#like NO! he went through HORROR and decided TO HIS OWN DETRIMENT that if anyone crossed his 'extreme' boundaries

[eyepatchdate]

I saw this bouncing around my dash and decided to fill it out myself for fun :)  I decided to not double-list any games, and I tried to mix up the companies I used too so that the list would be more unique.

Long post, so I’m doing a readmore for my longwinded part lol.

(read more)

Favorite Game: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords - I could talk about this game forever.  How it tears apart the Star Wars universe from within, how it creates a compelling story while challenging the usual themes, etc.  I could talk for ages about the characters and how their motivations slot in place, and how this game lends itself to interpretation and analysis alongside roleplay.  It’s just a wonderful game, one I deeply love and will always love.  It’s a game that isn’t afraid to have you talk to other characters for twenty or thirty minutes at a time and honestly I’m always riveted at every line.  This game deserves the cult fanbase it has, but I think there’s a lot the fanbase misses in appreciating this game.  (Note...gameplay is a little janky and a community made mod restores a lot content that was cut before shipping-the game wasn’t properly finished).

Best Story:  Fallout New Vegas - It’s the setting that makes the story here, and all the moving pieces and factions alongside the main conflict really make this game stand out.  There’s so many little pieces to find along the way in the world and the way the main quest splits based on who you want in power feels important--and you are choosing a future for this whole region.

Favorite Art Style: The Witness - This game is peacefully wonderful with its visuals.  There are wonderful nature scenes and nests of wires and panels spreading in various parts of the island that are fascinating to look at.  The environment is half of the gameplay in most areas, so it’s important to look around even though exploration is not really the gameplay.  You find puzzles in the world, even in nature, and it’s fascinating.  The colors are bright and beautiful.  There is even a map in the middle of the island inside of a lake that helps you track your progress if you notice it (it isn’t like a normal ‘map’).

Favorite Soundtrack: Shin Megami Tensei IV - I love video game soundtracks, but SMTIV is something special.  The music booms in ways that make you really understand the atmosphere of the world, and there’s a great mix of different kinds of tracks for different places.  I love the tracks for the other worlds you enter, and the themes of the different routes are done so well.  Some of the music draws from past SMT games, but the remixes done for this game really are stunning to me, and there’s so many fantastic original tracks.

Hardest Game: I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream - I love this game but I literally never touch it without a walkthrough, which is why it gets to be the hardest game on the list, despite being a point and click adventure game lol.  Also just emotionally this game is challenging too, but I definitely mean this more in terms of getting a ‘perfect run’.

Funniest Game: The Stanley Parable - Trying to make this list has taught me that I don’t really play many ‘funny games’.  I don’t know if a game where multiple endings demand that you kill yourself should count as a ‘funniest game’, but it is also a game where the narrator tells you to stare at a fern and memorize its features, so....it counts.

Game I Like that is Hated: RWBY Grimm Eclipse - I’ve been playing this game since it was in early access and have loved it the whole time.  I find the gameplay soothing and fun, and I like playing the different characters.  It’s a game I play to chill out and just enjoy some fun battle mechanics.  It’s a fun game and I’ve spent over 100 hours in it, so I hope I like it, lol.

Game I Hate that is Liked:  Nier Automata - Neither this game’s gameplay or story impress me, and the fact that you have to replay basically the same stuff from a more boring-to-play-character’s pov in order to SEE all of the plot is a huge damper on the experience.  The story, to me, someone who engages with a lot of robot-focused fiction, is far from impressive or new, and it hardly engages with genre specifics at all, let alone in a new or interesting way.  I view this game as ‘a story with robots in it’ rather than ‘a story about robots’, which, to me, is a detriment.

Underrated: Nevermind - This game is amazing and very unheard of--and when it is heard of, it has been marketed incorrectly.  Nevermind seems like a horror game, and does market itself as one a bit, but it’s much more than that.  It’s more about trauma, recovery, therapy, etc.  This is a game that is so mindful about the topics it engages in that I am impressed by it every time.  It’s heavy with symbolism and character, despite lacking conversations or other similar game mechanics.  This is a lovely game that I really wish more people knew about-`p5-all of the patients are so interesting, and the focus on recovery and mental health is impressive.

Overrated:  Fire Emblem - I sort of mean this as the series as a whole really.  I have enjoyed the entries I have played somewhat, but I overall consider the series much less impressive than I was led to believe by others.  The gameplay especially is not impressive to me in any regard, even though I sometimes do find myself enjoying it.  The stories are alright, but many of them are weighed down by the gameplay and as a writer and person who likes to analyze writing, it’s very hard to do so when it isn’t able to fully exist under the chains the gameplay forces on it.  There are ways to mix gameplay and story well, Fire Emblem has not really done that in any of the entries I’ve played.  That being said, I don’t regret playing them, and I will occasionally replay, but I consider them mediocre games at best.

Best Voice Acting: Devil Survivor 2 - I love the voice acting in this game.  I feel like all the characters are really suited to their voices, and it’s really easy for me to visualize their voices.  They really bring the game to life and make both the dramatic and the funny scenes more enjoyable.

Worst Voice Acting: Jedi Knight Jedi Academy - I love this game, I really do, but some of the voice acting is janky.  Some of it is okay too--I think Kyle Katarn’s voice actor does fine, and some of the others I like NOW but hated when I was a kid, but the male protagonist voice in this game is just awful.  Which is bad when Jennifer Hale is the female voice actress lol.  His performance is passable though unless you’re playing darksided--the darksided ending to the game lacks all punch when you’re playing the male protagonist.

Favorite Male:  Battler Ushiromiya from Umineko no Naku Koro Ni - He’s the protagonist for most of the visual novels and I adore him utterly, especially once you move past episode 2.  He’s a wonderful character who I care about deeply.  I love his drive and how he fights--he’s someone who is easy to cheer for.  He matures well throughout the series and his character development is just wonderful.

Favorite Female:  Naoto Shirogane from Persona 4 - I really like how Naoto fits so well in the game, especially for being a final recruit--oftentimes the final recruit of Persona games (post 3) have a bit of a more difficult time feeling right with the group.  Naoto works really well though, and I love her struggles and story as well.  I think the difficulties she has concerning living as a woman in her field hit very deep to a problem that has existed for a very long time.

Favorite Protagonist: Connor of Daventry from King’s Quest 8 Mask of Eternity - I’m like, one of four fans of this character in the world, lol.  KQ8 is not a very well liked game and it does have a lot of issues, both with age and with how much of a departure it is from the series prior to it.  It’s strange to take a puzzle adventure game and make it a hybrid with what basically is a shooter, and it doesn���t really work.  Add to that the fact that you spend most of your time in the game without anyone around to talk to and it leads to this really polarizing and weird experience.  For me, Conner goes through what I would consider to be the ‘Ultimate Nightmare Scenario”.  Everyone in the world is turned to stone except him (and he survived out of mere chance) and so now it’s up to him, practically alone, to save the entire world.  There is no game lonelier than this.  I adore him for his bravery in the face of it, and how he just picks up to do what must be done because someone should do it, and if no one else can, then he will.  I also really love how he apologizes to people who are encased in stone while he takes money from their houses to help him on his journey.  I really do think he went back after the game was over and gave everyone heaps of gold to pay them back with interest lol.

Favorite Village:  Oakvale from Fable - The first Fable is the only one I really like, and it was one of the games I played when I was little, so the hometown in the game always meant a lot to me.  I like how you grow up there and how your tragic backstory is there--and then how you get to return to the town years later after you’ve come into your own, and you can see it completely rebuilt.  I like to spend a lot of my time in this town, just wandering around it and playing the minigames.  Even though I have a house in every town, Oakvale is where my hero calls home.

Most Hated Character:  Merril from Dragon Age 2 - I don’t really want to lay into how I feel about Merril, but what I will say is that it was suggested to me that I totally ignore her when playing, and I did so.  I only met her for her quest, dropped her off in town, and literally never spoke to her or interacted for the rest of the game.  I had a much better experience for it, honestly.  She appeared after I made my choice in the end of the game, which felt weird since I hadn’t spoken to her in several ingame years, but other than that, the game was totally fine without her.  I sort of just wish you could kill characters in DA2 the way you can in DAO, then I’d just do that, tbh.  It doesn’t suit very many (or any) of the characters I rp in DA2 to keep her around or support her in any way.

First Game I Played: Mixed up Mother Goose Deluxe - I’m not actually sure if this is the FIRST game I’ve ever played or not, but it’s one of the first I played alone as a kid.  I really loved it--this is probably what created my love for point and click adventures, and the game was very silly and fun.

Favorite Company: Bioware - I’ve always been a sucker for Bioware games, ever since Knights of the Old Republic 1 was my favorite childhood game.  I love how they do stories and party members, and while I’m not a fan of all of their games, I really love what they’ve made and their style of storytelling and character driven plot.  Even though sometimes their stories get cliche, I think the suit video games well and most of my early gaming was within their games.

Hated Company: EA - Bioware truly only started to go to shit after the EA acquisition, so I fucking hate EA.   I know Bioware had issues before EA too, but I definitely don’t think EA has helped the situation whatsoever.

Depressing Game: The Beginner’s Guide - I relate to this game as a creator and a writer, and it affects me deeply because of the story it tells and the questions it raises.  It makes me reflect on how I think of myself as a creator, and it reminds me of friendships I used to have.

Creepy Game:  The Path - God, I love this game.  It’s just aimlessly wandering around and finding symbolic scenery and watching your current character comment on it.  Then, you go off to find your girl’s wolf, and each one is different and unique to her, and you watch it ‘kill’ her--and facing her wolf is the only way each girl can truly mature.  Whenever you get to grandmother’s house, the camera switches to first person, and your eyes keep closing, so you can only see while clicking to move.  It forces you to keep moving so that you can see, but since you are moving, you only get to see things somewhat vaguely.  It’s got a great atmosphere, and I love the symbolic storytelling.

Happy Game: Eastshade - This game is so sweet.  There’s some drama around to with many of the quests, but I like this as an rpg without combat, and I think this would be a really good kids game.  There’s a lot to see and explore, and the game was made to be really pretty so that you want to paint several aspects of it.  It’s really lovely to just wander around in this game and bike around the area, painting anything that suits your fancy.  As long as you don’t finish the main quest, you’re free to wander, and materials do respawn, so you essentially can infinitely paint once you get far enough.

Favorite Ending: Virtue’s Last Reward - I love the questions this game asks and where the ending goes.  It thematically ties together--the whole reason the game itself exists is to get the attention of a ‘higher being’--the player, essentially.  I love how it plays with that concept, and even though the final game in the series doesn’t entirely pick this idea up where this game left it, standalone this game is stunning in how it comes together.

[the-cookie-of-doom]

Jack of All Trades

Prompt: Character A is a member of royalty that needed to flee when their kingdom was overrun. Alone and afraid, Character A gets picked up by a group of traveling merchants. Character B is annoyed by Character A’s lack of skills, but they take it upon themself to try to help Character A, at least until they reach the next town.

The band of merchants were the last thing Mitch expected to come to his rescue. To be fair, he was certain they didn’t expect to find him, either, alone in the woods, wounded and delirious with poison. By some strike of generosity, they decided to stop and help him. 

The alchemist, Stiles, cured his delirium while the healer, Scott, tended his physical wounds, and Mitch barely remembered any of it. When he awoke three days later in their small camp, surrounded by strangers—two men and two women—he didn’t know what to make of them. Surely they couldn’t be enemies, if they’d gone through the trouble to save his life. Unless they intended to hold him for ransom. 

Because you see, Mitch was a prince, whose kingdom was overrun. Taken in a coup by a bastard who thought he was the rightful heir to the throne. 

“We’re not a threat to you,” Stiles assured, stating again that, “If we were, we’d have left you to die. You’re lucky we managed to save you at all.” 

“Thank you,” Mitch said, belatedly remembering his manners. 

“What happened to you?” one of the women asked, a pretty brunette with soft eyes and a kind smile. Mitch thought he heard them call her Allison before. 

“My—” Mitch caught himself; it wasn’t in his best interest to reveal his royal status if they didn’t know it already. Betrayal was still fresh in his heart. “My home was attacked. Bandits either killed or captured my family, I don’t know.” He didn’t see what happened to them. His mother told him to get help, and then the castle was burning, and he could find no trace of them. 

“I’m so sorry,” Allison said. 

“What do you intend to do now?” asked the woman with flaming red hair, Lydia. 

“I need to find my cousin. She lives in the next kingdom over.” Irene ruled it, in fact, but he kept that to himself. 

“We’re headed to the capital,” Scott supplied.

“Let me travel with you,” Mitch said. He wasn’t accustomed to asking for things. 

“Well… It wouldn’t be right to leave you after all the trouble we went through to keep you alive,” Stiles said, eying Mitch carefully. “So long as you can help out around camp, I don’t see a reason not to bring you along.” 

“I will,” Mitch promised. 

As if turned out, Mitch couldn’t help out around camp. Not for lack of trying—he probably tried too much.

Scott had to teach him how to pitch a tent that wouldn’t blow away in the wind, and showed him how to properly brush down the horses at the end of the day, and maintain their equipment. The leather saddles needed to be properly oiled—the special oil courtesy of Stiles—to maintain their longevity. 

Allison, the huntress of the group, outright refused to let Mitch help her hunt; unfortunately that was the one thing he knew he could do, but she didn’t believe him when he said. She believed him even less when she dragged back a deer carcass—that he did help her with, as soon as he spotted her through the trees—and he didn’t have the first clue how to butcher it. 

Lydia, the seamstress, was less than impressed with Mitch’s lack of skill with a needle, unable to mend his clothes himself. Several long gashes were cut through the fabric where he’d been attacked by a traitorous guard, bribed to bring the usurper his head on a pike. The guard didn’t live to fulfill his contract or collect his reward. 

While Allison hunted, Stiles trawled through the forest with a basket and a spade, looking for herbs to add to his stores. Mitch tried to help, picking a leafy plant that Stiles directed him to—and immediately stopped when Stiles gasped in horror at his apparently incorrect technique. In the end, Stiles decided Mitch could carry the basket, and not so much as look at the herbs. 

“Who are you really?” Stiles asked as they walked, searching yet another campsite for fresh pickings. As the weather descended further into winter, there was left to find, the wildlife stripping away what little there was to prepare for hibernation. They were still weeks away from the capital. 

“I told you, already.” 

“You did,” Stiles agreed. “But no farmer would be as useless as you when it comes to making camp. No offense.” 

“None taken,” Mitch said, cringing. He knew he was more a detriment to their travel than anything else. They’ve spent almost two weeks together on the trail, and he could only be thankful they haven’t decided to leave him by the wayside. 

“Clearly you’re at least some kind of noble,” Stiles continued. “In fact, I’m willing to bet you’re that lost prince everyone’s been talking about.” 

Internally, Mitch swore. They stayed over at an in three nights ago, and it was rife with talk of what happened to his kingdom. He knew that would cause trouble for him sooner or later. 

