#listen as much as I dunk on blizzard

[latineslytherin]

What I hate the most about the Hogwarts Legacy "controversy" is how people just come in guns blazing and calling anyone in the facility names. It pisses me off that I have been shunned from places that I belong to (I am Queer and poured of it, even though I usually don't make it a big deal), by people who are either "alleys" or (what seems to be) the loud minority.

"You should stop trying to be 'one of the good ones', they will never like you regardless!" I don't. I literally could not care less what Scruch McDuck and her little minions think of me. I have been an avid gamer for over 15 years by now, I like HP it's as simple as that!

"Wow, you really hate yourself that much, huh?" No, I honestly don't. I just don't make my enjoyment of a game dependent on the moral high-ground of whom ever the fuck worked on it/the IP belongs too. By that logic, I can say bye-bye to pretty much the whole industry. Blizzard is arguably worse, but somehow, I've never seen them go and boycott Overwatch... I wonder why?

"Stop speaking for all of us!" I don't... they seem to do! Like, everything I say is strictly out of my perspective, everything my queer friends (who are also going to buy this, mind you) say is strictly out of their perspective, but every time I go online and see people talk about these kinds of things it comes out of a place of total authority, yes, as if they are speaking for all of us!

Listen, I do not care if anyone doesn't or does buy it. I congratulate people who are standing their ground on, what is for them, a line they don't wish to cross. The only problem I have is that some of them seem to have come to the conclusion that, because they don't like it, nobody is allowed to, and that ain't it chif. I am sick and tired of going online, hoping to see some people be excited with me, getting some actual news on the game, and getting slam-dunked 0.01 second after that for the navity to think that I could actually have something nice or in formative once in a while.

Sorry for this. It has been coming a while now, and that last aks just me down. 😓

OH MY GOD the "stop trying to be one of the good ones" Like my dude... that doesn't really exist - or isn't something of a conscious effort anyone does. It's just called knowing how to educate people back from places of bigotry by understanding that most people end up there through ignorance - and you have to approach/engage them by understanding where they are coming from - by putting yourself in their shoes. It's sort of the same problem I have with people who say BiPOC/Queer people shouldn't have to do the emotional labor to teach people. I get so angry because If we don't - the white supremacist/terfs sure as fuck will and they'll seem friendly about it and have an easier time of it because the alternative is angry easy-to-offend people who won't take like five minutes to go "okay hold on I'm busy but these blogs/articles/websites I know of are a good start. come back to me if you have questions and don't worry about your phrasing, I get it - you don't know what you don't know."(Sorry wow ranted there)

Anyway yeah everything you said. It's sad that we can't just be allowed to be excited for a game without people attacking us.

[strawberrystreamfields]

Carolina's Journal Log 4:

Our day started bright and early with reports of a sudden, severe blizzard in the Everwind Fields. It was almost identical to the one in Moorland a few days ago. The snow was, of course, deeper here, though Rosedawn expertly plowed through the cold, white, layers. Seeing as the blizzard was situated relatively close to Marley's farm and to the Baroness' Racetrack, it was worth checking to make sure nobody was trapped. Thankfully, Silverglade Village hadn't been hit in the storm, and, from what I could see, neither had Silverglade Manor. I'd have to check on the Manor later.

Despite the trouble this blizzard was causing, there was no denying that it looked magnificent. My prediction was right since we ran into Idun Goldspur and Landon. We helped Idun find her twins, Alexander and Hannibal, who'd been playing hide and seek in the snow when the blizzard hit. From there, we tracked down Landon's sheep. We figured we might as well take advantage of the snow. Rosedawn seemed to want to give herself a brain freeze, dunking her head into the snow a la ostrich.

We headed up to Silverglade Manor, which thankfully hadn't been hit by the blizzard. The constant snowfall's been keeping the snow fluffy and nice. All of the birch trees dotted around the landscape match perfectly with the snowy ground.

The vineyard is just as snow-covered as everything else, which, in hindsight, was to be expected. The grapes are surprisingly resilient for an island that hasn't seen any real snow for nearly 6 years. I briefly spoke with the Baroness as we walked past. Here's hoping she hasn't locked another girl in a castle. I don't think that's going to be an easy PR scandal to deal with.

Rosedawn and I made our way down to Silverglade Village. We headed past the castle, which doesn't currently appear to be inhabited by an imprisoned teenager. The roads in the village have been paved and smoothed, making the trek easier. Big Bonny is working on some of her inventions outside. Fresh air can be pretty helpful when trying to fix something.

We walked through the village, stopping to view the decorations in the main square. There was a massive, expertly decorated tree acting as a centerpiece. The fountain was mostly the same, though there were garlands and straw goats peppered around the square. Figuring it would be nice to have some fun in an even snowier place, we requested that the Capran there take us to the Winter Village, to which they obliged. I'm starting to hate this as much as Rosedawn.

Once in the Winter Village, we passed by some large ice crystals. I wonder how they formed in such an elaborate way. Nevertheless, we encountered a friendly deer, who even allowed me to carefully pet him! Gosh, deer are absolutely precious.

We stopped to listen to stories around a warm fire. James told us a story about a straw goat, which was pretty touching. Before returning to our exploration, we stopped so that Rosedawn could get some water and a snack. After the both of us had rested up, we kept exploring. Our next wildlife encounter was discovering an arctic fox den! Some of the young cubs were playing with each other while some adults supervised.

Leaving the Winter Village, we began heading for Valedale Village. The Silversong River is still frozen over, and Rosedawn and I half considered sliding down toward the ocean or to the other side of the riverbank, though, we decided to just take the path today. Maybe tomorrow.

We passed the frozen water mill, its roof covered in snow. Once arriving at the village, we paused to briefly chat with Claire before continuing on our way. We took a leap over a fallen log, landing in the snow gracefully before galloping on. Maybe Rosedawn would be good in cross-country?

We crossed the bridge over to one of the druid cabins where we'd stay the night. Our plan was either to head up to the Valley of the Hidden Dinosaur or to Firgrove, and by extension, Mistfall tomorrow. For now, Rosedawn is staying in one of the Druid stables for the night while I stay in one of the rooms. I'd head back to Redwood Point, but it would be fruitless to go all the way to the Wildwoods when I might be headed to Mistfall tomorrow.

[thecotton-candy-queen]

Ah shit here we go again

[fallen-gravity]

Snow Day

13 year olds Dipper and Mabel decide they want to spend their winter break up in Gravity Falls with their Grunkles and experience their first blizzard. Chaos ensues.

Notes: Here's my submission for a Secret Santa I participated in on discord! It was so much fun and I'm so glad I decided to participate this year!

Happy new year, @anistarrose! I'm your Santa!

The prompt: "I will crave and enthusiastically consume any form of Pines family bonding, time travel shenanigans, Bill getting dunked on, or any combination of the above." I, of course, had to go with the former, because you can never have enough plotless fluff and shenanigans!

AO3

Having been born and raised in California, Dipper and Mabel never got to experience winter the way television always promised they would. They never got to experience snowball fights, sled races, or building snowmen the way all the kids on TV got to.

Sure, they’ve seen snow before, it’s dusted here and there, but it was never enough to stick to the ground overnight. When they were younger, they always hoped the spirit of the season would be enough to bring them a blizzard so they could get snow days like all the kids on the east coast got to have, but it never came to be. They’d just about given up hope on the idea of playing in the snow in their own backyard when they were around ten years old.

Regardless, they looked forward to winter break every year. Their parents used to always take time off work to take them on a short vacation, and when Dipper and Mabel begged them to let them spend their winter break after their thirteenth birthday up in Gravity Falls with their Grunkles, their parents had said yes, which only made Dipper and Mabel look forward to break even more.

They left by bus an hour after their school let them free, and they arrived at the Mystery Shack eight hours later to their attic bedroom already set up for them.

~~

Dipper awakens to the sound of Mabel shrieking her head off at six in the morning. He nearly jumps half a foot in the air, scrambling to turn his bedside lamp on.

“Mabel?” he squeaks. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“Dipper, look!” she beams, bouncing up and down on her feet and pointing out the window.

“Seriously?” he groans, rubbing at his eyes as he stands from his bed. “I thought we were already numb to Gravity Falls weirdness by now” he says, but can’t help the gasp that escapes him when he looks out the window to humor her. There’s so much snow falling from the sky that Dipper can’t even see the tree line of the forest beyond the shack, and there’s a layer of snow coating the ground so thick that it completely covers the steps of the back porch.

