#not specifically in regards to his monstrosity but more so in regards to his awarness of their dynamic

[aliusfrater]

theoretically, people experience self-dehumanization not only when they perceive themselves as less human but also when they believe that others attribute less human traits to them. [...] if mechanistic dehumanization represents such a lack of relatedness perception, it would understandably be apparent in self-perception. [...] these effects suggest that powerless individuals are considered to lack maturity, rationality, responsibility, self-control, and trustworthiness, which are generally considered predominant uniquely human traits. [...] in short, the mechanical state affords powerless individuals the psychological benefits of avoiding self-awareness and self-will. [...] this is congruent with the theory that denial of uniquely human traits plays an important role in power... our work supports the notion that the powerless perceive themselves through the eyes’ of the powerful similarly to how observers perceive them.

winqi yang et al

[thefloatingstone]

My apologies. I meant no bad faith. I was just surprised you hadn't come across that part yet.

Well I have only done one run and I have never been openly hostile and cruel to him. I know that if you turn him down, he accepts it and is fine with it. So I assume only if you are REALLY cruel to him and choose the dialogue options clearly expressing that you find him disgusting for being a mindflayer.

Because if you just turn him down normally he accepts, is disappointed, and moves on.

In which case, if you call him a disgusting monstrous mindflayer, is it REALLY so surprising for him to respond by showing you illusions of JUST how disgusting a mindflayer you think he is and lean into your belief that that is what he is? His entire THING is trying to placate you so you and him can have an alliance to kill the elder brain. If you lash out at him in anger and disgust, would it not make most sense to, instead of argue, agree with you and reinforce that image because it will at LEAST continue the alliance?

Not to mention The Emperor expresses very VERY obvious signs throughout the entire game that, for all his talk about being happy about being a mindlfayer and that he sees it as a positive, he is very affected by other people's judgement of him being a mindflayer. (Which is an interesting detail to think about how when that insecurity rooted itself in him because it is NOT from his own issues with being a mindflayer. Or at least he very earnestly expresses he views becoming a mindflayer as a positive which is why he encourages you to become at least part ilithid yourself)

But anyway

There are multiple situations, conversations and details where he shows he is overly self-aware on how being a mindflayer is judged by others. SPECIFICALLY in regards to him being viewed as a monstrosity. This is clearly a sore spot for him.

So if you call him disgusting? And if you hit exactly in the weak spot? Can you fucking BLAME him for lashing out and going "ok if that is what you think I am then fucking fine by me. Here I will even give you AMMO to think of me as a monster". resurrecting ironclad walls between himself and you on an emotional level so there can be NO mistake on where either of your feelings lie.

After all, lying to you about being an angelic dream guardian here to save you from your doomed fate didn't work. Why not then lean into the lie of being the ilithid abomination you think he is?

Also Anon you absolutely did mean it in bad faith because I kept answering you on why I liked the grey morality going on here and your response was to push more and more into "Ok but he did an evil thing" when you were not satisfied by my response. Do not insult my intelligence please.

[cosmicjoke]

I don't know if you've seen the character relationship chart for the new SnK final season, but In terms of Levi's relationship with Eren, Levi sees him as someone who needs to be strictly disciplined, while Levi's relationship with Jean, Sasha and Connie is written as "trust them". Apart from them and Hange, there is nothing about Levi's relationship with Mikasa and Armin and that surprised me to be honest lol. After all, most people (myself included) have always felt that Levi has always been closely associated with the EMA and they have always seen him as a kind of father figure for them, someone who looks after them or reassures them because he thinks they are important for the future and someone said something like: "Levi trust Jean, Connie and Sasha because he knows how easily Armin and Mikasa are attracted to Eren." I think that's more descriptive.

I haven't seen that, but that is interesting.

Levi had Eren pegged from the first moment he saw him. He called him a monster, or said something to the effect of Eren having a monstrous will, and that he couldn't be controlled. That if anyone tried to cage him, he would break out of it. Levi specifically requested to be put in charge of Eren, then, because he knew he was the only one who likely could control him, who could kill him if the need arose. Levi knew from the start that Eren was dangerous. Of course, he couldn't have known in what manner Eren's monstrosity would manifest. He couldn't have known that Eren would actually end up trying to destroy the very thing the SC was sworn to protect, that is, humanity. I think Levi believed Eren's wish to fight for humanity against the titans was sincere, and that Eren, because of his ability to turn into a titan, was an indispensable weapon for humanity, one they couldn't afford not to utilize, but he also knew that Eren had the potential to go off the rails and out of control, and that he needed to, as it says in the character chart, be disciplined, put on a leash so he wouldn't end up causing more harm than good. Levi was, from the start, willing to kill Eren if it came down to it. It's actually really interesting, how that parallels what eventually comes to pass. Levi leads Mikasa toward that final blow. He creates the opening for her to kill Eren, and it's Levi's leadership and command that gives them the opportunity to kill Eren. So in the end, Levi was right. He was the only one who could stop Eren, basically. While Mikasa delivered the killing blow, Levi was the one who made it possible.

Amrin and Mikasa are, for sure, blinded somewhat by their loyalty and love for Eren, so it doesn't surprise me that it lists Connie, Jean and Sasha as people Levi can trust, while saying nothing about Armin and Mikasa. That person saying what they did about Armin and Mikasa being attracted to Eren is true. They fail to see what type of person Eren really is, up until the point they simply can't deny it. Even after he starts the Rumbling, Mikasa and Armin are still trying to find ways to "save" him and give him the benefit of the doubt. It's only when the situation becomes totally untenable, and Levi has to TELL them that they have to kill Eren, in fact he has to essentially order it, that they finally accept it. Mikasa herself risked the SC's missions more than once over her blind loyalty to Eren, something Levi has born witness to personally. Mikasa nearly killed him in her blind loyalty to Eren. So I think, as Levi was always aware of the type of person Eren was, he was also always aware that Mikasa and Armin's own ability to make judgements regarding him would be skewed and not fully trustworthy. They were simply too close to Eren to judge him objectively.

[cowboymaterials]

"Identity—more specifically, gender identity—is an assault on the individual. Trans people are well aware of this incursion on our Unique [Egoist term for the individual beyond the confines of identity]. Dysphoria is an encapsulation of this violence; we internally beat ourselves for behaving like something we are not and we physically cut ourselves for failing to appear as something we are. No matter how well we “pass” as our preferred gender, our dysphoria will always show us the imperfections. This points to a possible solution; to end our dysphoria it is not enough to fumble about in the boxes of gender, rather, it is imperative we destroy all that upholds the gender binary. Dysphoria exists as long as the phantom of gender possesses us and everyone else in society; it was not something we were born with but something that was instilled on us from the moment we are born. This is not to say that we must simply conform to our assigned gender in order to do away with our discomfort, far from it. Instead, we should annihilate all apparatuses of control and description that would seek to impose their draconian rules of identity onto our unruly selves...

"The moment I was ejected from my mother’s womb I was immediately referred to as ‘it’. By using this pronoun the doctor was not identifying me by anything; he was neither gendering me, nor imposing his humanity onto me. Instead, he is denoting a lack of identity altogether, as all that currently existed was the (extremely) limited experiences of a new born baby. However, in an unfortunate about-face, this led directly into my gendering; the complete sentence being “It’s a boy!” This was the first time a gender was appointed to me. By using it/its pronouns I aim to journey back to just before this time; I seek to undo my domestication by harkening back to a time that has long been lost. I only wish that, in doing so, I can revisit myself prior to when identity was instilled onto my individuality...

"‘It’ carries with it the implication of negation; as stated above, ‘it’ holds no specificity in regards to what it is being used for. No identity is being imposed by the usage of ‘it’. Instead, ‘it’ is a universal term that suggests complete ambiguity and no identification of the object, person, thing, animal, etc. Through this negation and ambiguity, it is my ambition to achieve the eradication of gender and a leap into the void of Nothingness. Gender exists to subjugate and specify; I will not be pinned down by definition, and I most certainly will not concede to domination. Rather, I will transform into a fiery, impassioned, inferno that burns and shreds-to-bits every inch of this wretched society...

"While my favored form of attack exists within the unfolding of a riot, I can also find moments of freedom within the anti-identity of it/its pronouns. If I cannot constantly be physically burning and smashing the likes of bank storefronts and Starbucks windows, then I will metaphorically do so by existing as a monstrous vulgarity to the gender binary. If I cannot constantly be dressed head-to-toe in solid black, obscuring any identification, living outside of societal bounds, then I will obscure identification of my Unique under the disguise of what is now deemed to be socially acceptable; If it is now socially acceptable to introduce ourselves with our pronouns, then I will introduce myself with pronouns which shatter the illusion of societal acceptance and which broaden the holes created by my queerness."

Excerpt from Anti-Gender Monstrosity by Rebellious, I.

[thessaliah]

Why the localization “Tree of Emptiness” isn’t very good

The original term is 「 空想樹 」which means, quite literally, “Fantasy Tree” (or Tree of Fantasy). Now I understand why this name doesn’t strike fear to your hearts, and “Tree of Emptiness” sounds more badass. However, it’s very very important to Cosmos in the Lostbelt narrative to keep the “fantasy” here. Because since Moonlight Lostroom (and before, even with Epic of Remnants thematic keywords involving fantasy and fiction) there has been built up and hints of how do pruned timelines suddenly can appear on the planet even thousands of years after they ceased to exist, with a rich continuation as if they never pruned. Why did Kirschtaria say “turn the fantasy tree a reality” in Atlantis. When you use “emptiness tree” it lacks the nuance they are trying to convey. This is why (Image heavy. Spoilers for Olympus and Avalon Le Fae):

Simulations.

Simulations run by Chaldea equipment, most certainly. Yes, this entire operation started in Area 51 (where and when is this Area 51, we don’t know yet but can’t be the present timeline), but Chaldea is involved. 

During Olympus, Kadoc investigates Kirschtaria’s research, including Ophelia’s broadcast when she informs him Skadi remembers the moment they got pruned, and then, suddenly they were not. And had a good thousands of years old history filling the gaps as if it was always there. Then you learn Kirschtaria went through a version of Part 1. Seven times. To bring his friends back to life. This is what we called a simulation, and possibly related to Olga’s what-if ‘visions’ in Lostroom, where she is a Master (of evil aligned Servants).