“Is that what you believe?” Mitch asked, keeping his voice even. Having been trained since birth to mask his emotions in court, it was no difficult task. 

“You tell me,” Stiles said. 

Mitch didn’t say anything. He watched Stiles crouch down to scrape lichen off the base of a tree, feeding it into a small glass jar. Their eyes locked when he put it into the basket Mitch carried. Stiles’ eyes were a deep, warm brown, like the forest after a rain, and Mitch couldn’t help but want to trust him. 

“What if I was?” Mitch asked. 

“I wouldn’t mind,” Stiles said softly. Then he cleared his throat and stepped back. “I mean—none of us would, that is. Hell, Lydia was to be the lady of House Martin, before her father’s disgrace. And it would certainly explain why you can’t cook to save your life.” 

“I can cook,” Mitch defended. “Just not over a campfire.” He’d spent enough time in the castle kitchens—making trouble for the cook, poor woman—that he’d learned a thing or two. But with the limited supplies they had while traveling, well… 

“Mhm. You are spoiled.”

“I’m not.” 

“You are,” Stiles grinned. “Are you really the prince, then?”

“Yes.” 

“Fascinating. My very own fairytale prince.” Stiles looped his arms through Mitch’s, and looked up at the sky. “It’s getting dark, we should head back. And don’t worry—none of us would tell anyone about you. Your secret’s safe.” 

Strangely enough, Mitch believed him. 

When they were only two or three days' ride from the city, their little group was attacked by bandits. Finally Mitch was able to prove he did have some useful skill. He divested one of the bandits of their sword and made quick work of the rest. 

It was a prince’s responsibility to protect his people, after all.

[thewhirlwind]

STRANGE OMENS — CHARACTER SUMMARIES

CHARACTERS WRITTEN / CREATED BY FORSYTHE ( @thewhirlwind ):

ANTONIO REYES— Antonio Reyes is the sheriff in Frostford’s local sheriff’s department. He’s Vothine’s half-human son, bearing four arms and a nuanced senses. He was born in 837 BC, his mother was a slave who escaped Ancient Greece with her former lover’s help, and raised him in Spain. He starts off investigating the strange cult activity that starts going on in the surrounding region. Canonically dating Ivory Wells, or at least will be.

AINSLEY LACHLAN— the son of a Russian mobster and twin brother to Renard, Ainsley Lachlan is one of the local Catholic priests, and arguably the only openly gay one in the area. He firmly believes these things aren’t mutually exclusive, but eventually he’s lead astray by Vothine, who manipulates him into thinking that releasing Epsolise will create a paradise for mankind, and the truth is, all he’s ever wanted was to help people, to make up for his father’s crimes.

RENARD LACHLAN— Ainsley’s slightly younger, twin brother, Renard is Frostford’s local neurosurgeon, sometimes moonlighting as a trauma surgeon when his schedule is open. He took an interest in neurology due to his own, rather severe dyslexia, which slowed him down in school, until Ainsley was old enough to read to him and help him learn how to read despite his disorder. Like his brother, he wants to help people, but he has no hang ups about his father’s crimes. Later, when his brother unleashes Epsolise, he becomes host to the Elder God, and it messes him up severely. His best friends are Alana Reid and Ruo Silva, and canonically he’s dating Everett Novak.

THEODORE HUDSON— Theo is the owner of Hudson Technology, better known as HudTech, a global leader in all kinds of technology and founded when Theo graduates MIT, some years back. (I haven’t decided on a year yet rip.) Best friend to Everett Novak, Theo often hires him as a freelancer to work on the coding side of his various project; together the two can accomplish nearly anything. In 2015, he was fooling around with a project trying to create a kind of artificial intelligence by combining eldritch magic with technology. In doing so, he inadvertently summoned Vothine, who killed him—brutally. Violently—and then melded with his body. This did revive Theo, albeit much, much weaker, but he was able to fight back when Vothine went after his best friend and interfere with his attacks. Eventually, Everett does manage to free him from the god’s hold, but he’s left with a great many mental and physical scars.

ALANA REID— Alana is part of Renard’s surgical team. Along with Ruo Silva, the three of them went to college together in NYC, NY, and she moved out to Frostford after Ruo told them there were job openings at the local hospital. (So did Renard.) when Ruo died, Alana may have personally beaten the shit out of her murderer and abuser. After she ressurects, Alana canonically dates Ruo. The two of them are also Renard’s best friends.

THE LOTUS TWINS—They’re also known as the twin gods of discordance. Initially born in the depths of a dying star as the singular god of balance, Asikolise, they were ripped asunder by the black hole formed in its death. With balance rent in two, they became two gods that slowly tipped the scales of the universe back and forth from one far end back to the other, over extended periods of time.

EPSOLISE— One of the two lotus twins, known for forming the garden, an Eden for eldritch horrors to feed on the living things that roamed the earth. Man, beast, whatever. When Ipsilise is bound, Epsolise walks free.

AURI’ELL OV’AGOTHA/AURI’ELL ILLI’ED— Auri’ell is thought of as two gods with incredibly similar names, the kings of the sea and of magic,  it the truth is—he’s one singular entity with two titles and two domains. He was born Alain MacNamara of the coast of Ireland in 1389, to a sailor who would eventually take him to sea with him. At first, his study of eldritch magic was a passing interest with which to study marine life; but as his mind deteriorated due to the magic, he became obsessed, focusing on what was on the other side of it. Eventually, he broke through it, becoming he god of the sea and the god of magic, being the one who advanced eldritch magic the most over his life. Unstuck in time, he went back to he very beginning—and eventually, he introduces magic to the world, when mankind is old enough to understand it.

VOTHINE— the god of chaos, he’s in love with the lotus gods; all three iterations of them. From the dawn of time he’s been tipping the scales back and forth between Epsolise, and Ipsilise, hoping that one day, someone would find a way to stop them—by fusing them together into the one entity they were truly meant to be. His methods, however, are rough, due to be whole... chaos thing. People who deal with him frequently end up hurt, traumatized for life. A fine example being Theodore Hudson. Vothine is not so unlike Auri’ell, in that he was created from a man, but his wasn’t a choice. He was a slave in early Ancient Greece, experimented on by his owner until he became something more. With his new found powers, he likely slaughtered this who owned him and the one he loved, before helping her escape back to her home country, Spain. But she grew scared of him, as he grew less and less human with each passing day, until finally they—amicably—agreed to go their separate ways. He still loves her, but he understood he had a different purpose now. He, like Auri’ell, was also unstuck in time. But instead of going back to he beginning, he was drawn back to the point in which the lotus gods were created, feeling the way their power balanced out, appearing mere moments before they were torn apart.

CHARACTERS WRITTEN / CREATED BY FOA ( @ephemeraltheory & @exemplaryambiance ):

EVERETT NOVAK—Initially a gifted software engineer as well as a magic user, Everett had sworn off of using magic after he’d accidentally caused permanent nerve damage to his father’s hands when he was fourteen. His father was a woodworker and had his own business so he had to take over most of the weight of the business until he left for college.  After his best friend Theo gets taken by Vothine,  Everett is permanently injured by Vothine, leaving him with nerve damage in his lower back and leg. He refurbishes a library in Frostford with the goal to learn every ounce of magic that he possibly could in order to save his friend. Everett becomes a master warlock by the time the story begins and later,  he canonically ends up dating Renard Lachlan.

RUO SILVA—Ruo was fourteen when she met her abuser ( emotional abuse and much later,   physical abuse ),  Mallory.  Ever since then,  Mallory has coerced Ruo into a romantic relationship and over time,  she gradually isolated her from any possible friends she could have made as well as from her own parents. She convinced Ruo that their relationship would be in danger if she spoke about it to anyone.  Ruo is able to escape the home she ends up sharing with her abuser to go to college to be a nurse.  Here,  she meets and befriends Alana and Renard, who provide a taste of what it actually feels like to be cared about, what it feels like to not always be afraid that people you love will hurt you.  What it feels like to have actual friends.  One night when Ruo reluctantly returns home to bathe and retrieve things she’d needed,  she and Mallory get into an argument about Ruo’s consistent absence and Mallory eventually forcibly holds Ruo beneath the bath water,  drowning her. Having been wearing an ancient family heirloom,  a garnet necklace,   after 2-3 months, Ruo is reincarnated as an Enenra, which is essentially a fire elemental / smoke demon / spirit. Her best friend is Renard Lachlan and canonically,  she and Alana begin dating after she’s reincarnated.

IVORY WELLS—Ivory is the crime scene technician for Frostford’s local police department. As a child, Ivory lost a close friend Iris to a serial killer when she was about twelve. For about six years, they weren’t able to find the person responsible nor were they able to figure out what had happened to her. Around the time Ivory turned eighteen however,  they’d re-opened the case due to another child’s death that had the same M.O. They used the most current technology to go over the collected evidence once more and were able to finally find the convicted murderer, which brought not only herself and Iris’s family closure and justice, but also closure and justice for the families who had lost a child to the same fate. This is what drove Ivory to become a crime scene technician, to offer that same closure to others. She has worked with Antonio Reyes for 5 years and canonically,  they start dating sometime in book 1.

IPSILISE—One of the two lotus twins, she is benevolent towards humanity but has an obsessive need for control, to the point of detriment. One of her common names is CROATOAN, but she’s responsible for other missing cities; Atlantis. Sodom & Gomorrah. A handful of others we have yet to uncover. When Epsolise is bound,  Ipsilise walks free.

[alternislatronemhq]

Congrats, Nicky, you have been accepted to AL for the role of Lucius Malfoy (FC: Cody Ferm). NICKYYYY! Wow, this makes the third group that we’re in together, and as usual, you’ve blown me away by the way you’re able to get into the head of your character. You just have a gift with the Malfoys, and Lucius is such a fascinating character in your hands. I’m so eager to see how his character develops in this new verse, and your plot ideas are just fantastic! Pumped to have you here. Please send in your blog (no sideblogs for first characters, please) in the next 24 hours and be sure to take a look at our new player checklist.Welcome home, we’re so excited to have you join the family!

OOC

name — Nicky age — 30+ pronouns — she/her timezone — EST activity level — medium: I play in and help admin another game, but I should still have plenty of time for a decent amount of Lucius-ing over here! Probably not every day, but certainly multiple times per week! any questions? — nope, everything looks super great!

IC Overview

name — Lucius Abraxas Malfoy age — 31 gender — gender-fluid…not that Lucius has the words for that, but he knows how he feels and he’s never bothered to fuss about it. Lucius has always been supremely confident in himself (and herself – although again, he lacks the awareness of gender that would let him understand that his feelings about “his” gender sometimes fit other pronouns better than the ones he was assigned at birth, so he only ever uses him – even when he doesn’t feel like a him) and the only downside to that is that his confidence arrogance honestly blinds him a little bit to the nuances of his own identity – because he’s Lucius Malfoy. There’s no room for figuring out any other details of identity next to that. The upside to his confidence, of course, is that he doesn’t hesitate to express himself in whatever way feels most comfortable, no matter how other people might react – so if some days he’d rather wear robes more suited to a witch, or deck himself out in his late mother’s finest jewelry, or paint his face with the finest make-up…he’ll just do it. Why not? He is who he is, and Lucius has never apologized for that…well, not and meant it anyway! sexuality — pansexual…which again, he lacks the terminology for. Yes, the word itself was coined in 1917, but it was coined by Muggles; even if it’s made its way into the Wizarding World by now, it wouldn’t have made its way to Lucius…not that he needs it. Lucius isn’t the sort who requires a label to know himself, and he simply never cared about gender. His orientation might be better described as “pretty-sexual” because he’s shallow as anything; it’s just not gender that affects his interests. In fact, he thinks the way some people let something as silly and pointless as gender dictate their attraction is just absurd – and he won’t hesitate to share that fact. patronus — peacock (because of course, right?) although usually noncorporeal…not that Lucius doesn’t have happy memories, because he certainly does; conjuring the patronus isn’t a difficulty. Keeping the patronus conjured when in the face of something nasty is where he falters – because Lucius has always been a little bit spineless. He’s better at the Dark Arts than the Light, because it’s easier to force negative emotions than positive ones; he’s happy when he feels happy, but he’s adept at using anger and hate even when he’s not feeling them. He can compartmentalize extremely well (hence his positively artful mastery of the Imperius Curse) but he’s never learned to fake happy. Lucius either wears a completely opaque mask or wears his feelings right out on his sleeve – no in between. And a patronus requires a bit of that in between, remembering happy even when you’re scared or angry and not just in an “oh I wish” sense, but in an yes I was happy then, I can be happy right not thinking about it again and that’s not something he does well. So his patronus is weak…but then again, with the spells he knows, what does he need a patronus for anyway? boggart — dog…a great slavering, drooling, barking, tooth-bared beast, filthy and matted with blood on its lips and frenzy in its eyes. It’s anyone’s guess whether he’s more afraid of the teeth or the threat of muck from the filthy in its fur – Lucius certainly isn’t telling. He’s good at compartmentalizing fear, anyway, so boggarts don’t cause him much trouble. One quick Riddikulus and the beast’s legs drop off and its teeth fall out, and it falls helpless and yelping to the ground, frenzy replaced by confusion and fear. Maybe that wouldn’t be a funny enough sight for most people – they’d probably turn it into a toy dog, squeaking and colorful, or maybe tie it up in bright ribbon or something cutesy like that – but Lucius’s sense of humor, while sharp, is also a bit dark. He thinks it’s hilarious. He won’t be laughing so hard later, probably – because the war is coming back, and this time Lucius has more to lose than he did when he first donned that silver mask. The first time he sees his son’s broken body before him, he’ll understand how normal people feel when they face a boggart: shaken, terrified, hollow. And not even his clever wits will be able to quickly conjure a way to make that funny. But that’s later; for now, it’s still the ugly dog and the cruel laughter engendered by its plight.

IC In Depth

personality traits — at least two positive and two negative, explain

Loyal – there are people who call Lucius a snivelling, spineless coward who would betray anybody to save his own skin, and they’re not wrong…except the part about him betraying anybody. Lucius is extremely loyal, but only to those whom he deems most important to him: his family. The Malfoys have always put family first – to the lengths of being willing to sacrifice their own ambitions (and even lives) for the sake of the greater name and lineage. Like many of the old, insular pure-blood families, their members have a tendency to be sorted into the same Hogwarts House as those who came before – but it’s not as universal a thing as it is with some and if a Malfoy isn’t going to be in Slytherin, it’s a pretty safe bet to put your money on them being in Hufflepuff. Indeed, it took the Sorting Hat a good two minutes to decide where to put young Lucius (and it was his innate laziness that ultimately kept him out of the cellars; while he certainly has drive and it more than willing to work hard to achieve his goals, if there’s an easy way out Lucius won’t hesitate to take that instead). He would do anything, sacrifice anything, for those who are most precious to him; his loyalty to them is boundless. Too bad for the rest of the world that that means he won’t hesitate to sacrifice them for the sake of those he loves, too – and that the number of people who truly matter above all else is so small: one wife, one son. Even his own father goes on the list of “potential sacrifice” if need be to keep Draco and Narcissa safe. Good thing Abraxas is a Malfoy, too; the old man might be a terror, but he understands that sort of family loyalty too.

