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sharry-arry-odd · 2 years ago
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"One, that's not going to work. Two, I fucking hate needles," said the corpse. "Three–Sex Pal, if that's how you get a lady's pants off, holy shit no wonder I stole your girl." Palamedes rocked back on his heels. "Not my girl. Unlike some of us, I've never much seen the allure of an evil cougar," he said crisply. "Good morning, Gideon."
Nona the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir
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pesterloglog · 11 months ago
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Karkat Vantas, John Egbert
Page 365-375
KARKAT: ROUGH DAY, HUH.
JOHN: karkat?
JOHN: what are you doing here?
KARKAT: IT'S NICE TO SEE YOU TOO.
KARKAT: JOHN, YOU MAY NOT HAVE NOTICED, BUT I AM THE LEADER OF AN ARMY. MY PLACE IS ON THE BATTLEFIELD.
JOHN: i suppose that is true, but that doesn't answer my question!
JOHN: this isn't a battlefield, it's just...
KARKAT: THE OBLITERATED, SMOLDERING HUSK OF YOUR FORMER HOME.
JOHN: well, yeah.
KARKAT: WHICH WAS DESTROYED AS COLLATERAL IN AN ONGOING MILITARY CONFLICT.
JOHN: oh all right, fine.
JOHN: it just feels weird to call it that.
JOHN: i guess i'm used to thinking of home as somewhere far away from all that war stuff.
KARKAT: JESUS *CHRIST* JOHN.
KARKAT: I CANNOT EVEN BEGIN TO LIST ALL THE WAYS IN WHICH THAT CONSTITUTES A SHORT-SIGHTED AND PUKE-WORTHILY IGNORANT THING TO SAY TO ME, PERSONALLY.
KARKAT: AND FRANKLY I DON'T HAVE TIME TO BOTHER, THANKS TO THE COUNTLESS FIRES I HAVE BEEN PUTTING OUT ALL DAY, THE ONE PRESENTLY CONSUMING YOUR HIVE NOTWITHSTANDING.
KARKAT: YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD HAVE MADE THINGS GO A BIT MORE SMOOTHLY? JUST A FRACTION?
KARKAT: IF YOU HADN'T JUST DECIDED TO WANDER OFF THE INSTANT SHIT STARTED HAPPENING.
JOHN: jeez, i'm sorry karkat.
JOHN: i had no idea how much time had passed.
JOHN: i must have gotten a bit distracted by my house being blown up.
KARKAT: NOT WANTING TO POINT OUT THE OBVIOUS, BUT I FEEL LIKE THIS WAS A PROBLEM THAT YOU OF ALL PEOPLE WERE UNIQUELY AND MAGICALLY EQUIPPED TO DEAL WITH.
JOHN: huh?
KARKAT: YOU KNOW.
KARKAT: WITH YOUR SHOOSH THING.
JOHN: my shoosh thing.
KARKAT: YOUR SHOOSH THING.
KARKAT: THE GUSTY NONSENSE? THE GIFT OF GAS??
KARKAT: YOUR SBURB ALLOCATED BLOW JOB???
JOHN: uh.
KARKAT: THE SUPERNATURAL COMMUNION YOU HAVE WITH ALL THINGS WINDY, YOU ASS!!
JOHN: oh right, that.
JOHN: that would have let me put the fire out, maybe.
JOHN: i don't think there's anything in my skillset that would have unexploded my house though.
KARKAT: THAT'S FAIR.
JOHN: i suppose i'll add one more notch to the daily tally of crazy stuff that happened which i just have to accept as my life now.
JOHN: so...
JOHN: what else happened while i was caught up watching the symbolic representation of my former life get consumed in a giant fire ball?
KARKAT: OH BOY. WHERE TO START.
KARKAT: SO FIRST OFF, IN HINDSIGHT, TODAY WAS PRETTY OBVIOUSLY JUST ONE HUGE BAITED TRAP.
KARKAT: I SAY "IN HINDSIGHT", BUT FORTUNATELY IT WAS ALSO EXTREMELY APPARENT EVEN IN FORESIGHT TO THOSE OF US WHO SPENT A FEW SECONDS THINKING ABOUT IT.
JOHN: ...right.
KARKAT: OH COME ON EGBERT, SERIOUSLY?
KARKAT: KIDNAPPING A PERSON OF IMPORTANCE, ONLY TO LET US KNOW PRECISELY WHERE AND ON WHAT OCCASION THEY WOULD BE MOST ACCESSIBLE FOR A RESCUE ATTEMPT?
KARKAT: HAVING THAT OCCASION BE NONE OTHER THAN THE CORPSE PARTY OF A HIGHLY NOTEWORTHY POLITICAL FIGURE, WHOSE CASKET MIGHT AS WELL HAVE HAD A GIANT "KICK ME" SIGN DAUBED ON IT?
KARKAT: THERE WAS BASICALLY NO WAY IT WASN'T A FRONT FOR SOMETHING HUGE. AND IT WAS!
KARKAT: WE HAPPEN TO BE SITTING IN FRONT OF ONE FACET OF THAT HUGENESS AT THIS VERY MOMENT.
JOHN: well, when you put it like that...
JOHN: i guess we all got pranked pretty hard, huh.
KARKAT: THIS IS NO TIME FOR YOUR SHITTY NERD PRANKS JOHN.
KARKAT: FRANKLY I'M INSULTED THAT YOU THINK SUCH A WORD IS EVEN REMOTELY APPOSITE TO THE PRESENT SITUATION.
KARKAT: OTHER THAN TO DESCRIBE THE WAY I AM PERSONALLY BEING "PRANKED" BY REALITY IN HAVING TO EXPLAIN ALL THIS TO YOU.
KARKAT: ANYWAY, THE RESCUE ATTEMPT.
KARKAT: THIS IS THE ONLY POINT WHERE ANY SEMBLANCE OF GOOD NEWS COMES INTO PLAY, SO SAVOR IT.
JOHN: okay.
KARKAT: IT TURNS OUT THAT WE DIDN'T NEED TO PUT SO MUCH EFFORT INTO THE RESCUING YIFFY PART OF THE OPERATION.
KARKAT: SHE BASICALLY RESCUED HERSELF WHEN ALL WAS SAID AND DONE.
KARKAT: AND TOOK CARE OF KICKING GAMZEE'S CORPSEBOX OVER WHILE SHE WAS AT IT, IN A STUNNING DISPLAY OF EFFICIENCY WHICH THE REST OF US CAN ONLY ASPIRE TO.
JOHN: oh wow, haha.
JOHN: i knew she'd be a bit of a character, being rose and jade's daughter and all...
JOHN: but that's impressive!
JOHN: it sounds like she'd be a pretty welcome addition to your ranks then.
KARKAT: SHE'S A CHILD, YOU MORON.
KARKAT: OH, AND SPEAKING OF WHICH.
KARKAT: PAUSING BRIEFLY TO NOTE IN ADVANCE HOW MUCH I LOATHE THE FACT THAT THIS IS AN EVENTUALITY THAT THE UNIVERSE HAS *ONCE AGAIN* SEEN FIT TO CURSE US WITH:
KARKAT: THE VRISKAS, PLURAL.
JOHN: shit.
KARKAT: THEY'VE BOTH BEEN CAPTURED.
JOHN: shiiiiiiiit.
KARKAT: YEAH.
KARKAT: GREAT WORK KEEPING AN EYE ON THEM, BY THE WAY!
KARKAT: YOU LITERALLY HAD ONLY ONE JOB, AND YOU MESSED IT UP IN THE EQUALLY SINGULAR WAY IT WAS POSSIBLE TO DO.
JOHN: urgh, i know, i know. ):
KARKAT: HAVING SAID THAT, THIS WAS THE ONE THING UP CROCKER'S SLEEVE YOU COULD BE EXCUSED FROM NOT HAVING SEEN COMING.
KARKAT: I GUESS BECAUSE, ON THE FACE OF IT, IT'S JUST TOTALLY FUCKING BANANAS!
KARKAT: JANE'S PLAN FOR THIS CONFLICT HAS THUS FAR CONSISTED ALMOST ENTIRELY OF KIDNAPPING VARIOUS HIGH PROFILE CHILDREN.
KARKAT: IT'S BIZARRE.
KARKAT: AS THOUGH WE ARE FIGHTING A WAR OF ATTRITION, WHERE THE MAIN RESOURCE BEING UTILIZED IS THE OFFSPRING OF THE MOST POWERFUL PEOPLE ON THE PLANET.
KARKAT: IF IT WASN'T ONE OF THE CORE TENETS OF HER FASCISTIC PHILOSOPHY, I'D BE TEMPTED TO SAY THAT CURBING REPRODUCTION MIGHT HAVE BEEN A GOOD IDEA, IF ONLY TO PREVENT THIS KIND OF FUCKSHIT NONSENSE FROM HAPPENING.
JOHN: wait.
JOHN: wait a minute.
JOHN: you said that both vriskas have been captured, right?
KARKAT: EXCUSE ME WHILE I WEEP FOR JOY AT THE REVELATION THAT YOU HAVE BEEN PAYING ATTENTION FOR ONCE.
JOHN: okay, well putting that emotional outburst aside for a moment.
JOHN: how is that even possible?
JOHN: doesn't vriska, the original vriska, still have her magic alien mind control powers?
JOHN: it seems like it should be basically impossible for anyone to kidnap her.
KARKAT: YOU'VE STUMBLED ASS BACKWARDS ACROSS THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT OF THIS UNFORTUNATE DEVELOPMENT.
KARKAT: YOU ARE CORRECT, IN THAT WITH HER CASTE-TYPICAL, *COMPLETELY SCIENTIFIC AND NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT MAGICAL* PSYCHOMANIPULATIVE ABILITIES, STAYING OUT OF CROCKER'S REACH SHOULD HAVE BEEN COMPLETELY TRIVIAL FOR SERKET PRIME.
KARKAT: EVEN ACCOUNTING FOR THE FACT THAT SAID ABILITIES ARE NOT NEARLY AS POTENT ON HUMANS AS THEY ARE ON FELLOW TROLLS, THEY STILL OUGHT TO HAVE TIPPED ANY ALTERCATION SQUARELY IN HER FAVOR.
