#over something as 'basic and obvious' as identity? if everything else on the real id was disaviwed by the deceased as attested by their

[iamthescalesofjustice]

it will never stop delighting me that ive somehow and without intent or action on my part gone from my high school days of carrying both a real permit and fake license not for the usual fake id purposes (was not driving, going to clubs, buying alcohol, going to R movies, etc) but for the purpose of provoking questions about and contemplation of the nature of identity, the role and impact of government and official documentation on the concept of identity, and for the lolz (wouldnt it be funny if i died and they harvested my organs bc the fake id said i was an organ doner but the real one doesnt? yeah it doesnt really work that way but the very concept amused my friend group), to having a singular fake/not fake license which was officially issued to me from the actual dmv by mistake and contains a legal name, sex marker, and picture which bear no resemblance to anything ive been known by in over a decade (and even then were not accurate hence the interrogation of identity as a concept), which i did not pass or even attempt any driving test (practical or otherwise) to obtain. is this a fake id? does this count as real? real in what sense? is this more real or more fake than either my permit or my high school fake id?

[the-silvr-speedster]

About Starfish and Squares

Fandom: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Pairings: Daisy Johnson / Daniel Sousa

Basically just Daisy trying to figure out what to do about her feelings for Daniel and Daniel being... well, Daniel. All with a little teasing and heart eyes. Set after the end of S7 in a timeline that was changed a lot (just my pure speculation).

Hi guys! Uh, it's been a few years since I've actually published something (and didn't finish, oops). This is my first fic connected to a TV show, but since it is my favourite one and is already ending and they gave us Daniel freakin' Sousa as a new love interest for our girl Daisy I just couldn't sit on the sidelines but jump on the ship and now I am basically just a Dousy trash. Plus I got ideas and couldn't wait until the season ends hence this little fic I put down over the weekend. The timeline is pretty messed-up at this point and I have no idea what are they going to do about it so, this is just my pure speculation about what it would look like in the future after all those changes. Basically, I just wanted to write one small fluff and flirty scene but somehow this fic came alive and decided otherwise. But enough of my rambling, I hope you enjoy reading this. Beware of mistakes, nobody else edited it but myself and I may be a little rusty in writing in English.

And just a little disclaimer: I don't own any characters, they are a property of Marvel and Marvel Television.

He could hear the sound of Daisy's fast typing before he walked into Zephyr’s dining area. She didn't see him enter the room, though. Sitting sideways at the table, she kept her eyes trained on the laptop screen, completely focused on her work. Daniel stopped in the doorway, leaned against the wall, and quietly watched over her like she could disappear into thin air at any moment.

He caught himself doing it ever since Nathaniel killed her mom and he found Daisy on the ground next to her body with tears welled up in her eyes. She let them fall the second he softly spoke her name. She buried her face in the crook of his neck and he stroked her hair and held her close as long as she needed it. God knows that if it was up to him, he would hold her like that forever. She clung to him for dear life.

“You are hurt,” he worriedly looked over the bump on her forehead, brushing her hair from her face.

She didn't respond. She moved her hands to his chest and kept looking at them, lost in thoughts. A look of fear and confusion crossed her face and she finally met his eyes.

“How am I still here?”

That sentence stayed on his mind for over a week now, like a constant reminder of how much Chronicoms screwed up the timeline - with the help of Malicks, mainly Nathaniel. Just a brief thought of him brought that rage against the man full force. He shouldn't dwell on that anymore, it was in the past after all, but still, he couldn't forget. The barn. What he did to Daisy. To her mom. Daniel shook his head. Nathaniel is long gone now; Daisy took care of that. In the end, it didn't matter that he had those powers longer than she did. She crushed him, just like she told him she will back in that godforsaken barn. Daniel was so proud of her.

They won. They destroyed Sybil permanently with the help of Fitz and returned to the future. Not like it was a return for him but he didn't mind being here... with her. It was so strange to him. Yes, he had fallen in love before but somehow this was different. Unexpected. It hit him like a bullet in the back, totally unprepared and he was too far gone before he even realized it. ‘Huh, no pun intended,’ he thought. Million times better than those two bullets in the back he was originally supposed to get. And yet, at the same time, it scared him. The thought of him making it to the future without her. He was scared that the messed-up timeline will catch up with them and take her away from him. Not that she would be his, she is her own person but... He closed his eyes and shook his head again. He is in head over heels.

Something has changed between them. Well, more precisely, something about Daisy has changed ever since she was stuck in the time loop. Whatever that was, whatever happened that she didn't tell him about, it gave him a sliver of hope that maybe, just maybe she's falling for him too. A hope that this time it won't end up like with Peggy. However, another part of him kept screaming not to give his hopes up. After all, she is a superhero with impressive powers from the future and he - he is a square, she said it herself. But he finds it that he doesn't care. He just wants to be there for her in whatever way she lets him. People like her should have someone to pick them back up after they hit the figurative walls. In Daisy’s case even the literal ones.

“Enjoying the view?” Daisy calls with a smirk. She could feel Daniel's presence for some time now but wanted to finish her work. Setting up new identities and lives in this new timeline is a pain in the ass. She officially doesn't exist, Daniel is supposed to be dead, Coulson is actually still alive so she has to set something up for LMD version of him and Deke - well he was always out of time.

She turns to look at Daniel at the lack of his response. He is looking in her general direction but his eyes are unfocused. She keeps looking at him, almost getting lost in her own thoughts that she promised herself she'll sort through. Mainly those particular memories from the time loops.

“Earth to Sousa,” she calls again, tilting her head to the side. She can't help but smile as she sees his eyes focusing on hers.

“Hi! Sorry, got lost for a while,” he sheepishly smiles and pushes off of the wall.

“Anything interesting on your mind you'd like to share?” Daisy can't help herself but tease him with a glint in her eyes.

Daniel's breath catches for a moment, fearing she could read his mind somehow. But she can't, can she? She's just teasing him. She likes to do that. He throws up his arms and looks around. “Everything is on my mind.”

“Yeah. It's a lot to process, I guess. But you are a champ at that by now,” Daisy tells him, watching him with a soft smile as he walks over to the fridge.

“Don't know about that,” he throws over his shoulder as he takes out some eggs and veggies. “Hungry?” He looks at her questioningly as he sets the ingredients on the counter.

Daisy's stomach rumbles as an answer. She laughs. “Like a wolf.”

“I'll make us some omelet,” he proposes as he prepares to start cooking.

“OK. Thanks,” Daisy softly says and tries to concentrate on her work again. She fails at that miserably, her eyes wandering towards Daniel all the time. ‘How is he even real?’ She keeps asking herself ever since she first met him in his office in 1955. She has to smile at how crazy that sounds in her head. They basically know each other for seventy-five years. She doesn’t question everything he does for her anymore. She got the answer on that in the time loop. However, that doesn’t mean he stopped surprising her. It’s nice to have someone who takes care of her for once.  Someone who is listening to her and is just…there for her. She doesn’t need to be his rock like she always used to think she needs to be for everyone else on the team.

Daisy looks at him again. His back is turned towards her as he is chopping the veggies. ‘What a sight to behold.’ She grins widely at that and bites her lip. Nope, she can’t get distracted. She still has work to do. She fixes her eyes on the screen of her laptop again. The more she’s trying not to think about him, the more she does. She thinks about their little conversation. About that kiss… ‘Nope. Definitely not going there. Not now.’

“Daisy?” The sound of her name tears her out of her thoughts. She likes how it sounds when he says it.

“Huh?” She looks at him and hopes her face doesn’t give away what she was thinking about. He is leaning against the counter fully turned towards her with an amused expression.

“I asked if you know where Coulson and Deke are,” he tells her. Of course, he doesn’t ask what was on her mind when she wasn’t answering before. He’s nice like that.

“Uh, I think Deke went to set some things up for himself with the new ID I made for him and he said something about staying over at Fitz-Simmons’s this night,” she shrugged. “And Coulson is charging back in the LMD lab,” she pointed with her hand towards it.