“Woah,” Dipper gasps. “I didn’t think it could snow that much in Oregon”

“That’s just the thing!” Mabel grins. “What if it can’t? What if the reason it snowed like, two feet overnight is because it’s all a part of the Gravity Falls weirdness? You remember what Stan said when he came to see Grunkle Ford, right? It was snowing!” she throws her arms up in the air dramatically. “Dips, do you know what this means? This could be our only opportunity to see snow like this without having to go to like, Alaska or something!”

“You know what else this means?” Dipper asks, frantically grabbing at her shoulders.

“What?”

He smirks, shoving her towards her bed as he books it for the door. “Race you outside!” he calls behind her, not even bothering to look behind his shoulder for her reaction.

“Hey! No fair!!” Mabel cries, scrambling to her feet and sprinting out of the room in an attempt to catch up with her brother. The young twins tumble down the stairs, and nearly collide with Ford on their way towards the kitchen where they’d last dumped their coats.

They yell a frantic apology in his general direction and unison, but they’re moving too frantically to hear his response. Dipper eventually makes it out of the shack first, and he’s standing with his arms crossed and a smirk on his face when Mabel meets him outside.

“You better not be telling me that I owe you any of my special cocoa for beating me out here” she pouts, crossing her arms over her chest to mimic Dipper. “Cheaters don’t get cocoa”

Dipper chuckles, his arms slipping to his side as he cautiously steps down the snow-covered steps of the deck. “Alright, fair enough.” He points an accusatory finger at her. “But it’s been eight years. You’re gonna have to tell me your recipe someday”

“In time, brother o’ mine,” she replies as she joins his side. “In time.”

For a few moments, neither of the young Pines twins say anything. In unison, they throw their heads back and lift their arms up into the air and let the snow fall gently on their face. Catching snowflakes on their tongues is a lot harder than TV makes it seem, but it feels good to just stand out in the snow and let it land gently on their face.

It’s peaceful. Dipper closes his eyes, and he knows if the snow weren’t so thick and wet and if his winter coat were better suited for it, he’d let himself fall back and lie down in it. But since it’s not, he settles for standing in place and just listening.

It’s peaceful, until it isn’t.

Something cold and wet smacks him in the back, and he’s so startled by it that he yelps. His eyes pop open, and he whips around frantically to see where that could’ve come from.

Dipper just barely misses the sound of Mabel’s maniac giggle before he’s pelted again, this time in the forehead.

“Yes!”  Mabel cheers, pumping her fists in the air. “Bullseye! Two in a row!”

“No fair!” Dipper pouts, brushing the snow off of his hat. “I wasn’t paying attention!”

Mabel smirks as she bends to prepare another snowball. “What, so now you’re against cheating? You seriously need to work on your moral compass, bro”

He just manages to duck in time as he bends to form a snowball of his own. “That was different! It’s not like I’m the one who woke you up unreasonably early this morning!”

“Pssh,” she waves a dismissive hand. “I just as easily could’ve come out without you if I wanted to”

Dipper takes her brief moment of distraction to pelt her in the arm with a snowball. “Nuh-uh,” he mocks, the same way he has since they were toddlers. “Admit it; you don’t have the heart. You love me too much”.

“Ewww, never” she cringes dramatically, and lunges the snowball she’d been solidifying between her hands directly towards his face. Dipper tries to duck, but miscalculates the force and speed of her throw and the snowball splats against his face so roughly and suddenly that it knocks him to the ground.

“Ohmigosh!” Mabel declares, the playful tone in her voice gone. “Dipper, are you okay?” she asks, running to his side. His response is an incomprehensible mumble, muffled by the snow he hasn’t wiped off his face yet.

“What was that?” she asks, leaning closer.

Underneath the snow, Dipper smirks, and balls the pile of snow sitting on his face and shoves it into Mabel’s. “I said you’re going down”

He stands to his feet, bunching his fists into the snow to gather a bunch of it at once, and Mabel half-shrieks, half-giggles as she makes a run for it.  Dipper almost manages to snag her right in the head, until she suddenly takes a sharp turn to hide behind one of the wooden columns supporting the roof of the shack.

“Hey!” he shouts, and just barely dodges a snowball she lobs at him from her hiding spot.

“What?” she calls, popping her head out from being her hiding spot. “Nobody ever said that hiding was against the rules! Besides!” she gestures to the column mirror to hers that’s closest to him. “It’s not like I’m hiding somewhere super-secret, or anything!” She lobs another ball in his direction.  “The longer you stand there the more vulnerable you become!” she singsongs, tossing a snowball back and forth between her hands teasingly.

Dipper makes a dive for it into the snow, and crawls along until he’s standing behind the wooden column, shoving fistfuls of snow into his pocket along the way. Mabel groans, like she can’t believe she didn’t think to crawl away before he did, and attempts to launch a snowball at him as he’s standing up. She misses, and Dipper can’t help but laugh as the snowball sticks to his wooden column and doesn’t budge.

He mashes the snow in his pocket into a ball, and grabs a bunch more snow to make it even bigger. He winds his arm back like throwing it harder is going to make aiming it any easier, and hears the back door creaking open just half a second too late.

The snowball flings out of his hand, but instead of hitting Mabel, his intended target, the snowball hits Ford as he’s coming out of the door with such force that it knocks his glasses off of his face.

Dipper freezes, looking absolutely horrified, and Mabel bursts into hysterical laughter.

“Grunkle Ford!” Dipper shouts, wiping his hands off on his jacket and running towards his great-uncle. He’s expecting him to look shocked, or sad, or even angry, but when Ford gets his glasses back on his face he’s nearly laughing as hard as Mabel is.

“I…” Ford starts, removing his glasses for a brief moment to wipe some of the excess snow from his lenses. “…came out to see how you were doing, because I saw you running by me in the kitchen, but I guess you’ve already answered that question for me”

“Grunkle Ford, I’m so sorry,” Dipper’s gaze falls to the ground, his cheeks turning pink in embarrassment. Ford only chuckles and places a gentle hand on Dipper’s shoulder, prompting him to meet his eyes again.

“There’s no need to apologize, my boy. I love the snow. Stan and I used to have snowball fights all the time when we were kids”

“Really?” Mabel beams, stepping out from her hiding spot.

Ford nods. “Every time we had the day off from school, he’d wake me up by sneaking a snowball into the house and throwing it at me while I was still asleep in bed.” He shakes his head affectionately.  “You could never wake Stanley up early for anything, but the moment school got cancelled on account of a blizzard, he was up an hour earlier than even Ma or Pa”

Ford takes a few steps forward and leans against the wooden pillar, gazing out at the falling snow. “I always did wonder what he was up to those first few winters after Pa kicked him out. I tried forgetting, I tried telling myself he wasn’t worth the time of day, but…”

For the briefest of moments his shoulders tense, like he’s suddenly overcome with the image of Stan freezing to death in his Diablo, but he shakes that image off with a deep breath and his shoulders relax as normal. He bends to pick up a handful of snow, and lets it fall between his fingers. “Now, though, I’m just happy to see it again,” he turns his gaze back towards the younger twins. “Haven’t had a chance to see it in thirty years”

“What?” the young twins ask in perfect unison.

“Not even in the multiverse?” Dipper asks, and Ford shakes his head.

“Most dimensions didn’t have a concept of weather. Even the dimension that was supposedly a perfect copy of our Earth was eternally summer” he muses, and steps down from the porch and into the snow. For a brief moment he too merely stands where he is and watches the snow fall, until an idea visibly comes to him and a devilish grin spreads across his face.

“I have an idea,” he says, grabbing two handfuls of snow, and disappearing back into the house.

There’s nothing but the sound of Ford’s boots on the hardwood and the whistling wind, and then nothing at all, and then the sound of Stan shrieking.

Ford comes running out the door again, grinning so hard that his smile could split his face in two. Stan follows close behind, but stops in front of the doorway, clad in his ratty tank top and boxer shirts with a large chunk of snow splatted against his chest.

Dipper and Mabel exchange glances, and can’t help the snickers that escape them.

“For your information, I was in the middle of something very important” Stan grumbles, jabbing an accusatory finger at Ford.

