#murder drones has genuinely shaped me so much

[umblrspectrum]

3 years of this godforsaken show

[factual-fantasy]

25 ASKS! WAHOO! :DD 🎉🎉🎉

Oooo what would DJMM be? A full sized birthday cake perhaps? XD

(Post in question)

:0 It was?? Thank you! :DD I'm glad you got some use out of it! <XD

(Post in question)

XDD She probably has, and no doubt she'll do it again!

@scally-wiggles716

:DD Thank you so much!! I'm glad you like the way I made him!! :}}} 💖💖💖

@badlyblurry

I mean.. sending me a drawing of your character that has nothing to do with any of my stuff? None of my characters are in it or anything? I don't see anything wrong with that..

But still, comments/asks are the easiest, safest and absolute best way to show your appreciation for my artwork. Genuinely, it is.

Oh its a horrible place. Its a kingdom ruled by a corrupt and evil king. The royal guard is corrupt and full of mostly evil snobs that abuse their power. There's plenty of food but none of it is given to the people.

Everyone is overworked, everyone is starving, there's murders in the streets. Its awful..

@khoiazo

@elegysonnet

<XD I've heard of Murder Drones but I never got around to watching it for a shallow reason. That reason being- now don't kill me!-... I don't like the art style 💔 specifically the way the characters look/are shaped. I know that's not a great reason to not watch something but its why I didn't want to watch it- 😭💔💔

Yes yes! Its the two golden kids. Although they aren't a reference to the missing children-

Its a bit hard to tell, but its supposed to be little Stanley and Stanford pines from Gravity falls! <XDD

(Also thank you!! :DD )

@shaziztrazh

All I can say is those smiles are creepy! Put some teeth in there and close that mouth! XDD

I actually have yet to draw him. I should do that sometime-

Just imagine the Spade King but much bigger and more.. grotesque..

(Post in question)

@couchwow

@beryl-shade

Oh yeah its very likely :00

@null-hydrangea (Post in question)

OOOO THAT'S REALLY MORBID AND ANGSTY-- But sadly no <XDD Its just an artificial separation anxiety of sorts.

@the-faketiccit0by

XD I'm glad! :}}

@syntaxgardenstudios

Woah, that sounds like a cool character! :D

Also thank you!! I'm glad you like my Octonauts stuff! :}} I'm sure I'll come back to it sometime XDD

@skeletormasterofevil (Post in question)

The buddy system is an A.I. programming that I created solely as a tool to make angst

The buddy system is a connected A.I. program that Glamrock Fredbear and Spring Bonnie both have. Its a program that tells the animatronics to always be in the same room. The further away from each other they go, the more distressed they become :(

@just-a-human-lad

:DD Thank you! And thank you for the littol frog guy! 💖🐸💖

I imagined the whole group is sitting around a camp fire and they're all talking a bit about where they came from and what their AUs were like. Jevil talks about how he and Seam were under rule of this horrible King. And how Seam was the court magician and he was the court Jester..

River makes a comment; "Oh.. You must just despise anything Jester related then, yes..?"

Jevil nods "Oh yeah, cant stand the stuff."

Then Grillby says, "..Then why do you still wear your jester hat?"

There was immediate tension between Seam and Jevil. But Jevil thought of something quick. "...You really wanna know why I don't take off my hat?"

Grillby: "uh.. yes..?"

Jevil creates all this suspense around it and then he goes. "Its becuase I'm bald under there, and you all would probably go blind from the reflection if I took my hat off." Cue giggling from Goner kid and a couple snickers from the group. The tension dissolves and the subject is changed. No one really thinks to bring up the hat thing again after that.. they all somewhat just accepted that as the answer.

Thank you!! :DD I love drawing them, so I'm glad you love how they look!! :}}}

If that worlds Seam is anything like mine, he wouldn't have been able to follow through with it.. Imprisoning him is one thing, executing him is just not something he has the guts to do..

And if their Spade King is anything like mine? As punishment for not obeying his orders, he would have just killed them both. :(

Hypothetically though.. if he DID kill Jevil.. and then later on saw my groups Jevil? I feel like he'd freak out. Thinking he's some kind of vengeful spirit or something. "I killed you, I saw you die- you've been dead for years- there's no way that you're really here-" He'd push him away out of fear and maybe even run away..

He probably did.. :( 💔

[snugglesquiggle]

Do you like juzi or vuzi more

i'm gonna ramble hella hard about this, sorry, but that's the bargain you strike when you shoot an ask my way

but there's a fun story to my answer. you see, V/Uzi was actually my first interest, and in fact when i started kicking around the idea of writing Murder Drones fanfics, the first idea i seriously tried to work out was a V/Uzi fic

(for the curious, general shape of the idea was that Uzi encounters V first, railgun wipes her memory, fails to befriend her like she did with N and has to run away. Uzi then sneaks out again and again, exploiting the railgun-induced amnesia and errors to try and get through to V, leading to a kind of mutual rivalry as V tries to figure out why she keeps having gaps in her memory.

pretty sure it was going to escalate to Uzi hacking into V and potentially going dubious places. the working title for that fic was "Somnabulation". which means sleep-walking, so it would have been kind of ironic for Somnabulation to be the mind control fic and Hostile Takeover the one that spends half its wordcount in memory simulations)

but i'm rambling.

i never ultimately figured out how to make the V/Uzi fic come together into something i liked. and i didn't have that much motivation to do so, as there are good V/Uzi fics out there, like This World Couldn't See Us or Hold On Tight To This Time, This Place

but, as you'll quickly discover if you search the tag now, J/Uzi fics are a lot less numerous. i did like some of what i saw there, so i didn't have a full on "if i don't do this, nobody will" kind of motivation driving me

but then one day, out of the blue, a single thought occurred to me, an observation, comparison, an answer to the question of "what could a relationship between these two possibly be based on?"

and then the whole fic just crystallized around that thought.

(what was thought? i'll leave that as an exercise for the reader, or perhaps i'll save it for a minor reveal later on in Hostile Takeover. it's not very profound, but when it occurred to me i did have the distinct feeling that i'm not sure anyone had thought of the connection i just made.)

and i want to emphasize, when i say it crystallized, i mean it seriously came together, all at once. on October 31 last year, i jotted down the outline, initially as something to post in a discord brainstorming channel, but then i spent all evening writing more and more, and came out the other end with ten thousand words of notes and scene sketches

but anyway, all of that yapping is a long way to say

at the start i preferred V/Uzi (V was my favorite character, and J barely registered as anything but a joke to me), and i began writing Hostile Takeover essentially as a writing challenge or puzzle to prove something, or even just as a practice run for the fic i really wanted to write.

but i think my phrasing here gives the game away, doesn't it? i think very few people would write nearly 160k words in four months out of mere intellectual curiosity

so to finally, finally answer your question, my favorite is J/Uzi and by a long shot. the relationship absolutely grew on me as i wrote it. i'd genuinely go as far as to say my hot take is that it's actually easier to have J/Uzi make sense than V/Uzi, if you're being truly faithful to both characters. is this because J has less character to be faithful toward? shut up.

i think the biggest factor here is that in the course of writing HT, V stopped being my favorite character. i still find her a lot of fun when i'm reading her in other fics, but writing her has just brought a lot of her flaws to the forefront, and it's hard not to be increasingly frustrated with her character. (is this self-inflicted on my part for writing a plot where V causing problems is the central driver? maybe)

but yeah, i've found myself so much less interested in V/Uzi as time goes on. one of my mutuals has describe vuzi as something to the effect of the blander, safer alternative to juzi, and don't look at me i'm just misquoting him.

[mentalisttraceur]

imagine saying that kind of anti-privacy bullshit to a gay man in the 1940s. or russia. or china. bring blackmailable isn't great, but the solution is opsec not turning yourself into a mindless conformist drone.

[context]

Imagine telling a gay man "let the blackmailer have their way with you forever, any time they want and however they want, each time possibly getting more material to add to the blackmail".

But if we can stop this thing where we misrepresent what the other person is saying:

Obviously opsec is a good preventative measure to blackmail.

But it's a pre-solution. It's not a solution to being blackmailed, it's a solution to being blackmailable. Once someone has blackmail on you, that advice is useless - you can't do better opsec retroactively across time.

When you are already being blackmailed, you gotta figure out what to do. And it's very important to realize that doing what the blackmailer says is the most reliable way to empower the blackmailer to get even more leverage on you.

I think it's pretty clear that this is what my post was primarily about - that's what I opened with, and later words in a small piece of text should generally have their interpretation shaped by the earlier words.

You're right that In the extreme cases you gesture at, if your fear is on the level of "the government or the mob will kill me or worse if this is sent to them", then you can't very well preemptively reveal it to that same government or potential mob members. So a couple of my later sentences are wrong for those cases at face value (though I think they still contribute the right gist to the bigger point of the post as a whole).

In those situations I think your options are just genuinely very limited if your opsec has failed you. But do you really trust that the blackmailer will leave you alone after you do their bidding? Why would they? You've just proven yourself an obedient resource. Better hope they value having a reputation of honesty in their line of work, and don't realize that they can just also try to blackmail you to not reveal their double-dipping.

The three viable options I can think of in those dead-end situations are try to flee the country, go into hiding, or murder if you want to bet on them not having a deadman switch in place for releasing your blackmail. And those are all much more feasible if you built up that network of accepting people I was recommending.

But yeah, sure, opsec. Of course, again, opsec is easier if you've built a network that has more people who are acceptingly on your side.

And in the broadest sense, that thing I said?

"Proactively build a life that doesn't have connections who will reject you for anything true about you and that you can't comfortably lose."

That includes connections to countries - what country you live in for example. I realize it's not a very accessible option for most people, but if I was a gay man in a too-harmfully anti-gay country, I think I'd be constantly planning and investing years ahead into opportunities to move to a more accepting country. Learning another language, biasing myself towards a career that is in demand abroad, saving money, applying for literally any VISA type that I can use to jump, maybe even prioritizing forming relationships with people in those countries over the internet, and if necessary figuring out what the illegal workarounds might be both for exit and overstay restrictions.

God knows I probably wouldn't have the self-control and iron will to do something like that, not with all the pressures of adult life on me, not if I was in bad socioeconomic circumstances, not if fate would have it that I get entangled in a relationship that won't or can't follow and that my heart wouldn't let me leave behind... I know that relatively few will be so lucky as to be able to pull it off. But in so far as it is viable, I do think it should be one of the top priorities. Because the alternative is remaining in a situation where blackmailers can make "offers" that you cannot refuse -again, I cannot emphasize this enough- forever and escalating without bound.

[sinfulwrites]

Chromeskull Has Entered the Chat

Embrace different ways of working across your organization to best utilize your resources.

Mature content, gore, murder, torture

Chapter Three: "Interesting Discoveries"

Written by my beloved: @general-nerdy

Jesse soon found his thoughts and plans rotating around Miss Morbid’s stream schedule, not that he was complaining; it was the most fun he could have without hitting the streets himself. He did return to her Monday and Wednesday streams, but her main events on Saturday were when Jesse felt the most compelled to interact. 

When Miss Morbid was so bubbly and cheerful, waving to the camera as unfathomable suffering happened in the background, Jesse couldn’t stop his fingers before they entered his username. 

|Chromeskull has entered the chat

|

|Chromeskull has donated $150.00

The harsh whine of a heart monitor flat-lining would ring through the air, and Miss Morbid would cease whatever she was doing to check her computer. Hands soaked in blood, her LED eyes turned to hearts as she bounced on her heels. 

“Chromeskull! Welcome back! I was hoping you would come!”  

Her crimson drenched fingers formed a heart shape over her breast as she bent towards the camera. 

“Thank you so much for supporting my practice!” 

Jesse smirked. She wasn’t as nervous as the last time, but he still noticed her fingertips twitch as she spoke slightly breathlessly. Miss Morbid was trying to hide her nerves; he could tell. 

|<Chromeskull> You’re doing well. 

She momentarily froze on camera, her breath hitching. That he had such an effect only with words made Jesse’s ego soar higher than it already was, and he was eager to keep that ball rolling. 

Most streams he wouldn’t say anything at all, merely dropping increasing donations as time went on. Miss Morbid would stop everything when she heard that loud, droning tone, checking any device she could get her hands on to greet him. 

|Chromeskull has donated $250.00 

Miss Morbid immediately left the sap she’d been dancing with to retreat to a quieter corner of the club, murmuring just loud enough for the stream to hear as she checked her phone.  

“...Chromeskull, you shouldn’t have. If you were here, I wouldn’t mind a dance or two. I promise I’d only poke and prod you a little.” 

|<Chromeskull> Too busy there. 

She chuckled lowly. “Want me all to yourself? I could be your on-call physician.” 

In his line of work Jesse was used to hearing women sing his praises, when he entered a room with them consensually, before he knocked them unconscious nonconsensually. But it didn’t mean anything to him then. They did it in the hopes he’d be flattered enough to pay for something extra, so they could use the cash to buy whatever fix they needed afterward. 

This woman though, Miss Morbid, was providing a service so much more magical than just getting his dick sucked. She was providing art in its most raw form, live for everyone to see. It was a demanding job, and she did it with a smile. Her thanks were genuine. And her flirtatious words scratched an itch with an energy that his wife just couldn’t match. 

It came to be a back and forth that Jesse looked forward to. With each appearance of his in the chat, Miss Morbid got more and more forward. 

|Chromeskull has donated $500.00

The chat went wild whenever he donated, eager to see and hear her reaction. 

She stopped mid-vasectomy on a man who’d tried to spike her drink the previous consultation day and skipped over to her computer monitor when she heard the familiar droning tone. 

“Ooh, now who could that be...” 

She gasped, placing a hand over her collarbone as she read the chat. 

“Chromeskull!”

Her LED eyes turned half-lidded as she pressed her arms to her sides in such a way to push her chest front and center to the camera. 

“I’m feeling very… appreciated… as a surgeon, thanks to you. If there’s anything you’d like to see, just let me know…”  

Though it would have been incredibly easy to get what he wanted, Jesse ignored the suggestions the chat bombarded him with. 

|<Chromeskull> I’ll think about it. 

