#my memory is bad enough without having to try and process 200 changes for a temporary period

[mitchmarner]

october is a rough month because everyone changes to a random halloween url and i don’t know who literally anyone is until november, where i’ll know my mutuals for approximately one month until everyone changes again for christmas urls

[mypunkpansexualtwin]

📓

Hi Bones! You're getting the Big P4 Angst Idea! And it's going under a cut cause it's kind of A Beast even in summary form. Title in my head is Guilty Until Proven Capable or possibly just The Second Time Around. Fair warning, this is gonna get a little rambly.

So this one's a Persona 4 fic inspired by the handful of NG+ fics I've read that play with new game plus as a time loop for the protagonists because that's already a juicy concept. Specifically, it takes place at the beginning of the second time through events after getting the bad ending on December 3rd, Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200, Bad Ending. Narukami wakes up in the Velvet Room the day before he's supposed to leave town and is basically told "you done fucked up, we're gonna give you another shot, but be careful what you try and change." Naturally, after the losses that happened and the evil fog deep unease lingering over town over the three months between making That Choice and leaving town, he jumps right at the chance to fix things. Wakes up on the train going into Inaba and starts the whole cycle over fresh. Things go as expected for most of the first couple of days.

And of course, as is the nature of time travel as a narrative device, the rules and limitations don't get Really Explained until he fucks something up and tries to change too much. Specifically, he tries to prevent Saki Konishi's death.

Specifically, he succeeds in preventing Saki Konishi's death.

And spends the day riding that high until the next morning where he meets up with her again, feels incredibly vindicated that he's already doing better when the bond starts forming and that means she's safe, and... hold up... Magus Arcana? That sounds an awful lot like Magician. And Yosuke's missing from school. Another body's been found. And he knows what's coming at the school assembly, knows what's about to be announced, and somehow seeing it coming makes it so much worse when the principal announces that Yosuke Hanamura has been found murdered. The only thing worse than your best friend being murdered is feeling responsible for it. Even worse than that is not even being able to mourn him properly because at this point you've technically only known him for 3 days.

The second time around, it's Saki Konishi at his side going in to investigate the second victim's death. The second time around, it's not the liquor store in a distorted version of the shopping district but the break room of a dilapidated Junes where Yosuke's last thoughts about the town he hates and the girl who almost makes it worth staying there hang in the stale air and summon the worst parts of the person at Yu's side. The second time around, it's a lot harder to forgive those darkest parts when her shadow talks about how glad she is that he's finally out of her hair and how she only wanted to avenge his death to assuage her guilt at feeling that way.

Harder, but not impossible. She awakens to her persona, Ayame, and again, things proceed mostly as normal.

Next trip to the Velvet Room, the rules get explained: the true victims will always die even if it's not the same ones every time, but not every death that occurred last time was that of a true victim; be careful changing too much from last time lest the team go in just as blind as the first time and twice as out of their depth; face the journey with eyes open not just to what happened as he remembers but as they unfold again, without grief clouding his purpose and they'll find their way to the truth. Easier said than done with one new death on his hands and Nanako's death looming in the future.

Some of the Social Links get shaken up, with Yosuke's father as the new Hanged Man arcana (helping him work through his grief at the loss of his son as he swings wildly between throwing himself blindly into his work, acting as a surrogate helicopter parent to Teddie, and second-guessing everything he's done since his son's death; is he giving his wife space to grieve by taking up the extra work at Junes or is he just hiding from her and his own pain? Is he helping Ted out of the goodness of his own heart because this weird kid needs someone to look after him and it's the right thing to do or is he trying to replace the son he's quickly realizing he didn't know anything about and was probably driving away with the constant moving? Heavy questions to drop on a 16 y/o part timer.) and Naoki replacing Yumi/Ayane as the Sun arcana (medical club rather than drama or band, partly because Naoki cornered him into joining so he could keep an eye on him and get a feel for Narukami's intentions with his sister, and partly because Yu is fascinated by how different the guy is when not numbed by a massive burden of grief he won't let himself process.) And of course letting Saki out of the fridge to be the Magus arcana, as kind and angry and complicated and flawed as the rest of the team, and just as good a friend to him as Yosuke was. With bonus opportunity to relay what Yosuke wanted to tell her about being special if they had both had the chance to live, her rank 10 leads to her awakening to the persona Kushinadahime.

And of course, this wouldn't be complete without addressing the lingering dread of what Yu is certain Nanako's fate is gonna be. Initially he debates keeping an arm's length between them or being The Best Big Bro On The Planet for her and settles on the latter because of course. Throws himself into it when he's not working on the balancing act between essentially metagaming and being complacent in the investigation. As November draws closer and closer, he eventually convinces himself to interfere like he did with Saki in the beginning. Because the most likely person to die in Nanako's place is his uncle and if he knew everything, it's the call Dojima would make. Because he's spent another year of watching his uncle brushing off his daughter and breaking her heart because he can't look her in the eye and deep down, it's hard to feel charitable seeing that and knowing what's going to happen, even knowing why. So he starts working on his argument to convince his parents to adopt Nanako when the time comes.

Through a little extra interference, it's Dojima who gets dragged into the tv alongside Namatame after he fails to kidnap Nanako, although she gets hurt in the struggle to take her and still ends up in the hospital. Rather than Namatame trying to flee after they wreck, it's Adachi who shoves them both in and convinces the team Namatame took Dojima as a hostage. Their shared dungeon is Purgatory rather than Heaven, and Yu's not sure if it's better or worse. Things mostly go as they do in game, although there's also a confrontation with Dojima's shadow before the big fight. It's rough, but they bring everyone home.

Of course, they get the choice right the second time around with Namatame, and when Nanako recovers from the fog everyone's relieved as hell, especially Yu. Y'know, until the guilt of "oh god I was willing to sacrifice my uncle and orphan my cousin to try and save her, what the hell is wrong with me?" hits him like a ton or twelve of bricks. Now that Dojima has seen everything in the other world, has seen firsthand that Yu was telling the truth, Yu confesses everything everything, including the fact that he's done this before and the choice he was going to make. It's, naturally, a lot to process.

The confrontation with Adachi is even angrier, in part because he's done more this time around, in part because of Yu's own guilt. But again, things go as they do in-game.

Playing with the idea of either the Orb of Clarity or Myriad Truths at the very end of the true ending giving everyone else the memories made in the previous "playthrough" or just. Letting that be one of those Protag Things They Never Tell The Team, either way it's gonna be bittersweet as hell because I'm a monster.

I have put so much thought into this work that's gonna be too damn big for me to ever finish if I ever tried to do it. But I need it. But that means I have to write it. Naturally, Andi, if you wanna take this into dms and yell at/with me over this idea, then by all means please do. It's a big enough longfic idea that that's probably the only way it's gonna see anything resembling the light of day.

Send me a 📓 (or other book emoji) and I'll talk about a fic idea I daydream about but haven't gotten around to writing!

[eldritchteaparty]

Chapters: 6/20 Fandom: The Magnus Archives (Podcast) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist Characters: Martin Blackwood, Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Tim Stoker (The Magnus Archives), Sasha James, Rosie Zampano, Oliver Banks, Original Elias Bouchard, Peter Lukas Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Fix-It, Post-Canon Fix-It, Scars, Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, I'll add characters and tags as they come up, Reference to injuries and blood, Character Death In Dream, Nudity (not sexual or graphic), Nightmares, Fighting

Summary: Following the events of MAG 200, Jon and Martin find themselves in a dimension very much like the one they came from--with second chances and more time.

Chapter Summary: Martin considers the repercussions of their argument, and he gets "his" stuff back from storage.

New chapter of my post-canon fix-it!

Read on AO3 above or read here.

Tumblr master post with all chapters is here.

***

The only word Martin could think of to describe the way he felt that morning was hangover. He woke up even earlier than usual and extricated himself from beneath Jon, who was entirely oblivious to the outside world. At least they had managed to communicate something, although it wasn’t the way he would have preferred to do it. At least they had made up, although he knew the actual fallout likely remained to be seen; arguments like that always seemed to twist their way back around.

Some of what Jon had told him was disturbing. He wished he knew what had come from Jon on that last day, and what had come from something that wasn’t Jon. Martin still couldn’t picture him willingly destroying the world. The idea that everything might have been different, that he might have been able to save Jon from that decision if he had just woken up that night, was hard to process. On the other hand, now that they were here, he had a new appreciation for Jon’s insistence on not letting the fears out. It was bad enough that they were responsible for the end of just two people in one dimension. The damage wasn’t just theoretical, and of course Jon had likely understood the possibilities in a way Martin couldn’t have before.

If he was being very, very honest, though, the thing that hurt the most was what Jon would have been willing to do to him. Before, it had felt like abandonment; Jon had been willing to leave him. It was that simple, and that selfish. It wasn’t that he didn’t rationally understand how it could be reasonable, or even an act of strength, if Jon really thought it was what he’d needed to do. It was that he himself could not have been that reasonable or strong about it. He didn’t believe he could have made a decision that would have led to them being apart, and like he’d told Jon—it had hurt that Jon could.

Now, though, he realized Jon had never seen it that way. Jon had sincerely believed that becoming the pupil of the Eye would not have changed him. He had believed he wasn’t sacrificing himself, that they could have still been together. He’d said that. Martin had almost forgotten, because he’d been trying so hard to tell Jon that Melanie and Georgie and Basira had been on their way to blow up the gas main, but now the words came back to him: We can be together, here. Until it’s over. And then—when that had failed—Jon had tried to send him away, but Martin understood now that even that hadn’t been a separation. Not for Jon, the way he was then. Jon would have kept Martin living in that world, whatever the cost, while he tortured himself driving it to its end.

Of course, it was also possible that the Eye had such a hold on Jon at that time that none of those thoughts had really been his—but if that was the case, there was no way Martin was going to allow him to do anything that would help him reconnect to it. He wouldn’t help Jon lose himself again. Whatever he wanted to do here, there had to be another way.

He had no idea how to approach any of this, and he certainly didn’t want to confront Jon with it when he woke up, so he decided to focus on something else instead—like his neck. It hurt. He supposed that made sense, given how he must have slept. After an unsuccessful attempt to stretch it out, he moved on to pick up the papers that were still on the floor. It hadn’t felt right to pick them up while Jon was gone; he’d wanted the reminder of why Jon wasn’t there, so maybe he wouldn’t let things get so heated the next time. He’d told himself he’d pick them up later, but then he’d fallen asleep and Jon had come home and it just hadn’t happened.

By the time he needed to wake Jon, Martin had decided that, for now, he was going to continue to do whatever Jon would allow to support his efforts. He didn’t imagine there was any chance Jon would slow down of his own accord, and at least that way he could make sure he was ok. The worst-case scenario would be if Jon started keeping secrets.

Jon was tired that morning. Martin could tell Jon had the same emotional hangover that he did, but it seemed like more than that. He occasionally stopped to stare distractedly into nothing. He took so long in the shower that Martin had to check on him twice, and ended up finding things to do in the bedroom until Jon was done. He was worried when Jon slipped his arm through his on their walk to work. That wasn’t a normal thing; Jon seemed to be relying on him to keep walking. Martin asked if he was ok, and Jon nodded absently in a way that wasn’t particularly comforting.

The fact was that he seemed to be getting worse, not better.

***

They were somehow only a little bit late, not that anyone was paying attention. Martin had to enter some updates in their online system, so he spent the morning at his desk. Tim was back from his investigation and Sasha was in her office, and despite his worries about Jon it was almost a nice morning with the four of them together. That concerned him; it meant he was getting too comfortable.

As he worked, checking records and following up on notes he’d made the previous week, he discovered another reason for concern. He realized for the first time that some memories of this world had blurred into others, his real memories, with no specific moment of revelation. He very clearly recalled several weeks spent tracking down some files that had been returned to the main library instead of the archives, and he didn’t realize until he was shaking his head over the enormous waste of time that it had only happened here.

Although it was an unimportant memory, it brought up a lot of questions. They still didn’t know exactly what had happened to the Jon and Martin from this world, and clearly they were connected somehow. What if Martin stopped being able to tell the difference between memories from the two worlds? Or worse, what if memories from this world were replacing memories of the one they came from? What if that was why it was so easy to feel occasional moments of contentment—because he was actually forgetting what had happened?

He automatically began to run through his memories, just to see, going backward from the moment they had arrived here. The tower, the panopticon, Annabelle Cane; his slowly expanding terror as Jon had grown more and more drawn to it all. The fear domains, all of them, but especially the corpse roots and the apartment fires and the domain that belonged to him—where people suffered without even the comfort that another living being knew or cared for their existence.

The cabin in Scotland, where everything had gone irretrievably wrong. How had it happened? He had left Jon alone, for one thing. Maybe he should have stayed, but he couldn’t have known. Jon had been trying not to know things, which should have been right. Avoid using evil powers. It still seemed like it should have been right. That was the worst part, wasn’t it? Every wrong decision looked like the right one. It had been so much worse for Jon, of course. If Peter Lukas had been able to see into him like Jonah Magnus could—if he had not pushed it just a bit too far—Martin could have very easily been the one to set off an apocalypse. Instead, he was thrown into the Lonely, unwittingly sealing Jon’s fate in the process. He wondered if he had—

An upsettingly familiar voice broke through his thoughts. Martin was so deeply distracted that at first, he thought he had manufactured it himself, out of his memories. When he looked up, though, he was met with the site of not only Peter Lukas, but also Elias Bouchard, and it took him a second to remember where he was. He started to stand up, but somehow had lost track of his physical surroundings, and managed to get tangled up in his chair. He ended up on the ground.

He could feel the entire room focus in on him, but he couldn’t look away from the two men in front of him. Peter was almost exactly as he remembered him, while Elias could not have been more different—it was hard to believe he was the same person. Of course, in most ways, he wasn’t. Peter chuckled uncomfortably while Martin continued to stare, and turned to the man standing next to him. “It seems we’ve disturbed your assistant.”

“Martin.” His name, spoken nearby, finally brought him out of his stupor. He looked up expecting to find Jon, but found Tim instead.

“Martin,” he said again, “are you all right?”

“Yeah.” He looked around. Sasha had come to the door of her office to see what was going on; Jon had gotten up too.

“I keep saying we need to replace that chair.” Tim laughed nervously and reached to help Martin to his feet. It felt like it took forever to stand up.

“Yeah. Yeah, that chair, it’s, um…” Martin’s words were swallowed up by silence as he turned his eyes to the floor.

“Looks like we’re ok here, then.” Elias clapped his hands and turned back to Peter. “Shall we continue?”

Peter took one last discomfiting look at Martin before they continued into Sasha’s office. She gave Martin a concerned glance as she ushered Elias and Peter in, and pursed her lips as he shook his head. She closed the door behind them.

“Martin, are you—” Jon started to ask.

“I’m fine.” He really was more embarrassed than anything, and set about righting his chair so he could retreat back into his data entry as quickly as possible. “I—I’m sorry.”

Jon started to say something else, but was interrupted as Elias came back into the room, setting Sasha’s door against the jamb. “Everything all right?”

“Yep.” Tim patted Martin on the back, just hard enough to startle him again. “Everything is perfectly fine.”

Elias nodded, looking curiously from Tim to Martin to Jon. “Well, in any case, I want to apologize. I meant to come by last week to see how the two of you were doing, but, well… as you all know, I hate this place and avoid being here whenever possible.” He spoke the last part under his breath and grinned, the sarcastic sort of grin that doesn’t reach the eyes. It was a look Martin could not recall ever seeing on Elias’s face before in his life, but somehow it fit. “Still, I should have checked in. I’ll catch up with you soon. And Martin—get a new chair? That’s embarrassing.”

And with that, he disappeared back into Sasha’s office.

“Well,” Tim said as he leaned back against Martin’s desk. “I’ve seen some reactions to Peter Lukas, but I think that is my new favorite.”

“Sorry.” Martin could feel how red his face was.

“Martin, are you—are you really ok?” He looked over to see intense concern on Jon’s face, and he knew Jon wasn’t asking about his fall.

“Yeah,” he replied, as reassuringly as he could. “I—I really am.”

Jon didn’t seem convinced, but Tim got Martin’s attention again. “Let’s get lunch. You need a break.”

“Oh, I—I would, but I brought mine today.” He gestured toward the paper sack on the corner of his desk. “I have to leave a bit early, so I thought I’d work through lunch.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I have to go pay some fees and pick up some stuff my old apartment building put in storage.”

“How are you getting there?”

“I was going to take the tube out,” Martin replied, realizing he hadn’t thought it through entirely. “I guess I hadn’t planned for getting back, but it’s just going to be some clothes and stuff for now… I can get a cab if it’s too much.”

“I’ll drive you,” Tim announced.

“Oh, no, thanks. I appreciate it, but—”

“It’s really not a problem.”

Martin considered; having a car really would be a lot more convenient. He didn’t know how much stuff was in storage, and he definitely didn’t know how it had been stored. Maybe it wasn’t even packed. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

“Not at all. Besides, I want to talk with you.” Seeing the look on Martin’s face, he added, “No more questions. Mostly, I want to apologize properly for last week.”

“Well… yeah, ok. If you really don’t mind.”

“Nope. See you after lunch.” Tim headed for the door.

“Thanks,” Martin called after him.

As soon as Tim was gone, Martin turned back to Jon.

“You said you didn’t need help.” It was a statement, not an accusation, but Martin felt like he had to defend himself.

“I don’t! You heard him—he was really insistent. And he does have a car.”

“I can still go,” Jon said.

“It’s not a big thing.”

Jon bit his lip.

“Jon, you’re not feeling great, and I know how important it is to you to—to do your work. It’s fine.”

“You’re important, too.” Again, this was merely a statement, and again, it provoked too strong a reaction from Martin. This one, though, he tried to cover up.

“Yeah, well—I know that. You don’t have to prove it. And… if you’re not busy, or sleeping, you can help me put stuff away when I get home. Deal?”

Jon sighed, but agreed. “Deal,” he said, before turning back to his desk.

***

Martin ended up being very thankful for Tim’s help, and especially for his car. After they stopped by the rental office and he paid his fees, the storage lot was farther than he had imagined. Additionally, while most of his things were in bags, they were heavy contractor bags and there didn’t seem to be any logic as to what had gone where—if he’d come on his own, he would have had to spend a lot of time dumping things out and rearranging all of it to make it manageable. It would have been a pain, even if he had ended up calling a cab. As it was, though, Tim was able to help him with the heavier bags, and he didn’t have to sort everything out on the spot, so they finished with plenty of time.

“Let me get you a drink on the way back,” Tim offered, as he closed the boot on the final bag. “I still owe you an apology.”

“Tim, you just did me a huge favor. You don’t need to—”

“That was helping a friend. Apologies are measured in drinks.”

Martin considered. He did want to go. “Do you mind if I check on Jon?” he asked.

“Go right ahead,” Tim said. “I’ll wait in the car.”

Martin pulled out his phone, and thought about texting, but decided to call. Jon should be home, and that meant there was a good chance he was asleep. The phone did ring a bit long before he picked up.

“Everything all right?” Jon asked, and Martin thought he did sound like he may have just been roused from a nap.

“Yeah. I was actually just calling to ask you that.”

“Well, I’m home.”

“Good. Um… We got done a bit early, and Tim was asking if I wanted to grab a drink. Would you mind if I did?”

“Not at all.”

“Are you sure? Did you eat yet?” Martin asked. He kept his voice low so Tim wouldn’t overhear, although he didn’t exactly know why.

“Not yet.”

“I left one of those frozen meals on top in the freezer for you. Will you eat it?”

“Oh. Yes, of course. Thank you.”

Martin cringed at what he was about to say, but did it anyway. “Would you make it now?”

There was a pause. “Martin, are you serious?”

“Yes? I mean, you don’t have to, but I’d feel better if—”

“Fine.” Jon sighed, and Martin heard the sound of the freezer door opening a few moments later. “I’m doing it. Stop fretting and go have a drink.”

“Ok.” He was relieved. “Jon—thanks.”

“Go.” The call ended, and Martin couldn’t help but smile.

“OK, we’re good,” Martin told Tim as he climbed into the passenger seat. “Sure you won’t let me get it, though?”

“One hundred percent,” Tim answered. “How’s Jon?”

Martin debated whether he should give the polite answer or the real one, and went with something in between. “He’s… ok? To be honest, I’m a little worried about him.”

“Me too.” Tim started the car. “He wasn’t looking good last week when I was around.”

“Yeah?” Martin asked.

“He just seems tired,” Tim continued. “I mean, he’s always tired, ever since I’ve known him, but this is different. Tired and… distracted, I guess. Not like him.”

Martin nodded in agreement. “I’ve been trying to get him to take it easy, but—”

“He doesn’t care much for that, does he?”

“No. No, he does not.” Martin snorted, and Tim gave him a little grin as they headed out.

Soon they were sitting together at a table with a couple of beers in front of them.

“So,” Tim began, “I am officially apologizing for how I acted last week. I was a dick.”

Martin sighed. “No, you weren’t. You were worried, and Jon and I haven’t exactly been easy to—well, easy to anything.”

“Forgive me anyway?”

“If you insist,” Martin replied. “I forgive you, I guess.”

“Thanks. Cheers,” Tim said, holding up his glass. Martin obliged with a clink, and took a polite sip while Tim gulped down about half of what was in his glass.

“And for the record, I still don’t believe that you’re telling us everything, but—well, I imagine you have your reasons. I got to thinking over the weekend,” Tim said, after he had wiped his mouth off with his arm. “Sasha asked me not to say too much, but you know I was looking into some police records last week.”

Martin nodded. “Yeah, did something turn up?”

“Sasha was right. There was more. More than people had come to talk to us about.”

“For instance?”