Arrogant – Lucius went most of his life not just thinking but knowing that there was no one in the world who could compare to him. These days, he knows there are two people who are better: his son and his wife. And no one else even holds a candle to the three of them. It’s more than just confidence; it’s an absolute, unshakable belief in his own superiority. (Daddy’s lectures about Malfoys being better than everyone else took hold a little too well.) Time ought to have at least tempered if not punctured this bubble, but alas, Lucius is talented enough that he managed to escape the cold dose of reality that often undercuts the insufferable. He did learn how to ingratiate himself (a talent acquired mostly through the simple expedient of being so much younger than the majority of the people he was trying to impress) to the point of obsequiousness, at times – but just because Lucius is kneeling and begging and sniveling for his life doesn’t mean he doesn’t still think he’s better than you. He has a knack for compartmentalizing that makes him extremely gifted at mental magicks like Legilimency and Occlumency, but that same knack has a detrimental impact on his character as well: because he’s so good at it, he can even compartmentalize reality when it conflicts with his convictions. When Lucius is shown-up at something, instead of questioning whether he really is as good as he thinks he is, he finds ways to dismiss it – there were extenuating circumstances, maybe, or it’s a skill that isn’t all that important anyway, etc. So even when he’s been badly humbled, his confidence shattered, his arrogance remains. Even in defeat, Lucius knows he’s still better than the people who beat him. That’s just who he is.

Clever – Call him shrewd, observant, manipulative, even machiavellian – Lucius is all those things. He is a talented, quick-witted wizard with few (if any) scruples. He can talk his way out of trouble almost as fast as he can think his way out of said trouble, lightning-quick and eloquent. He’s already ready with a barb or a drawling retort, as quick with a jibe as he is with a jinx. In part, it’s a natural talent – and in part it’s because Lucius views the whole world as a sort of game, one that he’s been practicing all his life. Even now, having lived through the horrors of a war, he still looks at the world as a game – and games can be won. (He’s the sort of player who cheats, too, and doesn’t see anything wrong with that; everybody is cheating, after all. It’s just a matter of who does it better, and who’s clumsy enough to get caught…and dumb enough to let getting caught be a problem instead of the next step in the game.) Perhaps that’s why he so rarely wakes up screaming, when by all rights he ought to suffer from daily nightmares after the things he’s seen – the things he’s done. But Lucius doesn’t have a guilty conscience. (There are some who say he doesn’t have a conscience at all.) Anyone he hurt has themselves to blame as much as him, after all; if they’d been better at the game, they’d have been able to protect themselves, like he did. He was clever enough to talk his way into Voldemort’s inner circle; clever enough to talk his way out of Azkaban; clever enough see which way the wind was blowing after the war and pivot to a new role that would carry him further than his old reputation – not that he doesn’t still make sure of some of that; having people half-convinced that you could Curse them as easily as you charm them with your honeyed words comes in handy…and Lucius could. He’s an exceptionally adept wizard, especially in certain useful areas of magic; he could get his way through force a lot more often than he does…but it’s more fun to charm and cajole instead.

Callous – You can’t even call it selfishness, although Lucius is selfish – albeit generous with friends, allies, and those he’s trying to sucker…but giving away gold and gifts and grandiose praise doesn’t cost him anything; petty selfishness is a different thing entirely. No, Lucius is callous not because he’s greedy (he has enough that he can afford not to act greedy and still satiate his greed) but because he doesn’t care about other people. Oh, he can put on an appearance of sympathy with the best of them, and on some level he can even feel great sorrow and pity for other people…but he doesn’t really care. Not about anybody outside his small circle of family and a few close friends – and even then, he’d not blink to see half the latter in distress if the circumstance were right. Lucius is the sort of man who would let the world burn not because he delights in chaos, but because he doesn’t care enough about the people screaming around him to put it out. He only cares about “the world” as a concept at all because it’s the world that he – and his son – have to life in; the future matters for Draco, not because there’s anything of value in the abstract concept of “the future.” Which is not to say that he is without all feelings of human sympathy; should someone he does care about find themselves in pain or distress of any sort, Lucius will be distraught (possibly furious, depending on the circumstance) and genuinely sympathetic – but only to the people he cares about. Everyone else can burn for all he cares. Lucius Malfoy is not adept at the Cruciatus Curse because he revels in causing other people pain; he’s adept at the Cruciatus Curse because he doesn’t see anything wrong with someone else screaming. He’s not the sort to go out of his way to find a toy to play with the way some (such as his sister-in-law) of his old allies were known to do…but he will smirk and sneer and mock a victim without so much as a flicker of remorse. And why not? Why should he care about other people who don’t care about him?

character biography — doesn’t have to be overly long, just give us the important moments in the character’s life

Lucius is an only child, born late in his father’s life to Abraxas’s fourth wife. Rumors about about the terrible mischances that took the first three – a mysterious illness, a tragic accident, and the scandal of running off to the Côte d'Ivoire with a Mudblood – and about the many miscarriages and cot-deaths that carried-off the family’s previous attempts at an heir. (No one can prove that there are squib babies buried in the estate’s gardens…but no one can prove that there aren’t, either.) When Lucius came along, it was a relief to old Abraxas and he raised his son with both indulgent luxury and demanding expectations. Lucius’s childhood wasn’t easy, with his father always breathing down his neck, but the trade-off was that as long as he excelled at everything, he got anything he could ever want. That seemed like a pretty good deal – and it’s not like it was hard for a clever, talented, ambitious boy to succeed at Hogwarts. Slug Club in his first year, Slytherin Chaser in his third, prefect in his fifth, Quidditch captain in his sixth…and not even Abraxas could blame him for the fact that he did not make Head Boy, not with that Muggle-lover Albus Dumbledore as headmaster. Besides, by then Lucius’s eyes were already on his next ambition…

It wasn’t hard for him to curry favor with the Dark Lord, and Lucius earned his Dark Mark within a year of leaving Hogwarts. He was young, but he was valuable too – not just for his name and social position, but for his charm. Lucius was good in a duel (and grew better fast with so many vicious allies with whom to train and trade knowledge) but Voldemort had many Death Eaters who could fight; Lucius’s value lay in the minds he could sway (through words or spells) whether by recruiting other allies, or merely spreading support for the Dark Lord’s ideals. Abaxas was less than thrilled that his only son would agree to serve anyone, even Voldemort, but he had no qualms with the Dark Lord’s ideals, so their arguments over it never went too far (but Abraxas lost no time in spouting I-told-you-so’s after Voldemort’s fall). War was hard, and often dangerous, but the dark years were brightened by something that overshadowed all of that: love and marriage to the most wonderful witch in the world. (Even Abraxas could find no flaws with his daughter-in-law, although he did make several snide comments about the disgrace of Narcissa’s former sister – until she hexed him into silence, after which he promptly declared her a perfect match for his only son.) It took longer than they might have liked to have a child, but once they did – once they had an heir – it seemed like everything might well be perfect.

There were losses and close-calls during the war, and they had several friends to mourn, but the only direct tragedy in Lucius’s life was the death of his mother when she mistook a deadly herbicide for a harmless sleeping draught – a suspicious tragedy, perhaps, on the heels of two other unexpected deaths, but once again no one (not even Lucius) could prove that his father had been in any way involved. The war, at least, offered a distraction from grief at her death – until the war ended, suddenly and with little ceremony, and the Malfoys found themselves abruptly left on the losing side. They might have been able to weather that storm with little harm (they were far too respected, and too connected, to not be able to squirm free of repercussions) but then Narcissa’s sister had to go off and torture bloody James Potter like that, and…well, on top of everything else it seemed like just “escaping Azkaban” wasn’t enough. The family needed to do something to “prove” to the public that they shouldn’t be painted with the same brush as vicious Bellatrix Lestrange – a grand gesture. And what could be grander than turning their backs on one sister and reconciling with another?

Narcissa wasn’t keen on the idea, but Lucius convinced her – no easy feat, with Cissy being one of the tojurs pur noble House of Black, whose purity-mania had been second only to the unlamented Gaunts, but Lucius had always had a knack for being convincing…and besides, their was their child’s future to think of. So Narcissa agreed, and Lucius led the push of glad-handing and grinning at half-blood and blood-traitors and even the occasional Mudblood, enshrining the Malfoy family in the eyes of the wizarding world as good people. Not blood-traitors themselves, oh no, they never went that far – but a little more easy-going about things than they’d once been; a little more tolerant. They stopped (mostly) using the word Mudblood in public; stopped pushing for pro-pureblood laws with their gold and their influence. They still toed the line of being respectable wix of course, polite and traditional…but less strict about who (and what) they were willing to let into their own inner circle. They even allowed Andromeda’s Mudblood husband and their mongrel brat in their home! Yes, the Malfoys had clearly changed, and all the world could see it.

Lucius recently engaged in another grand gesture, although this one with more sincerity and enthusiasm: the “little girl” that he and his wife had thought they were raising declared himself to be a wizard, not a witch, and while it took the Malfoys a little while to come on board with the idea (not so much because they had trouble with the concept as because the child’s ability to explain himself was stymied somewhat by Lucius’s own rather flippant disregard for gender norms – so saying he was just like daddy didn’t mean as much as it would have in another house) once they did, they didn’t hold back. Narcissa pulled down the book of constellations to help her son find a new name (it didn’t take him long – I can be a dragon? I wanna be a dragon!) while Lucius took-out a full-page ad in the Daily Prophet to print an amended birth announcement so the whole world would know about their precious Draco. Lucius would have been happy to spend the rest of his life preening over his clever, brilliant, perfect son, and litlte else – but it seems the world has other plans in mind.

As rumors of darkness returning swirl, the Malfoys find themselves in a difficult position: they turned their backs on the more hardcore of their old allies to court new, muddier friends; they didn’t so much renounce the old ways as quietly shuffle away from them…and now the old ways are calling in what they owe. If the Dark Lord is indeed coming back – or even if he isn’t, and it’s merely other old supporters rallying the cause again – the Malfoys will be in trouble. They’ll be punished for their disloyalty, and not even Lucius’s silver tongue will be enough to talk their way out of that – not after they made such a public show of reconciling with Narcissa’s blood-traitor relatives, not after everything Lucius has said to the public and the press, all the work they’ve done to build a new reputation…work that may now doom them. The only way to keep themselves safe from the Dark Lord’s retribution is to lean in and really commit to the newer, more “tolerant” ideals to which they’ve spent the last five years paying lip service. If their old allies are their enemies now, that means they need to make their old enemies into allies – ingratiate themselves so well that those they once fought will be willing to protect them against their old friends. It’s not going to be pleasant…but there’s nothing Lucius won’t do to keep his family safe. Nothing.

plot ideas — either for the broader group plot or for your specific character

THE DIARY of course! Since Lucius was entrusted with that by Voldemort shortly before the Dark Lord’s death when he was still a devoted follower…which he isn’t, anymore. So now what? How/when/if will he figure out what this thing is, or that it’s something that matters now? Will he dare to defy Voldemort enough to actually help destroy that? Will he want to keep it for some sort of insurance for himself? Will learning what it is (what sort of dangerous thing the Dark Lord put in the same house as his son!) give him and Sirius a reason to work together, and how awkward will that be for both of them? Will his knowledge of the Dark Arts prove invaluable to Sirius’s mission to destroy the horcruxes, both giving him a chance to do “good” using his “bad” skills and also forcing Sirius to grapple with the conflicting issue of “ends justifying the means” and what it means to use the Dark Arts for “the greater good”? Will he keep possession of the diary a secret (maybe purposefully, maybe without understanding that it matters) too long and endanger his family by having it there when the Dark Lord comes back for it? Will he get rid of it and face Voldemort’s wrath for that later, instead – and then have no diary he can offer-up to temper said wrath? There are a lot of ways that this can go, and I’m on board for ALL of them!

DOBBY – we know he hates the Malfoys, hates working for them. Probably doesn’t buy into their “we’re good now, mkay?” vibe at all…so does that set him up to be this story’s Kreacher? Will he find a way to betray them, and if he does what will that do – will it be a betrayal that hurts the Order and Dumbledore as well? One that opens a weakness for the Dark Lord or his old Death Eaters to take advantage of? Dobby was a savior in canon because it was Harry Potter he wanted to help, but now that the Malfoys are “good guys” (technically speaking) will that make Dobby easy for the bad guys to manipulate or take advantage of? Or might Dobby simply take action on his own without being aware of the wider consequences, and inadvertently bring disaster? Again, lots of directions that this one could go depending on what the greater game plot demands – but I think the idea of having Dobby serve as a sort of cat’s paw or monkey wrench at some point would be really interesting, so file that one away on your back burner! ;)

ROSIERS – they’re related pretty closely through Narcissa’s mother (and tbh all the pure-bloods are related somehow the inbreeding is strong here lol) which also ties them to the Longbottoms through Alice and Evan being cousins; given the rather disparate sides on which those families stand, that puts some nice tension into the room…so how does that translate? Maybe a birthday party for dear little Draco (and if it’s his first birthday party as a boy, you know the Malfoys are going to go even bigger and more absurd with the extravaganza than their usual already over-the-top nonsense) that ends up getting a little out of hand – direct conflict that breaks-out into dueling? Party-crashing that gets ugly? Sabotage? Attempted poisoning? An attack? Lots of possibilities, again, dependent on what stage of things the plot has reached at the time – but given the Malfoys’ nature as gregarious social butterflies, it would be easy enough to have them throw a party for any reason any time one was needed for a plot event, whether it involves the Rosiers/Longbottoms or not!

LONGBOTTOMS – speaking of the Longbottoms…what is their relationship with the Malfoys? (Do they have one?) How close (or not at all) was Alice to Narcissa before their respective marriages, did they know each other well? Were they so distant they barely considered themselves family at all? Somewhere in between? That’s obviously something to be plotted/discussed between any Narcissa and Alice players, of course – I just think it could be very interesting to deal with any sort of connection between the Longbottoms, who were responsible for the death of Voldemort, and the Malfoys, whose world was up-ended by said death. Plus, they literally fought on opposite sides of a war…do the Longbottoms suspect that Lucius was under one of those silver masks? Do Lucius and Narcissa know that the Longbottoms were in the Order? They’re Aurors too, which probably puts some strife into things given the Malfoys’ predilection for the Dark Arts (and to circumventing the law in general) even if they’ve never been caught red-handed enough to face more than a few wink-and-a-nod fines. They’ve also got sons the same age; with the Malfoys being technically “good guys” this time, does that mean that Draco and Neville might end up having a play-date or two? Again, this all depends on plotting and backstories of other players, but I’m definitely in for seeing something happen with these two families!