Miss Morbid clapped her hands. 

“Of course, think real good and hard about it… but don’t tease me and make me wait too long. In the meantime, since you’ve been such an avid supporter of mine, I’ve given you a special tag on your name in the chat. Give it a try.” 

When he entered text into the bar again, a small icon showed next to his username. 

|💀<Chromeskull> Not bad. 

He could hear the smile behind her mask.

“I’m glad you like it, I thought it suited you. Now! Back to the task at hand.” 

The extra attention made Jesse puff out his chest. He was the only one she addressed by name, and now he had a special identifier. She was actively looking out for him every time, and it was beginning to feel like his own personal show rather than a live stream. 

However, Spann was becoming more insistent in tracking the company funds he was spending. 

[RE: Unusual Purchases]

“Sir,

I’ve tracked increasing amounts leaving the company account. Could you confirm these as your own purchases?

Thank you. -S”

It was his company and his money; Jesse had plenty of it so he wasn’t concerned. But to cease her nagging, he would oblige Spann’s curiosity. She was just doing what he paid her for, after all. He sighed with a huff as his deft fingers traveled across his keyboard.

[RE: RE: Unusual Purchases] 

“They’re approved. -CS” 

[RE: RE: RE: Unusual Purchases]

“Very good, Sir. They’re off the radar. I hope you’re enjoying your vacation. -S” 

He certainly was doing something like that.  

Upping the ante each time was giving Jesse a rush; lavishing gifts was as good for him as it was for the recipient. They got something nice, and he got the satisfaction of knowing only he could provide such a gift. Being able to drop cash gifts at the drop of a hat reinforced his place at the top of the food chain; trickle-down economics and all that.

Another Saturday meant another kill stream, and Miss Morbid was particularly excited. She doted on a man strapped upright in a metal chair, the top of his skull gone as she prodded at his brain. Her good cheer was infectious; even the chat was more enthused than usual. That she could be so skilled yet so bubbly made Jesse grin, and he pulled his laptop into his lap. 

|Chromeskull has entered the chat

Miss Morbid already had her eyes on her screen, so when his name appeared she was ready to greet him. 

“Chromeskull! Good morning!”  

She leaned forward, the mob of red curly hair piled atop her head bouncing as she rocked back and forth on her heels excitedly. Her LED eyes turned to two pixelated skulls that quickly transformed into hearts. 

“I’m really happy to see you… Enjoying everything so far? I think I missed my calling as a brain surgeon.” 

|💀 Chromeskull has donated $100.00

|

|💀<Chromeskull> Looks like you’re having fun. 

Miss Morbid laughed and nodded. 

“I am. I just have such a passion for helping people-” 

|💀 Chromeskull has donated $1000.00

|

|💀<Chromeskull> Oops, finger slipped. Missed a zero. 

The chat exploded, with Miss Morbid frozen like a deer in the headlights. She had to steady herself with a hand braced on the table holding her tools. The other hovered over her masked mouth, which must have been hanging open based on the slackness of her jaw. 

|💀<Chromeskull> Get some new tools. 

While she took meticulous care of her assortment of surgical utensils, Jesse could see their age. The metal had lost its luster, dulled with grooves worn in where she had held them when in use. A new set could invigorate her, or she could buy something she didn’t already have for her operations. 

Her voice came out in a whisper. 

“T-That’s… are you sure…?” 

From confident to demure, Jesse was eating it up. He was grinning more than he had in ages. What was it called when you found something so cute, so endearing that you wanted to tear it to pieces? Cute aggression. Jesse wondered what it would be like to see her unmasked face, brought to the point of tears. 

He wanted to find out. He needed to find out. 

|💀<Chromeskull> Yes. It’s a drop in the bucket. 

Her free hand ran up through her hair, ignoring the gore on her glove. 

“I… t-thank you,” Miss Morbid croaked. “I… the practice will make good use of it… don’t you worry…” 

Her chest rose and fell quickly, with shallower breaths; if only he could see her expression. She gazed at her handiwork for a long moment before her head snapped upward with a renewed energy. Bringing a scalpel with a longer edge to her victim's jaw, Miss Morbid’s tone was bright. 

“In honor of your generous donation, we’ll carve this one for your namesake!”

Tilting her blade at an angle, she traced a shallow cut around the entirety of her patient's face. Either he was too dazed from the effects of his brain surgery or he’d completely given up, because the man only offered a low whine as Miss Morbid began to cut away his skin. Using her free hand to guide the solid mask of flesh away, she hooted when the last of it was released and she tossed it to the side. His facial muscles and bone were exposed, the haunting visage of a bleeding skull. 

 “A skull for my Chromeskull.”

That afternoon, Jesse resolved to find Miss Morbid. Spann’s business sense served her well; this mystery woman’s talents could be used in the organization in any number of ways… including in his pants.  

But in order to make her an offer Jesse needed to find her, and he had no place to start. Searching the name “Miss Morbid” brought up nothing but trash results, so he’d need another way to track her down. Narrowing down an area with concentrations of missing men could have been a viable option. Or maybe there was something he overlooked in her streams? 

Luckily for him, Jesse had started to record her sessions in his obsession. He’d kept the footage and audio from the past few weeks. After getting properly washed and dressed Jesse planted himself in his home office, ready to work at analyzing every second of her footage for anything he could use. 

Just as his fingers hovered over the touchpad of his laptop, a pop-up for a video call began to ring. 

Spann. 

Jesse’s shoulders fell with a heavy sigh, and he clicked to answer the call a bit more forcefully than he intended. The video feed shared to the larger screen on the wall opposite him, and his secretary smiled pleasantly from behind her desk, her hands folded in front of her. 

“Good morning Sir,” she greeted him. “How has your vacation been treating you?” 

Jesse typed deftly at his keyboard. Pleasantries were a waste of his time. His response appeared in the text log next to the video feed.  

[What is it?]

Spann shifted slightly in her seat, though her expression remained steady. 

“Well… a transaction totalling $1,100.00 was just made from the company account. I wanted to bring it to your attention-” 

His keyboard strokes clacked through the call. 

[I made the transaction.]

She smiled wider, but the energy didn’t meet her eyes at all. They were dark and shrewd. 

“...I see! Well, it would be helpful if, in the future, you could alert us beforehand. Or, I could even help you purchase whatever you needed-” 

He cut her off. 

[Whose accounts are these?]

Spann’s lips drew into a thin line. 

“...Yours, Sir. My apologies.” 

Jesse didn’t skip a beat. 

[Correct. You have eyes. Use them next time.]

He hung up before Spann could respond. 

Jesse was engrossed in his element, examining the footage for any tidbit of information he could leverage. Plus, he enjoyed rewatching Miss Morbid work using all of her abilities to their finest. She was a refined predator, and that made her all the more alluring. 

Her surgeries probably wouldn’t provide much, so Jesse decided to focus on her consultation days and burglary streams. Jesse started with the club footage. Seeing her flaunt her outfits in the mirror, her plush lips moving with her words grabbed a different kind of attention from him, but he had to focus. He had a mission to accomplish. 

Nothing inside the bar caught his ear or eye; the drinks and music were both common, and no signage gave away the name of the establishment. If Jesse didn’t know better, he would have thought Miss Morbid was purposely not looking in certain directions, or cutting her footage when there was no other option. 

What a sly little minx. 

As the recorded night dragged on, Jesse sunk lower and lower in his chair at the lack of anything concrete. Watching idiots flirt with her all night wouldn’t get him anywhere, no matter how much the sound of her low and sensual voice distracted him. As the evening came to an end Miss Morbid stared down at the chat on her phone as she strutted out of the club; the only other thing in her periphery was a dirty, cracked sidewalk. 

Her end of stream address was as it always was, done in the reflection of a shop window, closed for the evening. Peering inside the store itself Jesse saw what appeared to be a small restaurant, the only thing illuminating the interior the glow from a display case. Cheap chairs were stacked atop tables in the interior, the checkered floor weathered with age. He could spy the simple menu, but couldn’t make out a name, address or phone number, and hundreds of thousands of places in the States served burgers and fries. 

“I think we’ve got an amazing candidate for surgery this weekend,” Miss Morbid wound down, running a hand through her hair as her LED goggles turned off. The bright red glare from them ceased, and with that newfound clarity, Jesse noticed something else. 

There was still a glare on the window pane, reflections from across the street behind her. Jesse paused the footage, zooming in on the partial image that wasn’t blocked by her body. Being a reflection it was backwards, so he took a screenshot and then opened it in a photo editor to flip the orientation. 

Jesse’s eyes scanned the text as he read the neon sign in his mind. 

Dry County Liquor. 

That wasn’t any store he’d ever heard of. If he was lucky, it wasn’t a chain. A quick Google search let him down only slightly; it was a chain, but it was regional to the Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio tri-state area. 

He brought up his video call software again, dialing up his favorite, insecure little minion. 

It rang for a few moments before the call connected. Preston scrambled to sit up straight at his desk on the other end, running a hand over his hair and smoothing his shirt as he spoke. 

“Hey, boss,” he began. “I, uh, thought you were supposed to be on vacation. Y’know, after that big mess in Birmingham, the one I cleaned up, and that big deal with the cops and everything-” 

If he let Preston continue he’d never shut up. Jesse couldn’t type fast enough. 

[I need you for something.]

Preston sat taller, drumming his fingers on the glass top of his desk as he nodded. “Uh, sure, sure! Whatever you need. That’s why you pay me, after all-”

[Concentrations of missing men in Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. Close to hospital thefts and a chain called Dry County Liquor. Find hotspots.]

His employee raised a brow. “...Men, boss? I, uh, didn’t think you were into that kinda thing.” 

Jesse’s fist clenched. He typed with his other hand. 

[Rave clubs too. Forward your findings. Don’t fail me.]

Preston nodded quickly, beginning to tap away at his own keyboard. “You got it, but, uh, is there somethin’ we should know about or-” 

Jesse ended the call and leaned back in his executive chair, folding his hands in his lap. Hopefully that wasn’t too much of a task for Preston; the man had to earn his keep somehow, after all. He also made a mental note to not send all of Preston's emails to the “Bitch Boy” folder, at least until he found what he was looking for. Indiana, Michigan, or Ohio huh… 

The Florida man in him shivered at the thought. He wasn’t suited to the cold. 

…

A few days passed. Jesse checked his email frequently, and surprisingly keeping Preston busy seemed to be the best way to shut him up; the spam from him had stopped completely. Though the wait made him ansty. Miss Morbid’s streams only made the itch Jesse felt grow. He’d much rather experience her excitement in person rather than through his screen, but donating helped tide him over. 

Finally, his inbox showed a new result. 

[Interesting Discoveries]

“Hey Boss,

About all that stuff you asked about… Turns out there’s a big hotspot right where the tri-state border is. Bunch of guys have gone missing, and the parts of them they did find were all cut up. That wasn’t you, was it?

That liquor store showed up near a lot of those thefts, and something interesting popped up when I was looking at hospitals.”

A link was included in the body of the email, and in his curiosity Jesse clicked it. It led him to an article in The Detroit News, dated over a year ago. 

DETROIT SURGEON: MALPRACTICE OR MURDER? 

{Several malpractice suits have been filed against a local surgeon , but the families of the deceased claim they were murders, not mistakes. Under investigation is Maeve Macrae, MD…}

Maeve… Macrae…

Preston’s email continued. 

“Was one of the top hits. Never got convicted, but got the boot and moved. Dug around and found she went right between the hotspots; a little shit town called Montpelier in Ohio. Got her address, car make and model, license plate, and more. Sent it all in a nice attachment for you.”  

Jesse eagerly opened the .pdf, his eyes scanning it over. 

The first image that met him was of an Ohio state drivers license. The woman that stared back at him had pale skin, green eyes, and a mane of wild, red, curly hair. 

Maeve Macrae… 

Miss Morbid… 

Bingo. 

“Dunno what you want with her, but if you need me to take her somewhere, just let me know. -P”

Preston would be getting his paycheck in a timely manner that week. Jesse couldn’t have been more pleased with the results of his search. He sent the entirety of the email to his phone, links and attachments included, then shot up from his desk to start getting his things together. His GPS told him that the drive was only ten hours; just a day's worth of travel, made easier with cruise control. Spann and Preston wouldn’t even know he was gone. 

Jesse packed his briefcase with care, his medical equipment, thumb drive, laptop,  and mask tucked neatly away with his combat knives. He wouldn’t use them… maybe. Well, maybe he would. After all, how could he introduce himself to Miss Morbid as anyone other than Chromeskull? His destination programmed into his cellphone, Jesse locked the house behind him and climbed into his car. His fingers thrummed against the steering wheel as he peeled out of his driveway, headed north. He had someone very special to meet. 

…

He made it to the address specified a little after 1 am that Saturday morning after a continuous bout of furious driving. Sure enough it was a run-down looking apartment building on the rougher side of the little hick town towards the edge of the state. The old brick structure had long lost its red luster, now a sickly ashy brown with age. Most of the windows were boarded up, others cracked and filled with junk and cords. One window on the upper floor appeared tidier than the others, however no dim light from the interior bled through. 

The streets were as dead as they sounded on her streams, and dirty; broken bottles, plastic bags, and other refuse littered the gutters. Only the very occasional clunker teetered on the poorly lit and maintained roads. Jesse’s shiny Chrysler stood out like a sore thumb, but would anyone really be paying that much attention? 

Jesse parked himself around the corner from the entrance to the building, just far enough to be out of immediate eyesight, but close enough he could easily see people stumbling in and out. Out of habit he labeled a fresh tape with a sharpie and loaded it into his video camera with brand new batteries, setting it on top of his dashboard until he was ready to record. Now, it was a waiting game. 

Saturdays were her kill streams, and Jesse knew she couldn’t have done such a thing in her own living space just by looking at it. She must have taken her patients somewhere else, but where he didn’t know. So, he’d wait until she appeared, and note her movements until he learned more. 