Well… for instance, there was a kidnapping case about a month back. It turned out to be related to this cult that’s apparently been around forever, but never really done anything before. Not anything worth anyone’s time, anyway. I won’t get into details, I promised Sasha, but some of the officers thought they saw some things that… just shouldn’t have been possible. Not one or two officers, like a lot of them. And they lost some people.”

Martin wanted to ask questions, confirm his suspicions, but after what had happened with Oliver Banks, he didn’t want to push it again. “That’s horrible.”

“And here’s the real kicker.” Tim stopped to take another big drink. “There have been enough of these incidents that they’ve started asking the officers to sign a form saying they won’t talk about it. There’s been sort of an upset over it, actually. It’s all got lots of them pretty nervous, but no one is willing to make any outside statements, either. Not officially.”

Martin nodded again. This was really bad, but if it was happening, it was better that he know. He would tell Jon too, of course.

“Well, anyway, the point was I got to thinking—I know you and Jon disappeared around the same time all of this started. I’m not sure what to make of any of it, but whatever is going on… whatever you went through or feel like you went through, I understand why you might not want to talk about it.”

Martin knew he should say again that couldn’t remember, that he was sure it was nothing like that, it was probably completely unrelated—but he couldn’t. For one thing, it was a terrible lie. Everything Tim had witnessed—the way they had disappeared, the time they were gone, the way they had shown up again—it all fit together. For another thing, he knew he’d already said too much the last time they were out, and if he kept trying to lie he’d just look like an ass. Mostly, though, Martin hated lying to friends, and he couldn’t pretend anymore that this Tim didn’t feel like a friend.

So instead, he just nodded again, and took another sip of his beer.

“Well, if you need anything, I’m here.” Tim finished the remainder of his glass. “Speaking of which—where are we bringing your stuff?”

“Oh.” Martin realized he and Jon had never actually explained their living situation, and he felt the color rise into his face. “Jon’s flat?”

“I figured as much.” Tim leaned toward him. “So is that a long-term situation, or—?”

Martin didn’t know how to answer that, because he realized he didn’t know the answer. When they’d first gotten here, of course, they had just needed somewhere to go, and Jon had clearly wanted him there. Since then, he’d been so worried about Jon that he hadn’t questioned whether or not he should stay; it had just felt obvious that Jon needed him there. He had never actually asked him though, had he?

“I—I don’t know,” he stammered. “I guess we hadn’t talked about it.”

“Oh, god, relax,” Tim groaned. “If Jon didn’t want you there, you’d know. Subtlety is not his strength.”

“Sure.” Tim was basically right, of course. Still, they had been operating in survival mode for so long that maybe Jon hadn’t even realized not living together was an option. Mostly, though, it just wasn’t how people were supposed to move in together. They weren’t supposed to do it because they were scared.

Martin took a much longer sip of his beer, and was grateful when Tim changed the subject.

***

Miraculously, Jon was awake when they got back. He offered to help carry the bags upstairs from the car, but Tim and Martin both insisted he should let them take care of it, and he did seem relieved once he realized how heavy they were. Martin thanked Tim profusely for the help—it really would have taken a lot longer without him—and Tim said again he was happy to do it, and that he was looking forward to getting drinks with both of them sometime soon, when Jon was up for it.

“What did he mean, when I’m up for it?” Jon asked, after he was gone.

“Jon, everyone can tell you’re…” Martin considered what word to use. “Tired.”

“Is it really that bad?”

Martin wanted to ask Jon if that was a joke. Instead, he went with, “Yeah. It is.”

“I didn’t realize.” Jon was nervous. “Do you think Tim suspects anything?”

He decided not to mention that Tim very definitely did; it would only add stress, and that was not what Jon needed right now. He took a different route.

“Tim’s concerned, that’s all. You’re his friend and he’s worried.”

“Am I?”

“Yes. You are. I know there are a lot of complicating factors, and no, he’s not our Tim”—Martin stumbled a little over those words— “but in the simplest terms, he is Tim, and he is our friend.”

Jon sighed. “I’m not sure how friendly he would feel toward me if he knew what I’ve done.”

“What you—” Martin started to protest, but he reconsidered. He’d had enough arguing last night, and as obvious as his own responsibility for everything seemed to him, he doubted Jon would agree. “Never mind. How are you doing?”

“I’m all right,” Jon answered. “Good enough to help you sort through some of this.”

“Oh, Jon, I was just talking, you don’t have to—”

“I want to.” Then, with a slight smile, he added, “I certainly can’t let Tim take all the credit.”

“Right.” Martin shook his head, but also ended up smiling. “So, I’ll warn you—there’s not been a lot of organization. I maybe had to grab a little more than I actually intended.”

Ultimately, they dumped most of it onto the sitting room floor and began to sort everything into piles. Clothes Martin needed, things that could go to the office, some things they could use in the kitchen, stuff to go back to storage. As they sorted, Martin told Jon what he’d learned from Tim, which he suspected was related to the People’s Church of the Divine Host. He also told him about the police officers who had recently been sectioned. Jon nodded in concern while he spoke, but didn’t say much.

Before long, they had sorted out most of the obvious things. Martin was left going through a few boxes that had come along, containing mostly papers and legal documents and breakables and other things that couldn’t easily be thrown into bags.

“Want me to put some clothes away while you’re going through that?” Jon asked.

Martin cleared his throat. “Actually, it kind of came up when I was talking to Tim, and um—well, I realized we never talked about how long I would be staying here.”

“What do you mean, how long?” Jon seemed completely confused.

“Well, I kind of just… moved in. And we never talked about it.”

“What?” Jon asked again.

“You know, normally people talk about this. Moving in together.” Martin shifted uncomfortably in his spot on the floor.

“What did you want to talk about?” Jon asked.

“I mean, this is your place. I know I lost mine, or he lost his, or whatever, and this made sense when we got here, but—”

“Do you not want to be here?”

“What? No, I do, of course I do, but I just assumed it was what you wanted, too.”

“Because it is what I wanted.”

“I just hadn’t asked, that’s all.” Admittedly, Martin was relieved, but it still didn’t feel quite right. “I mean, we kind of had to be together before, and we have more time now to think about things, and I want this to really be a choice going forward because I do want to—well, I know I’m already on your nerves with the—”

“Stop. Listen to me,” Jon said. “I want you here. As long as you want to be here. I choose this.”

“Ok.” Martin stopped trying to explain himself, even though he wasn’t sure Jon really understood. He wasn’t trying to convince Jon he should move out, after all. He just wanted a sense of normalcy, to stop feeling like they were hurtling toward some inevitable doom. He didn’t want every moment to count; he wanted a future. He wasn’t sure how to put that into words, though.

“Can I help pay rent, at least?”

Jon got to his feet and grabbed a stack of shirts that were closest to him. “I really don’t care. At this point, money seems so… mundane.”

“Definitely in the shaving and eating category,” Martin agreed. “Still…”

“If it makes you comfortable, yes, of course.” Jon headed toward the bedroom, and Martin turned his attention back to the boxes in front of him.

He made it most of the way through with no trouble. Most of the things in the boxes could go back into storage; a few things, like his birth certificate, he would keep. And then he found a copy of his mother’s death certificate. He didn’t even have to look at the date to know; he remembered. It had happened here on the exact same day it had happened for him. Everything about it had been the same, actually. Not just when she passed, but all of it; everything about his relationship with her had been exactly the same. He didn’t understand why he felt so much disappointment.

“Martin?” Jon touched his shoulder. “What’s that?”

“Hm?” Martin glanced back and up at Jon.

“It’s just—you’ve been looking at it for five minutes. You haven’t moved.”

“Oh. It’s, um—well, look.” It was easier than saying it. He held it up until Jon recognized it.

“Ah.” Jon set down the clothes in his hand and sat down next to Martin.

“I guess—” Martin sighed. “I guess it was all just so—maybe I’d hoped that they had something to do with it, you know? But they didn’t. They weren’t here then. It was just how she was. And maybe it was how I was, too. Maybe I—”

“No.” Jon leaned against him, and gently rested his hand on the back of his shoulder. “You did nothing wrong.”

“Do you know what Elias showed me? Or Jonah, I guess? While you were—”

“I heard the tape, yes.”

“It was true, wasn’t it? She hated me.”

“She—she was ill, Martin. She loved you when she was well.” Martin nodded, and Jon leaned in even closer. “But just because she loved you doesn’t mean she was a good mother.”

“No. She wasn’t, actually.” Martin closed his eyes, and tried to just appreciate Jon’s presence, his warmth. “She was awful.”

Jon nodded.

“You know, I’ve never told anyone that.” Martin already felt ashamed. “Well, anyone except me.”

“Oh—right.” Jon knew what he meant.

“But it wasn’t her fault.”

“Does it matter if it was?”

“Yes. It does.” Martin tried to ignore the tear that squeezed its way out through his eyelids, because trying to stop them only ever seemed to bring more of them. “Jon—was the other part true too? Do I really look like my—like him?”

Jon hesitated, but eventually answered. “Yes. But that doesn’t mean you’re anything like him.”

“Do you know what he was like?”

“Yes. It was an accident, but I—” Jon paused. “I thought I needed to know what Elias could do, and, well… I couldn’t control it that well then. I saw more than I meant to. Is there anything you want to know?”

Martin felt another hot tear slide down his face, and tried to ignore that one too. “Am I like him?”

“No,” Jon said quietly. “Not at all.”

“Then I don’t need to know anything else.”  A third tear fell, and a fourth, and he couldn’t ignore it anymore. He raised his arm to wipe his face, but Jon stopped him.

“Sorry. It’s been a long day,” Martin mumbled. “I’m—”

“No.” Jon turned Martin’s head toward him, and wiped his cheek with his thumb. “Don’t apologize.”

“Oh, come on. I’ve seen you cry once, and it was because—”

Jon kissed him.

“Jon—”

“Hush.” Jon crawled over Martin to straddle his lap, and kissed him again. Everything that had been swimming around in Martin’s head—their argument, Peter, his mother—it fell away, and all that was left was Jon. He let himself really breathe for the first time that day, resting his face against Jon’s shirt as they held each other.

“I love you,” Jon told him, when Martin looked at him.

“I love you too.” He turned his face up so Jon could kiss him again.

They stayed there until Jon’s hand gradually dropped from Martin’s face to his neck, and eventually down his arm, and Martin realized he was falling asleep.

“You awake?”

Jon didn’t answer him, and Martin didn’t particularly want to let go—so he picked him up, shifting Jon’s arms to his shoulders and then wrapping his own arms around Jon’s waist. He’d never done it before, but it was surprisingly easy; Jon was disturbingly light. Jon woke up enough to have a moment of panic when Martin stood up, and tightened his grip on Martin’s neck, but quickly relaxed and let himself be carried him to the bedroom.

“You all right?” Martin asked after he set him down on the bed.

“Mm.” Jon turned to lie on his side, and Martin brushed back the hair that had come loose.

“Jon, I’m really worried about you.”

“I’ll be ok,” Jon replied, catching Martin’s hand as he closed his eyes again. “I have you.”

[flightfoot]

I have searched, and searched for the Marinette salt people claim is so prevalent out there, and have found like, one fic. Whereas on Ao3 alone Alya has over 200 salt fics, Adrien has over 150, their teacher over 60, and Marinette salt or Marinette bashing aren't even official tags and only have like 3 fics together in total. Like, people disliked Marinette, but disliking and bashing a character are two different things.

Yeaaaah... while there are more Marinette bashing fics out there, I think I’ve seen less than ten in my entire time on AO3. There were some that criticize Marinette, but even those don’t seem to have been super prevalent (at least not to the point where people can easily point to a ton of them). But fics that portray Marinette completely unsympathetically and try to proclaim that she’s an awful person who deserves only pain and suffering? Yeah, not so much. Even the Marinette-bashing fics I HAVE seen have rarely tried to ruin her life. Heck, I don’t even remember seeing any that took her Miraculous away, and that’s a staple in Adrien saltfics, nor have the few Marinette saltfics generally made her super violent and dangerous; generally she’s just been portrayed as being mean. Nor have I seen a lot of the whole ‘Well Marinette’s violent and dangerous, therefore she deserves to be beaten up and suffer and maybe die (though possibly from something unrelated to being beat up) but no one cares much because she was a horrible person anyway’ fics, thankfully. I know of like... ONE fic that hated Marinette to anywhere near that extent? But...

Well, something else notable; the fics that tend to hardcore bash Marinette, the very few of them out there, aren’t mega popular. If Marinette’s portrayed wholly unsympathetically, without her thought process and emotions being given any weight, if she’s just being treated as a villain, it’s rare for the story to break 100 kudos.

For Alya and Adrien bashing though? The mostly absurd bashing stories often EASILY soar past 500 kudos. So it’s not just a matter of how many fics like that there are; there will always be some insane fics. But how popular those fics are when they come out.

I think as far as Marinette saltfics go, well... generally people have told me that they were prominent back in S1. Considering how many years ago that came out, I don’t think people are remembering the fics themselves all that well, but more how they felt about them; memories tend to degrade like that after a few years. So while they objectively may have barely been noticeable by the salt standards in the fandom these days for Alya and Adrien and the rest of the class, they felt really bad at the time.

I’ve noticed that when people who say that sort of thing are actually pressed about particular fics; well, really when pressed about particular Marinette saltfics more generally, people have trouble dredging them up. They’re more likely to give descriptions of some they remember reading at some point and then declaring victory, but without any actual evidence backing it up. And those fics may have been real, but with extenuating circumstances that you get from actually reading the fic, may not be as impactful as they seem to think. There’s this one infamous Marinette suicide fic, which is bad but... it’s under 1000 words and had less than five faves on FFN, last I checked. It’s not that influential, nor is it wrong enough to really show that the author put a crapton of effort into trying to destroy the character as much as possible. AO3 has a lot more salty Marinette suicide fics than that, for instance, but salty in the “no one loved her and everyone betrayed her, but now that she’s dead from their neglect and abuse they’ll be really sorry and she’ll get her revenge posthomously!” sort of Pro-Marinette revenge fantasy fic, and THOSE have hundreds of kudos and are thousands of words long.

Apparently there are little hits of very subtle Marinette salt that were sometimes slipped into fics back in the day, where she was lightly scolded for not loving Chat, for instance, and those were harder to identify before starting the fic, while salt these days is usually more obvious and easily filtered out. I can’t attest to that myself, but it seems at least feasible.

But people who claim that AO3 was rife with Marinette bashing and it was just as bad as the Adrien bashing and Alya bashing nowadays? Good luck getting them to actually back that up, especially with something that shows widespread, major bashing fics that are incredibly popular, like you can with bashing for the other characters. Like, giving a tag that you can go through to see how terrible the bashing is? Good luck. 

Also people claiming that the Marinette bashing was nearly as bad as the Adrien bashing and Alya bashing these days may have just not actually looked through the bashing tags on AO3 and checked in on the fics themselves, and just assumed that they can’t possibly be as bad as the person is making them out to be, and they’ve gotta be the equivalent of the Marinette salt they saw back in the day, and they’re just complaining now because it’s THEIR fave being given that treatment. I’ve run into that before, and when I actually went into more detail on what saltfics were like these days and linked to a series of recent saltfics (to show how widespread it is, since there have been that many extreme saltfics that updated within a short span of time), they changed their tune because they honestly didn’t realize the salt was like that these days. So that’s something to check for; whether they ACTUALLY know what the bashing’s like that you’re complaining about.

[kathleen-meyer-lyme-survivor]

DISCLAIMER:  I have signed a waiver and become a contributor to an upcoming book by a fellow, healed Lyme patient. Some or all of this story may be published in the coming months. I have added and updated some of this information 9.12.2020, so hopefully I will not violate any copyright laws. 

 

NOTE:  Do not assume everything I write here or on my Facebook Lyme page will help. Everyone heals differently. Working with a knowledgeable, sincere doctor and finding the right combination of medication, herbs, personal lifestyle and diet changes will help. One size doesn’t fit all for Lyme disease treatments. Don’t be afraid to research and consult with your doctor. Get a notebook and write down EVERYTHING; diet, exercise, symptoms, dates, times, and ANY physical or emotional stress-causing events. Stress seems to be the biggest culprit of all diseases. Hypocrites stated, “All disease begins in the gut”. HE WAS RIGHT!! 

 

NAME:  Kathleen Meyer 

I live in Northern VA. I am a retired, 60+ year old Grandmother. I am widowed, and I was living alone when Lyme hit. Symptoms began between September 12-14, 2012. 

 

BACKSTORY:  September 12, 2012. I felt something prick my lower back. When I reached around to check, the area was very hot to touch. This was in my car in Reston, Virginia, on a 90+ degree day. I had left the car windows open slightly during the work day. 

The previous two weeks, I had been on vacation to the Pacific Northwest, to visit my Sister. While there, I visited a national park, which is highly populated by deer and other furry animals; large and small. There was hiking and a few photo ops while sitting on a rock wall. Deer roam around freely in the town where my Sister lives. 

After going to my family doctor almost daily between 9/14-10/12 to complain of strange symptoms, I was finally tested for Lyme, West Nile virus and Rocky Mountain Spotted fever. My doctor was skeptical at first, but I kept insisting the symptoms weren’t normal for any flu I had ever had. When I mentioned living by woods and recently spending time in a national park, I was taken more seriously.  

 

I was diagnosed with Lyme on October 12,2012, (clinically by relating symptoms) and blood work. Side note: Because I had Mono at age 18, I was also diagnosed with Mono “exposed”. I was instructed to go home, stay on bedrest and get clearance from an infectious disease doctor, before returning to work. I was on sick leave and coworker’s leave donations between 10/15-11/13/2012. I was also instructed NOT to work or look at work email while out sick; which I now understand completely. The philosophy seems to be, “Being out on sick leave means you’re too sick to be at work, so don’t try to do any work at home”. Never mind that after two weeks of bedrest, going stir crazy and wanting to do something, is very normal. 

 

TREATMENTS:  I was immediately placed on Doxycycline 200 mg, by the family doctor, for 20 days. That didn’t work. Then Doxycycline 200 mg for 10 days. When that didn’t work, there was 30 days additional. When I ran out, I waited between prescriptions about a week or two, to see if symptoms would come back. Symptoms kept coming back. I was on/off Doxycycline for a total of 60 days. My insurance company wouldn’t authorize more than 60 days, so I was given Cefuroxime 500 mg for 30 days. 

 

NOTE:  At the beginning of the Cefuroxime prescription I doubled the dose for the first 4 days, just to see what would happen. I realize that wasn’t a very smart thing to do, but I wanted to kill what was making me so sick. After the 4 days, I used the prescription correctly. At the end of the 30 days, no symptoms returned.  

 

NOTE:  I always eat yogurt in between any oral antibiotic dose. The reason is because all antibiotics kill all bacteria, including the beneficial bacteria we need in our gut, where the main part of the immune system is located. The other part of the immune system is our brain. The brain and gut communicate with each other UNLESS we have an illness like Lyme. The brain is affected and doesn't communicate correctly with the gut during Lyme, and probably during other autoimmune illnesses. 

 

MYSTERIOUS SYMPTOMS BEFORE TREATMENT:  High blood pressure, cardiomegaly, chronic bronchitis, prolapsed mitre heart valve, GERD, Barretts esophagus, large hiatal hernia. Other symptoms; short term memory issues, difficulty with vision, floaters, reading, sensitive to bright light and sunshine. Difficulty walking, bumping into walls, problems with grip and dropping things. Insomnia, sometimes several nights in a row. Constant buzzing, tingling, pain throughout my entire body. Chest pain, head and neck pain, difficulty with bowels, difficulty swallowing and anxiety from feeling so ill for no known reason, except Lyme. I was able to swallow correctly again, after an endoscopy and scraping of webbed growth (non-cancerous). 

 

WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS TO KNOW:  ALL doctors, nurses including E.R. personnel need to be made aware of how many hundreds of symptoms Lyme can have. It is known to mimic at least 400 other illnesses and syndromes. Millions of people worldwide are being mis-diagnosed or given catch-all diagnosis out of frustration. Doctors have about 15 minutes per patient and don’t have time to research and address everyone’s symptoms. More research is needed and the patient’s symptoms need to be taken more seriously. The phrase “The customer is always right”, needs to apply to patients as well. Haphazard treatment of symptoms and covering up symptoms DOESN’T WORK FOR LYME!! 

 

NOTE:  Most medical schools are funded by big pharma. They do not provide enough education to upcoming doctors about Lyme and similar illnesses. They don’t stress enough on nutrition or healthy eating as a benefit to patients. I have asked my doctors and chiropractor about this, and they said the same thing. 

Do NOT listen to any doctor who tells you your child has “Growing Pains”. Find a doctor who is knowledgeable about Lyme, preferably a young doctor with a growing family of his/her own. My family doctor diagnosed and treated me correctly, was THAT doctor, not a specialist, a general practitioner. 

 

HOW HAS LYME CHANGED MY LIFE; GOOD AND BAD:   Lyme caused me to be bedridden for over 3 weeks, afraid to drive for fear of getting lost, and feeling like I had early onset Alzheimer’s. I now feel that it was an eye-opening experience, which awakened me to how poorly I had been managing my diet and exercise on a daily basis. I also believe the 2012 influenza shot might have been flawed, because I never felt healthy after that, and it possibly weakened my immune system so Lyme and Mono could sneak in.  

I went from quick and easy meals and very little exercise to self-improvement. I learned from the Lyme pages on Facebook from reading other people’s stories. It was almost like putting a really large jigsaw puzzle together, very slowly and not having all the pieces in front of me. 

 

SOMETHING I DO NOW THAT I NEVER DID BEFORE LYME:  I now pay closer attention to my physical and emotional health, what foods I eat and the amount of daily exercise I get. I also developed pre-diabetes type 2 during the Lyme period. I am now eating real food and watching my weight in order to keep the pre-diabetes under control, without medication.  