“So, it’s just the two of us then,” he stated the obvious, his deep brown eyes locking with hers.

“Uh-huh,” she hums, breath catching in her throat. She should have some funny retort to that, shouldn’t she? “Any ideas?” She teases with a smile and slaps herself mentally. ‘Why am I like this?’

He doesn’t break eye contact and Daisy can see the change in his eyes. He gives her a small amused smile like he can see right through her. She can feel the air becoming heavier.

She cleared her throat. “I mean, I got us new Netflix subscription, so… if you want, we can watch-“ She was interrupted by a beep of a pop-up window on her laptop. “Oh, come on!” She exclaimed frustrated.

“Something’s wrong?” Daniel asked concerned.

“Nothing I can’t fix,” she told him as she started to work on fixing the problem. “But it will take time,” she sighed and ran her hand through her hair.

“OK, I’ll leave you to it. I’ll finish dinner.” She gave him a grateful smile and he returned to preparing the meal.

Daisy told herself that this is why she can’t deal with her feelings right now. Why she can’t think about how nice that kiss was. She has work to do and she needs to finish it first then deal with whatever is going on with the two of them. The sooner she does that, the sooner they all can start living a new life somewhere that is not on the Zephyr. A quick thought goes through her head; she always finds an excuse so she doesn’t have to deal with her feelings. She always tells herself “later”. Maybe it’s easier to do that than admit to herself that she is scared. Maybe a part of her is grateful the time loop did reset and Daniel doesn’t remember what happened. Because the last thing she wants is for him to get hurt…or worse. That is what happens to people she cares about, who care about her. She still remembers that time when she was in the dark place after everything went down with Hive and Lincoln, after she chose to leave the team and become a vigilante. The pain, the guilt she felt. May has told her back then that she doesn’t get to choose who cares about her. And finally, she accepted it; she returned back to the team. And then Coulson died. And Fitz. They went to space to search for the other version of Fitz. Davis was killed. Then May almost died in her arms in that temple and next thing she knows they are on the Zephyr in 1931. When she thinks about it, she’s been bottling everything up. She labeled every feeling, every memory with the “later” tag.

She can feel tears forming in her eyes so she blinks a few times to get rid of them. How did her mind go down that dark rabbit hole with just a single thought? She doesn’t know. What she does know is, that she will have to deal with all of it one day and she can’t ignore the small part of her which hopes that Daniel will be there to pick her back up after that dam of bottled feelings and pain breaks down. One day, but not now.

*******************************************************************************************

Daniel woke up in his bunk. The light was still on and the book he was reading laid open on his chest. He looked at his wristwatch. 3:35 A.M. He ran his hand down his face with a sigh. He doesn’t even know when he fell asleep.

After he and Daisy ate the dinner, he retreated to his bunk to continue his research on everything he missed in seventy-five years. Daisy showed him some web pages on the tablet that could come in handy, like this Wikipedia thing. She said though, to take everything written there with a bit of skepticism since apparently the page is sometimes not the most reliable source of information. Coulson gave him some history books he picked up for the team in a bookstore in a nearby city since those they had from before were useless in the new timeline. Nobody seemed to be interested in reading them but him. After they found out that the real Coulson is alive as well as May’s ex-husband Andrew which is not an ex in this timeline and they have a daughter, and that the public doesn’t know anything about the existence of Inhumans, Daisy kind of didn’t want to know more about what changed. Mainly after Fitz mentioned something about Grant Ward being alive too.

Daniel sat up on his bed with a grunt and put the history book aside. His mouth was dry. He decided to go get some water. He quietly opened the door on his bunk and walked towards the dining area. As he walked past Daisy’s bunk, he saw that the doors are open and her bed is empty. He closed his eyes with a sigh. Leave it to her to rest and she won’t.

When he entered the dining area, he was greeted with a sight of Daisy sleeping with her head placed on her arms next to the laptop on the table. She looked peaceful but uncomfortable. He shook his head with a smile and walked towards the counter to pour himself a glass of water. After he drank it, he moved next to Daisy and lightly put his hand on her back.

“Daisy?” He whispered so he wouldn’t startle her. She didn’t move.

“Okay,” he murmured to himself. ‘Let’s try something else.’ He carefully moved her body in a proper sitting position while simultaneously going to one knee. Putting his one arm around her back and the other under her knees, he pulled her close and her head rolled onto his shoulder. A soft sigh escaped her lips but she didn’t wake up. He stood up with her in his arms and slightly adjusted her weight, although it was so much easier and painless than the first time he carried her. He can’t be more amazed by the new prosthetic. Daisy’s arms went around his neck and she hid her face in his shoulder with another (content?) sigh. He smiled and before he thought better of it, he kissed the top of her head.

When he got to her bunk, he carefully put her down on the bed and unlocked her arms from around his neck. She grunted unhappily at the loss of contact. Smiling, he moved towards her feet and started undoing her shoes. When he was finished, he pulled the blanket from under her and covered her with it. Satisfied with the result of Daisy sleeping comfortably in her own bed, he looked at her one more time, leaned over, and softly brushed some hair from her face.

“Good night, Daisy.” He whispered as he straightened up. When he turned to leave the room, her hand caught his wrist.

“Daniel?” Daisy murmured half asleep. “Stay.”

His heart leaped into his throat. He stepped closer to her bed, her hand still holding his wrist. Her eyes were opened, looking at him pleadingly in the low light coming from the corridor. She slowly moved further on her bed to make a space for him. He was, however, waging an internal war. After all, this is something that would be considered highly inappropriate in his times. Probably even now, in the 21st century.

“I shouldn’t,” he told her quietly.

“Please,” she whispered her eyes closing again.

He sighed heavily and mentally cursed himself. He would do anything she asked of him, wouldn’t he? How could he say no when all he wants is to hold her close? He wants to stay but he shouldn’t. Yet he already knows he’ll do as she wants.

“OK,” he murmured resignedly.

Daisy smiled, satisfied, and let go of his wrist. He closed the door and sat down on her bed. He took off his shoes before he crawled under the blanket with her. She immediately moved closer to him and put her head on top of his chest, resting her hand over his heart. His instant shock melted away quite quickly and he wrapped his arm around her waist pulling her even closer. She hummed contently. Daniel turned his head towards hers and planted one more kiss on top of her head, smiling. Any doubts he had before disappeared in the warmth of her body pressed into his side and the feeling of her heartbeat resonating with his own.

*******************************************************************************************

No nightmares this night. That was the first thing that went through Daisy’s head after she woke up. She sighed and pressed her head into the pillow happily. Only then she realized that it’s not her pillow she is pressing her face into but another human being’s chest. That was the moment she became acutely aware of a warm arm around her waist holding her close and the fact that her legs were tangled with the legs of that person. She was basically sprawled across half of him like a freakin’ starfish. She went rigid for a moment before she finally dared to open her eyes. She was in her bunk. How did she get here?

If she was being honest with herself, she didn’t really need to look up to figure out who she made a pillow from. She already knew, but still, she looked up to be met with a peaceful face of sleeping Daniel Sousa. Was his face really buried in her hair before she looked up or it just looked like it was? She felt her cheeks burn. Her heart hammered in her chest at high speed. ‘Please, don’t quake,’ she begged herself. God, she was so grateful that he was still asleep and didn’t see her blushing. Speaking of… Daniel sighed and his arm tightened around her waist. ‘Shit!’ Daisy moved her head down, the last thing she wanted was for him to wake up to her staring at him while profusely blushing. She could feel how his own heart was slowly picking up pace. She smiled. Somehow it made it less awkward that her own heart was racing like crazy. Now that she comes to think of it, this is an extremely comfortable position and she really likes her new pillow.

“Hmm, good morning,” Daniel murmured hoarsely.

“More like lunch, really,” she babbled, looking at the clock on her bedside table. “But good morning to you too,” she quickly added hiding her smile in his chest. “How did you know I was awake?”

“Apart from that heartbeat of yours? Hmm, let me think,” he chuckled. She liked how it resonated in his chest.