It didn’t take too long. Maybe an hour or so after he arrived, Jesse watched as a slender form dressed in black exited the main entrance, stuffing a stray lock of curly red hair underneath a black wool cap. A long, black gloved finger pressed the record button on his camera and zoomed in. Yes, it was the woman from Preston's email alright, walking briskly to the parking lot behind the building. He saw her piece of shit red Ford Aspire slowly pull out and down the road, its mismatched body panels and cracked windshield easy enough to spot. Its license plate matched the one given to him, and it was indeed registered to the woman driving.

His own vehicle rumbled to life, and he maintained a good distance as he followed the woman with his headlights out. She was certainly acting abnormally, and the information appeared accurate, but Jesse would need solid proof she was indeed Miss Morbid.  

Miss Macrae headed far out of the town proper, passing endless fields of corn in pitch darkness only barely fought back by her dim headlights. Jesse didn’t keep track of exactly how long they’d been traveling, but she finally ended up slowing by an overgrown drive almost unseen by the side of the old road. Jesse pulled off to the side and waited, her old car crawling down the way through a small outcropping of trees. 

Jesse watched the clock, giving her ten minutes before following after with his lights still extinguished. The path was well worn once he found it, leading to an abandoned looking workshop that must have at one time belonged to one of the local farms. The windows were boarded over, but a sickly yellow light emanated from the cracks between the plywood. He parked well away from the building and the woman’s car, opening his briefcase to press his mask to his face with his trusty medical adhesive. Shutting his door silently with his one hand as he clutched his briefcase with the other, his camera was on and recording on his shoulder. If this turned out not to be Miss Morbid, at least he’d have a new piggy to play with. Jesse made his way to the closest door without a sound, his height easily allowing him to peer into the dirt encrusted window. 

Miss Macrae was inside, hauling an unconscious man over her shoulders as she dropped him onto an operation table with a loud thud. She huffed as she positioned him the right way up, pulling a knife from her pocket to begin cutting off his clothes. The man offered no resistance, which made Jesse think that he must’ve been heavily sedated in order for her to manhandle him. Once he was completely nude she began strapping his torso and limbs down, and moved various tables of tools far enough out of his reach that using them to escape wasn’t possible.  

Now he was sure that he had the right woman. This had to have been Miss Morbid.

As she worked Jesse observed the rest of the familiar space. The door in and out was behind her; the same way it was oriented in her main camera angle in her streams. Her computer was on a table off to the right, connected to a small satellite dish aimed out of a hole in the wall. Jesse could have laughed; she stole the internet too? There was a large metal basin sink off to the left wall, and several tripods about the operating room at different angles. All in all it was quite the impressive set up, given the circumstances and her obvious lack of a budget. 

When she was satisfied with how secure her newest patient was, Miss Macrae stood over the man and gazed down at him. Jesse watched as her hands ran through his hair, her slender fingers scratching over his scalp. Her pretty lashes hung low as her expression seemed far away, lost in her thoughts. It almost reminded Jesse of his love for his coffins. 

Her strange desire satisfied, her hands left the man's head and she turned towards the door. Jesse quickly ducked around the opposite corner of the building, and watched as she turned the lights out, stepped outside, placed a heavy padlock on the old door, and walked back to her car. She sat inside her vehicle for a long moment as the car sputtered then finally croaked to life, her shoulders falling with a sigh before Miss Macrae turned around and disappeared back down the old worn path. 

When he heard her dying engine no longer, Jesse emerged and turned his camera off. He went to sit in his Chrysler, and programmed the new navigational data into his GPS for future reference. Checking his watch, it would only be a few more hours until her stream started at 9 am. He figured he could catch a quick nap before she returned, then watch her stream live in person. He set an alarm early for himself, then reclined back in his chair to doze. For once his mind was agreeable, easing him into sleep quickly in eagerness to be rested for the day ahead. 

…

The shrill beep of his phone woke Jesse just as the sun began to peek over the horizon. Turning it off he sat straight, rolling his neck and shoulders to relieve the stiffness that had set in from sleeping in such a confined space. Usually he’d go for a cold shower and a cup of coffee to energize himself, but the knowledge Miss Morbid would be performing soon made Jesse as alert as ever. 

Reapplying a fresh coat of medical adhesive, Jesse made sure his mask was secured before he relaxed again. The padlock on the workshop door was still in place, and he didn’t see any sign of Miss Macrae’s car. His own vehicle was out of line of sight, so all he had to do was be patient. 

Sure enough, the now familiar rumble of her Ford came from down the path, pulling up alongside the building. Miss Macrae stepped out in her expected attire; her white shirt, black skirt, and black heels. In her hands she carried her goggles, and the keys she needed to unlock her workspace before slipping inside. 

Even for that brief moment, Jesse was enthralled with watching her. She was beautiful, curved in all the right places; his eyes roamed from her gorgeous tits down to her delightfully perky ass. Her movements were graceful, her long, pale legs begging for someone between them. A thrill went up his spine... but he resisted the urge to fuck her in front of her audience.

Jesse exited his car silently, camera on and knives in hand as he hovered outside of the door in the same vantage point as the night before. Miss Morbid flitted back and forth between her equipment as she prepared for the main event. Her mask, goggles, and gloves were now on, and she stepped away from her computer to turn on her cameras one by one. The man on the table wriggled weakly due to his newfound company, but ultimately was unable to do much. 

She was such a busy little bee; she had a good work ethic. Hopefully he’d be able to keep his hands to himself long enough to let her work. He watched as she gathered her hair as best she could in a messy pile atop her head, the milky skin of her neck and collarbone exposed. And finally, she undid an extra button on her shirt before tapping at her keyboard. The red record lights on her cameras came flickering on, and the show had begun. 

“Good morning everyone!”

Her tone was of the cheerful Miss Morbid, eyeing her display, and more notably the chat. 

“How are we all doing today?” 

Jesse couldn’t quite make out the text as it sped by on her screen, but he could imagine the average greetings she received. 

“I’m happy to hear it! We’ve got a lot in store for our patient today…” 

Miss Morbid pranced to the head of the operation table, her back to the door, and Jesse, as her hands roamed over her victim. At that angle, bent forward like that, Jesse could vividly picture her bent over his desk, taking him so well-

“He’s got quite a few digestive issues, so we’ll see what we can do to help this poor thing…” 

She moved to the left side of the table, focused on the main camera and the man's lower torso as she pulled a small tray of instruments into her reach. With her not blocking the view of the camera any longer, Jesse felt emboldened. The shine of her camera lens beckoned him, asking for a show. He could certainly give her one she would never forget. 

The object of his fascination was completely unaware as he pressed the tip of his knife against the old metal door, the only barrier between them. As Jesse pushed against the rusted hinges, the wretch on the operation table began to cry out as Miss Morbid sliced into his soft belly. Conveniently, his shrieks covered the scratchy squeaks of the door swinging open just enough. Jesse couldn’t suppress the grin behind his mask as he partially slid his frame into view, all while she was completely oblivious. Raising one gloved hand, encased by the knuckles of his knife, Jesse undulated his fingers in a little wave, directly at her camera farther in the room.  

~

This guy really didn’t know how to take care of himself, his wrinkled, distended beer-belly making Maeve grimace behind her mask. Why was it always these ones that tried the hardest at the club? Why couldn’t it be a strapping young man with a hefty bank account? But no one like that lived in fucking Montpelier. She’d be stuck in this shit place in her shit apartment with her shit car until she could save up enough to-

A heart monitor flat-line rang through the air, and her heart leaped into her throat. That sound could only mean one person was in the chat. 

Maeve skipped over to her computer, her lips changing to an eager smile of anticipation as she read through the chat log. It was much longer than usual. 

|<Mommy_Milkers> NO

|

|<Mommy_Milkers> NONONONONONONONONONONONONOOONONONONONONONONO

|

|<XxXDeathNinjaXxX> 💀

|

|Anal_repentive has donated $100.00

|

|<Anal_repentive> GET THE FUCK OUT OF THERE

|

|<Big~Wiggly> Who the fuck is that?!

|

|<A suspicious egg> turn around turn around turn arounf

|

|<lesbianushunny>💀💀💀

|

|<NonSexualUrges> Well we had a good run. Shows over 💀

|

|<VEINSSS> GOD DAMMIT I LIKED THIS SHOW FUCK

She didn’t understand. 

“...What the hell are you talking about, chat?” 

|<Oddnmsor76> You’re not alone!

|

|<Uoutio> CHECK THE FOOTAGE AJSDHDJFJF

|

|<4365733567> 💀 The door!!! 💀

Maeve hesitated, her blood running cold as she glanced briefly at the only entrance and exit to the building. She looked back to her screen, tapping her fingers against her desk in agitation. 

“...You’d better not be fucking with me, chat,” her voice fell as she quickly brought up a window to replay her previously captured footage. 

She watched herself greet the stream, taunt her victim, ready her tools and begin the operation. Everything was normal. 

And then it wasn’t. 

Her eyes were fixed on the center of the back of the room, on the door, as it ever so slowly eased its way open. Long slender fingers, smooth and black, curled around the edge of the rusted metal. Inching its way after was a hulking, dark mass, blocking out the morning sunlight as it filled the doorframe. A glimmering visage of death, a chrome skull, stared into her camera, with a serrated knife as large as her forearm in its other hand. The thing observed her for moments that felt like years, then taunted her with a friendly wave, before disappearing from view. The door shut once again, but it was not the same. 

Oh no. 

Maeve couldn’t breathe. She ripped the cords from the back of her computer, sending her stream to a crashing end. Rushing to the operation table she stabbed her scalpel into the man's jugular, twisting and pulling the blade erratically in her haste. There was no time. Shoving her bloodied equipment into a large black duffel bag, she kicked the door of the workshop open and bolted to her car, tossing it into the backseat. One last item, her computer tower, was thrown into the passenger's seat. 

One twist of her keys, then two, then three, and the old piece of shit finally cooperated as Maeve peeled down the old dirt path, leaving nothing but a dust cloud in her wake. She tore off her goggles, searching her surroundings frantically for anyone or anything watching. 

There was nothing. 

But she wasn’t alone. 

Oh FUCK. 

Tag list:

@naughtyslashersshers @nightmareinthelibrary

[sepublic]

Escaping Expulsion!

           LUMITY! LUMITY DEVELOPMENT! LUZ REALIZING HER CRUSH!!!!

           Amity calling her MY Luz… Amity and Luz back-to-back! Playing tricks together that’s so ADORABLE!

           There’s so much to this episode, I… I…!

           Gus! His growth spurt will take a lot getting used to, it’s like watching your favorite kids grow up… At this point he may as well go back to Augustus! And Perry, I love seeing more of him!

           WILLOW’S DADS! They’re GOOD parents I tell you, they talk a lot about grounding or whatever, but then IMMEDIATELY drop their jobs for Willow’s sake!? To home-school her, to have fun! GOOD PARENTS! And the Glasses Dad, he’s a really chill dude, sees Willow going behind the back and is like “I won’t tell!” Nice. VERY nice…!

           BUMP! Not only do we get confirmation that he’s in the Abomination Coven, BUT HE’S A SWEETIE! He’s an utter sweetheart! This really all adds to my headcanon that he felt bad about what happened with Eda, and I bet he was being reminded a LOT of that when he had to get rid of Luz, Willow, and Gus… At least with Eda she more or less left of her own volition, but these kids WANT to come back! I love this principal and his layers… Also Frewin’s tail moving?

           I agree with Alador, and I find it hilarious that he doesn’t seem to understand Frewin that much either… Or he does but he’s still curious! Al IS interesting like Odalia said… Not exactly a good parent, but he is a man of his word! Also WOW he looks like an utter mess, nothing like the prim and proper noble we all expected! I guess Alador from Amity’s flashback was in dress clothes for Amity’s birthday and all that… But yeah he IS fascinating as Dana said! I guess he is the inventor as some people suspected…

           His whole demeanor matches his brief depiction in YBOS pretty well; Looking like he’s mostly just kind of THERE, just kind of chilling for the ride. Has his head in the clouds and focuses on the inventions, on the technical know-how, on carrying out the orders and seeing them through, while Odalia is the leader who instructs things- Just as we suspected! I can already see the neurodivergent Alador headcanons… If Amity is autistic, does she get it from him?

           ODALIA… Ugh. I mean, she’s about as rancid as we all expected, but it’s interesting that she DOES listen to Alador, so there is still that respect there! But JEEZ, she’s an attempted child murderer?! Goes back on her word!? I have to wonder if Alador was the original Blight actually, and Odalia was the one who married in; That, or Alador just has actual integrity and acts as like… The second voice who helps rein in Odalia and remind her of things every now and then. Interesting… But yeah, I loathe her!

           Of course, back to Al- He may not necessarily be so great himself. He does seem to prefer the easy path, the path of least resistance; He adapts to Amity standing up to him and Odalia by instead considering how she could replace the current Abomination Head one day… Which makes sense, that’s HIS expertise, and daughter takes after father! And Odalia really is an Oracle as we thought… Oracle magic for spying, makes sense, but that necklace…

           UGH… Remember when we all liked that necklace! How we thought it was SO CUTE? How Amity wore it at first in Adventures in the Elements… But then she rarely wore her casual outfit? WELL NOW WE KNOW… Here’s hoping the intro changes to remove the necklace, but WOW I was genuinely feeling sick in my stomach when I saw that!

           And Odalia and Alador are even WORSE, because they’re literally arms-manufacturers! Do I even need to explain why that’s awful? But I’m really having a lot of fun with the idea of Abominations as robotics; I’d considered the idea of Abominations melding with Automatons, and the show just confirms and validates that! I love this show… I have to wonder if we’ll see Amity and the Abomination Head interact more? And I like how Abominations is basically shape-shifting and form-changing, but applied to a magical goop that Abomination Witches can control…

           Belos and the Golden Guard! More worldbuilding- Of course Belos is monopolizing and taking things into his own control, he’s expanding his influence! And of course, as Golden Guard pointed out- Not only does he want soldiers –glad we’ll see more of these Abomination things in practice- but also… He doesn’t want anyone raising a private army against him; Which again fits with how Belos operates! 

          But the way Odalia and Alador look at one another… WERE they intending to raise a private army? Or were they always open to selling out to the highest bidder- With their desire to install Amity as the new Abomination Head, we might see them ally with a rebellion, but for their OWN purposes… With how their audience and customer base was cloaked, they may have been unknowingly selling to people with a vested interest and stake in taking down Belos!