 

NOTE:  Doctor’s won’t tell you unless you press them, that medication for everything is NOT the best way to control anything, because you’re stuck on the medication for the rest of your life. Our bodies are capable of healing, with help by US.  

 

THE MOST FRUSTRATING PART OF LYME DISEASE:  I would have to say, lack of compassion for what patients are going through on the part of medical professionals, insurance companies, news media, and the general public. “Take these pills and you’ll feel better”. This doesn’t work with Lyme disease; trust me. However, I know many people who believe everything their doctor says and I hear, “My doctor says it’s__________. More research is needed and the actual CAUSE should be researched and treated instead of pills to cover up underlying symptoms. 

 

MY BIGGEST SUPPORTER(S):  I have a private Facebook page called “Where is Lyme Disease”, which has 249 members. I consider all of them to be my supporters; we support each other. I have been posting there since March, 2015, before any of us realized Lyme is EVERYWHERE!! I HAVE POSTED HOW I TREATED, HEALED AND WHAT I AM DOING NOW TO STAY HEALTHY. Those answers were not readily found using an internet search in 2012. Everything I post on the page is from what I went through. I am trying to help others with Lyme get through it and not give up. 

I give all credit to healing to authors of books about Lyme struggles. There are too many to mention, but “Cure Unknown” by Pamela Weintraub was the best one. I read it several times, because the first time I tried to read, the words ran together and blurred because of Lyme. I am now able to read again, and have re-read several books I couldn’t comprehend before. If there’s a diagnosis of ADD or ADHD, suspect Lyme!!  

 

BIGGEST DAILY STRUGGLE:  Praying it never comes back and thanking God for every day which I am granted. Experimenting with different diet plans and keeping healthy. Getting away from white sugar, white flour and other overly processed, easy to fix foods and getting real food into my body is a daily challenge. 

Continuing to learn about and helping others deal with Lyme. I have helped quite a few people NOT give up. I wish I could help everyone or was a millionaire so I could donate money for a cure.  

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 4.1

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time, as chapter 3 concluded, Kiyo was the worst and I yelled a lot, Kokichi accidentally did something nice for once in the process of deflecting his own issues, Himiko had emotions and so did everyone else, and the out-universe writers quite rightly decided that Kaito’s character arc was important enough to be the focus of the chapter-end stinger.

Now that we’re done with the weakest chapter of the game, we can move on to one of the best chapters of the game! Yay. I hope you’ve been looking forward to this, because I sure have.

This opening stinger with Rantaro’s video message to himself is even more obviously a thing for the out-universe audience’s eyes only. The in-universe audience already knows exactly what Rantaro’s deal is, so this wouldn’t be interesting for them at all.

Rantaro:  “You wanted this killing game, so you have to win no matter what.”

This is super misleading. I imagine the writers worded it this way for the sense of mystery it brings to seeing the scene here without context – making people think maybe Rantaro was the mastermind or otherwise a bad person who was only out for himself. But since that’s not the case, this really isn’t how you’d think he’d actually phrase things from his point of view. He didn’t want this killing game – he volunteered to sacrifice himself so two of his friends from season 52 could survive and escape, and at the time he presumably expected his “punishment” to be death rather than having to do it all over again. And he certainly didn’t want to “win” in the sense of “become blackened and get away with it” that this seems to be implying. He presumably wanted to end the killing game, especially upon having learned that this is an endless cycle, which isn’t something most people would describe as “winning”.

Live and Let the Languid World Live

I think I sort of get what this title’s relevance is, but maybe the Japanese title, “Living in a Lazy Parallel World”, gets it across a little better. It gives the sense of there being a separate world in which one can remain blissfully oblivious to the horrible reality of the situation, which fits in multiple ways. There’s their life in the academy versus the supposedly-ruined outside world, there’s Miu’s claim that the Virtual World is a peaceful world with no killing game, and then there’s the way that Gonta loses his memories as he leaves the Virtual World and remains oblivious to what he did in there.

At breakfast in the morning, one of the few people managing to stay upbeat is Kaito. Naturally he’s completely fine and definitely didn’t realise he was dying last night.

Himiko:  “Heeey! You guys have no energy! You need to look alive! You’re all still teenagers!”

Himiko is also managing to be upbeat! She’s even taking a leaf out of Kaito’s book and trying to boost everyone else’s spirits too!

Maki:  “…Weird. I thought you’d be the most depressed out of all of us.”

Himiko:  “Of course… I’m depressed. This is the most depressed I’ve been in all my 200 million years. […] But… being depressed won’t help those who died rest in peace…”

And I appreciate that acknowledgement that she is still horribly depressed. That’s not going to magically go away just because she’s been inspired by Tenko. She’s just trying as hard as she can to fight it now, which is really admirable.

Himiko:  “S-So anyway… Please… t-take care of the… new me…”

Kaito:  “You’re out of breath already. You’re going full speed right out of the gate!”

Like you wouldn’t do the same, Kaito? Like you aren’t doing that right now, considering what’s going on with you?

Kokichi:  “Ughhh… but now that there’s less people, I might… be the next victim… Woooow, so exciting! But I definitely don’t wanna die!”

Kokichi’s doing his usual shtick of pretending this game is totally fun for him. Since this is still before he sees the outside world, I don’t think this has any greater meaning to it than usual.

Then again, he’s also added more to the graffiti, meaning the “claim to be the mastermind” part of his plan is already in progress. So really, seeing the outside world isn’t going to change his intentions that significantly at all.

(I have a lot to say about Kokichi’s intentions in this chapter, but I’ll wait until we get to the part where he actually has seen the outside world.)

Tsumugi:  “Wh-What about this world? What does it mean? Is there some crazy story going on?”

This is Tsumugi’s response to the graffiti possibly saying “this world”. It sure is telling that she’d think of what’s going on outside as a story, because that’s all it is to her.

Maki has started using her catchphrase at Shuichi in front of everyone else, by the way! She’s opening up more and starting to feel like the others aren’t going to think she really wants to kill anyone either. Progress.

Kokichi:  “But Gonta stumbled onto the writing by coincidence, right? If it was a prank, they would’ve done it in a more obvious spot, not in the grass.”

Kokichi’s saying this to try and support the idea that the writing isn’t him, but this is misleading. The original message wasn’t his, and it’s only after Gonta found that and pointed it out to everyone that he started adding to it, since he knew at that point that people would definitely pay attention and notice his additions.

Kokichi:  “There’s nothing more depressing than an unnoticed prank.”

This says a lot about Kokichi’s approach to things in general. He doesn’t just want to mess with people – he likes it best when they know they’ve been messed with and that it was him who messed with them. Keep this in mind in chapter 5 when I’ll be talking about the reasons his plan fails, because this is at the root of another one of them.

Kaito:  “Well, I don’t really get it, but… Maybe it’s some kinda clue. Thanks for the report, Gonta.”

Another interesting observation about Kaito: he very rarely directly thanks anyone. Which might seem strange when he’s all about encouraging people and letting them know how much good they’ve been doing. But it makes sense when you consider that specifically thanking someone is a bit more personal to Kaito himself and comes with the implication that he needed their help, which is of course something Kaito does not like to admit to. This instance here is an exception to that probably mostly because he’s just thanking Gonta on behalf of everyone, so it doesn’t come across as if he specifically needed anything.

Gonta:  “…Gonta just glad to help. Gonta want to help, even little. Tell Gonta if you need help with something, okay?”

But it’s also likely because Kaito knows how much Gonta needs to hear that and to feel useful and like he’s helped someone out right now, more than ever before.

(And Gonta’s not the only one. Which might be why Kaito is so aware of that.)

Kokichi:  “O-kay, got it! I’ll let you know if I want you to punch someone.”

Himiko:  “No! You don’t get to tell Gonta what to do anymore!”

Gonta:  “Y-Yeah… Gonta learn lesson after Insect Meet and Greet…”

Yeah, Gonta’s definitely never going to get manipulated into doing something bad by Kokichi ever again, right? Hnnnngh.

Monophanie:  “…a card key! Which just so happens to be the motive, too!”

So, uh. Let’s talk about this card key. First of all, it being a card key is super misleading, because the immediate thing I assumed when I first saw it was that it’s the key to the hidden door in the library. That’s the only door we know of with a card reader, so that’s the obvious assumption to make. But none of the characters comment on this at all, not even Shuichi, who found the hidden door and indirectly got Kaede killed because of it. You’d think it would have come to mind for him at least. Clearly the writers don’t have anyone comment on it because they don’t want the players to think it’s connected to the library door (since it isn’t), but if that’s the case then they really should have just made it a different kind of key so it wouldn’t bring that to mind.

Second, we never see the place in the school that the card key actually opens. It would have helped immersion to at least show some kind of mysterious locked door that could plausibly be what Kokichi unlocks with this. As it is, from the players’ perspective, that hidden route Kokichi finds simply doesn’t exist, so we just have to use our imaginations to pretend that it totally is somewhere that we just don’t get access to while playing the game, which is a little awkward. It’s also pretty unclear how this card leads to a place from where one can see the outside world. Does it lead to the same place that the Death Road to Despair does? Is it like, a shortcut through that tunnel so that Kokichi can reach the end of it without worrying about the traps? Or is there another totally different place in the school that also shows the outside world, meaning Team Danganronpa would have had to double-up on the special effects? It’s annoyingly unclear.

But what’s most annoyingly unclear is how seeing the outside world is supposed to be a motive. Presumably Monokuma expected everyone to use the card key and view the outside world, right? That would have been the very opposite of a motive! Everyone would have fallen into despair and realised there was no point killing each other to escape at all, which is exactly what happens when Kokichi shows them all the outside in chapter 5 and which really annoys and bores the audience when it does happen! The only reason it functions as a motive in this chapter is because Kokichi steals the card key and keeps it to himself, and then later decides to show the motive only to Gonta to convince him to try and mercy-kill everyone, since the mercy kill plan would be meaningless if everybody had already seen outside. The part where Kokichi shares the motive with Gonta explicitly isn’t Monokuma’s intended plan right now, since he has that conversation with Kokichi later where he agrees to go along with it. And I doubt he would have known Kokichi would steal the card key before anyone else could use it in the first place. Even if he predicted that as a possibility, he couldn’t know for sure that Kokichi would be fast enough to swipe it and run off without getting caught, and if that didn’t happen and everyone used the card key then that would have been the worst possible outcome from Monokuma’s perspective. It shouldn’t be worth the risk.

Like, I love this chapter a lot for most everything that happens in it. But this initial decision of Monokuma/Tsumugi’s that sets off all of the fun stuff that happens in this chapter feels kind of contrived and illogical, and it’s a shame.

Keebo:  “Right now, we need your skills as a detective, Shuichi.”

Shuichi:  “Right… in that case, let me hold onto that. I’ll look around again.”

Himiko:  “Nyeeeh, Shuichi’s grown up! He’s become so reliable!”

Again – the job of using the objects on the mysterious items to open up new areas really does not require a detective. Kaito only gave that job to Shuichi back in chapter 2 to help make him feel useful when he was feeling down. But now that’s just become how things are done to the point that everyone’s forgotten they don’t really need Shuichi for this, and they’ve been relying on him so much in trials (where his skills really do make a difference) that it’s just kind of extended to outside the trials as well even when it’s a lot less necessary.

(Kaito isn’t here at this point, since he’s already run off after Kokichi, which is kind of a shame because I would have been interested to see how he’d respond to this.)

Gonta:  “Shuichi is so amazing. Gonta wanna be useful to everyone too.”

Aww, Gonta looks up to Shuichi and desperately wants to be as helpful as him. And he’s being so open and honest about feeling this way. (Unlike someone else.)

(Again: it is a shame that Kaito has already left the room.)

Maki:  “Don’t worry. When the time comes, we’ll use your body as a meat shield.”

Gonta:  “Okay! Gonta hope time come soon!”

Maki is probably joking (she’s at that point in her development where she’s starting to make jokes that still don’t really sound like jokes because her delivery is too deadpan), but still, gaaah. It’s admirable that Gonta’s willing to risk himself to protect everyone, but he should still hope that it never has to come to that, so the fact that he’s actively hoping it will is pretty fucked up. He doesn’t just want to help if he’s needed, but he wants to be needed, even if that means he’ll need to get himself hurt.

Opening up the new areas, I’m starting in the courtyard with Keebo’s lab.

Keebo:  “Anyway, Shuichi… That black object over there looks suspicious, doesn’t it?”

This goes to show that they don’t actually need Shuichi’s skills as a detective at all to open up these new places and Keebo would have been able to do it himself if he’d had the mysterious items.

Since there was nothing else to examine inside Keebo’s lab, I decided to examine the monitor (which I usually never remember to do), and…

Shuichi:  (These monitors are everywhere, but I don’t see any cameras. How is the mastermind behind this killing game monitoring us? Or… are we not really being watched at all?)

An important question to ask, Shuichi! Even if he hasn’t figured out like Kokichi has that this is clearly being shown to people for entertainment, there still absolutely must be cameras in order for Monokuma to know who the blackened is in each case. Unfortunately Shuichi never quite thinks this through far enough until halfway through the fifth trial.

Shuichi:  “But I imagine that a lot of things in here would really help you out. You should take a look.”

Keebo:  “No… I do not want to be assisted by sci-fi technology.”

Congratulations, Keebo, you’ve just become partially responsible for every death that happens from this point onwards. The things in his lab include a jetpack and a laser gun, which make him an equal match for all five Exisals in a fight and are able to blow a hole in the wall to let everyone escape. (Well, apparently only after Keebo modifies them to be more powerful, but since he’s the one who’s capable of doing that, the point still stands.) If Keebo decided to use them right now, the killing game would be over in a matter of hours. The fact that he’s refusing to do so because he’s uncomfortable with sci-fi technology is not a remotely valid excuse in this situation when people’s lives are at stake. He should be willing to make temporary sacrifices like that for the sake of saving everyone! It’s not like he’d have to ever use those weapons again if he didn’t want to once they’re out of here!

What the out-universe writers really should have done here to justify Keebo not using these yet is make it clear that it’s because his inner voice doesn’t want him to. The only meaningful difference between now and chapter 6 is the lack of his inner voice, not any kind of character development to have become more okay with being sci-fi. The audience obviously wouldn’t want him to use his weapons to bust everyone out of here in chapter 4 – they want an exciting killing game.

Shuichi:  (It doesn’t seem like Keebo is going to use this lab. Well, he’s free to do as he pleases. Nothing I can do about that.)

I mean, you could try arguing to him that he could save everybody’s lives if he used it, Shuichi. You’re still too passive sometimes.

Back up to the fourth floor, Tsumugi and Maki are there, which for some reason only happens if you’ve already been to Keebo’s lab first, hence me doing things in this order.

Tsumugi:  “I still don’t get that stuff with his sister or why he killed Angie and Tenko…”

THEN WHY THE FUCK DID YOU WRITE KIYO THAT WAY.

Maki has also figured out exactly where to use the mysterious item, proving that splitting up into two groups with one item each would have been much faster than mindlessly assuming Shuichi’s the only one who can do it.

Shuichi:  (Maki has never been this cooperative with investigations before… She must have been serious about what she said after the trial.)

Maki:  “…What? Why are you making that gross face?”

Shuichi:  “Wh-What!? It’s not *gross* …is it? I’m just happy… It’s, ah, really nice that you’re working with us like this.”

It’s really heartbreaking that Maki considers expressions like the one Shuichi’s making – expressions of caring about her as a person and considering her feelings – to be “gross”. Gah.

Maki:  “Well, unlike Kaito, I’m not just all talk. I always follow through with my decisions.”

Maki still doesn’t quite properly understand Kaito. Kaito always means to follow through on his words, even if he’s not always as good at it as he wishes he was. She’s probably still annoyed at him skipping training last chapter because of the ghost thing.

I’m ignoring Tsumugi’s lab for now even though it’s closer and heading to Shuichi’s first.

Shuichi:  (This also looks like an Ultimate lab. But whose lab is it?)

Even if you can’t see the icon for it on the map, it’s still clearly yours, Shuichi. None of the others left without a lab would have a door like this (except maybe Rantaro I guess). But of course Shuichi still kind of hates his talent and hasn’t been remotely thinking about what a lab based around it might look like, so it’s a nice little detail that this doesn’t even occur to him.

Maki:  “But this place doesn’t match you at all. I think this lab is too good for someone like you.”

Ouch, Maki again being bluntly realistic about Shuichi’s detective skills still having room for improvement.

Shuichi:  “There are a bunch of files lined up. It looks like about 50 of them.”

Not just “about fifty”. To be precise:

…there’s exactly fifty-two of them.

Maki:  “The newer files have photographs, but the older ones have illustrations?”

Shuichi:  “But why? Are the old ones just fictional?”

That’s exactly what they are. Almost as if something involving murder cases which has happened fifty-two times up until now used to be fictional at the beginning and then became real.

Each one of these files contains the cases from a single season of Danganronpa.

I didn’t pick up on this for the longest time – I assumed that it just included some random fictional murders in among with some real ones because why not? I didn’t quite register the fact that it was specifically all of the earliest files that were fictional, nor the fact that there were exactly fifty-two. But given both of those facts, this is so, so clearly what the out-universe writers intend for this to be, and it blew my mind when I figured this out. Have I mentioned how much I love it when there’s details like this that are deliberately hinted at but never made explicitly clear because they don’t need to be as it doesn’t stop them being true.

Maki:  “Then this would make a good guideline for anyone who wants to commit murder.”

I’m not so sure about that, since these are all murder cases where the blackened got caught. If we’re to believe chapter 6, every single game ended with hope winning, which means no blackened has ever succeeded in getting away with it. They’d make a good guideline of what not to do, maybe.

Shuichi:  (The first few files have only illustrations, but the others have photographs… Is there a reason for that?)

Oh, Shuichi, if only you’d sit down and spend longer thinking about what that reason might be.

I have to assume they kept the precise details of the overall context the murders happened in pretty vague so as to not make it obvious they all took place in a killing game just like this one. I imagine they edited the illustrated ones to make the blood red rather than pink, too, because that might have got Shuichi’s brain ticking.

We also have to assume, then, that nobody ever happened to look at file number 1. Otherwise, when they all see the Flashback Light about Hope’s Peak in chapter 5, that would definitely raise some fucking questions.

If this weren’t a killing game, I’d be very sceptical about why an Ultimate Detective’s lab would need actual poisons in it. Facts about poisons, sure, and antidotes, maybe, but there’s no need to have a whole cupboard full of the means to actually kill someone.

Shuichi:  (…I suppose that’s right. There’s a fine line between criminal and detective.)

All it serves to do is make Shuichi feel awful about his talent again.

Shuichi:  “The only time I can use my detective talent is after someone dies… A detective… can’t save anyone. I’m only useful after it’s already too late.”

Maybe in the real world, detectives don’t usually save lives, but giving loved ones closure is still worthwhile, Shuichi! But of course he still thinks of everything in the context of that one murder case where the culprit had a sympathetic reason for doing it and hated him for figuring out the truth.

More to the point, though, in this killing game, Shuichi is absolutely explicitly saving the lives of everyone except the victim and the culprit. Sure, it’d be better if the murders didn’t happen at all, but given that the murders do happen and nobody is able to stop that part, Shuichi’s talent makes him the biggest hero out of anyone here.

Maki:  “Why are you so upset all of a sudden? Do you want to die?”

Shuichi:  “You’d kill me just for that!?”

Kaito:  “Nah, I understand why Maki Roll would say that. Your face looked pretty gloomy.”

Thankfully, both Maki and Kaito realise how ridiculous it is for Shuichi to think that he’s not saving anyone in this situation and call him out on it appropriately.

(I also really like that this is the point in the conversation at which Kaito happens to show up.)

Kaito:  “With a face as gloomy as that, I can’t believe you’re my sidekick. Be more proud of yourself, Shuichi! Everything you’ve done up until now has been amazing!”

Of course it has! Of course Kaito thinks that! And he can hardly believe that Shuichi could still be self-deprecating even now when it’s so clear from where Kaito’s standing that Shuichi has been the real hero all along.

Shuichi:  “Ah… thanks.”

Shuichi’s response is somewhat lukewarm, like he still mostly thinks Kaito is just saying this to encourage him and doesn’t quite fully believe it. No, Shuichi – Kaito absolutely means it.

Maki:  “Because of how well you did in the class trials, people are keeping their eyes on you, Shuichi… The next culprit might come after you.”

So I’ve seen some people complaining that it’s unrealistic that nobody ever does try to murder Shuichi, since this is a very valid point. But it makes perfectly good sense in the context of the actual people who attempt murder. Obviously Kaede believed he wasn’t the mastermind. Kirumi probably should have targeted Shuichi, but her thing was that even though she was desperate to escape, she still couldn’t bring herself to directly kill anyone who actively wanted to live, which is why she targeted Ryoma. Kiyo only targets girls. Miu is an idiot who might have never had the issue of Shuichi’s prowess in trials occur to her, and even if it did, she falsely believed that Kokichi trusted her, which is why she goes for him.

Honestly, this argument about how the culprits should go for Shuichi because he’s so good in class trials is most relevant to the question of why doesn’t Kokichi choose Shuichi to be his accomplice in chapter 5? I’ll talk more about that later when we get there, but suffice to say that’s probably the biggest reason his plan is really not as clever as he thinks.

Kaito:  “Heh, you don’t need to worry about that! I won’t let anyone mess with my sidekick! I’m gonna protect both of you! It’s a hero’s job to protect his sidekicks!”