“Sorry,” she said as she slowly looked up at him, locking her eyes with his. “A little side effect of my powers. Be glad I didn’t quake you out of the bed,” she smirked.

He raised his eyebrows, an amused smile playing on his lips. She tried not to look at them for too long. “That happened before?”

“Nope. But once I quaked myself out of the bed,” she laughed and he joined in. It lighted up his eyes even more. She had to look down on his chest to gather her thoughts. It wasn’t helping very much. “Anyway,” she cleared her throat, “care to elaborate how am I actually here? Last I remember I was resting my eyes on the table in the dining area.”

“Well, it wasn’t much of resting your eyes as it was more of an uncomfortable sleeping,” he chuckled. “Tried to wake you up but you wouldn’t even budge. So, I carried you here,” he explained.

Daisy met his eyes again amused, trying not to imagine him carrying her in his arms. “You carried me here? Just like you carried me out of that barn?”

“Uh-huh,” he hummed looking down at her.

“You seem to like carrying me around a lot, agent Sousa,” she teased him while pushing up on one elbow so she could look at him better. He gave her a small smile and…did he just look at her lips? She gulped.

“You seem to like being unconscious a lot, agent Johnson,” he replied jokingly.

Daisy smiled widely. “Well then, in that case, you have to carry me while I’m still awake next time.”

“Maybe I will,” he teased her back with a glint in his eyes.

'Looks like someone is in a playful mood this morning,’ she thought to herself. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she hummed. The way he was looking at her, the way his arm was burning her waist through her t-shirt and the way her own hand just casually laid on his chest suddenly became unbearable and at the same time she wanted more. More of him. Her eyes flicked to his lips, then to his eyes and then anywhere else but him. One side of her just wanted to lean in and kiss him like she did in the time loop, another side was basically screaming at her to abort the mission. She inhaled deeply to calm herself down and pushed away from him completely, now lying next to him on her back.

“So,” she started again looking at the ceiling twisting her hands together nervously, “did I, uh, say something after you brought me here?”

“Uh-huh,” he said as he propped himself on one elbow, now looking down at her with that little smile of his clearly enjoying himself by teasing her. Oh, how the tables have turned.

“Did I…beg you to stay?” She asked him, eyeing him cautiously.

He just smiled even more.

“I did, didn’t I? Oh God,” she mumbled, covering her face with her hands as she heard him chuckle next to her. “Sorry. The last thing I wanted was to put you in an uncomfortable situation. I just…,” she looked at him, her hands now playing with the hem of her t-shirt. She took a deep breath. “When I am extremely tired, I kind of loose the filter and say whatever is on my mind. Like a drunk person.” She smiled innocently at him.

“So, you are extremely honest then?” He asked her with a smirk, some kind of plan already forming in his eyes.

Daisy laughed. “Don’t you dare to use it against me,” she warned him jokingly. “Anyway, did I say…anything else?” She knows that there is so much she could’ve possibly said to him, things that she can’t reveal while she is in a half-asleep state when she definitely won’t take a moment to explain herself.

“You called me by my first name,” he shrugged, still smiling.

“Hmm, did I?” She grinned. She was calling him Daniel in her head since…well, since the kiss probably. “It would be a shame to go back to calling you Sousa now, wouldn’t it?”

“It definitely would,” he agreed.

“So, Daniel it is, then,” she smiled softly at him. “But I mean it, I’m sorry for putting you in that position. I know that you’re-“

“A square?” he cut her off with a raised eyebrow.

“That’s not exactly what I was gonna say but since you’ve mentioned it - I kinda like squares,” she gave him a teasing smile and he had to look away for a moment before finding her eyes again. “I mean, I basically made a pillow out of you and wrapped you in a starfish hug - unconsciously - but still. Without an explanation or…something.” She looked at her hands sheepishly. “I just can understand that it could be too much for you and-” She kept rambling before he cut her off again.

“I kinda like starfish,” he told her with a shrug.

She looked up at him. His face was soft and honest and she thought she’s going to drown in his warm eyes.

“And I didn’t mind being your pillow at all,” he added.

Just one swift move of her hand to grab his shirt and pull him to her. That is the only thing that she needs to do to kiss him. Right there and then. Daisy already knows he would be more than a willing participant. She knows that is would be probably even better that their first kiss - which he doesn’t remember. That is probably what is keeping her from actually going for it. Maybe she should just tell him. Or kiss him first and tell him later? ‘No,’ she tells herself. ‘This is not the right time or place for that conversation.’ And yet she can’t help herself. She can’t break the eye contact, she can’t move. She’s frozen in place and maybe even space and time, because what are those? They are inconsequential at this moment. She is lost in that chocolate heart eyes of his. They are reflecting exactly the same emotion, exactly the same desire as hers. He wants to kiss her too, she realizes, but he won’t unless she gives him a go…or kisses him first. And just like that, she can see in all play out in her head. Maybe she should go for it even without that conversation. She should just go for the kiss and not label it with the “later” tag like everything else. Maybe, she will…

“Well, I guess that every starfish needs its own square to make a pillow from,” she said in a low voice, her hand rising up to softly cup his face.

“Hmm, it would seem so,” he hummed in agreement and started to move closer, her touch giving him the courage to do what he wanted for so long.

Or not…

They were suddenly interrupted by a loud crash and sound of something breaking. They both jumped up into a sitting position with a panic written all over their faces.

Deke’s voice echoed from somewhere in the corridor. “Uh, guys?! We don’t really need the main control panel on the bridge anymore, right? Because it kinda, uhm, broke.”

Daisy let out a frustrated sigh and facepalmed. Leave it to Deke to be the buzzkill. She looked over at Daniel. The initial annoyed look on their faces slowly transformed into a huge grin before they both burst out laughing. She hid her face in his shoulder and he put his arm around her waist, enjoying one last moment alone before they go off to deal with the new disaster. Daisy at least knows now that they really need to have that conversation soon. Because whatever this is, she wants it no matter what.

“Guys?!”

Ok, so this was supposed to be a one-shot but if anyone is interested I might write down at least one more chapter about "that conversation" and kiss. I didn't want to include it here since there are already so many fanfics about how Daisy breaks the news about their kiss to Daniel.

I hoped you enjoyed it and I guess we'll see each other in the Dousy trash can.

UPDATE: There is a sequel to this fic, called HOME. Just FYI, if you were interested in reading more Dousy content. Link is here.

[oscar-mildes]

elvira you know I always see what you're hiding in the tags,, I will always read it if you answer all of them abhsjdbs

nev you asked for this and im going to go thru with it bc im an oversharing idiot like oh you asked me how’s the weather i will tell you about all my trauma instead :D 

What do you identify as and what are your pronouns? i’m cis yo i’m she/her. i’m biromantic ace. thats the label i would put on it i guess. i really just refer to myself as gay bc i like pretty boys who look like girls and pretty girls and pretty nb and queer people and basically i just like pretty people ajsfbjf

How did you discover your sexuality, tell your story? theres no story to it. no epiphany or realization. i just always was ok with thinking that girls were pretty and that gay people are cool and it wasnt until recent years that i was like oH SHIT AM I GAY

Have you experienced being misgendered? What happened and how did you overcome it? no i guess bc i’m a girl and id as a girl and have a very obvious girl body

Who was the first person you told, how did they react? i guess my best friend. we’re both very ok with gay shit and we just always made comments about pretty girls and now we’re both pretty gay. i like my big tiddie anime girls and she likes her pretty kpop girl bands

Describe what it was like coming out, what did you feel? i’ve only “come out” to some of my friends. i would NEVER in my LIFE even imagine telling my mom i like girls. shes homophobic Like That

If you’re out, how did your parents/guardians/friends react? uhh see above. my mom, stepdad, family members are all homophobic. hispanics in general are Like That rip. i think my dad would be the most ok with it but he lives in mexico and i dont talk to him often anyway. doesnt matter

What is one question you hate people asking about your sexuality? i hate when people ask me about the ace part. like they have a bigger problem about my not wanting to have sex over the liking girls part tbh. sometimes it’s difficult for me to even describe where i am on the ace spectrum. it’s honestly the more difficult part 