Ford only laughs, forms another snowball, and throws it at Stan, still in the doorway. “Mm, how dare I pull you away from your black and white Victorian era romances right?”

“Alright, that’s it” Stan growls, and slams the door closed. He’s only gone for a minute or two, and when he opens the door again he’s wearing a puffy winter coat and pants. “You want a fight? You’re gettin’ a war.”

He steps outside, sprinting down the porch steps and shoveling handful of snow onto the sleeve of his jacket until he’s got an entire armful. He bunches it all together until he’s got a singular giant snowball in his hands. Ford’s eyes go wide at the sight, and he takes a few cautious steps backwards.

“S-Stanley, I was just joking, you must understand that I’m not properly dressed for this” he chuckles nervously, raising his hands in the air in defeat.

“Y’got your turtleneck, don’t ya?” Stan grins devilishly, solidifying the snowball in his hands. “Besides, that never stopped me when we were kids, now did it?”  He steps cautiously towards Ford so as not to drop his snowball, and lunges it right in his brother’s face.

The hit lands, and Ford falls to the ground the same way Dipper had just moments ago.

The two young twins exchange glances, and can’t help but break into hysterical laughter.  Ford sits up, removing his glasses to remove the snow that had gotten shoved behind the frames, and wipes them off on his sweater before heading back towards the door.

“Fine,” Ford replies. “If you want a war, you’re getting a war”

“Hey, now wait just a minute, brainiac” Stan crosses his arms over his chest. “I recognize that tone. Don’t think I’m letting you use any of your fancy-schmancy interdimensional weapons against me. We got all the weapons we need right here” he gestures to the snow around him. “I may be a professional conman, but at least I have standards when it comes to these sorts of things” he closes his eyes, nodding sagely.  “If we’re waging a war on each other, it better be waged fairly”

He pauses for a few moments, his gaze turning to the young twins. “…and turn those two against each other!” He points towards them, and approaches the two of them. He picks Mabel up by her waist, and places her on his shoulders.  “I call Mabel! Girl’s got aim and can take you and brainiac junior down any day”

“Yes!” Mabel chants, pumping her arms in the air. “Team personality reigns superior again!”

“We reconvene here in five.” Stan says. “Go and get your coat on if you so insist to put any more layers on, and then all bets are off” he bows sarcastically to Ford, Mabel giggling on his shoulders.

“Best of luck to you, Sixer” he teases. “You’re gonna need it”

Dipper watches as Ford disappears inside, and Stan and Mabel run off to another part of the shack’s backyard. Stan kneels on the ground, and Mabel leap-frogs off of his shoulder to help him build a snow fort for defense. Upon seeing that he’s watching them, they both form snowballs in their hand and threaten him with them.

Dipper yelps, and runs back towards the porch before they can hit him. Something creaks, and Dipper nearly jumps a foot in the air, but his tension melts when he just realizes that it’s Ford coming back outside with a thick coat and winter hat.

“How are things looking?” Ford asks, placing a gloved hand on Dipper’s shoulder.

Dipper shakes his head. “It’s not looking good. Mabel’s got strength and sculpting abilities, and they’ve already started on their fort. By the time we can even start on our foundation they’ll already have a castle built”

Ford hums in acknowledgement.  “And we both know how Stan is with cheating” he taps at his chin. “What we’ll need is strategy”

“Hey!” Stan shouts from across the lawn. “Are we talking or are we fighting? Get a move on!” He tosses a snowball that lands in the space between Ford and Dipper.

“…Right,” Ford says. “We’ll strategize as we go along then”

Dipper drops to the ground where he stands, bunching armfuls of snow together to build a small wall. He silently gestures for Ford to help him, and he obliges, wordlessly kneeling to the ground and helping to pile snow onto the singular-walled fort. Once it’s tall enough to cover Dipper, he tugs Ford to a crouching position.

“Okay,” Dipper whispers. “So far, Mabel’s strategy has been to…not have one. She builds a bunch of snowballs at once, and then flings them all at once. If we want to knock her out, we need to wait until she needs to restock”

Ford chuckles affectionately. “She sounds just like Stan when he was a kid. He’d have to make the biggest snowball he could. I’m sure there’ll be an overlap between the two of them needing to restock at some point”

Dipper smiles. “They sure do have a lot in common, don’t they?”

Ford ruffles his hair. “I’m sure they say the same exact thing about us, my boy”

Dipper beams at that, but before he can respond he’s interrupted by the sound of Mabel screaming “CHARGE!” and snowballs being pelted at their small wall. Dipper and Ford dive out of the way, and Dipper starts shoving snow into his hands. Without lifting his head over the wall, he attempts to throw his snowball back at Mabel, but misses and only hits the edge of her fort.

“Hah! That the best you’ve got?” Stan taunts, popping his head out from behind cover. Beside Dipper, Ford flings a snowball back at him, and a soft oof escapes Stan as the snowball hits him in the shoulder. He grumbles something to Mabel that neither Dipper nor Ford can hear, and soon after Mabel pops her head out too. She and Stan start pelting snowballs at Dipper and Ford in unison.  A good number of them miss, but when Dipper pops his head up during a short pause to check and see if they stopped to reload, he’s pelted right in the forehead. Stan and Mabel high five, and Dipper groans as he attempts to scrub the snow away.

“Okay,” Dipper whispers, crouching to the ground once more. “I think they’re restocking.” He bunches some snow into his arms. “You ready?”

Ford nods. “I’m ready”

The two of them pop out from behind their wall, and start pelting as many snowballs at Stan and Mabel as they can manage. Some of them are tiny, some of them are huge, and Dipper doesn’t notice that one of them had a frozen acorn in it until it was too late, but they’re getting a good rhythm going. Dipper manages to knock Stan’s hat off his head, and Ford’s able to knock Mabel’s snowball out of her hand as she’s still trying to put it together.

“Yes!” Dipper cheers, and from across the yard Mabel crosses her arms across her chest.

“Booo,” she calls. “No fair! We never said anything in the rules about strategizing!”

“It’s a snowball fight, Mabel, there aren’t any rules!”

“Exactly!” she calls back. “Snowball fights are supposed to be about chaos!” She throws her arms in the air.  “Not calculating the best angle for wind trajectory, or whatever nerdy thing you and Grunkle Ford have been talking about!”

She chucks another snowball as hard as she can, and this one smacks against Dipper and Ford’s tiny excuse for a fort. It crumples to the ground with a pathetic splat, leaving them vulnerable from every angle.

“See?” She grins. “Just like that!”

“Hah! Nice shot, pumpkin!” Stan cheers, and he and Mabel high-five again. Even from where Dipper sits he can see their playful grins melt away into maniacal smirks, and just barely has enough time to see them shoveling snow into their hands before  Ford grabs his hand and begins sprinting to another part of the yard, doing anything he can to avoid being pelted with snow.

“New plan,” Ford whispers to Dipper as they run frantically around the yard as if it were a minefield. “Take down their fort. Once their defense is gone, they’ll be just as vulnerable as us, and it’ll give us a better chance at taking them down”

Dipper salutes him, trying and failing to keep the goofy grin on his face. “Understood”

With that, the two of them split off into different directions. Dipper doesn’t quite see where Ford disappears to, because as soon as he splits off from Ford he’s on his knees smushing together as many snowballs as he can in one go. Once he’s got enough, he stands to his feet and charges back towards the direction of Stan and Mabel’s fort.  He starts blindly lunging snowballs at them, not risking even a second to give them an opportunity to knock the snowballs out of his arms. Dipper knows that without Ford by his side he’s twice as vulnerable, but he also knows that once Stan and Mabel’s fort comes down they’ll all be on equal ground.

He misses every shot he takes at the fort, but finds malicious satisfaction in “accidentally” hitting Stan square in the face. He dives to the ground shortly after to avoid being hit by the retaliation attack, and his frantic recreation of more snowballs is frozen dead in its tracks at the sound of footprints crunching in the snow quickly behind him. Dipper curls in on himself, afraid of the possibility that Stan snuck away when he wasn’t looking to sneak up and attack him from behind.

The attack never comes, though, and when Dipper finds the bravery to sit up and glance behind him he sees Ford sprinting towards the three of them with a massive snowball in each hand. Stan and Mabel yelp in surprise, ducking beneath their fort for cover, but it’s no use, for when Ford hurls his snowballs at their fort it comes crumbling to the ground.