           EDA AND LILITH! This show once again confirms my read on glyphs; Not containing magic, but more commanding the magic around them! Lilith is SO smart, figuring out how it works… And YES, I love delving into the mechanics! How glyphs are about COMMUNICATION with the Isles, that calls back to Adventures in the Elements! I wonder then if Belos can communicate with the isles too, possibly through glyphs…

           But we get more insight into their dynamic! Eda was always that talented kid, so she could always breeze the basics and get right into experimentation! It was good for critical thinking, but as we see, she can be really hyperactive and impatient… And of course, this frustrates Lilith, who is very stoic and rule-bound! God she was adorable this episode, how she clearly wants validation… She really is the embodiment of “My child is fine!” “Your child was a pleasure to have in class.” Couldn’t get validation from Gwen, so Lilith went to teachers…

           AND JEEZ, no wonder Belos’ approval meant so much to her! Maybe like Marcy and Andrias from Amphibia, Lilith kind of latched onto Belos as a potential found family figure for her… But as we know, she still had her own desires and wants because she IS a person and not a mindless drone.

           BUT YES, I love the show delving into how Lilith and Eda work as different people! Lilith is by-the-book, and Eda recognizing that Lilith’s methods have value, because Eda is really out of her own element here. I love seeing Eda experiment with glyphs, just the way they experiment with glyphs- I’m glad it’s not just Luz! Also it’s interesting… The show seems to imply that there really are only four glyphs in existence; Light, Ice, Fire, and Plant! That’s a shame because I’d have liked to see more glyphs in the future, just a few more…

           BUT YEAH, this hearkens back to that shot of Luz combining Glyphs in the trailer, and I’ve always hoped that mashing Glyphs can unlock more complex spells! I love this kind of worldbuilding where basic elements are combined in certain ways to yield more specific things, it’s making my worldbuilding brain buzz happily! And I love Luz just freely giving out stars… Lilith is SUCH an Elsa, and her friendship with Hooty is adorable! And here’s hoping that Eda uses that messed-up spell anyway, against enemies…

           Overall this was an AMAZING EPISODE, so strong! Luz isn’t dense, like Alador she’s just distracted… Oh dang, maybe my Luz and Alador parallels idea wasn’t so far off? BUT YES this show promises and delivers through on these characters! I do wish we got to see more of Willow’s thought process about Odalia and Alador interrupting her life again, but with how the episode is already jam-packed with glyph lore AND Luz’s own thing, and I can see why they had to leave it out- 

          But give her some more spotlight, please! I wouldn’t be surprised if some things had to be cut out thanks to Disney downsizing the show… Also again, it’s interesting that based on what this episode implied; The Plant Coven is the ONLY Coven to have such a close basis in nature. If there are only four glyphs in nature, theoretically there should only be four main covens…

           Belos, your system is beginning to look even MORE sketchy now! And dang, the revelations, the lore, the reveals… Not much of Emira and Edric alas, but what we got was short and sweet, and I love how they felt the need to be nice but also sneak in a prank, but Amity just sees them! And also CAT ABOMINATION, the fanart came through! 

          And Amity just immediately recognizing her girlfriend’s work to figure out Luz was there, I love it so much! Overall, an AMAZING episode that blew my expectations out of the water! Now after this we have Echoes of the Past, which promises even MORE in regards to King! I love that these characters are getting a lot of focus now.

           Also it just occurred to me, but yeah- Edric’s occasional air-headed moments, Emira being a bit more bossy and strict… As we all speculated, they get it from their respective parents!

           (Also Hop Pop cameo I see you TOH crew.)

[whirlybirbs]

;   ---   SHATTERED HILT   /   01

summary: ru’kali survives order 66. cal kestis does, too. while cal spends his days on bracca, stripping starships for parts, ru spends her days earning her protection from the empire in the fighting pits on ordo eris; both do what it takes to survive. but, when a wayward quest and a plethora of owed debts lead cal kestis straight back to his fellow padawan -- a once shy girl turned raging fire -- the pit fighter is left with a choice: leave, or spend the rest of her life a pawn in a game much bigger than her. pairing: cal kestis / original female character, ru’kali lof word count: 2k a/n: i cannot remember the last time i wrote something that wasn’t a reader-insert, and i’m not sure how this will do -- feedback is genuinely appreciated on this, since i know i’m mostly a reader writer! everyone loved ru from her intro to my clone trooper squad, which you can read here! 

Ru’kali Lof startles awake to the sound of three loud, rough bangs on the door to her quarters. 

She wonders bitterly, as she blinks up at the ceiling, if she can just ignore the sound. With any luck, they’ll leave her alone and Ru can go back to bed --

Then, the knocks come again. Louder and faster. 

“Rise ‘n’ shine, sweetheart!”

Ru snarls.

Beneath the durasteel door, she can see the long shadow of someone shifting back and forth in their boots -- immediately, the Mirialan, as she stands and throws herself to the door, knows it’s Atticus. The sheer bombastic chaos that follows the bounty hunter swims through the force to greet her before she even opens the door.

When she does, he’s got an arm on the doorframe and he’s leering. 

Atticus Rex isn’t much to look at, nor is he kind nor smart, but he’s muscle -- his head is shaved in a tight buzz, littered with scars, and his muzzled grin is picked clean with a toothpick that hangs from his lips. 

He smells like day-old ale and sweat.

“Where y’ been, Ru?”

It leaks out of him like a jab. She has to restrain the snarl that threatens to leap across her face. Her attitude is sharp and wants to go straight for the Haxion Brood Lieutenant’s throat. 

“Asleep,” she bites, crossing her arms and cocking a hip as she goes to hit the switch and shut the door, “Do you mind?”

Atticus snorts, hand planted on the frame and forcing the door to stay open. 

Ru leans back, peering into her room, to eye the chronometer hanging on the wall. The digits read 1038 -- it’s late, and she’d finally fallen asleep after she’d managed to quiet down the usual roaring river in her mind. Not an easy task. 

"Get dressed,” the Bounty Hunter chirps, “S’ fight night, sunshine.”

--

Fight nights were common.

But, fight nights were Ru fought? Those were rare -- and though she’s sure Sorc Tormo would put her in the ring every night if he could, she’s also aware that to the Umbaran crime-lord she’s an asset. A big asset. A big, money-making asset that draws a big crowd and big bets.

Huge bets.

(The exact kind of bets that got Greez Dritus into this mess in the first place, and by proxy his new-found friend.)

Ordo Eris, on fight nights, becomes more like a city than the cold, lonely, terrible astroid colony it really is. The space station fills with scoundrels and thugs from all across the galaxy who traverse the rocky space around the arena’s hub to get a spot around the ring -- Ru eyes the growing crowd, nearly every attendee with credits in hand, as the lift carries her upwards to the top level of the arena’s loge.

Beside her Atticus flicks the smoldering bud of his deathstick down the shaft.

Speaking of Sorc Tormo, the sleaze ball greets Ru’kali with wide open arms and a devious grin. 

“Ah! My prized warrior princess!”

Ru cross her arms and swaggers forward -- the small rope of lucky beads tied to her sash tinkers as she does, knocking against the chromium smelted hilt of one of her two sabers. One is hers from when she was a Padawan. The other is a recent build and it’s temperamental. Using a stolen, mined kyber crystal is to blame, no doubt.

Master Yoda was right -- the crystals are supposed to pick the Jedi. 

Atticus meanders along behind you. Skulking as per usual.

Ru looks out past the arena to the screens bolted up along the pit. Pale blue eyes narrow tightly, the deep scar over her right eye warping slightly as she does. The broadcast is in the lower levels. Some idiot running around on the walls. Plugging wires in. 

A show, for sure.

Ru raise a brow.

“What’s all this about?” she asks, turning to eye Sorc Tormo.

The Umbaran man is eccentric, to say the least. His facial hair runs right down his chin in one fine line, green in color. That same green, punchy and vomit-reminiscent, echoes in his Canto Bight-esque outfit. Large, pompous sleeves and pants that are three sizes too tight. All green. 

He looks like seventy kliks of bad road, honestly. 

Hell, everyone on Ordo Eris does. 

Ru’kali is no exception -- she’s rougher than she was when she first arrived here. Littered in scars and bitter. The years of pit fighting have settled in her stance and though she’s athletic, she’s a rogue brawler with enough crackling, dangerous rage to power an entire Star Destroyer.

Fighting takes the edge off. Makes her feel less afraid. 

“Well,” the lone, pale fingers of the Umbaran curl around Ru’kali’s pale pink shoulders, nails drumming against the diamond shaped markings there, “I am glad you asked, my dear. We have a special contender for you --”

“Cut to the chase, Tormo.”

The egg shaped head of the Umbaran rolls as he steps away, waving off Ru’s evident irritation; the crime-lord gestures to the screen. “He’s friends with someone who owes me a lotta money. He was carrying this around --”

His fingers snap twice.

“Atticus --”

Ru’kali was not expecting Atticus Rex to procure, from the back of his belt, a lightsaber.

And she certainly wasn’t expecting him to hand it to Tormo and for the Umbaran to ignite it, presenting a glimmering yellow blade. 

The Mirialan’s face falls -- anger bubbles up there, warping the navy tattooed features of her face as she steps forward and yanks the hilt from the hands of the crime-lord.

Her lips twitches.

“What?” she sneers vengefully, “Did he pull this from a corpse, then?”

She has seen another Jedi’s saber three times now in this station. Once on the belt of a traveler who’d laughed in her face and waved the blue thing around, proudly proclaiming they’d bought it off clone trooper for drinking money. The second time, on a bounty hunter -- he’d murdered a Jedi Knight for Imperial credits, kept the blade though. The third, was now. 

Ru could only assume the weapon to be another stolen relic, a ground-in-the-dirt memory of her life before Ordo Eris. This contender probably had no idea how to use it, let alone the life this saber had before now.

A laxidasical wave. “Maybe. Don’t care. But! My sweet, sweet, Jedi -- I want you to kill him. Seeing two saber swordsmen dueling... Goodness, me oh my, that will certainly bring in the money, won’t it, Atticus?”

“Sure will.”

And it does.

--

Cal Kestis is having a pretty shit day.

Not that he’d ever say so -- no, because, sure, it might be terrible and he might be navigating some wild underground dungeon maze, but Cal has BD-1 back on his shoulder and that’s all that matters. 

He’s got a mission, he’s got BD-1, and despite being a little sore, he’s good. All good. Everything’s good. Totally good. 

As he rides the lift to the upper levels of this... place... Cal wonders if he’s gonna eat that sentiment.

The first thing he hears is the chants -- raucous roars of a large crowd. Before him lays a large square space, illuminated by stark spotlights and swarmed with drone droids, each with blinking red lights on their helms to show their recording status. 

It becomes abundantly clear to Cal that he’s suddenly in the spotlight. And, that the itching feeling that he was being watched was correct. 

The redheaded Jedi steps out from under the bay, suddenly exposed to the bright light of the arena. 

Around him on the upper decks are hundreds of people, all clamoring to get a view of him -- the large screens on the sides of the loge show him squinting, raising a hand and grimacing into the light. 

BD-1 gives a worried boowoop. 

“I got a bad feeling about this too, lil’ buddy.”

Suddenly, a holo-projection fizzles in before Cal -- large and tall and to the excitement of the crowd. The man’s appearance is met with a rise in cheers, rolling off the voices of the spectators with thirst for action. 

Sorc Tormo laughs.

“Ah, finally he arrives!” 

The projection waves wildly, spinning about, and Cal watches carefully as this eccentric ego-maniac waves his hand with a grandiose flourishes as he speaks. 

“We had action on how long it would take for you to get here!”

Yeah, well, BD-1 was kinda his priority.

Irritation bites at Cal’s features. The Jedi scowls. His stance is tense.

“And who are you?” Cal calls out, voice rising over the roar of the crowd.

“Ha ha ha! Who am I? I’m Sorc Tormo, baby! I’m the boss of this operation!”

The crowd goes wild at that, whoops and hollers serenading the arena to the tune of the crimelord’s name. A television drone swoops close to Cal’s head and the Jedi side-steps it with a disgusted look on his face. 

“Right,” Cal snarks, “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“Maybe not you, but to your friend Greezy Four-arms it does! You’ve got him to thank for gettin’ you into this pickle!”

Of course. 

Cere had made a comment off-hand about the pilot’s penchant for gambling -- not that Cal was any stranger to the concept. Back on Bracca, Prauf had muscled Cal into tagging along to a few card games here and there. And though the redhead never partook in wagering his entire week’s pay on precious metals, Prauf had once or twice. On those nights that Prauf lost -- because he always lost -- there was nothing that could lift the Abednedo’s mood. 

Not even a signature Cal Kestis smile 'n’ pat on the back. 

Cal could use one of those right about now. 

“Yeah, well, once I’m finished with you, I will thank Greez,” it comes out just as cocky as it feels -- and maybe Cal shouldn’t had tried the attitude. 

Either way, when this Sorc Tormo guy laughs and waves his hand, proclaiming, “No, no, my friend, you won’t be fighting me...”

Suddenly, the air becomes electric.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the crime-lord turns on a heel, gesturing to the crowd with the all the practiced cool of an entertainer, “Our lovely little guest will be going head to head with our favorite...”

There’s a crescendo of excitement. Cal notices an uptick on the counter on the broadcast screens -- he realize, quickly, that they’re bets and currently, someone named Fropolo’f is betting the most money against him. Real confidence booster that is. 

“Someone get baby his toy! He’s gonna need it!”

His lightsaber is launched from the loge, and the Jedi catches it quickly, igniting it on instinct as his skin crawls in anticipation. The redhead looks around, eyes cast on the crowds of smugglers and thugs lining the balcony.

The wide angle shot of fear on his face is painted across the rumbling arena’s screens.

Before Cal can bite in a retort, the echo of boots on durasteel begins -- coordinated and rhythmic. Boom... boom... boom... boom, boom, boom.