Describe the style of clothing that you most often wear. basic nerd. you know those fics like “she dressed in a black t-shirt, skinny jeans, and all star converse” yea that she is me

Who are your favourite lgbt+ ships? ajkfj this is a good question and canon wise i love Ash and Eiji from Banana Fish, Uenoyama and Mafuyu from Given, Nezumi and Shion from No. 6, and Simon and Baz from Carry On. Not canon i love Kurama and Hiei from Yu Yu Hakusho, Izuku and Todoroki from My Hero Academia, and Inosuke and Tanjiro from Demon Slayer. Note how most of them are anime i

What does makeup mean to you? Do you wear any? i dont really wear any bc im lazy. if you like it you do you but idrc for it? except for lipstick i LOVE lipstick i have all the colors. i wear it so it distracts people from the rest of my face

Do you experience dysphoria? If so, how does that affect you? ...no

What is the stupidest thing you’ve heard said about the lgbt+ community? i live in the south so ive heard tons of shit talk about gay people. i dont really have any that stand out. my mom just likes to say that we’re going to hell :D so let’s give em a show ay

What’s your favourite thing about the lgbt+ community? i guess i like how we find solidarity in each other just bc we’re not straight. most of the lgbt+ folks i know are pretty chill about everything

What’s your least favourite thing about the lgbt+ community? terfs but they dont count

Have you ever been to your cities pride event? Why or why not? i live in a small town and i could never sneak out of my house for that bc i still live with my mom so no

Who is your favourite lgbt+ Icon/Advocate/Celebrity? theres so many big celebrities now that id as lgbt+ but im going old school and loving my man, my tumblr url namesake mr Oscar Wilde. my man got put in jail for sodomy 

Have you been in a relationship and how did you meet? lmao never bc im mean, ugly, and terrible at talking to people irl. i had a bf in middle school? but bc i was 12 i dont count it 

What is your favourite lgbt+ book? Carry On and the sequel Wayward Son. (very anxiously waiting for book 3 Anyway the Wind Blows come on Rainbow Rowell)

Have you ever faced discrimination? What happened? for being gay? no. bc im not really out. ive faced discrimination for being a brown woman tho :)))

Your Favorite lgbt+ movie or show? yall i love gay anime: Given, Banana Fish, No. 6, Yuri on Ice yeee. i dont really watch tv with real people but i think that Brooklyn 99 does a very good job with Holt and Rosa yall im love Rosa

Who are some of your favourite lgbt+ bloggers? theres bloggers??? um idk i love u nev so you count right @why-do-you-pick-flowers

Which lgbt+ slur do you want to reclaim? for a while everyone was mad as hell about “im gay for ___” and idk im gay for everything so thats a “slur” i use for myself

Have you ever gone to a gay bar, or a drag show, how was it? ive never gone omg i’d probably be intimidated as hell like i have a lot of problems just existing so to be existing around very flamboyant and extravagant people like that makes me break into a nervous sweat

How do you self-identify your gender, and what does that mean to you? ive always felt like a girl even tho my mom always said “oh you like boy things??? you should have been born a boy” but like, your likes and dislike dont determine your gender. i like “boy” things and “dress like a boy” but i dont FEEL like a boy. ive never had any desire to become a boy or id as a boy. gender is a social construct fuck society

Are you interested in having children? Why or why not? i have a very complicated relationship with children. babies are ugly and toddlers are annoying but i feel like if i had children i would love them obviously because theyre mine. this is gonna be a weird analogy but like i dislike cats. BUT  i have cats. and i love the fuck outta them. so i feel like thatd be me with kids. but im ace so like.... who would even have kids with me. i could not. pregnancy seems like a hassle and adoption is... i have thoughts on that but thats for a different post. also i can see myself being married and not having children OR having kids without a spouse. theres just something complicated about having both??? maybe im just fucked in the head idk bro

What identity advice would you give your younger self? you dont hate girls you like them, dumbass

What do you think of gender roles in relationships? fuck gender roles. get pegged, bros. i also have a very specific dynamic if i ever got into a relationship (which you know. wont happen) but like if i dated a guy i feel like i’d be very top. a MAN telling ME what to do??? fuck that. but if i dated a pretty girl??? top me pls

Anything else you want to share about your experience with gender? i think ive already said too much oh god someone is gonna look at this and be like what the FUCK but like lmao dont be afraid to ask me i apparently have no shame

What is something you wish people know about being lgbt+? it’s scary at first because you think “im not normal” but like pray tell me what is normal. do what makes you happy. fuck society

Why are proud to be lgbt+? i’m comfortable with the people i like. i might not be very confident and i have depression, anxiety, self esteem issues, probs adhd or ocd idfk but at least i know if i see a pretty girl or smth im gonna be like wow that girl is pretty and have no bad thoughts about it. it’s just how it be. after a lot of dissecting my past behavior, ive always been this way. you cant change who you are. just accept it

[83gigsof90semocore-blog]

Bonus post: Everybody Hurts - Review

So the letter D is going along nicely, but before that I'm going to do something quite different, namely a book review.

My hope is that my pseudo-academic academic style will be complemented nicely by exploring what other people have written on the genre. I hope to do more of these eventually, but probably not at a too steady rate because I can be rather lazy when it comes to reading.

Everybody hurts is a book published in 2007 that was written by Leslie Simon, who at the time worked as an editor for Alternative Press and Trevor Kelly who worked as a staff writer, also for Alternative Press. The book is actually quite different from my blog in many respects. Aside from the obvious ones, it isn't specifically focused on 90's emo but instead on what in 2007 was considered contemporary emo. Also unlike my blog it's focused on emo culture (the cover says "an essential guide to emo culture") as opposed to just music.

Some background: The 4th wave, Real Emo and the death of Scene culture

Part of what makes this book interesting to me is that it's very much a product of its time. The story that it tells about the music and community surrounding it is incredibly different than what would have been told in the 90's and even more so today.

So, first some basics: Emo is a very broad term that at many points have meant different things. One popular way to categorize it is by splitting it into 4 (or 5) waves. We have the first wave which refers to the offshoot of hardcore-punk that is the origin of the genre. The second wave is much more influenced by indie, alt-rock and pop. It's much less overtly punky, depending on where you draw the line between first and second wave. The third wave (which corresponds to the time period when this book was written) consists to a large degree of pop-punk and poppy post-hardcore. This is the period of time in which emo music was the most commercially successful and emo culture was properly cemented in the public conciousness. Finally, we have the fourth wave also known as the "emo revival". Now, this is where things get interesting.

As the name implies, emo revival was a movement concerned with bringing back emo to an earlier stage, namely the second wave. As such, many people associated with the revival where to some degree self-concious about the way "their" genre was misinterpreted as being about something else, namely third wave emo. Emo culture at the time was often mocked and the more commercial emo music wasn't looked upon favourably in underground circles. Fourth wave wasn't just a re-embrace of the values of the second wave but a rejection of the third wave.

I should also mention that this isn't nearly as true as it used to be now that enough time has passed for people to be nostalgic sooner than derisive, although it's an assumption that is very much woven into contemporary emo culture.

The history of emo as told from a fourth wave perspective would generally look on the third wave as an embarrassing parenthesis that we'd be better of forgetting. Some people have even gone as far as referring to the bulk of the third wave as "fake emo", being emo in name only while failing to embrace the core values of the genre sufficiently to be considered part of it.

So, this is where this book comes in. Being written in 2007, instead of viewing third wave emo as a heretical misstep, it's treated as the logical conclusion of the genre.

Emo as an identity

Another contrast with modern-day emo culture is it's treatment of emo as almost more of an identity than a music genre. This is also very typical of the time period. I'm born in the mid 90's, and my first exposure to the word emo (as I remember it) was when I was perhaps 10 or so and a friend told me about "a group of mentally ill people who dress in black and self harm". Not even a mention of the music! From then on my pre-pubescent self was mostly exposed to Emo as an identity. Sure, they had a special type of music that they listened to, but it wasn't any more integral to their emo-ness than their fashion for example.

