#realizing with the last few games i’ve played just how much unreliable narration in games is absolutely delightful

[planet4546b]

genuienly had enough of games with blank slate protags the point of a video game is controlling a character who is 4 seconds away from a suicidal breakdown at any second and the only thing standing between them and said breakdown is you the player . and also they should lie to you

[masterhandss]

Personally I don't see what you see in Geordo. He seems like such a scumbag to me and is the least likable charater in the whole series. He is always trying to get her alone to push her into things of a sexual/ more romantic nature without taking how she really feels into consideration. Like he "really wants her" and thats enough for him without caring what she really wants. Honestly he is the borderline non-con villian in my mind.

I mean, it's okay if you feel like that. To each their own.

Hmmm when I think about Geordo being sexually aggressive towards Katarina, I only really just think of the anime. The manga is a much more moe-fied and toned down version of the novels, and the novels does an okay job at balancing his desires for Katarina in all aspects. I'm not saying he doesn't have that trait in the other two mediums, I just think that they aren't as intense as the anime, so as someone who consumes all three versions I just tilt my head and go "huh." Of course I'm sure there are people who read the manga and novels that still feel uncomfortable about his behavior and that's valid too.

-> light novel spoilers ahead <-

tldr, there is a lot more going on to him than just someone who offers sweet words and questionable invitations to Katarina's ears, this may not be noticeable or acceptable to some people but we get to know more about how he thinks whenever the novels puts us in his point of view. You're free to dislike him as much as you want, but I like him & don't see him as a scumbag; and here's why:

I at least find it okay that Geordo is very serious about his pursuits for her because he is aware that she is dense and will not get it until you spell it in the sky. Everyone is just walking eggshells around Katarina hoping that the girl would just develop feelings for one of them to win the harem olympics. He knows that being dealt with a good card isn't enough, so he's actively taking action in order to win her heart. I mean I don't always agree with his methods either, like the "fait accompli" line or constantly inviting her to his room alone, but really, how much of that is something he really means to do vs how much of that is his excessive flirting + our minds assuming that he really means to claim her in that way?

Lines like that are really popular with japanese fans because it makes Geordo look "sexy" and "forward", which they enjoy in their fictional stories. He knows that his position gives him an advantage so he'll try to play his cards right and use it to increase his chances in victory.

It actually reminds me of a scene from the Hamefura StoryMe game, (don't really know how canon it is but I remember the JP ver. was advertised by @/hamhura) where Geordo indirectly asked Katarina how to woo a girl he really likes, and Katarina thinking he was referring to Maria, gives all the things he usually does in order to win her heart (visit her home, give her gift, dance with her in parties, be really forward about your feelings etc). I'm not saying Katarina approves of the ways Geordo attempts to win her heart, but there's some hilarity in knowing that Geordo already had and is constantly trying all the known ways to win over a girl in the world from a young age, and still has nothing to show for it. Like no awareness, much less any *feelings* lmao. So trying to make it obvious that he is interested in her romantically and sexually seems like the next logical step to him. I mean if you go by Geordo's logic and considering the time period this takes place in, he's pretty confident that he can get Katarina to love him back and they are engaged anyways so in his head he's in safe waters to attempt to make teases about such advancements if it gives him the smallest chance that Katarina would become at least aware of him through it.

Of course I know that stuff like that won't fly here in the real world, but maybe that's why I'm so lenient personally when it comes to his (debatably) sexual teases and advances, because it's a fictional story for a japanese audience. Doesn't mean I would approve any advances like that if it happens to me, it's just that it's hard to take his actions seriously when Katarina or the story doesn't take them seriously. Like, the girl would be pushed down to a bed by RufuSora and gives her a hickey and she still thinks the man is out for her blood.

He wouldn't even be entirely wrong, knowing the identities of the characters who Katarina knows has romantic interest in her in the novels, actions does speak louder than words when it comes to her. Like I said, whether or not Geordo really means what he says when the story teases the readers with sexual implications in his words and action depends on the reader in my opinion. They are there, I wont pretend they don't but I'd argue about the level of intent depending on what scene you're talking about.

The only scenes on the top of my head where he is very abrasive towards Katarina is the "fait accompli" scene, the Book scene form the anime (S1 EP8), saying he wants to lock her in his room (LN6) and the multiple times Geordo had invited her in his room at night alone (LN6 and LN8, i think).

I've already explained why I am okay with both Keith and Geordo's Book scenes from episode 8 of the first season because they are accurate representations of an exaggerated and unhinged versions of their desires towards Katarina so I won't bore you with those details again.

He mentioned in Volume 6 that he wants to lock Katarina in his room forever and keep her light to himself, which alarmed a few people when the book came out, but he said that in a moment where he feels super grateful and loving towards her because she knew how tired he was despite his fake face and without even saying anything. It was a moment where he felt so infatuated towards her that he wished the moment where he gets to rest in her arms would last forever, thus he made such a comment. I make it sound more dramatic than it was in Volume 6, it was just a quick comment honestly lmao.

For people who don't read the novels, that last part looks very sus and raises a few red flags I know, but to be fair we can't definitively say what his intentions are because Katarina never commits to those visits. Katarina has actually become wary of those invitations, because Keith and Mary have warned her that Geordo's intentions are sexual, but I'm not really trusting the word of the two people who are most distrustful and antagonistic to Geordo. They could be right, of course, but who can really say? We assume that they are correct because they care about Katarina and are wary of Geordo, but hamefura('s novels) is full of unreliable narrators anyways, it's not like Keith or Mary would consider the possibility of it being anything else because when it comes to the third prince they always fear the worst case scenario.

If you think about it, Geordo is probably aware that winning her over with a "fait accompli" won't work at all because it'll put him in a position that will make other people push him for the throne (which he doesn't want) or could ruin his reputation in high society if Katarina or her family react to it negatively. I'm not Geordo though, so I can't really say if he even have such fears and doubts in the first place, that's just my assessment based on the obstacles he has. On the outside he is really sure of himself and confident (which he arguably deserves) and on the inside he is very careful and insecure when it comes to Katarina.

Also like, spoilers but for someone who is very forward when it comes to his physical advances, Geordo is super weak when he is in the receiving end of those touches. He gets super embarrassed and easily flustered when its Katarina who is touching him, as if implying that to some extent that he's all just talk lmao.

I don't really agree that Geordo doesn't care about what Katarina feels at all, in fact his inner dilemma in the novels is that he doesn't know what to do because in every step he takes he might do something that could ruin his image in Katarina's eyes, be it pursuing or abandoning the throne or looking like a monster in front of her. He even halts his plans to make advances towards her during the Keith Kidnapping Arc, but threw it away because he knows how much finding Keith means to Katarina. He puts what Katarina want and doesn't want as his priority, so when what she feels is unclear that's when he acts on his own intuition. The only reason Geordo feels so confident to advance towards her sexually is because Katarina never rejected him before (because she doesn't know what they mean, and all of this is for the sake of simply making her aware in the first place)

I'm not trying to make anyone think that one has to read all the books in order to understand him, I think the manga does okay at conveying his feelings too. The anime really prioritizes on making him look "sexy" for the japanese female audience, so anything he does is sprinkled with spice whether we like it or not.

I'm sorry if it seems like I'm overanalyzing all his actions just to justify them, everyone has the right to be uncomfortable with his advances if it seems too much for you. It's just that his actions, while over the top and unnecessary, are done to please the type of audience that hamefura caters to, and it's hard to take him completely seriously when the story doesn't either in my opinion. Doesn't mean he's right or that any of it is okay, but it's his method of trying to put a dent on Katarina's bakashield. When you're in a race versus your friends who Katarina all loves equally, he's gonna use whatever card he can get in order to win.

I like Geordo; I like how much of his feelings for Katarina forces him to reexamine himself and realize that he isn't a perfect prince at all, that he has lots of problems and flaws that he needs to work out in order to be someone worthy of her. I like the way he falls more and more in love with her in every interaction they have because he finally gets to have a genuinely and caring interaction with someone. I like how Geordo wants to do better and be better for Katarina and the people around him, and he wants to be able to thank Katarina directly for that through being able to show his love. I like that despite how much of a chad he acts in front of her, he's a blushing mess at the thought of Katarina returning his feelings. I find it funny when his "sexual advances" fails and gets thwarted because he's trying them on the densest person and most protected lady to ever live. I like how Geordo is so head-over-heals in love with her and how much comfort and warmth she brings to him by simply being her caring and bubbly self.