KARKAT: BUT SOMEHOW, IT DIDN'T!
KARKAT: INSTEAD, THINGS APPEAR TO HAVE GONE GLOBES UP IN CLASSIC VRISKITE FASHION, AND NOW ONE OF THE MOST UNEXPECTED AND UNWANTED BUT NEVERTHELESS USEFUL WEAPONS IN OUR ARSENAL IS DOING TIME IN CROCKERJAIL.
KARKAT: THAT'S ABOUT ALL WE'VE BEEN ABLE TO GLEAN FROM TAPPING INTO THE BATTERBITCH AIRWAVES, WHICH IS A FANCY TERM FOR EAVESDROPPING ON THOSE OF HER AGENTS WHO TALK A LITTLE TOO LOUDLY IN SEMI-PUBLIC SPACES.
JOHN: jeez.
JOHN: i really screwed that up, didn't i.
KARKAT: I'M RELIEVED TO SEE THAT YOUR GRASP OF THAT FACT IS PRETTY GOOD AT LEAST.
JOHN: ):
KARKAT: HAVING SAID ALL OF THAT, AND WITH THE RECOGNITION THAT I AM CHOOSING TO NURSE YOUR BRUISED FEELINGS DURING A PLANET WIDE CONFLICT FOR THE FATE OF MY SPECIES,
KARKAT: IS THERE ANYTHING I CAN DO TO EXPEDITE YOUR GETTING THE FUCK OVER IT?
JOHN: i... hm.
JOHN: i don't really know?
JOHN: this all feels wrong, karkat.
JOHN: no offense, but when you're around, it's usually a lot...
KARKAT: A LOT WHAT?
JOHN: a lot funnier.
KARKAT: FUNNIER.
JOHN: how to put this.
JOHN: normally listening to you go on and on about how much we've fucked everything up is just very funny!
JOHN: but now it's just not the same.
JOHN: maybe it's part of what's going on with this entire reality? i don't know.
JOHN: once upon a time i would have put down your ability to pull a silly rant out of your butt as a fundamental law of physics or something.
JOHN: remember back when we first knew each other?
JOHN: it felt like all you ever said to me was how much you thought i was screwing up and being a useless asshole.
JOHN: and once i realized that you were also just a dumb kid who didn't know what was going on, i started to kind of enjoy it.
JOHN: but now it's like... the only one who's still a dumb kid is me, and everyone else has something big and important going on that i just don't understand.
JOHN: i thought that i finally got what was going on with this whole war and everything. i wanted to be useful!
JOHN: i guess i got a little too wrapped up in the feeling of something finally happening again.
JOHN: and then watching it all blow up in my face, kind of literally now that i think about it...
JOHN: it's hard not to feel even more dejected about the situation than i was before.
JOHN: and now even the patented karkat vant rant has lost all its sparkle.
JOHN: maybe if you had like, painstakingly itemized a list of all the things wrong with my plan in a comically overdone fashion or something.
KARKAT: I CONSIDERED IT, BUT HONESTLY THERE WAS SO MUCH WRONG THAT I CONCLUDED THAT THE BEST THING FOR EVERYONE WOULD BE TO NEVER SPEAK OF IT AGAIN.
JOHN: oh. okay.
KARKAT: IF WE'RE BEING HONEST, YOU DIDN'T EVEN HAVE A PLAN, JOHN.
KARKAT: CALLING IT A PLAN WOULD IMPLY THAT IT WAS A STRUCTURED SEQUENCE OF STEPS DESIGNED TO ACHIEVE A GOAL.
KARKAT: WHAT YOU CAME UP WITH WAS A CONVOLUTED MESS WHICH STILL SOMEHOW INVOLVED DOING FUCKALL.
KARKAT: AND I USE CONVOLUTED HERE IN THE SAME WAY THAT I WOULD TO DESCRIBE THE FRENZIED DRAWSTICK SCRIBBLES OF A SQUALLING HUMAN INFANT.
KARKAT: SPEAKING OF WHICH:
KARKAT: DRAWING A SHITTY PICTURE WITH "THE ULTIMATE PLAN" AT THE TOP AND A BUNCH OF ARROWS DOES NOT, AND TO THE BEST OF MY KNOWLEDGE HAS NEVER, CONSTITUTED AN ACTIONABLE PLAN.
KARKAT: DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS CRITICISM WITH ANOTHER MISERABLE EXPRESSION, I AM BEGGING YOU.
JOHN: okay ):
KARKAT: LOOK.
KARKAT: I APPRECIATE THAT YOU SEEM TO HAVE DUG YOUR PAN OUT OF YOUR OWN CHUTE THE FEW MICROMETERS NECESSARY TO NOTICE THE PRECISE DEGREE TO WHICH THE WORLD IS BEING JUDICIOUSLY BATFUCKED RIGHT NOW.
KARKAT: AS HARD AS IT IS TO BELIEVE, THAT'S A FEAT WHICH NO SMALL NUMBER OF PEOPLE ARE COMPLETELY INCAPABLE OF DOING!
KARKAT: BUT NOTICING THE PROBLEM AND MAKING MEANINGFUL PROGRESS TOWARDS SOLVING IT ARE TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT THINGS.
KARKAT: THE NEXT TIME YOU GET THE IMPULSE TO "LEND A HAND", YOU'D BE BETTER OFF CANNING IT FOR FIVE MINUTES AND LISTENING TO THOSE OF US WHO'VE BEEN TRYING TO SOLVE IT A LOT LONGER THAN YOU HAVE.
KARKAT: THIS ISN'T AN EXERCISE BEING CONDUCTED IN ORDER FOR YOU TO PROVE YOUR PERSONAL DEGREE OF MORAL RECTITUDE.
KARKAT: AND IF IT WAS, YOU WOULD HAVE ALREADY FAILED MISERABLY! SO DO YOURSELF AND EVERYONE ELSE A FAVOR AND STOP TREATING IT LIKE ONE.
JOHN: well... all right. if you say so karkat.
KARKAT: I DO SAY SO, EMPHATICALLY AND AT GREAT VOLUME.
KARKAT: AND NOW THAT MY OBLIGATION TO CATECHIZE YOU ON THE SUBJECT OF YOUR OWN LIFE IS FULFILLED, I HAVE A WAR TO GET BACK TO.
JOHN: wait, hold on.
KARKAT: OH MY GOD WHAT NOW.
JOHN: you can't be leaving already.
JOHN: there's... so much we still need to talk about!
KARKAT: OF COURSE I'M SHITTING LEAVING.
KARKAT: WHAT MORE COULD THERE POSSIBLY BE FOR US TO DISCUSS??
KARKAT: PLEASE DO NOT TELL ME YOU JUST HAD ANOTHER EMOTION THAT WE NEED TO DROP EVERYTHING IN ORDER TO DISSECT.
JOHN: no, that's not what i'm talking about at all.
JOHN: karkat, we still haven't spoken about *you*!
KARKAT: ABOUT ME?
JOHN: yes.
KARKAT: ABOUT *ME*?
JOHN: about you.
KARKAT: WHAT THE FUCK ABOUT ME.
JOHN: well...
JOHN: you know, how you feel!
KARKAT: HOW I FEEL.
JOHN: or just...
JOHN: argh, i don't know!
JOHN: it's just been so long since we've seen each other.
JOHN: all sorts of things have happened in that time, and it doesn't feel right to just not even mention any of it!
KARKAT: LIKE WHAT??
JOHN: oh, i don't know karkat, literally anything!
JOHN: i mean, look at you.
JOHN: you are decked out in a tight body suit and have an eyepatch and everything. there is simply no way there isn't something to discuss there.
JOHN: or like, forget the eyepatch, we don't have to talk about the eyepatch.
JOHN: i feel as though my point still stands?
JOHN: there is basically a bottomless well full of stuff to go through.
JOHN: i mean we kind of glossed over it when you brought her up earlier, but what about yiffy?
JOHN: this might not come across so easily due to human troll cultural boundaries, but her existing is kind of a big deal??
JOHN: i feel like somehow i missed the part where we all sit around and talk about how strange it is that two of our friends went off and had a secret child without any of us knowing!
JOHN: is it too much to ask that we have that part now, karkat?
JOHN: i mean, maybe it just doesn't mean that much to you.
KARKAT: JOHN.
JOHN: which is a little strange, given that it ties in to the whole conflict that you had with jade and dave.
JOHN: oh god we have to talk about dave.
KARKAT: JOHN.
KARKAT: FUCKING HELL!
KARKAT: I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT DAVE.
JOHN: no, this is what i mean, karkat.
JOHN: we need to talk about dave!
KARKAT: HAHA! LIKE SHIT WE DO!!
KARKAT: I HAVE NO FUCKING CLUE HOW THIS IS EVEN A RELEVANT TOPIC OF CONVERSATION.
JOHN: oh come on.
JOHN: there's no way you aren't feeling kind of messed up about him, right?
JOHN: i know i am.
JOHN: whenever i think about how things ended between you two...
JOHN: especially now that he's...
JOHN: ugh, i'm sorry. i'm SO sorry karkat. sorry doesn't even begin to cover it.
JOHN: this whole thing feels so impossibly sad.
JOHN: all i'm trying to say is...
JOHN: it's not healthy to bottle these feelings up and not acknowledge them.
JOHN: even if you aren't feeling anything right now, and i don't for a moment believe that's true, *i* need to talk about dave!
JOHN: so can we please just talk about dave for a moment.
KARKAT: NNNNGNGNGGGGGGGUUUUUUGUUGHHHHHHHH FINE.
KARKAT: IF IT WILL GET YOU TO SHUT UP ABOUT THIS TOPIC FOR EVEN A BRIEF MOMENT, THEN FINE.
KARKAT: REGARDLESS OF HOW POINTLESS AN EXERCISE I CONSIDER IT TO BE, I WILL DISCUSS WITH YOU MY "FEELINGS" ABOUT DAVE.
JOHN: okay.
JOHN: thank you.
KARKAT: ARE YOU PREPARED TO BE INUNDATED WITH NONE OTHER THAN AN UNINTERRUPTED SPATE OF HARD, UNEMBELLISHED DATA VIS A VIS MY SWEEPS-SUPPRESSED, BISCUITFELT EMOTIONS ON THE DAVE SITUATION??