For a few moments, nobody says a word. Dipper, Stan, and Mabel sit in shock, exchanging glances. There’s nothing to break up the silence between them but the whistling wind and their heavy breathing.

Until Mabel stands to her feet, brushes herself off, and shouts “FREE FOR ALL!!”

She gathers a bunch of snow between her hands, throws it at Stan’s chest, and all chaos breaks loose from there. The rest of the family is on their feet in an instant, chasing each other around the yard in a blur of jackets and gloves and flying snowballs. Dipper gets knocked to the ground face-first by a snowball to the back of the neck, but he’s having too much fun to notice the cold feeling on his face. Ford manages to knock Stan’s glasses off of his face, and Stan retaliates by throwing a wad of snow at the only exposed part of Ford’s neck. The high-pitched squeak that escapes Ford at the sensation makes the kids laugh, and they form a temporary truce to team up against Stan to see if they can get similar results from him. It works, once they’re able to lunge a snowball at his exposed wrists, but comes at the cost of Stan turning and lunging snowballs at them in return.

Dipper’s laughing too hard from the chaos of it all to notice Ford approaching him until it’s too late. Instead of pelting him with snow, though, Ford picks him up by the waist. “I’ve got one more idea to take the others down, if you’re still willing to work with me” he whispers, and Dipper nods wordlessly. Ford places Dipper on his shoulders, gently bends to gather a snowball in his hands without letting Dipper slip off. He then offers it to Dipper, and even without saying a word Dipper can tell he’s got a smirk on his face.

Dipper glances between the snowball in Ford’s hand and Mabel and Stan, and finds a smirk spreading to his own face. He takes the snowball from Ford, and as soon as it’s out of his hand he starts charging towards the other two.

“Sweet moses!” Stan yelps, leaping out of the way of their path. He jumps to his feet, brushing the snow off of his coat, and looks to Mabel. She nods, and he picks her up and places her on his shoulder as well.

“Winner takes all?” Mabel smirks, leaning her elbows against Stan’s head.

“You know it,” Dipper grins, mimicking her gesture and leaning against Ford’s head. “If we win, you have to make us your special hot chocolate. If you win, I dunno, you just get the same old boring hot chocolate I always make because someone is too stubborn to share her recipe”

Mabel sticks her tongue out and blows a raspberry at him. At Stan’s call, the two pairs messily charge towards each other. Stan and Ford struggle to bend down to pick up mounds of snow without accidentally dropping the younger twin off of their shoulders, and Dipper and Mabel struggle to throw the snowballs handed to them by their Grunkles without almost falling backwards off of their shoulders. For the first few minutes Dipper wonders if this was a bad idea, but as soon as Stan and Ford figure out their balance and fall into a pattern with the respective twin on their shoulder, Dipper almost wishes that they’d been doing it this way from the very start.

From up here on Ford’s shoulders, Dipper feels like he can accomplish anything. He knows, logically, that Ford can’t be any more than two feet taller than him, and that he already has gone through the apocalypse and won, but there’s something about this height that just makes Dipper feel safe.

That is, of course, until Mabel pelts him in the forehead with a snowball and nearly knocks him to the ground.  Dipper grips onto the edge of Ford’s jacket just a bit tighter, and Ford nods silently to reach a hand up and gently squeeze Dipper’s hand in reassurance that he doesn’t intend to let go that easy.  The two pairs prove to be a near-equal match, and their battle lasts for nearly an hour until the moment that Stan misinterprets Dipper’s body language and ducks at the wrong time, and Dipper’s able to knock Mabel off of her grunkle’s shoulder with a soft thud.

“Yes!” Dipper pumps his fist in the air as Ford helps him to the ground, and goes to offer Mabel a hand to help her off the ground.

“Good game”

She tries to fake an angry pout at him, but it doesn’t stick. “Good game, you dork” she takes his hand to stand, and punches him in the shoulder as she stands. She walks to take Stan by the hand, and gestures towards the shack. “But you’ve made one fatal mistake, brother” she smirks over her shoulder as she and Stan make their way inside. “You never specified that I had to tell you the recipe if we lost, just that I had to make it for you”

Dipper splutters, and opens his mouth to respond, but she’s already gone before he can think of a good comeback. He pouts, crossing his arms over his chest. A gentle hand on his shoulder tears him from his thoughts, and when he looks up at the source he sees Ford smiling at him in amusement. He doesn’t say anything, just sort of shakes his head, and the two of them follow Stan and Mabel inside.

Once inside, Dipper runs up the stairs to kick off his wet clothes and to change into something dryer and warmer. While he waits for Mabel to finish preparing everyone’s cups of cocoa, he drags all of the blankets from their beds downstairs and drops them into a pile on the living room floor, climbing underneath it for warmth. To Dipper’s surprise, Ford kneels on the ground and joins him under the blanket pile, winding an arm around his nephew for warmth.

“It’s ready!” Mabel cheers, stepping carefully into the room with two nearly-overflowing mugs donned with whipped cream, chocolate shavings, chocolate sprinkles, and a straw-shaped cookie sticking out of the mound. Dipper takes his mug carefully, and Ford chuckles as he takes his own.

“You know, Mabel, the multiverse had thousands of different flavors of whipped cream. The Pines Family sweet tooth is a strong one, and I collected as many as I could without getting caught by their equivalent of customs”

“Really?” her eyes become stars, stopping in her tracks on her way back to the kitchen. “Did you sneak any back home?”

Ford nods. “I’ve got a lovely cherry cream locked away in the basement lab for safe keeping.” He takes a sip of the hot chocolate in his hands, leaving a white moustache of cream across his lips. “If you’d like, I’d love to experiment with making a cherry cordial hot chocolate sometime”

“Are you kidding?” She squeals. “I’d love to!”

If it weren’t for Stan’s soft grunt as he takes a seat on Dipper’s other side, he’d have been too distracted watching Mabel and Ford geek out over food experiments to notice his arrival. Dipper smiles at them one last time before shifting his gaze to Stan.

“Grunkle Stan?” He says, before taking a sip from his own cup.

Stan raises an eyebrow. “Yeah?”

“I wish all of our winter breaks could be like this”

Stan smiles warmly, ruffling up Dipper’s hair. “Me too, kiddo. Me too”

[nitewrighter]

Pharah for the ask meme pls

First impression: Eh, she’s pretty cool, I guess.

Impression now: Eh, she’s pretty cool, I guess. (now tinged with bittersweetness at the fact that my affection for her spiked back in 2018, but got burnt out by hostile stans of hers who saw every second Blizzard didn’t devote to her as some grand injustice to the point where the repeated outrage got so exhausting that I didn’t actually care if she did get content, and bittersweetness over the fact that Blizzard cannibalized virtually everything interesting about her to give gimmicks to other characters.)

Favorite moment: She hasn’t really had all that much lore beyond the “Mission Statement” comic, but I will say “Aviator” is her most slammin’ skin, and “Slam Dunk” is one of the best Highlight intros in the game.

Idea for a story: I really need to write her recruitment story! (Spoiler alert: it’s less a recruitment and more her receiving the recall from Ana’s old comm and choosing to leave Helix herself.) I think I’d also like to write something about Young Pharah’s visit to Overwatch headquarters and include some Sojourn content in there.

Unpopular opinion: The reason why we went so long without zero-suit Pharah skins is because Blizzard had no idea how to give them to her without highlighting how awkwardly long the arms on her character model are. And they are awkwardly long. Also, yeah she’s ripped, but stop drawing her like Zarya, come on. 

Favorite relationship: Her relationship with Ana is of course, the richest one to draw from for fic material, but I absolutely love writing dialogue between her and McCree. Also Symmarah’s my fave ship for her but also Pharitte and Pharya are slept on and I wish they weren’t.

Favorite headcanon: She and Reinhardt like listening to oldies rock together and she can put up with his music better than anyone, and she lowkey loves torturing Lúcio with that fact.

[loulougoingsolo]

Is Annie ok yet?

We are expecting a blizzard later today, and the best way to get through a day like this is to sit by the fire and eat soup. My plan was to make lentil soup today, but today’s GMM inspired me to make minestrone instead - only, I have to make it from scratch. While my soup is simmering on the stove, I think I’ll have just enough time to write this post.