Kaito, meanwhile, is probably quite unnerved at the realisation that Shuichi is an even more likely target than anyone else now. Naturally, he’s going to do something about that – because, you know, it’s totally possible to make absolutely 100% sure that a particular person will not get killed. Short of designating himself Shuichi’s personal bodyguard, which he’s obviously not going to do because that’d come across as ridiculously paranoid, there’s… really no way to come close to guaranteeing that at all. But even though he has no way of knowing for sure that he can back up these words, that doesn’t diminish the intent behind them one bit. Of course he wants to protect Shuichi! Of course he doesn’t want to stand back and let Shuichi get killed if there’s anything he can do about it!

Also, consider: Kaito almost certainly feels that he in particular should have been able to prevent each of the murders that have happened so far. Rantaro left Kaito’s meeting to “go to the bathroom” just before getting killed, which Kaito should have realised was suspicious and at least offered to go with him for safety. I’ve made it very clear that Kaito could and should have saved Ryoma just by reaching out to him, and I’m pretty sure he realised that himself in the end. And if he’d just been able to be his usual self last chapter, then surely he’d have done something to stop the resurrection ritual, or noticed Kiyo acting strangely, or been at the seance and noticed something off there, or something. Which is admittedly the kind of thing everyone is probably thinking in hindsight, even though really they were trying their best and couldn’t have done any more than they did – but Kaito could have done more, couldn’t he, if he just hadn’t let something as stupid as being scared of ghosts get to him?

But this time, it’ll be different! This time, he’ll definitely notice whatever’s going wrong and step in to do something about it before it’s too late, especially if the person lined up to be the next victim is Shuichi!

…Right?

I also enjoy how he promises to protect Maki too even though she is clearly the person least in need of protection from being murdered. Kaito is trying really hard to seem like he’s being a good hero to his sidekicks.

Maki:  “…What if I end up as a future culprit?”

Kaito:  “Are you stupid? That’s impossible.”

And guess what Kaito actually will end up protecting Maki from? Becoming a future culprit! He will manage to keep this promise that he’s making here! More or less. It’s not like he directly promises that he’ll prevent Maki from becoming a culprit, since he believes in her so much that he doesn’t think he’ll need to (I love the way says it’s impossible for her to become a culprit like it’s just obvious), but that’s absolutely something he feels just as strongly about as preventing her from becoming a victim.

(Also, Maki still not believing in herself enough to assume that she wouldn’t ever kill anyone any more. Which she’s unfortunately right about, but still. Gah.)

Maki:  “How… can you believe in people so easily?”

Because he’s Kaito, of course!

Other than still questioning why he believes in a murderer like her, I think part of Maki might be asking this for the same reason Shuichi also asked Kaito this back in chapter 2 – because she’s starting to wish that she could also believe in people more and wants to know how it comes so easily to him.

Kaito:  “Huh? Didn’t I tell you before? I believe in people I wanna believe in. And if they betray me, it just means I made a bad call believing in them. Of course, you’re one of the people I want to believe in, Maki Roll!”

Maki:  “…”

I think she’s finally starting to accept that Kaito really is just like this – and that it is possible to be like this in general. Also, she’s given up on protesting the nickname, so that’s progress! Sort of.

(Also this is literally the fourth time Kaito has explained his principles about believing in people and acknowledged that he could be wrong but chooses to believe anyway; this shouldn’t remotely be something that is easy to miss about him.)

Anyway, Kaito couldn’t catch up to Kokichi, but he found the Flashback Light instead.

Kaito:  “So let’s all gather in the dining hall!”

Maki:  “Huh? Me too?”

Of course you too, Maki! You said yourself that you want to start working together with everyone and getting them to trust you, so of course you should be at important gatherings like this!

The reason I did this lab before Tsumugi’s is that you miss out on some dialogue here if Shuichi doesn’t still need to check any more places and they can just head straight to the dining hall.

Maki:  “…You’re not going to check this place?”

Kaito:  “I’ll let Shuichi handle it! You got this. Right, Shuichi!?”

Kaito’s still being so encouraging! I guess he really is okay with Shuichi continuing to be the one solely responsible for opening new areas even though it really doesn’t need to be him any more. Kaito gave him that job in the first place to boost his confidence, which Shuichi doesn’t need anywhere near as badly by now, but Kaito’s still continuing to use it to boost his confidence anyway.

Maki:  “…You didn’t even complain. You seriously *are* his sidekick now.”

Shuichi:  (…I can’t even argue with that.)

Aww, look at Shuichi becoming more used to the idea of being Kaito’s sidekick (not that he ever actively protested it in the first place). And Maki still thinking the word means “someone who does whatever Kaito tells them to”, when that’s not it at all. Kaito only tells Shuichi what to do as a way of encouraging him to do things he might otherwise be hesitant to try, even if that’s not really as necessary now as it used to be.

Tsumugi:  “Yeah, I think it’s just plain fun to become fictional characters. To become a completely different person and feel like you’re part of a different world.”

Yeah, it really must be fun to become someone who doesn’t enjoy watching real people kill each other and immerse yourself in a world where the idea of real people killing each other is barbaric rather than everyone’s idea of a good night’s entertainment, huh.

Tsumugi:  “Doesn’t that sound interesting? Don’t you want to live in a fictional world?”

Why are you asking Shuichi this? You already think he does.

Tsumugi’s lab is way bigger than it really needs to be. Someone just wanted to give herself the biggest lab, now, didn’t she.

Also, in the thing at the back that keeps putting up and taking down different backdrops, one of the possible backdrops is very much a Hope’s Peak classroom complete with Monokuma graffiti on the blackboard. Like it’s just a place she’d want to do cosplay photoshoots in or something.

---

[Next post]

[dreamseersystem]

Sans Kin Memory

Yet again I am aware of being in the room, seeing them there standing before me. How many times have we stood here, at the point of no return? How many times they beat me down and watched my soul slowly turned to dust? I lost count after 200. Maybe it was more. Nothing to bone about here. Heh heh.

The empty vacant red eyes, the wide fake smile, how their clothes and self since to glitch out into someone else. I ready my magic, summoning the blasters by my side. They came at me with their knife, easily dodging my attacks. It was over within a few moments, the knife was in my chest again. 

"Here we are again Sansy. Just another day of being my plaything. How many rounds should we do today before I get bored? 10, 15, maybe 30? Maybe it's time to give up and let yourself forget everything, all these resets, and just be like everybody else! Then I can just kill you over and over again and watch the horror in your eyes each time!" Chara said joyfully. 

I can't give up. I don't even know if I could forget everything, let myself erase everything the knowledge of the resets created. I didn't reply to them, I just spat and tried to send one last blast as my form faded. It failed and Chara smiled and then, I was back to standing in the room again, whole. It went over and over again. Chara killing me in different ways. Nothing worked. Even I get a few hits on them it was never enough. They would reset and start the process over again. I forgot how many times I died. And then finally…

I woke up in bed, like it was all a nightmare. Sweat poured down my skull as all the flashes of the deaths ran through my mind. This was the brief respite I had between their torture sessions. Paps came in to check on me, worried since I yelled from awakening. I looked at him, smiling and telling him it was just a nightmare, lying through my teeth. I didn't want him to worry. I was tired... I didn't want this to keep going. I told Paps that we were called to the capital, made a fake letter too. I still had some blank letterheads in the lab that worked just fine. It was time to change the story. We won't be there to meet Chara. I won't let my brother die over and over again without realizing what is happening. I had an idea, but I needed Asgore to help. We left the house without looking back. Game Over kid.

The meeting with Asgore was planned while I distracted Paps with taking a tour of the city. Monsterkid was happy to show him the areas and good food places. Paps would never understand what i needed to ask the King for. I don't even know if the King will understand my intentions and the danger he is in. If only brother... No. He isn't here. The Black Soul took him. Gaster would have been stuck in the same hell as the rest of us.

Maybe he already is, just on a different plane of existence. I don't know. All the experiments I tried to do to help get him back failed. The Core was the power source that my brother used to create it, but I didn't dare use it like he did to try and attempt a repeat.

Asgore was waiting in the garden. He rarely left the place anymore. Not since...  No it was no good at remembering that. It was going to be hard enough convincing him that his dead child is killing them all over and over in a time loop. I walked up to him, his face blanked as he watered the flowers. 

"Asgore, we need to talk."

He looked at me, seeing the serious expression on my face. One that he rarely saw unless it was important. 

"What do you need Sans?" he asked. 

"I need the six souls." He looked at me in shock at my statement. He stopped watering and place the water pot down on the ground. 

"Sans, why do you want them? You told me you wanted nothing to do with the gathering of the souls anymore." 

"Asgore, you know me. I did the collecting. I've seen all the possible timelines with these kids. But..." My face had darkened, the words of the bad news trying to come out. "This new child that fell, is dangerous. The child will kill us all."

Asgore laughed at me. I expected it. It was unbelievable after all. A child killing monsters. But in the time it took to travel here with Paps, the reports about missing monsters and dust clouds already begun. The kid was coming, and coming fast.

"If we do not use the souls, we will all die Asgore. You know I told you about my ability to see the timelines before. I relived them over and over again till the chosen child is dead and the soul is collected. You trust me to tell it to you straight if there is reason to worry. This kid isn't like the others. This kid will be our genocide. They will finish what the humans set out to do all those ages ago. Didn't we all promise not to let that happen? Didn't we try to find a way to create the souls needed to escape without death? This soul, the Red Soul of determination will be our downfall. Much like the Black Soul almost was. We have to do the same as we did back then."

Asgore blinked at me. Not sure how to react. I knew the memories of the Black Soul incident was running through his head, knowledge of exactly what I was asking. 

"Only the King can escape the affects the power that the human souls hold. Sans... Are you certain there is no other choice?"

"You said so yourself, the next time you use them might as well be your last. What will this land do without it's King? I'm expendable..."

"Sans no you are..."

"Asgore, we both know I am. Undyne has already taken over my duties. Paps is training and is doing well. You guys don't need me. We survived without Gaster, you can survive without me."

"The reports coming in do worry me... Are you sure there is no other choice?" I breathed a sigh a relief. He was taking me seriously. 

"There isn't my King."

We got everything set up. Asgore said I was only to use it as a last resort. The six souls were in my grasp, ready to be used at a moments notice. We waited. I wanted to check on Paps, but my heart told me that I would be too late. The garden was eerie silent, the wind blew the flower petals around us as I hid near the barrier. I would be the last defense. A small yellow flower popped out of the ground beside me. 

"So you are going to be the one to use them this time," Flowery simply said. 

"What are you doing here?"

"Ahahahaaaa, I wanted to see you die again of course. So when you do I'll just take the souls from you," he laughed at me. I snorted. 

"You know as well as I do that it wouldn't work. How many times did you die at the kid's hand already Flowery?"

He balked at that and looked away. Anger was in his eyes. "Well it won't matter. They will just reset if they feel they will be defeated."

"It's Chara. Chara with a heart filled with anger and determination. They don't even care about who you were," I simply said. Flowery looked away again. 

"I know. I always knew. If only I could make them..."

"That's impossible. Only Frisk realized it. Before this evil virus took them over. We were happy then, everyone was alive. But... That wasn't enough for Chara. They needed their revenge. I don't even think Frisk exist inside them anymore, the corruption was too strong," I said.

Movement from the entrance could be heard. It was the sound of walking, and dragging... Oh no... They didn't... But I could see them enter with Paps behind them, being dragged by their scarf. I wanted to call out, wanted to save him, but I couldn't. That's what they wanted. Asgore stepped out of the shadows where he stood and confronted the demonic child. 

"Let him go child. Your fight is with me," he ordered. Even he could now see the desire to kill in their eyes. Chara just kept the fake smile on their face. They looked around the clearing, I could swear they saw me, but I didn't dare move. I knew if I did, I would be dead. Asgore walked closer to them. 

"Whatever, I was done playing with it anyway," the child said as they threw Paps into the middle of the garden with a fork sticking out of his head. It was Chara's worse death for him yet. He was already turning to dust before my eyes until all that was left was the scarf I gave him, the day he became apart of the knights. It was blown by the wind towards me and I caught it, quickly wrapping it around myself, feeling the dust that was once my brother on it. I was angry.

Asgore never had a chance. He quickly became prey to this demon. Flowery was distraught. How many times did he watch his father die before him? It was an emotion I have never seen cross the flower's face. He faced Chara alone, knowing that I would be the only chance they had with the souls. He tried pleading. 

"Chara! Please look at me! It's Asriel! Please!" Chara just gave that empty smile. 

"I knew who you were pest. It doesn't matter, you are just a shadow of who you used to be. The stupid goat that got turned to its own food. Weren't you the one saying it's a kill or be killed world?" they asked as they came closer with the knife. 

"Chara..." 

Before Flowery could finish, the kid stepped on him. Never even giving him a chance to talk and reason. I knew it wouldn't work, but I had hope. It was then Chara set their sights on me. 

"I knew you were hiding. This is certainly different. What final trick you have up your sleeve skeleton?"

"This."

I summoned the six souls around me, taking them inside of me. I knew that this would most likely erase me, that's what happened to Gaster after all. Their lights shone and I felt their energy gather within me. Myself changing. Three sets of wings appeared on my back, a tail appeared and curled behind me, me face shifted into another form, my clothes even changed a bit. The power was overwhelming. I had a good chance at beating the kid now.

The kid never gave a hint that it was worried. They continued to stare me down as the transformation took place. I knew that the power was corrupting my soul, that if I didn't defeat this brat fast, it would erase me. I raised my arm and made a fist, my blasters appeared all around us, like an endless wall. Even they had changed form. 

"Hey Kid," I called out to them, "This will be the final fight." They smiled and charged. My blasters shot all at once, Chara started dancing around the attacks, but a few hit their mark. I raised myself up into the air and sent my bones at them. Onslaught after onslaught, the kid kept coming and I kept dodging. I used the blue magic to send them back down to the ground and summoned bones behind them. 

They escaped by rolling away, smiling as they got a nick on my shoulder. It was nothing. The blasters kept coming at all sides, sending their rainbow blasts into the ground. Nothing was left of the yellow flowers that once bloomed here, everything was dark and black. Almost like a void. The battle was taking too long. I had to keep pushing it. Had to kill the kid. Maybe once I had their soul I can make everything right again. Bring Frisk back and return back to the timeline where everything was ok. No more death. Chara was getting more beat up, they didn't have much energy left. 

"You really think you can win Sans? You thinking using the souls will change the tides? I DEFEATED THOSE SOULS MANY TIMES! THEY ARE WEAK!"

"You seem to be slowing down kiddo. You sure you can keep talking with that humerus outlook."

"Can the puns you fucking bag of bones."

I just laughed at the kid. Little did I know that would be my downfall. The kid got impaled by one of my bones. Blood spat from their mouth. I got closer to them and kicked the knife away.

"It's over kid."

"Kill me and you can never get that weakling back," they spat. I just jabbed my tail into their chest. 

"Frisk has been dead a long time. Game Over Chara." I pulled my tail out and the red soul came out with it. I placed it into my hand. The soul of Frisk and Chara. One and the same, yet so different. It was over. 

The red soul just glowed, a soft pulse was felt as I held it. I breathe a sigh of relief. If I absorbed this soul, I'll be able to make things right again. I can bring everyone back and reset this world. I did just that. Taking it inside myself. Then... I felt a shock to my being.

First thing I noticed was the laughter in my being, a laughter that wasn't mine. It was Chara's. I dropped to the ground, paralyzed by the power surging, no not power... Corruption. I felt a change in the soul. It became blackened. Another Black Soul, but this felt so much worse. 

'You are such a fool. I can't be killed,' the kid said, 'If I can't have my fun then I will consume this world and others. Starting with you.'

I felt a tingling at the ends of my limbs. A blackness that was even blacker than the void that surrounded me slowly consumed my body. I made a mistake. I couldn't stop it. I couldn't even use any magic to protect myself. My soul was starting to shatter from all the power inside. I remember how Frisk and Chara used their resetting ability. I used the last of my strength as the corruption was taking me to summon the buttons. One said Reset. The other... Delete. I could end it. I can stop this. I hope. No one would have to suffer again. If I reset now, this demon would just start the cycle anew in its more powerful form. 

'Don't even try Sansy. It won't work. I'm unstoppable thanks to you and the six souls!' Laughter could be heard again from inside my head. I didn't care. I had to try. I pressed Delete. Two new buttons pop up with some text. 

Are You Sure? Yes. No. 

I pressed Yes. The corruption was up to my neck, but it stopped as everything disappeared. I felt myself fading. 

'Thanks Sansy! Now I can be free to take the other dimensions. I won't be bored now!'

I felt the presence disappeared. My body stayed in limbo as it started fading slowly, not even turning to dust, just disappearing. I made a mistake. The demon child got away, and it was even more powerful. A corruption. I heard a noise from beside me. 

"If only you had Reset brother. Reset and came to find me. Now the virus is free to roam," the voice said. 

"Gaster..." I choked out. I felt his hand placed on my head. 

"This is going to hurt, but when you remember brother, find me."

I looked up and saw my brother, his bone was black, with what looked to be stars glowing from within him. A white crack could be seen from under his mouth and through his right eye. It seem to pulsate with power. He was wearing some kind of robe that looked to have moving galaxies within it. A purple aura surrounded me from his many hands and I felt pain I never felt before. Just before the darkness took me, I heard his voice again. 

"Look For Me In Between What Is Real And What Is Fantasy. Follow The Runic Trail."

[readingwebcomics]

Analyzing Questionable Content: Pages 151-200

High school bully or not, I’d like to reiterate the fact that Dora’s presence is so terrifying that it can repel a trained government agent. That’s a level of badass we should all strive to be.

…I mean like, don’t actually beat people up and steal their cigarettes, lung cancer is bad. But still!

Before getting into things, I’d like to open with a little bit of bookkeeping: First, as was pointed out to me by at least two different people, I COMPLETELY misread #123 – it was Marten who was helping Steve out on a date, not the other way around. This was completely my bad, so I personally retract everything I said about Jeph’s timescale.

Secondly, on my point on Dora’s identity crisis, user Scarlet Manuka had this to say:

For the time frame of Dora's goth phase, I think that Jeph is actually trying to present this as a genuine identity crisis for Dora - but it's also likely one that's been a long time building up. She's probably been becoming increasingly disenchanted with it for the last couple of years, and given that Raven complains that she's missed fifteen or so meetings, it looks like she's already subconsciously let it go quite some time in the past. I think we're seeing more the conscious realisation of a process that's already happened. In many ways that's what an identity crisis is: the realisation that the slow incremental changes we all experience every day have added up into something big while you weren't looking, and that something you thought was part of you really isn't any more.

That’s a perfectly fair point and one I didn’t consider. Thanks for bringing this up, under this light the time frame of Dora’s realization and her gradual shift into a different identity over the course of the next few comics makes perfect sense.

Finally, it was pointed out to me by Marco on the QC Forums that it’s only fair to link to the comic itself in these posts. While I had figured it was really simple to find the comic for whoever’s reading it considering it’s one of the biggest, longest running webcomics out there, they do have a point that I at least owe it to supply links to the site in these posts. So from now on, the dumb intro blurb to each of my posts will hyperlink to the first comic in the batch I’ll be talking about. That way, you can read along with the analysis if you so wish. Cool? Cool.

Now with that all out of the way, let’s move on to the analysis. Agent Turing has nope’d out and Dora saw herself out, letting Marten know that if he buys her dinner she’ll call it even.

This is a weird case of me totally getting WHY Jeph’s going this particular direction – he needs Marten and Faye at an ice cream shop to reveal a bit more about Faye’s backstory, which we’ll be touching on a bit later – but the particular setup for doing this feels… off. This right here reads like a textbook case of a writer going “Fuck, how do I get these characters to do XYZ…” and this being the best solution they could come up with. What’s worse about this is that only a few panels later, Jeph offers a much better alternative:

Literally all he had to do was have Faye be the one to bring this up: Instead of the panel with Marten blatantly asking “So THAT happened, what do you want to do now?” have Faye be the one to bring up that Marten owes her a little something for helping out with the situation, he brings up the ice cream parlor and then the rest of the comic goes on as normal. This may sound pedantic, but it’s a case where just a slight change in wording makes all the difference between sounding contrived and sounding natural.

I have… issues with this comic.

On one hand, Faye is opening up more about her past. A small, innocuous thing spurred her on to open up a little more to Marten, the reminder cracking her mask and showing just how much trauma she’s really containing within. You can tell this is more than just “bringing back memories” – his death had a profound impact on her, there’s something she’s not wanting to bring up or discuss but is being partially dragged to the surface. This is good character writing, and an amazing step in Faye’s character arc. It spurs curiosity, sparks intrigue, makes you WANT to keep reading to see the next time Faye’s mask cracks because you want to see what she’s hiding underneath it.

On the other hand… there’s no nice way to say this – at this point, Jeph is not talented enough at drawing to portray this from an imagery standpoint. The faces are too stiff, the expressions to stock. Faye doesn’t look like tears are escaping from her despite her best efforts to keep a straight face, she looks like she’s mildly disinterested and a blue line to represent tears was drawn on top of her face. Writing can take you far, but the thing about comics is that the written word is only half of the story. Anything you sell with words, you need to also be able to sell with expressions, with physicality and staging.

I’m not an expert in art – not by a LONG shot, I couldn’t draw a comic to save my life – so I can’t exactly offer any advice on how he could’ve made this work better. I’m at least glad to say that with time Jeph came to improve his artistic style, making moments like this feel a lot more natural down the road. He eventually gets comfortable enough with his drawings that he’s able to tell a story using JUST body language, which is admirable. Clearly, we’re not there yet… and unfortunately, it hurts the mood that this comic is trying to sell.

After a week of guest comics, we continue the story with Faye sharing stories about her childhood with Marten, showing just how comfortable she’s become around him that she feels at ease sharing details about her past she likely wouldn’t share otherwise.