I guess it's just a matter of different perspectives. If you find him unlikeable or a villain, then you do you. I try to explain why I personally excuse his actions, but I know it wont fly with everyone. We all see each character differently and absorb the material in different ways. In fact it's probably a bad idea for me to defend him with material that isn't the anime nor manga yet lmao. I mean I'm not that much of a fan of Mary anymore, and I'm kinda scared and wary of her, but I know people don't see her the way I do and I'm okay with that.

Maybe its just me, who is the kind of person who just goes with the flow and doesn't think too hard because it's all fiction anyways

It's hard to tell all this from simply watching the anime, so I laid all my feelings down in hopes that someone out there would understand why I like him so much.

Thank you for the ask, you can ask more questions or call me out if I said anything insensitive or wrong, I know a lot of this is me overanalyzing things which might look like I'm jus stretching. As someone who is aware of the things to come in Hamefura X, I can say that I am both excited and nervous as to how everyone will react for the direction of Geordo's character.

[yellowocaballero]

Oh, wow, your last post about Tim!!! Anyway, not necessarily on a related note, ⭐?

I’m gonna pull a really obscure move on you all and use a line from something I just wrote a few days ago. It’s a side story of The Crow’s Funeral (which is really the peak of ‘this is for me but yall can read it if you want’) posted on Tumblr right here. 

Agnes sat down on her knees, rubbing her forehead, and Gerry cautiously sat down next to her. “He’s the monster who sold the world. The most dangerous man ever made.”

“The most dangerous man in the world gets bossed around by his dog?” Gerry asked, before the words sunk in. “Wait, I thought that was Jonah Magnus!”

“Jonah Magnus doesn’t kill people because they annoy him!” Agnes snapped, before she groaned into her hands again. “And I set him on fire…Diego is going to kill me!”

I’ve recently started getting really interested in using alternative POVs to help increase understanding of the POV character. I’ve started doing it recently and it’s severely really helped for character motivations and arcs. This story is long since done, but it sometimes personally satisfies me to flesh stuff out. And, like, y’all can read it if you want lol! But this short story is very illuminating of something that you kind of already got in TCF, that Jon is (like Melanie) a very unreliable narrator. Breaking down what this story establishes:

1) That the reason why Gerry integrated so successfully into the apocalypse is because Gerry’s entire world has always been the apocalypse, and that he doesn’t see too much of a difference between the old world and new. (I keep on writing Gerry POVs and then NEVER FINISHING THEM -)

2) That Agnes’ relationship with Gerry was born out of a kind of fascination and curiosity on her part (a human who’s not scared of me?!) but it quickly veers into the category of two very lonely kids finally finding someone else who cares about them. They’re cute as fuck. 

3) That Jon, no matter how much of a lowkey dick he is in TCF, used to be a lot worse before he met Gerry. Daisy is clearly the only link to morality he has, which is terrible, because it’s fucking Daisy. As he grows up and gets older, and he grows closer to Gerry, he’s internalized her half-hearted lessons and he grows more fascinated by humans than completely ambivalent. But at this point, Jon has never been forced to think critically or hold empathy for anyone. A point I was making in TCF is that Jon in canon is kind and moral because he knows suffering and pain, and he is determined not to cause suffering to anyone else because he knows how it feels. Jon, without that...

4) Jon, in TCF, is loosely aware that everyone’s scared of him. He doesn’t care about it except when he can leverage it to get something he wants. Basically, he’s too powerful to have to play dominance or power games. He’s not very interested into how or why people are scared of him, and he gets annoyed when they act in self-preservation against him (crushed like a grape). It’s only through Agnes’ POV that we see the real way that others see Jon, even people like Agnes who are basically the 1%ers of monsters: that he’s completely fucking terrifying. 

Everybody knows that Jon ended the world. Everyone knows that Jon has complete control over all of it. Most importantly, everyone knows that Jon really (mostly) isn’t malicious or mean or cruel. He has no agenda or anything he wants. He’s just hanging out, having a good time, pretending he isn’t a demigod. He’s hardly Jonah Magnus. The most he does is sometimes throw tantrums when he doesn’t get his way (because he almost always gets his way, because he’s a demigod who everyone’s afraid of). But as Agnes states in this story, the fact that he’s more terrifying than Jonah Magnus is because he is completely fucking unpredictable. He does not care about anybody. He is perfectly nice, perfectly unassuming and casual, until you do something - and it’s hard to tell what - that sets him off, at which point he kills you. Agnes is terrified because there’s no rules for Jon - setting him on fire mildly pisses him off, but then his dog yells at him and then he apologizes for trying to eat someone. Then he says that next time you do that he’ll kill you, or maybe everyone you love instead. He makes no sense to anyone. Of course, Jon makes more sense if you realize that he’s highly defensive of both his own comfort and the safety and lives of his loved ones, but that probably isn’t evident. 

As Annabelle states in the story, Jon really is a toddler with a gun, who can be mostly managed if you know him well enough. Jon is someone who the other Avatars push around a bit because they know he won’t really push back. Helen teases him a lot, everybody plays pretty dumb, and you’ll see here that Jon will kind of laugh off a sixteen year old setting him on fire. He’ll laugh it off, then then obliquely make clear that if she ever does it again he’ll crush her and probably her entire cult too. Jon’s not purposefully cruel (because he’s still Jon), but he reacts to perceived slights with extreme prejudice. Emphasis on perceived. 

Writing TCF for me was just a major exercise in thinking about: “wow, what would S5!Jon look like without any morality or ethics whatsoever!”. And even if he’s still Jon and thus inherently good-intentioned and kind, if you place anyone who is both very immature and who’s never known any different in position of extreme power, he’s going to end up the least empathetic person alive. If I ever write an AU of this AU where he doesn’t even have Daisy...that’s what I like to call a supervillain, folks. 

Thanks for the q! 

[subtlereferencetomyinterests]

Communication Issues (AT:TTSIMBCMEOAYSFIL)- Chapter Two

Ao3,   MasterPost,   Chapter One, Chapter Three

Relationships: (eventual) Romantic Analogince

I’m finally back from my impromptu hiatus!!! My laptop, like, just fuckin broke... but now I’ve got a new one so it’s okay!!! And the first thing I did with it was make these little characters Hurt.

Warnings: Repressing Emotions (k i n d a), food mention, self-isolation/avoiding one’s friends, general angst, cursing, unreliable narrator (maybe??? by that I mean Logan is stupid and has no idea what’s actually going on.) 

Word Count: 5,244

To the best of your knowledge, the three of you are close. To see the facts: you, Roman, and Virgil spend the majority of your time together, partaking in a number of activities that all of you find fun. Comparing your time with them to how much you see, say, a friend like Janus- it becomes apparent that the three of you ought to be considered ‘best friends’. 

However, you had preferred to be 100% certain of this, as you like to be with all things. It was a few weeks after Roman’s New Idea when you finally gave in to this preference (more of a need, really). You asked outright the nature of your dynamic with them.

Roman laughed at you. The abashment you felt was, unfortunately, a very familiar thing.

‘Is the idea of us being best friends really so humorous?’ you challenged, masking the sting you felt with indignation. Virgil had elbowed Roman sharply, explaining to him that you were seriously asking. His laughter stopped at once. ‘Of course we are,’ he’d said. ‘I thought you were kidding, because it seemed so obvious,’ he’d continued. 

All you could manage was a small ‘Oh’. 

So, yes, you’ve determined that your bond is more meaningful than on average. That hardly irks you; it’s a positive thing, in fact. It’s been good for you to have some kind of affection, even if the thought still makes you want to roll your eyes. It’s what’s just beyond that affection that’s causing an itching beneath your skin when the three of you ‘hang out’, as you so often do. That itching, those crawling little mites figuratively burrowed under your skin- it’s all been prevalent in your interactions over the past weeks.