Avalon Le Fae wraps this foreshadowing with Morgan clone mocking Guda for not figuring out the purpose behind Chaldea’s Rayshifting and other things, already making the players aware of a confirmation of Chaldea’s equipment involvement. Whether intended by the Animuspheres, this is yet unconfirmed, it could be very well an unwanted consequence like the Taint of the Greater Grail after the Third Grail War. We do know Flauros called them lunatics and targeted Olga specifically. This was dismissed a gratuitous evil character moment, but he’s a character Nasu wrote this scene about a year before FGO launched. There has to be a reason for his behavior. Rasputin exposes their childish dreams will be over with the attack on Chaldea, therefore it may be unintentional. 

Why are the trees so important? This is why:

We are simulations projected by the Tree of Fantasy in a 'what if' world.

In other words:

What originated in a Lostbelt (Fantasy) cannot live in a Singularity (Reality).

This is the context of what Ash Tree Savior and Totorot need to be Morgan and Habetrot, because they would disappear as fantasy when the calendar changes to the Queen’s Era. 

The entire chapter is a criticism of regarding inconvenient answers as fantasy, discarded and conveniently forgotten as if the feelings and people who lived there weren’t “real” and none of their grief mattered. With Oberon furiously denouncing Panhistory’s monstrosity. In a way criticising the modern’s fiction consumerist too, no doubt part of Nasu’s theme for Second Phase Type-Moon. Also boils down to a human system  (materialised in Panhistory and their pruning mechanism) that is predatory against everything, including the planet and other people. This competition. 

But rest my case why they should have stuck with “Fantasy” instead of “Emptiness.” Because they are talking indeed of trees which regenerate and create history from a pruned end and takes this “fantasy” and makes it “real.” It’s more or less how Type-Moon works. No matter the source, everything, including the Panhistory texture, is materialised data.

[spatort]

I’m at my parents’ house and I have too much time on my hands apparently, so it’s time for a trip down memory lane! More specifically, a trip into the weird world of 1990s for-profit teen idol RPF, such as this beauty:

No, I did not find this at my parents’ house, I bought it second-hand specifically in order to make this post because I’m a person who enjoys studying fan culture in her free time. So, if you’re wondering what the hell the monstrosity pictured above is, and why it exists, don’t worry, I’m about to answer that question extensively.

LONG (AND HOPEFULLY FUN & INTERESTING) POST UNDER THE CUT

Let’s start with a bit of history: In the pre-internet era, fan culture differed from today in a few key regards. Although fanfiction existed, without the internet it was much harder for fans to share their stories with each other. Large fandoms such as Star Trek did have fanzines where fanfic could be printed, but all in all it was a much more niche thing than it is today with millions of fics accessible on AO3.

Fan culture in general, however, was a big thing in the 90s – particularly when it came to pop acts that appealed to teen (and tween) audiences, such as the Backstreet Boys, the Spice Girls, or (mostly in Europe) the Kelly Family. When I was in elementary school, you basically had to pick whether you were a BSB or an NSYNC fan – and god forbid you were a Kelly fan like me, then you were the lowest rung on the social ladder and the target of relentless mockery. Like many German kids in the 90s, me and my sister would religiously read teen magazine BRAVO, cut out every single bit of material about our faves and collect them in folders and self-made fanzines. We created fan art and fanfiction without having words for these things. Without the internet and social media, fans did not have a constant stream of content about their idols, and were left with no other choice but to cling to every bit of information they could find in magazines, on TV shows, or on the radio.

Enter a savvy businessperson who comes up with the perfect merchandise product to sell to these popstar-obsessed teens: fan novels! These books, featuring taglines such as ‘The novel for all Backstreet Boys fans’, typically revolved around a relatable female teenage protagonist who is a fan of the celebrity or music group in question, and usually ends up meeting their idol or, gasp, even becoming romantically involved with them. As far as themes go, they look pretty much exactly like your classic self-insert RPF. Except there is a big difference setting these books apart from ‘actual’ fanfiction: Rather than being written by real fans to express their ‘fannish’ feelings about the subject, fan novels were most likely commissioned works created by professional romance authors purely to profit off of actual fans. There is very little background information available about this ‘genre’, but I did stumble across an academic work on Google Books which featured a passage about these fan novels (translated into English by me):

There are several commissioned works by professional authors, which could be mistaken for fanfiction. Especially in the 1990s, when lots of boy bands were on the market, many books of this kind were published. […] These are fictional stories for fans [redacted].

Jennie Hermann: Backstreet Girl. Projektionsfläche Popstar - Wenn der Fan zum Schriftsteller wird (2009) [Popstar as Projection Surface – When fans become writers]

One of the things I find most intriguing about this type of commercially published fanfiction is the question of personal rights. Obviously, the celebs in question or their management must have consented to using their names in the story, their pictures on the cover and so on – because a profit could be made with this. Especially with the fan debate around RPF allegely being unethical, I wonder if the celebrities themselves were aware someone was writing these stories about them, putting words in their mouth, and if they had any clue what exactly happened in these novels. Now, I’ve read a couple of them in my own youth. Some of them deal mostly with the state of being a fan, e.g. I recall a novel about a girl who is so obsessed with Leonardo Di Caprio that she doesn’t pay attention to real life guys at all, only to learn that her actual dream boy has been in her life all along! This story did not feature Di Caprio himself as a character, it was more about the protagonist’s arc of realizing your idols are not all that matters in life. Others do describe fan encounters with teen idols, and some even feature (hints at) romance with a celebrity. When I decided to purchase a vintage copy of one of these books, I opted for one of the latter category, precisely because of the popular argument that writing romance stories featuring real people is somehow ‘wrong’. For only a couple of euros, I was able to get my hands on a weird and wonderful relic of fan culture: Mein Frühling mit Nick (My spring with Nick) by the likely pseudonymous Maxi Keller, heralded on the book cover as ‘the novel for all fans of the Backstreet Boys’.

The story revolves around 16-year-old musical prodigy and designated wallflower Katharina, who lives in a German small town and cares about nothing else than playing the organ – certainly not about boys, let alone ones that are super-famous American pop stars. This means she is not initially a fan of the Backstreet Boys, which I guess is something of a trope itself – the protagonist meeting a celebrity by chance without knowing who they are and the celeb being thrilled that someone doesn’t just like them for their fame. Anyway, the boys visit Katharina’s hometown while on tour in Germany because band member AJ is doing some research on his German ancestors who happened to live in this very town. Katharina runs into them, she and Nick (who was only 17 himself when this was published in 1997, so it’s legal) fall in love at first sight, she helps them dig up information on AJ’s ancestors and finds out the two of them are related, the boys invite Katharina and her friend Saskia backstage after their show and … nothing happens. The book is 200 pages long and Katharina doesn’t even get one kiss with her boy band sweetheart, even though they mutually crush on each other right away. Perhaps that’s as far as the band or their management agreed for the novel to go – a hint at romance, but no trace of any on-page action, no matter how innocent.

That said, the book is so hilariously poorly written that it was still very entertaining to read. Although I could not find out anything about the author Maxi Keller, and therefore assume this might be a pseudonym, their writing style very much suggests that their are a professional romance author who usually writes for an older audience (plus, the book was published by Bastei Lübbe, who also publish a range of cheap romance novels known as ‘Romanhefte’). The language is extremely flowery at times, and even teenage characters speak with an eloquence that is hardly age-appropriate, with some 90s teen slang peppered in at unfitting times (such as the overuse of the English word ‘girl’). Often the novel loses itself in pointless detail that does nothing to move the plot forward (such as an extensive description of a house party hosted by Saskia’s rich parents, with minute details of their luxurious lifestyle and assets, even though Saskia is only a supporting character in the overall plot). It appears as if the author is desperately trying to fill the pages with meaningless drivel so they don’t need to write too many scenes featuring the presumed main attraction, the boys themselves.

If Keller was indeed merely hired to write this, and is not a fan themselves, one must still admit that the author did their research when it comes to the band. Whereas fanfiction typically assumes that the audience is already familiar with the characters and often skips any introductory descriptions of their appearance or personality, Keller makes sure that even a reader who is completely unfamiliar with the Backstreet Boys can keep up. The author delivers extensive descriptions of the boys’ appearance and demeanor, even spelling out their full names repeatedly, and frequently peppers in ‘fun facts’ such as ‘Kevin was raised on a farm in Kentucky’. While an actual fan might do so to prove how knowledgeable they are, and earning their status as a ‘true fan’, in this case it only seems like Keller really wants to show off how much research they did – as if not a single piece of information they took in must go to waste by not being used in the novel.

When it comes to the question how realistically the non-fannish author replicates the way the boys act and speak, there are two barriers to delivering a well-founded answer: Firstly, I was personally very young when BSB were popular and I really don’t remember too well what each member was like. Secondly, the elephant in the room: the language barrier. All of the aforementioned fan novels were written in German, and the problems posed by writing about an English-speaking band interacting with German OCs (and teenage ones at that) are addressed poorly, if at all. Pretty much all dialogue is written in German, and the audience is left to assume that everyone is actually speaking English whenever the boys are involved – except the novel does nothing to explain why two 16-year-old German girls would be able to express themselves so effortlessly in a foreign language. (Remember, the internet was not a thing, so German kids were not exposed to the same amount of English in everyday life as they are these days.) It would have been easy to make one of them a language nerd who gets straight A’s in English class, and give the other a British parent and make them bilingual. Instead, Katharina initially even worries about the prospect of having to talk to boys at all, and in English on top of that! But when she actually does, the language barrier never comes up again. The suspension of disbelief expected from the reader is therefore immense. The language barrier also gives the author an easy way out when it comes to imitating the way the boys speak in real life – there is no need to take into account idiolects or regional differences (such as ‘you guys’ vs. ‘y’all’) if the boys’ speech is essentially translated into a foreign language. However, I wanted to give you guys (or y’all, if you will) a taste of how Keller attempts to write a scene where AJ and Nick discuss the latter’s crush on Katharina:

I would argue that this sounds realistic enough for what it’s worth, if a little cheesy, which is excusable in this genre. Perhaps a true 90s BSB fan would beg to differ, so if you happen to be one, feel free to drop me a message. But in my semi-professional opinion, this most likely holds up for readers.

So, to answer the initial question that drove me to purchase this book: Do fan novels like Mein Frühling mit Nick count as fanfiction?