POTTERS – His sister-in-law tortured Lily’s husband into a coma. He’s close friends with Severus, one of Lily’s oldest friends. And her current parenting-partner is his wife’s cousin (who’s currently working on destroying Voldemort’s horcruxes, one of which is stashed in Lucius’s house). Can anyone say awkward? Because I sure as hell can! There are a lot of things to tie these people unwillingly together even before their sons end up rivals at school together, and I’m eager to explore all of them.

DEATH EATERS – Lucius wasn’t just allies with these people; he was, in many cases, friends. Always an outgoing, charming, vivacious wizard, Lucius was popular all his life – good at making friends, and also good at assessing people and knowing how to get them on his side, whether by ingratiating himself to them or making them want to ingratiate themselves to him, etc. So even among the cut-throat, backstabbing, power-hungry Death Eaters, he was well-liked by more than most…but how far does friendship really go? He’s maintained a cordial, sometimes even friendly relationship with many of his old comrades-in-marks despite his public persona of someone barely better than a blood-traitor in their eyes…but does that mean any of them would hesitate to Avada Kedavra him on their old master’s orders? Can he expect any mercy, any help, any quarter – if not for himself, maybe at least for his wife and son? Maybe he should work to cozy-up to them even more…or maybe he should cut ties and put as much distance between them as possible, for the sake of safety. He might well do all of the above with different characters, so please – if you write a Death Eater, let’s plot out some drama!

SEVERUS SNAPE – Lucius was the first person to truly welcome Severus to the wizarding world, and while Lucius didn’t see anything special about the scrawny boy at first glance – he was just doing his duty as a newly-minted prefect to Slytherin’s new crop of first years – it didn’t take him long to realize that Severs was special…and vulnerable. One of, if not the, cleverest snakes in his year, it was obvious to anyone with eyes (translation: almost no one) that the boy was gifted. He was lonely too, and having someone like Lucius Malfoy demonstrate acceptance and praise of him was probably intoxicating to Severus. No wonder he ended up making friends with the sort of wannabe-Death Eaters that Lucius had hung around with in school; they probably followed Lucius’s lead, looked at scrawny Severus, and assumed that if Lucius thought he was valuable it must be true. Perhaps Lucius was even the one who made the overture to welcome Snape into the Death Eaters, the one who assured the Dark Lord that this greasy-haired half-blood was more than he seemed…I don’t know, but I’d love to plot-out a relationship with a Severus player! I think Lucius was probably a condescending bastard to Snape because he’s that way with everyone, but I also think he genuinely likes Snape too. I think Lucius considers him a close friend – and after the war ended with the both of them not on the side they’d seemed to be, one of the closest – and the fact that he sometimes tries to manipulate Snape doesn’t impact that at all; that’s what friends do, right? So I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a healthy, fair relationship…but it’s also genuine on Lucius’s part. He’d be shocked to be told that he’s ever not treated Severus well, honestly – he thinks he has. And given Snape’s rather troubled, traumatic childhood, it’s even possible that Snape agrees idk! I’d love to talk ideas through with whoever ends up playing Severus – especially what comes next. Does Lucius figure out that Snape is in the Order? He certainly knows that Snape is close to Dumbledore – which means that his fifteen-year-old instincts were right: Snape is valuable. Perhaps the mos valuable person Lucius knows, the one who might well save his skin in the days to come…if he can trust Snape to have his back, now that the both of them have turned their backs on the man who Marked them.

extra — honestly this app is already a million years long, so no, I am not going to force anyone to look at anything else I’M SORRY IT’S SO DAMN LONG XD

[littlemisssquiggles]

About your sliver eyes post. I thought about that too while watching vol 7 ch 3. I also recently watched a video that discussed how sliver eyes are too overpowered considering the fact that only thing ruby has to do is think about her friends. The youtuber made a lot of good points and said how there is no stakes/ tension with sliver eyes. which could be considered why ruby is probably not gonna focus on her sliver eyes this season. You could also make the theory that she was afriad to use them

Hey there Dagger. …Yeahhh, even if I wanted to make the headcanon that Ruby was scared or apprehensive about using her Silver Eyed powers out in the field with the Ace Ops, I can’t really do that because it’s not supported by the PLOT the Writers wrote themselves into fort his season.

As for your other good point, fam.

“…I also recently watched a video that discussed how sliver eyes are too overpowered considering the fact that only thing ruby has to do is think about her friends. The youtuber made a lot of good points and said how there is no stakes/ tension with sliver eyes. which could be considered why ruby is probably not gonna focus on her sliver eyes this season…”

What’s you say? The Silver Eyes are too overpowered? They have no stakes or tension? Whelp, apologies to you m’friend but that’s…not really Ruby’s fault? It’s not her fault that the PLOT have her this super OP ability that they neglected to properly flesh out. Nor is it an excuse.

As a matter of fact, this Youtuber’s points only serve to validate one of the faults in the writing of RWBY and addresses the fact that when the Writers decided to grant Ruby this amazing ability, they neglected to put better thought into the mechanics of such an invincible ability.

Let Superman be an exemplar of this rule. For every incredibly powerful character that is created in fiction, there is usually a known weakness to said character that grounds them and could potentially provide an obstacle for them to, not overcome, but adapt to for the sake of being that powerful character especially if they’re a hero.

Case in point. Superman is considered to be the most invincible character in all of DC yet he can easily be brought to his knees and lose all of his great power by the mere force of a slab of lime-flavoured crystal meth—I mean kryptonite.

This is what the Writers needed to do for Ruby and by extension all Silver Eyed Warriors within the RWBY universe. Introduce a kryptonite or clear weakness to their abilities to ground them in reality and give these warriors stakes and an actual greater motivation to walk the path they chose.  

And what’s sad is that the Writers actually introduced that back in V3. The first time Ruby unleashed her Silver Eyes, she overexerted herself and lost consciousness. If the Writers wanted a way to ground the Silver Eyes, they should have implemented something similar to that of the Hero System in the magical girl anime: Yuki Yuna is a Hero.

I’m not sure if you’re familiar with that series but, in Yuki Yuna, we follow a group of girls who naturally transform into magical warriors to protect their world from vicious monsters known as the Vertex. At some point in the plot, our heroic girls awaken a power known as the Mankai form which, to put it bluntly, is their most powerful form and the highest level of strength each hero girl could achieve.

However, as the girls soon learn in the story, there is a catch to the Mankai form. Each time the girls use their Mankai, they use it at the sacrifice of their own bodies.

One of the characters lost their memories and became disabled because she used her Mankai in a past life as a hero and forgot about it due to her memory loss. Another hero became a cripple completely. She used her Mankai so many times that she lost everything but the sight in one of her eye I believe. Afterwards, she was worshipped as a God by people despite the fact that she could no longer do anything. She couldn’t move and spent most of her days bedridden. She also still had her voice, thankfully, unlike another hero character who loved to sing and sadly lost her voice during the series.

Seriously, if anyone hasn’t watched Yuki Yuna, I definitely recommend it. I know I just spoiled some stuff about the plot but…seriously go watch it.

But getting back to RWBY, this would have been an interesting way for the CRWBY Writers to tame the Silver Eyes. Since Qrow in V3 initially described those born with Silver Eyes destined to walk the path of a warrior, imagine if those Silver Eyes who chose the warrior path did it against the detrimental effects such a life imposed on their overall health.

Imagine if there was a limit to the Silver Eye power and each time a Warrior overexerts themselves and breaches this limit, they do it at the cost of their own bodies. In the case of Ruby, imagine if…each time she used her eyes she ran the risk of slowly killing herself on the process. Picture Ruby abusing her Silver Eyes for a while after getting the hand of it…only to one day wake up and realize that she suddenly couldn’t move her arm for some straight reason. She wasn’t exactly in pain. 

She just woke up one morning after a battle and realized she couldn’t move her arm. And even when she visits the doctor (meaning Pietro), she is told that there is nothing wrong with her arm meaning there is nothing physically wrong with Ruby. 

Later, to Ruby’s horror, Maria reveals the horrific truth about the Silver Eyes and she explains in through sharing more on her backstory with her father—perhaps Maria’s father was a disabled man who lose the use of his legs after using his powers for too long. However Maria’s father also drilled into Maria the importance of their gift. That no one in the world could do the things the Silver Eyed Warriors could do. The Silver Eyed Warriors are huntsmen—if they have such an amazing power that could help protect many lives then use it. 

Even if it meant killing themselves in the process—imagine if Silver Eyed Warriors like Maria’s father and by extension herself, believed that the sacrifice of their one life was worth if it meant help the lives of many live another day.

It could tie into why Maria felt so useless after she lost her sight. That could’ve been a thing.

Similar to how the Mankai form in Yuki Yuna, imagine if…Ruby lost the use of one of her senses for each time she overexerts her powers. She would eventually regain some of the function in time but only if she stopped using her eyes which—let’s say becomes a problem for Ruby since imagine if the heroes are placed in a dire scenario where the Grimm are actually a threat and Ruby has no choice BUT to use her eyes cause it’s the only thing powerful enough to stop it?

Imagine if …this is what had happened to Summer Rose. Perhaps thiscould’ve been her sacrifice? She gave her life up for the path she chose anddied like a hero?

Imagine if the Silver Eyes did work like the Mankai form and Summer Rose,against Ozpin’s warnings, went to oppose Salem and wound up killing herself inthe process. Imagine an alternate reality where Summer was actually alivebut…not really. Like Qrow had discovered her after she had overexerted herselfbut now, she was a cripple. Because she had gone above and beyond and breached the limits of her powers with her fragile body, Summer could no longer walk, talk. She could barely move. She couldn’t hear. She couldn’t see. She couldn’t even feel Qrow’s touch against her body when he came to save her. She was practically a living corpse.

Or…imagine if…Summer used her powers and pushed herself until her heart literally gave out. As the lyrics in the Indomitable theme say “…There isa light that shines and it’s power is mine. Though the body is weak andbreakable. The spirit is indomitable.”

Imagine if…Summer has pushed herself beyond the limits of her body for oneglorious sacrifice. She used her light on full blast until her own body gaveout on her and she died just as she lived. A hero. Or a brat who didn’t listento the warnings of those older and wiser than her. One of those things. Idunno.

This actually happened in Yuki Yuna to be honest. One of the heroes—a character named Karin (the best one in my opinion since she was a badass) used Mankai so much that by the end she lost her sense of sight, touch and hearing. She couldn’t even tell Yuna was there when she came to help her since she could no longer see, hear or even feel her. It’s actually a sad moment. Not as sad as the finale but that’s a spoiler. Seriously watch Yuki Yuna ya’ll.

But yeah, imagine if that’s how the Silver Eyed Warriors operated. They were these beings with this immeasurable god-like power but with fragile bodies thatreminded them of their own humanity and the sacrifice they would be making ifthey chose this path.

If would’ve been interesting if the path of a Silver Eyed Warrior could potentially lead them to death—but not just by the hands of those out to stop them—but by the Silver Eye power. In the past, the Brother Gods granted ALL man magic as a gift. Imagine if in respect to the Silver Eyes, the Gods only granteda couple of humans this immeasurable power but now it was—not exactly a curse—but rather a great power that came with a great responsibility.

This is what is missing from Ruby right now. Nothing bad Dagger but your point only serves to remind me of how little thought the Writers seemed to have put into fleshing out the Silver Eyed Warriors and that aspect of Ruby’s story. One of the complaints from the FNDM that I’ve heard is that the Writers are only making the plot of RWBY up as they go along.

They provide us with what feels like the bare bones for the main series canon meaning the anime while the real meat comes later in the so-called ‘expandeduniverse’ meaning the manga, comics, spin-off books and other publications. 

It wouldn’t surprise me if down the line, the CRWBY get the crazy idea to give Maria Calavera of all characters her very own spin-off series sharing more insight into backstory as a Silver Eyed Huntress in her prime before she lost hersight—thus revealing more info on the Silver Eyes that quote, unquote, ‘the Writers didn’t get a chance to delve into properly in the animated series’. 

If not her then Team STQR might get their own story soon and we could learn about the Silver Eyes through Summer’s journey instead. One of those things might happen down the line. Who knows?  

Either way, it all comes back to this main point—the Writers have not fleshed out the Silver Eyed Warrior story and until they do, they’ll keep doing this nonsense with Ruby. Having her magically forget about her mystical McGuffin super power until the almighty PLOT commands her to.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2019) 

[cecilspeaks]

122 - A Story of Love and Horror, part 2: “Spire”

Do you hear that sweet melody? That sweet melody on the breeze? No one else hears that sweet melody, That sweet melody on the breeze.

Welcome to Night Vale.

Frances did her best to pretend that she had imagined what she had seen that night in the house of Nazr al-Mujaheed. When Barks Ennui, the cartoon spokesdog for the Sheriff’s Secret Police, had come out of the television and told her that she does not belong, and that they were both doomed. This obviously wasn’t an easy thing to forget, but people forget difficult things every day. We are all of us carrying around difficult things like cannon balls rolling, unstable in our heads, occasionally throwing us off balance when they shift too much to one side. But mostly, just slowing us down while we pretend nothing is wrong.

She and Nazr continued to see each other. He let people know at school, and the faculty and administration were happy for him. Everyone felt that he was always too consumed by high school football. Especially Principal Fryman, who grumbled to himself that the team didn’t even have a good record to show for all of that obsession.

Nazr took Frances to a faculty after school drinks meet-up, the first one he had ever gone to, because he always spent his evenings prepping for that week’s practice, studying game film, drawing up defensive schemes, and slithering around his living room on his belly while hissing like a snake.

Frances, in turn, took him to her monthly book club meet-up. This month’s book had been Irvine Welsh’s “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”, the controversial follow-up to his classic novel “Trainspotting”. Everyone agreed that it wasn’t nearly as good as the original, since it only shared a couple of the main characters. They also agreed that Frances’ relationship was having a real effect on her. “You hardly seem like the same person,” said Jeremy, who had liked Frances before and was jealous that she might change and grow as a person, outside of his influence. Jeremy was, all in all, being a real shit.

Everyone else agreed that she seemed to be happier and more open to the world than before she had started dating. Frances quietly wondered if changing so quickly, just because you were eating meals with and sometimes sleeping with someone, was a good or bad or neutral thing. She thought that change was hardly ever neutral.

Through all of this, she pretended that Barks Ennui, the cartoon dog, did not appear to her most evenings in her home. But he did. He would crawl out of her television, even if she was watching a channel his commercials didn’t play on, or even if the television was off. The proportions of his body, lovably clumsy interview wo dimensions, seemed a horrifying mistake of nature in three dimensions. And his features were warped and blurred, as though seen through static.

“You don’t belong together,” Barks Ennui said in a goofy cartoon voice that occasionally veered dizzyingly into other pitches. Sometimes a child’s giggle, or a bassy growl for a few seconds before sliding back to the middle. She would hide under her covers, and she would hear from within the hot dark of her blanket, his familiar cartoon voice say: “There is a price that must be payed!” And she would scream and scream and then realize she was alone. And then she would choose to pretend that none of this had happened.