Go over the facts, then, Logan. 

Fact one: You aren’t used to intimate friendships.

Fact two: You have established an intimate friendship with Roman and Virgil

Fact(?) three: Roman and Virgil’s intimacy with each other is quickly turning away from ‘friendship’.

This brings you to the evidence, which gets a little fuzzier; some conclusions might have been jumped to, but you find that irrelevant.

Evidence (?): They share these Looks. A Look when Roman says something abhorrently stupid, but when Virgil jumps to insult him he sounds nothing but adoring. A Look when Virgil comes up with a particularly creative biting remark, and while Roman is just as quick to fire back with a playful tease of his own, there’s that obvious elated expression of pride that he holds just for the anxious trait. 

That on it’s own wouldn’t amount to much, you’ll admit, but you’ve always been a careful observer of body language (out of necessity, given how words fail you when there’s subtext to be found). Their hands brush frequently, to the point where it cannot possibly be incidental. They not-so-subtly lean into each other when they probably think you aren’t looking- though perhaps you shouldn’t be looking anyway. While you are well-accustomed to platonic physical affection in not only your relationships with the two of them, but with all of your ‘coworkers’ (the bulk of it coming from Patton and Remus, predictably), Virgil and Roman’s physical affection exudes such romantic tension that you’re surprised Roman himself isn’t going haywire, because of the overload of feelings that fall into his area of expertise.

Your third piece of evidence comes from just last night. You’d returned from the kitchen, arms loaded with snacks for you all to share, only to find Roman threading his fingers through Virgil’s hair while the embodiment of anxiety carefully sketched on a folded sheet of paper. Virgil’s eyes had flicked up briefly, widening when he saw you as though you hadn’t only left the room for seven minutes and twenty-three seconds.

“Oh, hey,” he greeted with a tiny wave. Something odd and envious and just a bit bitter simmered in your chest, but you denied it whatever it seemed to be hissing for. You gave your friend a nod, setting down the food you’d brought onto the coffee table and seating yourself a good few feet from him and Roman on the couch. 

“V and I got bored waiting,” Roman explained, “So we’re doing a little art collaboration. The rule is that we aren’t allowed to see what the other one draws until it’s done!” He seemed enthusiastic about the game, and Virgil was clearly invested in his work. You saw no reason to interrupt them, quietly deeming your original plan to watch blue planet together defunct. But you could still contribute to this new activity! You knew plenty of art history, thankfully.

“There’s actually a name for that- it’s called Exquisite Corpse. The term was coined by surrealist artists in 1925.”

Roman waved his hand, almost dismissive, and your heart- figuratively- sank. 

“Yeah, yeah, in Paris, I already know. Yves Tanguy, Marcel Duchamp, et cetera et cetera. Art’s my whole thing, remember? Do you wanna play or not?”

“Oh, I- I don’t care for drawing,” you have never understood and will likely never understand most forms of visual art. 

Roman shrugged, but before he could respond Virgil was folding up the piece of paper and handing it to him, blank side up. The vigilant trait pushed his bangs back and shook out his shaggy hair, which stuck up at odd angles due to Roman’s tangling.

“Whatever you want, L. You can put on that documentary you were talking about now,” Virgil said, reaching for the food piled up on the table. Your first instinct had been to agree, of course, and get back to the original plan for the day. As you took the remote, however, you couldn’t help but notice just how close they sat, plenty apart from you. It felt like a fitting analogy- and you’ve always had distaste for analogies.

“That’s alright,” a lie, “I’m feeling rather restless now- I think it would be best if I got some work done with this energy,” a half-truth. 

You’d left before they could respond, trying to ignore the envy seething under your skin. It didn’t even make sense- you hated having your hair touched! While the history was interesting, Surrealist art did nothing but frustrate you! You don’t like drawing games, or people’s hands on your face, for goodness’ sake. 

Presently, you stare up at your ceiling and reflect on your friendship, feeling it all start to click. You do not want it to click. You push your glasses up on your forehead and press the heels of your hands against your eyelids, soaking in the ache that results from the pressure. You’re so fucking sick of thinking, thinking, thinking- but the other option is leaving your room- which you’ll have to do very soon anyway- and interacting with other people.

It’s easier to handle with everyone else around to distract you, rather than just Virgil and Roman. Easier, but not easy. You groan, pushing yourself into a sitting position and letting your glasses fall back into place. You cannot just stew here forever, much as you’d like to.

Yet- It doesn’t make sense. You don’t want to see Virgil and Roman, sitting as close as they do now, dancing around each other so frustratingly. But you want to be around them so much that you feel you can’t help it, desperate to be caught between them like usual. But, no, you don’t!

You wish they could figure themselves out and actually get together, to save everyone the headache- but is that even really what you want? For them to officially be romantically involved, thereby distancing themselves from you even further? And then you’ll truly be the ‘third wheel’, as it were? 

What do you want, you ask yourself repeatedly.

  For things to go back to normal, you answer yourself. 

You shake your head, no, because what does that even mean? Do you want them to not have feelings for each other, just so they’ll pay more attention to you? Now that doesn’t add up at all, because first and foremost you want them to be happy. Happy, and also spending time with you as much as each other. Yes, that’s closer to the point, you think. You want that closeness to be equal between the three of you, that makes perfect sense. So, logically, it follows that what you want is-

What you want is… 

God, no, God, your eyes widen and your fists clench and, fuck, you almost shake as you try to hold back the encroaching realization.

You want-

There’s a knock at the door. 

You breathe shakily, your hands tensing and untensing. There’s a knock at the door. The door of your room, because you are in your room, sitting on your bed. You’re here, and now, and you can breathe.

Dazedly, you stand, moving as though you’re wading through honey. You swallow back whatever feelings had been building in you only for the moment. You aren't willing to actually harm yourself by repressing them, merely holding them at the reigns in order to actually function enough to talk to whoever’s come knocking.

You click the door open, pulling it back to see a worried Patton. You are immeasurably relieved that it is him specifically.

“Heya, Kiddo. It’s been a while since any of us saw you today. I was just coming by to let you know we’re about to start picking a movie for tonight. Do ya feel up to joining us?”

That’s something you appreciate about Patton: he keeps in tune with others’ emotions with almost supernatural accuracy. Remarkably high-empathy being a power granted to him by his aspect, he knew when things were off, and he knew when someone did or did not want to talk about it. He didn’t barge up to your room and throw the door open with the enthusiasm he might usually express if he saw how you were uneasy, knowing that such an action could be overwhelming. Rather, he was checking in, quietly offering you an out if you needed it. 

But you’re about to directly contradict yourself about that appreciation! Because this means that you have to decide what you do; because you maybe kind of want to be forced to see your friends, rather than forcing yourself to avoid them. You aren’t exactly sure you have the strength to be around them on your own, but you can’t imagine a fate worse than isolation in the wake of this emotional discovery that you totally aren’t focusing on right now dammit answer Patton.

“Yes, I must have been a tad preoccupied today. I’ll be down in a moment,” the answer’s out before you think about it. You regret it, and also you don’t. 

Patton grins warmly at you, obviously relieved, and promises to wait for you to head down before they start. He disappears back through the hall and down the staircase in an instant, humming tunelessly as he walks.

It’s only after arriving downstairs that you become entirely sure that you’ve made the wrong choice. Roman is practically in Virgil’s lap, his head tilted into the facet’s neck while they playfully bicker with each other. When he spots you, his head shoots up, and he waves you over. In an amazing example of self-control, you sit one cushion away from the pair.

Throughout the night, you keep your eyes trained to the screen, trying to ignore however sappy Roman and Virgil get. You need space to think about this issue and find a way to solve it, and they need more space from their little tricycle anyway. 

The movies pass in a blur. You think Virgil tries to say something to you before you go upstairs, but you don’t catch it. Your ears are ringing.

<<<???>>><<<???>>><<<???>>>

It’s predictable as hell, considering his semi-self-isolation before The Incident, that Roman is desperate for attention. He’s, in the simplest terms, clingy as fucking fuck. Something that’s mildly less expected than that is just how little you mind it. If you’re honest, with all the hugs and brushes and small comforts, it kinda rocks. Which might be an odd way to describe emotionally and physically intimate friendship, but hey. Shut up. 