If we assume that something is only a fanfic if the author themselves is a fan of the subject matter, then I would argue no, Maxi Keller is probably not a fan themselves and therefore this work of for-profit real-person fiction does not qualify as fanfic. However, fan novels definitely have a (however small) place in the history of fan culture and fan-adjacent works, and I personally found reading this relic both entertaining and insightful!

[barnesandco]

Spies and Secrets

Bucky buys a new jacket that is... uncharacteristically bright. Sam ribs him for it, and you- you don't know what to do with yourself.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: Language. Heavy makeout session.

A/N: Inspired by Sebastian Stan’s 2016 photoshoot - more specifically that yellow jacket - for August Man Malaysia. Written for @redgillan . Hope you like it, Maisie! It was so much fun to write lmao. 

“Hey, hey, hey! Look at you!” Sam exclaims, jumping to his feet. Steve and Bucky stand in the kitchen, arms laden down with shopping bags. The object of Sam's attention, however, is the mustard-yellow jacket Bucky is wearing. "What, were they all out of decent, normal outerwear at the mall?"

“He looks good, Sam.” Steve defends, putting his bags down by the door, and heads over to the fridge. Finding what he was after - a beer - he sits down at the kitchen table, and looks back at his teammates. Sam splutters indignantly, hands on his hips. Bucky looks like he's ready to high-tail it back to his room.

“Really? You, Mr. I-only-wear-plaid-shirts-and-vintage-jackets, are giving out fashion advice. No wonder he bought that monstrosity.” Sam gestures to Bucky, who has thus far remained silent, but is now struggling to rein it in. He was hesitant about buying it - not his usual color - but he thought he looked good in it. He knows Sam's joking - it's just banter, Nat calls them an old married couple - but he's so out of his depth when it comes to the new millennium, and everything that is associated with. Everything except making women swoon. That’s stayed the same since he fell off that train in Austria.

“Shut up, Sam.” He says gruffly, shuffling to grab his own beer and return to his spot in the doorway, ready to leave. Sam ruffles Bucky's hair, flings his arm around his shoulder, grinning madly.

“I'm only messing with you, Bumblebee. Lookin' like a real lady-killer in that thing. Bet the chicks dig it. Matches their fur and all.” He laughs. 

“Ignore him, Buck. You look great, trust me.” Steve says earnestly, beer bottle resting on his thigh. 

“Sure, sure, trust the centenarian when it comes to 21st century fashion.” Sam waves his hand dismissively, biting into an apple from the fruit bowl on the kitchen island. Bucky picks his bags back up, and heads for the elevator.

“Whatever, Wilson.” He throws over his shoulder.

-----

“Is Sergeant Barnes going to be here?” You ask, eyes flitting around to see if he’s here yet.

“He said he was coming. Why? You can barely speak when he's around. And now you're eager to see him?” Nat says, leaning her elbows against the standing table they're at. She looks at you intently, fiddling with the umbrella from her cocktail. 

“Not eager, Nat. Just curious.” You answer, turning away from her sharp gaze to survey the room. She does the same.

“Speak of the devil.” Nat says, jerking her head towards the entrance, where Bucky has just arrived.

“Dear Lord.” You whisper under your breath, grateful for the hubbub of the crowd. It disguises the words, but not the sound and Nat turns to you.

“Did you say something?” She wonders.

“No, I- nothing, nothing.” You excuse, coughing as the man in question approaches. He looks good. So good that it takes all of your willpower not to physically drop your jaw. All black - his jeans, his t-shirt, his shoes - with the exception of a delicious mustard yellow jacket. Out of character, possibly. Hot as hell, definitely.

“Hello, Barnes. New jacket?” Nat greets cheerfully, taking a sip from her drink. Bucky swallows, Adam's apple bobbing, and puts his hands in his pockets, drawing attention to those muscular thighs that have fueled your thirstiest dreams for weeks now. He nods, and a strand of hair falls in front of his eyes. You resist the urge to tuck it behind his ear.

“Yeah. Went shopping a few days ago. How are you lovely ladies doing?” He asks, running his hands through those chestnut brown locks you want to use to tug him down till your mouths meet. You touch your lips subconsciously. Is your mouth watering?

“I'm good. I think our resident IT genius could use some help, though.” Nat says delicately, glancing at you from her peripherals. You cough again.

“No! Help with what? I'm fine. Totally fine.” You say, hands flailing. Broken-record repetition must worry them further instead of alleviate their concerns. Behind Nat’s cocktail glass, you can see a thinly veiled smile. "It's good to see you, Sergeant Barnes." 

“Bucky, please, doll.” He smiles at you, and your heart skips a beat. Another one. Butterflies turn to elephants in your stomach, and you shift your weight.

“Right. Uh, you- um, you don't normally come to these things.” It’s a statement, but you trail off at the end, leaving room for a question he could answer. You rest your chin on your fist, trying desperately to look casual. 

“Didn't have anything better to do tonight. Why, you wishing I stayed home?” He jokes.

“No, no! I mean yes. I mean, I'm-”

“It's okay, I get it.” Bucky reassures you. He looks around, and seems to spot somewhere else he needs to be. “It was nice talkin' to you, I'll see you 'round.” Saying this, he pecks your and Nat’s cheeks, leaving you blinking and dazed.

“Bye, Barnes.” Nat is unfazed. Your shoulders drop automatically, releasing the tension - and the breath - you weren’t aware you were carrying. 

“What the hell was that?” 

“What was what?” You say innocently, praying she drops the subject. You’re a terrible liar, and Nat’s an excellent spy. The two factors combine to make for the fact that it is damn near impossible to hide something from Natasha Romanoff if she doesn’t want you to. You’re proud that you’ve managed to for as long as you have.

“You, all stutter-y and flustered. Do you have a crush?” She says conspiratorially. That glint in her eye is back, and that’s bad news for any and all of your secrets regarding Bucky Barnes.

“You're crazy, Nat. Bat-shit insane.” You dismiss, finishing off your drink. She doesn’t let up.

“You have all the symptoms, you know.”

“No, I don't know. All I know is that you're crazy, and I need another drink.” You push away from the table and head for the bar, hoping you don’t run into Bucky again. Heart attack sounds preferable to dealing with him in that outfit.

Two hours later, and you’re sitting with a group of Avengers who have just started a round of poker. The company party is in full swing, S.H.I.E.L.D. employees taking full advantage of the bar, both for alcohol and karaoke. Thank goodness that the latter is in a faraway corner of the room, because while most of these people know more ways to kill a man than there are grains of sand on a beach, none of them can stay on key to save their lives.

“Where did Barnes run off to?” He asks. Maria Hill snorts.

“Why, you miss your boyfriend?” 

“Ha. Ha. Ha.” Sam responds mockingly. He has an excellent hand of cards, though, so the joke is on Maria really.

“Said he needed a break.” Steve pipes up, preparing to lose, good and righteous as he is. Can’t lie to save his life. Sam is gleeful, unaware that Nat has the best hand out of the lot of them. You’re not playing. S.H.I.E.L.D. pays well, even to non-superheroes, but you’ve never been much of a gambler. And it’s far more entertaining observing everyone, occasionally whispering suggestions to Nat - not that she needs them - hands on her legs draped over your lap. But your attention has been diverted to a certain ex-assassin, who plays your heartstrings like a guitar. You wait five minutes - five excruciating, torturous minutes - before yawning and pushing Nat’s legs off you.

“I- uh, I think I should head back. I'll see you guys on Monday.” You say, waving feebly to the group, and leave the room to echoes of goodnight and requests to drive safely. Little do they know you’re not leaving yet. You consider the floorplan, and try to figure out where he might be. Eventually, you recall Bucky’s preference for the stairwell designed as an exit in case of emergencies. He mentioned briefly how it was the quietest place in the Compound. Peaceful. Serene. Not to mention the open top means he can smoke.

“Hey, Sarge.” You smile shyly as you lean against the door, hands behind your back. As expected, he’s sitting on the stairs, jacket falling open to reveal a shirt stretched taut over those pectorals you long to touch. You haven’t had an opportunity to rendezvous in weeks, between his missions and your new research project. It’s not like you’ve gone all the way physically even when you do have the opportunity to see each other like this, but the way he’s looking tonight makes you want to change that.

“Was wonderin' when you'd show up.” He says around the cigarette between his lips. The serum stops it from affecting him, so he feels comfortable maintaining this particular habit. Gives him something to do with his hands. Avoids it around you, though. Tonight is no exception. Removing it from his mouth, he exhales one last time, and stomps out the half-burnt blunt under his leather boot. Passive smoking isn’t fun.

“How did you know I'd find you?” You ask, standing between his bent legs, carding your fingers through his hair. He nuzzles your stomach, nips at your dress.

“I'm magnetic, baby.” He smiles up at you, then stops when he sees your facial expression. You’re torn. “Why're you lookin' at me like that?” He asks, holding your hands, rubbing your knuckles gently with his thumb.

“Like- like what?” 

“Like you don't know whether to eat me alive or run for the hills.” Bucky is apprehensive now, worried he’s done something wrong. 

Your gaze moves from his concerned eyes, to that damn jacket, and back up to his lips. Something shifts inside you, and you tug him to stand upright, fists clutching the lapels of his jacket. You pull him down to meet your lips.

“Shut the fuck up, Barnes.” You murmur, mouths grazing against one another before they press together fully. He gasps at the pressure and passion behind your movement, and you take the liberty to engage his tongue in a dance with yours. His arms wrap around your waist, bending you backwards a little, but you’re too occupied by the taste of chocolate and whiskey on his breath. Too surrounded by everything Bucky. The feel of his hair between your fingers, the scent of his cologne enveloping you like his embrace. Panting, you pull away, moving to his neck.

“Hey, woah, what's gotten into you?” Bucky’s gasping for air, hands moving up and down your sides, like he doesn’t know what to do with them. He settles for resting them over your ass, and nips at your earlobe. 

“You complaining?” You ask, hands on his chest. He shakes his head, and that’s all the confirmation you need as you resume your task, sucking a hickey onto his collarbone, fingers curling in the loops of his belt. He tries to continue speaking, muttering in your ear.

“Hell no. But you're always so shy, and - oh, jeez, sugar.” His sentence falls apart as you rake your nails gently down his abs. You stop at the exclamation, also intrigued by the new pet name. 