KARKAT: WELL HERE GOES.
KARKAT: *DEEP BREATH*
KARKAT: YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW I REALLY FEEL ABOUT DAVE?
KARKAT: HOW I FEEL IS THAT I WISH THAT EVERYONE WOULD STOP FUCKING BOTHERING ME ABOUT HIM!!!
KARKAT: ALRIGHT, SO HE AND JADE GOT HUMAN MARRIED!! BIG DEAL!!!
KARKAT: DO PEOPLE FORGET THAT I WAS THERE?? I FEEL LIKE EVERYONE IS FORGETTING THAT I WAS LITERALLY INVITED TO THE OCCASION.
KARKAT: I'VE EVEN COME TO EXPECT THIS KIND OF AMNESIAC BEHAVIOR FROM EVERYONE ELSE, SINCE I ADMIT THAT I DIDN'T EXACTLY STICK AROUND OR ACTUALLY SHOW MY FACE FOR MOST OF THE ORDEAL, BUT YOU EGBERT SHOULD HAVE NO FUCKING EXCUSE!
JOHN: wait, karkat, that's not what i
KARKAT: SO YEAH! THAT WHOLE THING HAPPENED, AND I CAME TO TERMS WITH WHATEVER THERE WAS TO COME TO TERMS WITH, WHICH WAS FUCKING *NOTHING*, AND THEN I GOT ON WITH THE ACTUAL IMPORTANT BUSINESS OF TRYING TO PREVENT THE WORLD FROM CRUMBLING!
KARKAT: WHICH, NOW THAT WE'RE ON THE SUBJECT, IS *STILL FUCKING HAPPENING*!
KARKAT: I AM UTTERLY APPALLED THAT THIS IS AN INFO MORSEL I KEEP HAVING TO SPOONFEED DOWN YOUR WINDCHUTE EVERY FIVE SECONDS, JOHN, I REALLY AM.
KARKAT: I MEAN HOLY SHIT, NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR THIS!
KARKAT: AND ONE THING I CAN SAY WITH ABSOLUTE IRONCLAD CERTAINTY IS THAT IF DAVE WERE HERE, HE WOULD SAY THE SAME THING!!
KARKAT: SPEAKING OF WHICH, WHERE *IS* DAVE??
JOHN: um.
KARKAT: I FEEL LIKE IF ANYONE COULD HAVE PREVENTED TODAY FROM DEVOLVING INTO A HEADLESS CLUSTERFUCK, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN... OKAY, MAYBE NOT HIM, BUT AT LEAST HE MIGHT HAVE HELPED DRAG YOU OUT OF YOUR DEPRESSIVE FUGUE A LITTLE SOONER!
JOHN: (oh shit.)
KARKAT: NOT ONLY THAT, BUT MAYBE WITH BOTH OF US HERE WE COULD HAVE DISPENSED WITH THIS ENTIRE SORRY TOPIC ONCE AND FOR ALL, IF ONLY FOR YOUR BENEFIT!
KARKAT: OH HI DAVE, JOHN SEEMS TO BE UNDER THE IMPRESSION THAT THE UNSPOKEN HISTORY BETWEEN US IS OF SUFFICIENT IMPORT THAT WE NEED TO HASH IT OUT THIS VERY SECOND IN FRONT OF THE BLASTED REMAINS OF HIS HOME!
KARKAT: yo karkat that does seem to be a strange thing for my best friend john to be concerned about given that he has spent the past five years wallowing in the depths of deepest divorce fever
KARKAT: and especially since jade and i have meanwhile been working as part of your resistance with no complaints, but sure, we can brofist each other and arrange our limbs in an unambiguously platonic way
KARKAT: a way which is also flawlessly calculated to communicate to everyone present that here are two guys who are totally and unequivocally over each other
JOHN: (oh god. you don't...)
KARKAT: THAT SOUNDS LIKE A GREAT IDEA DAVE, AND WITH THAT MAYBE THAT WAY WE CAN WASH OUR TOUCH STUMPS OF THIS WHOLE ORDEAL AND NEVER HAVE TO SPEAK OF IT AGAIN!
KARKAT: WOULD YOU LIKE THAT, JOHN?
KARKAT: WOULD THAT SATISFY YOUR CRAVING FOR CATHARSIS ON THE SUBJECT OF DAVE??
KARKAT: WELL WHY DON'T WE TRY IT THEN.
KARKAT: IN FACT, WHY DON'T YOU CALL DAVE AND GET HIM OVER HERE RIGHT NOW!
JOHN: (oh my god...)
KARKAT: MAYBE WE SHOULD GET JADE TO COME AS WELL!
JOHN: ):
KARKAT: FUCK, WHY NOT INVITE FUCKING EVERYONE!!!
KARKAT: WHY NOT PRESS "PAUSE" ON THE RACE WAR FOR A MOMENT AND HAVE ONE HUGE FEELINGS JAM LAWNMEAL WHERE WE ALL PUBLICLY EXPATIATE OUR VARIOUS CONVOLUTED EMOTIONS.
KARKAT: FORGET PEACE TALKS, GET FUCKING *CROCKER* TO COME!
KARKAT: MAYBE THE SIGHT OF A DAVEKAT RECONCILIATION IS THE SECRET KEY TO UNLOCKING THE PART OF HER BRAIN THAT STOPS HER FROM BEING A GENOCIDAL RACIST BITCH!!!
KARKAT: HOW COULD WE HAVE POSSIBLY BEEN SO BLIND!!!!!!
KARKAT: IF GAMZEE WASN'T DEAD, YOU COULD HAVE INVITED HIM AS WELL!
KARKAT: HAHAHA, THAT'S OKAY, WE STILL HAVE A VERITABLE MENAGERIE OF PEOPLE WE KNOW WHO AREN'T DEAD.
JOHN: ))))):
KARKAT: ALL OF WHOM I AM SURE WILL BE SIMPLY DELIGHTED TO ATTEND WHAT WILL UNDOUBTEDLY BE THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT EVENT IN EARTH C'S BULLSHIT HISTORY.
KARKAT: IF THIS IS WHAT IT TAKES, EGBERT, THEN I AM PREPARED TO DO IT!
KARKAT: DON'T THINK THAT I WON'T!!
KARKAT: IF JUST FOR AN *INSTANT* IT WILL GET EVERYONE OFF MY CASE ABOUT THIS, I WILL STAND UP WITH DAVE IN FRONT OF THE ENTIRE ***FUCKING WORLD*** AND SOLEMNLY VOW THAT I DO NOT GIVE A SHIT!!!!
JOHN: KARKAT!!!!
JOHN: ugh, fuck, this is just too much!
JOHN: i thought you KNEW!
KARKAT: KNEW WHAT???
JOHN: dave's GONE, karkat!
JOHN: he's...
JOHN: he's dead.
JOHN: i didn't mean for you to find out like this at all, i thought...
JOHN: i mean, i only heard about it yesterday, but i was convinced someone would have told you already!
JOHN: apparently one minute he was there, and the next...
JOHN: none of us even know how it happened, and it doesn't make any sense that he's dead, but he is.
JOHN: he is dead and he's not coming back.
KARKAT:
JOHN: talk to me karkat, please.
JOHN: please talk to me karkat.
KARKAT:
KARKAT: HE...
KARKAT: HE DIDN'T EVEN SAY GOODBYE?
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mp3-pplayers · 9 months ago
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the phone numbers in question
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livvyofthelake · 2 years ago
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ok i read 40 pages of that book. it’s fine. i wish it was chain of thorns though.
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bqstqnbruin · 6 months ago
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The book I'm reading isn't bad but like I'm simply not into it ya know
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lady-phasma · 4 months ago
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I felt compelled to cite my sources for Armand and Lestat being an item off and on over the years. I’ve been in this fandom too long to get involved in ship wars or to really have an OTP for these crazy-ass vampires. I happen to love Armand and Lestat from the books and think that Assad and Sam make it work so well on screen. I hope we get loads more of them for season 3.
Anne wrote all of her characters as deeply flawed, we can all agree on that, but the nearly fanfiction level of “let’s see what happens when two of my most flawed characters get together” writing she did in TVA is brilliant. Book spoilers below.
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Here's a link to a post I made about Lestat's perspective of Armand from TVL. (I have included one quote from TVL below because it's too precious to exclude.)
Lestat spends almost a full page describing how he sees Armand at a ball at the Palais Royal:
Yet never had Nicolas, mortal or immortal, been so alluring. Never had Gabrielle held me so in thrall. Dear God, this is love. This is desire. And all my past amours have been but the shadow of this. - The Vampire Lestat, p. 275
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They literally feel the same about each other: instant attraction, love, desire, and so on. And it is powerful.
So powerful that hundreds of years later (in one of my favorite passages from any of her books) Armand is the only person allowed to approach an unconscious Lestat. Not only approach him, but allowed to lay down next to him and cuddle, caress, and console Lestat, to cry onto him.
I looked down on Lestat, who was unchanged, his hair fallen as before, a little over his left eye. His right arm was out, and his fingers curling upwards, and there came from him not the slightest movement, not even a breath from his lungs or a sigh from his pores. I knelt down beside him again. I reached out, and without flinching or hesitating, I brushed his hair back from his face. I could feel the shock in the room. I heard the sighs, the gasps from the others. But Lestat himself didn't stir. Slowly, I brushed his hair more tenderly, and I saw to my own mute shock one of my tears fall right onto his face. It was red yet watery and transparent and it appeared to vanish as it moved down the curve of his cheekbone and into the natural hollow below. I slipped down closer, turning on my side, facing him, my hand still on his hair. I stretched my legs out behind me, and alongside of him, and I lay there, letting my face rest right on his outstretched arm. Again there came the shocked gasps and sighs, and I tried to keep my heart absolutely pure of pride and pure of anything but love. It was not differentiated or defined, this love, but only love, the love I could feel perhaps for one I killed or one I succored, or one whom I passed in the street, or for one whom I knew and valued as much as him. - The Vampire Armand, pp. 368-369 (emphasis is mine)
But the contrasting absolute annoyance Armand has for Lestat is hilarious! He loves him but can barely stand him sometimes (that isn't unusual for Lestat's admirers).