Nazr did not see Barks Ennui. But he was not without his own troubles. He would find, some evenings, that when he looked in the mirror, there were two of him. One of him sitting behind the other. He would stand and the second reflection would stand too. It would follow all of his movements from behind is primary reflection. This went on for days. Then one night, he looked in the mirror and there was only one of him. He sighed, feeling some relief to the tension that had been with him so long as to become his new normal. And that is when, in the mirror, his second reflection into the room, followed by Frances Donaldson.

Nazr whirled. The room he was in was empty. He looked back in the mirror. There was his own face, terrified, and behind that on the bed, there was himself again with Frances. The two of them were kissing passionately. He watched himself kiss, and then his reflection and the Frances in the mirror stopped watching and looked up at him with startled faces. They stayed frozen that way, and he stayed frozen too. After several moments, the mirror couple smiled. Their smiles got wider and wider, and then they were both dead, blood covered and sprawling at irregular angles. And then – they were alive again and smiling at him.

He shouted and stumbled back form the mirror. From them on, he too to covering his mirrors, and that worked for a few days. But then one day, he came home to find himself in his bedroom, already sitting in front of the covered bedroom mirror. The him that was in his bedroom looked up at him who had just entered, with wide eyes and a yawning mouth and Nazr, who believed himself to be the real Nazr, turned and walked out of his house. He checked into a motel and decided to stay there for a while.

Finally the strain broke on Nazr and Frances. At Applebee’s over lunch, she started crying, and he was so surprised that he started crying. And they were crying at each other and didn’t know why the other was crying. And she said, “This is going to sound crazy”, and he said, “You’re not going to believe me.” And then they told each other, and it didn’t sound crazy, and she believed him.

“What does it mean?” she said. “Why are we being punished just because we’re finally seeing someone?” “That’s a good question,” said Barks Ennui. He was sitting in the booth next to them. They both yelled in surprise, and the other people in the restaurant looked over with a mix of confusion and annoyance. None of them could see Barks, and so they assumed the couple must have accidentally ordered the electrolysis nachos appetizer.

“Who are you?” asked Nazr. “Me?” said Barks, his animation dog face stretching and compressing in mesmerizingly horrifying ways. “I’m a construct!” he said, “in order to allow communication”. “Communication with who?” said Frances. “I represent the Brown Stone Spire,” said Barks. The Brown Stone Spire was a strange monument at the edge of town. It offered great gifts in exchange for even greater sacrifices. It was extremely dangerous, and neither of them had ever heard of it trying to communicate with anyone. Barks continued: “Everything’s gone strange since you started dating. You know what I’m talking about?” “Maybe,” Nazr said, thinking of the mirrors in his home. “Maybe?” repeated Barks mildly. “Maybe it will get even stranger. Maybe your conditions will continue to deteriorate.” “What do you mean deteriorate?” she said. “We’re two people dating, what’s wrong with that?” “This town is a point where many universes meet,” said Barks. He was on the other side of the table, next to Frances now. “Recently those universes collapse into each other. When the mess was finally sorted out, not everyone ended up in the right universe.” “It’s me,” said Nazr, “That explains it. The other me in my house, plus my tongue is like two feet long and that doesn’t seem right. I don’t belong in this universe.” “No,” said Barks. “It’s Frances. She doesn’t belong here. Frances, you switched places during the collapse with the Frances of this world, and you are coming into contact with a person from a different universe, which has an exceptionally detrimental effect on reality. I believe,” he said to Nazr, “you were saying something about reflections in your house?”

And now, a look at traffic.

The cosmology of the universe is thus. First, there is the sphere. The indications of the sphere are warmth and bristle. The colors of the sphere are blue and yellow. Then, there is the cube. The indications of the cube are touch and lift. The colors of the cube are red and white. Then, there is the expansive plane. The indications of the expansive plane are speed and shadow. The colors of the expansive plane are myriad. And finally, there is the outward fade. The indications of the outward fade are a ringing bell and a rush of water. The colors of the outward fade are none. This has been traffic.

And now a word from our sponsors. Mute children perched atop strange formations on desert plateaus. Our eyes gaze toward a horizon that will never change. There is no movement here, no sun, but there is light. No darkness, but there is night. We do not need to eat, but we are hungry. We have no way to drink, but we are thirsty. We have nothing to sell you. Remember us. This has been a word from our sponsors.

Frances couldn’t believe it. or she could, but she resolutely chose not to. Nazr thought again and again of the other him and the other her, lying dead on his bed and then smiling. And then dead again. It was true that something was horribly wrong. Perhaps they didn’t belong together. Perhaps they didn’t belong together so much that the universe itself was collapsing around the relationship.

It wasn’t fair. Didn’t both of them deserve happiness?

Cecil here. I’ll go ahead and answer that. They did! But what a person receives and what they deserve is only ever tangentially and coincidentally related.

They decided they should go to the Brown Stone Spire. It had offered to help them. They should at least hear out what it was asking for in return.

Nazr drove them. Cars stop working within a few hundred feet of the spire, as the spire prefers humans to approach on foot. Actually, it prefers humans to approach on their bellies, but it takes humble walking as a compromise. The closest parking lot is the Radio Shack, but of course that one is always full of customers, and so they parked at the Wendy’s and walked.

Her foot started bothering her, but she didn’t know if it was actually bothering her or if she was just afraid of what the Brown Stone Spire would say.

The Brown Stone Spire hummed. They fell to their knees before it. “Help us!” said Nazr. “We just want to be together,” Frances said. “I don’t know if we belong together, but we make each other happy. Isn’t that something worthwhile? Don’t we get at least that?” The Brown Stone Spire heard. It hummed. It already knew the problem and it already knew the solution. And it already knew the price. It told these humans all three by implanting the thoughts directly in their brains.

Frances threw up. Nazr wept. There was a solution, but the price was unthinkable. It was impossible, it was inhuman. Of course, the Spire isn’t human nor possible nor even thinkable.

They walked back to the car in silence. And now, The weather.

[“Fire Drills” by Dessa]

That evening, they sat in Frances Donaldson’s living room and thought about what to do. “Impossible,” she said. “Unthinkable,” he said. “Then we agree?” she said. “Of course we agree,” he said. “What else is there?” he said. “We’re not monsters,” he said. “Right,” she said. “I want to show you something,” said Barks Ennui. He was on the TV screen so close that whatever backdrop was invisible, just his exaggerated snout and his wild eyes. “Come here!” Both of them knew for certain they would refuse, and both stepped forward obediently. “In here!” said Barks. “Into the TV!” Frances put her hand on the screen and felt nothing. It was a hollow frame. She put her hand through the frame. Her hand felt like her hand, no different than it had a moment before. She leaned down and put her torso in, and she felt a pull, like gravity. And she fell downwards through the TV screen.

She was in her living room again. It looked very much like her living room, although a few details were different. The framed poster from the International Musée (du Chats) [0:19:33] in Paris was now from the Museo Internacional (de los Gatos) in Mexico City. The taxidermy deer foot penholder on the mantle was now a taxidermy boar’s foot penholder.

Nazr tumbled in next to her. “Oh, cool penholder,” he said. Frances took his hand and helped him up. They looked around, and then out the front window. Frances was outside working in a garden. A different Frances, in the garden being watched by the first Frances in the living room. “The Frances from your universe, Nazr,” said Barks. His three-dimensional form was enormous this time, taking up the living room from floor to ceiling, although he displaced nothing in it, and Frances and Nazr had plenty of room to stand. “She ended up in this universe and the Frances from this universe, that’s you Frances, ended up in hers, a silly mix-up. But these things do need to be set right, or else both of you will slip further and further into the gap between universes, until neither of you exist anymore!”

Frances couldn’t take her eyes off herself in the garden. “Try to stay together,” said Barks, “and you both will cease to exist!” The Frances in the garden waved to Jackie Fierro, who was biking past. A car drove by. In it was Dana Cardinal and her brother. They waved, too. “Enough!” said Barks, grabbing them and pulling them upward. They were all back in the couch in Frances’ living room, or the living room she had thought was hers. There was only one Frances here. “You know the price,” said Barks. He crawled backwards into the TV, staring intently with his droopy animated eyes. “There are only two ways forward. The first is that this Frances returns to her correct universe, and you two never see each other again. The other would allow the two of you to live as long and as happy as anyone can together. It would be simple, but in order for that to happen, the Spire will destroy the other universe and every person who lives within it. That Frances and every other person in that world will cease to exist, but then you would be able to flourish in this universe.”

He was fully back onto the screen, a two-dimensional cartoon dog in a none yellow cartoon backdrop. But his eyes were still huge, like they were inches away. “You don’t have long to decide!” He gave a silly laugh, the kind he did at the end of his appearance on children’s shows. The laugh that made children laugh back at how silly it was. But this silly laugh did not end. For several minutes, Nazr and Frances stared at him, and he looked back, laughing.

Stay tuned next for decision to be made.

Good night, Night Vale, Good night.

Today’s proverb: I’m going to give you a piece of my mind. It’s in this clay jar. Please keep it in a cool, dark place and away from cats.

[wazafam]

Content Warning: This article contains depictions and descriptions of violence.

When Amazon Prime Video announced the release of its series, Them (starring Shahadi Wright Joseph of Us), fans assumed it was a sequel to Jordan Peel’s hit thriller, Us. And while the series is a thriller, it's not tied to the film at all.

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"Them" is anyone who does not look or act like "us." Although the series has deep racial overtones, it also centers around things that go bump in the night. It deals with the supernatural that makes the community of East Compton a playground for prejudice, hostility, and deception, leaving viewers awed by the end - wondering what is next.

9 Do The Neighbors Stop Harassing The Emory Family?

The East Compton "Welcome Wagon" lead by Betty Wendell (Alison Pill) orchestrated a "sit-in" upon the Emory's arrival.  The neighbors gathered with tables and radios blasting music throughout the day outside of the Emory's house in an attempt to run them out of the neighborhood.  But now that Betty is dead, will there be anyone else to lead the band of intolerant neighbors?

After witnessing Henry (Ashley Thomas) beat up Marty Dixon (Pat Healy) who tried to hang him in his basement and Lucky screaming that caused a ring of fire of protection in her front yard, will they finally stop tormenting the Emorys?

8 Does The Realtor Keep Selling Now That The Sergeant Is Dead?

Helen Koistra (Brooke Smith), the Compton realtor with a conscience. Does she keep selling to “them” now that her blackmailing partner, Sergeant Bull Wheatley (Derek Phillips) has died? Or will she have a change of heart and stop taking advantage of families who leave the south to try to find a better life and more opportunities in the west?

Possibly, she may continue to succumb to the enticement of money and power (mainly power, to gain respect and to be considered as a valuable asset to the company) because as the adage goes, “once corrupt, always corrupted”.

7 Will Betty's Nosey Neighbors Ever Find Out What Happened To Her?

It is hard to believe that Betty's militia (her neighbors) may never find out what happened to her. Her body may never be found. The pride of Compton finally perished by her own manipulation via the hands of the milkman. With the use of her beauty, charm, and dalliance, she thought she had finally got a pawn to due her evil bidding. But to her detriment, it backfired.

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But since the foundation of her friendship with fellow wives in the neighborhood was built on control and deceit, will they care about her wellbeing or will she become rumor mill folklore as her neighbors cast their vote about her whereabouts?

6 What Happens To The Milkman, George Bell?

True Blood’s Ryan Kwanten seems to be your everyday milkman. The ladies of the neighborhood are truly infatuated by him with his good looks and gentleman decor, but he only has eyes for one housewife, Betty Wendell. Once Betty decided to use him to get rid of the Emory family, she soon found out that she was not the hunter but the hunted and the prey of his excessive love.

George drugged and kidnapped her in his bomb shelter and then killed her when she could not pass his true test of love. But what was his next plan? Is there another housewife he has his eyes on? Or does did it all end with Betty, his one true love?

5 Does Anyone Find Out That Henry Emory Killed Sergeant Wheatley?

A wolf in sheep’s clothing is the best way to describe Sergeant Bull Wheatley (Derek Phillips). He added a feeling of safety for the Emory family while lining his pockets through the blackmailing realtor, Helen Koistra.

RELATED: 10 Of The Best Thrillers From The Last 5 Years

But justice came his way one night by the hands of Henry Emory, who was dealing with issues of his own, as he shoots him and leaves him dead in the street. It is hard to imagine that this was not seen by any of the overly inquisitive neighbors.

4 Is The Emory Family Cursed Forever?

When Lucky confronts The Black Hat Man (Christopher Heyerdahl) in her basement, he raises the question of what will she do when she realizes that her family is cursed forever?  What did he mean by that? Are they truly cursed considering what Lucky went through? Or does it go back even further, back to when her husband was in World War II?

It seems that they have overcome one large hurdle with The Black Hat Man bursting into flames. But was that the end of the book or the start of a new chapter?

3 Will Lucky Go Back To The Psychiatric Facility?

As the tenth day is revealed, Lucky is in a psychiatric facility, strapped to a bed. But how did she get there? In the last scene of the previous episode, we see her husband, cradling their dead son after he opens the box marked "CE." It seems that Lucky, not able to bear the loss of their son, dug up his grave and kept his remains in a box when they left North Carolina. Flash forward and we see her in the hospital getting ready to have a lobotomy, but she escapes as a guard watches her walk out.

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But is Lucky truly free of her psychotic episodes? She defeated The Black Hat Man, but was her emotional demons banished with him, or is the trauma she endured too much to overcome?

2 What Happened To The Family That Attacked Lucky And Killed Her Son?

In an old white house in the country of North Carolina viewers are introduced to Lucky and her son eating peaches. They meet a bizarre, elderly woman who sings a dark rendition of “Old Black Joe,” who wants Lucky's son, Chester. As her kindred joins her, they assault Lucky and play a cruel game of “cat in the bag” with her son, killing him.

But where did this family come from?  Did they terrorize anyone else and were they eventually caught?  The “cat and mouse play” of the series teases fans, begging the question if they were actually real or a figment of Lucky’s imagination so that she could rationalize killing her son.

1 Do The Emorys Survive Day 10?

As the season finale comes to a close, police are outside of Lucky and Henry's home pointing guns at them while Nina Simone’s "To Be Young, Gifted and Black” plays. Surrounded by a ring of fire, do Lucky and Henry give up without a fight to protect the kids, or has their ability to trust anyone completed diminished?

Are shots fired by the police first and questions asked later to de-escalate the situation for the betterment of the neighborhood? Or has the neighbors become so furious craving for bloodshed, they take matters into their hands?

  NEXT: The 10 Best Psychological Thriller Movies On Amazon Prime Video

Prime Video's Them: 9 Questions Fans Still Need To Answers To from https://ift.tt/3fbNsCl

[daresplaining]

What are your thoughts on Ward Meachum in Marvel's Iron Fist? & also... Is he not coming back for The Defenders?

    We were pleasantly surprised by Ward! We mentioned in our analysis/review that there are two Iron Fist characters we’ve always loved to hate, because they are giant screw-ups with little-to-no redeeming qualities. Those characters are Davos and Ward… both of whom were developed to be wonderfully, shockingly sympathetic and compelling in the show. (Davos actually made one of us cry!) We’re not gonna pretend Harold’s “last words” to Ward didn’t make us do this:

    But we still enjoyed– and even sometimes rooted for– this version of his character.