“This stupid fucking jacket.” You say, pecking his lips chastely. You lean your forehead on his shoulder, unable to look him in the eyes after your outburst. Everything is hot. The air, filled with palpable electricity between your bodies. Your body itself, on fire from head to toe, concentrated on a spot between your legs. Legs that are shaking as you strive to stay upright.

“You don't like it?” He asks, holding you to him. All shyness or shame dissipates into thin air, as your head snaps up to meet his insecure expression incredulously.

“Are you shitting me? It's the hottest thing I've seen all week.” You tell him, pushing up on your toes to kiss him again. And again. And again. 

“I think I can top that.” Bucky says between kisses, cradling your face in his hands, yours clutching his sides.

“I'm sure you can.” You answer, smiling wolfishly at the double entendre. 

“You know what, I have a better idea.” He pauses, waiting for your signal. You give it.

“Yeah?”

“Why don't we go up to my room, and you try on my jacket. Just my jacket.”

Taglist: @buckyreaderrecs @corneliabarnes @mermaidxatxheart

[idreamtofmanderleyagain]

@sadnessofthings @robotslenderman @youraveragemadcourier

This is a response to @sadnessofthings post Here, it was getting super large so I figured it needed another break.

There’s a lot of stuff for me to respond to here and several different people’s viewpoints so I’m gonna try my best to keep this coherent lol.

So to start with I think I need to clarify that I actually didn’t intend to come across like I wanted to remove a ton of darkness from WOD or Strauss’s character! It’s hard to put what I meant into words, but lets just say, I’m not really discomforted by the idea that he frankensteined some tortured enemies. For context, I also write for the Hellraiser franchise. I’m not discomforted by characters who do horrific, monstrous things.

That said, when it comes to characters who I frame as protagonists or (not True Evil type villains) I just prefer to juxtapose that with exploration into their humanity. 

So in other words, I definitely see Strauss as a character with the capacity for cruelty, manipulation, violence, dispassion, the ability to torture if he sees reason to, and a lacking empathy. I also already knew that there was something gruesome involved with the creation of a Gargoyle which involved using a vampire, I just wasn’t aware of what exactly that was before you clarified and also was curious if the game was accurate to that, because that aspect seemed unclear to me and would help inform the conversation more if it was. I definitely see Strauss as a monstrous being, because that's what it means to be an elder vampire in WOD 9 times out of 10. I’m certain that he was at least 50% of the time manipulating the Fledgling because he saw her as becoming a quickly important pawn on the board against LaCroix’ rule and a potential benefit to his Clan.

The point of my take on the gargoyle is more...me finding a point of reference to explore his capacity for monstrosity and what it means to him. I think @robotslenderman was on point with the idea that he could have gone through with something monstrous and had a complex emotional reaction to it that he did not expect, which is definitely what I was getting at.

And this is major spoilers, but I should probably also point out that I’ve been percolating all that in my head specifically because I’m writing a Strauss/OC fic that involves a human woman in the place of the Fledgling. 

So basically the bare skeleton of my concept is that my main character is a human who was illegally Embraced, but that Embrace did not take. The problem here is that upon examination of the evidence, it is acknowledged that this Should Not Have Happened, which reads as highly suspicious and potentially dangerous in regards to the problem (and the apocalypse anxieties) of Thin Bloods in recent Nights. (to be clear, I’m working with the assumption that in most cases such a thing as this is impossible in WOD without it being Ominous af).

Because Strauss is the Tremere Primogen of LA, she ends up in his hands so he may interrogate her memory of events (and of the Tremere that tried to turn her), as well as so he may use his knowledge of blood magic in order to experiment upon her to report his findings to the Prince (as well as his Lord).

My reasoning for this concept is A) I really like working with powerless heroines who need to use their brains to navigate impossible situations, and B) I wanted to explore the vampire romance genre staple trope of a Special-Blooded Human Girl, but in the extreme cutthroat politics/horror universe of VTM. But I digress.

Anyway, The fact that my protagonist is so fragile is relevant to where I was coming from is because I wanted to explore the idea of this jaded, cold-hearted, manipulative elder having to contend with humanity in close quarters so directly for an extended period of time without the possibility of Ghouling (at least not one that takes for very long, same re: Dominate), and inevitably growing attached and thus forced to examine himself and his world through her lens.

And also maybe especially because I’m navigating the lacking ethics of performing any kind of experiments upon an unwilling party (even if what he does is delicate and non-violent).

Sorry if I missed a point that any of you wanted to hear my response on, that post was getting massive lol! Feel free to ask me about something if you want more follow-up.

I really appreciate your takes, it’s great to talk with people interested in this and also because it’s also helping build my informational context from VTM proper that I might otherwise be missing just from experiencing Bloodlines alone.

[latinozevran-archive]

6am thinking abt johan fans again the extent to which they bother me rly is haunting i love going on the monster reddit bc ppl rly do say the funniest shit but oh my god the number of johan fans or willful misinterpretations of monster or comparisons to fucking akjsdfhkasdf aot on there are so scary. and its easy to be like well its reddit what else were u expecting but the thing is this isnt limited to reddit users lmao. i see it on here ive seen it on random forums ive seen it in bad youtube videos em and i have watched together to make fun of after wondering if this one will be different and finally say something smart and in this regard i think monster really does bring all white goyim together in giving out free pairs of clown shoes to be dense as hell abt its themes to the point of actively disturbing.

just positively insane to me that u can find entire, extremely lengthy analyses of the story and johan as a character that don’t mention the word eugenics one single time like i rly do think it is utterly fascinating that anyone could watch/read monster and come away not reading it as an extremely heavy-handed impressively damning indictment of the scars eugenics white supremacy and nazism left upon late 20th century europe.. and it has many other broader themes but personally do see them as all explored through this lens specifically. like i am well aware that johan often rejects his many ties to white supremacy, and i don’t think it is accurate to label him allied with those forces, but his agency over that allyship/the absence of it is remarkably fragile, and ultimately, regardless of what little will the narrative provides his character, he is still a product of that legacy.

and i will say i think there are a lot of reasonable ppl for whom this part still resonates who still like him. so this next part is where we rly start to lose one another bc i feel like the missing link here is that i see his rejection of the neo-nazis in the story as smth that only reiterates his position as a kind of embodiment of white supremacy—it isn’t a matter of making him more human. instead it is crucial to establish that johan is neither the origin nor a driving force behind the propagation of post-WWII white supremacist ideals. which is true! and an essential part of the discussions monster raises abt the depth of the roots these things grow... bc despite his total lack of interest in becoming a new hitler or fulfilling his destiny as a tool of white supremacy, he is literally EXPLICITLY not divorced from white supremacist motives of his own free will, either

and thisssss is where i completely lose touch with so many monster fans. like i rly do have to ask then where exactly ppl are willing to draw the line between an acceptable amount of nazi affiliation to not loathe a character or pity them beyond vague feeling of damn that sucks. urasawa very clearly very straight forwardly makes a point of stating for the reader at the Beginning of the story before u learn almost anything else about him that he would visit a proud ex-nazi daily as a child to seek out advice and counsel and knowledge. and just as he does not give into neo-nazi plots, he does not condemn them, either, in any truly meaningful way. he is, through and through, no matter what, a reflection of all of the darkest parts of the world around him . when a child is made a mirror for monstrosity, what else is the world going to call him.. like that is the whole point. and as far as I can tell, he never really breaks out of that mold or intends to besides whatever arguments u wanna make abt the end but thats another conversation altogether..

and so i really do think monster is a beautiful and brilliant exploration of widespread, normalized denial.... people are so quick to be disgusted with johan and how brutal the consequences of his actions are when he merely reflects their own ugliness. and that is why tenmas being neither white nor european is so crucial to his role as the protagonist who proves that such ugliness is not inherent to humanity and is without question man-made.. the capacity for infectious hatred and destruction is only the product of a world that not only allows for it but actively incentivizes it... so johan is those cultural standards made manifest, and he, too, is just as similarly manufactured to be that way, just like all of the hatred and violence around him....................................................

and i honestly just wish i knew why ppl were capable of forming attachments to him the way they are.. bc on the one hand it leaves me at a loss but on the other hand i think the most upsetting thing about it is the gut feeling i get thinking about it abt the underlying truth there that its not surprising to me at all and thats a sad truth to have to admit to yourself but like. these narratives have been so integral to my entire life raised on minimally child censored holocaust education as i was so there is an extent to which it is simply hard to swallow how little people care unless someone forces them to. and yet :)

[kahenn]

"I hope you're aware that this might actually kill me," he muses out loud, dark eyes lazily roving from Miki's bare feet to the top of her messy, golden head.

There's an undeniable appeal in seeing a lover wear one's clothes at the best of times, but the way the neck of his shirt slips from Miki's shoulders is a tantalising reminder of how very naked she is under there (albeit, also a reminder of the fact that he's kind of ridiculously large). The temptation to show his appreciation is too strong by the time she sleepily ambles closer, and so as soon as he's able, he gathers her into a straddling position atop his lap with his arms slung loosely around her hips, regarding the shirt's design with a grin. He almost forgot this particular garment even existed, it'd been so long.

"Heh... Should've figured you'd pick the one with the pun, huh?" A pun that was in serious danger of disappearing between her boobs if they happened to be squeezed just so (don't squeeze them Jiraiya, be strong)... Aaaand his cheeks are bright red. After tearing his gaze aside for a moment to compose himself, he leans up to press a kiss to Miki's cheek.

"You really do make it look sexier than should rightfully be possible, y'know that?"

“This?” she answers, a little incredulous. 

She’d spent at least 5 minutes cackling at the monstrosity when she found it within the depths of his dresser, clearly not worn for some time. Unappreciated. Unloved. Why on earth he wouldn’t sport this number around the village was beyond her! 

So when she slipped it on that morning, wearing it was all for the comedy, not necessarily the allure. She could’ve picked any shirt in there, but she chose the one gloriously emblazoned with a big fat frog and a corny pun. 

Letting herself get roped into his arms and onto his lap, she pulls at the ends of the shirt to clearly display the design on it ‘I make a lot of puns, so I’ve been toad’. God, it was so stupid. So stupid that it was most definitely funny but more important than that, it was comfortable. Shirts his size might as well be dresses on her, but that’s what makes them so good. 