You and Roman’ve become a little attached at the hip because of this- though you hold tightly onto the excuse that it’s just cuz you want Roman to get the attention he needs, and totally not because you actually like the affection, too. You know the truth, though. The truth that it all… fulfills something in you, something that’s been craving attention that you didn’t even know about. It’s weird. Not bad, just weird.

You digress; the point is that you and Roman have a Thing With Touching, and that’s not exactly a shocker. Something you’re only recently coming to notice, however, is that this preference is one shared by your other closest friend, Logan. You could’ve sworn he’d be touch averse, and while he definitely has very specific boundaries (he wouldn’t tolerate touches to his hair, neck, or most parts of his legs), he’s exactly the opposite of averse, he’s just way too stubborn to initiate anything or admit it.

Who knew that only knowing a grand total of six other beings for your entire life- most of said beings disliking each other for a good portion of that life- would leave everyone involved more than a little touch-starved? 

Oh well. No time like the present to fix that, you figure. This is all just your long-winded way of saying that whenever you’re in the room with Logic or Creativity, you’re 99% guaranteed to have at least one point of contact with them. 

Which totally wouldn’t be a problem, if you weren’t falling irrevocably in love with both of them. But, unfortunately, you totally are. 

When everything started, it was just Logan. He was too considerate and too goddamn caring not to make you feel things, the bastard. He understands you, almost perfectly, all the time- even though people understanding you completely goes against your aesthetic- and you feel like you get him all the same. In a way, your love for him makes sense. It always has, really, all the way back when he gave you that first glimpse of friendship. It’s always been Logan.

And that all would be horrible enough on its own, but then Roman blind-sided you with his teary eyes and deeply-rooted insecurity. Neither of these are technically ‘attractive’ traits, but dammit if you didn’t find yourself sympathizing to a painful extent. You not only comprehended his (gradually lessening) pain, you’re also surprised to note just how badly you want to help him through it, if only because you knew that you really could help. You can’t bear to watch Roman suffer, because the both of you, despite all the differences, are exactly alike. You find sympathy in his sadness, and affection in his joy. 

It’s disgusting.

The plan was simple; you’d keep all the feelings inside, and then one day you’d die. You’d hold them all at bay and let the infatuation fade to a dull ache against your ribcage, settling into a bittersweet friendship with the two temperamental traits. It’s easy to push down when all six of you spend family time together, hell, you hardly break a sweat when it’s just the three of you, because you can just use one to deflect off the other! You are a fucking pro at ignoring your emotions.

Then movie night happened. You have no clue what specifically did happen, but you’ve managed to track the weird behavior back to that evening. Logan was stiff as a board all night, sitting as far as he could from you and Ro. He didn’t even look back at you when you tried to talk to him before he left. He didn’t answer the door when you tried to check on him later. 

To say that Logan hadn’t left his room since would be a gross oversimplification. Oh, he’s venturing out, alright, but strategically. He comes down for meals. He comes down when Patton, Remus, or occasionally Janus ask for him, indulging them without complaint. Sure, he’s conveniently busy whenever it’s you or Roman knocking, but he’s already done so much with everybody else that day. No one could be concerned, because clearly Logan wasn’t avoiding anything.

Yeah, bullshit. He’s just diverting everybody else’s suspicions, but you know him too well for that.

He doesn’t work in the commons anymore. He doesn’t rise up in the living room, accompanied with a laptop or a kindle or what have you, just to have the quiet company of someone else while he works. He doesn’t seek you out to explain something he read on Tumblr, and from the looks of it, he doesn’t attempt to infodump about poetry with Roman anymore. And the nail in this coffin is this: when you attempt to confront him, he plays dumb. Logan plays dumb.

Logan avoiding you means two things: 1. one of your most trusted friends who you’re absolutely besotted with won’t talk to you, which is its own special kind of agony- and 2. you spend the majority of your time totally alone with the other friend that you are in love with, which is obviously not ideal.

By this point, you are well-acquainted with the various personal problems of your ‘co-workers’. Statistically, at any given point at least one side is having some kind of an emotional crisis. You figure that it’s best to get a headstart on solving this one, before you can talk yourself out of it. 

But obviously you can’t do it alone.

“Roman.”

The side in question shrieks, spinning around hastily with wide eyes. You don’t even blink, staring him down from the kitchen doorway until he has the sense to stop screaming. He cuts himself off with a cough, clearing his throat and returning to whatever it was that he was doing. After an appropriate awkward silence, he shoots you a sheepish smile. 

“Oh, ha- I- I didn’t see you there, Virgil,” he huffs a tiny laugh, his mouth twitching. It’s such a soft little expression, a bit embarrassed but mostly- Dammit, Virgil, you’re here for a reason! Keep it together, you useless homosexual.

“I guessed that, yeah,” you trudge into the room, lifting yourself up onto the counter beside the stove. “How are you?”

He pauses for a moment. It’s a simple question, but the both of you understand its true significance. You’re expecting an honest, no-nonsense answer as to how he’s been feeling. It’s sort of a system, to help prevent all that bottling up of emotions that you’re all so used to. 

“I suppose I’m… a little out of it. I got rather caught up in sculpting for a good few hours,” as he explains, you notice him absently digging clay out from under his nails, “So I figured it was time for a lunch break.”

“Good,” you tell him, because it’s important that he hears things like that. He’s staring vacantly into the water that’s beginning to bubble on the stove, but you know he will return the check-in question to you in his own time. Technically, you could have just walked in and began with what you really wanted to talk about, but this method gives the conversation a more clear-cut structure. Greeting, followed by question-response, followed by question-response; it’s properly outlined. 

“What’s going on with you, then?”

“I feel like garbage,” you see him blink in surprise, but he waits politely for you to continue. “I’m worried. I mean- I'm usually worried, but in this specific circumstance, I’m worried about-”

“Logan?” He looks up when he says it, his gaze searching. 

“Yeah- um, yes. You noticed it, too?”

“Oh, please,” there's an obnoxious clanging as Roman idly swings around a slotted spoon, “I may not be as observant as you nerds, but you could stand to give me some credit.”

You settle him with A Look. He huffs.

“Okay fine! I only caught on when he… ugh, it's embarrassing, but we like to write. Together. On Wednesdays. But he’s been ditching.”

You already had a hunch about your friends’ little poetry sessions, as neither are particularly subtle about anything, at all, ever. It's super dorky, but it’s a very them thing to do. This development is concerning, to say the least.

“Wait, then why haven’t you brought it up?” 

Roman squirms a bit, clinking his slotted ladle against the stovetop repetitively. You regret the interrogative tone that found its way into your voice.

“I didn't want to be, you know, needy. He said he was busy- and like, it was a little sketchy when he was only busy when I wanted to hang out- but- I just assumed he’d maybe gotten bored with it. I didn’t want him to get even more distant with me, so I didn’t say anything.”

Well, okay, you totally fail at not being distracted by that. Scooching a little further down the counter, you bump Roman's hip with the side of your foot.

“Hey.”

He doesn't look up. 

“Roman.”

He groans, throwing his head back and glaring up at the cabinets.

“I know! Saying it out loud, alright, I know he wouldn't do something like that- it's just- I forget sometimes, Virge.”

You don't ask him to elaborate. He doesn't need to. He shifts away from the stove and drops his head onto your shoulder, leaning against you. 

“But if you've noticed it too, then something must really be wrong, huh?”

You give a short laugh.

“Yeah. He's upset about something, I can tell. It’s fuzzy, though, that’s the weirdest thing. It's like, I can feel the anxiety from, but it's being overpowered by something else in there. I have no idea what, so it's gotta be out of my jurisdiction.”

He hums curiously. 

“What’s the plan then? Drag him out of his room and make him hang out with us?” Roman's voice rumbles against your shoulder, and it's so comforting that you can't help but hook a leg around his waist to keep him near you.

“Great idea, I'm sure that he’ll really appreciate that,” your sarcasm (hopefully) takes the impact out of your downright cuddly nature. Roman is unfazed.

“That is literally what the both of you did to me mere months ago. I'd say that turned out pretty well, hmm?”