I buy canned soups rarely, but when I do, my go-to canned soup is a tomato soup with mascarpone cheese, and every now and then I buy a can of a very Finnish delicacy, peasoup made from dried peas - only to remember the next day all the reasons why I rarely eat it. I usually prefer to make my own soups, because I’m a bit picky when it comes to soups, and quite frankly, I don’t like the taste of “can”.

On GMM however, today’s menu consists only of canned soups. Rhett and Link are trying to find the name brands of different soup varieties by tasting four different brands in each round. The first soup variety is chicken noodle, but this time, no bathing is involved - for the most part, only things being dipped into the soups are the spoons.

It’s actually remarkable how similar the different brands look, and yet, they taste nothing alike. You’d imagine the taste, being the most important aspect of any food, would be the thing to imitate, but it sure looks like the appearance matters in knock-off soups as much as it does in knock-off shoes or bags.

Both guys manage to find the chicken noodle name brand Campbell’s, but in the heat of the competition, Rhett also manages to find Link’s finger with his skewer. Should we start a petition to completely ban sharp objects on GMM, not just from Link, but from Rhett also? And somebody, kiss Link’s boo-boo!

The next round involves a lot of clam chowder. I personally wouldn’t want to eat anything clammy to begin with, but I’d have trouble with a soup that thick even without the clams. And the fact that you can’t really tell what, other than the clams, these soups contain, is really troubling for me. The guys don’t seem to be troubled by this clammy dish at all, although they find out that this time, the name brand wasn’t the best brand.

I really need to give the Mythical Kitchen some more time - I’ve only had time to watch a few of the episodes so far. The podcast is something I’ll definately add to my to-do list, because I have a bit more time to spare to listening things than to watching. And I like a good food debate.

But the next soup is minestrone (mine is about ready right now, and might I say, it turned out perfect). The soup to find in this round is Amy’s, and after tasting all of the soups, Rhett manages to find her soup (there is a Britney Spears refernce waiting to happen here, but I’m not going there), which apparently is not only the most natural one, but also the blandest of these four.

Loaded potato soup looks very similar to clam chowder, and it’s again one of the soups that I would not dip my spoon in. I’d rather have my baked potato on its own with a glass of water than eat it in a soup form - but I’m all for Rhett and Link doing a vlog where they go to the Rotary club, or any club of their choosing, and throw one dollar bills to everyone there.

Progresso was the name brand to find on this round, as it was on the clam chowder round, and once again, it fails to impress.

Then we move on to tomato soup, and instead of trying to find the iconic Campbell’s tomato soup (not included in this round), the soup to locate is Annie’s. Thanks to Link, the jukebox in my brain is now playing the greatest hits of Michael Jackson - and I’m okay with it. Not sure about Annie though, thanks for asking.

Since Link doesn’t mind eating tomato soup while he dislikes tomatoes, Rhett asks if he’d be open to eating olive soup, too. One of my worst food related memories is a vegetable soup I once had in a somewhat sketchy place. It was called a Greek veggie soup, and it was one of those creamy soups that I hate, with hardly any visible bits or chunks. The taste was absolutely horrible, and after a closer inspection, I could see a tiny speck of a black olive in it. A moment later, I found a piece of lettuce. To this day, I firmly believe we were served the Greek salad of the previous day, only in a soup form. Eww.

But we are talking about tomato soup now. And somehow, about dipping fingers in it. But what the heck did just happen?

I didn’t see this coming, at all, even when Link took his finger too close to Rhett, but it did. Rhett just dunked Link’s hand in the tomato soup and licked his finger clean. Now, I’m starting to think the fan fic episode really messed up with the guys’ brain. Not that I’m complaining. Because I actually clapped my hands when this happened. I’m all for the guys acting on their instincts, especially if this is the outcome. (But how diva-esque is it that Link, after this happens, just stretches his arm and asks for someone to clean it off-screen?) I know this was not the same hand that Rhett accidentally almost pierced in the earlier round, but I think this classifies as someone kissing Link’g boo-boo.

Well, since Link correctly identifies Annie’s soup, the guys tie this game, and are therefore both known as Souperstars from now on.

Every meal needs to end with a tasty dessert, and today’s dessert, served in GMMore, is s’mores - or to be exact, the More is a Mythical Society voted S’More. I always go for the rhinkiest option in those votes, and I most definately voted for the guys to do the episode while in a shared sleeping bag - but for some reason, I expected to see a two-person version instead of this, rather tight one. (Oh, and I love this new wheel-ending, even if I prefer not to think about a naked and dehydrated ghosts peeing into my ear. I wasn’t freaked out, but I did get chills.)

I remember when Link in a previous S’more, when the guys had to hold hands for the whole episode, made sure to point out that they are just friends, and that he wanted to set some boundaries. Today, while talking about dating his wife, Christy, he told a story about sharing a sleeping bag with her one night on a beach.

“It’s tough to maintain your physical boundaries in a relationship...when sharing a sleeping bag.”

So, yeah, after that, the thing you need to do is to climb into the same sleeping bag with your platonic best friend. But the rule about sharing a sleeping bag is to always keep all hands visible and on the outside. You know, to set physical boundaries and all that.

Now, because tasting soup powders is, simply put, pretty insane, I’m not going to say much about that. Other than, I need to buy a bag of a soup with broccoli in it and see if they do expand like the little dinosaur capsules, and turn back into real broccoli. I’ll end this post by stating that instead of Michael Jackson, my head is now playing Nelly’s It’s getting hot in herre on repeat - just because Link mentioned the sleeping bag was getting a little too warm.

[williamjwatson]

Production Bias and OWL 2020

There’s… admittedly… a lot the Overwatch League has to iron out and polish in how they run, produce, and broadcast the league if they want the league to live up to the vision that they believe is possible in the long term.

I could be here forever if I wanted to go into all of it, but I want to focus on an insidious problem that I don’t think the broadcast/production staff realize is hampering the full potential enjoyment a lot of fans could have watching the games. (As the majority of league viewers are based in North America, I will be focusing on the American, or the “main” broadcast stream and social media channels.  I can’t comment on the other broadcast streams in other languages because none of them are in languages i am fluent in, so I won’t.)

That problem is Bias.

Bias emerges in many ways in OWL production.

There are overt examples:

Montecristo’s relentless dunking on the Houston Outlaws and insisting the team, its players, and its fans are trash during official broadcast and even as he is commentating Outlaws matches in a role he should be neutral in. The unified desk beating the “NYXL choking in all playoffs meme” to death while conveniently forgetting NYXL are the only two time back to back stage champions in league history, and even when the term “choking” technically isn’t relevant because they are simply being outclassed by a team that has consistently shown they can handily beat NYXL meanwhile few other teams get negative treatment as enduring Bren’s fervent backing of the Shanghai dragons, reason be damned Soe’s blatant favouritism of the Atlanta Reign in all situations because she simply loves that team more than any other.

Some of these examples can be entertaining as hell.

Others are annoying to have to be subjected to, especially if your team is the target.

There’s also much more subtle examples of bias, and these emerge more in the choice to include or omit things in production, the manner teams are discussed in desk segments, and with a whole season of footage and posts, clear patterns emerge:

The desk discussion about san francisco shock being notably more hype than discussion about vancouver titans despite both teams having the same trajectory and success over the season as a variation of above: framing every titans match as “who can defeat the titans???” meanwhile every san francisco match is “can the shock continue their streak of dominance?” as if one team inherently is a villain who must be beaten down and the other is a protagonist whose dominance is expected and accepted as the new normal as a caveat under this: being very respectful of super’s tears after stage 1 finals, and mocking bumper’s tears after stage 2 finals the desk’s respect and levity given to taimou’s mental struggles being a bench player in a meta that doesn’t cater to his skills and celebrating his return, while his teammate, EFFECT was not afforded the same respect when he had to go home for his mental health in season 1, and his return to season 2 was very much lukewarm in comparison trend towards mixed teams being lauded for performing well in a majority of their games, meanwhile full korean speaking teams get lukewarm responses even when they’re doing well, and downright mean responses when they don’t do well (there are exceptions because sometimes the records speak for themselves, ie: justice and mayhem) notable difference in how successes and failures are presented when discussing non-korean players and korean players the fact Montecristo keeps being scheduled to cast Houston Outlaws games despite his obvious and very vocal disdain for the team (this could be scheduling chance rather than choice, but even so, it makes it much harder than it needs to be for outlaws fans to enjoy watching their team play the game and the fact this isn’t seen as a problem is an unconscious issue) comparatively little or no footage of teams who don’t do comms in English being featured on the incredibly popular comms check videos, thereby hampering fan engagement and ability to relate to at least 1/3 the teams in the league (how hard is it to hire a translator to sift through footage and add subtitles?? the dragons and spark seem to do this with ease? and official broadcast shouldn’t be lacking in such resource??)