“It’s funny!” she insists, letting go of the ends of the shirt and draping her arms loosely around his shoulders. 

Miki chuckles, clearly amused that he should find it so attractive. She sits there, a sort of satisfied grin spreading across her face when he looks away. In the back of her mind she knows it’s not this specific shirt that does it, just the fact that it happens to be a shirt of his in general but it is in her nature to tease, of course. 

“Really? I didn’t think corny graphic t-shirts were really something that did it for you,” she hums, lips ghosting along his jaw like she might decide to return that kiss on the cheek. “Should I start building a collection? How many shirts do you think I could find with something lame on them?” 

[aion-rsa]

Resident Evil Village: Why Ethan Winters is the Worst RE Protagonist

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This article contains RESIDENT EVIL VILLAGE spoilers.

I walked away from Resident Evil Village with mixed feelings about the whole thing, but the one aspect of the long-awaited sequel I had no mixed feelings about was leading man Ethan Winters and his status as the absolute worst.

While there have been other unlikable Resident Evil protagonists, Resident Evil 7 and Resident Evil Village‘s Ethan Winters is on another level. Unlike other RE heroes that were hindered by a combination of bad voice acting, bad writing, and questionable lore, Ethan Winters’ brings all of those unfortunate elements to the table and adds a couple of “qualities” that puts him cleanly in contention for the “honor” of being not just the worst protagonist in RE history but in all major video games.

Before you call that harsh, consider just a few of the many ways that Ethan Winters is the most insufferable part of two otherwise good games.

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Ethan Winters is a Terrible Husband

This is honestly a bit lower on the list of Ethan Winters’ character sins, but it has to be pointed out that Ethan Winters comes across as a pretty bad partner.

First off, there’s a world in which Ethan doesn’t even save Mia in Resident Evil 7 and instead chooses to give the serum to Zoe Baker: a girl he’s known for about a couple of hours. In that same ending, Mia still sacrifices herself for Ethan despite the fact that Ethan didn’t save her. Capcom wisely decided to abandon that ending pretty much entirely, but it’s telling that the writers created a character who could conceivably leave his wife to die when he’s able to easily save her.

Mind you, the version of Ethan we see in Village who did decide to save Mia is only slightly better than the one who abandoned her. The biggest problem here is actually the revelation that Mia is really Mother Miranda and seemingly has been for at least a little while. This use of the body switch trope always makes partners look bad (how do you not notice the supposed love of your life has been replaced?), but it takes a very dark turn in this instance when Mia is shot by Blue Umbrella operatives and Ethan barely reacts to his wife’s brutal murder.

Yes, it turns out it was actually Mother Miranda that was shot, but before Ethan knows that, he is seemingly able to process much of his grief with an “Oh God!” and an exasperated “Why?” After that, Ethan barely even talks about Mia. Sure, his daughter was just kidnapped, but this guy can’t shed a tear or do anything to indicate that he needs more than a minute to process this whole thing? Even if it was Mother Miranda who scolds Ethan in one of the game’s early cutscenes for not caring enough about their relationship, I’m starting to think she was right. No wonder she has to keep so much wine around the house.

Ethan Winters’ Quips Could Make an ’80s Action Hero Shake Their Head in Shame

I feel like I could spend several articles talking about Ethan’s awful one-liners and quips, but there’s one specific moment I have to talk about that really highlights the extent of this problem.

There’s a scene in the back half of Village that sees Ethan sneak through a mine in search of a flask containing part of his daughter. Against all odds, Ethan is able to retrieve the flask without drawing the attention of the creature guarding it, Moreau. However, Ethan (who, it must be said again, is the absolute worst) cannot resist taunting Moreau instead of just walking away. He then stays a little while longer to make fun of Moreau seemingly because he’s the first of the house leaders who he feels he is able to bully.

Ethan, why are you like this? Why would you possibly alert this thing to your presence when you’ve just been gifted an easy way out, and why would you exploit what appears to be a moment of weakness for this creature just to get a couple of insults and bad jokes in? For that matter, why do you constantly feel the need to chime in with some kind of quip or line that seemingly confirms you’re just good-looking enough to have never been told that you’re not funny?

It’s great that Moreau uses this moment to tell Ethan “You’re stupid! You talk too much,” but the fact that the game’s writers were seemingly aware of this problem makes it all the more baffling that they chose to have their games star this very stupid man who does, in fact, talk way too much in the moments he shouldn’t be talking at all.

Ethan Winters Has Never Been the Everyman He is Supposed to Be

When I first started playing Resident Evil 7, I gave the game the benefit of the doubt regarding some of Ethan Winters’ character and personality flaws. After all, he was supposed to be the player surrogate and something of an everyman who is just as confused by this situation as we are.

However, if Ethan really was ever supposed to be an everyman, he’s a pretty bad one. It’s easy enough to buy into the idea that Ethan is just some poor guy in a bad situation at first, but between his terrible quips, world-class bad decision making, and apparent inability to form a believable human connection with the few actual humans in his life, Ethan is less of an everyman and more of the random dorm roommate you got stuck with in college. The best thing you can say about him is that you’ve both got to find a way to get through this together.

Throughout Resident Evil, we also watch as Ethan alternates between struggling to understand things that we as the player have already figured out and not caring about obviously impressive moments. There are essentially vampires and other nearly mythological creatures in every corner of Resident Evil Village, and Ethan hardly ever conveys even a moment of surprise in response to anything he sees. There’s even a scene towards the end of the game when Ethan falls into an underground area only to find that Chris is already there and has apparently built a homemade tank. Does Ethan ask for an explanation about any of this or express any notable interest in these incredible coincidences/circumstances? No, he does not. It’s like the “cool guys don’t look at explosions” trope, but the explosions are the plot and the cool guy is Ethan Winters.

Seemingly realizing that Ethan wasn’t working as an everyman, Capcom decided to turn him into more of an action hero in Resident Evil Village. Unfortunately for everyone, that only made things worse…

Ethan Winters’ Powers Somehow Make Him an Even More Boring Character

Let’s get right into it: it doesn’t make any sense that Ethan Winters is able to defeat most of the threats he faces in Resident Evil Village, and the game’s attempts at making those moments make sense only make the character worse.

While Village tells us that Chris trained Ethan and Mia to some degree after the events of Resident Evil 7, there’s no amount of training you could possibly receive that would explain why the bullets from a shotgun you found in a shed are able to topple impossible creatures. Granted, that’s more of a game design problem than it is a personal issue with Ethan, but at some point, the fact that Ethan goes from “barely defending himself” to “defeating an entire village of monstrosities” with very little believable or enjoyable explanation between those moments ultimately becomes yet another reason to not like him.

Village later tries to explain Ethan’s regenerative abilities and impossible durability with a variation of the “dead the whole time” storytelling cliche, but that just makes matters worse. While “dead guy” is a pretty apt description of Ethan’s warmth as a human being, Ethan being just south of unkillable doesn’t make him any more interesting: it makes him a s****y Wolverine who hopes his powers will make up for his lack of personality. In reality, it just makes it more upsetting that it’s so hard to get rid of Ethan Winters.

Ethan Winters’ evolution from bewildered average guy to monster slayer could have been interesting. Just look at Gordon Freeman from Half-Life or the character Wesley Wyndam-Pryce from Buffy and Angel. Instead, the more we got to know Ethan, the more we wish we didn’t. It’s rare to have a protagonist that so effectively drags down the considerable quality of everything around him, but that’s just the kind of guy that Ethan is.

The post Resident Evil Village: Why Ethan Winters is the Worst RE Protagonist appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[davidmann95]

Your power is mine: thoughts on Kingdom Hearts’ newest, oddest character

Finished Final Fantasy XV over the weekend. Mixed feelings to say the least, but it does give me an excuse to talk about Kingdom Hearts again, specifically this weirdo:

And how it feels like most of the people discussing Yozora and trying to figure out what his deal is are missing half the point. Yes, there’s the apparent connections to Sora and Riku, and there’s his meta association with Noctis and the entire real-life corporate backstory there intertwining with the in-game narrative to an unknown extent. But when he’s discussed as some kind of fusion of Sora and Riku, or a literal reincarnation of Noctis, or that Verum Rex might end up a real game, or something similarly straightforward in terms of “he’s going to be a very important central character going forward”, the ideas or at least the tone of how they’re presented seem to miss an absolutely critical component of how he was introduced to us, in a way that shapes not only him but by extension the entire future of the franchise and its thematic concerns:

We aren’t just supposed to be surprised he’s important because he’s real where we thought he wasn’t. We’re supposed to be surprised because he’s introduced to us as a self-evident gag character.

Not that we’re not supposed to take him seriously where it counts: it’s clear he has an important role going forward and is a force to be reckoned with. But no matter what deep, foreboding connections to the Keyblade and Master of Masters may lie within his backstory that may determine the fate of more universes than one, he will never not have had the hilariously inauspicious beginning of being a toy played by Rex the Dinosaur. He doesn’t even have the dignity of being introduced as a game on one of the plot-heavy original worlds! He’s a throwaway gimmick to spice up one of the filler Disney segments, literally a child’s plaything.

Even before we learn the context he’s being presented in...well, look at him. He’s like Riku, who’s cooler than Sora, and Noctis, a Final Fantasy character and therefore cooler than all this Disney stuff, but also he has a LASER SWORD and a CROSSBOW - that are clearly functioning as cool future tech instead of dopey magical powers - and his eyes are MYSTERIOUS MISMATCHING UNNATURAL COLORS and he fights GIANT ROBOTS with a dude in a fedora in a city straight out of the REAL WORLD to save a helpless lady/prize: truly, let no mistake be made, he is VERY, VERY SERIOUS INDEED, AND ALSO, RAD. TO THE MAX. He’s every attempt at reframing contemporary Final Fantasy as slick and modern and cool dialed up and up and up until the tone breaks, without the barest hint of self-awareness even as it advertises its action figure tie-ins. I don’t think that his little Keyblade pattern on his jacket being near-impossible to spot unless you’re looking for it is just to preserve the surprise, but also because the sight of the big keys with the Mickey Mouse logo on them would be anathema to his entire vibe, so important as it may be it must be squirreled away where it can’t make him look dumb. Heck, when Dylan Spouse announced on Twitter he was playing this major character in a childhood favorite franchise of his, surely knowing more than we do about Yozora, his description of the part was “I have lived out my edgy JRPG character fantasies...I even got to say ‘Sorry, but I don’t lose.’” We’re supposed to receive him off the bat as Square Enix, and more specifically Tetsuya Nomura, poking fun at themselves, going ‘yes, we suppose this is all getting to be a bit much, isn’t it?’

