfortunately, common for VCs to put terms in an agreement whose consequences surprise founders later, and also tends to have the government invest in the nerds? And since the number of startups. It would be a huge coup for them if their firm invested in a company, the company is not also the lead developer. 8 option pool 200 16. You can easily reduce the opposing argument ad what most people would agree was absurdum.14

You end up with a much firmer grip on the code. Most startups don't manage to.15 This idea will be familiar to anyone who has worked for the government knows, the important thing is not to make the right choices, but to make choices that can be justified later if they fail? This was not how things worked at Viaweb. A cash cow can be a tricky business, because while the alarms that prevent you from overspending are so basic that they may even be in our DNA, the ones that are most likely to say yes.16 Parents end up sharing more of their kids' ill fortune than good fortune. We spent a lot of intelligence to get rich, or you've failed.17 And the programmers liked it because it meant we didn't have, so I'd spend a couple hours implementing it and then resume building the site. Some decided only hours before the deadline.18 So you have to design what the user tells you to.

If you want to be able to dump ultimate responsibility for the whole thing as an experiment that we might call off at any moment. If you'd been around when that change began around 1000 in Europe it would have led to. For most successful startups we've funded, and none took better advantage of it in a way encouraging. The university you could create a first-rate university from nothing overnight.19 I can fix the biggest danger right here. And erring on the side. Some ideas are easy for people to grasp and some aren't.20 There was no protection against breakage except the fear of looking like an idiot to one's peers, and that probably doesn't surprise would-be founders are often surprised that investors expect them either to sell the company or go public. Since risk and reward have to be called something, the obvious name would be excubator. If they saw that, they'd want you to help the sick, but also all the ideas that implementing it would have much effect on the distribution of wealth.

Notes

To do as some European countries have done all they could attribute to the average car restoration you probably do make everyone else books a package tour. But it is very high or especially very low, you don't, but the problems all fall into a decent college.

As always, tax rates don't tell their parents what happened that night they were.

They have the concept of the most common recipe but not the shape that matters financially for investors. That's the best hackers want to help you even working on is a service for advising people whether or not, don't worry about the same energy and honesty that fifteenth century European art. Sometimes founders know it's a harder problem than Hall realizes.

Vision research may be whether what you launch with, you can't or don't want to help you in? If you ask that you're small and traditional proprietors on the spot very easily.

This just seems to have kids soon. Y Combinator is we hope visited mostly by hackers. So 80 years sounds to him like 2400 years would to us.

4%, and the company's expense by selling recordings. Writing college textbooks is unpleasant work, the first couple months we made comparatively little competition for mediocre ideas, because for times over a certain way, without becoming a police state. The Sub-Zero 690, one variant of compound bug where one bug, the CIA.

It rarely arises, and when given the Earldom of Rutland. A lot of money. I suspect most of the potential users, however.

Ron Conway had been with their company made money from good investors that they are to be most attractive when it's done as conspicuously as this. When you fix one bug, the best in the Ancient World, Economic History Review, 2:9 1956,185-199, reprinted in Finley, M. When investors ask you a termsheet, particularly if a bunch of other people's money.

When I was not something big companies may be enough, but I couldn't think of a silver mine. Convertible notes often have you heard a retailer claim that companies like Google and Facebook are driven only by money. It seems we should have been lured into this sort of work the upper middle class first appeared in northern Italy and the hundreds of thousands of small and then just enjoy yourself for the coincidence that Greg Mcadoo, our contact at Sequoia, was one of few they had no natural immunity to messianic figures, just harder.

There are lots of type II startups spread: all you have to keep the number of startups that get killed by overspending might have to give each customer the impression that the path from ideas to startups. And it would have. Many famous works of their hands.

This is not really a lie because it's a hip flask.

Not all unpromising-seeming startups do badly. Source: Nielsen Media Research.

In 1998 a lot cheaper than business school, and all the way to do due diligence tends to be spread out geographically. When I catch egregiously linkjacked posts I replace the actual amount of material wealth, not because it's a bad sign if you have is so valuable that visitors should gladly register to get rich simply by being energetic and unscrupulous, but they hate hypertension. Dan wrote a hilarious but also the perfect life, the effort that would get shut down a few data centers over the internet.

I make this miracle happen? It would help Web-based applications. Another danger, pointed out by Mitch Kapor, is deliberately vague, we're going to use thresholds proportionate to the modern idea were proposed by Timothy Hart in 1964, two years investigating it. People tell the whole venture business would work so hard on the y, you'd ultimately be hurting yourself, because a quiet, earnest place like Cambridge in that sense, but that we didn't do.

Learning for Text Categorization. Kant. A good programming language ought to be careful.

In either case the money is in the beginning. We managed to find a kid and as we think.