Lestat, not a bad friend to have, and one for whom I would lay down my immortal life, one for whose love and companionship I have ofttimes begged, one whom I find maddening and fascinating and intolerably annoying, one without whom I cannot exist. The Vampire Armand, p. 276
But it's the way he describes things that happen to him that maddens me, the way that he connects one incident to another as though all these random and grisly occurrences were in fact links in some significant chain. They are not. They are capers. And he knows it. But he must make a gutter theatrical out of stubbing his toe. The James Bond of the Vampires, the Sam Spade of his own pages. - The Vampire Armand, p. 288 (emphasis mine)
Though Armand's head on Lestat's arm might be the most beautiful image of the two of them from any of the books, this line gives me chills every time:
"Lestat, my Lestat - for he was never theirs, was he? - my Lestat was crazed and railing as the result of his awful saga […]" - The Vampire Armand, p. 320 (emphasis mine)
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Yes, your Lestat.
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plumbobpaparazzi · 10 months ago
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Peek into my Mods folder...
This is dedicated to @alltimefail-sims or anyone who needs a little help with lag!
I have several mods I refer to as "efficiency mods" that are little quality-of-life tweaks that make the game smoother for me, either by reducing lag or reducing immersion-breaking hiccups. As always, your mileage may vary, but hopefully this is helpful to someone. :) List of mods under cut to keep your dash clean.
No Intro - Whether you are trying to 50/50 your mods, testing new CC, or just need to shave time off your game loading... get rid of the cinematic intro.
Free Will Delay - Do your sims curbstomp their queue and proceed to fuck off to something unrelated? Yeah, me too, until I got this mod. From the mod description: "[E]very time you tell your sim to do something, they will be forced to listen! …For 5 minutes. Then they get free will back again. This is probably why controlling Sims in Sims 4 feels so bad! Because you lose control the second they start doing what they're told. Even if you queue up actions, the total time is STILL five minutes- because it goes from the last direction you give your sim. So you can tell them to do 3 hours worth of stuff while paused…and they'll get control back after 5 minutes. This mod changes this timeframe to an option of your choosing, to make controlling your sims feel more rigid."
Simulation Unclogger - This is an oldie-but-goodie mod from Turbodriver that helps interrupt when Sims get stuck in an endless action loop.
Evolve/Fertilize All Plants - Kind of weird how we can Harvest All but you can't Evolve or Fertilize All, right?
No Empty Venues When Arriving - Helps with the issue of going to a community lot and waiting around for Sims to show up. May cause increased lag if you are bottlenecked by RAM.
Food Autonomy Overhaul - Stops your stupid Sims from eating ingredients, AND allows Sims who hate cooking to autonomously grab quick meals. Didn't know they wouldn't do that? Yeah. That's a thing.
Don't Do That! Version 1 and Version 2 - Removes autonomy on annoying actions that can't be affected by MCCC tuner, like reactions and some trait idle animations.
Less Obsession - Lowers autonomy for certain things without disabling entirely. I still want my Sims to paint, but I don't want them to start a new figure painting any time they are left unsupervised.
Smarter Self-Care - Makes Sims prioritize their needs better before they are uncomfortable. I only use the packages for NPCs and Pets.
NPC Relationship Autonomy Fix - Stops random Sims from breaking into your house to ask to be your BFF (and tunes the requirements so they actually have to be your friend first.)
Buy More Upgrade Parts - Allows you to buy a package of 50 upgrade parts for when you are grinding out handiness or robotics.
The following mods are all by Bienchen and don't have a direct page for each package. You can search by name pretty easily on their website. I recommend flipping through and grabbing anything you find useful - I have a total of 368 of their mods installed. Here are some highlights:
novisibleecoeffects - The aurora will nuke your framerate. I know it's pretty, but oh my god.
noautonomousbakewhitecake - Does what it says on the tin, keeps your house from being overrun by cakes.
harvestnogroupinteraction - Stops club members from autonomously harvesting plants. Those are MY death flowers!
lessemotionidles - Reduces unnecessary idle animations from emotions, great for preventing your Sims from looking flirty at inappropriate times...
lesspreferenceidles - Stops your sims from thinking about how much they like fishing/fitness/etc. when they should be doing things.
happytoddleridledisabled - Stops the idling from the Happy Toddler trait. SUPER useful for family gameplay.
laundry_buffsandsoloidlesfix - Stops or reduces idles related to laundry. It's just clothes, bro
eldertweak - Reduces elder animation idles.
hastopeewalkstyleforchildonly - Helps get your Sims to the toilet in a reasonable amount of time.
tinyhousebuffhider - I know I'm in a Tiny Home, I don't need a moodlet.
lottraiteffectshider - Hides the little floating lightbulbs around Sims heads from lot traits.
notraitnotifications - I know my geek likes video games, I don't need the pop-up every time I play.
noholidayoutcomenotification - Please don't rub my nose in the fact I forgot to celebrate.
nofestivalnotifications and nofestivalnotificationsound - Helpful when a pack is new, but years later... no thanks.
noenrollmentandscholarshipinfo - No more info screen about the two universities. I think most of us know it all by now.
nouprootplant - Never cry because of a misclick again
simschangeoutfitwhenhotorcold - Should have already been autonomous, but alas.
novisualpoliteintroeffects - I don't know if I am the only one, but the glowing really bothers me.
restaurantsittweak - Sit down and eat your dang food! No more wandering Sims.
longerprom - Takes 6 hours instead of 4 so you can actually do something.
I probably have other QoL mods that could be helpful, but these are my recommendations to start with. Love to all the modders that keep this game playable <3
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tutuntuntuinen · 8 days ago
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Best Fics 2024 edition
I read 57 fics last year, transferred to a traditional book pages, it's over 10 000 pages. And yes, it's all ✨Ineffable Husbands✨. I have a catalogue and I mark and rate all fics I read. And here are my favourites from 2024!
(See all the tags and warnings from AO3 page, fic names are links to AO3.)
stalwart sun, wily moon by @dustandhalos (Heist AU) Rated M, Words 369 969 My comment: They are both working with art, Aziraphale fixes the antiques, Crowley steals it. I read this 2 times last year, it is my all time favourite. I will read it again this year. Yes, it's a long one, but it is so wholesome and it has everything (not smut though). It broke my heart and fixed it later and nurtured my soul. I'm a fan.
Mon Horrible Chéri by @mrghostrat Rated E, Words 39 954 My comment: They are teachers and they go to Paris with a whole class. They hate each other! Enemies to lovers and so delicious. My favourit part is this small scene from the theatre (minor spoilers): "The air swept out of Aziraphale’s lungs and he stared blankly at the stage. He couldn’t hear a thing for all the blood suddenly rushing to his ears, boiling from the heat that exuded from Crowley’s thigh. It didn’t move, didn’t bounce. Just sat there, flushed against his own, positioned knee to knee and thigh to thigh, securely and intentionally." Like... that's... someones knee touching yours but Ghostrat makes it the whole world! Also the illustrations are soo good!
Big Name Feelings by @mrghostrat (Fandom AU) Rated E, Words 103 997 My comment: Another one from Ghostrat. "Crowley is a BNF fic writer, and Aziraphale is a lurking artist who might be just a little parasocially in love with him." This, too, is so well written and also with lots of illustrations and custom emojis.
Anthony J. Crowley, Retired Demon and Airbnb Superhost by TheOldAquarian (@darkpurpledawn) Rated G, Words 3 027 My comment: This fic is basicly a review section of Crowleys Airbnb apartment, which is in Mayfair and has a lot of house plants and frequent angel like visitor. It is HILARIOUS! "Don’t post a close-up picture of that statue of the two angels, Instagram WILL remove it." Pray For Us, Icarus by Atalan (@brightwanderer) Rated G+T, Words 67 805 (Parts 1-7) My comment: This is a heart breaking story and it's so good and well written. "For three centuries, Crowley has been reincarnated over and over as a human with no memory of his past. Aziraphale has tried to find a way to restore him to his true self, but all he seems to do is hurt them both. This time, he only means to steal a brief moment when he walks into Crowley's flower shop. But Crowley can't let it go…"
What We Make of It (Shotgun Wedding) by @charlottemadison42 Rated E, Words 213 340 My comment: Crowley is Adam's guardian and Aziraphale is Adam's English teacher. Our heroes meet and you know what happens. But because their jobs, there are legal issues and they can't have a romantic relationship. So what to do? Panic, angst, be recless! Great story with all the kids and other characters.
Or Be Nice by @charlottemadison42 Rated E, Words 151 368 My comment: "A human AU in which Aziraphale is a bookseller, Crowley is a drummer, and they are both petty disasters in the worst/best way." Also they are neighbours. This is so FUN!! And also sweet. The pranks they make each other are delightful!
Slow Show by mia_ugly (@mia-ugly) / Podfixx (@podfixx) Rated E, Words 95 505 My comment: I have listened the podfic by Podfixx two times last year. Slow Show is a whole story with our favourite heroes who are co-stars of a popular television program. I love when the characters have a past and it shows and it affects everything they do. It makes the story go deep. I love this!
sanctuary by @moonyinpisces Rated T, Words 22 635 My comment: "Whatever’s happened, Aziraphale doesn’t like it. Change. Such a dreadful invention. (One of Crowley’s, undoubtedly)." This fic has so many things I can't even remember all the things I loved in it (I should read it again!). I think the biggest thing was that it triggered my religious trauma some how and the way Aziraphale had to deal with all the things made in the name of Christianity. And still he could love and be loved.
We Only Said Goodbye with Words, I Died A Hundred Times by ras_elased Rated E, Words 9 333 My comment: This is a hurricane of dialogue and emotions. It was (checks the catalogue) february, when I read this, so I can't remember too much (should re-read). But after reading this I was so impressed it made it's way in this list!
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There were also other great fics! If you are interested in my lists, you can contact me. I'm very open to fic recommendation exhange! There are great fics from year 2023 which are not mentioned here, but are superfabulous!