“You know her well -- a pure whirlwind of rage! She’s pink, she’s tatted, she’s daaaaaaaangerous!” 

Boom-boom-boom. Boom-boom-boom.

BD makes a nervous boo-weeeeeeeep as the pace picks up. Cal swallows, gloved fist tightening nervously around the hilt of his glowing, golden blade. Green eyes dart around the square expanse of the arena, trying to get a gauge on where this opponent might appear from --

“Give it up for our girl...”

Boomboomboom, boomboomboom. 

“RUUUUUUUU’KALLLLI!”

The roar is deafening. 

Suddenly, the paneling in the floor separates, and from it emerges --

“...Ru?”

Ru’kali Lof is suddenly staring face-to-face with a ghost.

Her stance, wide-set with double blades humming in a hot white, seems to crack when she finally sees the face of her opponent.

She’s a handful of meters away but she’d know that flash of red hair anywhere.

Cal Kestis.

Cal fucking Kestis.

Oh, this is bad. 

This is really bad. 

[bladekindeyewear]

HS^2 bloggin’ mainline 2020-04-02

Alright I’ll fix the broken images later right now lets goooooo read the updaaaate I’ve been only spoiled on the chapter title

I don’t even wanna guess.  Jake?  This makes me think of Jake for some reason, even though that doesn’t make much se-- oh right the Vriskas are locked in a school closet with a dead clown.

> CHAPTER 7. Distress Call From the Closet

Yep.

Also, this is how a car design looks when it was invented to have its first appearance be it flying with a human named Tavros looking out from an open side door.

(I’m not ENTIRELY against designing something for its immediate-art-use-purpose first and functional or historical-origination thought later, but usually when you make it that obvious that that’s what your doing it’s best to make that fact funny.  Like the Conveniently Shaped Lamp.)

Also I appreciate this using of Candy as kind of more lighthearted breaks in the action?

> (==>)

I thoguht that protruding fang (?) was drool for a second and wondered what the fuck they were up to in this closet all of a sudden.

Vriska, thriving on it, has not felt so decadently alive in a very long time. Tavros has never in his tragic existence felt so close to death, which is surprising to him.

Vrissy is trying her best not to grapple with any cosmic truths at the moment, since she’s getting a phone call in the middle of hiding for her life.

Vrissy’s implied to be somewhere in-between all that by this joke.  I bet she’ll be comparing herself to Vriska and Tavros alike throughout this mess, wondering where on the spectrum she lands and being ashamed of it AND both of them regardless.  Vriska Original had a ghost version who went on a fair bit of a Page dress-up thing and personality shift, so maybe we could expect Vrissy to struggle with being caught in the middle of the scales... or does that qualify as overthinking it classpectways?

VRISSY: Yeah Harry I would say we are Extremely Aware of the Situ8ion. VRISSY: As it Unfolded the fuck all around us.

Good Christ, Vrissy’s selectively-capitalized Kanaya-isms continue to be cute.

Oh, he’s on speakerphone.

> (==>)

Yep, telling Rose and Kanaya would be the smart thing to do, but it isn’t the Them thing to do.

--ROXY’S PLACE?!??  Hoo boy.  On the other hand, though, we get more Roxy, so it evens out.

Also, I like how Harry Anderson has to spell out Harry Anderson’s entire name for his Harry Anderson chat tag every single time.  Harry Anderson.

> (==>)

Part of the reason, Tavros thinks, that he’s been so game to continue on with the worst plan anyone has ever concocted, is that the more bullshit they endure, the longer they can put off actually doing anything that matters.

If he’s getting sprayed with a sprinkler and getting clown feet in his face, it’s a farce. It can’t hurt him. But if they get to the part where he’s shoving the uncooperative weight of his uncle’s corpse in an incinerator, he will stop floating in protective semi-consciousness above his body and it will all be real.

Ouch.

Can’t one of you assholes just captchalogue him?  Or did you leave all the appropriate-strength moduses at home?  Even you Vriska??

Oh, right.  Everyone knows and you can just leave him here.  Good call.  I mean you don’t really have to worry about forensic evidence with the pictures circulating.

> (==>)

VRISKA: 8ye 8itch.

Oooh!  That feels satisfying!  Yeah, tell off Gamzee’s corpse!

...Wait.

If they just leave Gamzee there, Jane can revive him, can’t she.

Fuck.  Maybe it’s up to Jake to try and stop that.

> (==>)

Karkat and Meenah resistance-time, then, with them presumably hearing about this development on the internet.  Wow, Meenah’s horns are getting long fast.  Plus a hint more of her grown-up self’s height.  I didn’t think she’d keep maturing so fast with her absurd lifespan ahead of her.

Oh shit, I didn’t see at first--

Right, Candy might still be lighthearted compared to the broader plot just due to lowered stakes, but it’s still the Carpet-Bombing-and-War-Filled Shituniverse.

Trolls are made for the battlefield.

From the moment a troll oozes out of the mother grub’s pulsating sphincter, through the trials of the brooding caverns, across the brutal day to day slog of Alternian society, all the way to their Ordeals, to the sucking void of space. They are bred for nothing but endless war.

But Commander Vantas...Commander Vantas is different.

Is... is Meenah narrating right now?  Because fuck.

Or so all the pamphlets say.

The actual Commander Vantas has blisters on his heel and has been taking pot-shots at scouting drones for the last six hours. He could use a bath, honestly.

Or is this one of the trolls on the side narrating who’s kind of internalized the stories of trolls’ prior warlike nature?

> (==>)

MEENAH: yo nubs is that u MEENAH: pretty rank KARKAT: OH MY GOD. KARKAT: I FLATLY REFUSE TO BELIEVE THAT YOU CAN SMELL MY NATURAL MUSK OVER THE STENCH OF BLOOD AND BURNING FLESH.

I guess it probably was Meenah narrating, then.  Unless it’s a really biased alt!Callie doing the talking.

MEENAH: didnt i warn u bout thinking tho? KARKAT: GOD DAMMIT MEENAH, DON’T MEME AT ME.

I don’t know what meme this is and I really don’t want to know.

They have had this argument more than once. In fact, both of them could play either side of it. Karkat has done his time in the field, of course, leading small guerilla operations to free prisoners and sabotage Crocker’s supply chains, but Meenah and the rest of the council is right. Which is why he’s here, instead of at the front lines with his rebels, where he belongs.

His true value is his face. His symbology. At the end of the day, he is a fucking ad campaign.

...is KARKAT narrating here???

SWIFER: boss check the news!

Oh shit, right, Swifer is in the resistance in Candy instead of just a breeding assistant in Meat as the bonuses remind us.

KARKAT: OH FUCK. MEENAH: what KARKAT: JESUS CHRIST. MEENAH: nubs i swear 2 god KARKAT: IT’S GAMZEE. KARKAT: HE’S DEAD. MEENAH: oh MEENAH: well shit KARKAT: I CAN’T FUCKING BELIEVE THIS. MEENAH: u okay KARKAT: NO!

Huh.  Them’s some complicated feelings that could fall in basically all directions at once.

Also, I can’t believe Karkat has hung around humans enough to fully internalize the full-throated exclamation “JESUS CHRIST”, which wouldn’t even really be a thing on Earth C with people who aren’t from Earths B or A.

MEENAH: u outlawed fishpuns i gotta make my own fun

How could you, Karkat.

KARKAT: AND I GUESS IF YOU CALL AN OBSCENELY PUBLIC PALE ACT, PERFORMED IN A FUGUE OF DESPERATE PANIC INTENDED TO PREVENT HIM FROM MURDERING ALL OF MY FRIENDS INSTEAD OF JUST HALF OF THEM “A THING”. KARKAT: THEN YES, I GUESS WE HAD A THING. KARKAT: BUT IF YOU’RE ASKING ME IF I’M SAD THAT HE’S DEAD? KARKAT: ABSOLUTELY THE FUCK NOT.

Okay, I’d hoped not, good...

KARKAT: THAT’S NOT WHY I’M SAYING FUCK A BUNCH OF TIMES. MEENAH: u need a reason to say fuck a buncha times KARKAT: SHUT UP. KARKAT: LOOK AT THE PICTURE.

--Right!  That’s a good reason to not be okay.

KARKAT: I DON’T THINK SO? I CAN’T SEE HER EYES IN THIS PICTURE, BUT SHE’S COVERED IN BLOOD, AND SHE’S CARRYING GAMZEE, SO SHE’S CORPOREAL AT LEAST.

I love this form of analysis somehow.

KARKAT: OKAY...HERE. OH. OF COURSE. CROCKER IS CLAIMING HER SON WAS KIDNAPPED AND FORCED TO PARTICIPATE. KARKAT: AND THEY’VE NAMED ME AS THE MASTERMIND. MEENAH: well we woulda taken credit for it anyway so this saves us the time MEENAH: thanks jane owe u one

Meenah isn’t the “concerned” type.  Lemonade out of lemons.

> (==>)

That middle tweet is my favorite.

Oh dear, “#GamzeeAnon”...

KARKAT: SHIT. OF COURSE THIS WOULD HAVE TO DO WITH FUCKING SERKET. KARKAT: LITERAL MONTHS OF PLANNING, HOURS AND HOURS OF LOGISTICS, AND ALL OF IT GOES UP IN SMOKE BECAUSE OF ONE SPIDERY ASSHOLE. KARKAT: SHE *WOULD* FIND SOME WAY TO WRECK MY SHIT FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE.

indisputable

KARKAT: NOW? KARKAT: NOW WE PIVOT FROM THE SUBLIME TO THE RIDICULOUS.

Um...

What does that mean?

I’m having a lot of trouble not only understanding the basic meaning of what he’s saying, here, but understanding why KARKAT of all people would employ it.

......it’s a meme, isn’t it.  Gotta be.

> (==>)

(Ooh, an eyepatch designed to invoke a Strider-shade.  Nice.)

KARKAT: I NEED TO TALK TO EGBERT.

But....... why??

> (==>)

Oh right, cause his son’s girlfriend is involved.

> (==>)

Oh my goooood what a pair of John and Roxy caaaars! :D

He is too busy with these mental gymnastics to notice his father’s car parked outside.

Ah right.  John’s... not on the best terms with him, I recall that.

> (==>)

Ohhhh myyyy goooood what an image!!!

John, Roxy, and Harry Anderson proceed to have the tail end of a conversation they had before, in another medium.

What the fuck!?  Harry had that conversation WHILE this dead body situation was going on?!  Let me reread that linked bit...

(And she has such a somber smile on her face, but given the conversation content it’s not surprising.)

Harry Anderson looks at the two of them all teary and laughing and hikes his bag higher on his shoulder, shifting his weight. Roxy sees a muscle tighten in his jaw. Her beautiful, smart boy. She wants to run over and hug him, to protect him from the possibility of pain at talking to his father, but she doesn’t. She knows how much he’s wanted this, no matter how much he jokes about it.

She looks back at John, and sees her own awe mirrored in his face. She wills him not to cry, not to fall back on his self-imposed suffering and blame loop. Something about the last hour must have done the trick, though. John stands up, brushes his hands on his jeans, and walks, back straight, toward his son.

JOHN: hey harry anderson. JOHN: it’s really, really good to see you. JOHN: do you wanna go for a drive?

The muscle in Harry Anderson’s jaw clenches a few more times, but when he smiles, it is genuine.

HARRY ANDERSON: yeah, dad. HARRY ANDERSON: that could be cool.

Oh son of a bitch.  Well isn’t that entertaining.  Harry you’re just going to ditch your friends for I’m kidding, this is life fulfillment you’re aiming for, of COURSE you’re going to agree.  (Too bad bringing the current situation in is gonna throw a wrench in things.)

> (==>)

Oh right, that means more of THIS Vriska and THIS John.  They’ve had a good start talking already, I wonder what more they can learn from each other.

HARRY ANDERSON: but no worries, i asked my mom to pick me up some snacks so she’ll leave to go to the store in a sec. HARRY ANDERSON: just sneak in after she leaves and hide in my room, and i’ll be back in a bit.

Harry you enormous shortsighted asshole.  And John’s about to learn all this from Karkat over the phone to blow his cover.

> (==>)

aaaaa roxy art i cannot :D

Wonder if her stealthiness attunement is gonna catch them in the act?

> (==>)

From this jealousy bit, I wonder to what degree Earth C humans are used to Troll quadrants and their various interplay mores.

> (Room: Examine yourself.)

Oh, a proper room introduction for Harry Anderson!  Very fashion-focused, very liking the spotlight--

Oh wait, shit.  This is traditionally where classpect associations are hinted more obviously than anywhere else.  Time to stop holding back on the classpect stuff and take in every fucking word with capital-C Classpect fully in mind.

A bedroom stands empty. There is no boy standing in this bedroom, or indeed anyone else. However, if the boy whose bedroom it was were here, one might remark that his name was HARRY ANDERSON.

And FUCK, one might say, does he like MUSICAL THEATER.

Spotlight, definitely.  But is it for the attention? The possibilities? The acting?

He has been in his fair share of school plays, but he has LOFTY ASPIRATIONS to STAR in bigger and better productions. He especially appreciates modern MUSICAL REMAKES of classic OLD EARTH MOVIES. It's a craze that not everyone is happy about, but in the absent boy they have found a DEVOTED FAN. There is also just enough overlap between his taste and his father’s to allow for SOMEWHAT STILTED CONVERSATIONAL BONDING from time to time.

Hmmmm.  Is it about the majesty of important works of media (I see “Pokémon” and “Alien vs Predator” up there...), or is it about the fact that they’re remakes of past works?  Those are a lot of awards and stage lights now that I zoom in to look... and hats... hats could be important......

The boy who is not yet here has also been known to dabble in ACCESSORIZATION. He could be described as a COBBLER ASPIRANT, a NEOPHYTE MILLINER, or even a BIT OF A WHIZZ WITH A NEEDLE AND THREAD.

Oh, interesting!  Not just putting out different outfits, but making them?  And Milliner is hat-specific creation...

His mother got him his first SEWING MACHINE when he was 10, to keep him from using hers all the time. His looks are HAND-CRAFTED, often IMITATED, but never DUPLICATED.