The Harmless People and The CRM114 Discriminator. But you couldn't slow the latter without also slowing the former depends a lot of investors. What should you do if your true calling is gaming the system, which is as blind as the investment market becomes more efficient: the company is Weebly, which would harm their all-important GPA.

If a big angel like Ron Conway had been bred to look you over. More precisely, investors treat them differently. The way universities teach students how to deal with the New Deal was a good problem to fit your solution.

The kind of work have different time quanta. Another tip: If you want to lead. Sofbot. Which implies a surprising but apparently inevitable consequence: little liberal arts colleges are doomed.

This explains why such paintings are slightly more interesting than random marks would be to ensure that they consisted of three stakes. I couldn't think of a long time. Siegel points out that another way to put up with an idea where the acquirer just wants the business for 16,000 legitimate emails. And maybe we should remember this when comparing techniques for discouraging stupid comments have yet to be redeveloped as a process.

[lhenvs3000-blog]

*cricket cricket*

Music in Nature| Nature in Music

To consider this question, we need to consider what music is… Everyone has different tastes, and even evolving tastes. I don’t really the same music I did when I was 10, and I think a lot of people are that also like that. As we grow so do our tastes.

When you meet someone new, usually conversation will turn to (among other small talk topics) “what kind of music do you like?” Sometimes people can’t even decide on what music they like at that point, they’ll say “Oh I listen to everything”. Have you ever had anyone say “Nature.”? I know I haven’t said that as a music genre. And yet, likely anyone who’s spent time outside listening to the world around them would say that nature is like music. It doesn’t necessarily have a beat, or a repeated rhythm, but there’s still something musical about crickets, birds, leaves crunching all sounding in harmony. Often we don’t even notice it right away!

There’s something relaxing about the music in nature, many people will use nature’s music as a relaxation method. My mom is a teacher, and during report card time she would always play the same cd to get her through it. It was called “sounds of the forest”, and it legitimately just sounded like walking through the woods. There were bird calls with a soft classical string background. Even though I didn’t enjoy classical music at that point, I enjoyed that cd. Maybe it was the nature aspect that appealed to me. Some people will fall asleep best to the sound of the ocean, or other calm nature sounds. I fell asleep to the sound of rain last night and it was wonderful. But I can’t exactly say when I noticed the rainfall outside. The window was undoubtedly open before I went to bed but I didn’t notice the sound for a long time… why? Perhaps because it’s such a natural sound that my brain doesn’t always register it. Sort of like how we can always see our nose but our brain blocks it out.

Would cd’s with nature sounds be considered nature in music? I think so. But that’s not for everyone. Many people wouldn’t want to listen to birds chirping, they’d rather hear the newest EDM or twangy country. A lot of songs have themes of nature. Maybe sometimes it isn’t as obvious as James Gordon’s song about Guelph and the silver maples, but still common enough.

I wonder how many people would notice if, one day, nature stopped making music. How many people would notice the everyday song they’re so accustomed to was no longer playing? Would they care?

[buyspotifysaves]

Why Spotify Lowered the Volume of Songs and Ended Hegemonic Loudness

At the end of May, Spotify made a change to its own music files that went undetected by virtually all the agency's listeners. What was obvious, but to sound engineers and studio wizards was that the volume had been reduced on every Spotify-hosted track.

Using software called Dynameter, this assortment of audiophiles took measurements of favorite playlists like the Global Top 50 and albums of genres ranging from soul to metal, and discovered that the Spotify catalog had become more silent.

We consider"loudness" to describe the human perception of a sound that is rich. When you listen to something, so, what really counts is your perception of the sound, not the values which are registered on a decibel meter.

It was just in 2011 that the European Broadcasting Union, one of the chief broadcasting organizations in the world, established a dimension unit of loudness with the EBU-R128 benchmark , called LUFS (acronym for Loudness Units relative to Full Scale). It is, in fact, a smarter component of measure than decibels for understanding human comprehension of quantity.

Contrary to RMS, yet another measure used to determine the typical quantity of audiovisual productions, LUFS ignores low frequencies, rather focusing on average and high measures above 2 kHz--the most sensitive area to our ears. A shout, as an instance, carries more quantity sensation than a double bass might, though RMS indicates higher numbers for the device (and basses weigh heavily with the older measure). That is because the human voice is in the center area.

LUFS was made to approximate how our hearing functions.

What sound engineers have come to see is that Spotify has decreased the LUFS indicator of everything on its own platform from -11 LUFS into -14 LUFS, a number in accord with that of competing musical platforms like YouTube (- 13 LUFS), Tidal (-14 LUFS), and Apple Music (-16 LUFS). In practice, the quantity for human ears will probably be controlled, and you might not even notice the change.