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thepriceofsurvival · 10 days ago
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I don’t know if this was a miss from nora or if it’s meant to show how scatterbrained jeremy is?
Page 368 in TSC
“Can you tell me about France?”
“No,” Jean said, and the disappointed look that flickered across Jeremy’s face sent a jagged prickle through his veins. He should leave it at that; he needed to leave it at that. Instead he said, “I don’t want to talk about home. I wouldn’t trust my memories, anyway. I came to America when I was fourteen, but five years in Raven time are a lifetime.”
It was closer to seven and a half years in his head, but if Jean spelled it out like that, he knew what Jeremy would say. The look on Jeremy’s face said discretion hadn’t saved him, and Jean stepped forward like he could leave this conversation behind.
Jeremy kept pace. “That’s what I don’t get about you,” he admitted quietly. “This heinous crime was committed against you, against all of you, but you’re not angry about it. I mean, you’re angry at the little things, but not about what really matters. Coach Moriyama never should have put you through this.”
So he’s distraught but he doesn’t address it. But then page 465:
“It has been toward for five years,” Jean said, looking past Jeremy at the scrimmage that was still going on without them. “It is not that easy to undo.”
Jeremy frowned at him and echoed, “Five? You were only with the Ravens for three.”
“I moved into Evermore two years before I enrolled,” Jean said, and hauled Jeremy to one side.
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robins-egg-bindery · 1 year ago
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Windows by @drgrlfriend
Derek has a new neighbor who won't stop looking.
fic by @drgrlfriend
art by @maichan808 & @andavs-main
368 pages / 83,266 words
Title Font: PP Hatton
Body Fonts: Cardo, Geo
HAPPY FFWAD!!! Thank you @renegadepublishing for putting on this event in celebration!
More on the process below the cut!
I'm so excited to be posting this book! Super grateful @drgrlfriend was so down to let me bind Windows for Fan Fiction Writer Appreciation Day. This is one of my all-time favs, and I was thrilled to give it the treatment it deserves! @maichan808 & @andavs-main were also incredibly kind to allow me to include their stunning art pieces in the book <3 And thank you @renegadepublishing for putting this event together!
I wanted the typeset to be visually interesting and move around the page, without making it difficult to read. I created unique headers for each of the 28 chapters with royalty free art, and varied placement on the page in six different configurations. I also played with the text warp to make the text work as part of the image - one of my favorites is chapter 26, "Banshee", pictured above!
I used Brick duo for this bind, as part of the vision for the front cover, which was done in silver permanent vinyl. I think the rich rust color is perfect for how I would imagine Stiles & Derek's apartment building, and the silver is incredibly reflective - my favorite part is how the vinyl catches the light on the spine, and can reflect "Windows" on whatever surface it's on (pictured above). That's not an added effect, it's just doing that!
I did @tankbredgrunt's faux double-core headband with some Sulky Gutermann I bought at a secondhand store for $0.25, and it's so pretty! A bit thin to work with, but totally worth it for the multi-color effect it gives off.
And I finally got a proper crisp hinge! I think it really brings the whole book together, thank you knitting needles (even though you were a pain in the ass).
This project also marks my 100th book! I'm rapidly approaching the two year mark of my fanbinding career with no sign of stopping; thank you to this entire community, and all of the fandoms I've been able to bring this hobby to. I love how cross-fandom it is; and for an old floater like me, it's wonderful to bring all of my interests together and have something that transcends those lines.
HAPPY FAN FICTION WRITER APPRECIATION DAY!
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orion-archives · 4 months ago
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MegaSound Week - 2024
Day 5: Pride / Regret
Soundwave swings a roundhouse kick that takes Bumblebee in the side. Bee goes down, falling among the wreckage that was his friend.
"I'm saving you for last, Autobot," Soundwave tells him. "You've earned special treatment.” He pauses to look at the vast wall of attack ships nestled beneath the battle cruisers. With firepower such as this, any remaining resistance from the Autobots, from humanity—from anyone or anything—would be brief. "Better have our fun while it lasts."
He steps forward and kicks Bumblebee viciously several more times, and still Bumblebee does not cry out.
Then Soundwave looks toward Megatron to see if his lord is entertained by his actions.
Megatron gives him a pitying glance and then looks away.
Suddenly the enjoyment of his actions ends for Soundwave.
TRANSFORMERS: Dark of the Moon by Peter David. Pages 368-369.
I had done this prompt before, but didn't like how it was turning out so I rushed a little bit and experimented with brushes and a different canvas. I really like how this one turned out! It may be my favorite piece for MegaSound Week so far!
Original (warning, it's ugly lmao):
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Bayverse MegaSound has so much angst potential aND I INTENT TO CHANGE THAT
WHO'S WITH ME?
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yamasakiko---ji · 5 months ago
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DON'T THINK JUST SHOOT - LENINGRADSKOYEOPTIKOMECHANICHESCKOYEOBYEDINENIE
I bought this Lomo Photo Book against my will on impulse because it had 368 pages! and the price was 1,980 yen! The camera that frees me from the curse of “photography” was always the lomo lc-a.
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stillness-in-green · 8 months ago
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Chapter Thoughts — Chapter 423: One For All vs. All For One
At the request of a few asks, have some chapter thoughts. I will warn everyone in advance that some portions of this post are extremely bitter. This is less salty than it is bile-flavored. It's also not quite as thorough as other posts have been, as my disillusionment with the material limits my willingness to comb the chapter for details to muse about beyond the ones that jump out at me.
None of which is to say that this post is short.
CONTENT WARNING: Confrontational rhetoric about irl prisons and the hypothetical of committing suicide to avoid them. I have strong personal feelings about some of the language I've been seeing from defenders of this chapter and I'm in no mood to prevaricate around them.
o Danger Sense continues to be some real bullshit.  My initial response to the leaks was that it was yet another dumb contrivance to make things arbitrarily harder for the villains than equivalent things would be for the Heroes, but reading the official release, I actually just think it's dumb that AFO thinks Danger Sense would have alerted him to his/Shigaraki's failing body at all.  Why would it?  Danger Sense nominally (nominally) activates based on hostility, and where's the hostility in super-regeneration failing?  If it were the remnants of Shigaraki/OFA attacking him from within his own body, that'd be one thing, but that doesn't seem to be what the first few pages are getting at. 
Rather, it's just that the power of OFA is being too much for his body, in the same way it was for Deku at the beginning.  As if, you know, Shigaraki hasn't already been surgically modified to handle both AFO and, presumably, OFA the whole time.  Ujiko only mentioned the former specifically, but given that the plan was always for AFO's new vessel to be able to steal OFA, why wouldn't that also be accounted for?  The best I can think is that AFO and Ujiko didn't know that OFA would put such strain on the body, but it's not like AFO couldn't have observed that the quirk's been growing stronger over the generations.  If he and Ujiko just failed to calibrate the body correctly, it's a failure of Ujiko's warped genius as a mad biologist and quirk scientist—which again takes us back to dumb contrivances that make things harder for the villains than they would be for the heroes.
    
o The Kurogiri scene would be very touching if it, you know, actually amounted to something.  If it didn't apparently end with Bakugou coming in to murder him.  Except we don't even quite get that level of commitment because Kurogiri was falling apart already, so you get the impression that he would have collapsed with or without Bakugou's intervention.
    
o This in turn makes Bakugou's intervention really silly and pointless.  My god, I don't care.  I do not care!  I do not care about Bakugou pushing Deku two steps forward past a barrier that was already failing.  I do not care about Bakugou getting one last stupid victory lap when he's already dramatically endured a severe beating and emotional assault, stood back up from the stupidest heart surgery in the history of fiction, and faced down everything AFO could unleash on him, far outstripping that same villain's climactic efforts fighting All Might in Kamino in what remains AFO's only semi-emotionally resonant battle in the whole manga.  As it is, this is just one more ludicrous handwaved magical cross-country teleport like every other one the Heroes have been enjoying through this whole fight.
    
o Yoichi paying attention to AFO now?  Man, imagine if we could have just skipped a bunch of bullshit and gotten this way back in Chapter 368, when Yoichi first told AFO that it was over.  Imagine if Vestige Yoichi had something like this when his actual for-real flesh-and-blood brother died, rather than having zero reaction to it whatsoever, not even looking over Deku's psychic shoulder and making a sad face about it.
o It actually kind of offends me that Horikoshi thinks he can get away with taking a stab in the direction of making AFO "sympathetic" now.  Now, after he's spent the entire endgame portraying AFO as a two-dimensional Demon Lord who was literally Evil In Utero.  And, you know, I'd buy AFO as being Evil In Utero but also capable of loneliness, sure. And I'm even more than on board with interpreting AFO as a man who's spent the last century working 24:7 to convince himself that he's heartlessly evil to deal with the loss of the only family he ever had. But the fact that this statement has been put in the mouth of Deku, who has never indicated the faintest trace of sympathy or understanding, much less compassion for AFO?  Fuck off.
    
o All that Yoichi hyping up Deku's incredible finesse in attacking Shigaraki with the stored-up OFA quirks makes me think is, "Welcome to My Hero Academia, where the stakes are made up and the past doesn't matter!"  I am so abominably weary of the endgame's—and the series in general's—willing to just baldly lie to the audience's face about what is actually happening at any given point in the story.
That was the moment when we should have had a response from Yoichi, what with Shigaraki having apparently torn AFO's vestige limb from psychic limb and Bakugou overseeing as the real man rewound out of existence.  That Yoichi didn't respond back then just made him seem like he'd written off his brother generations ago; it makes his sorrowful-yet-grateful act in this chapter incredibly unearned.  Of course, the actual reason we didn't get a beat like this back then wasn't for any reason consistent with Yoichi's feelings about his brother, nor because Yoichi was too far away to know that the brother he has a psychic bond with was dying.  No, it was because Horikoshi was already writing towards this beat instead, so he didn't need to bother.  The last time Yoichi looks the real AFO’s way was the chapter-ending Bakugou blast of 409, when it takes the first eight pages of 410 for AFO’s Rewinding death to finalize itself.  The Hawks vestige talked more to All For One in his last moments than AFO’s own brother did.