Space is obviously possible from sewing, but-- A focus on uniqueness!!!  The broader theme is getting VERY specific.  You might feel where I’m leaning already.

His COSTUMES appear in various AMATEUR PRODUCTIONS, the devising of which takes up most of his FREE TIME. His friends are usually LESS APPRECIATIVE of his attempts to dress them up than he would like, though.

Holy fucking shit.  He dresses up and makes unique HATS for his friends and others.  Specifically so they can use them as COSTUMES to act parts!!!!

And the other unique thing mentioned about him here took the time aside to note how he appreciated the intersection in personal interests between him and his father for it.

So you all know what I’m thinking, right?  HATS???  It’s got to be Heart, isn’t it.  Maybe even a Page of Heart, with his long-off aspirations and talent for arming others with it.  Any other additive/giving class might do the trick, too, like Sylph or possibly Maid.  Knight could technically still fit pretty well, but I feel Page is better given what little we know so far, what with so much outward focus bleeding out.

(You can comb through the saga on my infamous hats tag or the summary on the Aspect Duality post, but the gist is that hats (and others’ clothes, but especially the hats. even shoes -- SO many shoes in that picture!) represent the gist of an expressed identity, personal uniqueness whether innate or affected ala a costume.  Nepeta, Dirk, Terezi, and even Stitch have given us examples, some of them deeper than we realized, MOST of them probably overthought bullshit like I thought when I first created the hats tag and started tracking the wonderful importance of hats. ¬_¬)

I’d like to see anyone else’s interpretation. (EDIT: One more potential Nep-allusion in this room.)

> (==>)

Oh nooooooo!!!!  Tavros’s sprite is the saddest looking thing I’ve ever seen!! D:  Like a mix of Jane and Jake that thoroughly regrets his entire existence!  Which he practically does!  D:  Why the Caliborn-like clothes though?

(Some hint at “how different alt!Callie’s Caliborn must have been” like the commentary suggested exploring in fanfiction?  Was the suggestion meant to divert attention from the idea that it’d be addressed in the plot?  Andrew pulled that trick a time or two, why not these authors?)

Also:

Pffff.  Vriska just accessorizing immediately--  Oh, wait.  That might just be a bandana she had at some point coated in Gamzee’s blood. 

Tavros is looking at the news on a borrowed phone -- nice call on disabling the tracking on yours, Tavros.

> (==>)

TAVROS: It’s getting a bit surreal to see my, uh,, frozen mask of horror on every news site,, TAVROS: It’s a good shot of you,,, though, Vrissy, VRISSY: It really is Shockingly well composed.

Heheheh.  It’s fun that Tavros knows exactly what Vrissy/ka would care about.

And yes, Vriska is over there trying out ALL the bandanas.

> (==>)

VRISSY: Oh, is trying on all my 8oyfriend’s accessories not passing the time well enough for you? VRISKA: Desper8 times call for desper8 measures, Vrissy. VRISKA: And this is some dire shit.

They stare each other down. Did she mean the fugitive situation, or Harry Anderson’s fashion choices? Vrissy feels silly wondering this, but despite the situation they’re in, she can’t help but feel more acutely anxious about Vriska’s presence.

She likes her life, and she trusts her own choices. But now, looking at everything from Vriska’s vantage point, it all feels silly. Unimportant. Childish.

She can’t tell if she wants Vriska to rip in to Harry Anderson or if she wants her to stay silent. To put off the moment where she has to defend him or join in.

Real interesting.  Like she’s caught between these worlds after all.

> (==>)

They say it was a long drive, but...?

...WOW.  What a chill, disinterested-looking affect his sprite makes for.  Huh.

He kisses Vrissy’s temple and she leans in to the warmth of him.

HARRY ANDERSON: aren’t you a sight for sore eyes. HARRY ANDERSON: so sorry it took so long. HARRY ANDERSON: can’t rush a heart to heart, you know how it is.

Stop making me deliberate whether you’re trying to drop teasing Heart-aspect hints.  You already know I’m going to be obsessively scrutinizing every word of dialogue around Harry to see if it fits, story. No need to rub it in.

VRISSY: You actually had a Heart to Heart with your dad? How many times did he Cry?

I DIDN’T EVEN READ THE NEXT LINE QUIT SAYING HEART TO HEART YOU EVEN GAVE IT PROPER CAPS THAT TIME

HARRY ANDERSON: but god, it was a mess. i had to keep talking to keep him from looking at his phone or turning on the radio. HARRY ANDERSON: i may have told him more about my deep passions and emotions in the last hour than the whole rest of my life combined, just to keep him from hearing the fucking news.

Holy shit.  You exploited conversation about your deep passions and interests for a separate goal???

Aaargh!  Classpect everywhere!  I’ve relapsed!!!  D:

> (==>)

JOHN IS SO HAPPY

John Egbert has not had a day like this in a very long time. He can barely keep track of this series of epiphanies he’s having. He stretches out on his couch to relax and process the gifts of advice and connection his friends and family and ex-family have just given him.

OH RIGHT TIME TO RUIN IT WITH MAXIMUM SHENANIGANS

JOHN: hey karkat! great timing! JOHN: so much just happened and im kind of reeling about it. KARKAT: YEAH NO SHIT.

Ohhhh.  Much of the time I hate dramatic irony, but those moments before someone is about to be let in on the discrepancy... oh man I love that.

JOHN: is something going on? i just spent the afternoon with my son, and i think he would have told me if something was up with his friends? KARKAT: OH MY LUSCIOUS SHITTING CHRIST JOHN LISTEN TO ME. JOHN: listening!

"Luscious”??  Did they try to type “Lusus” and get autocorrected?

Who’s writing Homestuck on their phone???

> (==>)

J...John?? Are you okay?? XD

This picture.  These two paragraphs.  I fucking love them.

(Wow, being closer to the “canon” story due to ridiculous shenanigans right after his back-to-back self-insights and outlook changes have really been healthy for him huh.  He can probably sense HS^2 reaching him out here.  And you can see the helpless comedian his probably-still-depressed ass became on Earth B in his reaction here. EDIT: Also, how appropriate that even by DYING, the Bard of Rage managed to fulfill his role and shatter the last vestiges of John's narrow-outlooked despair?)

John can’t answer. He can’t speak. His body has given itself over to the long-lost feeling of manic euphoria. It had felt like Harry Anderson was holding something back on the drive earlier, but he had already told John so much. He hadn’t wanted to press for more.

Yeah... after what John’s gone through across his life and session, finding out Harry managed to hide THIS for a whole car-ride is the best sort of punch-line for him.

John can’t breathe. Something is happening. Something is finally fucking happening, and he’s finally awake enough to appreciate it.

--yep.  I was just guessing earlier, but this kind of confirms it’s in part a closer-to-relevance, closer-to-canon feeling bleeding in.  Something is happening that’s important enough to SHOW onscreen and not skip over.  I guess he really does like being anchored in Light after all.

> (==>)

John wheezes himself into relative calm. He has to get Karkat to understand. He clears his throat and breathes.

JOHN: karkat, this can be how we win. JOHN: i know what we need to do.

...holy SHIT.

Karkat, how did you know calling JOHN about this would work out this well??

John actually taking confident action to solve a problem, in a way that isn’t going to end up depressing like his attempt to provide Tavros escape in the Epilogues... this should be interesting.

See you next time.  (I had to image-fix some stupid linked hat posts for this blogpost and I’m out of energy, so I’ll fix the other old post I promised that asker to fix in like, a day or two; I’ll post when I do.)

[batmanvillainswithcircularheads]

Hey do you wanna know what I thought of Batman: The Telltale Series? No? Well here it is.

Season 1

Not a huge fan of this Bat symbol. It’s not awful though. And Batman’s ears are a liiiiiiiiiiittle too short.

I’ve heard some people say they don’t like Troy Baker as Batman, but I think he does a perfectly fine job.

It’s neat that the game lets you choose the color of Batman’s equipment, though I think blue is really the only color that works for it. Also it seems a little weird that everything Batman owns glows. There’s a moment where he grapples up a stairwell and the levels of the building light up as he passes through them. Doesn’t seem very stealthy for what’s supposed to be a method of escape.

The visuals in this game are good. The animation can be a little stiff at times, but nothing too bad. The cell shading’s cool.

Batman calling Alfred “Al” is weird. Why does he do this? I do not like this.

Catwoman is really good in this. I like her involvement in the story. I like her and Batman. I like her voice. I like her costume, though the material seems kinda bland; I like it when Catwoman’s costume is a bit shinier. That gadget she has that lets her slide up walls is cool, I’ll be damned if I know how it works though.

Not a huge fan of Batman scrambling his voice. It’s not huge, and I get why it makes sense for him to do it, but I just don’t like it. There are a lot of times Batman has more personal conversations with people and having him talk through a machine in situations like that makes it feel kind of distant, like he’s hiding behind it. I prefer it when Batman just speaks in two different voices as Bruce and as Batman. Hell, Troy Baker’s surely got the vocal range for that; He’s Troy Baker.

It took me forever to realize what it was I didn’t like about Gordon’s design, and that’s that his mustache is too thin.

Harvey Dent is good in this. Would have preferred his hair be black though. And why is he so tall? Bruce looks like a dwarf standing next to him. I do really like how they build up Harvey and Bruce’s friendship in this. Seeing him try to fight his own transformation, and regret what he does as “Two-Face” immediately after he does it, is genuinely saddening.

Vicki Vale could have been a good character if they hadn’t wasted her on a twist. Having to choose between giving the evidence on Falcone to her or to Gordon was interesting. It would have been nice to see that carry out through the whole game. Also when are we gonna get redhead Vicki Vale?

The design for Oswald Cobblepot is... different. I guess it’s fine since he’s supposed to be him when he’s younger. Still, he’s pretty much gonna have to change every single thing about his appearance in order to actually end up looking like his old self. The bird-beak gas mask is clever. I kind of like that the “Penguin” persona starting off as a way for Oswald to commit crimes while keeping his own name clean. Personality-wise he’s good. By the end of the game he’s an absolute bastard and all you want to do is beat the shit out of him, which is about what the Penguin should be. Him being childhood friends with Bruce Wayne seemed a little weird and didn’t really add much to his character or the story. It’s a little Roman Sionis-y.

Actually hold on a second here the Penguin in this game is actually just Black Mask  - childhood friend of Bruce Wayne’s  - hates the Waynes because of what they stand for  - “legitimate businessman” who creates a masked alter-ego to commit crimes I’m not even complaining about that it’s just kind of weird.

Batman having white lenses in his cowl is interesting and it makes sense. I don’t really like it or dislike it.

The Waynes murder twist is what really kills this thing. It’s such a huge change to Batman’s origin just for the sake of a twist. The whole time through I was hoping they’d reveal that all of the evidence was fabricated, and when they introduced Falcone’s drugs I was holding out on the hope that they were somehow influencing Bruce’s memory, as contrived as that would be. Bruce revisiting his parents’ murder seems forced. I get that people block out memories sometimes, but apparently all Bruce had to do to remember the entire conversation that happened while his parents were being repeatedly shot was to think real hard about it. Has he never thought real hard about it before? Didn’t Bruce try to investigate his parents’ murder after it happened?

Bruce’s car turning into the Batmobile is dope. Wouldn’t work for most versions of the Batmobile, but since this is early in Batman’s career and the Batmobile is pretty close to a regular car, it works. The color-changing is great too. 10/10 Batmobile would like to see again.

I’m not really fond of Batman using such advanced technology like drones, a forensic scanner built into his glove, and lenses that let him plan out his moves in advance, so early on in his career. Like I get that Bruce is gonna have a lot of technology at his disposal, and it’d be stupid of him not to use it, but when it’s early in his career I prefer seeing him not have everything built up so much and having to rely more on what he can make on his own. Like it’d be one thing if he were just occasionally re-purposing some Waynetech inventions but these things look like they’ve been specifically made for Batman. The damned things are even shaped like bats.

I like the idea of Martha Wayne organizing special screenings of The Mark of Zorro whenever Bruce wanted to see it. That’s sweet.

The choice of whether or not to save Harvey is a pretty obvious one to include, but having it be a choice brings up some weird questions. If you save Harvey, he still ends up becoming “Two-Face,” so it’s not like you’re actually saving him from a life of crime. It seems like he was doomed from the start. Does Harvey’s face ever become disfigured in that timeline then? Does he just go on to have a lengthy criminal career as Two-Face, without actually having two faces?

Hey Blockbuster sure is a character who is in this and sure does look the way he does in this and that’s just about all that can be said about him

So if you save Selina, she’ll show up to the hospital with flowers, then change her mind, give you the flowers, and you walk into the hospital with flowers for Harvey. If you save Harvey, Selina doesn’t show up at the hospital at all, and you visit Harvey... with the flowers. Where did you get the flowers from, if not Selina? If Bruce bought the flowers himself, then why didn’t he also buy them in the timeline where he saved Selina? He didn’t know Selina was going to be there to give him flowers, so why did he show up without flowers? I feel like this would have been a good opportunity for the game to go, “hey look at that, your choices really do change things!” by having him not have the flowers if you save Harvey.

Where did Selina get that tank top from? She wasn’t wearing it when she took off her suit. It’s not like they’re opposed to showing partial nudity in this game; we saw Selina without a shirt earlier on, and we got a whole walking simulator of a half-naked Bruce. If they really wanted to have Selina be more covered up they could have had her put on the tank top after she woke up. Did she have sex with Bruce, put the tank top on when they were done, then fall asleep?

Meeting Joker in Arkham and seeing a glimpse of who he would become was cool.

I don’t really like Zsasz’s voice.

Batman comforting the Vale kid was a good moment.

Penguin’s monocle looks kind of silly. It’s a nice nod to his regular monocle, I guess.

Harvey’s arm catching on fire when you jam his gun is kind of overkill. The flames really burned through that much clothing and did that much damage to his arm and leg in that short an amount of time? Like give it a rest he already has two faces.

Why do grapple guns need to be connected to a computer?

The flashback to Bruce and Oz as kids is kind of weird. Didn’t really tell us anything we didn’t already know. Didn’t make me feel anything for Bruce and Oz’s friendship since I didn’t really care in the first place.