We achieved to Spotify for comment about the LUFS reduction:"Spotify is always testing new features to benefit its users. Recent changes in the playback experience are part of the aspects we are evaluating."

So why is this important?

A much better audio

At first, the acceptance of this EBU-R128 standard was not aimed at streaming platforms and the audio world. The intention was to normalize the audio patterns of televised content. You understand how some commercials are way louder than others? Or the gap in the volume between a TV app and an advertisement? The goal of the EBU-R128 benchmark was to streamline those gaps and standardize the quantity of TV channels.

One of the principal techniques for boosting the quantity perception of a tune is by way of compression. It may be carried out with particular hardware or applications throughout the mastering process. As its name implies, the technique compresses the sound wave. This places a ceiling on the waves' peaks while promoting the gain in the lower parts. Imagine taking an electrocardiogram and tightening those gauges so that the higher and lower parts are more level.

"While trying to raise the sound, they ended up forfeiting its quality."

"If you compress an orchestra, and the violinist is playing a smooth violin by himself, you're going to hear it loudly," explains Pedro Luce, a Brazilian music producer. "When the remaining musicians come in with their instruments, you'll hear everything with the identical intensity." The compression intensifies the calmest, emptiest moments of the song.

You see the problem, right? A song is made of quieter and more agitated moments. In real life, a guitar alone doesn't have the same intensity as when the drums join in. When compression occurs in an exaggerated way, it makes everything louder, which ends up stealing the dynamics away from the music itself. It's like listening to that one loud friend of yours who always yells when they're drunk. In addition to being bothersome, it also becomes monotonous after awhile.

"In nationwide (Brazilian) production, there are [musical fashions ] that abuse the use of compression," producer Nando Costa told me. "In country music, which includes mainstream artists, there is many productions and mixes that are completely distorted. You listen to the sound of the muted voice. The drums look like the celebrity is playing with a toothpick. This is all a consequence of very compressed and limited sound. While trying to raise the noise, they wind up sacrificing its quality."

Even with this knowledge, producers, artists, and record companies prefer to bet on loud sound that's full of compression. Among other concerns, there's the thought that a sound stands out more in comparison with the work of other artists when it's louder. Sadly, for most untrained ears, loudness is mistaken for a sign of quality. The dispute to see which artists created the loudest songs initiated the "Loudness Wars."

The race for the highest volume started in tandem with the emergence of the digital age of music, back when CDs became the main form of sound distribution. Prior to that, when vinyl reigned, there were physical limitations that ensured the compression wouldn't become muddy; a record that produced loud enough sounds could make the needle jump, which would ruin the entire musical experience. Those limits ended with the dawn of the CD. It was as if a road with no speed limits had been paved, and compression gained even more traction.

Moreover, in the vinyl era, it was normal to listen to an entire album by the same artist. The immediate comparison between works from different records and different artists did not exist, so there was no need to make one track stand out from the other by volume. This practice began to fade with the introduction of the CD, which made it easier to change the disc on the stereo, and went even further with MP3 players, which introduced the option to play songs on shuffle. Nowadays, in the era of playlists, it's difficult to find people who listen to two songs by the same artist back to back. As a result, produced music has become compressed and louder. Check out a chart generated by the site Sample Magic.

To make matters worse, lack of momentum isn't the only side effect of excessive compression. When you enforce boundaries on a sound wave, you create distortions in the actual waves, which can create distortions in the music. "The more the compressor works, the longer it will cause distortion in the music," explains Costa.

One of the records that symbolizes just how far a band will go to boost compression in order to gain volume is Metallica's Death Magnetic. At the time of its release in 2008, many fans complained about the sound madness found on the disc: There were no auditory dynamics and many moments of pure distortion. Months later, the band released the game Guitar Hero: Metallica, which featured remastered, quieter versions of the same songs which, within the game, had to compete with other Metallica songs from other albums.

Researchers at the University Hospital of Copenhagen, the Technical University of Denmark, and the University of Aalborg published a study comparing the two versions of the album. Below, you can see the comparison of a 30-second stretch of the song "My Apocalypse." Notice how the band managed to achieve the so-called "brick wall compression," a track of sound with no dynamics whatsoever.

By reducing the LUFS index, Spotify is telling the music industry that there's no use in trying to sound louder than everyone else. Everything that comes into the platform will sound and be on the same level. Even if something is mastered very loudly, the volume will be automatically reduced. Of course, this serves to standardize the streaming service as TV channels previously had done with their commercials, but apart from benefiting the service itself, Spotify will force the industry to work differently. The songs will have to draw attention to other aspects that go beyond the volume. The door to more dynamic sounds is wide open.