Fast forward to today and I would never unironically call myself or anyone else "an emo", and I don't think almost anyone else would either. The understanding of emo that you find by modern fans is of something that might have cultural connotations, but is ultimately a style of music at heart.

While the authors where a lot more familiar with what emo in general than my 10 year old self and also saw music as a more central part of it, it is very informed by the view of Emo as a broader identity and only a small part of the book is actually about music.

My impression

The book starts of with a foreword by Andy Greenwald, author of Nothing feels good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, And Emo, a book that I'm hoping to eventually cover on this blog.

Then we get to the first chapter, titled ideology. For a second I (foolishly) thought that it would be a Žižek-style examination of pop-culture or something, and got very exited. Reading a few words below, we get a faux dictionary definition of the word:

ide•ol•o•gy n a body of ideas and social needs that separates you from your parents, the pep squad, and Dave Matthews Band fans.

Žižek was never this snarky.

After appropriately adjusting my expectations, snark is a constant background noise in the book. It's sometimes funny, sometimes making fun of a target that deserves it, sometimes an excuse to not treat a subject seriously and sometimes something that has aged quite poorly (ableist slurs stand out like a sore thumb, something it generally didn't in 2007).

The book is divided in 9 chapters, discussing everything from emo ideology, emo fashion, emo literature to emo eating habits and oh right, actual emo music. I generally found that the book was quite well researched (although it is an entertainment book, so it's not exactly done with any academic rigor) and that the authors where happy on going in to detail on most of the subjects they brought up. The facts and anecdotes that make up every chapter are accompanied by either helpful advice ("Don't put on a band shirt right after buying it from the merch table, you'll look like an emo novice") or snarky commentary ("Let's say that a guy and his crush watched One Tree Hill a week earlier with a group of seven of their friends. Never mind that there where nine people in the room. In emo terms, this was a date.")

One section of the book is about emo blogs. Just for fun, let's see how my emo blog measures up:

[From the section "how to emo-fy your blog" [...] you're going to want to look over your text and ask yourself a series of questions before hitting the "submit" button and releasing your deepest, most intimate thoughts into the world. Those questions are as follows:

Does this read well?

Am I making my points in a clear and efficient way?

Did I use actual paragraphs?

Did I capitalize all the words that need capitalisation?

Is this what my life is actually like?

Ok, 5. doesn't really apply but for the others it seems like I'm doing fine. So far, so good.

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, you should probably scrap your post and start over. Ideally, a good emo blog post should be over dramatic and a bit abstruse. You know the magnets you see on fridges that people sometimes assemble into bizarre phrases? That's what emo posts are supposed to look like

Well, fuck.

Chapter 6: Music - a review

While it can be anywhere from amusing to interesting to read about everything from proper show etiquette to Emo porn sites (yes, seriously), this being a music blog first and foremost I'm gonna give some extra attention to their taste in music.

They have a section titled "Essential Emo Records 101". So what does it consist of and what do I think of it?

Rites of Spring, S/T

Embrace, S/T

Sunny Day Real Estate, Diary

Jawbreaker, Dear You

Lifetime, Hello Bastards

Texas is the Reason, Do You Know Who You Are?

Weezer, Pinkerton

The Promise Ring, Nothing Feels Good

The Get Up Kids, Something To Write Home About

Jimmy Eat World, Clarity

So far, so good. Lifetime is almost never talked about these days, but Hello Bastards is still a solid record. Mineral, American Football and Cap'n Jazz are all absent, although American Football and Cap'n Jazz weren't very popular until a long time after they split, so it's not that strange I suppose. They would be impossible to not include had the list been written today though. All the bands are accompanied by some text. For the first two albums they snarkily remark that they're not so much good as important historically. I believe that this comes from viewing the history of as stepping stones to what it was when this book was written and not with an attempt to see emo as it was at the time which I think is disappointing although not very surprising.

Saves the Day, Through Being Cool

Glassjaw, Everything You Ever Wanted

At the Drive-in, Relationship of Command

Bright Eyes, Fever and Mirrors

Thursday, Full Collapse

Dashboard Confessional, The Places You Have Come To Fear the Most

Taking Back Sunday, Tell All Your Friends

The Used, S/T

The All-American Rejects, S/T

Brand New, Deja Entendu

Coheed and Cambria, In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3

Yellowcard, Ocean Avenue

Hawthorne Heights, The Silence in Black and White

My Chemical Romance, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge

Fall Out Boy, From Under the Cork Tree

Panic! At the Disco, A Fever You Can't Sweat Out

There are a couple of albums that I personally don't really think qualify as emo even from a third wave point of view (although, maybe I'm just too poisoned by 4th wave elitism) namely Fevers and Mirrors, In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 and A Fever You Can't Sweat Out. I do still think that at least the first two at least are quite good so it's more of a matter of being overly loose with the genre. Although, maybe it's worth interpreting this list as more "music that emo people like" rather than "emo music" in line with the rest of the book. I did honestly think that it would be a bit worse in terms of including "non-emo" music so I'm honestly positively surprised. The authors do in my opinion manage to escape with a good amount of emo cred.

One thing that I'm disappointed in is the complete absence of screamo music, although this is once again more disappointing than surprising really.

Final verdict

One helpful question to ask when reviewing any piece of media is "who is this for?". My impression is that it's mostly for people who are already immersed in Emo culture who are interested in laughing at themselves. It is a very silly subculture in many ways (particularly in 2007) and the authors poke fun of this many times. If you can take it in stride, this book might be a pleasant read. You might also learn some things that you have missed.

For people such as me who are trying to puzzle together what emo culture actually was like at the time I find that the snark gets in the way of actually learning things, and I wish that they had taken a slightly more serious approach. The book could also have done with a lot more interviews.

Ultimately I think this leaves the book with a quite narrow audience in the present day, but that's fine maybe. At the time it came out it was actually commenting on something culturally relevant and might have served as a decent primer to the subculture.

Today however, I think that I can only really recommend it to the unhealthily obsessed (like me) and the nostalgic.

[zerochanges]

Valentine’s Chocolates and Glass Masks

The romance genre in anime is a little weird, and honestly on the whole the majority of the genre in anime is probably a bit too slow for its own good. “Will they or won’t they” is something most romantic fiction is guilty of, but I think you’d be hard press to come across 150 episode TV series dedicated solely to that premise anywhere else. And this has nothing on the pure silliness that can come with the genre; hand holding, indirect kisses, masked secret admirers, all that good stuff. Really, I’m not here to trash talk romantic anime though, but as I sat down and tried to think about writing a Valentine's Day blog post I just couldn't help but think to myself how romance anime might be the hardest to explain to anyone not in the fandom. I mean, I think I’d have an easier time explaining the plot of any given saga in DBZ than I would explaining “Notice me, senpai” to somebody.

You know what though, I kind of ironically enjoy all of this. Yeah, pure romance anime can be cheesy, but it’s just the right amount cheese that it’s like, c’mon, how can you not enjoy this? Perhaps the worst (or best!) offender of this are older shoujo titles where they can seem almost downright like a soap opera at times. Shows like these are just so full of bizarre, off-the-walls, and over-the-top melodrama that they manage to suck me completely in. They’re heartbreaking, they’re engaging, and the times when they fail at being those things they are hilarious. 

My most recent experience with an older shoujo title like this would have to be studio Eiken’s 1984 adaptation of Glass Mask. Now Glass Mask (or Glass no Kamen as it is known by some) is a manga that started life in 1976 and to this day has yet to be finished, with the manga creator Suzue Miuchi stating she would like to finish it soon, but hasn't quite figured out when that will be (move over Hunter x Hunter fans). Having been one of the earlier shoujo titles starting back in the mid-70’s the series is full to the brim with pretty much every cliche and trope you can think of for shoujo anime, and to a modern audience it can often be almost hilarious at times to sit through. It is important to remember that for its time Glass Mask was a trend-setter and arguably if not the creator than certainly the reason why a lot of these cliches became cliches in the first place. Over the years Glass Mask has received its fair share of adaptations and even parodies, and currently has 3 different animes as well as a live action drama series and real life stage plays based on it. I heard the most recent anime, the 2005 TMS adaptation of Glass Mask, does a pretty great job at modernizing several aspects of the series, but unfortunately I have yet to watch that to weigh in so all I can say is that I was inundated with more cliches than I could count and laughed a ton while watching the 1984 series and I loved every minute of it. 