    To address your second question first, before going into more detail: No, Ward has not yet been confirmed to appear in The Defenders. The only Iron Fist characters we currently know we can count on seeing are Danny, Colleen, Jeryn Hogarth, Madame Gao, and almost definitely Bakuto. However, that doesn’t mean he won’t show up. Since the initial round of character announcements went out before Iron Fist aired, they may have decided to not include Ward because some people wouldn’t have known who he was. (Plus, it would have spoiled his survival– which was uncertain, to say the least.) We’re guessing Joy and Davos won’t reappear until Iron Fist Season 2, since they’re away somewhere plotting their revenge… but Ward, as Danny’s business partner, has a chance.      

    (That said, Foggy didn’t show up in Iron Fist despite his new partnership with Jeryn, so it’s not a guarantee. We wonder if the next Defenders trailer will focus on the secondary characters, since there are so many, and the first was so main protagonist-heavy– in which case, we might get a definite answer sometime soon.)

    In the tradition of (almost) all of the Marvel Netflix antagonists, the Iron Fist writing team did their absolute best to add a level of human complexity to Ward, and to build upon the character presented by the source material. In this case, they didn’t have much to work with. Comics Ward is pretty much a one-note villain: Harold Meachum’s scumbag brother who schemes and connives and tries to look cool in front of actual, competent villains, before finally getting himself killed by the Super Skrull.

Ward: “…Now you know he’s dead, and your pretty little reunion plans are all just smoke in the wind. I wouldn’t worry too much though, Misty love. It won’t be long before you and the Rand brat are reunited– at least, if you believe in any sort of afterlife.”

Namor, the Sub-Mariner vol. 1 #18 by John Byrne and Glynis Oliver     

    Really, MCU Ward had nowhere to go but up, and a lot of smart writing decisions went into making this version of the character a bit more nuanced.

    One major factor we think worked really well was the removal of his power– in several different capacities. By de-aging him and generationally shifting him from Harold’s brother and Joy’s uncle to Harold’s son, he loses the inherent sense of authority that comes with older characters, and automatically seems more vulnerable and fallible in the face of anyone older than he is. The show also goes out of its way to emphasize this. In at least one of our trailer analyses, we talked about the costuming and styling choices used to make Danny look youthful, both calling back to his young age (nineteen) in his introductory comics appearances, and visually invoking his naivete upon returning to New York. But both Joy and Ward are also infantilized– not visually in this case, but by their abusively overbearing father, whose inherent power is magnified by his violence, his self-assured manipulation of everyone around him, and the fact that he is literally magically enhanced to be undefeatable. Harold clings to images of his children when they were young, and treats them as such– and Ward’s continued insistence that he is “not a child” only makes him seem more childlike. Harold is not just a parent, he is a Parent– and all of his interactions with Ward emphasize the immense power differential between them.  

    With this lack of power comes a sense of danger– which makes Harold a key secret weapon in the show’s blisteringly awesome pacing and unrelenting narrative tension. By making Harold this powerful and this frightening, you are instantly concerned for the safety of everyone around him. And 90% of the time, the person who’s around him is Ward, who– what’s worse– is sometimes accompanied by people who don’t know that Harold is dangerous. It’s easy to feel sorry for Ward when he is forced to again and again to allow himself and others into the company of someone who could– and given the right whim, would– kill without a second thought.

    Another factor in this powerlessness– and possibly the aspect of MCU Ward that we enjoy the most– is the continual shower of trauma and chaos dumped on him, and the fact that he is emotionally unequipped to handle it. One result of this is that he often serves the role of everyman/audience stand-in, reacting to the strangeness and horror around him with a genuineness that makes him relatable. While Danny lives and breathes strangeness, and both Colleen and Joy are quite resilient and good at adapting, Ward simply cannot deal with it (and he is forced to deal with oh, so much). And that’s a fun character trait (…for us, anyway. Not so much for him).  

    Of course, the darker side of this element of Ward’s character is the isolation it creates for him. Because of the looming Hand threat and his father’s abuse, Ward must handle all of his trauma entirely on his own, all while being forced to present a healthy, sane appearance to the rest of the world. He is unable to either confide in or explain himself to Joy– the one person who really cares about him and who he still has the capacity to care about in return– and he isn’t even allowed to run away and leave it all behind. This is the ultimate manifestation of his powerlessness– his inability to live his own life, or to do anything to escape the horrors constantly being inflicted on him by his father. One of our favorite Ward scenes is in episode 7, when he is forced to dump the bodies of the Hand mooks that Harold has killed and mutilated. It’s a flavor of psychological horror that we were not at all expecting out of Iron Fist– amped up by lingering shots of Ward maneuvering the bodies into his car, and focusing on his desperate struggle to somehow cope with what he’s doing.    

    It’s a scene that emphasizes how utterly, horrifically out of his depth he is, and helps justifies his breakdown and (first) patricide later in the episode.

    However, we’re also grateful that while Ward is a sympathetic character due to all of the pain heaped on him by the narrative, he’s still not a great guy. Making him completely likable would have felt like a cop-out, and we were relieved that they didn’t take that route. Yes, we are given many reasons to understand why he might be a little bit unfriendly and mean in general, but there are still scenes where the viewer genuinely hates him. This tends to come through in his interactions with Danny. While Ward is generally able to keep his anger and frustration inside, with the help of the occasional drug and some… therapeutic embezzling, he is quick to use the newly-returned Danny as a scapegoat and outlet for all of his aggression. Motives aside, this version of Ward maintains a level of nastiness inherent to his character, and his verbal and emotional abuse are extra sources of pain within Danny’s already traumatic story arc.

    For this reason, we have our doubts about the future of the Danny/Ward corporate partnership– because the only time Ward actually seems to give a damn about Danny is when he realizes they need to team up to take down Harold. Danny is eager to make friends and quick to forgive, but Ward is one of those dangerous people who only sees Danny as a means to an end.

    At the same time, this all presents an interesting rearranging of Ward’s status as an antagonist. Whereas in the comics he’s a genuine villain, going after Danny because he’s a jerk who places himself in the service of more powerful jerks, in the show he fits into the most basic definition of an antagonist: someone who happens to be working at cross-purposes with the protagonist. Ward’s main goal isn’t to “get” Danny. We don’t think they ever would have become best friends, and clearly, Ward was a jerk long before his father first died, but circumstances are the main culprit here. He and Danny just happen to bump into each other at a time and place where they will be nothing but detrimental to each other. Danny is an unintentional threat to Ward’s delicately balanced life. His presence disrupts things at Rand, plays with Joy’s head, stirs up trouble with the Hand, and makes Harold extra active and extra crazy– all of which comes back to hit Ward in the face. And thus, while Danny wants nothing more than to find a family, reconnect with people who he thought cared about him, and try to rebuild his life, Ward reacts by rejecting him, treating him like garbage, and repeatedly trying to kill him.  

    This is one factor that we consider to be a weak part of Ward’s characterization. Despite his horror at his father’s homicidal behavior, and his claim in episode 2 that he doesn’t “do that kind of thing”, he literally spends the first two episodes trying to murder Danny– even when Harold tells him not to! This, his snap decision to shove Danny out the window at the end of episode 3, and his two successful attempts to kill Harold, suggest that he’s not quite as squeamish about this sort of thing as he pretends to be… and we wish that had received more development.    

    Overall, though, we think the writing team did a great job with Ward– turning him into a compelling and complex character with a gripping story arc. We loved his relationship with Joy, we appreciated the balance of likable/unlikeable that they managed to strike with him, and we were delighted that in the end, he got the honor of killing Harold once and for all.

    We were not expecting him to survive this season, but since he did, we’re interested to see where he’ll go from here!

[yukiminamoto]

Elizabeth Midford: Character Analysis Part 2

I tag these people for the amazing things they do for the Kuroshitsuji fandom! I hope this analysis on Elizabeth Midford is to everyone’s liking! I did my best. Please enjoy! Ya’ll know when to inspire someone me! Thank you all the fan-artists, the bloggers who do AMAZING META in their respective fandoms, and the people who support this girl in general! YOU GUYS ARE AMAZING. I dedicate this whole blog post to you guys!

@shinigami-mistress @nobodysuspectsthebutterfly @his-fiancee @sieglinde-sullivan @a-bitter-master @skania @queenzelda @eecmidford @cielizzydefencesquad @lizzy-phantomhive @lizmidford @thedarkestcrow @otakusiren @darkspellmaster @dorkshadows @silyabeeodess @akuma-de-shitsuji @i-like-phanime

I’m currently spending my Friday writing up this post for the last 4 hours, getting my thoughts together.  I’ve never thought that I would write something this big with this many references to Elizabeth Midford posts from other bloggers who love her as much as I do, including pictures, screencaps, and manga caps, but what can you do when inspiration hits you like a truck? 

I should be doing my weekly blogs for my classes and getting ready for my NUMEROUS group projects in all of my classes, but no I decided to spend 4 hours in the college library writing this bad girl up like it’s a final report that’s due in 30 fucking minutes. Fuck My life. 

And yes, I’m citing my sources. Dear god, it’s like a fucking final report on who Elizabeth is and how she fits into the story. Jesus. You guys better be happy that I’m doing this! I worked hard on this damn it! 

And thank you to all the bloggers that I used as references & adding more character analysis on my golden haired bae than I could ever cover on one blog post. 

Kuro Chapter References:

Ch. 37  | Ch. 51 |  Ch. 58 |  Ch. 66 | Ch. 117 

Elizabeth Midford Posts (more character analysis if you can’t get enough and want more):

Chapters 58 & 117 by @skania

A Second Look at Madam Red's Advice to Lizzy by  @shinigami-mistress

How Precious Lizzy is to Ciel by @otakusiren

Ciel’s Precious: Elizabeth by @otakusiren

Ciel and Lizzy: something special that happened on the boat… by @darkspellmaster

About Elizabeth by @dorkshadows

Reminder about Elizabeth by @lizmidford

Reflecting on the Kuroshitsuji Easter Chapter: by @silyabeeodess

Kuroshitsuji Positivity Day   @akuma-de-shitsuji

Rant: Respect Elizabeth Midford @i-like-phanime

I should write a fanfic about her thoughts (we rarely see her at all during the Lizzy Kidnapped arc). And when Lizzy does show up, she only gives us more questions. I hope Yana-Sensei does her justice. My girl deserves it.

I mean, it’s hard and easy at the same time to see WHY she’s agreeing to go with Mr. Strange ( I keep forgetting his name honestly.)

Yeah, it’s going to be a LONG ASS POST. Sit tight and grab a drink and some food. I’m heading deep into Elizabeth Midford’s character in Kuroshitsuji. She’s so underappreciated in this fandom, I swear. 

Superficial and bubbly on the outside, deep as fuck with huge angst hidden behind a mask on the inside. 

It hit me that EVEN HARDER (in this mangacap in Chapter 133) she does care about Ciel deeply and even very misguided in her attempts to make him feel open to his feelings/trauma about his past when he was kidnapped as a child.

People tend to forget that Elizabeth is a teenager with TONS of baggage on her hands as well. The way many fans in the Kuroshitsuji fandom treat her as an annoyance and bother really gets under my skin.

If you had to go through society’s expectations of being a proper woman and at the same time feeling pressured to protect your future husband later down the line, you would feel very conflicted and confused at best.

EVERYONE needs to know that she is a teenager who lives in a society where if you are a noble girl from a very prestigious family, you are going to have to get married at one point or another (spinsterhood was look at with horror and revulsion). At a very young age, Lizzy path was already set for her: See chapter 58 for more information.

Hell, Frances sympathizes with her daughter, even if she disagreed with not continuing her training. Her mother slaps her for speaking out.

And yet, Frances knows what path she’s forcing her daughter to walk since she was born in the Watchdog family. This rare, and touching moment between mother & daughter is so significant. Frances knows how important this sort of training is to Lizzy as a mother and aunt. It’s unconventional training, but if Lizzy can survive being the Wife of the Watchdog, then she’s going to train Elizabeth the hard way. 

Frances only wants to protect her kids and Lizzy accepts her fate with tears in her eyes. At that moment she knows that Lizzy can’t run away. She has to continue her training no matter what. This was the pivotal moment she choose to make that vow to protect her beloved cousin. 

At the very least, she grew to love Ciel as a person and feared that if she showed that she was more powerful/masculine (gender dynamics were pretty strict back in the day too.) he wouldn’t love her. It goes to show how much of an impact Ciel made on her as a child.

She cared for what he thought of her so deeply, that she took those words to heart later on in the years.

She wanted to help Ciel and protect him to the best of her ability. She knows what she’s doing is wrong (in her own eyes and her family’s eyes) but she feels very strongly that this is the only way to save him.

See Chapter 117 for more information.

Her has two personalities at this point: cheerful,immature, bright, VERY socially aware of her surroundings, and slightly overbearing, but chapter 117 shows us that she has another side to her she hides extremely well. 

See Chapter 51 as reference. 

With her fight with Sebastian, she uses EVERY OUNCE OF HER TRAINING TO NOT GO BACK. She has to stay no matter what. It shows that she’s not as air headed as she portrayed herself. She can be stubborn, selfish, headstrong, and conflicted.

Like, A FUCKING 14 YEAR OLD WENT UP AGAINST A DEMON. A DEMON. YA’LL DON’T KNOW HOW MUCH I FEEL WHEN SHE FOUGHT AGAINST SEBASTIAN. HOLY SHIT. Why is the fandom not crying out with joy about this? I know Lizzy fans were freaking the fuck out when ch. 117 came out.

It shows so much of her character in that chapter, I wanted to hug my girl and never let go.

I was inspired by this AMAZING POST. Check it out! I mean from Ch. 58 to Ch. 117 compare the two please:

Before

After

Elizabeth Midford has changed so much throughout Kuroshitsuji. It’s funny really how Yana-sensei slowly shows who Lizzy is subtly until it hits everyone in the face in Chapter 57.

At first, we thought the same thing as Ciel: She was kind, overbearing, and very forceful in getting what she wants. That was how Lizzy wanted to be seen as.

She’s in-tune to how Ciel feels as early as chapter 37 when she visits.

When she figured out that Ciel was bedridden from Soma, she was worried about Ciel not opening up to her.

Sebastian reassured her that Ciel was all right and Lizzy was relieved and slightly skeptical. 

Even if the fans didn’t see it initially, when she slowly integrated herself within Ciel’s inner circle, she’s very much emotionally intelligent from the get go. Even if her ways of cheering up Ciel was a bit much, she admitted it to Sebastian privately.

It’s funny how Ciel shortly AFTER the Campania Arc, in chapter 66 he was also tricked by Lizzy despite “knowing”  and accepting Elizabeth for who she was strength an all.