Oh, and we’ve got some revelations about Marten’s past here. The Thanksgiving comic where he talks about how his family drives him crazy is starting to make more sense now, isn’t it?

Here, we see three things displayed. First, the fraction used in Marten’s dialogue instead of just saying “half”. I… don’t get why that is. It makes me irrationally angry though. I’m aware that’s fully on me.

Second, this serves to showcase both Marten’s blasé attitude about his strange upbringing and offer potentially an expiation as to why he seems so passive about everything. I’ve offered up the idea in a previous post that when he goes out and makes a choice, it’s enough to completely shift his entire world, so that may have served to encourage him not to not want to rock the boat and keep his head low. This, however, might serve as an alternative explanation, or at least another piece of the puzzle – growing up in a… let’s call it “untraditional” household where his parents were clearly quite open about what they were doing with his son, the fact that Marten grew up to be rather milquetoast serves to make a certain degree of sense.

Third, Marten’s being sassy. I like when Marten’s sassy. As I said, his character kind of… devolves in later comics, so seeing him have a spine enough to throw this out is always fun to read. Plus, it also serves to showcase how comfortable the two of them are with each other that Marten can sling this stuff out without fear of retaliation.

Setup...

The next day, Faye’s leaving for work when a surprise visitor comes to their door.

Marten’s comment always makes me laugh. This comic in general is just hilarious, from Amanda – Faye’s sister’s name is Amanda by the way – triple bomb thrown right into Faye’s lap to Faye’s 404 error to Marten not even missing a beat in his reaction to what’s going on in front of him.

Honestly, I’m with Marten here. And once again, I’m afraid I have to point out the fact that Jeph isn’t quite talented at drawing facial expressions yet ruins the punchline to Faye’s joke in the last panel. At least the writing serves to keep the humor going strong, and don’t mistake me here – these next few comics are gut busters. I fucking love the chaos Amanda causes by just stepping into their lives.

Oh yeah, I guess I should talk about Amanda now, shouldn’t I? Well, uh. Hm. She’s a Lesbian. And she’s a bit of a troublemaker. And like a little bit of a ditz?

…yeah that’s literally all I can think to describe her as. Cut me a little bit of slack here though, at the time of writing we’re on page 4010 and I’d be genuinely surprised if Amanda was in more than 50 pages total. The only real significant things I can think to say about her as a character is how what she says and does serves to inform Faye’s character.

Like right here – we can see the whole “doesn’t plan much further than the very next step you’re about to take” mentality runs in Faye’s family. Also, Jeph’s trying different angles out! Good on him, even little changes like this can serve to make the action feel at least slightly more dynamic!

“Clitoriste” is an amazing word and I hope to find a way to work it into at least one conversation before I die.

Amanda hangs around the coffee shop, swapping sex stories with Dora as Faye desperately tries to claw her own eardrums until Marten comes along. And as I’m saying this, I realize with hindsight that Dora’s being super cool right now, not only letting her loiter around her business but also realizing she was kicked out of her house at least in part because of her sexuality and so is letting her know “Hey, fucking girls is AWESOME, right?” to keep her mind off current events. The more I talk about Dora, the cooler she gets, seriously.

“Aerodynamically curvaceous” is another amazing phrase, this one great enough that Jeph eventually made it into a T-shirt. Seeing as I have as many curves on me as a string bean does, there’s no way I could get away with wearing it myself, but the fact that the shirt exists makes me a little happier to be alive.

Anyway, this comic goes on to show that despite the circumstances, Amanda is taking this rather well all things considered, and Faye has faith that given some time to sit with the information their mom will come around… Also that Faye was a damn good student, which might go on to explain how she was able to absorb so much information about guitars when her ex rambled on about them so much – she just retains information THAT well.

This comic… raises a LOT of questions. The last comic involves characters from another webcomic entirely, making this a fun little Easter Egg/crossover sort of deal. That being said, this raises a LOT of questions about the continuity of QC. Does it take place within the universe of Diesel Sweeties? Or does Diesel Sweeties exist within the universe of QC? The fact that we have a humanoid robot here – does that serve to shed a light on AI development in the QC universe? Did Jeph consider what AI development there would be at this point in writing? I assume not, as thus far the only intelligent devices are Anthro PCs. Is Clango an Anthro PC? Is he a prototype of a more advanced synthetic?

These are questions that were never intended for me to ask, aren’t they? Yeah. That’s what I figured. Considering the fact that Amanda has a girlfriend is canon, and the following phone conversation on the next page is canon as well, the best way to rationalize this is to just pretend that last panel doesn’t exist. Remove it entirely, and this strip fits in perfectly with QC’s established continuity and universe thus far.

Unless you REALLY want to find a way to fit Diesel Sweeties into QC’s universe, which I suppose wouldn’t be that difficult considering it’s a non-plot focused gag-a-day comic, but that’s entirely up to you.

Oh, and speaking of the conversation the two have over the phone:

Credit where it’s due, Dora’s expression on the first two panels is clearly different from the standard set of facial expressions Jeph usually puts on everyone. It’s always nice to see some experimentation! And here’s another situation where Amanda’s main purpose is to drive forward Faye’s character – here we get another hint of something that happened in her past, confirmation that she hasn’t dated anyone in a long time and some kind of source of a reason why she hadn’t. The scar on her chest, the death of her father, the lack of a love life stemming from some event… pieces to the Faye puzzle are falling into place, but we still don’t have everything. We’re given just enough to inspire further curiosity though, which – and I know I’ve said this a hundred times before, but I will say it a hundred times again – is good character writing.

…all that said, I sincerely hope that phone was shock proof. I don’t think her Mom’s exactly going to be in the mood to get her a new one.

Considering Amanda stole her credit card and all, I don’t blame their mom for being furious at her. That said, it’s nice to see that it didn’t take long at all for her to calm down and want to talk things over.

And here, we have specific confirmation that there was a set of “circumstances” that led Faye to want to leave home and move up here. Another piece of the Faye mystery falls into place.

Amanda’s immediately heading off to the airport to return home, leaving Marten and Faye to reel in the wake of an… I’d say it’s fair to call it an intense day.

HAH! If you haven’t read all the way through QC, you don’t understand why that’s so funny in hindsight. Trust me, give it another few hundred comics and it’ll make sense. God, I wonder if that specific reference was intentional on Jeph’s part, or if he just likes Vespas? Then again… he IS an anime buff, it’s entirely possible both events stem from FLCL.

Oh hey, there’s that pink Anthro PC again. We saw them back at the LANPark. Haven’t added them to the character list though since we don’t even know their name, but it seems like Pintsize has friends and a life off-panel. Good for him! I do wonder what ends up happening to these guys later though… Most likely they all just drift apart and move on with their lives.

...Why am I so sad all of a sudden?

And here we see an example of the two of them openly flirting with each other, dipped deep in sarcasm of course but that’s just how these two roll. Their inter-personal relationship has progressed really well and at a nice, natural pace so far. At this rate, something should be coming to a head very soon – either one or the both of them need to acknowledge the fact that they’re getting closer, or something’s going to happen that will throw a monkey wrench into the dance they’re performing.

Ugh. I’m coming to hate whenever Marten says “What do you want to do now?” Maybe it’s just me, I’m willing to accept I’m reading too much into this, but whenever he says that all I hear in my head is Jeph going “I can’t think of a more natural way to transition into this next scene so I’ll have Marten ask this question to push the scene forward.” It just feels like bad storytelling to me, it really does.

Now, I need you to hold onto your seats right now, because what you’re about to read next might just be the greatest comic you’ve ever read in your life. The mere act of seeing this may very well knock you out of your seat. Are you ready for this? I don’t think you are – I don’t think ANY of us are. Brace yourselves.

My man, Jimbo! And yes, he is officially called Jimbo now, so we’ll be changing the name in the character stats screen at the end of this post. And this man, this absolute LEGEND, is living the dream – quitting his blue-collar job to pursue his passion in writing! He’s worked hard to get where he is in life, and now that he’s here, the fruits of his labor are paying off! As a commercial electrician who’s writing on the side, I strive to be like Jimbo one day. God bless you, you absolute PINNACLE of human achievement!

I can’t NOT show off more Jimbo comics, he’s just that great. Also, Faye’s drunken antics are fucking hilarious.

Credit where it’s due to Faye for not only helping Jimbo out with his writing but also doing it as a completely on-the-spot Haiku, while totally piss drunk. Not even going to lie, that takes talent.

Faye’s willingness to engage in behavior like this raises… questions. Questions that I’m not entirely comfortable asking right now considering the author’s own past with alcohol. I’ll touch more on it when we reach the batch of comics 501-550, I’m going to need more time to prepare myself to talk about it in a way that’s as respectful as possible.

And finally… the moment of truth. When long-time readers of QC remember the Pre-500 era, there are two things that come to our mind: The actual conversation that happens at issue 500 that marks the transitional phase of QC into the kind of webcomic it is today… and the headbutt-crotch-vomit comic.

Behold.

I’m not even going to try offering commentary here. Absolutely nothing I could say can be better than what you just witnessed in this comic.

This page right here… it has an interesting dynamic between its first and last panels. Panel one, again, Jeph takes the time to make a new facial expression for Faye as she’s waking up, one that looks nice and works with the dialogue to communicate how she’s feeling. And then in the last panel… well, I don’t think it’s exactly controversial to say that her face in the last panel doesn’t communicate the confusion and rage she’s supposed to be feeling as expressed in the dialogue, is it? Jeph is getting there, his artistry is clearly evolving, but he’s not quite talented enough to pull it all off quite yet. Still, little improvements should be applauded!

And here we get another character confirming suspicions raised back in #172, that being Faye clearly has some relationship hangups stemming from something happening in her past. This raises some concerns considering their more flirtatious behavior around each other and their developing inter-personal relationship. At this point, SOMETHING has to happen to inspire a reaction or change out of one of the two, or they may very well find themselves trapped in stagnation… keep that in mind for a little while longer. On the art side of things, something to note that I just realized… Steve has a shine in his eyes to make them look more natural and full of life, but Marten’s doesn’t. Is there any particular reason for this? And why am I noticing it just now? Actually looking back a few comics, the “shine in the eyes” detail only started with #186… again, in all characters except Marten. Is there a significant reason for this? Or is it just a detail that’s easier to do with the shades of color in people’s eyes except for Marten’s for whatever reason? I don’t have an answer, but it’s something to keep in mind at least while we watch the art evolve.

Also, one more thing?

Either Marten’s a liar, or Faye’s ass is just THAT good that it converted him. My money’s on the latter, considering people routinely talk about how baller Faye’s ass is.

Yes, I did just use the word “baller” unironically. No, I don’t have any shame, thanks for asking.

…payoff. 

And again with the fucking contraction thing… It’s not subtle if other characters are pointing it out! I know, I’m the only person willing to die on this hill, and I KNOW it’s long-passed and nobody’s concerned about it anymore, but it genuinely bothers me! This is a stupid character traits that… bah, I’m not going to repeat myself again. On a lighter note, this particular comic showcases how much better Jeph’s gotten at drawing faces. It’s not much, but it’s better than the stock expressions that most characters usually wear, and you can see some subtle actions and thoughts expressed in the way Dora or Faye’s eyebrows move, in which direction their eyes are facing… it’s nice stuff.

I won’t show everything in these next three comics, but I wanted to showcase this series of events at least because this is some good character writing that says a lot about both Steve and the new girl Jeph introduces.

Setup…

Payoff…

…and subversion of expectations.

Sorry Marten, but I’m with Steve here 100%. That was clever, well-played, and EXTREMELY hot all at once. It’s too bad we don’t end up seeing much of Ellen after this because she has SUCH a strong established introduction.

And what fortunate timing – we have another collection of guest comics, which ends RIGHT at #200:

And here we go – the spark of conflict in the relationship dynamic between Marten and Faye that I predicted we needed. How’s Faye going to deal with this? How’s Marten going to deal with this? What if on this date it turns out he’s actually, seriously interested in Dora? Would this push Faye to action? She’s made it clear, at least to the people around her, that she’s not interested in pursuing something with Marten… so what if someone made her put her money where her mouth is? Well, we’ll find out one way or another come the next batch of comics.

While we’re still talking about this batch however, let’s do our usual deal of comparing the art shift between the first and the last comics in the batch:

This is a clear-cut example of a lot of small, subtle tweaks happening over the course of a long enough period of time making a clear, distinct difference. The biggest change, of course, being the faces of everyone as I’ve been bringing up all throughout this post – everyone looks so much more EXPRESSIVE. You can get a proper read on someone’s mood based on just how they look alone now, and I find that super impressive… admittedly, it also makes me wish that Jeph could/would re-do the ice cream comic in this newer art style to properly capture the expression on Faye’s face that he wanted to capture, but you know. Would’ve, could’ve, should’ve.

So what did I think of this batch of comics so far? Personally, I think it’s the best batch yet – the best improvement in art, the most introduced on Faye’s character, the best sarcasm from Marten… a LOT was improved in this batch, and that deserves praise. I like where the plot is going, I want to know more about Faye, and I am hooked on the will they/won’t they story, especially with the newer developments in the complexities of their relationship web coming into play.

All that said, let’s take a look at the data analysis for this particular batch:

Marten: 34/50 – 68%

Faye: 33/50 – 66%

Dora: 12/50 – 24%

Amanda: 12/50 – 24%

Steve: 6/50 – 12%

Pintsize: 5/50 – 10%

Jimbo: 3/50 – 6%

Ellen: 3/50 – 6%

Turing: 1/50 – 2%

Grand Total:

Marten: 166/200 – 83%

Faye: 163/200 – 81.5%

Dora: 51/200 – 25.5%

Pintsize: 50/200 – 25%

Steve: 22/200 – 11%

Amanda: 12/200 – 6%

Sara: 7/200 – 3.5%

Jimbo: 5/200 – 2.5%

Turing: 4/200 – 2%

Raven: 3/200 – 1.5%

Ellen: 3/200 – 1.5%

Scott: 2/200 – 1%

Miéville: 1/200 – 0.5%

Ell: 1/200 – 0.5%

Do note that in this last batch, 12 of the 50 were non-canon guest comics, so I didn’t count any characters showing up in any of them. Either way, it looks like Amanda was in enough comics to create a barrier in the stats between main and major supporting characters and minor characters as far as amount of time they’ve shown up in the comic goes. I don’t know if anyone else finds that as interesting as I do, I just think it’s neat.

In any case, tune in next week for the exciting conclusion to the double-date story! And a trip to the hospital!

…the two things aren’t related, I swear. See you then.

[inthenameofthebody]

Music, Meditation, Painting—and Dreaming

A conversation with Philip Glass and Fredericka Foster

Philip Glass

and

Fredericka Foster

FALL 2021

We are on the phone, freewheeling about our practices: music, art, and meditation. Another day, we are in Philip’s kitchen, sitting at a wooden table. Behind us are comfortable couches and a private outdoor space. Philip’s partner, the artist Saori Tsukada, is working with flowers in the urban garden surrounding the house.

—Fredericka Foster

Philip Glass (PG): I was talking once to Gelek Rimpoche [1938–2017] about meditation, and I asked him, “Isn’t it just paying attention?” Yes, he said, “that’s absolutely what it is.” Meditation is a nice fuzzy word that we all like to talk about—but paying attention is placing your mind and functioning in a different way.

During the few years I have practiced meditation, I have worked with a number of texts. Say I am reading texts I have read many times—I’m thinking of the first Panchen Lama’s book on guru devotion [Lama Chöpa: The Guru Puja], which is not well understood. It is not about the guru; it is about the devotion. When I decide to really pay attention, I go back in my memory and look at some of the initiations I have taken. I watch the language change from awareness to remembering. It is possible to train the mind to increase memory.

I once asked the [scholar-teacher] Demo Rinpoche how many books he had memorized, and he replied that he wasn’t doing much memorizing at all—he thought only about 19! I’m sure it is many more now, and Gelek Rimpoche had memorized a library. The Tibetan culture cultivated the idea of memorizing. The passing on of wisdom could have been very accurate, since this was their main way of sharing information. The Tibetan lamas would memorize entire books and then, looking at a particular page, include the footnotes from other books they had read to verify a particular idea or lineage in the book they were writing themselves.

Fredericka Foster (FF): And here I am, still working to memorize all the texts that I work with daily! Memorization is also a part of a visual artist’s training. When we learn to draw, we work from reality—say, at its simplest, a still life. First we draw a series of lines to establish a compositional placement on the page. Then we memorize a line, draw it, and go back to the source to check it. We keep doing that until we have trained our hand to accurately follow our eye. Another memory exercise involved going through a pile of one thousand prints in a day and then discussing what we had seen. Or we would spend hours in front of a single painting and then sketch it out later.

PG: Culture has often been passed from one generation to the other through the power of memorization. We know the Bible was written 200 years after the birth of Christianity, so we assume it was made up. But it is possible that a sharp mind could remember very clearly and pass it along to another sharp mind, so the passing along of wisdom could have actually been very accurate, maybe more accurate than you would find in books, which are subject to typographical error, bad editions, and missing pages.

FF: Tibetan Buddhism attracts a lot of visual artists, and I suspect it is because we take easily to the many visualization exercises available for practitioners. I remember your telling me that your father taught you to play mental chess, which would certainly serve to sharpen your memory.

PG: Yes, he began doing that with his brother to pass time while they were waiting for the papers to be delivered for their paper route. And he continued playing with me and my brother.

If you go back to the 15th and 16th centuries, people didn’t write down everything. Many people didn’t write at all! One memorizing trick was to visualize a bookshelf and to actually visualize the names of the books on the shelf. I tried this once to see if it would work with a dance company in Australia. There were 20 people in the company, and we worked with them for a few days. With each member, I visualized their name on a book cover and put it in a certain location on an imaginary shelf. The last day I was able to say goodbye to each one, correctly remembering their names while looking at the bookshelf I had created in my mind. And they said, “How did you do that?” Well, what I was doing was trying to see if that thing worked. It did work.

“When that intensity of attention is applied to creating, you can’t stand outside and watch it; you have to give up the witness.”

FF: And we both did a lot of memorization in school—of poetry, speeches, and so on. It’s helpful when we memorize sutras and prayers today.

PG: All that also serves to assist us with the flow of attention. I once heard someone say he didn’t understand meditation. I said, “Forget that word; just pay attention to what you are doing.” We had been talking about infinity, and my friend suggested it was the flow of eternity, and I said that is the whole idea, the process of the mind attending to what you are doing, one moment at a time.

I find that when that intensity of attention is applied to creating, you can’t stand outside and watch it; you have to give up the witness. People ask me all the time, “Where did that music come from?” I have no idea, because all my energy went into writing the music. Since I had no awareness of myself writing, I had extra energy to increase the depth of concentration. It left me without the awareness of doing the work. I discovered that being aware of myself creating was an indulgence I couldn’t afford.

FF. It sounds like you have somehow overcome dualism when you are writing music. It’s like the state we work to achieve in order to become one with the object of meditation.

PG: Actually, when I decided to explore where music lived, I found that music comes from dreaming. I noticed I would wake up with a piece of music very clear in my mind. I thought these were stray ideas, but then I became curious where these ideas came from—the dreaming function of the mind is not ordinarily available to us. So I decided to wake up and write it down.

Recently, I was considering working on King Lear, a play I don’t like very much, and I was thinking I don’t want to write music for this. I finished the play and went to sleep. Then, at 5:30 in the morning, I heard music playing, and realized it was King Lear music and that the play was all about Lear’s relationship with his daughter; everything else was distraction. I went to the piano without hesitation. I started to write words by hand to describe the idea, then I sketched the music—a few measures. I thought it was the beginning of Lear, but actually it was the end.

FF: I keep pen and paper at my bedside and write or draw ideas as they appear. I haven’t done much with these ideas, but you are inspiring me to pay closer attention to them.

PG: Dreaming is the most personal and unique function that we don’t normally share with others. In analysis, we paid a lot of attention to dreams, but I am not talking about Freudian analysis and projecting it onto everyone else. What I learned from analysis was to give up my interest in the uninteresting—all those family issues made me bored with myself, and I didn’t have to do that anymore. Maybe the analyst knows this is what is happening. I read that during the first two hours of sleep, the mind looks at the day just past and sorts out memories to be preserved and those to be put away. The mind acts as an archivist. The creative part comes close to morning, before you wake up. When I wake up, I ask myself What was I just thinking? It is probably what I was dreaming about.

FF: Are you talking about lucid dreaming?

PG: No, but I can stand at the door of my dream and look into the room, as it were. It’s not complete, but it’s enough. Before I write, I access that dreaming state. I may never understand the dream, but what is important is that the material of the dream has become available.

FF: You encouraged me once to see the Cocteau Orphic trilogy, which inspired you to write an opera triptych. Those three films explore dreams and myths and can be watched again and again. When I moved from doing paintings exploring the symbols of faith and myth to working with images of water, I felt that I moved into metaphor and closer to the dream state. I am so relaxed looking at water. It frees my mind to wander, and I get new ideas, or watch old ones come together.

PG: The challenge of any artist is to keep the fire of creativity alive. What we mostly do is, we get good at doing something, and we keep doing it and don’t change much at all. If I look at the work of Sol LeWitt [1928- 2007], it is extraordinary, but it doesn’t change much. [Josef] Albers did manage to work with a square in a square over and over, but while they might look the same, they are not the same at all because of the influence of color.

An artist like me wants radical change. I found that the engine of change was working with new people and the new ideas they brought to the conversation. It didn’t turn into a formula, but I often did this.

Bob Wilson and I did [the opera] Einstein on the Beach, and it was very successful. To avoid doing “The Son of Einstein on the Beach,” I next did the opera Satyagraha, which was completely different. That was counterintuitive. We all want to please people. Your gallery wants you to make more of the same kind of paintings because they were successful. Most people follow success with another similar one, but I wanted to keep creative thinking alive in the process.