He tilts his head to the side, dragging out the hum with his face pressed against your neck. It's a concerted effort to snark at him instead of purring from the feeling. 

“I doubt that L would appreciate something like that, just because you- Jesus,” you cut yourself off when Roman fucking nuzzles you, ew gross- “Oh my fucking God, can you- prrr- can you st- prrrrr- stop for one second? You're- re- rerrrrrr- distracting me!” You push him off of you, feigning disgust. You don’t want to, but you have to at least try to stay on track.

He just chuckles, dropping away from you if only to take his food off the stove. 

“Sorry, sorry, it's just so hard to resist. You’re a kitten!”

“I know you're God-awful at genuine conversations, so I guess I'll let it slide this time.”

You see the offended look spread across his face, and hastily hold a hand up to interrupt.

“Logan.”

“Right, yes. Logan.”

“I mean, what would he say?” you drag your hand down your face, wracking your brain for any of his advice that you could apply to the situation. “He’d be all ‘the logical course of action would simply be to confront me, Virgil, because I am a stubborn little bitch and I will dance around the issue indefinitely,’” You nod, satisfied with both your impression and the conclusion it brought you to. Roman shoots you a comically wide grin.

“That was scary, how much you sounded like him.”

You shrug, offering a hum.

“So we should just… what? Walk up to his door, knock knock,‘what’s going on with you, man?’, and see what happens?”

“As crazy as it sounds, maybe this would be easier if we didn't prolong it for three weeks and complicate it like we do with everything else?”

There's a clatter as Roman struggles to reach the top cabinet for a bowl. You drop down from the counter, reach over his head, and hand it to him. 

“When you phrase it like that, I suppose it sounds obvious,” he takes the ceramic and fills it up- without a thanks, the bitch.

“Okay. We do that, then.”

“Okay.”

You hover in the kitchen, watching him grab his meal and begin to walk away. He tosses his head over his shoulder, giving you a look that you can't quite place. 

“Are you just going to wait there while I eat my lunch? We’ll go up in a few minutes, but I'd rather not pass out from lack of blood sugar in the middle of what's sure to be a whole production.”

“Oh- right.”

<<<???>>><<<???>>><<<???>>>

At your knock, there is absolutely no response from the other side of Logan’s door. You knock again- not so much as a footstep! You push down your immediate frustration at the nerve of him, knowing that you must keep your cool (but you also know that he has everyone’s knocks memorized; he knows it’s you!). 

You spare a glance to Virgil. He stares back at you, lip worried between his fangs, hands twisting themselves at his sleeves. He’s slouching so much that he looks nearly as short as you. 

“Is it… is it that bad?” your knuckles are still barely pressing against the inky-blue door, lingering. He nods. 

“Fuck, dude, whatever he’s feeling is intense. But, I can’t figure out what the hell it is,” he makes an attempt at whispering, but it sounds more like screeching TV static than anything. 

He’s in there, and Virgil isn’t the only one who can sense it. It’s electric; whatever Virgil isn’t picking up on seems to have fallen into your domain. Unfortunately, it must be one of your non-primary side functions, because you have no idea what the specifics are. You curse the fact that you aren’t nearly as in tune with these things as he, by design, is. 

“We gotta get in there, Roman.”

The use of your proper name startles you. You grind your teeth, turning his suggestion over in your mind a few times before shaking your head sharply.

“You were the one that said we needed a subtle approach, you- Virgil,” you catch yourself before a nickname slips out, trying to share in his sincerity for the moment.

He gives a shaky sigh.

“I- I know what I said, but- Fuck, Ro, it’s bad.”

Now, it may be just because you’re a contrary bitch, but you have flipped on your original stance as well, leaving the both of you at odds. The worse this feels, the more you need to hesitate. If he’s avoiding you- both of you, the mini-him in your head reminds you, mind your mental filtering- then there's a reason for it. A reason to do with anxiety and you, which could easily be the ‘passion’ part of you, and that gives the strong implication that he’s deeply angry and hurt. In which case, you know that you could easily do something to make it much worse. You are very good at saying the wrong thing.

And so. You stare blankly at his door. Immobile.

Virgil elbows you.

You wrap your knuckles against the door and send him a glare. He groans, ramming his shoulder into yours.

“Okay, Roman, out of the way-”

“I’m getting some bad vibes-”

“Yeah, me too, that's kind of the point!”

“Well, there’s no reason to get snippy!”

“I don’t need a reason anyway, now move-” 

At a light shuffling from behind the door, you both snap your mouths shut. It’s dead silent as you wait, more patient than you've ever been before, as the muffled footsteps draw closer to the door. They stop just short of it, and for a moment you don't breathe.

“I can hear you,” came a muffled, barely-audible rasp. 

You fall against the door at once, pressing the side of your face into its cool surface. Virgil appears beside you, his claws suspended just above the knob. They hover like he’d be burned if he touched it. His voice is carefully measured, and he nearly sounds normal when he speaks.

“L, buddy, can you let us in? Can we talk?” 

You nod along, realize that he cannot see you, and then enthusiastically proclaim your agreement with the statement instead.

There's a long pause. You fear that Logan’s left again.

“Is this… necessary?”

“I’d really like to know why you aren't talking to us, so yeah,” you try not to snap, you really do, but you can tell that you’ve failed as soon as the words leave your mouth. You hope he'll understand how you really meant it. 

There's a sigh, and yet another silence. Virgil makes eye-contact with you, face twisted up with concern.

“It was not my intention for you to think me angry with you, if that's what you’re worried about.”

“That’s not it, Lo,” well, Virgil can speak for himself, because you were kind of worried about that. “I know something's going on. I know you.”

“Virgil,” his voice sounds much clearer, closer, as though he's pressed against the doorframe like yourself, “Virgil, your voice.”

“Don't know if you can tell, man, but I'm pretty anxious right now. And I know that not all of it is mine.”

At the next lapse, you don't wait for Logan to speak.

“Specs, hey, listen to me: I don't have a clue what's going on-” you let yourself smile, knowing that he can hear it in your voice, “Which is kind of my usual state, really- but the point is, it doesn't matter. We're here for you, no matter what. The three of us- best friends, right? Bee-eff-effs.”

“Best friends forever,” he mutters.

“Ah! I’m glad you agree!”

“No- it’s- I was correcting you, abbreviations have no place in verbal conversation- especially in place of simple phrases such as that one.”

“There he is,” Virgil chuckles, the distortion finally edging out of his throat. 

Logan sighs. You hear a bump.

“I suppose, if you two are really so concerned,” the lock clicks, “Then it would only be hypocritical of me to refuse to speak with you on this matter, given how I encourage you to do the opposite almost constantly,” the knob twists, pushes forwards an inch, halts abruptly, “Although… I can’t promise you full transparency. I don’t- I don’t think I’m quite ready for that conversation.”

Well that is ominous. But, then again, progress is progress.

You step back, and the door swings open. 

You fail to stifle your gasp.

Logan stands in the doorway, his head up, spine straight, and his hands behind his back- his usual stance. The posturing does nothing, however, to hide just how bloodshot his eyes are behind his glasses. He trembles, almost, when he looks from you to Virgil, and then back again. As soon as you meet his gaze, he glances down to the carpet, tapping his foot on the floor compulsively. It’s a state you’ve seen him in plenty of times, but the knowledge that this time you were somehow responsible for it pushes daggers under your skin. 

“Well,” he falters, “Come in, I suppose.”

[monicawoe]

Fic Writer Tag Game

Tagged by the lovely @denugis and @ameliacareful Thanks!

AO3 Name: monicawoe 

Fandoms: My top 3 fandoms are Supernatural, MCU, and Venom, others include various Marvel comics and TV shows, Alien Covenant, Forever Knight, Good Omens, Hannibal, Legion (tv), Lucifer (comics), Preacher (tv), and The Mandalorian

Fic you spent the most time on: In terms of longest time spent writing? Probably Burdens Doublefold, co-written with @quickreaver just because it was such a beast of a fic: still my longest at ~67k words, and still one of my all-time faves.