Oh no Commissioner Grogan doesn’t like me I wonder if this is gonna cause any tension going forward oh wait he’s dead now and we made up how sad

Y’know, Harvey’s “Two-Face” voice sounds real silly when his face isn’t disfigured.

“Cobblepot” slapped over the ”Wayne” in Wayne Enterprises in Comic Sans is golden.

heheh, Fal-Coney Island

I had forgotten Selina was in the game until that last part with her. It was a good sendoff though.

Using the reflection in Alfred’s glasses to find clues about the room he’s being kept in is clever. I like it.

The armored Batsuit is dope. The classic Batsuit is also dope.

“Blue... the same color as my tech. It can’t be a coincidence.” Yes Bruce it absolutely goddamn could.

Vicki already had a perfectly sound motivation for doing what she did, did we really have to learn her adoptive parents were abusive too?

I keep forgetting Vicki can levitate. Probably because she only does it twice in the whole game. You’d think she’d do it a little bit more given how useful it is. It’s kind of over-powered honestly. How does it work? Is it the same technology as her staff? Where did she get that from? What does it have to do with her character? Why doesn’t Batman start using stuff like this?

So if you choose the option that gets Alfred’s eye blown out of his head, he has an eyepatch. So throughout the rest of Batman’s career Alfred’s gonna be a guy with an eyepatch. Having an eyepatch is now Alfred’s thing in this world. Either that or Bruce gets a little bit of his ear blown off, which is less egregious but still kind of weird... still that shit’s gonna heal up the second he meets Ra’s al Ghul.

So if you go as Bruce Wayne, Bruce makes a speech, and if you go as Batman, Batman talks to Jim for a hot minute before the speech happens... so Bruce could have still made his speech. You didn’t have to choose between going as Bruce and going as Batman. Sure, Batman swoops in to save Jim once Random Attacker with No Motivation #389 drives a truck into Jim, but Batman had no idea that was going to happen, and he would have saved the day even if he went as Bruce.

“Oh boy, it’s gonna be tough to top that!” John he pushed someone out of the way of a truck it’s the least impressive thing that’s happened in this entire game.

The real shame about this game is that it didn’t need to have all of these twists to be “new” and “different.” There have been plenty of stories that focus on Batman’s early days, but this one was different in that it was a video game that had you go through his early days step-by-step, instead of just having it be the backdrop for a regular Batman adventure. Splitting things up pretty much 50/50 between your life as Batman and your life as Bruce Wayne is also pretty rare for a video game. Hell, the simple fact that this is a Batman game done in the Telltale style sets it apart from other Batman games in and of itself. They didn’t need to make Thomas Wayne a criminal, make Vicki Vale a terrorist who’s actually an Arkham, or even make Penguin Bruce’s childhood friend. This game was good enough without those, and would have been better off if they weren’t there.

Season 2 Episode 1

Haha what the fuck they made a sequel?

The Riddler in this looks baaaad. The hood just doesn’t work. I feel like it’s an attempt to make him look more “realistic,” but isn’t it more realistic for someone to wear a bowler hat with a suit than to have a suit where the jacket has a hood? When he first shows up at the casino he looks so out of place with his hood up. Bowler hats may be kind of flashy, but real people do wear them. It’s not like it’s to hide his identity, since he doesn’t seem concerned with hiding who he is, and the game goes out of its way to have his hood get knocked off in every encounter anyway. The hook on his cane is clever, but hacking and slashing at people doesn’t seem very Riddler. Him being a villain from back in Thomas Wayne’s days bothers me too. It means his career reached its peak before Batman was even around. He’s hardly a Batman villain then, just a Gotham City villain whose last fight happened to be against Batman. And then he dies.

New Batsuit looks good. I didn’t dislike the old one but I like this one a lot more.

Riddler tells Batman “you’re supposed to be the world’s greatest detective.” Would Batman really have already gained that reputation at this point?

Gordon’s mustache is bigger. I like it.

Seeing Bruce doing Batman work at rich people events is fun, though the “I’m looking for new thrills” excuse can only work so many times.

Hey, Amanda Waller’s in this.

Interested to see where Alfred’s condition is gonna go. I hope he’s okay. I hope they don’t kill him for shock value like everyone else in this series

Tiffany is annoying. She’s every “young genius” character.

Killing Lucius was stupid and needless.

“Please tell me you didn’t put him in danger.” “We didn’t know there was any danger.” “How dare you!” Well fine then Tiffany I’ll choose the Lie option then. The fact that you can do everything else right but telling Tiffany the truth will cause her to hate you is dumb.

So does no one else notices that Joke- John Doe’s skin is white and hair is green?

All of Riddler’s puzzles and the way Batman solves them are pretty clever.

Seems weird that the game gives you the option to let the other three agents die to save Avesta. Even if Avesta were to die, ti’d still be one death as opposed to three, and if you want to save Avesta it’d still be objectively better to let her take the first two sonic blasts, then choose her over the other agent for the third riddle since either way one person would die (not that the third riddle matters in the end, since Batman ends up breaking out before that). Yeah that causes Avesta to go deaf, but going deaf is still better than dying. It seems like an obvious choice given Batman’s morals.

So we get to fuck Agent Avesta, right?

Season 2 Episode 2

Bane’s tattoos look bad. And when his veins turn green they overlap with the tattoos, so it looks even worse. His goatee sticking out of his mask looks stupid too. The rest of him’s fine. I like his voice.

i’m getting tired of every introduction to Bane having him do the back-break pose, then not breaking Batman’s back. I get that you can’t do the whole Knightfall arc when you’ve got your own story to tell, but if Bane’s not gonna break Batman’s back then don’t bother teasing it.

That one purple button on John Doe’s vest is annoying and out of place. i hate it.

They’re kind of pushing this whole “John is obsessed with Bruce” thing a little too hard. It was fine having them interact in Arkham but now it seems like they’re using John’s fixation on Bruce as a stand-in for Joker’s fixation on Batman, instead of just having him be fixated on Batman in the first place. Really Bruce’s involvement with the villains in general is getting to be a little too much. Bruce interacting with white collar criminals in a sort of shady-business setting is one thing, but now he’s hanging around with full-on supervillains.

The “LOL WOULDN’T IT BE CRAZY IF BRUCE AND JOHN WERE GAAAAY” jokes are cringey please stop forever.

It seems like in this Joker is the one trying to impress Harley and Harley is the one who’s pushing Joker around. And instead of Joker turning Harley into what she is, she just decided to dress up like the biker version of a court jester and commit crimes using a sledgehammer because her dad died... as you do. So why then am I supposed to feel bad for Harley? Normally it’s because she was in an abusive relationship, but now she’s the abuser. If anything I should feel bad for Joker... who apparently is becoming the Joker... because of Harley? God this is like a fanfiction. And if Joker ever does end up being the one who manipulates Harley, why the hell should I care? If anything she deserves it since she was the one who started manipulating him. There are plenty of stories where Harley manages to pull one over on Joker, and they work because Harley’s getting payback for what Joker did to her. In this, she’s the one who started this whole thing. All of this is her fault. Honestly, fuck her.

Outside of that, Harley’s kind of annoying but she’s not awful. She’s got a few “Wouldn’t it be just QUIRKY if I did something really inconveniencing right now?” moments.

Bruce letting John and Harley into Wayne Enterprises is just reckless. It’s bad enough on its own, but when Harley starts physically threatening and putting her hands on his employees then good god he shouldn’t be letting this happen anymore. The whole thing is just irritating to watch.

Y’know, Bruce really oughta change up all of the secrets in his office if Penguin knows about them and is telling other criminals.

At this point Tiffany is just here to be an inconvenience.

I feel like they could have worked Matches Malone into this story, instead of having Bruce pretty much become a criminal.

Fries’ suit is pretty good. It’s missing the dome though, you can’t have Fries without his dome. His glove that can freeze things by touching them is neat, but I still prefer the gun. I also don’t really like his voice. His characterization’s good though.

Fries sounds like he’s voiced by the guy who voices Skullface. He isn’t.

I like Harley a lot more when she’s being more sincere instead of trying to be the most annoying person in the room.

Do... do we get to fuck Harley? I don’t know if I wanna fuck Harley. Or rather, I don’t know if I want Bruce to fuck Harley.

I don’t really like all the villains already being in full-on “villain mode” already. It seems like they just popped up out of nowhere, already established and organized. I wanna see how these people become supervillains, not just have them pop onto the scene in full costume, ready to start their life of crime. The only one who seems like he’s still in a sort of early stage is Joker, the one who would make the most sense to already be a full-on villain.

What’s the point in Bruce hiding his face during the heist if they’re going to call him by his name anyway?

Seeing Bruce try to reduce the deaths by beating up agents himself was cool.

Bruce seeing the Batsignal go up as he drives away with the villains, not able to do anything about it, is a good scene.

Interested to see what they do with Riddler’s dead body.

Hey look, Catwoman’s back.

Might add more when future episodes come out

[esseastri]

Literally everyone: AAHH MASS EFFECT ANDROMEDA!!!! Me, seven years late with starbucks: so, I just finished ME2 and yowza, guys

.

Okay, so some of you might remember that a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (oh shit wrong fandom), I was liveblogging Mass Effect 2. For various personal reasons, I stopped the liveblog some time ago--I jumped ship and liveblogged all three Dragon Age games, and then, when I was meant to pick the ME2 blog back up, some personal shit happened and it was easier for me to just finish the game without the liveblog. I’m sorry if you were looking forward to live Suicide Mission reactions, but I can provide, in bullet point form, a summary of what would have been the end of the liveblog if I’d been able to finish it properly!

(Having now written it up, I guarantee, you’re not missing anything by this not being an immediate liveblog--it is JUST as funny this way, I promise!!)

It did get quite long, so here it is, under the cut:

I successfully scanned/probed every. planet. in the galaxy. I’m not joking. Every single one.

This made for a lot of boring scanning time, but it also revealed a lot of sidequests--all of which I completed. 

This included taking out the entirety of the Blue Suns mercenary operation via fucking up their fake-distress-signal trap and stealing their stolen cargo after killing off several of their captains.

Also I stopped some missiles from crashing into a small colony? I think?

I successfully completed every sidequest that had anything to do with quarians.

Samara’s loyalty mission!

I flirted with her daughter so badly it was embarrassing, but hey, that’s the way to bait serial killers into getting KO’d by their moms, so...

Thane’s loyalty mission:

I’m still genuinely surprised that that security guard honestly believed I was a health inspector are you kidding me I’m fully armed and armored how does this outfit say ‘health inspector’ to you pls I fear for the security of the Citadel

But hey, we stopped the kid from killing anyone, so that’s good.

Also, what is up with my squadies having kids who want to murder people who we have to prevent from murdering people? Guys. This is bad parenting. Pls. 

I scanned some more planets and did a few more sidequests.

Miranda’s loyalty mission:

there was some hinky shit with this whole situation, but it’s Miranda: of course there was hinky shit. But I’m glad her sister was WAY Chiller about the situation than I thought she was going to be.

I AM SAD I MISSED THE PARAGON QUICK-TIME-BUTTON AND MIRANDA MURDERED HER CHILDHOOD BESTIE THAT WAS VERY UPSETTING AND I’M NOT ABOUT THAT LIFE

Jacob’s loyalty mission:

TALK ABOUT HINKY SHIT WITH THE WHOLE SITUATION

tbqh, I’m still not 100% sure what the fuck happened on that mission. I got the toxic food made people wacky, but I’m unclear on the ten-year wait before activating the distress beacon. You cannot have just been chilling like a king while the crew got slowly more poisoned for ten years and been having a good time. Bro, pls.

I’m v glad Jacob was chill with me throwing his dad in jail.

I did some more sidequests. I cannot stress enough how many fuckin sidequests I completed.

LEGION: hoooo boy. 

1. I fucking hate husks and fighting husks and getting swarmed by husks and dying a lot but it’s fine, I’m fine

2. Geth still make me nervous. I understand that there are good geth and bad geth, but I spent waaayyy too long fighting that Colossus on Therum in game 1 to fully be okay with them.

3. Tali’s non-reaction was the most ridiculous and out of character anything in the Bioware universe. There was NO REACTION AT ALL to us activating a geth on board a ship that has an AI installed on it. And no reaction to us recruiting that geth. The only reaction we got--finally, AFTER FINISHING Legion’s mission--was her anger over Legion trying to send info on the Flotilla to the geth. Which, yes, warranted a reaction, but sO DID A LOT OF OTHER STUFF. And the fact that Bioware was too lazy to write Tali some reactions to this geth just chillin’ in our AI Core offends me deeply.

4. Legion’s mission: I really, really didn’t want to do either option, tbh. One felt like genocide and one felt like mind control and I was 100% not there for either of those versions of events. (I eventually decided to blow up the station: see point 2 above.)

The second EDI was like “u should take everyone on the shuttle; the ship will be fine!” I was like, “OH JESUS FUCK NOTHING WILL EVER BE ‘FINE’ AGAIN”

There is nothing--nothing--more #relateable than Joker running through the ship as it’s getting attacked by Collectors and just repeating “shitshitshitshitshit” for the entire time. 

It was about this time that I realized the next THING was the Omega-4 Relay and I had to do some googling. Did you know that the Mass Effect Wikia is 100% Useless when it comes to figuring out how to get through the Suicide Mission without getting anyone killed?

I spent a lot of time being TERRIFIED that I’d somehow missed a ship upgrade, even though there was no possible way for me to have missed a ship upgrade.

GARRUS AND I FINALLY DID THE DO. THERE WERE CANON FOREHEAD TOUCHES. HE WAS A NERD. IT WAS SO FUCKIN CUTE I DIED. IT WAS SO CUTE.

The fight with the Oracle in the basement was waaayy chiller than I thought it was going to be, and my sister, from across the room, just laughed and reminded me that I was playing on Casual mode.

The briefing room scene: 

Miranda: “We’re going to have to split up into several groups.”

Me: “Worst. Idea. Ever.”

Miranda: “You have to pick someone to go in the vents. I volunteer!”

Jacob: “I also volunteer!” 