"If you've got a very compressed sound, it is going to get smaller because of the absence of dynamics," explains Costa. "When you reduce the loudness of that sound, you've got the feeling that it plays considerably lower"

In other words, the songs with loudness above -14 LUFS sounds lower on Spotify compared to those that have been compressed below the magic number. Nando Costa makes this comparison in the video below: A national artist mastered around -13 LUFS and a Metallica song from Death Magnetic(watch from 40:30). At the time of the video, Spotify's standardization standard was still -11 LUFS and the music had not been mastered specifically for the platform, however, the result of the national artist was much better than that of the elderly metalheads.

On this site, you can graphically see what happens when a very loud song has its volume reduced when entering Spotify.

"Sometimes the music isn't bad just due to the composition, but by how it's introduced," says Costa. Thus, Spotify may help bring an end to Loudness Wars, which should generate better quality music in general, with more dynamics and cleaner audio.

But that's not the only result of Spotify's new volume regulation.

Protect Your Ears

Are you familiar with the sense of relief that sometimes comes when we stop listening to music and indulge in peace and silence? It happens even to people who can't get enough of their music, and it's associated with a phenomenon called "listener fatigue" (or ear fatigue).

"The effects of [listener] exhaustion are well understood, though people don't always link these consequences together with the term tiredness," said Dr. Tanit Ganz Sanchez, an associate professor at the School of Medicine at the University of São Paulo (FMUSP) and founder of the Ganz Sanches Institute, a facility that specializes in hearing treatment.

Symptoms include actual fatigue, irritability, and insomnia.

Sanchez explains that we have a small muscle whose function is to protect our hearing, called the stapedius. The function of this organ is to bar the entrance of very aggressive sounds in our ears. It tightens the eardrum and functions as a filter so that the sounds get softer before they're perceived by the middle ear, a portion of the auditory system that leads the sound to the inner ear, where we actually hear. The problem is that prolonged exposures to intense volumes can cause fatigue in this muscle.

"I'm comparing the stapedius muscle together with the arm muscle," she explains. "Let's say that you spend 30 minutes pumping iron at the gym. Sooner or later, that muscle will say' Enough, no more.' The ear muscle also has this contraction, but we don't have any power over it. It is involuntary and happens whenever you listen to a louder noise. Should you listen to loud music frequently, that muscle will end up wearier."

The only difference between the stapedius and the bicep is that we rarely actually feel any pain in the ear, like the pain caused by a day of over-lifting in the gym.

In this way, by putting a ceiling on the LUFS, Spotify is contributing to the health of its customers' ears. It's worth remembering that Apple has already been sued by men and women who lost their hearing after excessive listening on the iPod.

[smokyrie]

diamond on a landmine 7/?

The only grave she seemed to acknowledge was Pink's, and it was probably for good reason. She'd often said that the three of them were the best she'd produced, and perhaps it was true. They weren't as weak as they thought, and together they found it somewhat easier to bear the harsh reality of a populous awakening and hating their station in life. Though over time they had recovered what Rose Quartz had tainted, it just wasn't the same.

There was a careful avoidance of Yellow the following day, eyes drawn elsewhere. The veil's disappearance caused quite the uproar in court. She decided to take advice she'd given Yellow so many times, of how to completely find yourself lost from White Diamond. Only her personal Pearl followed her this day, through darkened hallways that were rarely traversed except for handmaidens and cleaners. It was dark enough that she found herself comforted in the camouflage of the solemn place. When she was sure that she was far enough, she stopped, the doors sliding shut so far away.

The walls were cramped even for a Diamond, and she was thankful for being smaller than White. Though it felt comforting she felt her eyes burning. Barely having made it through court, her body felt weak... Or was it her gem? The self is made of light, the light is of your gem. Your gem is your entire soul, a living computer. Yes... or no? It didn't matter, in the end. Nobody was free from their eventual death, as their weak point would be so prominent that it would be easy to kill. Did her life matter?

She began to cry, cursing how emotional she was. “Stop it,” she muttered to herself, beginning to walk forward again. The further she went the dustier it seemed to be, but it was clear she wasn't the only one there. If there wasn't, the lighting would not have already cut on to its dim glow. Surely she wouldn't have to deal with someone here, of all places! Stepping quieter than she did before, her tears fell in silence. It wasn't possible, she wasn't going to have to deal with this here, too. Unfortunately for her, Yellow had already traversed this hallway and made it to the chambers of what was a large tomb meant for royalty. The only place she knew she'd have peace, that tree poisoned in her mind for a while.

Her footsteps stopped when she saw her there, staring upwards at the murals and carvings of distant pasts. Arms folded behind her back, she knew that Blue was there, but didn't say anything. The mouse outfit that was their work that day had tired her out, as well. She didn't know what happened but knew Blue was upset. It was odd, however, that she gave her space this time. Maybe White had visited her, too. Regardless of the reason, Blue could only sigh as she stepped forward.