It’s ironic, seeing that Ciel felt successful in tricking her in order to make her happy, Lizzy knew something was wrong the moment he “remembered” their Easter tradition.

She then wonders what happened to him during that month he was kidnapped.

It’s obvious that he’s changed into a completely different person because of the trauma he went through.

She knows that he’s changed and she’s trying her best to see him smile again despite the fact that forcing him to be happy/cheerful isn’t very good for his mental, emotional, and physical health over all.

But when you’re also broken, conflicted in where you stand in life, especially at such a young and impressionable age and a girl at that, it’s “hard to pick up the pieces” after someone who’s also suffered trauma in an untold amount.

What I personally want is an heart-to-heart conversation between the two of them. They’re both trying to push the other person away while at the same time, they’re both conflicted at how emotionally, mentally, and physically different they are from each other.  They’re both flawed characters who misunderstand what the other wants.

They really don’t know how to open up to each other and are hiding things that can be detrimental to their relationship.

Ciel is hiding and closing Lizzy away from his lifestyle in order to protect her from the dangers of being in the Watchdog’s family; a life she’s, ironically enough has been training all of her life for.

While Lizzy is trying and failing at making Ciel happy while at the same time trying to figure out where she stands with him as a person. She has a HUGE complex within herself in how to become a perfect Victorian Lady and how to be a woman who can protect the person she loves the most.

They’re both complex, broken, and fragile. At the peak of this arc, I hope that Lizzy finds herself as a person, not as Ciel’s fiancee she’s been told all throughout her life. I hope that Ciel is at least honest with her on how he feels about her and to reassure her that she’s fine the way she is.

I want them to talk without Sebastian or anyone on the outside to interfere with their relationship and I know that’s almost never going to happen.

And what do you guys think about Lizzy and the pressures she has to go through to conforming while simultaneously trying to hide who she is underneath?

I’m gonna quote George R.R. Martin since it matches Elizabeth so well:

My skin has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel.—  George R.R. Martin, A Storm of Swords

[lefilmdujour]

Another 500th movie celebration

My Tumblr just reached the 1000 movies mark, so I figured it’s time I write something about my last 2 and a half years of movie viewings and recommend 50 more movies out of the ones I’ve seen since the last 500th movie celebration.

Times have been strange in the last couple of years, and my movie habits have reflected it. There have been times when watching films was all I would do, but there have also been moments of complete disconnection from the medium. I went from watching several movies every day to spending months avoiding anything to do with sitting through a movie. 

Part of it had to do with the space I share with my demons, but mostly there has been a change of pace. My laptop died, it took me months to get another one only to also die on me. On the other hand, an enormous chunk of my viewings have been in cinemas or squats, which is a very positive change but led me to watch more recent films in detriment of classics or ancient underappreciated gems. I also got my first TV in over a decade this month, and my very first Netflix account last week, so I may be exploring streaming a bit more, although so far I am not finding the experience  at all satisfying. All pointless excuses since I went through 500+ movies in a little over two years, which is not bad at all.

It was hard to pick only 50 movies this time, and the list would have probably looked a little different if I did it tomorrow. Regardless, here are 50 movies I recommend, and why. Random order, all deserving of love and attention.

Ghost World (Terry Zwigoff) - This movie is unfairly  ignored in the best comic book adaptation lists out there on the internet. The opening scene is memorable, the soundtrack is a lesson in early Blues, and the characters are quirky and well written.

Hate (Mathieu Kassovitz) - An absolute classic about the class system in France and its tendency to end up in riots. Beautiful shot and highly quotable. Saw it a few times, the last of them with a live score from Asian Dub Foundation. One of the greats.

Audition (Takashi Miike) - Whenever I’m asked about my favorite horror movie, I tend to fall back on this one. Audition is very slow, starting out soft but with an underlying tension that builds until the absolutely gut-wrenching finale that makes us question our own sanity. Brilliant subversion of the “hear, don’t see” rule, just the though of some of the sounds used in the most graphic scenes still send shivers down my spine.

Kedi (Ceyda Torun) - A Turkish documentary about street cats, what’s there not to like?

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (Park Chan-wook) - The third in the loosely-connected Vengeance trilogy by Park Chan-wook, and my favorite of the bunch, especially the Fade to Black and White edition, in which the movie very gradually loses color as the violence grows. A visual masterpiece.

Paterson (Jim Jarmusch) - The poetry of routine. Adam Driver is one hell of an actor.

Love Me If You Dare (Yann Samuell) - Two people that obviously love each other but are not mature enough to follow it through. Frustrating. Beautiful. Made me sob.

The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel) - I am realizing that a good part of this list deals with frustration. A group of people finds themselves unable to leave a party for no apparent reason. Buñuel is a genious in surrealism, I have yet to watch most of his Mexican period.

The Mutants (Teresa Villaverde) - Kids on the run from themselves. Strong visuals, very moving interactions at times. A hard but very rewarding watch. Teresa Villaverde’s entire filmography also gets a seal of approval.

Bad Education (Pedro Almodóvar) - A movie about sexuality and problematic relationships, taken to unbelievable extremes.

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu) - The adventures of Mr. Lazarescu as he struggles to find help for the sudden pain he feels and ends up being passed on from hospital to hospital. Felt very real. Sold as a comedy, but I found it terrifying. 

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos) - A classic greek tragedy brought to the modern age. My favorite Lanthimos film, ranking slightly below Dogtooth. The deadpan acting and the unnerving sound serves as wonderful misdirection.

It’s Such a Beautiful Day (Don Hertzfeldt) - Three shorts stitched together to create a confusing, philosophical, absurd, funny and deep masterpiece. The animation skills of Don Hertzfeldt needs more recognition.

Amores Perros (Alejandro González Iñárritu) - A movie so good it didn’t even had an English name. Three tales of love, violence and loss, all linked by a dog.

Endless Poetry (Alejandro Jodorowsky) - Jodorowsky’s romanticized auto-biography, played by his own sons.Bohemian and poetic.

The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer) - Show this movie to someone who refuses to watch silent movies. The acting is so impactful and emotional, and the use of close ups was highly unusual for the time. A 90-plus years old masterpiece.

Everything is Illuminated (Liev Schreiber) - Sunflowers.

Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan) - I have a soft spot for war movies, as to remind myself how brutal people can be to their fellow man and how meaningless the concept of nations truly is. This movie in particular achieves greatness due to its usage of sound, the best I’ve heard in recent memory.

Vagabond (Agnès Varda) - Be careful of what you wish for yourself, you may end up frozen and miserable in a ditch (spoilers for literally the first few seconds of the film).

Stroszek (Werner Herzog) - I know Herzog mostly through his documentaries. His voice brings me the feeling of a deranged grandpa sharing stories of a reality tainted by dementia. I have yet to explore his fiction work in-depth, and this has been my starting point. Stroszek is bleak and desperate but humor still shines through it at times. Ian Curtis allegedly hung himself after watching it. Not sure if this story is real, but it once more feeds into the Herzog myth.

HyperNormalization (Adam Curtis) - Put together through found footage and newscasts, HyperNormalization is an unforgiving study on how we got to where we currently are. Fake becomes real. Trust is an abandoned concept. “They've undermined our confidence in the news that we are reading/And they make us fight each other with our faces buried deep inside our phones”, as AJJ sings in Normalization Blues. Which you should also check out.

Chicken with Plums (Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud) - A man decides to die, so he goes to bed and waits. An apparent simple plot that uncovers a world of beauty and poetry, as life passes slowly through the man’s eyes.

The Florida Project (Sam Baker) - William Dafoe was born to play the role of a motel manager. He is so natural in his role that I think he would actually be great in that job. The rest of the movie is great too, but his performance is the highlight for me.

Lucky (John Carroll Lynch) - Speaking of great performances, Lucky is Harry Dean Stanton’s final movie and a great send off. IMDB describes it best: “The spiritual journey of a ninety-year-old atheist.“

Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders) - More Harry Dean Stanton. The desert plays a more than decorative role in this wonderful movie, representing the emptiness that comes from estrangement. A story about reunion and all that can come from it.

On Chesil Beach (Dominic Cooke) - I sometimes cry in movies, but this one shook me to the core. A play on expectations and reactions and their devastating impact on relationships. We all fuck up sometimes. Try not to fuck up like these characters did, not on that level, you will never be able to make up for it.

The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson) - An absolute classic. A movie about the concept of family.

No Country for Old Men (Coen Brothers) - Murder mysteries and bad haircuts.

Dawson City: Frozen Time (Bill Morrison) - I highly recommend this documentary for anyone who professes their love for cinema. The story of how hundreds of lost silent movies were preserved though sheer luck and human stupidity. Seeing these damaged frames coming back to life is truly magical.

Mandy (Panos Cosmatos) - Some films turn into cult experiences through the years, some selected few are already born that way. Mandy is a psychedelic freak-out and Nicholas Cage fits like a glove in its weirdness. If you didn’t catch it while in cinemas, you’re already missing out on the full experience. Mandy is filled with film grain, which adds to the hallucinogenic experience with its continuous movement, a feature that does not translate when transferred to a digital medium. 

City of God (Fernando Meirelles & Kátia Lund) - A masterpiece of Brazilian cinema, very meaningful and relatable if you grew up in a similar environment. One of the most quotable films in my memory, something that gets lost in translation if you don’t speak Portuguese. My Tumblr is mostly pictures because I “só sei lê só as figura”.

Loro (Paolo Sorrentino) - On the topic of languages, I watched this Italian movie with Dutch subtitles, by mistake. It is actually an interesting exercise, watching something without fully grasping every word and letting your mind patch the pieces together to make a coherent narrative. Impressive cinematography, amazing script. I learned a lot about corruption, not everyone has a price. I also learned I can speak Italian now.

Roma (Alfonso Cuarón) - Beautiful shot, every frame of it can be turned into a picture. Roma is about the meaning of family, seen from the eyes of someone who will never be part of it. A lot of people considered this movie boring and pointless. These people probably have maids at home.

Bad Times at the El Royale (Drew Goddard) - Engaging heist movie, well developed characters, amazing soundtrack.

Melancholia (Lars von Trier) - The World is coming to an end and the date and time has been announced. How would you react to these news? Would it matter?

Climax (Gaspar Noé) - A very scary experience, equal parts trippy and evil like all Gaspar Noé’s movies. A dark ballet that that shocks and confuses the senses. Dante’s Inferno.

Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold) - A strong story about ambitions, neglect and survival. Katie Jarvis is very realistic in her performance, a little too much judging by her history after the movie.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour) - An Iranian feminist movie about vampirism and records. Watched it with live score from The Black Heart Rebellion for extra cool points.

Another Day of Life (Raul de la Fuente & Damian Nenow) - Based on Ryszard Kapuściński‘s autobiography, Another Day of Life consists of rotoscopic animation sprinkled with interviews. A look at the Cold War in the African continent, and an important watch for everyone, especially Portuguese and Angolan nationals.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino) - Rich in dialogues and paced very slowly until the insane climax, this is probably the best Tarantino film after Pulp Fiction. Filled to the brim with cinematic references, it’s a delight to all film nerds. Looking forward for an Bud Spencer/Terrence Hill film adaption with Leonardo Dicaprio and Brad Pitt after this.

The Beach Bum (Harmony Korine) - Google’s top voted tags: Boring. Mindless. Cringe-Worthy. Forgettable. Slow. Illogical. Looks like this movie didn’t resonate well with the audiences, but then again Harmony Korine’s stuff is not for the masses. I personally think this is one of his best movies, a true exercise on nihilism. The main character is lovable and detestable in equal parts, and every action is pointless. Such is life, the only meaning it has is attributed by yourself.

The Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky) - A man reflects on his life. Memories tend to get fuzzy, conflicting and confusing. More like a poem than a narrative. A dreamy masterpiece.

The Spirit of the Beehive (Víctor Erice) - The most charming child of this list, she couldn’t memorize the names of the characters she interacted with so they were changed to the names of the actual actors. The innocence of childhood in dark times.

A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (Roy Andersson) - A series of absurd vignettes connected by a pair of novelty items salesmen and their struggle to bring a smile to a grey World. Slow, but humorous and delightful. An unconventional and memorable ride.

Man Bites Dog (Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel & Benoît Poelvoorde) - Fake documentary about a serial killer. Heavy, gruesome and hard to watch, despite the false sense of humor in some scenes.A glimpse at the darkness of human nature.

Tangerine (Sean Baker) - Shot with cell phones. A story about love, gender and friendship. Funny, sad, touching.

The Guilty (Gustav Möller) - Focused on a shift of an emergency dispatcher, the camera focuses only on his face and phone interactions with the callers.A very effective thriller, its setting leads us to create our own narratives just to subvert them at the most unexpected times.

Cold War (Paweł Pawlikowski) - Loosely inspired in Pawlikowski’s parents, Cold War is a beautiful love story set against impossible odds. Powerful and heartbreaking. 

Parasite (Bong Joon-ho) - Poor family scams rich family. Rich family takes advantage of poor family. Everybody feeds off of everyone. Drama/Comedy/Thriller/Horror/Romance about control, delivered in a masterclass on cinematic rhythm. Best film of its year for me.

The Straight Story (David Lynch) - More than the fact that this movie is radically different than the remaining Lynch work, The Straight Story is a wonderful exercise in pacing and storytelling. Mr. Straight’s stories allow us to fill in the blanks with our imagination, and their impact in him is also felt in us. An underappreciated gem in its apparent simplicity.

Thank you very much for reading.

[writesandramblings]

The Captain’s Secret - p.11

“The Cure for What Ails”

A/N: I now go out on a limb, because there's only so much you can do with the amount of character background given in the show so far, but I hope you'll agree the story point is worth the risk of any potential contradiction down the line.

This is also the first chapter to feature an adult variant to one of the scenes. It is entirely unnecessary to read the adult content to follow and enjoy the story, but it's there for anyone who wants it.

Full Chapter List << 10 - Minimally Invasive Procedures 12 - Affairs of the Heartless >>

Back on the shuttle, Carver had a hot thermos of coffee ready, strong and black and with a full and rich aroma that smelled like it must have come from her own private reserve, because the coffee in the ship's stores never smelled like this. Carver's family was Brazilian, and as he recalled from her file, coffee was to them what fortune cookies had once been to his ancestors.

"Lt. Carver, you truly are a treasure. How you ended up on the Triton instead of a ship that deserves you, I'll never know."

Carver flashed her pearly whites. "Just good luck, sir."

He settled down in the shuttle's rear, cup in hand. Lalana curled up on the seat next to him, tail over her eyes to sleep. He closed his eyes, too, but more as an excuse to savor the coffee's aroma, though he couldn't deny he was exhausted.

Someone sat down on his other side. He opened his eyes. Morita. She seemed like she wanted to say something. "Yes?" he prompted, sipping his coffee patiently. It was smooth-tasting, slightly nutty, not at all bitter. He would have preferred a little more acidic bite, actually. There was something to be said for really bad coffee at the tail end of a long day.

"Captain, it's not my intent to question you or your command."

Which meant she had a question. He inclined his head for her to continue and took another sip.