The longest one from conception to actually completing the fic though was On His Head a Crown which I started thinking of while season 5 aired (back in 2009!) and then didn't write because canon went in such a different and also fascinating direction that I ended up writing more canon-adjacent fics at the time. This one veers off wildly from 5x03 with Sam as the Horseman Conquest, and was finally written last year as part of the Sam Winchester Big Bang featuring glorious art by @slytherkins. That means it actually took me a full ten years to get around to writing it. Glad I did though ; )

Fic you spent the least amount of time on:  A tie between Letters of Resignation, a cracky collection of letters written from the POV of the demons killed by Sam during My Bloody Valentine and Hunt, the first Sharp Teeth fill I ever did for the prompt Wile E. Coyote finally catches the Roadrunner.

Longest fic: Burdens Doublefold, as noted above, a 67k retelling of seasons 1 & 2 co-written with @quickreaver, aka the fic where I wrote myself into shipping Sam/Brady forever.

Shortest fic: a 100 word BuckyNat poem Mirror

Most hits: How They Make You a Weapon at 18,619 , Winter Soldier POV beginning with Bucky being captured by Hydra through and beyond the end of CA:TWS) This is the only fic I've ever written in second person but I found it worked rather well for the Winter Soldier's POV accentuating his missing sense of self.

Most kudos: Ink at 2165, Venom (movie), Venom admires Eddie's tattoos.

Most comment threads: Also How They Make You a Weapon at 133, likely largely due to the fact that this was posted as a WIP, which I don't normally do, but at the time I felt a burning need to immediately share all of my Winter Soldier Bucky thoughts!

Fave fic you wrote: Wow that's a tough one. I love so many of them for so many different reasons. If I had to pick one favorite from my top three fandoms it would be:

MCU: Bad Becomes Worse. I suspect it might be one of the best (albeit angstiest) fics I've ever written, you tell me.

Supernatural: Counteroffer and its sequel The King's Guard - I still really love the unreliable narrator POV in the first one and the unsettling tone I think I achieved there, and as for the sequel, writing Sam as physically containing all of Hell was just so damn fun.

Venom: Wedding Party (because this one was just SO MUCH FUN to write!)

Fic you want to rewrite/expand on: So many. Early on in my spn fic-writing days I ended on cliffhangers a lot because that's what the show liked to do, and I myself enjoy the open-ended nature of them, but some of them really are begging for a sequel. If there's any particular one you'd like to see a time-stamp to let me know and I’ll likely add it to the list.  

I am currently working on a sequel to my most recent Venom fic Many Thousand Feet Beneath because I'm told I can't just leave those biotech millipedes under San Francisco! (and you're right readers, you're right!) It will take me a bit longer because ::gestures at everything this year:: but I promise I'm on it!

Share a bit of your WIP or share a story idea that you’re planning: (see longish excerpt of my WIP of Kale!Sam / King of Hell Sam under the read more tag below)

Tagging : @wetsammywinchester , @slytherkins, @brendaonao3, @rokhal, @tigerlilynoh, @hafital​

a WIP fill of a prompt for the 2020 round of Antichristmas: Sam Winchester's Birthday Prompt-fic extravaganza (still accepting prompts if you want to join the fun! fics due in May, for Sam’s birthday)

Sam stood in front of his new Mirror™ and smoothed down the front of his moisture-wicking tank top.  He could feel the increased definition in his abs, but it wasn't quite where he wanted it to be. Not yet. He was, as ever, determined to be his best self. That's what he'd built his whole career on, and he had to embody it wholly.

"Alexa, start Mirror, play Morning Pilates," Sam said, getting into starting position on his PVC-free yoga mat.

He moved through the first three exercises with ease, looking forward to the upcoming side plank with grim eagerness. He'd been getting better at the advanced version and was confident he could hold the position perfectly. When the time came he held the form without any quivering in his arm or leg, so focused on using his core to hold himself still that it took him a few seconds to realize the mirror was glitching. Sam's reflection wasn't doing a pristine side-plank at all it was just standing there. And it was wearing a suit.

A suit he was pretty sure he didn't even own.

"Alexa, restart mirror," he snapped, annoyed at this interrupt. He could hold side-plank a long time, but likely not all the way through the restart and plus he wanted to make sure his other side got an equal amount of attention, and— The mirror hadn't turned off. A bright red line was flickering down the middle. And his reflection—still wearing a black suit with a dark maroon silk shirt—was looking right at him, a crooked smile creeping across its lips. 

Unsettled, Sam pushed himself to his feet and moved to turn the damn thing off manually. He pressed himself up against the glass, reaching around the back with his left hand to find the reset button, and then the glass wriggled under him, and a hand grabbed him by the throat.

Sam choked as he was lifted two inches clear off the ground by himself. Or somebody who looked exactly like him. Except for the suit and his eyes which flashed golden-yellow just before he tossed Sam unceremoniously to the floor.

[reydelcastill0]

Fandom: Marble Hornets, The Blackout Club (Video Game)

Words: 1880

Rating: General Audiences 

Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Jessica Locke & Jay Merrick, Jessica Locke (Marble Hornets) & Lucids (The Blackout Club) Characters: Jessica Locke, Jay Merrick, Lucids (The Blackout Club), Masky (Marble Hornets)

Additional Tags: The Blackout Hornets AU, Hospitals, Hospitalization, Unreliable Narrator, Inaccurate Representation of Hospitals, Memory Loss, Implied Trans Male Character, Jessica Locke and Jay Merrick are Twins, No Diagnosed Illnesses, Implied Illnesses, Implied Trans Jay Merrick, Lucids as a "Doctor", Lucids as a "Nurse"

Series: Part 1 of inTheMAZE

Summary: Jessica wakes up in a hospital bed with little to no memories. A doctor catches her up to speed, but she doesn't believe Him. She thinks it's all a lie, but she doesn't know what to do about it, so she won't. Instead, she becomes close friends with a patient suffering from the same problems as her.

Jessica sat up with a groan. Her head was pounding and her mind sounded so loud it was almost unbearable. Her mind almost sounded like it was singing to her, but Jessica wouldn’t describe the sounds as a song. It was close, except it was barely recognizable. Jessica decides to identify it as static that so happens to vary in pitch. Regardless, she didn’t like the noise. It was almost as if it was trying to drown out her thoughts. It made her headache worse.

It couldn’t fully take over her mind, though. She managed to tune it out at some point and focus on her own thoughts— on things that weren’t the static. She could focus on the slightly scratchy bedsheet beneath her, the white curtains that surrounded her bed, and the weird smell that reminded her of a hospital room, and oh— 

That’s ‘cause she is in a hospital room. This realization makes her panic. ‘Focus, why are you here?’ she thought. She moved to dangle her legs off the side of the bed (ignoring the way her feet slightly brush against some shoes that weren’t hers, but might be for her) and closed her eyes to take some time to think: What is it that she can remember?

‘My name is Jessica— um— Jessica… Jessica,’ she couldn’t remember her last name. ‘What was it again?’ She spent moments angrily trying to figure it out. Soon, she settles on Locke, as incorrect as it sounds. Her name is Jessica Locke.

Next, she tried to deduce what time it was, but nothing could help her figure that out. The lights from the room were on, but she saw no windows. She figured that would be a waste of her time (if she could even tell how much time passes).

She decides to try and figure out why she is here. That was almost more difficult to figure out than the time. She couldn’t remember why she may be in a hospital, in fact, she couldn’t remember much about herself. Her memory was spotty. She knew her age, name (she felt like she didn’t really know her name), and little personality things— the things that made her her. She also knew what her house looked like, but not who she lived with or how to get there. She knew she went to school, but not who her teachers are or if she has friends. She knew she knew people, but who these people were? That was beyond her. 

She can’t remember anyone, except for Amy. Amy Walters, her best friend… She feels sad thinking about her, but she doesn’t know why. Amy is okay. The last thing she did with Amy— the last thing she remembers— was hanging out with Amy. If she remembers right, they were playing video games together and idly chatting about their friends (whoever their friends were). That was it. That was the only instance in her life she had the most memories about, yet she couldn’t even know the whole truth of it.