And then he enters the story for real.

Obviously he’s much more than a joke now, but the idea of him as something off, something that doesn’t fit in these games, endures. His episode isn’t just in a modern cityscape but skinned in the graphics of the grittier, more detailed style of the Pirates of the Caribbean world meant to evoke photorealism rather than the look of the rest of the game. He interferes with the gameplay in ways no other enemy does, stealing your items and weapons (we’ll get back to that). When he casts you into a void to be attacked by the mechs, it’s not a pure empty white but a mass of abstract polygonal space, evocative of the visuals of early game development. What details we do get of his backstory frame him as a counterpart to Sora on a parallel journey all his own, but the associations with his other source material in Noctis are considerably more...cutting. Credit to @kitsoa, whose own extensive musings on Kingdom Hearts’ increasingly overt metafictional concerns brought to my attention the obvious parallel: that Yozora being changed ‘beyond recognition’ with his heart replaced by another’s is a reasonable, albeit scathing description of Noctis’s revised character in the shift from the Nomura-helmed Final Fantasy Versus XIII to the largely overhauled Final Fantasy XV (and by the same token, the Nameless Star’s identity being stolen comes across as a shot at Versus XIII’s Stella Nox Fleuret being entirely replaced by Lady Lunafreya. Who, by sheer coincidence, would have been corrupted in planned but cancelled DLC into a monster of darkness).

While the comparisons to his source material are not only intentional but textually overt - his introduction as a real boy is literally scored to the FFXV theme music - so is the distancing from that material, given that if Nomura simply wanted to use Noctis the very premise of Kingdom Hearts as a series could have allowed him to use Noctis, and even change him to fit his original vision however he wished given the design and backstory changes to the other Final Fantasy characters involved. Yozora has a distinct role in which he’s still meant to represent that tone and aesthetic, and all signs point to that being because as that representation, he hardly seems an endorsement. He’s a parody, offered up in a demeaning context and tangled up narratively in real-life creative bitterness before being placed as an antagonist, however well-meaning (though keep in mind every secret boss of his kind before - other than Julius, I suppose - went on to become an endgame boss later on), in the player’s path. He may not be a villain, but all signs seem to indicate he’s a figure to be regarded as a contrast to the heroes.

And it’s in that role as a contrast that I have my own theories about what his deal ultimately is, thematically if not plotwise.

For those who saw this in the Kingdom Hearts tag and aren’t superhero fans, that’s Superdoomsday, introduced in Grant Morrison’s run on Action Comics about 8 years ago. One among many takes on an ‘evil Superman’ from a parallel universe, the twist with his world is that rather than a survivor of Krypton, he is literally the materialized concept of Superman - imagined by his reality’s Clark Kent, Lois Lane, and Jimmy Olsen, who created a machine which could bring ideas to life - that when sold to a corporation was reimagined in service of wide public appeal into an all-powerful, uncompromisingly brutal monstrosity clad in armor somewhere between an iPhone, 90s Rob Liefeld battle gear, and Nazi regalia, who ultimately journeyed into the multiverse to stalk and kill other incarnations of Superman, seeing them as competition to his domination of the ‘market’. “The curse...of Superman...” murmurs the dying Kent of that world, “...he becomes anything you want...him...to be...our world...wanted that...”

Yozora is...probably not exactly a 1:1 to that. But as a counterpart to Sora, it absolutely seems as if the main factor by which he contrasts him is that he’s ostensibly the sleeker, edgier model, new-and-improved. He reworks Sora’s story arc and aesthetic into something theoretically cooler and more palatable, steals his power, ‘saves’ him by sealing him away to presumably fight in his stead and thereby take his place as the lead. He is the protagonist so many feel Kingdom Hearts has needed for years, the somber AMV-ready Secret Movie tone and aesthetic stepping into center stage at last rather than maintaining a sunshiney Disney-esque child hero lead to anchor the assorted conspiracies and horrors of much of the rest of the tale. The manner in which he is presented as to make metatextuality an in-universe concern (to call back to Grant Morrison again, his next work after Action Comics was Multiversity, where a major plot point was that the events of parallel universes were unwittingly documented in each others’ pop culture; in that case comic books, in here video games) for Kingdom Hearts to explore in the next main entry is I believe so as to ask what, in fact, Kingdom Hearts as a series should be; is it a Disney series with some incidental Final Fantasy stuff in it? A Final Fantasy spinoff with some Disney elements cluttering it up that should maybe be discarded as it grows up? Something all its own? Is it time for Kingdom Hearts to get Serious? Even if the Kingdom Hearts as imagined by a marketing executive vision of Verum Rex isn’t what’s next, what is, as things get darker and that vision is now part of the narrative whether for good or ill?

So yeah it looks like Kingdom Hearts IV is Kingdom Hearts vs. its own Gritty Realworld! Urban Fantasy AU fanfiction for the soul of the series, and I am extremely here for it.

[skvaderarts]

Chapter Sixteen: Epiphany

You can check out the Masterlist Here for more links to places to read!

Chapter Sixteen: Epiphany

Note: Thanks for the comments as always! As mentioned, this chapter is a little shorter than normal, but the next few will more than make up for it. I just didn’t want to drag this sequence out so that we could get to the exciting part sooner. You don’t want to make things too bogged down. Enjoy and get hyped for the next chapter… It’s been a nightmare to write lol! Sorry for any mistakes. It was a long night.

-~-

Things had been relatively quiet for the last little while, Agnus’s alchemical monstrosities content with roaming the entryway aimlessly in almost total silence for the time being. While the magical seal on the door to the library and the three separate sets of retractable bars that shielded the doorway from further attacks were more than likely enough to keep the artificial demons at bay, there was still a certain amount of apprehension as to their current level of security. Considering the fact that the Cutlass and Gladius, much like the seal itself (presumably), were products of the Order and their unscrupulous experiments, their ability to gain entry into the room was questionable at the best. And a product of that uncertainty was a permeating sense of urgency in regardless to finding a relatively safe way out of Fortuna Castle before things escalated to a level that they couldn’t control.

As the silence in the air brewed tension between them, V glanced over his shoulder from the second story balcony. After Nero had helped him reach the upper section of the library, the younger devil hunter had retired to the far corner of the room, his attention fixed upon some sort of mechanical contraption. It was a welcome change, at least for the time being. While  V was indeed flattered that Nero had been so worried about the laceration that he had received during their mad dash to reach the library, he wasn’t accustomed to having someone worry over him. It was touching; even somewhat flattering… but not something he was entirely comfortable with. V’s rational mind told him that this was normal, and he acknowledged it readily, more than able to comprehend the concept of platonic familial concern. But, despite the fact that he knew there was nothing abnormal about having Nero worry over him (especially when he had good reason too) he still couldn’t stand it.

The young summoner took a moment to mentally chastise himself for his illogical thought process. Of course he didn’t like it. He wasn’t supposed to. Having other people be concerned about him wasn’t meant to be an enjoyable process. He doubted that Nero enjoyed worrying about him either. Nothing about the situation that the pair of brothers currently found themselves in was comfortable or reassuring. In fact, from what the longer white-haired man could tell, they currently had no way of leaving the room that they were trapped in. It was a double-edged sword in that regard. Nothing in, nothing out; the only threat being the very thing that kept other threats at bay. It was quite ironic in an almost poetic sort of way. V couldn’t help but find humor in their possible damnation. While the bleeding from his injury had indeed slowed and was more than likely trivial in the eyes of proper medical care, they needed to actually leave the castle for first aid to take place. But in the meantime, he could simply count himself lucky. The demon that had dealt this wound was composed almost entirely of sharp edges. It was a miracle that he stood here now, reading these books in search of the answers he had inadvertently risked both of their lives for.

As V combed through the pages of the worn-out old book he held in his hand, his attention was drawn back to Nero. The younger of the two had just cursed quite loudly, clearly fed up with the piece of almost steampunk like piece of machinery he had been tinkering with for nearly an hour. V considered inquiring as to the nature of the problem, but relented, acutely aware that he more than likely had nothing insightful to add to the dilemma. It was odd for him to be so far out of the loop, but to say that he thought he knew everything would be a bald-faced lie. No one knew absolutely everything that there was to know. This just happened to be one of the rare instances where he had no idea what was going on. He redirected his attention back to the book, closing it and placing it back in its proper place on the bookshelf. While V was aware of the fact that there was no one else around to see him misplace it and that they were under more than a small amount of time pressure, he simply didn’t feel right just laying the book down somewhere. It wasn’t’ the right thing to do and that wasn’t who he was. He would find the time necessary to make sure that he left this place in at least the same condition that he had found it.

V walked down the row of bookcases in front of him, dragging his finger idly down the spines of the books as he went. At least half of the works contained in this room were not written in English, and many of the ones that were had been transcribed in very old classical English or by hand, making them a trial by fire to read. Much of it was in either Latin or Adamic; the former he had some basic comprehension of, the latter less so. Although his love of literature had lent him an excellent grasp of written languages, this was testing his skills somewhat more than he would like. As he glanced over the books in his search for one that he might be able to actually decipher, his finger brushed over the cover of a sizable tome. The words on the cover caught his eye, but the spine was somewhat faded. He would need to remove this one from the shelf and take a better look at it. 

Upon removing the tome from the self, he took notice of several qualities it possessed. The book was weighty and delicate, clearly one of the oldest texts in this library. The leather binding had held true for who knew how long, the paper quite aged and much more coarse than what he was accustomed to. Surprisingly elegant handwriting lined each page of the book, several detailed illustrations accompanied by even more meandering descriptions and instructions practically overflowed from each page. It was all quite fascinating to look at if he was being honest. Could he keep this book? Would anyone notice or even care if he took it home with him to give a more thorough examination? He flipped the pages carefully until he reached the cover. When he had first opened it, it had automatically gone to the middle of the book. This was presumably due to the way it had been bound, but that wasn’t entirely important at the moment.