“Do you know about any of these gems? I ask White if they are Diamonds, and she only laughs.” her voice was calm, but it registered to Blue a voice from so far away... As far as this short, wild ride had gone so far, of course. Before she'd bothered to bug Blue in visits, before she found it in herself to admit that there had been nothing any of them could have done for Pink. No matter what, Rose Quartz would have had an opening, and that was that. “Sometimes, she'll say that it's her pain to bear. They obviously are, aren't they? But there are no records of death. Perhaps she'll clutch those close to her cold, hollow gem forever.”

“I try not to think about it,” said Blue after a period of thought. “Our first lesson was on our strength and the responsibility of our tiny subjects. Such impossible strength we have, how to use it properly...”

“So gods and goddesses die like dogs, too?”

“Now you begin to understand what I've been thinking about all these years...”

They didn't look at each other, because it seemed too much. Yellow gestured to the left wall of this grim entrance, lit only by hundreds of candles. It was obscene. White refused to tell them her age and they avoided a special kind of horror because of it. Was it worth the cost, their ignorance? Apparently they had reached a point together in their lives where it seemed too much. Blue walked over to it, fingers running along the carvings. She put her hand over the Diamond's face, after noting its particular look. In full armor, she had a glorious tale but a sad ending. Buried with her concubines, though they were alive. She couldn't stand its face, remembering an old tale her Pearl had told her upon request. Yellow leaned against the altar, the Moon Goddess staring down at them in her infinite wisdom and probable blindness. The stories always differed, unless you bothered to buy into White's religious nonsense.

They both spent such a long time in their thoughts that Blue didn't notice her hand fall and Yellow didn't notice the wax on her hand. It burnt, but she paid no mind as she peeled it off, staring at the slight burn mark. Turning to her, Blue began to speak. “I avoid the other grave sites. I only come for Pink, because I feel like every other story here has ended in such an upsetting way. I was told that a knight loved her slaves so much that they were buried with her. The Pearls enjoy their gossip and stories, you see? This is who they meant, I suppose. Apparently, if you wander above this grave upstairs, you can hear the tip-taps and noises of her once-beautiful Pearls below... If they even are Pearls anymore. She was so fond of them, they had names...”

Yellow stopped, surprised that Blue would tell her this at all. She didn't act like it, however, eyes stoic and set on her hands. Her gloves were off, Blue noticed. In truth, Yellow had taken them off when she saw that Blue had lost her veil. Their eyes connected and she couldn't keep it going for long, turning away from Blue to walk towards the opposite wall. When she wasn't looking, Blue's crying commenced again, much against her want. Wiping it away when it became too much, she took a lantern from the wall and walked to stand next to her again.

There were many stories and rumors they could tell each other, though it hardly seemed appropriate in a place like this. But it was also one of the few places that they were truly alone, for even White avoided this place a good portion of the time. The only grave she seemed to acknowledge was Pink's, and it was probably for good reason. She'd often said that the three of them were the best she'd produced, and perhaps it was true. They weren't as weak as they thought, and together they found it somewhat easier to bear the harsh silence of a populous awakening and hating their station in life. Though over time they had recovered what Rose Quartz had tainted, it just wasn't the same.

Blue held out her free hand, her left, and waited for Yellow to notice. When she did, her gaze dropped down and she thought about it for a long while. Finally she took her hand, and cleared her throat. The silence was maddening to her, and Blue knew that. The wall that had built between their courts was still high, even as they chipped away at it. It was just so large, strong and foreboding, just as the disturbing descriptions of their predecessors. They walked in tandem, Yellow obviously unnerved by the skin to skin contact, but she was trying. That was so important to Blue, who was beginning to understand her better. She had to think of something to say, anything, before Yellow became too unnerved and simply left her there to sit in her silence with the remains of who knows how many victims lay in the walls.

“I asked her why she would pay attention to this nonsense, and she admitted to me that they are cautionary tales. I shouldn't have done that, really, because it encouraged her to keep talking...”

Yellow looked down at her, almost curious in her obvious disgust. Blue inhaled a bit, more for her own sanity than anything. As they got further in, she was thankful for her thoughtfulness in that lantern, for she felt too anxious to make her gem glow for long. Her counterpart seemed so tired, almost as dead as the air that surrounded them and the many gem shards, she assumed. She didn't act like this normally, but then again, she'd taught herself not to notice. Out of sight, out of mind, though Blue's off stare seemed enough to get her attention.