“I’ve lost my memories…” she said out loud (the first thing she has said since she woke up), “I’ve lost them…” Once she said the words out loud, she cringed. It was too loud and broke the silence, paving way for unease. Why is she here? She doesn’t get the time to fester in her thoughts because seconds later, a Man in a doctor’s outfit (He must be her doctor, then) walked in, wheeling in a chair so He could sit on it.

“It’s good to see you’re awake. How are you feeling?” He asks. Jessica tries to focus on the Man’s face, but her vision begins to blur. She panics a bit, but she doesn’t tell Him anything about it.

“I’m fine,” she mutters, quick to respond as if she were reading off some script. She tries to look at His face again, but she can’t. She continues to try— to try and ground herself in the reality of the situation— but there comes a point where trying to look makes the static song in her head louder. It hurts.

“Do you know why you are here, Jessica?” He asks. She shakes her head. She finds comfort in the fact that her name actually is Jessica, but she is uncomfortable. “Well, that is expected.”— His tone sounds like a threat— “You see, you’re sick. You have a terrible cough, constant and painful migraines, hallucinations, and, unfortunately, violent episodes.” Jessica doesn’t believe him.

“But I don’t… Remember anything?” She says so, but it’s some sort of question. She is positive she has never had some “violent episode” in her whole life. 

“That might be the medicine we gave you.” She can’t see His face, but she could decipher a frown simply by his tone of voice.

“Oh… Okay.” She doubts meds can cause people to lose their memories like this, and if by chance such medication exists, she feels that maybe the medical industry should work on fixing that. “How long will I be here?”

“Until you get better.” He sounds annoyed.

“Of course.” There is no point in talking anymore. She wants Him to leave. She wants to leave. She feels out of place, like she’s bad at playing pretend. Like nothing is real and she just has a role to fill. She is a patient; she is sure that’s a fucking lie.

But she’ll play along. She doesn’t know her lines or what her stage directions are, but she’ll figure it out. She has to, or she’ll never know when she needs to exit the stage— the hospital.

Luckily, it becomes easy to fulfill her role after being provided a nurse. She talks to her nurse more than she talks to her doctor, but the conversations aren’t worth much to her. Jessica is glad that she gets to talk to the patient from the next room over. Apparently they share the same doctor and He saw it fit to introduce the two.

“Jessica, this is Jayme,” He says, “Jayme, this is Jessica.” He is very blunt about the introduction and then has their nurses whisk them away. It isn’t until lunchtime that she learns the other patient goes by Jay and not Jayme.

“Why is that?” Jessica asks. 

Jay thinks about his answer for a moment before he tells her. “I don’t know why the doctor calls me Jayme. My name is Jay Merrick.”

“Funny, that sounds familiar,” Jessica responds. It does, and a bit too familiar. Then again, if this whole “sick” business is real (she doubts it) and she accounts for the fact that she has memory problems, perhaps Jay is a patient she knew. She finds it unlikely. Jay would have remembered her, but he has never met her before.

He stumbles on his words for a moment. “I— It’s just… Um, it’s a pretty common name, so,” he says. She watched as he grew anxious and decided not to press on the issue. 

She forces out a chuckle. “Oh, duh,” she laughs. She wouldn’t know how common the name actually is and she thinks maybe Jay doesn’t either. He laughs, too, and then their nurses come and separate them again.

They do that a lot. She doesn’t know what they look like. Only that Jessica’s nurse is a Girl and that Jay’s nurse is a Guy, but she can’t see their faces (like how she can’t see her doctor’s). But she can see Jay’s face. Jay is the only person she can hold eye contact with and she finds that odd. She wonders if he feels the same, but it’s difficult to attempt to question him. He’s here for the same reason as her. She suspects that’s why the hospital staff limit their time together. 

Some few weeks pass and Jessica forms a strong bond with Jay. They are always together when they are allowed to be. Sometimes, they sneak into each other's rooms and cuddle together. The feeling reminds her of sneaking into her younger sister’s— She doesn’t have a sister…— her younger brother’s (‘Is that right?’ she thinks) bed or when he would sneak into hers because being separated wasn’t something they dealt with so well.

Luckily, her nurse seems to turn a blind eye whenever She catches Jessica sneaking to Jay’s room and she assumes that Jay’s nurse does the same when he sneaks to her room. She’s glad, but their doctor seems to dislike it very much.

He continuously grows frustrated with Jessica and Jay. “You aren’t making any progress to recovery and if this keeps up, Jessica, we’ll have to change our methods,” He says and it’s clear he is becoming impatient with her. That doesn’t matter to Jessica. She dreads the idea of different methods and resolves to confront Jay once and for all about their situation. 

One night, Jay sneaks to Jessica’s room and slips into bed with her. He has a question, but he does not ask it. So she asks him one instead: “Don’t you think it’s a little weird that besides you, me, and our doctor and nurses, that we’re the only ones here? Like, I know they don’t let us go everywhere, but it feels like maybe that’s because this is all that there is…”

“I… It is weird—”

“And also don’t you think our situation sounds like a lie? Our doctor dodges most of our questions and instead tells us we’re violent and sick… Jay, they haven’t diagnosed us with anything. We’re just sick.” Jessica is whispering and it makes the faults and quivers in her voice more prominent. Jay, nonetheless, seems to understand her point of view.

“It’s really weird… I was actually going to talk to you about this. I think we need to run away…” He says the last sentence even quieter than his normal whisper voice, paranoid as if the nurses are waiting to hear him say that.

“I think so, too…”

They proceed to formulate a plan. Jay is the one making it, but Jessica is helping him bring his thoughts together. Jay wants to escape the following night. They’ll sneak some protein and snack bars to their rooms and hide them under the pillows. They’ll ask for a water bottle some time before bed (Jessica will ask before “going to sleep” and Jay will ask a few hours earlier). When they have to sleep, Jay will go get Jessica. The two will have their snack bars and water bottle in their pillowcase. From there, they’ll hope they make it far (fully escaping sounds unrealistic, so they would rather be pleasantly surprised than disappointed). 

They’ll escape. But then things go wrong right at the end. Instead of Jay coming, some boy a bit older than her goes to her room. He wears a white with black painted lips and while he doesn’t seem threatening, he charges at her and pokes her with a needle.

Before she faints, she realizes it’s a tranquilizer dart. She’s seen them before. Funny, the familiarity of it makes her slightly happy. Her last thought, however, is hoping Jay makes it out safely (and maybe in a better way than she did).

Jessica Locke— or as her name actually is— Jessica Merrick blacks out.

[longeyelashedtragedy]

this has been the most wild fuckin year so let’s do a Year in Review shall we

in terms of internet and fandom life, that is. my real life has been atrociously boring but who cares about real life amirite folx

january probably the only calm month of the year.  i spent the first day of the month watching the brazilian inauguration in burgos, spain with one headphone in, while ordering for my family in a restaurant where nobody spoke english (my sister speaks decent spanish, but my whole family has like 8194814 food restrictions so it kind of went past her level of ability). translating between spanish and english with portuguese in one year was kind of awesome. i watched bodyguard and it was amazing!  what else...in january i briefly owned the issue of spanish GQ with Luka on the cover which i then forgot about until november. other than that...? nada.  the calm before the storm. (fav music)

february was so long ago that i keep forgetting how insane its 28 days were.  probably the wildest month of the year really. i got involved in an absolutely batshit and exclusive group chat with a famous person’s family member (which must remain confidential). it was all sunshine and rainbows for a week and a half and it then devolved into the most absolutely insane Lord of the Flies situation ever--it turned into 1 main chat and then 1 chat that was less puritanical than the main chat, and that chat spawned another chat that didn’t trust the previous chat, and then that chat had a massive argument and a like 6-person bitchy chat modded by a gay guy who does voodoo (shoutout to ALCIDES) spawned from that one.  i made it into every level of group chat and was asked by the tiny bitchy chat to spy on the other bitchy chat (i did not lol). i was a member of the tiny bitchy chat until i got a new phone and was logged out of whatsapp for like a month.  these words can’t even convey what this chat was like--oh and did i mention it was all conducted in only my 3rd-best language? it’s no wonder my weird ass survived middle school almost entirely unscathed.  as this was winding down, on the very last day of the month, I found out about Justin’s involvement in the SNC-Lavalin scandal and decided to go public about my years-long boner for him; Lavscam definitely changed the course of the rest year ~ Oh, also i began helping to repair a friendship that had had some Drama go down so that was p cool ~ (fav music)