    
Internal monologue is placed where internal monologue cannot possibly exist.  Characters' plans are backdated to points in the story which are completely irreconcilable with how those characters were behaving at the time.  Surprise and dismay are pantomimed from characters who are revealed to have anticipated and planned for the very eventuality they're acting so shocked about.
The main character, a kid who was once characterized by his tendency to mutter his thoughts out loud, who had a running gag of tightly packed, densely worded speech/thought balloons, has been reduced to an empty marionette, devoid of internal monologue, scoured of thoughts more complex than the multiplication tables of his quirk combinations.  The story can retroactively say that Deku did—intentionally and willfully!—anything it wants and not have to worry about belying its phony stakes and made-for-Twitter cliffhangers because it has deprived Deku of his own capacity to reflect.  He can't spoil twist reveals of his own true intentions if the narrative completely locks us out of his head!  Nevermind how much of his final battle has occurred inside a shared goddamn psychic space.
All of this has made it totally impossible for me to read the story as a story.  Not only do I see the strings, the strings have become all I can see.
Of course the vestiges are back one last time for a dramatic punch, despite multiple chapters swearing up and down to us that we were seeing a big emotional sacrifice play.  Last chapter we witnessed the word vomit that was Horikoshi trying to justify Star's pilots surviving their planes blowing up, because that's how determined Horikoshi is that no one on Team Hero actually die.  Of course the vestiges came back.
Who cares?  Truly, who the fuck cares?  I don't care about them; I don't care about whether they'll be back again in the epilogue; I don't care about why Vestige Might and Shinomori are missing from the punch; I don't care about the story finally trying to pretend that anyone in its pages has ever given a single starving river rat's ass about All For One's humanity.
—NOW ENTERING FULL-FLEDGED RANT ZONE—
I care about the only characters who have ever been facing actual stakes in this war: Shigaraki and his followers.
    
o Even though I care, I don't have it in me to weigh in much about Shigaraki's seeming death here, and especially not his last words.  I'm far too jaded about Horikoshi's cliffhangers to think that anything I say now about Shigaraki dying and what it means for both Hero Society and the people Shigaraki leaves behind can be assumed to still be accurate two weeks from now.
I hope it's a fakeout.  I hope a chunk of Shigaraki's body fell through Kurogiri's last portal and the hyper-regen can kick back in once he's no longer being assaulted on all sides by the allies of the kid who was trying to “save” him.  I hope Horikoshi has one last stupid asspull up his sleeve.  I hope for a complete Karma Houdini ending for Shigaraki and the rest of the League.
If we don't get that, it's gonna suck, and it's gonna turn Deku into a fraud and a liar.  I don't care if the story wants me to think Shigaraki was saved; I don't care if Deku is satisfied with having saved "that crying boy."
I have not forgotten that "that crying boy" gently refused to accept Deku's "save" when the bell rang to go home. He wanted to go back to his friends, instead; he reiterated his desire to be a Hero for the Villains.  The crying child returned to the form of Shigaraki Tomura and then AFO devoured him.  Deku didn't save the child then, and he hasn't saved him now.
Remember how Eri didn't count as truly saved from Overhaul until the first time she could smile fully and freely?  Guess what stops you from doing that?  Right—being fucking dead.
And those touching last words of Shigaraki's won't do Spinner much good on account of him still being brain-damaged from a bunch of extra quirks no one can remove, because the only people who could are, again, fucking dead.
Unless, of course, the theorists are right and Deku is going to be not only not quirkless in the epilogue (meaning all that drama and emotion about sacrificing OFA is going to be another fucking lie), he's going to have the "unified" OFA+AFO quirk via Shigaraki's fistbump.  Meaning Deku can remove the extra quirks, presumably just before telling Spinner that Deku saved-via-killing the love of Spinner's life.
Solidarity among outcasts is false and toxic.  Everyone should just rely on Heroes more, no matter how much Heroes have failed them in the past.
o One last thing I want to address, less about the canon and more about the reactions I've been seeing elsewhere to the prospect of Shigaraki (and any combination of Dabi, Toga and Spinner) being dead: the idea that being dead is the best possible outcome for them because if they don't die they'll only have to spend the rest of their lives "rotting in jail."
Great job, team; nice message to take home.  Everyone pack it in.
    
Firstly, and to get this out of the way, that is a false binary that totally ignores the long history of Shounen Jump villains getting absurd Karma Houdini endings where they walk off into the sunset free as birds because they've changed their minds and resolved to be better, or at least have decided mass murder is no longer worth their time and effort.  (Vegeta wasn't the first mass murderer a Shounen Jump story rewarded with freedom and friendship, nor was he the last.)
But more importantly, that false binary is one that could only be presented by someone who truly does see prison as a fate worse than death.  No rehabilitation is possible.  No supervised release or house arrests in the care of assigned guardians who want better for them.  No lenience can be granted in recognition of the League's mental states; they can be admitted to no mental hospitals focused on therapy.
The "better death than prison" line is the product of a perspective that has never had to seriously consider the prospect of living behind bars.  It's a childish imagination of prison as a nebulous Bad Place where Bad People go to be Punished For Being Bad, or a self-righteous fantasy of a cold hell where sinners are sentenced to suffering eternal.
People can tell that the League have suffered too much to sentence them to Forever Bad Times, so they comfort themselves with the idea that at least they died happy, instead of living forever in a pop-culture-informed crayon doodle of concrete and solitude.
I’m not here to tell these readers that there aren't people in the world who would rather die than live under watch for the rest of their lives.  I won’t deny that Japanese prisons are bleak and there’s every chance that the prisons in Horikoshi’s fictionalized Japan are even worse.  But I am asking people espousing the view that death would be better than incarceration to seriously consider all the angles on what that sentiment means.
If it were you facing the life sentence, are you so sure you would prefer to take your own life?  If it were someone you loved who would rather die than face imprisonment, would you help them—hand your older brother the gun, or your younger sister the knife?
Or would you want to hope that they could get some help instead, have an opportunity to connect to something meaningful—find religion, take up reading classic literature, connect with someone inside or via letters?  Would you want them to accept the lawful punishment for what they'd done rather than evade it by ending their lives?  Would you want them to hold on in case their case could be reassessed someday, that they might eventually finish serving their sentence or be moved to someplace that would focus on helping them rather than punishing them?
Would you want a glorified cop in a cape making that decision for them—or you—based on that cop's ability to "forgive"?
If you think prison is a fate worse than death, why is it okay that people like Gentle Criminal or the Shie Hassaikai Trash Trio have to endure it, while mass murderers, serial killers and insurrectionists like the League get to escape through death?  Think of every purse snatcher who gets paraded in front of cameras with their arms bound and their face muzzled; think of Twice at sixteen; think of Mr. Compress now.  Do these people deserve to suffer in the kind of torment you're imagining prison must entail?  Would it be better for them to die rather than endure it?
If prisons in BNHA's Japan are so terrible as all that, isn't that something the kids should try to fix?  Shouldn't that be a part of the mass societal improvement project people are swearing up and down the kids will have nicely sewn up in the epilogue?  If the kids aren't going to fix these prisons—these places that take suicide risks like Ending and spit them out worse than ever; these places like Tartarus where the wardens call the people in their charge monsters and animals—then why should I believe the kids are going to fix literally anything else?
Or is it simply the case that it's perfectly fine that prisons should be this way; shitty prison conditions are only bad when it's the villains whose sympathetic backstories we know who're facing them?
"It's a shame, but the League has to pay for their crimes."  But why does that “have to be”?  Isn’t it because no one involved—not the characters, not the author, not the people who accept this ending—can envision a world where the “has to be” could be otherwise?
That's the problem with, "Killing someone can be a way of saving them," and, "They would have just spent the rest of their lives in prison anyway."  It's a stunted mentality that leaves no room for the radical reforms and systemic improvements that are necessary to stop this whole cycle from repeating.  Worse, as I very much suspect we're going to see in the epilogue, it's a mentality that says the system is actually fine as it is—the only real problems were caused by a tiny handful of bad actors, and now that they've been removed, everything else will self-correct, and things will go back to normal.
    
That precious, perfect status quo that Deku swore to return: this is the way he brings it back, it and everything that comes with it.
    
o In summary: if this ending sticks, then what we have in My Hero Academia is thus:
A world that played at being grounded, but which turned out to run on arbitrary rules, magic thinking and Evil Babies.
Characters that were presented as radically kind, but whose endgame resolutions represented a cruel underlining of the status quo, in which only those who suffer in silence deserve not to have to.
A story that wanted to be staunchly idealistic but which ultimately entrenched to hollow, meaningless platitudes.
o P.S. So like, Nana’s vestige saved Shigaraki off-screen, right?  So even after all her fear that Shigaraki would have to die, even after all the efforts she and Deku made to help Deku break him down, at the very last moment, she wanted to save him.  And she did so in the only reason she could, as one psychic scrap to another: she held his soul together when he was shattering apart.  But when Deku comes to the very last moment, when Shigaraki’s body is shattering apart, does he do anything to try to hold Shigaraki together?  Try to tell Shigaraki how to use Black Whip to hold his body together, call for Sero and his tape, Aizawa’s Erasure, anything like that?
If it doesn't stick?  That I'm less sure of.  But I'm pretty sure Deku's fucked as the Symbol of Hope no matter what.  There’s no way, at this point, to fix his portrayal as the kid who has a drive to save that eclipses all common understanding.  Every part of the story, before and after that declaration of Yoichi’s in Chapter 287, has served to undermine that claim.  This is just the last nail in the sky coffin.
    
Nah.  Instead, he just administers one last punch to finish the job.  The boy with the drive to save that eclipses all common understanding, everyone.
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eyneyke · 8 days ago
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Trouble in paradise pt4 - Explanation pt1
Pairing: Max Verstappen x PewDiePie!sibling Summary: What if Felix had a genius brother who works as a RedBull's engineer and is also secretly dating Max part 23 of A Calm to my Storm Masterlist
Instagram Pre-Race Q&A: "The Real Danger at Red Bull"
The F1 Instagram page goes live for their pre-race Q&A session, with an expert answering fan questions. As the chat progresses, a fan brings up the situation at Red Bull:
User 358: "What’s going on with Max’s car at Red Bull? People keep talking about some untested solution. How big of a deal is it?"