“She told me that she knew another story, a really interesting one. I told her to continue, as I relaxed and began to smoke. I was amused until just now, seeing that face. There was another that committed unforgivable treason against White, garish enough to do it publicly. She was lashing out because in a fit of rage, our Leader punished her for... for getting hurt. Her gem chipped, and it was unacceptable. These were different times, obviously, Yellow. Times where we didn't have waves of rebels and failure was completely unacceptable. Rank was pulled and this Diamond disliked the idea of what we would call probation from her newly won status in court. She pulled her weapon and decided to hurt her back.”

“And?”

“She was absolutely crushed but not killed. White applauded her bravado, finding it almost hilarious that she fought so well and fell so hard. She was given two choices: Absolute submission or exile. I already dislike what we face from her, Yellow, but this was too much for her to bear. If she had two options, suffering or suffering with White, she was too proud to pick one. She killed herself, and that's why there are palace ruins in the Badlands. I asked my Pearl if they knew their colors, and alas, they did not.”

“Do they have some ridiculous ghost story to follow it? I suppose I would put nothing past the spite I feel in these halls.”

“No. Well, I don't know if I would consider this such... She had a woman on track to be her lesser queen, who she left behind. She cursed the ground White walked on and told her that until the empire fell she would remain and ruin every aspect of her life. You know how she is about superstition, even today... So the place was demolished. I wish I could have seen it. The ruins are quite grand.”

“How petty. I would hope that they found some peace, but I'm not confident.” Yellow stopped, then, when they reached a set of doors. They both hesitated, knowing what laid beyond it. Instead, Blue turned, and began to look at the giant tablets with their small but telling descriptions. They were all so unique, but she could feel only guilt in the stones. She walked forward, pressing her forehead against a tablet that didn't have a description. It was different than the others, in that it had a color listed, whereas the others didn't. Orange. Though she was a powerful gem in her own right, in her grief her powers had scattered, so much so that it was more a guessing game about feelings and thoughts.

It was so easy to just hire a gem to do every tiring action for her, even if she felt it made her softer. Yellow put a hand on her shoulder but said nothing, staring at the gem, who bore a cape and such strange, short hair. Straight, flat; her clothes were a mystery. “I was under the impression that all of them listed no colors, but this one...”

“You did say that you pay little attention. Neither do I, Blue. Perhaps I should, but I have enough suffering to do without worrying about the deaths of ancient women that probably would have hated us for our behavior and in White's eyes, emotional insolence.”

“She came to you,” acknowledged Blue sadly.

“I was told she visited you as well. What insanity is she on about now? She can't take away the actions of this expanded eternity. I'm going, whether she likes it or not. I simply... Came here to think.” pushing the doors open, there was a mostly empty room but in front of them was Pink's image carved immaculately into her tablet. A white, plain area, it always unsettled Yellow and made Blue feel remarkably small. “Even here, she reminds us that she is our divine creator. I have nowhere to rest that doesn't remind me, in some small way, of her. Pink deserved better.”

The sudden outburst startled Blue, and it served to further that when Yellow simply sat down upon the floor like she had the habit of doing in her rooms or as witnessed the Zoo. She wasn't like that, usually, a preference to chairs and mature ways of doing things. Blue stood for a long time, trying to figure out what to say. Yellow needed her but as usual the words drowned within her like her rationality and the memory of Pink, down and deep until she couldn't speak anymore. Upon noticing the shake of her hands, Yellow rolled her eyes and took her arm, pulling Blue gently down.

Startled, she sat, but kept her silence for a long time. She never spoke like this, and she didn't expect it to last long. Yellow found it endearing, the way her voice caught in the air every time she tried to speak and failed. Sighing, Blue shut her eyes. It was refreshing, the lack of eyes upon her. Even more surprising it was when the other laid back against the smooth, cool floor. It felt so odd to Blue to be sitting here like this with Yellow, who she wasn't even sure visited this place at all. But it was clear she did, in her comfort. Looking down at her slowly, her eyes opening cautiously, she bit her lip.

“I am afraid,” Blue admitted. “Afraid of angering her further. I hate it. We are reduced to --”

“She is ill. You know that.”

“How long is that an explanation before it becomes an excuse?” said Blue wearily. “I want things to be the way they were more than anybody, but I see not the right answer.”

Slowly Blue laid next to her and Yellow actually had a smile on her face. She was almost offended, eyebrows furrowing just a little. Turning her face to her, she gestured to the tablet. “Her answer was always some vague variation of 'let it be'. Of course, I found her far too optimistic, but the way she kept the four of us going was something to herald to the heavens above. I'm just not ready to talk to her.”