“Dux Connexionem Referat Inferis” The title of the text flowed effortlessly from his mouth as he traced the words with his finger, taking a moment to try and remember what all the words meant,” Yes… this may prove useful after all.”

Nero glanced up from his position on the floor below, his focus still clearly on the Gyro Blade he was currently knelt down in front of. “You know what that says, V?”

V shrugged slightly as he flipped through what seemed to be an overview of sorts, introducing it’s audience to the different topics contained within its pages. The headings were all written with different mediums, signifying that they had been added gradually over the course of the writer’s lifetime. Oddly enough, the first few dozen pages did not contain the elegant script that he had seen in the middle of the book. Was this the work of multiple authors? After a moment he nodded to himself. Much to his enjoyment, this book contained information on the nature of familiar contracts and something else that seemed to pertain to artificial demons.

“I believe this may be some sort of encyclopedia or index. It makes mention of a Hellgate on an island that periodically changes location and a demon emperor,” He said as he turned the pages, his eyes fixed upon the writing they contained,” While I don’t think I have time to decipher this entire book just yet, it may have the answers I was looking for. There is some mention of Nightmare’s conception.”

Nero gestured to the empty room, laughing to himself slightly. Nightmare was one of his summons, right? How powerful did it need to be to get mentioned in a book that old? “Right now we have nothing but time. Unless I can get this stupid thing working,” Nero said as he gesured irritatedly towards the Gyro Blade,” We aren’t going anywhere. Does that book say anything about this thing?”

V used his finger to bookmark the page before turning back to the table of contents, taking a moment to look it over. After a moment, he shook his head. 

“It mentions something about an alchemical substance called Anima Mercury in this article about Quicksilver, but I can’t quite make out anything specific aside from the fact that they share similar properties,” He looked up for a moment, an incredulous look plastered across his face,” I don’t have any answers for you, unfortunately. Have you tried kicking it?”

The youngest descendant of Sparda stared at his older brother blankly for a moment, his neck craning sideways. Had V just told a joke at a time like this? No, surely he had just heard him wrong. He had to be mistaken. The eldest of the two seemed to key into his younger counterpart’s train of thought, gesturing with his outstretched hand towards the contraption in question. “I’m quite serious. Apparently this device is powered by kinetic energy. That is a stipulation of the Animal Mercury. It grants sentience, but not locomotion. If you have previously moved the device, then I can only assume that-”

Before V could finish his explanation, Nero drew Req Queen and slammed it downward towards the mechanical spinning top esque device before him, kicking it as he did so for good measure. The spinning blades within folded outward at the top and the machine lifted up off of the ground, hovering in place as if waiting for further simulation. Nero stared at it blankly as V looked down at him, clearly fascinated by now functional Gyro Blade. He could tell by the look on Nero’s face that he hadn’t expected the device to actually move.

Upon realizing that the device actually functioned, Nero took a few steps back and charged forward, launching himself feet first into the device. It rocked forward, crashing into the door of the library with a loud bang. The seal guarding the door shattered and the bars opened automatically, allowing them to finally exit the building. V slipped down from the upper level and landed on one of the floor dividers, gaining him a raised eyebrow from Nero and a thoroughly displeased side as his wound pulled slightly and he began to bleed a bit more. It was nothing catastrophic, but it was uncomfortable, to say the least. Nero offered him a hand and, after taking a moment to consider his alternative options, V decided to take him up on the offer, at least for the time being. In this particular instance, he was once again reminded of how much he missed his cane. It would be particularly useful at the moment. With that, the two of them exited the library, V taking a moment to tuck the book into one of the coat’s interior pockets. He would take the time to look it over more thoroughly once they were safely within the walls of Nero’s charming little home again.

They made their way down the balcony and back into the art gallery, noting the distinct lack of Cutlass and Gladius as they went. It was enough to raise an uncomfortable feeling within V, piquing his interest. While he could easily imagine that they had retreated, it was still very strange to see barely any traces of them. Their previous assault had been a sheer act of chaotic willpower, one that they had very narrowly overcome. It was imperative that they figure out where they had gone and either slip past them or use their combined problem solving skills to get the drop on them.

So basically they were going with plan A.

From the moment they stepped foot into the lobby, they were struck by the overwhelming silence that permeated the room. There were no demons in here like there had been a short while ago. Well, at least none that were alive. A pile of dead remnants was stacked in the middle of the first floor, a few stray demons scattered about. It seemed that they had been attacked all at once while a few outliers had actually noticed the threat and had tried to protect their collective to no avail. The Cutlass had been eradicated with ruthless efficiency, and the Gladius seemed to have tried to flee back into the labs before the attack had ended them once and for all. This was evident by the sheer number of them that laid dead on the stairs that led up to the opening to the lab behind the painting.

Something wasn’t right here…

As they reached the bottom of the steps and took a step towards the front entrance, V stopped a moment. He couldn’t tell if it was his general condition or his injuries, but he felt substantially weaker all of a sudden. It was as if all the energy had been sucked from his body in that very instant. Nero grappled the sudden shift in their collective center of balance, wrapping his right arm around V to try and help him steady himself. He clearly didn’t look well. A sudden noise from in front of them drew his attention, and what he saw took him off guard. About a dozen individuals in black coats had made themselves visible to them, presumably the people responsible for the dead demons that littered the room. One of them stepped forward, gesturing towards them.

“We’ve been looking for you.” The hooded man said as he lowered his hood to allow his hair to be freed and his face to become visible. “You’re quite hard to track down. It took us several days. Some sort of ward, I presume?”

Nero shot them a defensive look, glancing cautiously at V who seemed to be trying to shake off the sudden dizziness that plagued him. “Were not in a talking mood right now, so you’re going to have to forgive us but we’re not sticking around.”

The hooded individuals seemed incensed by the comment, taking defensive stances as though they were preparing to attack. The leader, the tall man from before, placed his hands in his pockets and stretched, seemingly unafraid. “Terribly sorry, I must not have been clear. Our master requires an audience with him.”

He gestured towards V, nodding. The taller of the two was starting to come out of his dizzy spell, so he looked up from the floor and shook his head in denial. There was absolutely no way either of them was going with these mystery men in black coats. They sounded just like the cult V had overheard Nero reassuring Kyrie about earlier that day.

Before either party could speak further, the front gate to the castle creaked open, and a familiar woman stepped inside. Before anyone could speak, she took a defensive stance, readying herself. The cultists turned their attention to her and several of them immediately began to call forth their summons. It seemed that this group was comprised of a much higher number of summoners than the one she had taken on at the pier. The three of them could only hope they were equally as competent.

-~-

These last few chapters are going to be FUN! I’m working on them as you are reading this, so feel free to tune in on Wednesday, June 24th as we reach the climax of book one! I hoped you enjoyed this chapter despite the fact that it’s slightly shorter than normal (about 500 words) and I look forward to seeing you all next week! Stay safe out there!

[hignoogntelto]

Offering To The Opposite Sex

Through the ages, there have been numerous secrets that have puzzled the most brilliant logical personalities on our planet, none of which progressively slippery, resisting profound levelheaded clarification and causing more encounter than the passionate contrasts among people. While this theme absolutely welcomes a lot further inside and out conversation, this content isn't planned to report or clarify these different focuses. Like most men, I am positively not qualified for anything over a general perception, some conceded frustration and traditionalist discourse from my clearly male point of view. Truly ladies, I am playing it safe!

Whenever you have the chance, type "http://plancksconstant.org/blog1/image-siphon/women-brain.gif" into your program and view an uncommon image. I don't advance this mysterious plan, this fascinating brain map, for amusement esteem just, yet rather to make an admirable sentiment. This image amusingly depicts a female cerebrum in speculation mode. Complex? Of course! By correlation, a man's mind may emulate a scoop. Truly, I genuinely accept there is that much contrast. For those of you who have might not have seen, women process feelings, data and think uniquely in contrast to men. Their cerebrum science and sensory system wiring is unmistakably not the same as that of guys. It likewise may be reasonable for state that women are commonly definitely more unpredictable in their speculation than men. Women will in general take in the bigger point of view and create pictures, various cycles of impacts and results that their activities and connections may make. Women are muddled passionate animals, supernaturally intended to supplement men. While we guys stay confused, we additionally remain interested and stricken. We frequently simply don't get it. Women are commonly more instinctual and more brilliant than that.

Men, while as a matter of fact increasingly oversimplified, conceivably progressively discerning, will in general compartmentalize and are inclined to brisk choices without the vital intricacies of enthusiastic impacts. Men, moderately steady and offset with our ordinary, generally reliable cerebrum science and hormonal action, vary significantly from the repetitive idea of our female partners. Making matters significantly all the more testing is the way that the average male has positively no idea with regards to what is most important to females. Men are ordinarily driven by essential male life powers, for example, the chase, experience, success and sex. Women, then again, are actually the inverse, desiring connections and enthusiastic bonds.

If it's not too much trouble excuse my over-improvement of the contrasts between the sexes, however I accept that we as a whole get the point. People are so totally different on numerous levels. So why talk about this here?

In business, deals and promoting specifically, people associate day by day in proficient connections. In some cases, it's anything but difficult to disregard these physiological contrasts when both sexes are a piece of a business procedure. Viable correspondence is basic to any business relationship, particularly those including a blend of the sexes. Absence of understanding, debilitated compassion and perceptual contrasts may prompt frustrations with either gathering, accordingly hindering fruitful connections and interchanges. Basically being aware of the way that the other gender forms data contrastingly may keep you path on the ball and for the most part increasingly ready to construct a fruitful, sympathetic relationship. To do or figure in any case doesn't work quite well.

We should figure out how to see things from the other individual's viewpoint, particularly when the other individual is the other gender. I really enjoyed the Mel Gibson film, What Woman Want, highlighting a womanizing publicizing official, played by Gibson, out of nowhere winding up answering to a female chief and accused of building up a promotion crusade pointed towards female clients. The film gave a diverting plot wherein a monstrosity mishap empowered Gibson's character to build up the extraordinary mystic capacity to hear the musings of lady in closeness to him. From the start, this new capacity was making him frantic, until he figured out how to see it as a gift that he could profit by. He figured out how to grasp his new capacity, and developed as an individual from his newly discovered comprehension of what drives women. He discovered, causing him a deep sense of shock, that women are exceedingly unique in relation to men. Beforehand, he never truly knew women by any stretch of the imagination.