Glass Mask is the story of a young 13 year old girl Maya Kitajima, who has a dream to be a great theatre actress. Unfortunately for Maya she’s from a very poor family, and even more unfortunately for her, she is incredibly average looking with no flair--and don’t worry, the anime will remind you of that fact countless times every episode. Despite her damnable curse of “just looking kind of average” Maya will stop at nothing to pursue her dream and eventually runs away from home after getting a scholarship for an acting school. There, the enigmatic Chigusa Tsukikage notices Maya’s talents and takes her on as her protege. Soon, Maya learns that her mentor Tsukikage was once a legendary actress thought to be truly one of the all time greats who due to a tragic Phantom of the Opera style accident had her face hideously scarred and retreated out of the spotlight. 

Tsukikage is looking to pass on her talents to the future generation and eventually pass on her greatest possession, the rights to the elusive Crimson Goddess play--a supposed legendary masterpiece that has not been seen by anyone in decades; not since Tsukikage’s career ruining accident. For some reason the director and creator of the the Crimson Goddess play saw it fit to beseech all the rights to his masterpiece to Tsukikage and thus nobody else has been able to produce this elusive phantom play since. It won’t be easy for Maya and the Tsukikage acting school, as media conglomerate and mega corporation Daito Entertainment will stop at nothing to get the rights to the Crimson Goddess, and isn't afraid to sabotage them at every step of the way. Perhaps Maya’s greatest rival however is the young Ayumi Himekawa, the daughter of an already famous actress who is said to be the favorite to inherit the Crimson Goddess role, and is everything Maya isn't; beautiful, rich, famous and well loved by all, and while not a student of Tsukikage she is more than willing to pass on the rights to Himekawa if Maya fails to prove herself.

It’s easy to already see the cheesiness just from me trying my best to summarize the basic plot, and we haven’t even gotten into the romances yet. Maya’s relationship with the young Yu Sakurakoji is fairly simple at first, as he helped rescue her from a feral dog and despite being in rival acting schools--one affiliated under Daito no less, he’s a pretty chill guy that enjoys spending time with her and doesn't care about all that stuff. It’s only after Maya starts to take off in her career that Sakurakoji starts to spiral into this insane inferiority complex centered around her, where he thinks she has become too good an actress for him to be around anymore and starts to give her the cold shoulder all because of his own make-believe shortcomings. It’s very odd and sudden, and the entire thing is blown out of proportions as Maya clearly does not think that and Sakurakoji eventually has to be lectured by bad boy Masumi of all people to come around and start spending time with Maya again. Even after this however it isn't like the old days anymore and the gap that was created from his own complex still lingers.

And oh boy, don’t get me started on Masumi, he’s quite the character. Masumi Hayami is the 24 year old son of the president of Daito Entertainment and is currently running the corporation in his father’s stead. Masumi serves as both an antagonist and love interest (because of course he can be both) in the early parts of the story and is often behind some (but not all) the sabotage done to Tsukikage’s acting school. Masumi will eventually take a more reasonable approach when it comes to trying to yank the rights of the Crimson Goddess away from Tsukikage’s hands as the anime progresses, often just by having his acting school beating Tsukikage’s students in contest and the like, and it’s here where we usually see Masumi’s employees that work under him being the more underhanded characters instead of Masumi directly engaging in the conflict.

Despite being on different sides, so to speak, Masumi catches one of Maya’s earliest performances, her role as Beth in Little Women, and falls in love with the young girl, impressed by both her potential as an actress and her fortitude for going on with the show despite suffering from a dangerously high fever and immediately being rushed to the doctors after the curtains fall. From this point on her takes the role of “Mr Purple Rose” named for the bouquet of purple roses he sends to her at every show. As her secret admirer and the first fan Maya has ever had he means a lot to her yet as his true identity of Masumi he’s an enemy that Maya cannot stand to breathe the same air as. So in short, Masumi is just your average 24 year old CEO of a mega corporation crushing on a 13 year old girl from a small acting school he is trying to ruin and also her secret admirer. Somehow Masumi is one of the best characters in the series, and is my best boy. Only in shoujo!

So far I've been having some cheap laughs at the expense of the 1984 Glass Mask anime but it’s not all like this. The over-the-top bombardment of old school shoujo cliches and the laughs I got from them may be one of the most memorable component of my viewing but there’s actually a lot more to this anime than that. When you get beyond the silly age gap romances and the flowery melodrama of young teenage love, Glass Mask is a story of artists trying to pursue their passions and dedicating their everything to them. Maya may be cursed to forever be “only average looking” but I really respect her drive to dedicate her entire life to theatre. 

Well, that is to say, the times when she isn't acting like punching bag to the rest of the cast (Glass Mask has a tendency to make Maya into a Cinderella surrounded by tons of wicked stepsisters). When Maya is written not as a Cinderella she’s fiercely determined, and never backs down despite some straight-up abusive behavior she is put through. At times her mentor Tsukikage is absolutely savage, regularly beating Maya and putting her through some training that is definitely highly illegal, at least for today’s standards. For instance she once threw Maya in a shed and locked the door refusing to let her out until she finally understood her character she was assigned. Did I mention it was in the middle of the freezing cold winter and snowing out and Maya only had the clothes on her back for warmth? She was out there for days with no food, water, or even warmth. But don’t worry, she had her script to read and that made it all okay. Like goddamn, somebody call child protective services on this lady.

Speaking about “the art” and everyone’s passions, the more you watch the series the more it becomes obvious that the creator, Suzue Miuchi, really cares for theatre and isn't just using it as a vehicle to propel her own story. There are countless renditions of classic plays shown in Glass Mask, such as the mentioned already Little Women, The Miracle Worker, and Wuthering Heights, just to name a few. Some of these plays are presented without any changes while others may have reinterpretations made to them by the characters who are trying to give their roles a life of their own away from the original source material. Miuchi very much understands theatre and does a great job converting many famous plays into a more compressed and easily digestible form of entertainment that can be viewed on a week by week bases. The analysis characters give about the plays and other characters’ performances, the ways characters interpret their parts, and how the plays that we are privy to see in the series end up all show a deeper understanding of the medium. Watching Glass Mask is almost like taking a beginning course in theatre that covers all the classics, only with way more melodrama and over-the-top romance than you will find in your local theatre group. I hope.

What’s the most impressive however goes beyond just Miuchi’s renditions of other classic works and instead are her own plays that she creates herself. As not only does Glass Mask use pre-existing plays it also has its own original productions that will spring up in-between the real world plays. A lot of these self created plays are very enjoyable too, and some feel way more fleshed out than they have any right to be and you often find yourself regretting that you are only privy to a small part of the performance and not able to just sit there and watch the entire play like the characters in the anime do. Maybe that’s why it shouldn't be too much of a surprise that some of the plays Miuchi has created for her manga have later been adapted into real life plays in Japanese theatres. This is probably the greatest testament to the series’ popularity right there, where its own fictional works are turned real. I can’t think of many examples of something like that happening before.

I’d be remiss not to mention the visual aspect of this series before wrapping up my thoughts on it too. While certainly no powerhouse in animation, Glass Mask 1984 goes for a more picturesque route, and does a great job with tons of beautiful still shots and intricately detailed background images. It’s a humble production but with the right use of lighting a lot of scenes can really shine (pardon the terrible pun it was an accident), especially the night shots which can be pure art. Hang it in a museum, I say. I’m almost surprised we don’t see more “aesthetic” anime blogs mining images from this series. Veteran director Gisaburo Sugii (Dororo, Touch, Osamu Tezuka’s Phoenix) leads the production with skilled marksmanship you would expect from his previous (and future) pedigree, and along with legendary animator the late Shingo Araki (Ashita no Joe, Galaxy Express 999, Saint Seiya) the series has a wonderful 80’s flair to it that just fills any retro anime fan full of nostalgia whether or not they have seen the show before.