Every time I made a big change, I would lose a lot of people, but I would get some new ones. I found 50 percent of people liked it and 50 percent didn’t.

FF: After the Fischbach Gallery [where I regularly showed] left New York and went online, I found my work changing. I’ve always had to solve a new problem with each painting, but now I feel free to change what I was doing in a more radical way.

PG: I’ve noticed your work is changing. I have turned this change idea into a mantra: I am never happier than when I don’t know what I am doing. Still, I have moments of panic. How is this going to work? It can be very stressful trying to do new things, and I am not always completely successful, but I change as much as I can.

I discovered it was impossible not to do something familiar to some degree. When working in theater, I had to have at least one person who would come with me into a new project. I had to find a compromise about what I was willing to know and not know. I found I had to take something with me. Parts of my language would have to be the same, or my task would become impossible.

FF: In your ninth symphony, I feel like you are communing with the cosmos; there seems to be a seamless interaction between art and meditative revelation.

“I have turned this change idea into a mantra: I am never happier than when I don’t know what I am doing. Still, I have moments of panic.”

PG: Our minds are working all the time, but we can’t drive thoughts into awareness. As an artist, you are distilling your thoughts all the time, or listening to music, or paying attention to images. You are probably painting very differently now than you did when you were young, and some of that will be due to the fact that you have learned how to master your attention.

Once when I was in the mountains of Mexico with friends, we had to cross a valley to where we left our car. It looked to me like we didn’t have time to get there. If it got dark and we were in the desert, we would be in trouble. We started walking in a focused-intention kind of way—they called it a walk of attention. A walk that would have normally taken 40 minutes took 10. I had that experience of being able to pay attention to my attention, to actually cross a valley in a much shorter period of time so that we got to where we needed to in the light. We’re talking about pretty hardcore reality. The only way to do it was to command my attention to the point where I was able to make that happen. You can say “Well, you just made that up.” Of course I just made it up; how else could it have happened if I hadn’t made it up? But the fact of the matter is, I got across the valley before the sun went down. I know you’ve experienced something like that in painting.

FF: Yes, and at those times it seems that the painting paints itself. Later, I think, How did I do that? I’ve also experienced the sensation of entering the consciousness of animals, or even fish, when I have been watching water; suddenly feeling the sense of hunger and of being prey at the same moment—imagination becoming compassion. Music, art, and meditation are all means of accomplishing deep mental targeting of our feelings of interdependence and compassion.

PG: Bravo!

[deredere-fae]

Date: March 6th, 2021

Location: Tower Bridge in London

Summary: Daniel reflects on his sister's death on the 200th anniversary of the day she was killed and how his life is going in the present without her while sitting on the edge of Tower Bridge at it's highest point. David helps talk him off the ledge.

Featuring: David

Warnings: Mentions of death by abuse, mentions past suicidal thoughts, mentions current depressive/suicidal thoughts

Daniel sat on the top of the Tower Bridge with his feet dangling over the edge, a bottle of soju he managed to procure from David's restaurant half empty in his hand and another sitting beside him on the railing. He looked out at the vast scenery he could see from his spot at the top of the bridge and took in the sights and sounds below. His mind was elsewhere, stuck in a time 200 years in the past on that very day. The day his life changed drastically and he never fully recovered from it.

[Flashback]

Daniel had just gotten to the little cottage he shared with David at the edge of the Wandering Woods after a long day of training and doing menial tasks for the Queen. His friend wasn't home from what he had seen so he decided to tidy up and rest for a bit. His mind wandered to his sister, Yeunmin, who had recently gone back to her former lover Silas as it often did. He worried for her, as a normal brother would, because of how their relationship had taken a turn the last time she was in with him. He hoped that things had truly changed like Silas promised her they would but her lack of communication since returning to him deeply troubled Daniel. David had not been taking her reconciliation with Silas well, having withdrawn lately since her return, but Daniel understood why his friend was upset. He loved his sister more than he ever loved anyone so it was hard for him to see her with someone else. If only things had been different. Daniel thought, before she left to go back to Silas, that things were changing between the two and perhaps it could have finally blossomed into something beautiful. She started looking at David differently but sadly her heart still belonged to the man who hurt her in the end and David ended up being hurt in the process.

Daniel was brought from his thoughts when he heard movement outside of the cabin and figured that David had finally decided to come home. He walked from the sitting room toward the foyer to greet his friend and was confused to find the little cottage still empty. "David?" He called out only to be met with silence. He worried for his friend and where he had gotten off to, having seen how bad off he had gotten in his depression since Yeunmin left and worrying he would do something extreme in his heartbreak. Daniel decided he would go look for him and headed for the door, opening it to reveal his worst nightmare.

Laying on his front stoop unmoving was his sister, her neck at an odd angle and a letter laying on top of her lifeless body. "Minnie! No no no no no!" He wailed, unable to control the tears that ran down his cheeks as he dropped beside her lifeless body to check her over. Daniel sobbed harder when he couldn't find a pulse, taking in her appearance he could tell she had tried to fight back this time but judging by the odd angle her neck was in and the puncture marks from a blade to her abdomen, Silas had stabbed her and then snapped her neck. He cradled his sister's lifeless body in his arms, unable to move or even breath in his despair. Be vaguely remembered the note laying on top of her body and blindly reached for it.

"If I can't have her, no one can. Send my regards to David."

He balled the note up in his hand, anger settling in on top of his grief as he realized what had happened. Silas had seen David and Yeunmin together and based on the note he deduced that Yeunmin was going to leave him for David but Silas killed her before he could. It was around that time that David finally decided to come home and saw the two of them. If Daniel's despair at finding his sister's lifeless body was bad, David's was impossibly worse. He dropped to the ground in front of them, inconsolable as he bowed over Yeunmin sobbing to the point he could barely breath and he wished he could help his friend but he was just as distraught.

Daniel decided to destroy the letter, never wanting David to know that he was part of the reason Silas did what he did. He vowed his revenge on Silas and even spoke to his Queen about it later that afternoon after burying his sister next to his parents. The Queen sympathized with him she always did and vowed to help him get his revenge. The next day Silas was sent away on a mission that ended his life. The Queen had fulfilled her promise to help him. And while Daniel had hoped to end the man who ended his sister's life by his own hand, he understood his Queen's reasoning. "Oh my darling Makas, you don't want to taint yourself with the blood of that vile creature. You have other things to focus on like healing from this tragedy and helping your friend heal.". He and David left Faerie for a while after that, at the Queen's suggestion, only returning 70 years later for a visit and meeting two people they brought light back into their lives: Skylar and Joel.

[End Flashback]

He stared down at the photo he had in the hand not occupied by his soju. The only photo he had left of his sister as fresh tears rolled down his cheeks. He missed his sister more than anything, more than their parents who had died years before. Daniel and his sister were always close so her death took a piece of him with her. He remembered going crazy for a while after her death, sleeping around to feel….something….again. Wanting to let go of the guilt he felt for not being able to help his sister. Meeting Skylar and Joel helped, it gave him a purpose but he couldn't help but feel lonely and tired. "Aish Minnie, I wish you were here. You would know all the right things to say to make me feel better." He choked out through his tears, putting the photo away and drowning himself in soju again. He let the empty bottle fall from his hands, hearing it smash what seems like hours later on the bridge below. He was a long way up, nothing or no one would survive a fall from this height.

Opening another bottle he swayed slightly due to his intoxicated state and looked down at the bridge and river below. It wasn't the first time he had contemplated jumping but lately he had been considering it more. He was just so tired of feeling worthless, of being used as nothing more than a plaything, of being alone while every other person in his life found their forever. His mind flashed to Joel and Skylar, seeing their beautiful faces and how happy they were since they moved to London. How they had managed to find their forever in the city, he pictured David and how he was finally trying to move on with his life and love again and here he was, alone and drunk at the top of Tower Bridge thinking about his dead sister and lonely. He just wanted to see his sister again, he just wanted her to hold him and tell him everything would be alright, that his time would come. Sure Skylar had told him that recently but it was still hard to believe, especially since Skylar himself had managed to find love with his best friend Eric after going through everything he had gone through.

"Gah Minnie, why am I not enough for anyone? How can everyone else move forward and I'm still stuck in the same place I was before you ever left?" He sobbed, tipping back the bottle once again "They don't need me anymore. They have Eric and Gryffin and even Magnus now. Maybe I could join you now, Minnie." He slurred, eyes going unfocused due to his tears and current intoxicated state. He didn't register that someone else had climbed up and sat next to him, his mind swirling with thoughts.

"I hope you aren't considering what I think you are, Makas." Came the voice of his oldest friend and it caused Daniel to flinch slightly, gripping the edge of the spot he had been occupying for the past however many hours to keep from falling. He slowly looked over at the older Fae, eyes still slightly out of focus because of the soju.

"I could be with her again. It's not like I have anything keeping me here anymore. Everyone has moved on, has started building a life here and I'm just...not where I want to be." Daniel choked out "So why shouldn't I, Davian? Why shouldn't I just let myself fall?"

"I would be offended by the statement that you don't have anything keeping you here but you aren't in your right mind right now." David says softly, a frown marring his otherwise handsome features "Yes we are all trying to move on but Makas, my dearest friend, we still need you. Life wouldn't be the same without you."

"I'm just so tired, Davian. So tired of not being where I want to be, so tired of the memories of that day, so tired of hiding behind a mask and clinging to you and the others for comfort because I'm lonely, so tired of being lonely while I watch the people I love find love." Daniel chokes out "You guys don't deserve my issues on top of your own."

"Makes, you will get to where you want to be one day, I did. It just takes time." David says "And we don't mind you clinging to us because we love you. It might not be the love that you want but it should count for something right? And what about Alec? Do you want to miss out on the beautiful future the two of you have coming?"

"I love you all too. It just hurts." He sighs before another year rolls down his cheek "Alec would be alright. He would have Helenus. I still don't know where I stand with him because of Helenus."

"I know it does, sunshine, but pain only brings forth a beautiful new beginning. Look at Skylar and Eric." David says "If Alec chooses Helenus then so be it, move on but don't just give up. I feel like we have this same conversation every year."

"I know, I'm sorry you keep having to pick up the pieces when I break." Daniel mutters.

"Don't be, that's what I'm here for. I love you, Makas, and I only want you to be happy but I need you around. Skylar, Eric, Joel, they need you around. Even little Gryffin and Joonie need you around." David replies.

They sat on top of the bridge a while just talking before David finally convinced Daniel to come down and stop considering offing himself. As they walked toward David and Eric's flat, Daniel thought about what had lead him to that point again after so long and decided to do better. He was still hurting and lonely but for once he felt hope for the future.

[allenmendezsr]

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[cosmosfated]

More backstory from Discord last night.

Preamble: Maribel and Draggy, and sometimes Paci, talk about Fleur while he’s getting well needed rest. Maribel reveals some things about her little brother, explaining why he does some of the things he does. A brief glimpse into Fleur’s thoughts on “home”.

Draggy: (๑•﹏•) Hope Fleur will be okay. He should stop playing hero all by his lonesome and ask for help at times. He got a loving army backing him up.

Maribel: I'd agree but I kinda see why he does it. It ain't, right? but it's justified... Maribel: It's kinda like- atonement? Maribel: Ya get me?

Draggy:  (.`･﹏･´.) I do get it, believe me I do.. But he's not back there anymore. He's not a puppet anymore. He's no one but family. Family and my best friend. The best kind of somebody that should be praised and cherished. He's not a screw up, nor useless. His company, words, friendship, all of that matters. It deeply matters and I just.. I want to help him. He's done a lot, it's time for family to do something for him but he needs to give us consent. Don't wanna overstep or make him uncomfortable by any means.

Pacifica:  i mean... y'can't really help someone who doesn't want the help

Maribel: Oof. That’s harsh, Pacifica.

Pacifica: is it?

Maribel: And a little hypocritical Maribel: But u kno.

Pacifica: ...right Pacifica: sorry.

Maribel: And...yeah... Draggy, that seems to be, the case. Maribel : He's been unintentionally alienating himself from...Papa n' the rest of the extended family. Maribel : Or maybe it's intentional. Maribel : He's not been feeling much like family lately- but his sense of family has always been, uh....Bad.

Draggy: ヾ(｡﹏｡)ﾉﾞI think it's intentional.. Yea.. I get that bit too. And call me a nerd but this quote from Bioshock 2 is fitting. 'Love is just a chemical, until we give it meaning by choice.'

Maribel : Definitely fitting.

[slight topic change]

Maribel : I don't know. Maribel : He's, always hated just sitting around and waiting. Maribel : Even when we were kids- actual kids. Maribel : Waiting for things to happen, instead of making them happen the way you want them to- he never liked it. Planned waiting? Sure. But otherwise no. Maribel : Waiting around like that makes him feel, well....helpless. Useless.

Draggy:  (●´⌓`●) And what about asking for help? Does that get put into the 'waiting' category?

Maribel : ....I guess that, sort of is my fault. Maribel : It's ah- hm. Maribel : I've been with him all his life. I tried to answer every cry for help but I could rarely assist. Maribel : So I guess he just...stopped asking. Maribel : Took matters into his own hands and never stopped. Maribel : I....guess he got tired of waiting for an answer that never came.

Draggy:  (￣□￣) Yeah.. That's no good. There gotta be something we can do to make him change his ways. Even for a little bit until he catches on.

Maribel : Iunno. Maribel : Old habits die hard.

Pacifica: ‘specially if its 200 years worth of habits

Maribel : Precisely. Maribel : I don't think he's ready to cry for help so freely again. Not like this. Maribel : As he likes to quote for himself, there's a million things he hasn't done so just you wait.

[slight topic change]

Maribel : ...quite frankly, if he would just stay alive, that would be enough.

(Pacifica: i swear to god im about to make an angel catch these hands)

Draggy: (･∀･；) He is alive. The issue here is him purposefully jumping into danger without much of a thought. There was a choice wasn't there? For most or half of the crap he's done for redemption?

Maribel : There, was a choice. To us, at least, there was a choice. Maribel : ....To him, however, is a different story. Maribel : He's struggling to value his life even now because before, his life had no value? Maribel : It's sad, but even during The Fall, he was just...a prince. A savior, the "angel". Maribel : He was whatever people wanted from him, and when he was no longer needed, he'd die and try again. Maribel : It's a vicious thought process to break.

Draggy:  (°m°;) True but has anyone told him personally that they needed him to be Fleur? To just be himself? Or that we need him here with us? Alive and content? I don't know... I'm worried about him. I need him to stay. I would like my best friend to be okay.

Maribel : Up until about three years ago, no one wanted "Fleur". Maribel : Everybody wanted the ambassador, the mage, the engineer. Everybody wanted a piece of him, but never all of him. Maribel : I fear he's starting to lose touch with who "he" is.

Draggy: (;° ロ°) He is.. Well.... When he's settled down, would it alright for Maze to come talk to him?

Maribel : I don't know when that'll be.

[slight topic shift + temporary dodge]

Maribel : ....I guess his lack of self isn't really helped with the fact that this timeline isn't... Maribel : Ah well

Pacifica: normal?

Maribel : Not quite what I was aiming for but certainly.

Pacifica: what were you aiming for?

Maribel : It’s unimportant.

[after pacifica has fallen asleep]

Maribel : I was just gonna say now that Pacifica is asleep, I meant to say that this timeline isn't his anymore. Maribel : It's not...home. Maribel : Quite frankly, nowhere is. Maribel : Are you picking up what I'm putting down?

Draggy: ヾ(･ω･`；)ﾉ Maybe? It's a place you were born in, where you woke up and lived in. A connection of sorts and losing it is like losing a big part of yourself. What I wanna know is if he can move on from that and be safe? Like timeline hopping. Maze does it all of the time and he's not showing any negative effects. Then again, I haven't met anyone that lost their home. So... Can Fleur find a new home?

Maribel : It's...difficult. Maribel : Some time ago, he was trying to rebuild his old timeline. Or at least parts of it from memory. Maribel : He never really mentions it, because "others have it worse", but knowing that he doesn't have that definitive this is my timeline feeling, it... Maribel : It destroys him sometimes. Maribel : As for moving on and finding a new home? I'm not sure. Maribel : Nothing so far has worked. Maribel : No timeline was the Goldilocks timeline. Maribel : His- our timeline always was different though.

Draggy: (๑•́ω•̀) It's all about my thing? Or the connections? The my thing can be fixed. There are ways but the connection part I need to know, if that exists. It's like once you moved into a new place, unpacking and setting up takes time. Most of the time, that setting up gets re-aranged a lot until it's perfect in your view. I just need to know if that is possible for him. Wish I could ask around but I rather ask for Fleur's permission before speaking about that kind of thing. I won't direct it back to him, I'll be very careful in that sense.

Maribel : Well... Maribel : There are, connections. Maribel : He's given one to you, I believe. Maribel : Or, will give one to you. Maribel : There are these crystals used in jewelry- Echo Crystals. A constant energy source and said to grant small wishes, most commonly monetary ones. Maribel : He's given a few of them to most in the house, as a safety net. And as a speed dial for him. Maribel : I guess you could say that they're...a part of him? Maribel : They're all that's left of our old timeline. Sacred, even.

Draggy: =͟͟͞(꒪ᗜ꒪ ‧̣̥̇) I uh.. Don't do well with wishes of any sort.. Those give me the disturbing feeling, making my fur stand up. But I will.. Cherish it? If he gives me something like that. Thanks for the warning heads up on that by the way. In another sense, that is really nifty! I always wanted something like a speed dial for all of my friends in my years. I'm not always fast or quick enough to reach those in need.. Making me feeling worthless.

Maribel : Mhm. In the old timeline, they were given in gifts of jewelry as a sign of complete trust between two or more people. Considering the process of excavating the crystals from the ceiling properly, cleaning them, making the jewelry, and all that, it did show trust and respect and care. Maribel : Though, I.... I think he may be fine. Once he admits to someone personally that dilemma, it can get patched up somehow.

Draggy: （’-’*) I don't know much about his papa, only his temper sky rockets or could be that he's being a creepy ass for laughs. A good monster nevertheless. Trustworthy even but maybe Fleur can talk to him? Or get that started somehow in a gentle way? Something needs to change.

Maribel : Mmmmaybe. But some things are hard to talk about. Homelessness despite having a home is one of those, especially when the simplest way of putting it is also the most confusing.

Draggy: (๑•́ㅿ•̀๑) A lot of things are going to be hard to talk about. It's stressful and can cause one to go into panic. But maybe it's best to get it out there, so steps can be taken and hopefully something good comes from it all.

Maribel : Perhaps.

[averagelizajane-blog]

My Speech

I haven’t blogged in over a year ... this post really doesn’t count because it is a copy of a speech I gave this week at the a statewide nurse appreciation event the March of Dimes put on.  Nurses were awarded in 20 different categories.  There was also a silent and live auction to raise funds for the MOD. 

March of Dimes 

Nurse of the Year Event 

11/22/19

Richmond Hilton, Short Pump

When Latne asked me to speak today, I couldn’t say no because any chance I get to express gratitude to nurses I am going to jump on it!  I cannot think of very many honors higher than publicly thanking those who serve others -- especially babies.  So if you, all the nurses here today, get nothing else out of my little speech, please hear me when I say “THANK YOU!”  Thank you sincerely from the bottom of my heart!  You make a difference every.single.day!  Latne also asked me to keep my remarks under 5 minutes -- I’ll do my very best, but no promises … it’s going to be quite challenging to share our story in just 5 minutes.  

Let me begin with a day I will never forget.  It was an ordinary Saturday night in early 2018.  Anne-Marie’s health was pretty stable by then.  She had long been off oxygen, and she was tolerating her gtube feeds fairly well.  Anyways, I got her out of the bath and dressed her for bed.  I looked her in the eyes just like every other night and said, “Anne-Marie, I love you.”  And then that very ordinary night became one very extraordinary night in a matter of seconds.  Anne-Marie looked back at me with the most loving eyes and responded very robotically and very, very softly, “IIII Wuuub wun.”  You see, Anne-Marie was nonverbal up until last year.  I sat in the floor and cried tears of joy and relished in the fact that I had finally heard the three little words, I sometimes doubted I’d ever hear.  I vividly remember after a few minutes of crying, saying a prayer out loud (I usually pray silently and I hate to admit it, only when I need something) but in that moment I thanked God out loud for every single one of Anne-Marie’s nurses by name, doctors by name, therapists by name, her teachers by name, my parents, my best friend, Maggie, and everyone else who has cared for Anne-Marie along the way. 

Anne-Marie was born at 25 weeks gestation because I had severe pre-eclampsia and HELLP syndrome. The details surrounding her traumatic birth are a little cloudy.  However, I have a couple of very clear memories from that very scary time.

I was admitted to the hospital on January 10th. I was supposed to be on bed-rest because of my high blood pressure, but we had planned a 5th birthday party at the local bowling alley for my oldest daughter, Leah.  So while we were at Leah’s birthday celebration, my OB doctor called and said my blood work didn’t look good and I needed to go to the hospital.  Upon arrival and evaluation, the doctors said they would try and wait as long as possible to deliver, because they wanted to give me steroids for the baby’s lungs, but things didn’t look good and I may need to have a c-section “soon.”     

This news was not okay with me for several reasons.  The first and most important reason was that my baby, in my mind, was not developed enough to sustain life outside the womb.  At that time, I knew next to nothing about prematurity.  I just had this gut-wrenching feeling that my baby was going to die.

The second reason I was not okay with learning the news that a “soon” delivery was inevitable, was that I did NOT want my baby to be born on Leah’s birthday.  Again, I had a bad feeling I was going to lose my baby and I didn’t want to have an anniversary of a birth and a death on the same day.      