Generally, having bias isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Bren’s fervent belief in the dragons, even carried over as a meme from stage 1, is incredibly entertaining with the props and the ribbing, and in a way, Bren has his own redemption arc when the dragons really broke through that wall this season and won their first game, then kept winning until they won stage 3 entirely with stellar hardcore play.

The pre-show picks for the day are an entertaining segment, and gives the desk and analysts a chance to justify to the viewers and each other why their pick to win is the correct choice.  Sometimes it gives fans insight into what past performance, play style, and analysis should be accounted for.  Sometimes it’s just a blatant show of bias, and you know what, that’s fine. Sometimes it’s even entertaining as hell.

But sometimes Bias isn’t fun, and when the running joke about your team, or your favourite player keeps being featured even when the context is no longer there, or the talent who clearly doesn’t think much of your team keeps getting airtime to dunk on your team because some portion of viewers or production thinks it’s funny, the show stops being fun to watch.

The problem is amplified when it becomes apparent that you can’t avoid this bias if you intend to continue watching the league.  As there is only one single official English stream, featuring the same rotation of commentators and analysts and desk talent, fans have no choice but to listen and go along with the flow that the main production has set up for them, or avoid tuning into pre-and post game coverage and discussion, and watch on mute, missing out on content and strategic analysis that allows them to engage with other fans, or better understand the game at an esport level and why results turned out the way they did.  (Or watch Avast’s stream instead, which doesn’t show league footage and isn’t beholden to professional standards like official broadcast and also it’s not the OWL official broadcast which means fan disengagement.)

As an extension of that, with what the league chooses to post and broadcast, there’s also no way to access additional content the league chooses to omit to post unless your team takes the initiative to make that content themselves (Hangzhou Spark  and Shanghai Dragons open mic are both treasures and official comms check is missing out by not including their footage, among other teams: where is mayhem? dynasty? NYXL?)

So why am I discussing this? OWL is doing okay, and you can’t please everyone, right?  I obviously have my opinions, but otherwise it’s fine??

Well the thing is, OWL still very much has aspirations to grow.

I haven’t forgotten that 20 million dollar buy in.

Neither have the investors, I don’t think.

With the shift to a travelling rotating homestead schedule in four divisions next year to directly hit hometown markets and grow local communities, OWL clearly means to grow and get bigger, and that means attracting more fans and viewers and consumers, and keeping the existing fans they have.

Next year, leaving the Blizzard arena, bias no longer becomes an asset, it becomes an active, growing problem.

A significant portion of fans already find it very hard to watch and engage with pre-and post game coverage.  Fans that no longer engage with desk talent centric content, and maybe even watch games on mute are very much on their way to disengagement from the league entirely.

Furthermore, it will be significantly harder to recruit fans to support teams if the official league broadcast makes a point to tell them, before they are even engaged, that their home city team is trash and they should feel bad for thinking of supporting them for x, y, and z reasons.

Additionally, with the shift next year to local market games, the attention on the league will be amplified, and with it will come an expectation of professionalism.  There’s a clear lack of polish in this area, notably.  What happens when the Outlaws Homestead happens and Monte is not only scheduled to cast, but spends the entire time dunking on the Outlaws?  How does that look to local stakeholders?  How are Outlaws fans gonna have a good time at their own homestead while the official broadcast does them dirty?  How welcome does the broadcast feel to fans who don’t have means to attend their team’s homestands, and must engage via the official broadcast stream?

Given the single official broadcast in this language, and no announcement yet to expand the casting and desk talent cast, production needs to iron out their problems with bias, and that starts with stepping back and realizing they have a very obvious bias problem in the way they present narratives, decide what content is shown and promoted, and how often the talent team overtly supports certain teams while on air in an official capacity.  Professionalism also needs to level up, because a recent debacle on air already received negative response in the twittersphere directly from team organization stakeholders.

If the overwatch league wants to reach out to more fans, and continue growing while retaining the fanbase they already have, broadcast needs to become far more neutral in how they present the esport with this singular official broadcast, or create local based versions of official broadcast.  Unfortunately, option two is unfeasible because there is a lack of such experienced casters in the sport at this time to have the equally biased 20 local commentator broadcasts going at once.

With the singular official broadcast, this means neutral commentating without snide comments about teams casters obviously dislike.  This means desk consciously making the effort to present equal narratives to teams with similar trajectory, or equally flipping back and forth over time so a “villain” narrative isn’t constantly only dumped on one team all season.  This means hiring Korean and Chinese speaking editor or translator to help get equal team representation in fun quirky “get to know the team” segments like comms check in an official capacity instead of making the non-English speaking teams do extra work within their organization to pump their own versions of official content themselves. (Hangzhou and Shanghai may do their own open mics, but the point is they shouldn’t HAVE TO to get the same quirky fun coverage out that English speaking teams get to take for granted)

They’ve done a lot this year, expanding Danny and Emily’s roles beyond that of simply translator to give that extra interviewing representation to players who don’t feel confident speaking English, and giving them airtime to connect with their fans.  This is already mitigating the interviewing bias of last year, and giving more screen time to players who don’t speak English primarily (the Diem Carpe segment comes to mind).

I think they can do more, and I believe they have to if they want the League to live up to what they want it to be, so every fan of every team can enjoy watching as much as they can.

Source: Production Bias and OWL 2020

[chroniclackofselfpreservation]

And The Dragon Will Come When He Hears The Drum

Chapter 2 - stuck in the mucky rut between alive and dead

Back to the Beginning  <Previous Chapter / Next Chapter >  AO3

(TW: blood and gore, graphic depictions of violence, threats, choking, unhealthy sibling/family relationships, panic attacks (hyperventilation) )

(The title of this chapter comes from “Double Helix Kyrie” by Raymond Luczak)

Roman stumbled through the dark woods. He wasn’t even sure he was going the right direction. His arms burned like hellfire, but he couldn’t stop. If he did, he wasn’t sure he’d get back up. Not with Logan in his arms, and Roman was not leaving him behind. His partner’s blood bathed the front of Roman’s princely tunic, now half-dried and sticky like tar. It was all Roman could smell with every step he took, every panting breath he wheezed.

At last, his blurring vision glimpsed the flicker of torchlight through the trees. Roman heard shouts of alarm from camp, but they sounded leagues away. Armored figures approached him, but he didn’t stop his shuffling walk, trembling arms stiff, unable and unwilling to release their load.

“Where’s Patton?” he croaked as his soldiers worried around him, shaking off their hands of assistance. “Find Patton. I need him. Someone get Patton.”

He scanned the camp, eyes fixating on the limp red flag staked outside one of the many brown canvas tents filling the clearing. The medical tent. The soldiers gathered, but the more seasoned ones kept their distance. A few of the newer soldiers, who hadn’t been around Roman enough to know better, attempted to take Logan from his arms.

Roman fixed one—only slightly younger than himself—with a stare that could fill a person’s mouth with blood.

“Touch him and I’ll rip your tongue out, soldier,” he said, not stopping his limping march to the medical tent. The captain pulled the younger one away, a concerned but understanding look on her face. Roman continued on as she began barking orders to the soldiers to return to their watches or various chores.

Patton finally appeared from inside the tent, his apprentice, a youth named Elliott, at his side. Blood drained from the healer’s face at the sight of the prince and warlock. Elliot covered their mouth with their hand.

“What happened?” Patton breathed, pulling the flap aside as Roman stumbled through. The tent was bigger than the rest, several chests of books and supplies lining the sides and a large, filled water basin in the corner. A single wooden table the length of an average person’s body sat in the middle of the space. Roman fell against the table, Logan flopping out of his arms onto it. Elliot stared at the corpse on the table in horror.

“Your Highness, are you injured?” Patton asked.

“How dare you ask me something like that with Logan looking like this,” he said, bracing his hands on the table and letting his head hang down. The smell of blood wafting from the table and his own clothes filled his lungs, making his head swim. “Heal him.”