Studio Eiken’s 1984 Glass Mask adaptation is a short, briskly paced 22 episode series that is easy on the eyes and not hard at all to still sit through for modern audiences. It’s full of tons of laughs (both ironic and sincere) as well as tons of melodrama and over-the-top romance. Most importantly though, it’s a full of passion; lots and lots of passion. During its short episode count the series watches Maya progress as an actress and grow older, with her finishing middle school and beginning high school while also balancing full time acting jobs on the side. The ending is left open--and let’s face it the manga hasn't even ended some 35 years later still--but there’s enough forward momentum in the series to really feel like your time with the characters wasn't wasted and that they were able to accomplish something--not to mention the ending spot is a pretty decent one leaving the viewer wanting more but enjoying a satisfying conclusion to one of the more interesting story arcs adapted. Overall I think anyone who enjoys cheesy anime romance can sit down with this series and have a fun Valentine’s.

[erizee]

analysis attempt 3x14 - 3x20 (how do u do titles)

so i was rewatching all nygmobblepot scenes on youtube the other day and something in 3x14 felt…off ive also seen a lot of you ask this, so this is my attempt of an answer. (if i accidentally used any existing theories please tell me or add a link)

oswald is willing to sacrifice himself for ed, he won’t let barbara and the gang hurt him and he even forgives him for what he did to his father’s remains, while ed is furious at first and later hesitant and clearly heartbroken.

so why is it that from 3x15 both are so hellbent on destroying each other??

ed’s viewpoint is easier to explain to me. he wanted to kill oswald for what he did to isabellA and is hesitant from the moment oswald’s love for him is proven, but he still feels like he needs to kill him. oswald tells him he created ed nygma and that they need each other. ed realises oswald is right but shoots him anyway. In 3x15 ed is taking drugs to see oswald to help him find someone to teach him how to become someone else, but oswald keeps reminding him of what ed realised just one episode ago: ed needs oswald and oswald needs ed. so, what does ed do? he becomes someone else. someone without emotions and without love, which we know he thinks of as a weakness. this arguably includes his love for oswald. to finish that transformation he dumps the pills, his last connection to the man that made his former self and that he arguably loves, into the same spot he dumped the real oswald. to change himself and to detach himself from the emotions that have hurt him so much in the past he kills oswald a second time. he says goodbye, fully convinced he will never see or need him again. in the next episodes ed spends his time building his new identity. since the riddler doesnt have emotion, he needs to evoke emotions from the people around him. he solidifies this identity in 3x17 and even though he looks broken and arguably almost suicidal doing it he is convinced he’s on the right path. but then it turns out oswald is alive. the reason for ed’s transformation into a stronger, to him better man, turns out to not have existed at all. what if he loses the riddler? what if he goes back to being, in his eyes, weak? he cant let his emotions get the better of him, emotions he’s convinced he doesnt have anymore. so ed decides to kill oswald again, too keep the riddler and stay free from feelings like love and regret, feelings he thought he finally got rid off by dumping the pills. that is also why he insists oswald call him the riddler. he let barbara call him ed because they “have history”, but every single time oswald calls him ed he looks irritated and demands to be called the riddler. notice how he literally only does that with oswald? if oswald, the person tying him to his old self, calls him the riddler, he can convince himself his feeling self is completely gone, along with whatever feelings he has for oswald. (id say its definitely love, but as long as its not 100% canon let’s keep it at that) it’s obvious ed enjoys this cat and mouse game with oswald and to me it looks like he hasn’t felt that stable and alive since 3x14, but to ed that doesn’t matter, or at least that’s what he’s trying to tell himself.

oswald’s viewpoint is a lot harder for me, so feel free to add or dispute anything. mostly their reasonings are quite similar though. oswald doesn’t have an identity crisis but he goes from “i wont let you hurt him” to “there’s someone i need to kill” over the course of one episode. so what’s happening? oswald let himself get vulnerable with ed. he shared his grief about his mother multiple times in multiple episodes, he basically let ed control his empire while he was bathing in the fame. and as we know, that didn’t pay off very well. ed ‘betrayed him’ (read: got his revenge) and took everything from him, even almost his life. not even breaking down to complete emotion, begging and confessions of love could stop ed, not even being willing to sacrifice his life for him after everything he had done was enough. to oswald, that’s just humiliating. oswald doesn’t beg for something he wants. he takes it. but for ed, he did beg, not even for his life, like with jim in episode one. he only begged for ed to understand they need each other. but ed still shoots him. ed is still the last face oswald saw before he passed out, before waking up in an unfamiliar bed with a strange plant lady talking to him. oswald is convinced that his love for ed made him weak, just as ed is convinced that love itself is a weakness. oswald’s core personality is made up of ambition, desire and revenge. he can’t let ed get away with what he did, especially not after oswald got so low as to beg for him to understand. he has let other’s, who did similar things (tabitha, butch..) live before, but this is different. he didn’t cry or beg for tabitha or butch. he didn’t give his whole self over to tabitha or butch. oswald feels betrayed, he feels weak and he feels humiliated and to him the only way of getting back to being strong and powerful is to kill the person he percieves as responsible.

the docks scene changed both of them. ed believes he needs to kill oswald to keep his strength and that the love he arguably feels is his biggest weakness. oswald believes he needs to kill ed to regain the strength and power he lost and that his love for ed was the weakness that led to his empire tumbling down.

what they both need to understand is that love itself isn’t a weakness. unresolved love, full of regret, anger and fear is. they need to learn that while love, if it isn’t protected and cared for, can turn out to be a weakness, like gertrud, but that mutual love and understanding can be their biggest strength.

i don’t expect the finale to solve this issue completely, i feel like we’d need a two hour finale about nothing but these two to do that, but i think we can expect they at least manage to start sorting through their emotions. but hey, we still have all of season 4 to look forward to.

[stompsite]

indie bundle cruft death match volume 5: thirty game special

Okay. So. The first time I did this, I only did like 10 games. 20 felt pretty good, so I started doing that. This time, we’re gonna do 30, so that it ends on an even 100. Then we’ll go back to doing 20.

And here.

We.

Go.

EVIL GENIUS is so good that it’s in my regular rotation of games now. It’s basically a city builder, except it’s a base builder. Just scale down Tropico and you’ve got it, more or less. I really like it, but all my dudes keep getting killed and I run out of money. Trying to figure out how to get past that right now. NO, MISTER BOND, I EXPECT YOU TO LIVE.

CASTLE CRASHERS is extremely good. It’s a brawler. It’s fun. You should play it. I can’t believe I slept on it so long. SLAAAAAY.

CAYNE is an isometric adventure game from the creators of Stasis. I played the entire thing. It’s free, but it’s good enough that I recommend buying the $6.99 DLC the developers released for it, to show ‘em your support. What a great thing that was. Some of the writing was predictable--heck, the ending was obvious--but I enjoyed it nontheless. If you’re a fan of Sanitarium, play this. If you’ve never heard of Sanitarium... play Sanitarium. INCREDIBLE.

THE CAT LADY is an adventure game, I guess? I didn’t really enjoy what I played, so I gave up. ADIOS.

THE CAVE wouldn’t run at all. Black screen, no matter what I do. Shame on you, Double Fine, for releasing a game that is not fine, much less twice that. I have this game on Xbox 360 backwards compatibility somehow--probably through Games with Gold--so I’ll test it out there some other day.

CHAINSAW WARRIOR and CHAINSAW WARRIOR: LORDS OF THE NIGHT are tabletop games turned into video games. I wasn’t really into ‘em, so they’re going INTO THE DUNGEON.