So, we were in the hospital, doing our best to process this very worrisome, new information and an in-depth ultrasound was done to predict the size of our baby.  Afterwards, two residents came in to speak with me about the possibility of the smallest breathing tube the NICU has being too large for our baby.  This information just lead to more questions with unknown answers.  They left and then it was a nurse who came back in, and with the most compassionate demeanor, she asked what we were going to name our baby.  I looked at my husband, Bradley, cluelessly … all I could think about is why are we going to name a baby, who probably won’t survive.  What’s the point?  It will just make this all harder?  We explained to the sweet nurse that we didn’t have any names picked out and we didn’t even know the sex, we had wanted to be surprised.  The nurse said that they liked to call babies by name when working to resuscitate them and caring for them -- she said they have a tendency to respond better.  With that small act of kindness, an overwhelming sense of comfort came over me.  I surrendered all and we named our baby.  

After that humble conversation with that nurse my feelings surrounding the date of my c-section began to change.  I figured if Anne-Marie needed to be born on Leah’s birthday, maybe that could actually be a gift and not a curse.  

And that’s exactly what happened. Anne-Marie was born en caul on January 12th.  She weighed 420 grams (that’s 14.8 ounces for all of us non-medical people) and was 10 inches long.  She was tinier than tiny -- about the size of a big Smartphone with a hard case.        

Anne-Marie did fairly-well during the very beginning of her 200-day hospital-stay.  I was discharged and tried my absolute best to keep some sense of normalcy for Leah, all while traveling back and forth to the hospital each day and pumping breast milk every three hours.  

It wasn’t until right around the 2 week mark when we had our first big scare.  I got a call from a doctor who said Anne-Marie’s oxygen stats were really low and they needed to change out her breathing tube to the next biggest size.  When we arrived, the normally dark and calm NICU room looked completely different.  The lights were bright and there was close to 10-15 people crowded around Anne-Marie’s isolette.  A social worker sat with me and explained what was happening.  One nurse had a cart with a separate computer and was logging everything the medical team was doing.  A respiratory therapist was bagging Anne-Marie.  Two doctors were conversing quietly about my daughter but not including me.  The air was tense.  Everyone was very serious.  A hospital chaplin came and introduced himself.  He asked me if I wanted to have Anne-Marie baptised. 

Prior to her birth, I was the one who thought she was going to die.  Now here we are, a couple of weeks later, and the experts think she’s going to die.  I politely responded, “No” to the chaplin.  I know it’s irrational now, but at that time, I figured if I allowed her to be baptised, I was giving up.  I thought if I willed her to live, she would.  I was scared.  I asked if I should call my husband in from work.  The doctor in the purple tie responded matter-of-factly, “Yes,” he said, “your baby is very sick and could die any minute.”  I called Bradley then stared at the beeping monitor displaying sats in the teens and 20s for half an hour.  I was in a daze, when one of Anne-Marie’s primary nurses asked me if I needed a break.  She may have never known it, but she had two patients that day, Anne-Marie and myself.  Her calm, professional vibe and consideration allowed me to deal with the situation.

These are just two of countless times during Anne-Marie’s journey where I credit my own success to her nurses.  All along, I’ve always credited Anne-Marie’s success to her skilled nurses.  And I always will.  Through 5 surgeries, several PICC lines, countless blood transfusions, back and forth transitions between the jet ventilator, conventional ventilator, and CPAP, progression from TPN to all mixes of formula, and graduating from an isolette to a warmer bed to an open crib, Anne-Marie’s nurses have been there on the front lines every step of the way. Not only did they medically care for her, but they went way beyond that … Anne-Marie’s nurses were really her first parents before we had her in our true custody.  They advocated to doctors on our behalf during rounds, they sang to her to soothe her, they dressed her up when she was able to wear clothes, they took pictures to decorate her bedside and did everything as much as they could to support the emotional needs of all of us.    

Today, Anne-Marie is in school and is very successful.  She’s spunky and silly and full of life. Anne-Marie loves reading, singing, pretend-play, her Nana, and following Leah around every step she takes.  My family is forever in debt to the NICU nurses and doctors, the March of Dimes, and the greater field of neonatology.  I reflect upon her journey from time to time and know without a shadow of doubt that each person who cared for Anne-Marie was put in that position at that particular time for a reason.  Her outcome would have been different if certain pieces to the puzzle were lost.  We will never be able to express enough gratitude for saving Anne-Marie’s life. On behalf of babies everywhere, I sincerely thank you for your dedication and service.      

[talesofsymphoniac]

NOW YOU HAVE TO ANSWER ALL THE ODD ONES. TAKE THAT

JUST YOU FRICKIN’ WATCH ME

1. What was your first fic and could you stand to reread it today?

I think my first fics were Tales of Symphonia ones when I was 12 that I actually handwrote and still have because I collect all my notebooks like a packrat. I like rereading them from time to time– some parts are cringey, of course, but there are other ones that I just LOVE.There was also a Dawn of the New World sequel with, like, my own OCs and everything that I spent a whole summer on. That one I DID throw away because I expected it to end up cringey. And yeah, from what I remember it was (fight scenes are HARD, okay?) but also I really wish I could reread it. Now all I have are my memories…

5. Is there any fic that makes you super happy to reread and remember you wrote that?

Click Away is my baby and I’ll never stop being proud of it, sorry :P Any of my longfics, really.

7. What’s the fic you most want to continue (unfinished or no)?

Hm, well I just finished my latest WIP, so I have nothing actively in progress right now… I have a few sequel ideas for Click Away still kicking around that I’d like to get to eventually, though!

11. Have you ever written a fic for a concept you know someone else has done before? How did it impact your writing process or feelings after posting?

One of the advantages of writing in small fandoms is there’s a good chance that your idea hasn’t been done before, I’ve found. I mean, Tales of Zestiria has a few hundred works, but in general when I’ve been excited to write fics it’s usually because it’s a concept I haven’t seen explored as much. I mean, I guess modern AUs had been done before with Click Away, but I’d never seen an Online AU, for instance. Usually there’s some sort of twist or key point in my fics hat makes it so I don’t compare my writing to others, at least not much.

Then there’s the Death Gate fandom, which I do tend to be harsh on myself with just because there’s really one main author there who is really good and I always worry about how my stuff will “measure up” next to that, or knowing the exact individuals who will be reading, but that’s less about a specific concept and more about writing for that fandom in general, haha.

13. What’s the biggest change between your style when you started in fandom and today?

I haven’t been writing stuff with the intent to post it for very long, sooooo. I am more likely to try to write AUs now, as opposed to canon stuff (I still very much prefer writing canon-based stuff, though :P)

15. Have you ever purposefully written one fandom/fic idea over another because you knew it’d be more popular?

Nope, haha. My motivation is already so spotty that if something excites me enough to write it, I just go for it. And that almost never happens with two different ideas at the same time.

17. In your opinion, what’s your most overrated fic?

Treading Water, my Sormik lifeguard AU. It has my third-highest kudos on AO3 and while I like it well enough, it’s never been one of my favorites, personally!

19. If you had to pick one fic/scene/chapter of your work to describe your entire portfolio to a stranger, which would you pick?

That’s really hard??? I guess something introspective, probably, with strong relationships and themes? Possibly Polarity from To draw on all its omnipotence, though it’s a little bit too angsty to really describe my “portfolio.” It would need to be way more fluffy. Maybe something more like Fate Slides Into Freedom from the same. Or maybe The Truth Comes Out from A Click Away? Or Light from The Unspoken Bond? Idk, man.

21. If someone starts kudosing and commenting your fics in a spree and has a few works of their own, would you go look through theirs?

a;sldkfjaf I’m a really bad person and I almost never check that kind of thing, I’m so sorry

25. What constructive criticism, however well-meaning, always makes you feel bad when you see it in a review?

I don’t really get much in the way of constructive criticism (and that says nothing about me as an author, but more how fandom in general is trained not to critique fanworks unless the author asks for it). I did get a critical review in my first try writing Unspoken Bond which echoed stuff I’d already been thinking (basically that I could afford to bounce around the timeline a lot more in that fic, since it covered a lot of canon elements) and inspired me to give it another go in a different way, which I’ll always be grateful for even though I’ll also always wish it hadn’t taken someone else pointing it out anonymously for me to change things around, you know?

29. Does the division of your writing across fandoms line up with your reading? What’s the biggest discrepancy?

I read (or read, past tense) a lot of Yuri on Ice fic, but somehow I never wanted to write for it very much. I did a few script things, but for the most part the anime gave me a lot of what I wanted to see, so there was less of a desire on my part to fill the gaps. But I love reading other people’s interpretations!

That’s a pretty significant exception, though. In general, writing and reading usually matches up pretty well!

31. Who’s the one character you’ve just never managed to get perfectly right?

I always feel weird trying to write Dezel and Zaveid. It’s why they always have such small parts if they’re even in my fics. I have to say, though, I actually did enjoy Dezel more than I thought I would in Click Away (he still had a really small role, though)

33. Is there any particular character whose scenes always wind up being longer/more frequent than you expected? Does the quality hold up?

MARIT. Granted, this was only for To draw on all its omnipotence, since that’s the only one that’s really let me delve into her brain so far, but I didn’t expect her to have as much to say as she did. The thing about Marit is she only becomes a main character in the last two books out of seven in Death Gate, so there’s a lot of room to talk about her that just didn’t happen in those two books. I expected her to be hard to write for that reason, but instead it was really fun to get to flesh her out a bit more! And I really think the whole fic was better for it!

35. Have you ever written a ship into a fic without meaning to?

There was a little more Zaveid/Lailah flirting in Treading Water than I intended, but I lowkey ship that, so it wasn’t like I minded, haha. Other than that… I don’t think so?

37. Have you ever purposefully bashed a character/ship in a fic?

*cough* Salt and Sugar *cough* Statement released by Mikleo, 200 years after Sorey’s sleep began *cough cough*

39. Do you consider yourself to have a readership?

Maybe a little one in the Zesti/Sormik crowd!

41. If you cross-post your fics on multiple sites, do you have a favorite? Are there certain fics you would only post on certain site?

I don’t cross-post fics, except sometimes to Tumblr. AO3 is vastly preferred. (I used to read from ff.net when that was more popular but never wanted to post anything there)

43. How many views has your least popular fic gotten?

Going by kudos: What is Love? and What are Friends For? both have 5 kudos and 40 and 77 hits, respectively. Going by hits, A Soft Epilogue has 38 views (but 8 kudos).

45. If you had to call yourself an author of a single genre (besides fanfic) what label would you give yourself?

Well, I use the tag “Fluff” a lot, so there’s that. Fluff, family, friendships, relationships, that sort of thing.

47. If someone you know in real life who isn’t involved in fandoms asked to read your work, would you let them? If yes, what would you recommend they read first?

Hmmm, it would definitely depend on the person, but if I trusted them enough to show them something I might have them read Wedding Bells, actually. Just because it’s pretty innocent, gets into some pretty interesting points about the Purple Prose AU, and doesn’t require a ton of context.

49. Has anyone in your life ever read your fanfic just because you wrote it?

@neodiji was really unbelievably sweet the other day and left a comment on To draw on all its omnipotence, so that counts!

[leftlanechelloveck]

Need to Get Away? 6 Tips to Help Break the Cycle of Poverty

I'm poor. I grew up poorer. Not dirt poor, but poor enough to have couch-surfed for a couple years of my high school education. I was lucky to have couches. Not everyone has luck. Not everyone gets a steady job. Not everyone has a good yellow car like I do.

Some people get lower than I ever have. Escaping the shadow of your parents' bad decisions can be difficult, but it's not impossible. For many teenagers fresh out of high school, no one is out there to say "Hey! Get a job! Open a bank account! Don't get a credit card just yet!"

Yes, it's sad to say, but many of our generation don't really have someone setting them down the good path. I've been there. I'd like to help if I can.

Disclaimer: I am only 20 years old myself, so my own self-improvement is a work in progress, but I consider myself a better authority than many older people out there because I've actually gone through it. I went from homeless high school grad to self-supporting college student in a matter of years. Here are some of the steps I took (simplified) to get where I am now:

1. Get a job. Any job.

No one wants to flip burgers and work the drive-thru, but I tell you what: McDonald's is hiring.

My first job started me near minimum wage, but it was something. No matter what, you cannot save a dime if no one is giving you dimes to begin with. Can you have reservations about working for a dubious corporation with a mixed and even scandalous history of representing the rights of its workers? Absolutely. Can you afford to do anything about it yet? Probably not. If so, good for you.

Listen, I'm all for overthrowing the bourgeoisie, but for now you need to focus on putting food on the table.

And yeah, it sucks letting people yell at you in the lobby of Joe's French Fry Hut or whatever it may be, but if you hold out long enough these places will actually reward you for your patience. Like I said, my first wage was $7.50 and I make almost twice as much hourly now.

Working hard at a place like that might feel counterproductive, but if they offer you a shiny new title with a couple extra dollars to multiply your paycheck for little to no extra effort on your part, you might as well take it while you can.

2. Set up that direct deposit.

Banks will mostly be interested in helping you. Local banks or regional banks tend to be a bit brighter on the customer service side, and some banks have better reputations for being especially user-friendly. Your banker wants you to know about savings accounts and the like because that means you are using another one of their services.

While some banks are bad and nasty, websites like ConsumerReports and NerdWallet can help you root through the garbage, so to speak. 

You need a checkings AND a savings account. This is important. Ask your banker if you can set up automatic transfer of funds into your savings account. For example, if you make $200 every week, try having the machine automatically put $25-$50 of that into savings. Make sure you can turn it off or change the amount at any time, just in case you need to make your available money stretch a little bit.

Sooner or later, that weekly transfer adds up into something substantial. The next time your car breaks down or you get sick and can't work you'll be able to last a little longer before going into disaster-mode.

3. Focus on one big goal at a time.

Big goals have this peculiar way of creating smaller in-between goals. For example: want to go to college? Where will you live during the semester? Will you still work? If not, will you have enough money to eat until winter break?

By selecting a single task to work towards, you are able to dedicate yourself fully to that goal. If it's monetary, like saving up for an education or an apartment, you already have a number to shoot for.

Some goals are a little more ambiguous: want to start a crafting business?

Asking the right questions is a little more complicated, but as long as you're prioritizing your big goal over miscellaneous activities you will inevitably make progress.

4. Learn how to say no.

When you're in high school, most of us have little choice but to stick with our parents. As you age, sometimes your parents start sticking to you.

It's hard if you love your parents, but you can't let them rely on you if you can't rely on yourself.

When your parents start asking you for money, think about it: is this to pay rent? Is this for food? Are they buying weed for themselves? Are they asking you to pay for something you'll never benefit from?

For example, my mom took a thousand dollars from my bank account without saying a word to me, hoping that I'd never find out. I'm still not sure what she spent it on specifically, but that's a thousand dollars I needed to get to college.

If you're doing well for yourself and everyone else in your family is struggling, it'd be great to be able to help them. But when helping them out jeopardizes your own success, you need to start putting your foot down and helping them in ways other than opening up your pocketbook.

5. Distance yourself from what's dragging you down.

Parents. Abusers. Bad memories. High cost of living. Moving away is the only way to escape the negativity sometimes.

Getting out on your own is a complex process, but it can help your mental state. It's not impossible, so don't rule it out. It's a lot harder for people to track you down and ask you for money when you no longer live in a small town where everyone knows one another.

In desperate times, ask yourself if you know anyone in the next county over, or maybe someone who's going to school out-of-state. Can they help you get settled? Can you rent with them? Are they responsible enough to be trusted?

Moving can't solve everything, but it can put a lot of problems on the periphery.

6. Don't burn your bridges.

Remember that one high school teacher who always had your back? They'd listen to you when you needed someone. They'd give you responsible adult advice in ways your family couldn't. Maybe they'd give you cards during the holidays.

They probably remember you, too. Reaching out to positive authority figures might sound easier said than done, but worst-case scenario they shrug off your email and you never have to see them again. Right?

Remember and appreciate the people who have helped you in the past. Not only might they offer you more valuable advice in the future, but they probably would like to hear from you again.

Although it's easy to let your heart grow bitter when people refuse to extend a helping hand, remember a "no" today might mean a "yes" tomorrow. Try your best not to lash out at those who can't help you out—they might be living check-to-check as well.

Recent studies (links to study/links to summary of study) have shown poorer people tend to have more empathy than their richer counterparts. They theorize this is because poor people have a greater need to be likable than someone who can just fix problems with dollar bills.

Once you get out of the mess, you can remember who didn’t treat you so kindly.

When you're poor, you see the worst in people, mostly because a lot of people act nicer when they think they have something to gain from you. You see the way people regard you like you don't matter. It’s discouraging. It’s overwhelming. Try breaking it up into smaller pieces, week by week, day by day, and you’ll find yourself making progress all the time.

So what, it might have be easier for you to get to law school if you’d come from a family of wealth. Fuck it, to be quite honest. Despite the seemingly insurmountable odds, the one sure way to bust your dreams wide open is to stop trying.

Being poor is about playing life on hard mode, so to speak, and you have to min-max to make things work. It’s good for all of us that there’s a figurative strategy guide out there for some of the steps to breaking generations of poverty.

I’m planning on outlining some other aspects of growin’ up the old-fashioned way in later posts, so be sure to stop by or drop into my inbox if you’ve got specific questions or requests. Good luck out there!

[slrlounge1]

Sony A7RIII Review: Officially The Best Pro Full-Frame Mirrorless Camera On The Market

When I test a new camera, I usually have an idea of how the review might go, but there are always some things that are a complete unknown, and a few things that totally surprise me.

I know better than to pass judgment on the day a camera is announced. The images, and the user experience are what matter. If a camera has all the best specs but lacks reliability or customizability, it’s a no-deal for me.

So, you can probably guess how this review of the Sony A7RIII is going to turn out. Released in October of 2017 at $3200, the camera has already had well over a year of real-world field use, by working professionals and hobbyists alike. Also, it now faces full-frame competition from both Canon and Nikon, in the forms of Canons new RF mount and Nikon’s Z mount, although these only have two bodies each and 3-4 native lenses each.

As a full-time wedding and portrait photographer, however, I can’t just jump on a new camera the moment it arrives. Indeed, the aspects of reliability and sheer durability are always important. And, considering the track record for reliability (buggy-ness) of the Sony A7-series as a whole since its birth in October of 2013, I waited patiently for there to be a general consensus about this third generation of cameras.

Indeed, the consensus has been loud: third time’s a charm.

Although, I wouldn’t exactly call the A7RIII a charming little camera. Little, sure, professional, absolutely! But, it has taken a very long time to become truly familiar and comfortable with it.

Before you comment, “oh no, not another person complaining about how hard it is to ‘figure out’ a Sony camera” …please give me a chance to thoroughly describe just how incredibly good of a camera the A7RIII is, and tell you why you should (probably) get one, in spite of (or even because of) its complexity.

Sony A7RIII (mk3) Specs

42-megapixel full-frame BSI CMOS sensor (7952 x 5304 pixels)

ISO 100-32000 (up to ISO 50 and ISO 102400)

5-axis sensor-based image stabilization (IBIS)

Hybrid autofocus, 399 phase-detect, 425 contrast-detect AF points

3.6M dot Electronic Viewfinder, 1.4M dot 3″ rear LCD

10 FPS (frames per second) continuous shooting, with autofocus

Dual SD card slots (one UHS-II)

4K @ 30, 24p video, 1080 @ 120, 60, 30, 24p

Metal frame, weather-sealed body design

Sony A7R3, Sony 16-35mm f/2.8 GM | 1/80 sec, f/11, ISO 100

100% crop from the above image, fine-radius sharpening applied

Sony A7R3 Pros

The pros are going to far outweigh the cons for this camera, and that should come as no surprise to anyone who has paid attention to Sony’s mirrorless development over the last few years. Still, let’s break things down so that we can discuss each one as it actually relates to the types of photography you do.

Because, even though I’ve already called the A7RIII the “best pro full-frame mirrorless camera”, there may still be at least a couple other great choices (spoiler: they’re also Sony) for certain types of working pro photographers.

Sony A7R3, Sony 16-35mm f/2.8 GM, 3-stop Polar Pro NDPL Polarizer filter 2 sec, f/10, ISO 100

Image Quality

The A7RIII’s image quality is definitely a major accomplishment. The  42-megapixel sensor was already a milestone in overall image quality when it first appeared in the A7RII, with its incredible resolution and impressive high ISO image quality. This next-generation sensor is yet another (incremental) step forward.

Compared to its predecessor, by the way, at the lowest ISO’s (mostly at 100) you can expect slightly lower noise and higher dynamic range. At the higher ISOs, you can expect roughly the same (awesome) image quality.

Also, when scaled back down to the resolution of its 12-24 megapixel Sony siblings, let alone the competition, it’s truly impressive to see what the A7R3 can output.

Speaking of its competitors’ sensors, the Sony either leaves them in the dust, (for example, versus a Canon sensor’s low-ISO shadow recovery) …or roughly matches their performance. (For example, versus Nikon’s 36 and 45-megapixel sensor resolution and dynamic range.)

Sony A7R3, 16-35mm f/2.8 GM | 31mm, 1/6 sec, f/10, ISO 100, handheld

100% crop from the above image – IBIS works extremely well!

I’ll be honest, though: I reviewed this camera with the perspective of a serious landscape photographer. If you’re a very casual photographer, whether you do nature, portraits, or travel or action sports, casually, then literally any camera made in the last 5+ years will deliver more image quality than you’ll ever need.

The Sony A7R3’s advantages come into play when you start to push the envelope of what is possible in extremely difficult conditions. Printing huge. Shooting single exposures in highly dynamic lighting conditions, especially when you have no control over the light/conditions. Shooting in near-pitch-dark conditions, by moonlight or starlight… You name it; the A7RIII will match, or begin to pull ahead of, the competition.