"When we went inside the house, what was the plan if we were caught?"

There was no simple answer to that question because there had been no one, single plan for that scenario.

There had been several.

If T'rond'n had found them in the bathroom, for instance, Lorca would have disabled or taken him hostage, then leveraged that to compel one or both of the Dartarans to contact the lului merchants on their behalf, giving them a much more direct path towards their end goal of locating Luluan.

In fact, that exact possibility was why Lorca had decided to go in while the Dartarans were awake in the first place: some primal part of him wanted to see what outcome fortune would dictate, the risky shortcut or the plan he'd set out to achieve.

Another, larger, equally primal part of him wanted to prove his greatest conceit.

Lorca had not been a tremendously profuse reader as a child. He was generously described as rambunctious, preferring any manner of physical pursuit to sitting down with a book in hand, and running around with your nose in a book was generally a surefire way to bust open said nose, which he knew from experience.

Despite this, he did enjoy books and reading, one book in particular. It was the book his mother had read him to sleep with as a child. A worn, old hardcover copy of Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, predating the Eugenics Wars.

It wasn't a particularly rare or well-kept copy. When he was seven or eight years old, he had torn the cover halfway off in a minor climbing incident and his mother had brought him along to a bookbinder to assess the damage. As bookbinding was a "dying art" largely relegated to modern hobbyists, finding a true professional had taken them to one of those vanishing corners of the Earth where currency was still used. The man had taken one look at the book, informed them it would cost many times more than the value of the book to repair it, and recommended replacing it instead. Lorca's mother had insisted on the repairs all the same.

He still remembered the way she stroked his hair as she read, the breathy whisper as she spoke into life the many wonders of the vast, unexplored frontier that was the ocean in 1866, and the words she'd said when he asked if one day he'd get to explore the oceans, too.

"Oh, hon," she had laughed. "There isn't anything left to explore in the oceans. They've already explored it all, before you were even born."

He'd been young enough that his response to this information was to break out in distraught wailing. She'd laughed again, but gently as she brushed the tears from his eyes.

"That's the ocean now, up there." She pointed out the window to the stars. "Look. It's so deep, it's inky black, and it's full of tiny, shining fish." From that moment on, the sky became the ocean, and he imagined the Nautilus traveling through that starry sea, and he looked up every night as she read to him and saw the words play out against the starlit sky, and dreamed of that waiting adventure.

The book was in his quarters at this very moment, sitting beside his bed, still bearing the marks of the repairs to its faded antique cover.

Inside that precious tome, tucked between pages fifty and fifty-one, lay a single slip of paper, barely the size of a pinky finger. It was a fortune he'd opened when he was only fifteen. By that time, he'd already started counting the days until he'd be able to realize his dream of sailing the starry ocean on a ship all his own, and he hadn't needed any encouragement, but the fortune had meant something to him all the same.

It read in tiny, precise black print, "You make your own fortune."

It was the sort of fortune cookie makers intended to be taken tongue in cheek, but that didn't change the potential those five words represented.

Which brought him back to the Dartarans and the risk he had taken in entering their home. He could have waited until they were asleep, gone the most cautious route, risked nothing and played it safe. Instead, he'd chosen a path that let fate enter the picture and affect the outcome.

And then he'd taken that same fate into his own hands and bent it to his own purposes through a combination of sheer intellect, training, and force of will.

Which was why he knew that, no matter how things had played out down on that moon, he would have found a way to complete his mission goals. There were plenty of ways he might have convinced Margeh and T'rond'n to help, too. Lalana might know things they would not want made public which could be used to blackmail them into compliance or silence. Elements of their business practices might be exposed to their financial detriment and potential ruin. As they were partners in business as well as life, one of them potentially had a trigger point at which he or she would fall into line to protect the other.

Supposing they were unmoved by blackmail or coercion. They had proven themselves to be rather stubborn when it came to their shuttle, after all. Well, then they could be brought back to the Triton and detained until the end of the mission. The ramifications with Starfleet would have been tremendously bad, but potentially weatherable. Successfully saving a whole planet of pre-warp aliens would certainly be a rousing factor in any defense.

He'd even had a contingency if one or both of the Dartarans had ended up dead. There was a perfectly good leskos corpse in the woods. Who's to say the Dartarans didn't meet an untimely end pursuing their favorite pastime in their forest of horrors?

It was a multi-layered tree of possibilities and outcomes, and Lorca had mapped enough of them to be able to say that no matter how things turned out, he would have been ready to march ahead with something plausibly workable.

The sum totality of it all was that he had more than he ever could or would say in explanation. The Wizard only ruled Oz so long as no one looked behind the curtain.

He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply from his cup. There was another set of fortune cookies stashed in here, and he wouldn't mind having one to go with his coffee, but for once he didn't feel like getting up. "Apologies, Reiko, but I'm gonna use my prerogative as captain not to answer. You're just gonna have to trust that there was a plan, but the less said about it, the better."

Morita seemed like she had expected as much. "Understood."

He smirked. "Try not to hold it against me."

"Permission to speak freely, sir?" She was professional to the point that, even when he addressed her by her given name, she didn't assume she had that freedom already. (Unlike Billingsley, who seemed to assume she was allowed to speak her mind whether anyone said she could or not. Maybe she felt she still had a blanket permission to speak freely from some previous granting of the right, as if such permissions never expired.)

"Go."

"I'm glad it didn't come to whatever it was. We're already off the books, I'd rather not break any more regulations."

Lorca squinted at her. "Have we broken any regulations?"

She looked surprised. "Trespassing and installing an unauthorized device on private property."

"I have no idea what you're talking about, chief."

She realized what he was doing and half-rolled her eyes in beleaguered amusement. The "if a tree falls in a forest and no one's there to hear it, it didn't make a sound" defense. Practical, albeit rather Machiavellian. "Sir," she said, with the mildest edge of disapproval. "What about the evidence?"

Lorca just shrugged casually and said in low, conspiratorial tone, "What evidence?"

Morita ran over their mission so far in her mind. The communications hijacker was evidence, all right, but it was something they'd confiscated from a pirate, contained no Starfleet components, and depending on how often and thoroughly the Dartarans checked their home data center, it might be months before they even noticed it was there and then they'd be unable to prove when it was installed. Fingerprints and DNA, maybe, but unless the Dartarans figured out what had happened, there would be no reason to check for those, and Russo had carefully wiped all the crucial surfaces down. There wasn't even any evidence that they had a live lului because the evidence indicated Lalana was dead.

It reminded her of something she'd heard at the Academy. "Professor Rokodo's midterm."

He hadn't heard or thought about that name in a long time. "Once again, I am at a loss."

Rokodo taught one of the basic prerequisite starship maintenance classes that no one really liked, not even the most passionate and enthusiastic ship geeks. If rumor was to be believed, a second-year cadet by the name of Gabriel Lorca and some compatriots, faced with the prospect of less than satisfactory scores, had derailed the midterm by executing a rather vicious prank involving a hazardous leak in the testing area. Investigation and expulsion might have been imminent save for the fact that when the hazard team arrived, no leak could be found, despite Rokodo's insistence that the leak had in fact occurred, and he was a certifiable expert in the field, so he would know.

Morita smiled. "Because you didn't do it or because you didn't get caught?"

"Yes," said Lorca, not identifying which. He exhaled heavily and his eyes fluttered closed, then snapped open, as if he might have started to fall asleep and stopped himself. "When you say 'off the books'... The books are the regulations." It sounded like the first part of a point, but no second part was forthcoming. Despite the hot caffeine infusion, he was starting to crash. "I do mostly follow the rules," he said after a moment.

"You do, sir."

"But the captain has to use his own discretion. The people who write the regs aren't out here. They're back, safe and comfy, in Starfleet command." There was another considerable pause. "And sometimes you have to take a risk. Especially when there's a payoff, and it's for a good cause. That's why we went in when we did."

Morita could see this conversation wasn't going to last much longer, but wanted to get what she could while she could from the captain. "What was the payoff?"

Lorca's smile was tired but self-satisfied. "The less time spent on that moon, the better."

There was no arguing with that. Morita leaned forward and looked across Lorca at Lalana. She didn't disagree about the good cause at this point, either. "Well put. Thank you, sir."

"Anytime, chief." Morita returned to the other side of the shuttle to check on Russo's scrapes again and Lorca closed his eyes.

He wasn't aware exactly when he fell asleep, or what happened the half-cup of coffee he didn't finish drinking, but he dreamed about tiny starry fish in an inky-black sky.

He awoke refreshed after a couple hours rest, just in time for their return to the Triton, and felt miles better, though by this point, no amount of rest on a shuttle was going to salvage the appearance of the away team. Dirty, rumpled clothes, scrapes, bruises, mussed hair, and haggard faces marked them as survivors of an arduous ordeal. Only Carver, who had spent the whole mission in the shuttle on standby, looked halfway decent, and even she was beginning to hit her coffee limit. Not that her piloting showed it.

As they approached, Lalana offered her folded up tail to Lorca, a gesture he didn't immediately understand until she tugged his hand out, palm up.

She dropped eight staples into his palm. "I am done with these now. Thank you again."

Lorca stared at the staples, mindful that all of them had been embedded to some degree in her body. He opened his mouth, inhaled with the intent of saying something, then stopped. The situation was what it was. "You're welcome," he lied, and dropped the staples onto the seat so someone in maintenance could worry about disposing of them. He surreptitiously eyed her haunch for any sign of the wound that had been there, but saw none, and there was no indication when she moved that she had ever been wounded.

Benford was waiting for their arrival, flanked by a security officer. He was a sight for sore eyes in the literal as well as figurative sense. "Welcome back, captain!" Benford said, beaming. His relief at having everyone safely back on board was palpable.

"Good to be back, Commander," replied Lorca as he disembarked from the shuttle, Lalana a step behind him.

"And Miss Lalana, lovely to see you, too."

"Commander Benford," replied Lalana graciously.

Of course, Benford was there with security for a reason. "Dr. Ek'Ez would like you to come to sickbay if you don't mind."

"Why?" she asked.

"Just the same old 'can't scan for parasites' routine."

"I really don't have parasites," said Lalana, looking to Lorca for guidance.

"You should let the doc check your wound," he said.

"That is not necessary, it is already fixed."

"Let the doc do his thing," said Lorca, "or I'll never hear the end of it."

Lalana let out a sort of breathy trill Lorca hadn't heard before, but which really felt like annoyance, and complied. She and Russo went with Benford.

Morita and Carver stood waiting for orders. "Excellent work, both of you. Get some rest. Dismissed."

"Aye, captain!" saluted Carver, with her trademark smile. She whirled on her foot and headed away with the others.

Billingsley didn't come out with the others, instead emerging a moment later pulling one of the gear crates from the shuttle. Lorca stared at her with vague disgust. "Billingsley! Leave that for someone else. You're dismissed."

She didn't listen, continuing to drag the crate down the ramp towards Lorca. He sighed at her stubbornness and took the crate's other end.

It was much easier carrying it between the two of them. Despite her clumsiness in regular gravity, Billingsley was no slouch and stronger than she looked, so they split the burden of the crate almost evenly. Almost. Both seemed to be trying to take the brunt of its weight. Competing right to the last, thought Lorca.

They deposited the crate near the shuttlebay doors. Billingsley pushed it against the wall with an angry shove of her foot. Lorca watched disapprovingly. "Watch it, chief," he warned.

She stood there, staring at the crate, her hands balled into fists. Then her hands relaxed. "I hate you," she said at last.

"I know." They stood there a moment more, Billingsley glowering while Lorca regarded her. He checked his watch, which still had Tederek local time displayed. It would be at least another hour or two before it was time to implement the next part of the plan. "Join me for a drink?"

(Mature version of the following scene available here. No content in the mature version of the scene is necessary to the story.)

Afterwards, she sat up, her hair hanging loosely about her shoulders and a twist of sheets around her waist and he noticed something.

She was marked with tiny brown dots like stars in a constellation, perfectly mirrored on both sides of her body at every major joint, as if she were Orion come to life from the sky.

With stubborn reluctance, she explained that they were measurement tattoos, placed on her at a young age so her parents could monitor the progress of the medical intervention taken to counteract the effects of high gravity on her developing skeletal structure. Most people had slight variances between the two halves of their body—one leg slightly longer than the other—but in Billingsley's case, her arms and legs were perfectly symmetrical by design, and she had ten years of precise medical notations to prove it.

"You could have them removed," he noted, running his thumb over the dot on her left shoulder. If you didn't know what the dots were or that they were paired on each side, they could be mistaken for large freckles or small moles.

His suggestion was met with silence. Billingsley was too practical a person for that kind of vain frivolity, and while her tattoos did not feature any image or text communicating their purpose, they were nevertheless as much a reflection of her history as any other tattoo.

Lorca traced his index finger from the dot on her shoulder to the dot on her elbow to the dot on her wrist, then folded his hand into hers. The long thinness of her hands was a side effect of the growth factors used to elongate her limbs. He drew her hand to his lips and kissed it. She snorted and pulled her hand away. "Don't get sentimental on me."

He grinned. "Never," he promised. "And don't you, either. That's an order."

She groaned and rolled her eyes. It wasn't a real order, obviously, but it did underscore the problem at the foundation of this encounter. On top of everything else.

Normally, his partners were slightly less annoyed with him after they were done, but this was Billingsley. Annoyed seemed to be her default setting. "We don't have a problem, do we?"

"No. Sir."

"Sar-ah!" he groaned in mild chastisement. Wait, she didn't think... He sat up suddenly. "This doesn't change anything."

He'd mistaken her response for more antagonistic than she'd intended. "So I don't get a repeat?"

He carefully considered her face and body language. "Do you want a repeat?"

Her shoulders shrugged and her eyes feigned disinterest. "I'm not saying no." She sniffed in sudden amusement. "At least you gave me more than a choice than I had taking this assignment."

It seemed like there was a story there. "How's that?"

She sighed. "I'm supposed to be on Spacedock. If that engineer hadn't gotten kicked out of Starfleet during the ship's last refit..."

He knew that the engineer who had occupied Sarah's position prior had been discharged from Starfleet for behavioral problems, but he'd always assumed Billingsley had taken the job because she wanted it. He said as much.

"They needed someone who was up to speed on the Triton's systems. I was in charge of the refit. So..."

He suddenly realized exactly how much she didn't want to be there. "You can transfer out."

She shrugged. "No starbases have any good engineering posts open. They always go to someone else. Triton isn't exactly a resume-builder."

That annoyed him. No one had ever asked to be assigned to the Triton, but it was still his ship, and he felt he'd done an exemplary job of restoring the ship's reputation to something approaching esteem since taking command. And while it had previously been known as a terrible posting, it was a temporary one. The ship only had four more months until it was decommissioned. This entire assignment was a proving ground. Didn't Billingsley see that?

He might have said any or all of this to her. He settled for a brief, "Four months."

She hummed slightly. "Four months," she repeated.

And in that time, he intended to show Starfleet just what their newly minted captain was made of.

Part 12