The F1 expert takes a deep breath, clearly knowing the weight of the situation.
F1 Expert: "Honestly, this is a much bigger deal than a lot of people realize. Let me break it down for you: a critical part that was supposed to arrive from the factory never made it to the track. That part is something Max’s car needs to function properly, so Red Bull was in real trouble. We’re talking about something essential to performance AND safety—when a part like that doesn’t show up, the car’s ability to race is jeopardized."
They pause, glancing at the camera seriously.
F1 Expert: "Here’s where it gets even riskier. Instead of pulling the car out of the race, one of Red Bull’s engineers, Sam Kjellberg, came up with an alternative solution overnight. And keep in mind, this is completely untested on track. He worked alone in the garage, all night, coming up with something that could either save the race... or go very wrong."
The chat starts to blow up with fans realizing the gravity of the situation.
F1 Expert: "Max’s life is essentially in Sam’s hands right now. He will be racing with untested technology—so when Max said in his interview that he’s just going to find out when he gets in the car, that level of trust is almost unheard of. Max isn’t just trusting Red Bull, he’s trusting Sam personally with his safety, his career, and his life."
Fans in the chat start spamming:
User 359: "OMG this is actually insane??"
User 360: "MAX IS SO CHILL ABOUT THIS WTF"
User 361: "Sam is literally a genius."
User 362: "So if this fails, Max is screwed?"
User 363: "Why is no one talking about how dangerous this is??"
---
F1 Expert: "That’s why Christian Horner is so nervous. You can tell he trusts Sam—if he didn’t, he wouldn’t let Max out on the track with something untested. But that doesn’t mean he’s not scared. He has every right to be."
The expert scrolls through the chat, reading comments from the fans.
F1 Expert: "And let’s not forget, Sam isn’t just finding the problem—he’s solving it. This wasn’t a team of engineers coming together to figure it out. This is one person, working solo, pulling off something extraordinary overnight. The fact that Red Bull is still confident enough to put Max in the race is a testament to how talented Sam is. It’s like a Hail Mary pass in football—if it works, it’s genius. If it doesn’t, well... it’s a huge risk."
The chat explodes even more:
User 364: "SAM WORKED ALONE ALL NIGHT TO FIX THIS??? WHAT"
User 365: "Max is out here trusting Sam with his LIFE"
User 366: "CHRISTIAN MUST BE LOSING HIS MIND"
User 367: "Now I get why Max said he’s just going to let Sam explain everything later. This is massive."
User 368: "The fact that Sam pulled this off is actually wild. How is he so calm about it?"
---
F1 Expert: "Right now, the entire paddock is watching Red Bull. There’s been a lot of talk, with everyone from other drivers to team principals weighing in. But at the end of the day, this situation shows two things: Max has full trust in Sam, and Sam being one of the most talented engineers on the grid to be able to handle this kind of pressure, and of course if it works."
Final comments from the fans:
User 369: "I wasn’t even nervous until now, and now I’m stressed."
User 370: "Sam is the real MVP. I’m gonna start calling him ‘the magic mechanic.’"
User 371: "Max is cool as ice, but I’m about to lose it watching this race."
User 372: "I need Sam’s confidence in my life. Man pulled an all-nighter and is out here fixing the car solo."
User 373: "Christian is such a dad about all this. He’s freaking out but also knows Sam’s got it."
---
This Q&A spreads quickly across social media, and fans start realizing how significant and dangerous the situation at Red Bull really is. Everyone starts paying attention to what could be one of the most tense and high-risk races of the season—all hinging on Sam’s ability to work magic on Max’s car overnight.
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creator-chaos · 3 months ago
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Mairuma ch.368 thoughts...
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Something I've noticed a lot is how the author plays with time. Despite this being a fairly linear story, we're still given these feelings of being embedded in the past and future by being shown characters at different points in their lives. Doing this with the antagonists too adds this depth of character so succinctly, without having to spend a lot of page time. I really love how this technique gets deployed throughout.
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Hmm, really not sure what we're meant to take from this. Everyone knows Delkira isn't here, so what does using his crest signify?
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"Are you my future brother-in-law?" lol
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Ok but this really got me. The imagery of life hanging on underground through violent oppression... Something I need to remember when things seem beyond hope. There's always life hanging on.
I wouldn't actually expect it from any media that isn't actually literally radical, but it's a shame Nishi isn't going to commit to a systemic ACAB and is basically going with a "bad apples" portrayal.
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385bookreviews · 3 months ago
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2.279 Compound Fracture by Andrew Joseph White
SPOILERS
Pages: 368
Time Read: 4 hours and 43 minutes
Overall Rating: 5★ Storyline: 5★ Dialogue: 5★ Characters: 5★
Genre: YA Thriller
TWs for the book: Violence, gun violence, gore, injury IN DETAIL, murder, blood, transphobia, outing, deadnaming, F slur, police brutality, death, fire/fire injury, animal death, animal cruelty, body horror, classism, hate crimes, medical content, addiction, drug withdrawal, child death, grief, vomit, car accident, death of a parent, bullying, homophobia, torture, physical abuse, cursing, toxic relationship, toxic friendships, alcohol, mental illness, ableism, panic attacks, dysphoria, child abuse, emotional abuse, gaslighting and manipulation, s*xual harassment, chronic illness, misogyny, body shaming, kidnapping, p*d*philia
POV: First Person
Time Period/Location: Twist Creek County, West Virginia in 2017.
First Line: When the sheriff of Twist Creek County--and all those other sons of bitches, the Baldwin-Felts agents and bloodthirsty strikebreakers--finally caught my great-great-grandfather and dragged his ass up from the mine to make a spectacle of his execution, they killed him by hammering a railroad spike through his mouth.
Transgender socialist Miles Abernathy lives in Twist Creek County, West Virginia. His great-great-grandfather, Saint Abernathy, led a strike against the coal mine companies and tortured the sheriff's son for leverage. When he was caught, the sheriff executed him by driving a railroad spike through his mouth. This started a blood feud between the Davies family and the Abernathy family. Having just completed his junior year of high school, Miles sneaks out to go to the graduating party in the woods. But he hates social events, and he isn't going to celebrate. He meets up with his childhood friend Cooper O'Brien. Miles stole pictures that his dad took the night of the accident that killed Mrs. O'Brien that incriminate Sheriff Davies as being the one that ran them off the road. Cooper takes them and agrees to show his dad to maybe finally bring the Sheriff to justice. While they are talking, Noah Davies, the sheriff's son, and his two friends Eddie and Paul come to interrogate them about what they're doing. They lie, and Miles starts to walk home through the woods. Noah, Eddie, and Paul catch up with him though, and take a video of them beating and torturing Miles almost to death. Cooper finds Miles and brings him to the hospital. When he wakes up in the hospital, he sees the ghost of a coal miner shaking him awake. He has extensive injuries and experienced massive internal bleeding that caused him to need surgery.
Before he had departed for the party, Miles had sent an email to both of his parents coming out as trans. He brings it up to his mom, but she doesn't take it very well and doesn't want to discuss it. Sheriff Davies comes in while Miles' mom is out of the room, and threatens Miles into staying quiet about Noah and his friends beating him up. Miles tells him that with his head injury, he doesn't remember what happened. Miles eventually goes home and begins his recovery, periodically still seeing the mute ghost of the coal miner. Cooper checks up on him and their friendship begins to return, Miles even coming out to him as trans. Miles does get stir crazy and refuses to let the attack haunt him, so he goes to pick up his check from the restaurant where he works as a dishwasher. His boss tells him that he has the whole summer off and gives him extra money, saying she has temporarily hired someone to take his place, but just for the summer. Miles walks out the back door, and contemplates going back in to return the extra money, when Eddie walks out the door and reveals himself to be Miles' replacement for the summer. They get in an altercation, Miles breaking Eddie's nose and trying to threaten him to delete the video of his attack. Eddie is afraid at first, but realizes he has the upper hand with his connection to Noah and Sheriff Davies. This angers Miles further, and he tries to reach for Eddie to hit him, but Eddie backs away, slips on the gravel, and hits his head, which kills him instantly. Miles is mortified, but knows what Sheriff Davies will do to him and his family if the accident is discovered, so he drags Eddie's bodies behind the dumpsters and calls Cooper. Cooper comes immediately and helps Miles clean up the scene and they take the body. They dump Eddie's body down the old mineshaft where no one will ever go looking because of the structural instability. They then go back to Cooper's house where Miles takes a shower and Cooper helps him shave his head so his hair is more even after the head wound stitches. Cooper and Miles share a somewhat tender moment, and when Cooper leans in to kiss him, he reciprocates, logically deducing he must have a crush on Cooper because that's what he's supposed to do. After they kiss, Cooper says, "We've already killed one of them. What's a few more?" Miles is disgusted and angered by this notion and they fight before Miles leaves and goes home.
Soon after, Miles realizes that he has become reliant upon the opioids he was prescribed in the hospital, just like Mr. O'Brien is and like his father used to be. He quits cold turkey and spends time going through withdrawals. During which he finally is able to go out and see the ghost without him disappearing. After looking through old pictures he realizes that the ghost is Saint Abernathy, and he can't speak because of the railroad spike down his throat. Saint reveals to Miles that he was also trans, and leads him and his dog Lady to the burned down movie theatre where he was executed, and hands Miles a railroad spike. Miles then takes this as a sign to fight for his family and get his revenge, and texts Cooper that he's willing to move forward with the murders. He goes home, but his dad is awake. His dad begins to make an effort to use his new name and pronouns, and Miles is forced to confess his opioid withdrawal. The next morning, his mother is enraged that Miles didn't say anything about the drugs, and demands he has to start going to therapy. Miles refuses, and they argue until Sheriff Davies shows up to inquire about Eddie. They tell him they know nothing, and then Sheriff Davies asks where Miles is going to go to therapy once he sees the brochures. Miles chooses one at random, and once the sheriff leaves, his mom tells him that he is going.