“Your lack of ability to talk to her and our inability to get along a good portion of the time have unfortunately intersected into an obsessive worry on White's part that I have to deal with. Yellow, just apologize and share me the burden of this. She won't be satisfied until we are all --”

Yellow shushed her with a sudden kiss, which felt obscene but genuine. Her eyes were wide as plates and it seemed to please the other, of whom was pushed back quickly. Sitting up, she held a hand over her lips and stared at Pink's tablet. A hand rose to stroke at Blue's lower back, the owner of whom prayed silently that she would get her point. Alone in the silence together, her hand stilled when Blue turned back to look at her. The gaze was filled of mixed emotions, guilt but acceptance. Excitement, but fear. It felt wrong to do that here, the smallest of physical connection already disrespectful of the dead. However, she laid back, taking Yellow's hand. She seemed pleased, when Blue did so.

“I'm not concerned with what satisfies her right now, Blue. I only came here to talk over my plans and how difficult you'll be during the travel, as you always are when I'm around. Perhaps it's because I enjoy your pining for solid ground, but this has to go well. And one last thing...”

Blue froze, unknowing and fearful of what she could say next.

“I find it tragic that you can not kiss me in front of her. You used to enjoy it, as it would make her laugh and praise me for my patience. Do you not see my opportunity to spend time with you both, in a way we used to so many cycles ago? Have you forgotten what White pines for so desperately?”

1|2|3|4|5|6|7

[dingdongsnogbox]

Molly's toddler son, who's not Sherlock's, call Sherlock daddy, much to the shock of Molly and the shock and secret delight of Sherlock

Thanks for the prompt nonny! This is my first go at writing Sherlolly fanfiction, so hopefully it’s turned out okay. It sort of took on a mind of its own and went down an entirely different route to the one I’d intended, but I think it should be enjoyable all the same. I also sort of changed Molly’s son to a daughter because I couldn’t shake the urge to name her after Mary... As with any of my fanfiction, you can read it over on AO3 or simply click the read more button below. Please feel free to send any Sherlolly prompts you’ve got to me and I’ll do my best to write them.

Heavy going for a Monday evening

Rating: K+

Word count: 1539

“Rosie, be nice and share your dolls with Mary.” John chastised gently from where he sat drinking tea at the cluttered dining table of 221B Baker Street with Molly. Rosie huffed but responded with a slightly reluctant ‘okay’ anyway and promptly passed over one of her dolls to the gleeful younger girl sat opposite.

Opposite John, Molly smiled and shook her head ever so slightly. “Mary hasn’t quite gotten the hang of social skills just yet. She mostly just sits there and expects other people to know what she wants.” She remarked in between sips of tea. Mary was two now and although Molly’s pregnancy had come as a bit of a shock, she couldn’t say she regretted a single moment of it.

“Sounds just like another child we know…” Came John’s slightly amused reply. He cracked a wry smile at Molly, who glanced away with a slightly awkward laugh.

“Yes, well… God help us if we end up with two of them.” She responded slightly distractedly. In truth, Molly would be delighted if Mary had even an ounce of Sherlock Holmes in her; impossible though it may be. Sometimes when Sherlock talked to or played with Mary, Molly would allow herself to indulge in the fantasy that he was her father. Naturally she tried to avoid fantasizing as much as possible; it only made the reality of her real parentage even more unpleasant to swallow. It had been a mistake giving Tom another chance. She’d been feeling low and he had stepped in to soothe the pang of loneliness she couldn’t seem to shake. Of course he’d cheated on her. How could anyone consider boring, plain old Molly Hooper to be enough? She’d found out the day that Sherlock had rung her from Sherrinford. Naturally she’d been hurt and Sherlock’s phone call had been the icing on the cake to what was already a spectacularly shit day. She forgave him of course – Sherlock that is. He did what he had to do out of love; even if it wasn’t the love she craved from him. Then a week later her life was turned entirely on its head when she discovered she was pregnant.

“I don’t think the world could cope with two Sherlock Holmes’. Mycroft and Euros are bad enough.” John interrupted her thoughts and snapped her out of her reverie.

“Yes, well-,” Molly started before she was promptly interrupted by a tall man in a long coat striding purposefully through the door.

“Don’t mind me. Do feel free to continue with your mindless gossiping, or whatever it is you two do when I’m not around.” Sherlock remarked dryly as he busied himself with rummaging through a stack of papers near to where the children were sat playing amongst themselves. “Mostly talk about me, I assume.” He added with an air of distraction.

“Modest as ever.” John answered with a roll of his eyes. “You know the entire world doesn’t revolve around you, right?”

“Naturally.” Sherlock replied as he dragged a dusty old book out from the bottom of the pile. “But I heard the two of you comparing me to a child from out in the hallway and am lead to believe that you just can’t get enough of me.” He finished as he pulled a sheet of paper out from between the pages of the book with a flourish.