As a platformer, CAVE STORY+ is not my cup of tea, and yet... I find myself enjoying it, somewhat. Enough to keep it around. WE SHALL CONTINUE.

CHAOS REBORN is a platformer/shooter thingy where you play as Anubis, the Egyptian god of death, who dies in a single hit whenever he gets shot. Not really my jam. BANISHED TO THE NETHERWORLD.

CHERRY TREE HIGH COMEDY CLUB is a visual novel where pressing the screenshot button refreshes the game. It’s got great ratings on steam, BUT I WASN’T LAUGHING.

CHOMPY CHOMP CHOMP is like Pac-Man kinda except there are four players and they’re all trying to eat the one they’re supposed to eat while avoiding the one they aren’t supposed to eat. GAME OVER.

CINDERS is a visual novel/RPG that retells the story of Cinderella. It’s got great ratings on Steam, so if this is your jam, play it. Sadly, it’s not mine. NO HAPPILY EVER AFTER HERE.

CITIES IN MOTION is by the guys who later made Cities: Skylines. It’s pretty neat. You basically manage a city transit company. I ran out of money in the tutorial. The interface is unwieldy. I like it! CHOO CHOO!

CITIZENS OF EARTH is a JRPG-style game, but you’re the Vice President of Earth. I find it charming. IT WINS THE ELECTION.

A CITY SLEEPS is a mixed-rated SHMUP from Harmonix. I had no idea it existed. Must have picked it up in a bundle? Didn’t enjoy it much. GO BACK TO SLEEP.

CLICKR is a matching game, and if you’re into that, it’s probably great. I’m not into that, so I can’t really speak to its quality. I CLICKED CLOSE.

CLONES features a kind of game design that seems familiar, but I can’t place it. Dudes keep walkin, and all you can do is alter the level so they go the way you want them to. ADIOS.

CLOSURE is a platformer where the only things that exist are the things you can see. So, uh, keep your light on. Quirky platformers and I don’t really get along, and haven’t since time immemorial. SHUT YOUR EYES.

CLOUDBUILT is a third person platforming game where I guess you’re an invisible psychic ghost of your sick and sleeping self? It felt... ‘off.’ Kinda like how Warframe feels ‘off’ after you’ve played Ninja Gaiden Black. The thing is, I like Warframe, even though it’s not Ninja Gaiden Black, so I thought I might keep Cloudbuilt around, but... ehnh. Truth is, I JUST WASN’T FEELING IT.

COBI TREASURE DELUXE is basically a match 3 game combined with tetris. It’s something I’d probably play if I had literally nothing else to play. It’s not offensively bad, it’s just not fulfilling what I get out of games. NO TREASURE HERE.

COFFIN DODGERS is Mario Kart but with old people who are trying to outrun death. DEATH CATCHES UP EVENTUALLY.

COIN CRYPT is actually kinda fun, but again, not really for me. I guess there’s a coin-themed world, and you go around spending coins you find to battle people? It’s got some kind of old console-game-that-thinks-it’s-an-rpg-but-there-is-no-roleplay thing going on. It’s neat. Just... do I really want to keep playing? ALL OUTTA QUARTERS.

COLDFIRE KEEP is a first-person game, which sounds exciting, until you realize it’s one of those grid-based dungeon crawler type games, not, like, an actual first-person real-time game. I’m not gonna lie, I don’t actually understand the appeal of this kind of game. Why not let me walk around in real time? Why navigate awkwardly on a grid? I thought people only made this game due to tech limitations, not the aesthetic, since they basically died after Doom came out, other than Grimrock. Reviews said to play Grimrock instead. Also, hey, way too verbose, game. KEEP TO YOURSELF.

COMMANDER KEEN COMPLETE PACK may be an id game, but it’s a platformer, and, like... man, it’s a genre that just does not WORK for me. I wish it did. I mean, not wish strongly enough that if a genie gave me three wishes, I’d ask the genie for the ability to enjoy platformers, but like, I feel my life would be a tiny bit better if I could enjoy platformers. I’M JUST NOT TOO KEEN ON THEM.

CONSTANT C is another platformer. Look, if you came to me wanting quality opinions on platformers, uh, don’t... do that. Don’t ask me about that. It is not something I am into. OUT LIKE A LIGHT.

CONTAINMENT: THE ZOMBIE PUZZLER should have won me over, considering it features both zombies and match puzzles, especially because of it’s cool twist where you can only eliminiate zombies by matching people around them, but the zombies can infect those people... but I dunno. Maybe I don’t like matching games unless they feature collectible Pokemon? That might explain my love of Pokemon Shuffle. These zombies, on the other hand, SHUFFLE OFF TO OBLIVION.

CORPORATE LIFESTYLE SIMULATOR is like... imagine Pikmin, but in an office, and you fight zombies, and the Pikmin elements are downplayed and nowhere near as deep as in Pikmin. Like, people follow you around the office, and they can kinda fight, I guess, but... it wasn’t deep enough to be interesting. And maybe that’s the point; the devs spent a lot more time on the player’s personal combat mechanics, and it shows. If you want to brawl with zombies, enjoy it. WHERE YOU LEAD, I CANNOT FOLLOW.

COSMO’S COSMIC ADVENTURE. I didn’t think they sell this one on Steam anymore, because I don’t think the Apogee pack is available, but hey. I googled, and apparently they do. Still, it’s a PLATFORMER.

COSMOCHORIA wouldn’t let me take a screenshot because pressing F12 opens up its Chrome web inspection interface. It’s kinda like if Mario Galaxy was a 2D game? That makes it a PLATFORMER.

COSMONAUTICA sounds like my jam: it’s a management sim where you fly a space ship around doing missions. Awesome, right? Well, the UI is a little clunky and the information is sparse, compared to a game like Caravan. Being able to manage a ship and stuff is super neat! There’s one problem: the devs abandoned it. If the game had some kind of main quest-line, and as far as I can tell, it doesn’t, I’d probably stick with it regardless. I don’t experience performance issues or anything... but it kinda puts me in mind of Banished.

I enjoyed Banished for the time I played it, but the more I played, the more I realized I wasn’t going anywhere. I was just kinda... figuring out how to optimally build a town, then doing just that. Repeatedly. I enjoy structure. The act of just flying around space, completing endless missions doesn’t appeal to me any more than building a town and surviving as long as possible does. I need more than that. Neither game is bad... but I think this is why Caravan works for me so well. It’s got a story. It’s going somewhere. I’m not just traveling between towns selling stuff. I’m on a journey. LOST IN SPACE.

COSSACKS: ART OF WAR is basically just Age of Empires 2, judging by the tutorial, which makes it the best video game I have ever played that isn’t Age of Empires 1, which most people don’t like as much as Age of Empires 2, but I do, because it is the only video game I have ever experienced nostalgia for. No, really, that economic system is virtually identical to Age of Empires. GO FORTH AND CONQUER.

It’s not like I hate the platforming genre, I just haven’t found anything in it to love recently, y’know? I enjoy Rayman’s 2D games. I like Conker’s Bad Fur Day/Live and Reloaded a lot. But the other platformers, man... so many of them, they just don’t excite me. I feel like I’ve seen everything they have to offer. There’s just “some gimmick” and a one or two button interaction with that. Sometimes you memorize button presses and repeat them before moving on.

“But, Doc, you can reduce any genre down to that.” Ehnh... I disagree. There’s a randomness to other real-time games where you don’t have to think about “when an enemy is gonna attack you” or something. There’s a lack of decision making because all you’re doing is moving between two points on a 3D plane. I don’t enjoy Pokemon Fire Red, a 2D game, for the “walking on a 2D plane” bit. I enjoy it for the monster catching/collection completion.

In platformers, that whole “moving on a 2D plane” thing IS the game. And that just doesn’t get my motor running.

Have I talked about this before? I almost feel like I have.

That’s 100 games we’ve done now. This time, we looked at 30 games, and six of them survived the culling, or 20%. This brings our total up to 78 games rejected, 22 kept. Since that’s 100 games, it’s a 78% rejection rate. Neato.

Back to 20 games per article next time!