[believerindaydreams]

...followup to Tuco’s naughty spying-in-the-bushes scene. 

In which Angel Eyes get a trifle nervy, and has a fun time contemplating exactly what a disastrous combination nerves and murdery inclinations are. 

...Cuilibet fatuo placet sua calva, to be sure. But only to a point.

Slow remnants of Latin tags floating in my memory as I awaken, detached and unmoored as I myself- what nameless town is this, that Blondie’s coaxed me to with such infinite pains and lack of subtlety? And the fate called on my own head, to be sure- that nap in the car beneath noontime sun, ill timed and worse chosen. But taken with such defiant trust.

By all logic, that labyrinth monstrosity to which I hold the deed must lie near here, no further away than a morning’s recreation and an afternoon’s drive; so the only thought that binds me to this sullen, unnamed shrine to wanderlust is the irrational, unreasonable terror, that I’ll walk through my own gates and find all familiar except myself, the stranger.

(The only thought, that is; it’s not wholly metaphorical.)

Blondie rests besides me in the traditional position of the dead, head against pillows and arms crossed, a show of tightly-knotted restraint. No movement from him as I ease myself as high upwards as I may, staring at his sprawled feet and the thick-glassed mirror that holds our reflections in thrall.

Rationality, I ought to grasp it as a drowning man does rope- but that’s nonsense. That year before my mentor’s death, when I watched her stepping back her own well-laid strictures, the sanity that bought her life for others’ deaths- it was a long year. To watch her die every time she left the confines of my watchful regard, to hold an anticipated awareness of her fate, there’s no common sense to turn to in so uncommon a situation.

Exactly what boots it, if I can name and inscribe every small thread that binds me fast? Craving for stability. Sublimation. Mistaking understanding for solace.

It would be better, I suspect, if the air conditioner was working. Only four steps would bring me to the window. A moment’s work would bring some air into this foetid atmosphere, shot through with ancient cigarette smoke and the lingering scent of oil-

I might do it, if not for the ropes that bind my wrists and ankles, constraining my every breath with shallow jealousy-

the specifics of memory! A lesson inscribed on mine with all my mentor’s will, and I’ve failed her at the close. Unable to remember if the thought was his or mine.

Suppose we tie each other safe, and sleep so.

And thus an agreement. Laughter I remember, gentle mockery as we linked ourselves together in clumsy glee-

a single rich, rounded drop of blood creeps from beneath a rope, dripping down my palm-

there is no scream. I do not permit one.

The logic of the situation snaps me back into necessary patterns, calculated learned survival. No matter that the wound is almost nothing, the result of hemp fraying to a point (Blondie’s rope then, his curious taste for cheaply-wrought pain). No matter that he would have asked with muttered innocence, before ever daring to confine me.

No matter that I told this man I loved him. Not even an hour ago, by the ticking of the clock.

Knives are out of reach, a coat carelessly hung and suitcases still packed, but Blondie’s razor rests on the bedside table. Available, given almost infinite precaution- my breast to be delicately poised above his teeth, weight set with such precariousness he might easily take advantage to drive my face into mocking mirror-shards-

my movements are unhurried, though as fast as I dare make them; and now I’ve embarked upon the task, the serenity of it grasps me. Training, inclination, experience, all these contribute to my awareness that the peaceably sleeping innocent beneath me doesn’t stand a chance.

My fingers curl around the weapon. I keep my breathing still and even, moving myself back to safety. Then and only then, to contemplate the expanse of flesh before me, a whiteness so amenable to being dyed with ready copper-

bang bang bang-

on the door-

and yet another blessing for my mentor, then. That she taught me stillness, that my hand remains motionless instead of plunging downwards in panicked haste.

“Bloooooondie? Hey! You gonna be a while in there, because there’s only one place to eat in town and it’s closing in an hour....”

Besides me, Blondie groans with eyes shut and rolls over, turning his face away from the door. “Way to kill the mood.”

I slice my bonds quickly and efficiently, then wrap myself again in more familiar fashion. The heft and weight of the gun against my chest, that’s a sensation I’m near grateful for. “Quite. Interdum stultus bene loquitur- even a fool can give a wise man counsel.”

“Huh?”

And you might as well be grateful for that, Blondie.

One of these days, I must tell him this story and see how long he laughs.

[donofdepravity]

Please read my rules before interacting, weather you are a prospective RP-partner, or a Spectator. All Blog navigation is centralized on my Links page, which is also mobile friendly.

Greetings: -This blog is R18+ because of NSFW. Being upfront. -You can call me Rave. They/Them pronouns. I am 25+ (Timezone is The Future™) -If you interact with me, I will assume you have read these rules in full. (And vice versa if I interact with you.) -This blog is Indie & Private. (No RP group affiliation. If you follow me I’ll check out your blog, but I won’t follow everyone back.) -FF7 characters preferred, but I will consider crossovers. Anons are welcome! -Regarding OCs, I will only be interacting with OCs of current mutuals. Any interactions outside of this are purely at my own discretion. Do not request otherwise. (I used to just be selective with OCs but recently I’ve had a difficult time with an OC mun not respecting that and pushing interactions.) -No drama / rudeness / hostility. I will not publish asks stirring trouble, and will block people if need be. -I lose track of Tumblr IMs easily, so if you are IM only and I seem like I’ve forgotten our convo, hmu again so I get a refreshed notification.) -Discord is available for mutuals. Please, I prefer it over Tumblr IMs!

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Basis of engagement: -General RP etiquette applies. -No god-modding. Don’t control my muse. Minor implied things can be okay within reason, like opening doors, or if in a character moves some part of another character. But please be reasonable and fair. -Related to above, I have no interest in RPing with someone that has a control complex / Must be the ultimate / best at everything. (There are logical muses that get a pass on this rule, ie Sephiroth, but within reason.) -This is not a multi-muse blog. I try to plan 1-1 encounters in threads. While I don’t mind brief character appearances, please don’t rely on the thread having an ensemble cast. It doesn’t work well with Tumblr’s reply format IMO.

Ships -Where to even start. Uh. So ironically I’m not particularly looking to ship on this blog since he’s not a primary muse of mine. But ships will be considered within a plot context. -My Corneo is primarily hetero. He won’t knowingly fuck a guy, but he will appreciate a pretty boy, and he’s not above wanking off to, or with other men. Maybe if he were drunk enough he’d fuck a guy. -In general as a person I am a Multi-Shipper. If for some disturbing reason you ship your muse with Corneo, you’re welcome to tell me. But ask first rather than presume. He’s got a rep for one-night-stands with his brides of course, but I will still be selective threading. -Romantic involvement however he is much more selective, so there will be chemistry required. -UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE: ALL SHIPS, EVEN WITHIN A VERSE, EXIST IN SEPARATE MINI ALTERNATE VERSES. -Please do not pre-establish a relationship with my muse without discussing it with me. Talk to me first if you are interested in that.

Smut -Smut will occasionally appear on this blog if my my brain decides it’s in the/a cursed mood. But if you want to write it with me, let’s discuss it a bit first privately. -While I do love me some good horny writing, I can appreciate its not for everyone. I am open to fade to blacks / morning after if you are not smut-inclined. -Once any flirting progresses to smut it will be tagged with: ‘⋙{ ns/fw }’ - It is my general NS/FW tag. Any TWs will be applied additionally.

Dark Themes -As I mentioned dark topics before, I’m not adverse to some borderline topics, acknowledging mun does not equal muse. -I will tag Selfcest or anything grey-zone ‘problematic’ if relevant in case you prefer to block it. -Where relevant dub con / non con or other such triggers will be tagged. Please be aware that any threads containing as such serve a plotted narrative purpose and are not rape fetishization. I’m not changing my content. If you have a problem with grasping this concept, please leave. Your mental health and safety is important, but also your own responsibility.

I use RP Thread Tracker to keep track of all my threads. Please let me know if you change your username so I can update my settings.

Memes: -I will try to respond to memes / asks! Mutuals, Non-Mutuals, Anons all welcome. -Please don’t take it personally if I don’t answer your ask, sometimes things just don’t click. -Starter-memes, unless I pm you and discuss otherwise, generally these are for smaller-format threads. Just to balance out my lengths of things and make it easier for me to get something back to you.

Reply lengths: -I’m occasionally prone to writing larger Multi-Para starters. It’s just my nature. I don’t expect you to match it. Please don’t be intimidated. (But also, typically my average reply length tapers off after the starter for a more reaction-based format. -Multi-Para style is my main tendency writing with an average of 2-4 para replies. Shorter semi-para may occur at times, particularly in dash commentary or shitpost threads.

Reply Frequency: -This is not my primary muse, so I will only be checking this blog occasionally. Consider it low-activity. -When my threads start crowding I queue posts to help stagger replies. -Neither length nor reply-speed is an indicator of my interest level in a thread. Some threads are intended to be larger formal threads while others are shorter that I want to remain light for enjoyment. A varied thread diet is best. -Please do not compare my threads against each other. I plan my replies around how I know I’ll best be able to manage my schedule, as well as meshing in with my various RP partners schedules. Occasionally this means one person may receive a burst of replies in a short space of time. This is usually because we only have a narrow window to mutually be active as they may only be able to reply every few days. It doesn’t mean I’m ignoring others. I’ll get to you, just chill. Things are fine. Bother me about this? You will be likely dropped. -That said, if it’s been around a month, you are welcome to check with me if I got your reply on a thread! I’m aware Tumblr sometimes eats replies and notifications. Likely it’s sitting in my drafts to write soon. But please don’t demand constant responses. I run multiple blogs, sometimes am in the mood for different muses, and have things I do outside of Tumblr as well of course.

Threads: -If life is getting fairly busy, I can’t promise replying to random starters/tags, so please message me if you want to start something. :3 -I will post Starter/Plotting/Ship calls etc occasionally, so please hmu on those if you see them. -My ‘Open Starters’ are open to mutuals. -If we’re not mutuals and you’re looking to get my interest, you’re always welcome to send something to my inbox and I might answer it. If you don’t know what to send, please check out my meme tag for ideas.

My rules used to be so short, but unfortunately certain encounters, and trying to avoid confrontations has led to it growing into a monstrosity, sorry. If you do anything in breach of them, I’ll bring it up with you. If a reasonable solution cannot be reached, I have no qualms blocking people.

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