The next day, his mom drops him off at a church for group therapy. He leaves halfway through out of anxiety and goes into the alley next door. A person comes out of the door to a restaurant, and Miles doesn't recognize them, but the person, Dallas, does. Dallas is their old friend from before the accident. When Mr. and Mrs. O'Brien, Miles' father, and Dallas were run off the road by Sheriff Davies, Dallas sustained a lot of burns and injuries, and Dallas' parents blamed Miles' father and family. They moved away and had no contact, but Dallas is back, living with their brother and his wife Amber, who is autistic. Dallas' brother and Amber have their own restaurant/bar that is entirely socialist and run by the workers, right under Sheriff Davies nose. Miles is glad to see his friend again, and also talk to another trans person, but is scared to be seen in the bar. Dallas says that on the Fourth of July, the biggest holiday in town, they would be throwing a "Fuck the Fourth" party to counteract it and call out Sheriff Davies. Miles rejects the invitation, but him and Dallas swap phone numbers, and he gives them Cooper's number.
Miles and Cooper meet up to plan the murders, deciding to use Miles' father's gun to shoot Paul on the Fourth of July when his parents are out of town. While they are talking in Cooper's convenience store, Paul and Noah turn up to harass them, further settling their decision. Miles spends the night with Cooper and they get drunk and make out. Miles then decides to also make a difference in another way, and goes back to the bar to speak with Amber. Amber tells him they are going to be handing out pamphlets with evidence of Sheriff Davies' and the police departments' corruption. Miles gives them copies of the pictures he gave to Cooper.
The night before the Fourth of July party that the Davies plan and throw every year, Cooper and Miles took the gun and drove up to Paul's house. The plan is for Cooper to shoot him, and then they would clean up and dump his body in the mineshaft like they did with Eddie. They arrive, and find Paul in his father's processing plant in the garage, skinning a dear. He says he knew that they had killed Eddie the whole time but that Noah didn't believe him, and he tells them to get it over with. Cooper chickens out and lowers the gun. Miles and Paul talk, and Paul talks about how he really doesn't have it any better than the Abernathy's. Sheriff Davies bought out his parents' land and makes them pay rent to him, and takes most of their wages, and Noah had threatened to kill Paul because Paul said he wanted to leave town. Miles feels for Paul, and agrees to spare his life and just make it look like they killed him if Paul leaves town that night. Paul agrees, looking relieved, and asks to grab some stuff, when Cooper regains his nerve and shoots Paul in the jaw, removing the entire lower half of his face. Miles is appalled, and Cooper insists that they leave Paul to bleed out on the floor. They run, but on the drive back Miles makes Cooper pull over so he can throw up. They fight about Cooper shooting Paul like that, and Miles trying to let Paul leave. Cooper becomes more and more deranged, shaking Miles and deadnaming him. Miles tells him to leave him there as he was going to have Dallas pick him up. Cooper leaves and Dallas and Amber race to come pick him up, not knowing what's wrong. Miles goes nonverbal and begins having a meltdown. When he gets to their house, he wants to shower but dreads the prospect of the sensory experience. Amber gives him some things to help and tells him he might be autistic like her. He spends the night in Dallas' bed with them, but Cooper keeps blowing up his phone, demanding to speak with him and leave Dallas' house so he can come get him, worried that Miles will snitch.
In the morning, Amber and Dallas take Miles home, and he returns the gun to the safe. Later in the day his family comes to the house to prepare to go to the Fourth of July party together. Cooper comes in, saying he is Miles' boyfriend, and quietly threatens Miles to keep his mouth shut. They walk to the party, where Dallas and Amber are handing out pamphlets with evidence of Sheriff Davies' crimes and advertising the Fuck the Fourth gathering. Cooper sees the pictures on the pamphlet and is enraged, and Miles' dog Lady has to come between them. He leaves, and Noah and Sheriff Davies get up on stage and announce Paul's death. Then they announce that they'll be giving out a citizen award to Miles, since he bravely recovered from a hate crime and for being a pillar to the transgender community. This outs Miles to the entire town and also to his grandparents, aunt, and uncle. They all quickly leave the party after telling Dallas to go home now. Once they arrive back home, their aunt and uncle are enraged and leave. Miles' grandparents, however, accept him and are enraged on his behalf. They discuss what they should do, and they decide that it's time to fight back, and go to the Fuck the Fourth gathering. They do the next day, and while his mother and father discuss what to do with Amber and her husband, Dallas and Miles enjoy the punk band performing, talk about trans issues and about Miles potentially being autistic and aromantic, and marvel at the fact that so many of the towns people showed up. A girl who's father was imprisoned by Sheriff Davies and a mother who's son was killed by him share their stories, and Miles decides to be brave and stand up on stage, showing off his still disfigured face and head and tells everyone finally that Noah Davies and his friends did this to him and that the sheriff threatened him and his family in order to cover it up. At that exact moment, Sheriff Davies walks in and starts demanding that people leave. Amber refuses and demands he leave, and Miles' mother and father start ushering him and Dallas towards the back door. Finally, Amber throws water in his face, and he pulls out his gun and shoots her. The crowd turns into a riot, and Miles' mother shoves him and Dallas into the kitchen and locks the door. They contemplate what happened to Amber and how to get back in, but then Noah enters, covered in blood, and lights a Molotov cocktail, setting the place ablaze. Miles and Dallas run outside, where people have finally started to come out, including his mother and father, Amber's husband, and Amber, who was shot in the shoulder. They drive back to their house separately. When Dallas, Miles, and his father arrive back at their house, they find Cooper's body, cracked open and gutted on their porch. The rest of them arrive, they call Miles' grandparents, and Mr. O'Brien to see the body of his son. Miles' mom takes care of Amber's shoulder, and Miles fesses up to him and Cooper killing Eddie and Paul. No one is really surprised, as the Davies and Abernathy's had been killing each other for years. They decide that enough is enough, and when Noah texts Miles to end this permanently by meeting him alone, they decide for them to meet in the abandoned mineshaft. They plan for Miles to trap Noah, and then use him as a negotiation tool to convince Sheriff Davies to leave town.
Miles goes down into the mineshaft with the gun. Noah meets him there and taunts him, saying that they'll leave his family alone forever if he agrees to go with him and his dad. He also tells Miles about how he tortured Cooper, gutted him like a deer while he was still alive, and Cooper confessed everything. Miles lets off a warning shot, and Noah attacks him. They fight, and Noah gets the gun, but Miles pulls a knife out and kills him with a stab to the neck. He leaves the mineshaft and tries desperately to call his family, but is then shot in the head by Sheriff Davies, taking out his eye. The Sheriff kidnaps him, and takes him to the abandoned movie theatre to hammer a railroad spike into his mouth, just like his ancestor did to Saint. Saint manifests in front of Sheriff Davies to distract him, just as Miles' family shows up, and Lady attacks the sheriff, ripping chunks out of him. By the time they recall Lady, the sheriff is dying, so Miles' grandpa shoots him in the head. The rest of the town witnesses it, but they all grab shovels and tarps to help them bury the body and hide the evidence.
Time skips forwards a bit to the town holding a meeting to decide what to do to ensure the corruption of the town ends. Miles is missing an eye now, and him and Dallas are in a queer platonic relationship. A state trooper shows up, but everyone at the meeting clams up and refuses to give any answers about Sheriff Davies.
Miles Abernathy (Sadie Abernathy): I love Andrew Joseph White's protagonists because they always feel so real. I, of course, connected with Miles due to his autism, but also due to his humanness in general. He's no where near perfect, making mistakes and even plotting murder, but he's also just a kid, doing his best in a near impossible situation. I also appreciate him showing different presentations of autism with his characters, between Nick in Hell Followed With Us, Silas and the gardener in The Spirit Bares Its Teeth, and Miles and Amber in Compound Fracture, you get different perspectives of people that live with the same thing, and for me as an autistic person, I am able to see different aspects of myself represented in each character. This also applies with Benji from Hell Followed With Us, Silas and Daphne from The Spirit Bares Its Teeth, and Miles and Dallas from Compound Fracture in how they all view their trans-ness differently and have different journeys with it.
Cooper O'Brien: I really wasn't expecting at first for Cooper's character to become so twisted, but you watched him spiral into a sort of madness in real time with Miles. He became wildly unpredictable, and anticipating his actions was a source of anxiety while reading (in a good, thriller kind of way). You almost became just as scared of Cooper as you did of Noah and the sheriff by the end.
Storyline: I finished this book in one sitting, staying up WAY past my bedtime because I just needed to know what happened. The plot kept you on your toes the entire time, even in the calm moments, because you had no clue when some kind of chaos or calamity was about to descend. The plot twists were genuinely brutal, especially with the vivid descriptions of the gore these teenagers were inflicting upon each other. The sheriff was written to be especially enraging and evil, a well done villain. You feel the characters' rage alongside them as the story progresses.
Representation: Miles is autistic, aromantic, and transgender (FtM), and ends up in a queer platonic relationship with Dallas at the end. He is also left disfigured in the face and head after the attack, and later on completely blinded in one eye when he is shot by the sheriff. Dallas is a burn survivor, and is disfigured because of it. They also are plus sized, have ADHD, and are queer and nonbinary. It is undetermined if Cooper is queer, or if he just sees Miles as a girl despite him coming out. Amber has autism. Miles' boss is described as visibly queer, but nothing is specified or confirmed. Miles' great-great-grandfather Saint Abernathy is trans and gay. Miles describes there being several queer people at his school, including a he/they lesbian, a queer girl, and a gay boy. One of the musicians in the punk band is a trans woman. Miles, his father, and Mr. O'Brien all struggle with opioid addiction.
Summary: Once again, Andrew Joseph White has written a masterpiece. His books have the incredible ability to suck you right into the story, making you feel like you're there and experiencing these events with the characters, and, for fellow trans and autistic people, at times it can even feel like you're the protagonist yourself. No characters are overlooked, and it feels like everyone in the story grows and develops, not just the protagonist.
Quotes: "...parents seem obsessed with performing their grief about a child's transition."-Miles Abernathy (p.66) "We've already killed one of them. What's a few more?"-Cooper O'Brien (p.102) "It's like everyone knows there's something off about me, and they don't like it, and they don't quite know what to do about it."-Miles Abernathy (p.149) "I wish Cooper had gotten to know the version of me that's going to exist one day."-Miles Abernathy (p.333)
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