Personally, as a landscape, nightscape, and time-lapse photographer, I couldn’t ask for a better all-around sensor and image quality than this. Sure, I would love to have a native ISO 50, and I do appreciate the three Nikon sensors which offer a base ISO of 64, when I’m shooting in conditions that benefit from it.

Still, as a sensor that lets me go from ISO 100 to ISO 6400 without thinking twice about whether or not I can make a big print, the A7RIII’s images have everything I require.

Sony Color Science

Before we move on, we must address the common stereotype about dissatisfaction with “Sony colors”. Simply put, it takes two…Actually, it takes three! The camera manufacturer, the raw processing software, and you, the artist who wields those two complex, advanced tools.

Sony A7R3, Sony 16-35mm f/2.8 GM | 6 sec, f/3.5, ISO 100 | Lightroom CCC

The truth is that, in my opinion, Adobe is the most guilty party when it comes to getting colors “right”, or having them look “off”, or having muddy tones in general.

Why do I place blame on what is by far the most ubiquitous, and in popular opinion the absolute best, raw processing software? My feelings are indeed based on facts, and not the ambiguous “je ne sais quoi” that some photographers try to complain about:

1.) If you shoot any camera in JPG, whether Sony, Nikon, or Canon, they are all capable of beautiful skin tones and other colors. Yes, I know, serious photographers all shot RAW. However, looking at a JPG is the only way to fairly judge the manufacturer’s intended color science. And in that regard, Sony’s colors are not bad at all.

2.) If you use another raw processing engine, such as Capture One Pro, you get a whole different experience with Sony .ARW raw files, both with regard to tonal response and color science. The contrast and colors both look great. Different, yes, but still great.

I use Adobe’s camera profiles when looking for punchy colors from raw files

Again, I’ll leave it up to you to decide which is truly better in your eyes as an artist. In some lighting conditions, I absolutely love Canon, Nikon, and Fuji colors too. However, in my experience, it is mostly the raw engine, and the skill of the person using it, that is to blame when someone vaguely claims, “I just don’t like the colors”…

Disclaimer: I say this as someone who worked full-time in post-production for many years, and who has post-produced over 2M Canon CR2 files, 2M Nikon NEF files, and over 100,000 Sony ARW files.

Features

There is no question that the A7R3 shook up the market with its feature set, regardless of the price point. This is a high-megapixel full-frame mirrorless camera with enough important features that any full-time working pro could easily rely on the camera to get any job done.

Flagship Autofocus

The first problem that most professional photographers had with mirrorless technology was that it just couldn’t keep up with the low-light autofocus reliability of a DSLR’s phase-detect AF system.

This line has been blurred quite a bit from the debut of the Sony A7R2 onward, however, and with this current-generation, hybrid on-sensor phase+contrast detection AF system, I am happy to report that I’m simply done worrying about autofocus. Period. I’m done counting the number of in-focus frames from side-by-side comparisons between a mirrorless camera and a DSLR competitor.

In other words, yes, there could be a small percent difference in tack-sharp keepers between the A7R3’s autofocus system and that of, say, a Canon 5D4 or a Nikon D850. In certain light, with certain AF point configurations, the Canon/Nikon do deliver a few more in-focus shots, on a good day. But, I don’t care.

Sony A7R3, 16-35mm f/2.8 GM | 1/160 sec, f/2.8, ISO 100

Why? Because the A7R3 is giving me a less frustrating experience overall due to the fact that I’ve completely stopped worrying about AF microadjustment, and having to check for front-focus or back-focus issues on this-or-that prime lens. If anything, the faster the aperture, the better the lens is at nailing focus in low light. That wasn’t the case with DSLRs; usually, it was the 24-70 and 70-200 2.8’s that were truly reliable at focusing in terrible light, and most f/1.4 or f/1.8 DSLR primes were hit-or-miss. I am so glad those days are over.

Now, the A7R3 either nails everything perfectly or, when the light gets truly terrible, it still manages to deliver about the same number of in-focus shots as I’d be getting out of my DSLRs anyways.

Eye Autofocus and AF customization

Furthermore, the A7R3 offers a diverse variety of focus point control and operation. And, with new technologies such as face-detection and Eye AF, the controls really do need to be flexible! Thanks to the level of customizability offered in the the A7R3, I can do all kinds of things, such as:

Quickly change from a designated, static AF point to a dynamic, adaptable AF point. (C1 or C2 button, you pick which based on your own dexterity and muscle memory)

Easily switch face-detection on and off. (I put this in the Fn menu)

Designate the AF-ON button to perform traditional autofocus, while the AEL button performs Eye-AF autofocus. (Or vice-versa, again depending on your own muscle memory and dexterity)

Switch between AF-S and AF-C using any number of physical customizations. (I do wish there was a physical switch for this, though, like the Sony A9 has.)

Oh, and it goes without saying that a ~$3,000 camera gets a dedicated AF point joystick, although I must say I’m preferential to touchscreen AF point control now that there are literally hundreds of AF points to choose from.

In short, this is one area where Sony did almost everything right. They faced a daunting challenge of offering ways to implement all these useful technologies, and they largely succeeded.

This is not just professional-class autofocus, it’s a whole new generation of autofocus, a new way of thinking about how we ensure that each shot, whether portrait or not, is perfectly focused exactly how we want it to be, even with ultra-shallow apertures or in extremely low light.

Dual Card Slots

Like professional autofocus, dual card slots is nothing new in a ~$3,000 camera. Both the Nikon D850 (and D810, etc.) and the Canon 5D4 (and 5D3) have had these features for years. Although, notably, the $3400 Nikon Z7 does not; it opted for a single XQD slot instead. Read our full Nikon Z7 review here.)

Unlike those DLSRs, however, the Sony A7R3 combines the professional one-two punch of pro AF and dual card slots with other things such as the portability and other general benefits of mirrorless, as well as great 4K video specs and IBIS. (By the way, no, IBIS and 4K video aren’t exclusive to mirrorless; many DSLRs have 4K video now, and Pentax has had IBIS in its traditional DSLRs for many years too.)

One of my favorite features: Not only can the camera be charged via USB, it can operate directly from USB power!

Sony A7R3 Mirrorless Battery Life

One of the last major drawbacks of mirrorless systems, and the nemesis of Sony’s earlier A7-series in particular was battery life. The operative word being, WAS. Now, the Sony NP-FZ100 battery allows the A7R3 to last just as long as, or in some cases even longer than, a DSLR with comparable specs. (Such as lens-based stabilization, or 4K video)

Oh, and Sony’s is the only full-frame mirrorless platform that allows you to directly run a camera off USB power without a “dummy” battery, as of March 2019. This allows you to shoot video without ever interrupting your clip/take to swap batteries, and capture time-lapses for innumerable hours, or, just get through a long wedding day without having to worry about carrying more than one or two fully charged batteries.

By the way, for all you marathon-length event photographers and videographers out there: A spare Sony NP-FZ-100 battery will set you back $78, while an Anker 20,100 mAh USB battery goes for just $49. So, no matter your budget, your battery life woes are officially over.

Durability

This is one thing I don’t like to speak about until the gear I’m reviewing has been out in the real world for a long time. I’ve been burned before, by cameras that I rushed to review as soon as they were released, and I gave some of them high praise even, only to discover a few weeks/months later that there’s a major issue with durability or functionality, sometimes even on the scale of a mass recall. (*cough*D600*cough*)

Thankfully, we don’t have that problem here, since the A7RIII has been out in the real world for well over a year now. I can confidently report, based on both my own experience and the general consensus from all those who I’ve talked to directly, that this camera is a rock-solid beast. It is designed and built tough, with good overall strength and extensive weather sealing.

It does lack one awesome feature that the Canon EOS R offers, which is the simple but effective use of the mechanical mirror to protect the sensor whenever the camera is of, or when changing lenses. Because, if I’m honest, the Sony A7R3 sensor is a dust magnet, and the sensor cleaner doesn’t usually do more than shake one or two of the three or five specks of dust that are always landing on the sensor after just a half-day of swapping lenses periodically, especially in drier, static-y environments.

Value

Currently, at just under $3200 and sometimes on sale for less than $2800, there’s no dispute- We have the best value around, if you actually need the specific things that the A7RIII offers compared to your other options.

But, could there be an even better camera out there, for you and your specific needs?

If you don’t plan to make giant prints, and you rarely ever crop your images very much, then you just don’t need 42 megapixels. In fact, it’s actually going to be quite a burden on your memory cards, hard drives, and computer CPU/RAM, especially if you decide to shoot uncompressed raw and rack up a few thousand images each time you take the camera out.

Indeed, the 24 megapixels of the A7III is currently (and will likely remain) the goldilocks resolution for almost all amateurs and many types of working pros. Personally, as a wedding and portrait photographer, I would much rather have “just” 24 megapixels for the long 12-14+ hour weddings that I shoot. It adds up to many terabytes at the end of the year. Especially if you shoot the camera any faster than its slowest continuous drive mode. (You better buy some 128GB SD cards!)

As a landscape photographer, of course, I truly appreciate the A7RIII’s extra resolution. I would too if I were a fashion, commercial, or any other type of photographer whose priority involved delivering high-res imagery.

We’ll get deeper into which cameras are direct competition or an attractive alternative to the A7RIII later. Let’s wrap up this discussion of value with a quick overview of the closest sibling to the A7RIII, which is of course the A7III.

The differences between them go beyond just a sensor. The A7III has a slightly newer AF system, with just a little bit more borrowed technology from the Sony A9. But, it also has a slightly lower resolution EVF and rear LCD, making the viewfinder shooting experience just a little bit more digital looking. Lastly, partly thanks to its lower megapixel count, and lower resolution screens, the A7III gets even better battery life than the A7RIII. (It goes without saying that you’ll save space on your memory cards and hard drives, too.)

So, it’s not cut-and-dry at all. You might even decide that the A7III is actually a better camera for you and what you shoot. Personally, I certainly might prefer the $1998 A7III  if I shot action sports, wildlife, journalism, weddings, and certainly nightscapes, especially if I wasn’t going to be making huge prints of any of those photography genres.

Or, if you’re a serious pro, you need a backup camera anyway, and since they’re physically identical, buy both! The  A7III and A7RIII are the best two-camera kit ever conceived. Throw one of your 2.8 zooms on the A7III, and your favorite prime on the A7RIII. As a bonus, you can program “Super-35 Mode” onto one of your remaining customization options, (I like C4 for this) and you’ve got two primes in one!

Sony A7R3, Sony FE 16-35mm f/2.8GM | 1/4000 sec, f/10, ISO 100 (Extreme dynamic range processing applied to this single file)

Cons

This is going to be a short list. In fact, I’ll spoil it for you right now: If you’re already a (happy) Sony shooter, or if you have tried a Sony camera and found it easy to operate, there are essentially zero cons about this camera, aside from the few aforementioned reasons which might incline certain photographers to get an A7III instead.

A very not-so-helpful notification that is often seen on Sony cameras. I really do wish they could have taken the time to write a few details for all function incompatibilities, not just some of them!

Ergonomics & Menus

I’ll get right to the point: as someone who has tested and/or reviewed almost every DSLR camera (and lots of mirrorless cameras) from the last 15 years, from some of the earliest Canon Rebels to the latest 1D and D5 flagships, I have never encountered a more complex camera than the A7R3.

Sony, I suspect in their effort to make the camera attractive to both photographers and videographers alike, has made the camera monumentally customizable.

We’ll get to the sheer learning curve and customizations of the camera in a bit, but first, a word on the physical ergonomics: Basically, Sony has made it clear that they are going to stay focused on compactness and portability, even if it’s just not a comfortable grip for anyone with slightly larger hands.

The argument seems to be clearly divided among those who prefer the compact design, and those who dislike it.

The dedicated AF-ON button is very close to three other main controls, the REC button for video, the rear command dial, and the AF point joystick. With large thumbs, AF operation just isn’t as effortless and intuitive as it could be. Which is a shame, because I definitely love the customizations that have given me instant access to multiple AF modes. I just wish the AF-ON button, and that whole thumb area, was designed better. My already minor fumbling will wane even further with familiarity, but that doesn’t mean it is an optimal design.

By the way, I’m not expecting Sony to make a huge camera that totally defeats one of the main purposes of the mirrorless format. In fact, in my Nikon D850 review, I realized that the camera was in fact too big and that I’m already accustomed to a smaller camera, something along the size of a Nikon D750, or a Canon EOS R.

Speaking of the Canon EOS R, I think all full-frame cameras ought to have a grip like that one. It is a perfect balance between portability and grip comfort. After you hold the EOS R, or even the EOS RP, you’ll realize that there’s no reason for a full-frame mirrorless camera not to have a perfect, deep grip.

As another example, while I applaud Sony for putting the power switch in the right spot, (come on, Canon!) …I strongly dislike their placement of the lens release button. If the lens release button were on the other side, where it normally is on  Canon and Nikon, then maybe we could have custom function buttons similar to Nikon’s. These buttons are perfectly positioned for my grip fingers while holding the camera naturally, so I find them effortless to reach compared to Sony’s C1 and C2 buttons.

As I hinted earlier, I strongly suspect that a lot of this ergonomic design is meant to be useful to both photographers and videographers alike. And videographers, more of tne than not, simply aren’t shooting with the camera hand-held up to their eye, instead, the camera is on a tripod, monopod, slider, or gimbal. In this shooting scenario, buttons are accessed in a totally different way, and in fact, the controls of the latest Sony bodies all make more sense.

It’s a shame, because, for this reason I feel compelled to disclaim that if you absolutely don’t shoot video, you may find that Nikon and/or Canon ergonomics are significantly more user-friendly, whether you’re working with their DSLRs or their mirrorless bodies. (And yes, I actually like the Canon “touch dial”. Read my full Canon EOS R review here.)

Before we move on, though, I need to make one thing clear: if a camera is complicated, but it’s the best professional option on the market, then the responsible thing for a pro to do is to suck it up and master the camera. I actually love such a challenge, because it’s my job  and because I’m a camera geek, but I absolutely don’t hold it against even a professional landscape photographer for going with a Nikon Z7, or a professional portrait photographer for going with a Canon EOS R. (Single SD card slot aside.)

Yet another quick-access menu. However, this one cannot be customized.

Customizability

This is definitely the biggest catch-22 of the whole story. The Sony A7R3 is very complex to operate, and even more complex to customize. Of course, it has little choice in the matter, as a pioneer of so many new features and functions. For example, I cannot fault a camera for offering different bitrates for video compression, just because it adds one more item to a menu page. In fact, this is a huge bonus, just like the ability to shoot both uncompressed and compressed .ARW files.

By the way, the “Beep” settings are called “Audio signals”

There are 35 pages of menu items with nearly 200 items total, plus five pages available for custom menu creation, a 2×6 grid of live/viewfinder screen functions, and approximately a dozen physical buttons can be re-programmed or totally customized.

I actually love customizing cameras, and it’s the very first thing I do whenever I pick up a new camera. I go over every single button, and every single menu item, to see how I can set up the camera so that it is perfect for me. This is a process I’ve always thoroughly enjoyed, that is until the Sony A7-series came along. When I first saw how customizable the camera was, I was grinning. However, it took literally two whole weeks to figure out which button ought to perform which function, and which arrangement was best for the Fn menu, and then last but not least, how to categorize the remaining five pages of menu items I needed to access while shooting. Because even if I memorized all 35 pages, it still wouldn’t be practical to go digging through them to access the various things I need to access in an active scenario.

Then, I started to notice that not every function or setting could be programmed to just any button or Fn menu. Despite offering extensive customization options, (some customization options have 22 pages of options,) there are still a few things that just can’t be done.

“Shoot Mode” is how you change the exposure when the camera’s exposure mode dial is set to video mode. Which is useful if you shot a lot of video…

For example, It’s not easy to change the exposure mode when the camera’s mode dial itself is set to video mode. You can’t just program “Shooting Mode” to one of the C1/C2 buttons, it can only go in the Fn or custom menu.

As another example, for some reason, you can’t program both E-shutter and Silent Shooting to the Fn menu, even though these functions are so similar that they belong next to each other in any shooter’s memory.

Lastly, because the camera relies so heavily on customization, you may find that you run out of buttons when trying to figure out where to put common things that used to have their own buttons, such as Metering, White Balance, AF Points. Not to mention the handful of new bells and whistles that you might want to program to a physical button, such as switching IBIS on/off, or activating Eye AF.

All in all, the camera is already extremely complex, and yet I feel like it could also use an extra 2-3 buttons, and even more customization for the existing buttons. Which, again, leads me to the conclusion that if you’re looking for an intuitive camera that is effortless to pick up and shoot with, you may have nightmares about the user manual for this thing. And if you don’t even shoot video at all, then like I said, you’re almost better off going with something simpler.

But again, just to make sure we’re still on the same page here: If you’re a working professional, or a serious hobbyist even, you make it work. It’s your job to know your tools! (The Apollo astronauts didn’t say, “ehh, no thanks” just because their capsule was complicated to operate!)

Every camera has quirks. But, not every camera offers the images and a feature set like the A7R3 does. As a camera geek, and as someone who does shoot a decent amount of both photo and video, I’d opt for the A7R3 in a heartbeat.

Sony A7R3, Sony FE 16-35mm f/2.8 GM, PolarPro ND1000 filter 15 sec, f/14, ISO 100

The A7RIII’s Competition & Alternatives

Now that it’s early 2019, we finally have Canon and Nikon competition in the market of full-frame mirrorless camera platforms. (Not to mention Panasonic, Sigma, Lecia…)

So, where does that put this mk3 version of the Sony A7R, a third-generation camera which is part of a system that is now over 5 years old?

Until more competition enters the market, this section of our review can be very simple, thankfully. I’ll be blunt and to the point…

First things first: the Sony A7R3 has them all beat, in terms of overall features and value. You just can’t get a full-frame mirrorless body with this many features, for this price, anywhere else. Not only does the Sony have the market cornered, they have three options with roughly the same level of professional features, when you count the A7III and the A9.

Having said that, here’s the second thing you should know: Canon and Nikon’s new full-frame mirrorless mounts are going to try as hard as they can to out-shine Sony’s FE lens lineup, as soon as possible. Literally the first thing Canon did for its RF mount was a jaw-droppingly good 50mm f/1.2, and of course the massive beast that is the 28-70mm f/2. Oh, and Nikon announced that they’d be resurrecting their legendary “Noct” lens nomenclature, for an absurdly fast 58mm f/0.95.

If you’re at all interested in this type of exotic, high-end glass, the larger size diameters and shorter flange distances of Canon and Nikon’s new FF mounts may prove to have a slight advantage over Sony’s relatively modest E mount.

However, as Sony has already proven, its mount is nothing to scoff at, and is entirely capable of amazing glass with professional results. Two of their newest fast-aperture prime lenses, the 135mm f/1.8 G-Master and the 24mm f/1.4 G-Master, prove this. Both lenses are almost optically flawless, and ready to easily resolve the 42 megapixels of this generation A7R-series camera, and likely the next generation too even if it has a 75-megapixel sensor.

This indicates that although Canon and Nikon’s may have an advantage when it comes to the upper limits of what is possible with new optics, Sony’s FE lens lineup will be more than enough for most pros.

Sony A7R3, Sony FE 70-300mm G OSS |  128mm, 1/100 sec, f/14, ISO 100

Sony A7RIII Review Verdict & Conclusion

There is no denying that Sony has achieved a huge milestone with the A7R mk3, in every single way. From its price point and feature set to its image quality and durable body, it is quite possibly the biggest threat that its main competitors, Canon and Nikon, face.

So, the final verdict for this review is very simple: If you want the most feature-rich full-frame camera (and system) that $3,200 can buy you, (well, get you started in) …the best investment you can make is the Sony A7RIII.

(By the way, it is currently just $2798, as of March 2019, and if you missed this particular sale price, just know that the camera might go on sale for $400 off, sooner or later.)

Sony A7R3, Sony FE 70-300mm G OSS | 1/400 sec, f/10, ISO 100

Really, the only major drawback for the “average” photographer is the learning curve, which even after three generations still feels like a sheer cliff when you first pick up the camera and look through its massive menu interface and customizations. The A7R3 body, (nor the A9 or A7III, for that matter) is not for the “casual” shooter who wants to just leave the camera in “green box mode”, and expect it to be simple to operate. I’ve been testing and reviewing digital cameras for over 15 years now, and the A7RIII is by far the most complex camera I’ve ever picked up.

That shouldn’t be a deterrent for the serious pro, because these cameras are literally the tools of our trade. We don’t have to get a degree in electrical engineering or mechanical engineering in order to be photographers, we just have to master our camera gear, and of course the creativity that happens after we’ve mastered that gear.

However, a serious pro who is considering switching from Nikon or Canon should still be aware that not everything you’re used to with those camera bodies is possible, let alone effortless feeling, on this Sony. The sheer volume of functionality related to focusing alone will require you to spend many hours learning how the camera works, and then customizing its different options to the custom buttons and custom menus so that you can achieve something that mimics simplicity, and effortless operation.

Sony A7R3, Sony 16-35mm f/2.8 GM | 1/4 sec, f/14, ISO 100

Personally, I’m always up for challenge. It took me a month of learning, customizing, and re-customizing this mk3-generation of Sony camera bodies, but I got it the way I want it, and now I get the benefits of things like having both  the witchcraft/magic that is Eye-AF, and the traditinal “oldschool” AF methods, at my fingertips. As a working pro who shoots in active conditions, from portraits and weddings to action sports and stage performance, it has been absolutely worth it to tackle the steepest learning curve of my entire career. I have confidence that you’re up to the task, too.

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