“Please, Your Highness, you aren’t well, you must—”

The stench became too much, and Roman retched onto the ground, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the table for support. He hadn’t eaten since last night, so all that came up was water and bile. The ordeal left him trembling and sweaty.

“I must nothing,” he panted, motioning to Elliot to clean up his mess. The apprentice scurried to one of the chests, gathering rags and dunking them in the water basin. “Heal him, Patton. That’s an order.”

“He’s dead, Your Highness,” the healer said gently. “There’s nothing I can do.”

“The hell there isn’t!” he bellowed. Patton flinched and Elliot jumped, nearly knocking over their bucket of water as they scrubbed the tent floor. “You’ve brought me back from the brink of death before, healer, now I am ordering you to bring him back!”

“Yes, but you’re different, my prince,” Patton explained. Roman twitched. He was so patronizing. “You’re a prophecy bearer. You cannot die outside the bounds of what’s been foreto—”

Roman’s hand shot out without him looking up, closing around Patton’s throat. Elliott screamed. Roman slowly lifted his head, meeting the healer’s wild, desperate eyes as he clawed at Roman’s fist. “If you mean to imply, for even a second, that Logan is less important than me, I will have you beheaded with a blunt axe.”

Patton’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly, eyes watering. Roman squeezed harder. He needed to kill something.

“Stop it!” Elliott shrieked, but the stupid kid was too scared to actually do anything about it.

“Do I make myself perfectly clear?” he snarled. Patton managed a weak nod, and Roman released him. The healer collapsed to his knees, wheezing.

“You two are useless,” he said, resigned. “I’ll find someone to bring Logan back myself.” He turned and stumbled out of the tent, but paused at the door. “For both of your sakes, I better return to find his body cleaned and stitched up. Am I understood?”

“Yes, Your Highness,” Patton said. Elliott nodded quickly. Roman gave a distantly amused snort before letting the tent flap fall closed behind him. The soldiers all went about their duties in silence. It was obvious they’d all been listening. Let them gossip, Roman thought sourly. It’s not as if they see me as anything more than a tyrant. He wouldn’t be able to sleep despite his exhaustion, Roman knew that much. Without Logan beside him, he doubted he’d ever sleep restfully again.

The captain, Raila, stood patiently outside, cocking an eyebrow at his disheveled state.

“You didn’t kill our best healer, I hope.”

“Of course not,” Roman grumbled, making for the creek just outside camp. He had to get this blood off of him before he vomited again. He glanced at the sizable cookfire the soldiers had constructed and Roman’s vision swam with images of rolling blue flame, his ears filling with the roar of a dragon.

Logan rolling his eyes with bemusement at Roman’s besottedness.

Raila suddenly grabbed him and walked him off into the darkness of the trees, shouldering most of his weight and practically dragging him. He couldn’t get his feet to move quick enough.

“What’re you doing?” he groaned. “I’ll kill you.”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Raila grunted, dropping the formalities as soon as they were out of earshot of the rest of the camp. “I simply figured you didn’t want the rest of the brigade to see you crying.”

“What?” Roman muttered, bringing a hand to his face. It was wet with tears turned pinkish by the dried blood on his face. “Whatever. I need to get this blood off me. Unhand me.”

“No can do, little brother,” she said, pulling one of his arms across her broad shoulders. The motion sent waves of pain through his bruised ribs and he nearly passed out. “Pretty sure you’d drown in two inches of water in the state you’re in. ”

Roman let out a queasy groan as Raila trudged toward the creek.

“You better not throw up on my uniform, princey,” she grumbled. Raila had rescinded her title as princess four years ago in exchange for a position as a military general. She’d gotten her wish despite their mother’s concerns, though during peacetimes such as this, she occupied her time functioning as the captain of Roman’s guard. Raila wasn’t the kind of person to sit back and write up law proposals to get what she wanted. She went out in the street and got her hands dirty.

That was one reason she and Roman got along the best out of all their siblings. Roman knew his position as third oldest out of five—though the fifth really didn’t count as competition—wasn’t the most ideal for coveting the throne, but having someone that wasn’t only the eldest but a brilliant military strategist on his side was one of the best choices he’d made.

“I think it’s time I paid our baby brother a visit,” he said as Raila lowered him onto the creek bed. She helped him pull his tunic up over his head. Red and purple bruises mottled his ribs.

“You can’t be serious,” she said, nose wrinkling in disgust as she dropped the tunic to the ground and nudging it away from her with a toe. “We’ll have to burn that,” she muttered to herself.

“I’m completely serious,” Roman said, crawling rather than wading out into the shallow end of the creek. The water was frigid and helped him clear his mind, soothing the painful pulsing of his wounds.

“Mother would have an aneurism if she found out.”

“You think?” Roman mused wishfully, lying on his back and letting the water wash over his chest and through his hair. “I visit him almost every day back home and she never says anything.”

“In front of you.”

He shrugged. “Fair.” The rocky creek bed dug into his back, and probably would have hurt his ribs more if the water wasn’t so cold he was practically numb. It reminded him of the first time Logan had given him a hug. He’d flinched away, ready for him to hit him or perhaps even put him in a headlock—something Raila had done on numerous occasions. When he’d at last allowed Logan to embrace him, his skin had almost burned at the touch—like stepping into warm water after surviving a blizzard. The concept of letting someone touch him for extended periods of time and being okay with it, even enjoying it, had been a foreign concept to Roman at the time. Logan had called it touch starvation.

Roman would have preferred his prior ignorance to this. Slowly starved of the touch he now craved and missing the exact person needed to fix it.

It’s hardly time for that, dearest.

“You’re shaking,” Raila noted without particular inflection.

“Yeah, I’m sitting in freezing water,” Roman spat, sitting up. His ribs protested, making him gasp. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath, though, angrily scrubbing at the blood that the water hadn’t yet washed from his chest and arms. Everything felt wrong. Raila sitting there watching him. Logan’s body lying in a tent not too far. He couldn’t get the blood out from under his nails. Why couldn’t he breathe?

“You know,” Raila started, her voice soft and not at all like her usual self, “I’ve seen that look on my soldier’s faces before, usually after a battle.”

“I’m drowning,” he gasped. He needed Logan, but thinking about him made it worse. He just heard the crunch of bones, smelled his blood.

“You aren’t drowning, you’re panicking. You have to control your breathing,” Raila said, somehow sounding sympathetic and like a know-it-all at the same time. It made Roman’s skin itch. She wasn’t compassionate, and neither was he. It was what their entire relationship was based on.

“Shut up,” he growled, grabbing fistfuls of the hair at the nape of his neck. “Just shut up and leave me alone.”

“Of course, Your Highness,” she snapped, standing and tossing his bloody tunic at him, apparently done with trying to be nice to him. She stalked off towards camp without looking back. He flung the tunic away from him, not caring that it drifted away down the creek. It got caught around a protruding stone a few yards downstream.

Roman eventually dragged himself out of the water and curled up on the ground in a very unprincely manner and broke down into uncontrollable sobs and shivering fits—something he hadn’t even dared in the privacy of his room back in the castle for fear of his father’s retribution.

Footsteps too careful to be Raila’s approached him from the direction of camp, stopping a few feet away.

“You’ll take ill out here like that, Your Highness,” the person said softly. It was Patton.

“Leave me be, healer,” he hissed through chattering teeth, curling in on himself. He couldn’t let anyone see him so vulnerable. Least of all the man he’d choked not thirty minutes ago. He didn’t have any weapons on him, and he was is no state to defend himself if Patton decided to take his revenge.

Patton walked around him and squatted in front of his face. “As much as I’d love to do that,” he sighed, “I can’t let you die under my watch. Now, I’m going to need you to take some deep breaths for me.”

“Go away,” he said through gritted teeth, his voice breaking. He kept gulping down air, but it wasn’t working. His head swam like he was going to pass out. A terrifying numbness began to buzz in Roman, up his jaw and cheeks, making it hard to keep his eyes open. The sensation spread down his arms and hands. His fingers cramped and curled in on themselves, unresponsive. His ears began to ring.

“I can’t… I can’t move,” he gasped.

Patton pressed his hand against Roman’s cheek, cradling his face gently. “You’re going to be fine, Roman. You have to slow down your breathing.”

“What happened?” another voice asked from beside Patton. It was Elliott.