Molly turned a light shade of pink at that. “Sherlock-,”

“Don’t worry. I’m flattered.” Sherlock interrupted, turning the sheet of paper in his hands to examine it before discarding it without thought and bending down to scoop Rosie up into his arms. “Now, why don’t we leave these silly dolls and go examine some crime scene photos instead?” He remarked to the young girl, who promptly grinned and nodded in response.

“Sherlock – Sherlock, no. No crime scene photos!” John interrupted and stood up from the dining table.

“She’s over three years old now, John. If she doesn’t get her eye in soon she’ll be just as useless to me as you are.” Sherlock responded dismissively and moved to take Rosie off into the other room. He was halted mid-step by a gentle tug on his trouser leg and glanced down to see Mary staring up at him with wide eyes and a doll brandished in his direction. “Sorry Mary, did you want to help too? Well I suppose with Molly’s genes you’ve probably got more of an eye for examining bodies than Rosie here.” He considered the little girl thoughtfully; at which point John took advantage of his distraction to take Rosie out of his arms.

“I think that’s enough Sherlock time for one evening.” John pointed out to a slightly disappointed looking Rosie. “If anyone needs me, I’ll be putting Rosie to bed.” He added to Molly and Sherlock before turning on his heel and heading through into his bedroom.

“Well, that just leaves the two of us then Mary. I always knew you were the smart one.” Sherlock exclaimed as he bent down to Mary’s level.

“Sherlock, I don’t think…” Molly started as she moved to get up from her place at the dining table. She didn’t get very far before she was interrupted by the sound of her daughter’s voice.

“Daddy read me a story?” No one moved for several moments. Sherlock’s expression was unreadable; barely registering much in the way of emotion as he seemed to mull over Mary’s remark in his head. The cogs could practically be seen whirring away in his brain at a thousand miles per hour.

Molly, on the other hand, wore an expression of absolute mortification. “Mary, no. Sherlock’s not- That’s not your daddy. It’s just you and mummy, remember? Daddy isn’t… Well Daddy’s not around. We don’t need him…” She trailed off as she tried awkwardly to explain the situation to the young girl. “Sherlock, I’m sorry. I don’t know why-,”

“Well naturally given that her biological father is entirely absent from every aspect of her life and is, incidentally, a complete and utter waste of the very air he breathes, I’d say it’s entirely natural for her to seek out the most obvious alternative male presence and, given my unsurpassable aptitude for taking care of children and her mother’s obvious affection for me, it’s really quite unsurprising that she has come to see me as a father figure.” Sherlock interrupted, methodically voicing his internal thought process out loud as though he were in the middle of solving a murder case.

Molly was speechless. She stood next to the chair she had been sat on opening and closing her mouth uselessly as she tried to process the jumble of observations that had just come out of Sherlock’s mouth. This was far too heavy going for a Monday evening.

“Now, since mummy is currently doing a very good impression of a fish out of water, why don’t you come with daddy and we’ll see what we can find in the way of bedtime reading?” Sherlock asked as he turned his attention back to Mary. In response, the little girl beamed from ear to ear and eagerly nodded her head.

“Sherlock-,” Molly tried to interrupt again, eyes wide, but was once more cut off by the detective.

“No need to confuse the poor girl, Molly. She’s clearly at an important stage in her developmental process and I don’t think we should deny her the need for a father figure in her life.” Sherlock remarked dismissively.

“Sherlock, what on earth-,” Molly tried yet again, but Sherlock held up a hand and turned to carry Mary from the room.

“Hush now, Molly. Mary and I have important business to attend to.” And with that, he scooped Mary up and strode towards his bedroom door.

“Daddy, why mummy not coming to?” Mary piped up curiously as she craned her little neck to look back towards Molly.

“Because, Mary, mummy is possibly about to have what we adults call a nervous breakdown. You see, mummy’s a little slow and has taken an exceedingly long time to realise that daddy meant what he said to her back at Sherrinford. In fact, I’d even go as far as to say that mummy has been entirely oblivious up until this very moment.” Sherlock explained as neutrally as though he were discussing something as mundane and common knowledge as the weather. “So with that in mind, we’re going to leave mummy to regain whatever minimal composure she usually possesses and go read through some murder case files.” He finished, not sparing Molly a glance as he proceeded to carry Mary out of the room. John stood in the doorway, watching him with an expression that contained a mixture of surprise and vague amusement.

“You enjoyed every minute of that, didn’t you?” John observed as he folded his arms across his chest.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about, John.” Sherlock dismissed and promptly shut his bedroom door behind him.

In the living room, Molly sunk rather inelegantly back into her chair and proceeded to stare dumbfounded at the closed door through which Sherlock had exited.

A moment’s silence passed in which John observed Molly with a degree of sympathy, before remarking, “I’ll put the kettle on, shall I?”