Me: “Ahh, thanks, but I’ma send Legion, ‘cause Legion is the best tech guy we could possibly ever have? Considering it IS...tech?”

Miranda: “Ugh, fine. Pick someone to lead the second squad. Again, I volunteer.”

Me: “That’s nice. Hey Garrus, darling--meet me at that fucking door, and you better be alive, babe.”

Garrus: “Sure thing, babe.”

Miranda: “Uuughhh, at least we know he knows what he’s doing. Fine.”

SO WE SET OFF INTO THE COLLECTOR BASE, SPLIT UP INTO SEVERAL GROUPS, AND I ALMOST HYPERVENTILATED OUT OF NERVES AND MADE MYSELF COUGH.

I got Legion through the vents without it melting.

I spent a lot of time reminding myself that if you murder all the collector drones before you kill Harbinger, then you only have to kill Harbinger once, as opposed to once for every drone in the room.

There was a terrifying moment at the first locked door, when I was very certain we were all going to die.

No one died.

I WAS REALLY WORRIED THE CREW HAD BEEN LIQUEFIED BUT THEY WEREN’T, I SAVED THEM ALL! IT WAS AMAZING!

Also, the liquefying was suuppper gross and unnecessary, thanks Bioware.

The First Regrouping scene:

EDI: “Sorry, guys, but you need to go through that hallway full of seeker swarms, good fucking luck.”

Samara: “I could probably make a biotic barrier and keep them off us? It’ll be slow, but I can do it.” Miranda: “SO COULD I. Any biotic could do it! I VOLUNTEER!”

Me: “Uh, it was Samara’s idea, soooo...she’s gonna do it.”

Miranda: “FIIIINNE. Someone has to be a distraction and go the other way, though. I fucking volunteer, goddamit, Shep, just let me do my fucking job.” 

Me: “Garrus. Darling. Babe. Be safe.”

Garrus: “Sure thing, babe.”

Miranda: “I’m. going. to. stab. you.” Doctor Chakwas: “Can someone get us back to the ship? We’re all in really bad shape.” Miranda: “We do not have people to spare, sorry.” Me: “Hey, Mordin, I love you, but you are not extra great in combat. Want to escort mission this shit?” Mordin: “Good idea. Joker: need coordinates for pick up.” Miranda: “GOOD. LET’S GO. WE’VE GOT SHIT TO KILL. COME ON.”

At this point, I did feel a little bad for Miranda, but listen: I googled who was best for what, okay. Everyone had to live, okay.

We hiked it through the seeker swarm hallway and it was actually a really cool mechanic! I was impressed!

Thane kept getting into cover outside the protective bubble though, ‘cause he’s a doofus, and Tali and I were just like “pls, son, get inside and stay alive, we can’t take all these collectors just the two of us. I mean, we can, but it’ll go much faster with you helping. get inside the bubble. pls.”

I legitimately thought Samara was going to die of exhaustion before we reached the door. I assume that if she’s not Loyal, she might die there? But everyone was super loyal so it was fine, but I WAS WORRIED.

I had a heart attack when Garrus called for help and we had to bust down the door and save him and the other squad and I WAS SO WOORRRIIEEDD

AND THEN IT LOOKED LIKE HE GOT SHOT IN THE STOMACH AND I LITERALLY SCREAMED I WAS SO TERRIFIED BUT HE WAS FINE AND IT WAS FINE EVERYTHING IS FINE

It didn’t happen, because the game doesn’t support public displays of affection, but if you think that Gen didn’t grab Garrus’ face and kiss the fuck out of him once she’d decided he was alive and not shot, then you and I are not watching the same show.

So, after the traumatized, mid-battle kiss: 

The amount to which I wanted a v small, v scared scene in which Shep got to say a non-goodbye to the LI she is leaving to cover the door as she goes on ahead is astronomical, but the game did not provide, so I’m just going to have to fanfic the shit out of this.

The fucking human-reaper-larva was NASTY AF and I took half a look at it and went “NOPE, I’MA TAKE MY GLASSES OFF AND DO THIS FIGHT BLIND”

my sister laughed at me

I realized after two seconds that that wasn’t going to work ‘cause I couldn’t see the adds, and I had to murder them, too, sooo I put my glasses back on, and it was AWFUL

The “shoot the canisters” part of the fight was SOOOO easy, I was v concerned that I’d messed something up because it was so simple? Just waves of collectors? and then it just FALLS? I was Suspicious.

The Illusive Man chimed in with a “haven’t you people ever heard of working toward goddamned human supremacy” and wanted me to SAVE??? the collector base???? for “““RESEARCH”““???

So I said, “yeah, that’s fucking dumb, we’re not going to do that” and set the place to blow the fuck up

AND THEN I HAD TO FIGHT THE FUCKING TERRIFYING HUMAN REAPER THING AND IT WAS GROSS AND DIFFICULT BUT I WON IT WAS GR9 I DIDN’T EVEN DIE ONCE!!! OR RUN OUT OF AMMO!! IT WAS AMAZING! A MIRACLE!

So then everything blew up and THE PLATFORM STARTED FALLING AND I 100% FOR SURE THOUGHT TALI WAS DEAD

YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW TERRIFIED I WAS

I STARTED CRYING IMMEDIATELY AND THEN SHEP GRABBED HER HAND AND THEN LOST HER GRIP AND THEN THEY LANDED AND THERE WAS A GIANT BEAM ON TOP OF TALI AND I LEGIT STOPPED BREATHING

I STARTED COUGHING BECAUSE I WAS SO UPSET I STRESSED MYSELF INTO A COUGHING FIT IT WAS AWFUL I WAS CRYING AND MY SISTER WAS JUST LIKE “she’s Loyal, you’re fine, she’s fine” and I continued to freak out until she stood up and it was terrifying.

I then told the Illusive Man to fuck right off, stole the Normandy, and got my peeps together to murder some Reapers.

and BOY HOWDY THAT WAS A LOT OF REAPERS LIKE #YIKES???

SO That was the end of ME2!

A brief review: I liked bits of it, and viscerally hated other bits, tbh. I’m still not a fan of the mechanics, but once I figured out which guns to use against which enemies, things did get slightly better. I still hate the very idea of the Collectors--no one needs bug aliens who kidnap and liquefy people, I mean COME ON--but there was some cool stuff with that plotline as a whole. Also, I hate Cerberus, and I wish the game had let me more explicitly publicly pronounce myself as working WITH them out of desperation as opposed to FOR them because we believed in the same things.

Listen, Evil Martin Sheen, you underestimate how much I LOVE ALIENS and how little I care for the human race. So,

anyway

overall: not bad. Looking forward to the third one much more than I expected, tbqh, and that should be starting soon! I do plan to get back into the liveblogging swing of things, but that one WILL be over on the liveblog blog, found here. I’m hoping to start sometime next week, if not before then, as I’d really like to get to Andromeda before I have to fight the internet over spoilers. So, yeah! Thanks for putting up with this liveblog dying and being resurrected in this truncated form. I hope to see you on the liveblog blog for #Megan plays ME3 SOON! :D

[cristalconnors]

BEST OF 2016: TOP 10 SONGS

HONORABLE MENTIONS: (in no order) “I Hope My Life” by James Blake, “Those Were the Days” by Angel Olsen, “The Vapours” by Anna Meredith, “I Can’t Give Everything Away” by David Bowie, “Landcruisin’” by A.K. Paul, “N****s” by Kamaiyah, “Josie’s Past” by Xiu Xiu, “Generation Why” by Weyes Blood, “Keep Your Name” by Dirty Projectors

10. “NO WOMAN” by WHITNEY

“I might never be sure”

It isn’t just those falsetto vocals that convey such loneliness, or its effortless orchestration that evokes an early 70′s folk vibe that is inescapably Californian, that moves me every time I listen to this song. I think it has much more to do with its themes of relocation as a kind of rebirth, or even escape- specifically, to Los Angeles. I moved myself across the country- to L.A.- this year, and it has continually felt at once tremendously exciting and kind of selfish. Like our speaker, I might never be sure of whether or not it was the best move. To be quite honest, I’m not at all sure what Julian Ehrlich means when he croons the titular phrase “no woman,” but whatever it is, I feel it.

9. “YOUR BEST AMERICAN GIRL” by MITSKI

“Your mother wouldn’t approve of how my mother raised me, but I do- I think I do.”

Mitski crafts a remarkably succinct expression of the frustration of not feeling American enough, or participating in a relationship with someone you really like without compromising your identity or agency, exemplified by her gorgeous, soft alto voice that works in perfect harmony with the charged distortion of her guitar, evoking a mid 90′s alternative vibe that transcends that genre’s thematic simplicity. A marvel. 

8. “BEST TO YOU” by BLOOD ORANGE

“I can’t be the girl you want, but I can be the thing you throw away.”

Dev Hynes’ music is intensely personal- a reflection of his thoughts, beliefs, and experiences that make more sense to him than it ever could to a listener. At the same time, this specificity often makes the music more universal, inviting the listener to see themselves in it. When I listen to “Best to You,” I think of the straight boy that I was madly in love with in high school, who I knew could never reciprocate that to me. “I can’t be the girl you want, but I can be the thing you throw away” was a genuine sentiment of mine. Hynes is so gifted at exemplifying these raw emotions with grooves and rhythms that suggest this sadness or inadequateness is universal.   

7. “IT MEANS I LOVE YOU” by JESSY LANZA

“If you want it, come and find my love.”

“It Means I Love You” is nothing short of hypnotic, experimenting with genre and rhythm in fascinating ways that feel like the purest example of what Lanza set out to do with this fabulous record. Kaleidoscopic and disorienting, just like its accompanying video, the collision of beats and Lanza’s almost childlike vocals transcend genre to create something truly exciting; a jubilant dance track that’s downright bizarre. 

6. “30 HOURS” by KANYE WEST

“You wasn’t mine though- but I still drove 30 hours to you.”

“30 Hours” is full of contradictions. It sees Kanye at his most reflective, looking back to his long distance relationship with Sumeke Rainey just after he moved to L.A. for his career when he would regularly drive across the country to visit her. It’s almost shocking to hear West speak so candidly about his much more modest beginnings when his recent work, even other parts of this same song, seem to be a celebration of financial excess and a fundamental misunderstanding of the real world. It reassures the listener that Kanye is still Kanye, aware of his humble past and his persona of late, speaking almost fondly of simpler times. But at the same time, “30 Hours” sees Kanye at his most outlandish- taking phone calls mid-song, rambling about Mos Def, and referencing the Madison Square Garden listening party that was meant to have been the album’s premiere, only to have the track listing drastically change at least twice before the album would officially drop. It’s indicative of the many fascinating inconstancies of The Life of Pablo, and the duality of Kanye West; talented, perceptive Chicago kid and crazy, out of touch mega celebrity. 

5. "WORK” by RIHANNA

“If you had a twin, I would still choose you”

I think one of my favorite things about “Work” is that I don’t really know what she’s talking about. A close reading of the lyrics reveal a story of creative and professional ambition hindering a romantic relationship, and a rich utilization of Jamaican patois. Rihanna has always embraced the dancehall sounds that shaped her, but here she modernizes it and makes it entirely her own with shocking ease. “Work” is a meticulously constructed master class in pop that feels effortless. There’s a reason we lived our lives to it this past spring and well into the summer (or all year and for the rest of our lives) ; it’s sultry, captivating and joyous. 

4. “EXECUTION” by ANOHNI

“It’s an American dream.”

I always dance to “Execution” and wonder if it’s appropriate. Its stellar, infectious beat, underscored by dissonant, droning chords compliment its slyly scathing critique of capital punishment perfectly, but also make for an almost perfect pop dance anthem in its own right. At times, Anohni even sounds like Cher, further contributing to the song’s pop conventionality, at times sounding radio-ready. But then she coos “like the Chinese,” and its immensely clear that this is something decidedly more subversive. It’s a song that you can get entirely swept away with on the dance floor while never forgetting the anger in Anohni’s voice as she pleads for mercy. 

3. “CRANES IN THE SKY” by SOLANGE

“I traveled 70 states…”

The beauty of “Cranes in the Sky” is how simultaneously specific and universal it is. I listened to it the weekend my grandmother died. I listened to it again the morning after the election. It speaks to the pervasiveness of sadness, loneliness, grief, or anything else one foolishly tries to chase away before we’re ready to part with it. At the same time, I’m sure Solange had something more specific in mind when writing it. And I’m sure it evokes other feelings in other people who listen to it. Those melancholy strings understand something intrinsic to sadness, but somehow, the song remains jubilant in its promise of self-discovery for both Solange as an artist, and the listener in their everyday life.

2. “FORMATION” by BEYONCÉ

“When he fuck me good, I take his ass to Red Lobster.”

Beyoncé is more committed than ever to formal experimentation, to honoring her identity as a black woman, to being serious, to being funny, and to changing the game. When the video for “Formation” dropped and she hit that chord on “Texas Bama!” I literally gasped, and by the time she got around to “when he fuck me good I take his ass to Red Lobster,” I had to pick myself up off the floor. Beyoncé changes the definition of what a pop song can be with unorthodox chords and song structure, fun, loving and honest lyrics that celebrate the black experience in America and Black Panther imagery. While Lemonade didn’t become quite the straightforward Womanist opus “Formation” suggested it might be (the film is closer to it,) it remains a truly iconic love letter to Blackness. 

1. “FUTURA FREE” by FRANK OCEAN

“How far is a lightyear?”

A one of a kind stunner in two acts. Absurd imagery and phrases have never been so moving or slyly funny, and the way that Ocean utilizes them to craft a singular statement on fame and success that sounds something like his version of Janis Ian’s “Stars” is, for lack of a better word, genius. Those gentle piano chords make a stunning contrast to the lyrics (”murder me like Selena,” or “don’t let em’ find Tupaaaaaac!”) and that meticulous distortion (is that “Beyonce” that he keeps repeating?) By the time the first act gives way to an equally bizarre interview conducted by his younger brother Ryan, calling back to the album’s recurring theme of nostalgia, it’s clear there isn’t a better way to close out this wildly ambitious and strange opus of a song and album.