“He’s having a panic attack. A bad one. Quick, what does he need?” Patton quizzed the apprentice. If Roman were in a more coherent state, he would have laughed. Now didn’t seem the best time to be giving his student a lesson. Roman could feel his heart beating throughout this entire body.

“I don’t—um,” Elliott floundered.

“Stay calm, Elliott,” Patton said sternly. “Think. You’re going to need a sedative, right?”

“Right. Yes. Chamomile?”

“No. Why not?”

Elliott shifted back and forth on their feet. “Oh! He’s got bruising—possible internal bleeding. Chamomile can thin the blood. Okay, in that case I’d use… valerian?”

“Yes. There’s a poultice already made in the left pocket of my daypack,” Patton said with a smile, and Elliott took off running toward the medical tent.

Patton brushed his thumb across Roman’s cheekbone in what must have been an attempt at comfort, but the motion just filled Roman’s head with Logan, laying in their bed, watching him sleep, caressing Roman until he fell asleep against his chest. It was all gone. Even with the help of his brother, it would never be the same. He’d changed Roman’s life so drastically, and they’d only known each other for a year. Maybe less. He’d died just as suddenly. A blink, and he was gone.

Elliott returned in a flash, skidding to a stop in the dirt. Patton grabbed something from him and shoved it into Roman’s mouth. He nearly choked.

“Chew on it,” Patton ordered with more force than Roman would have thought possible for the healer. “Swallow the juices.”

Roman slowly obeyed, chewing around his hiccupping gasps. The taste was overwhelmingly bitter, and he almost spit it out.

“That’s the triple dose, isn’t it?” Elliott asked, his voice far away as Roman’s mind grew fuzzy.

“Yes,” Patton replied. “I won’t envy the headache he’ll wake up with, but by then he’ll have hopefully calmed down a bit.”

Roman’s breathing slowed at last, the numbness in his hands and face ebbing away. As the darkness took over, the prince relinquished himself to what would likely be the last full night of sleep he’d have for the foreseeable future.

[hagatha-christie]

1. Driving west at sunset in the summer: blinded by the sun, you cannot see the cars ahead; the ugly warehouses and body shops are blazing orange. When the sun sets, everything becomes deeper: the brick facades acquire a bluish hue; there are charcoal smudges of darkness on the horizon. The sky and the city look endless. West is everywhere you look. 2. The way people in the winter huddle together under the warming lights of the Granville El stop, much like young chickens under a lightbulb. It is an image of human solidarity enforced by the cruelty of nature, the story of Chicago and of civilization. 3. The American vastness of the Wilson Street beach, gulls and kites coasting above it, dogs sprinting along the jagged waves, barking into the void, city kids doing homemade drugs, blind to the distant ships on their mysterious ways from Liverpool, England, to Gary, Indiana. 4. Early September anyplace in the city, when the sunlight angles have abruptly changed and everything and everyone appears better, all the edges softened; the torments of the hot summer are now over, the cold torments of the winter have not begun, and people bask in the perishable possibility of a kind and gentle city. 5. The basketball court at Foster Street beach, where I once watched an impressively sculpted guy play a whole game—dribbling, shooting, arguing, dunking—with a toothpick in his mouth, taking it out only to spit. For many years he was to me the hero of Chicago cool. 6. The tall ice ranges along the shore when the winter is exceptionally cold and the lake frozen for a while, so ice pushes ice against the land. One freezing day I stood there in awe, realizing that the process exactly replicates the way mountain ranges were formed hundreds of millions of years ago, tectonic plates pushing against each other. The primeval shapes are visible to every cranky driver plowing through the Lake Shore Drive mess, but most of them look ahead and couldn’t care less. 7. Looking directly west at night from any Edgewater or Rogers Park high-rise; airplanes hover and glimmer above O’Hare. Once, my visiting mother and I spent an entire evening sitting in the dark, listening to Frank Sinatra, watching the planes, which resembled stunned fireflies, transfixed with the continuous wonder that this world is. 8. The blessed scarcity of celebrities in Chicago, most of whom are overpaid athlete losers. Oprah, one of the Friends, and many other people whose names I never knew or now cannot recall have all left for New York or Hollywood or rehab, where they can wear the false badge of their humble Chicago roots, while we can claim them without actually being responsible for the vacuity of their front-page lives. 9. The Hyde Park parakeets, miraculously surviving brutal winters, a colorful example of life that adamantly refuses to perish, of the kind of instinct that has made Chicago harsh and great. I actually have never seen one: the possibility that they are made up makes the whole thing even better. 10. The downtown skyline at night as seen from the Adler Planetarium: lit windows within the dark building frames against the darker sky. It seems that stars have been squared and pasted on the thick wall of a Chicago night; the cold, inhuman beauty containing the enormity of life, each window a possible story, inside which an immigrant is putting in a late shift cleaning corporate trash. 11. The green-gray color of the barely foaming lake when the winds are northwesterly and the sky is chilly. 12. The summer days, long and humid, when the streets seem waxed with sweat; when the air is as thick and warm as honey-sweetened tea; when the beaches are full of families: fathers barbecuing, mothers sunbathing, children approaching hypothermia in the lake’s shallows. Then a wave of frigid air sweeps the parks, a diluvial shower soaks every living creature, and someone, somewhere loses power. (Never trust a summer day in Chicago.) 13. The highly muggable suburbanites patrolling Michigan Avenue, identifiable by their Hard Rock Café shirts, oblivious to the city beyond the shopping and entertainment areas; the tourists on an architectural speedboat tour looking up at the steep buildings like pirates ready to plunder; the bridges’ halves symmetrically erected like jousting pricks; the street performer in front of the Wrigley Building performing “Killing Me Softly” on the tuba. 14. The fact that every year in March, the Cubs fans start saying: “This year might be it!”—a delusion betrayed as such by the time summer arrives, when the Cubs traditionally lose even a mathematical possibility of making it to the play-offs. The hopeless hope is one of the early harbingers of spring, bespeaking an innocent belief that the world might right its wrongs and reverse its curses simply because the trees are coming into leaf. 15. A warm February day when everyone present at my butcher shop discussed the distinct possibility of a perfect snowstorm and, in turn, remembered the great snowstorm of 1967: cars abandoned and buried in the snow on Lake Shore Drive; people trudging home from work through the blizzard like refugees; the snow on your street up to the milk truck’s mirrors. There are a lot of disasters in the city’s memory, which result in a strangely euphoric nostalgia, somehow akin to a Chicagoan’s respect for and pride in “those four-mansion crooks who risk their lives in crimes of high visibility” (Bellow). 16. Pakistani and Indian families strolling solemnly up and down Devon on summer evenings; Russian Jewish senior couples clustering on Uptown benches, warbling gossip in soft consonants against the blare of obsolete transistor radios; Mexican families in Pilsen crowding Nuevo Leon for Sunday breakfast; African American families gloriously dressed for church, waiting for a table in the Hyde Park Dixie Kitchen; Somali refugees playing soccer in sandals on the Senn High School pitch; young Bucktown mothers carrying yoga mats on their back like bazookas; the enormous amount of daily life in this city, much of it worth a story or two. 17. A river of red and a river of white flowing in opposite directions on Lake Shore Drive, as seen from Montrose Harbor at night. 18. The wind: the sailboats in Grant Park Harbor bobbing on the water, the mast wires hysterically clucking; the Buckingham Fountain’s upward stream turned into a water plume; the windows of downtown buildings shaking and thumping; people walking down Michigan Avenue with their heads retracted between their shoulders; my street completely deserted except for a bundled-up mailman and a plastic bag fluttering in the barren tree-crown like a torn flag. 19. The stately Beverly mansions; the bleak Pullman row houses; the frigid buildings of the LaSalle Street canyon; the garish beauty of old downtown hotels; the stern arrogance of the Sears Tower and the Hancock Center; the quaint Edgewater houses; the sadness of the West Side; the decrepit grandeur of the Uptown theaters and hotels; the Northwest side warehouses and body shops; thousands of empty lots and vanished buildings no one pays any attention to and no one will ever remember. Every building tells part of the story of the city. Only the city knows the whole story. 20. If Chicago was good enough for Studs Terkel to spend a lifetime in, it is good enough for me.

“Reasons Why I Do Not Wish to Leave Chicago: An Incomplete, Random List“ from The Book of My Lives, Aleksander Hemon