march was a Time. The insanity of lavscam helped me finally finish the macdeau I started writing the previous December when a bunch of tungelr people called me disgusting for writing it.  i wrote my first straight-up serious explicit porn in years which has wound up being the third-longest thing i’ve ever published on ao3. Also, Hozier released Wasteland, Baby! which made a huge impact on me as well.  i spent like half of march staying up till 3:30 am writing said Long Fic, and i was firmly in the closet about stanning manu. also justin almost got a vote of no confidence or something and he got busted for eating a chocolate bar during a parliamentary all-nighter.  (fav music)

in april i wrote a ton of fanfic thanks to declining mental health(tm).  i think this is when i started my emmanuyell insta account and became really into making weird edits (which i still love doing just...don’t anymore.)  i started meeting some cool people thanks to macdeau.  what else happened in april? i feel like it wasn’t actually too eventful other than writing a lot of fanfic and being Annoyed about manu.  feel free to jog my memory lol.  oh i think i wrote “Okay so who from the French national team are we gonna ship Manu with” on twitter after seeing photos of manu + antoine griezmann at the World Cup but nothing came of that...at that time... (fav music)

may saw me having to deal with my shit mental health and up my meds but that seems to have had a good effect because i seem to not be too depressed to write in the winter/fall anymore! it was the 2nd anniversary of manu’s election and at the Christchurch Call in paris, macdeau took that amazing fairytale princess photo together that was completely unrivalled in Gay Shippy Feels moments until ivan went out of his way to kiss luka during the el clásico gameplay last wednesday. someone wrote ao3′s first griezmanu drabble and at the end manu gets down on his knees in front of antoine, takes off his shoes for him, and sucks his dick, and i achieved another state of being entirely.  my sister graduated from grad school and when we went down to DC for the weekend i went to eat at this restaurant manu famously ate at while there and ordered the same stuff he did and i have no idea how he consumed all that grease.  i learned about the song O Come, O Come, Emmanuel *snort*. i feel like other things happened in may too?  OH YES--i got the idea for my magnum opus, Trophy Boyfriend, and started to write it. the first scene i wrote was justin blowing manu in the hallway. then the same day i wrote the scene at the airport (which was the ending for a solid month and half till i realized it shouldn’t be), and the saddest scene in the fic--but we’ll stop to open presents.  oh! and i stumbled across the macronists discord chat which is such a delightful little community *weepy sniffles* (fav music)

june was Eventful.  a french neonazi on tumblr told me to go let manu fuck me in the ass because i was a fucking degenerate.  what a start!  then came the ceremony in which manu awarded everyone on the french national team the legion of honor medal and the way he and antoine looked at each other was truly...Wait it was the 3rd Gay Shippy Feels moment of the year.  as soon as the ceremony was over i wrote a fic about it and haven’t looked back.  between this + watching almost every 2018 World Cup game and the women’s world cup (during which I cried during argentina’s last game because of that miraculous penalty) i finally achieved my years-long goal of getting into Futbol(TM).  Antoine dropped his spotify playlist and my crush on him turned into Intense Love (TM) and also he introduced me to some legit awesome artists.  which led to (fav music)

july, in which i wrote “ça c’est ma dope” which is definitely the best thing i’ve written since i wrote “modernity towering in front of the sky” almost exactly 10 years before. got embroiled in Soccer Transfer Drama and learned its pain for the first time (unfortunately, since i wound up attaching my heart-wagon to barça’s Suddenly Least Favorite Player, the transfer drama pain has...never ended) became a full-fledged culé, O the joy O the honor.  i wanted to ship antoine with someone on the team, which in their current chemistry-less season is a real challenge, but after seeing a few photos i decided it would be fun to casually ship antoine + ivan rakitic (partially because, ever since i went from Enemies to Lovers with the croatia NT during the World Cup, he was one of the only players i knew anything about other than messi, suárez, and piqué lmao). while looking on ao3 to see what kind of headcanons people had about him--and the fic is definitely in general better than what’s out there about antoine, which is perplexing because antoine is much easier to write than ivan--i found That Amazing Rakidric Fic and thought “oh wait that ship makes a lot of sense” and started also shipping ivan and luka with the fire of a thousand suns.  oh and my air conditioner was broken for like 3 weeks. i worked on more fics, seriously outlining the path of Trophy Boyfriend, and my music taste was killer. (fav music)

in august i finished Trophy Boyfriend in my neighborhood Starbucks after writing the scene that was giving me the most trouble (the scene at the beginning where they’re organizing their book collection). the fic has made multiple people cry and people disagree on whether justin’s choice at the end was the right one and god i’m so proud of it.  Instantly went on to write ‘i might not mind,’ a lively lighthearted Friends to Lovers ivantoine~ romp which was definitely going to be a one-off and i was definitely not going to get an extra celeb crush out of it,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, (fav music)

in september ivantoine became A Thing in my mind and it’s a whole ongoing slow-burn character-arcy series that has taken a very different turn than i had expected. i’m not saying it’s like, the most deep writing of all time, but it’s gone to some interesting places emotionally. honestly, ships and boners aside, the concept of a person who made some really stupid homophobia 101 comments many years ago slowly realizing over and over again that they have gay feelings for a man who seems rather comfortable with gayness is a fascinating one and one that’s really cool to explore in writing.  Or at least, i think so.  in many ways ivan is my most unreliable narrator because of the many layers of Discomfort, Emotion and Repression at play in the fic while he’s interacting with this pretty cheery and uncomplicated seeming-dude who’s still perceptive enough to sort of know what’s going on (and that’s not even adding in the star player/falling from grace former rockstar dynamic!!!)  i know in the current climate it’s Not Allowed to write about someone who said a bad, but luckily i’m too old to give a Fuck. ivantoine is hard to write but it’s my bff’s favorite ship of mine and has a few other excited fans on ao3 which tbh is kind of an accomplishment considering i made it up out of thin air and it’s not something you’d ever think would be a thing. instantly also developed ‘getting called out about ivan by a child on the internet’ as a goal.  and...i achieved my dream of leading high holiday services!!! (fav music)

october had more high holiday services and i worked a lot on certain fics (including d*janfic which would be fun to finish). i came up with the idea of a Very Long Rakidric Fic based on the translation of a gorgeous croatian folk song i sang in college (Janko fell asleep under the poplar/My dear and beloved/My beautiful dark eyes/Look at me/Under the poplar's golden branch/My dear and beloved/My beautiful dark eyes/Look at me/I tore off the golden branch/My dear and beloved/My beautiful dark eyes/Look at me--in which the golden branch is a reference to a way to get into the underworld). decided to start quarter-assedly learning croatian for fun.  Fun...ha.  other than fangirling a lot and watching the croatian NT play, october was pretty uneventful? i think? Justin got reelected and mauricio didn’t ;( (fav music)

in november i finally achieved my dream of having a literal child on the internet call me out about being attracted to a homophobe.  (they were a madridista even!) accidentally started writing some more rakidric and now i’m seriously hooked.  also accidentally came out of the closet about the secret crush i’d been harboring on luka modric and then one fateful day in the ihop on 14th st i realized i’d had this crush already and repressed it from my memory. Don’t do that kids! now it’s Hurting Really Bad. Ivan dropped the most pathetic and candid interview like...ever and i hope “¿Cómo puede disfrutar uno? Jugando al fútbol. ¿Cómo se siente mi hija pequeña cuando le quitan un juguete? Triste. Yo me siento igual. Me han quitado la pelota, me siento triste” goes down in the history of most epic futbol quotes of all time.  (still haven’t actually been able to watch this because no one has uploaded it anywhere)  What else...............Am i forgetting anything? i celebrated my birthday with @tender-vittles in epic fashion after two years of Not doing that, and turned 32 going on 15.  enjoyed my first-ever “x reader” fic (zlatko dalic x reader LOL) and finished “drive your plow over the bones of the dead” which was real fucking good. i saw hozier live and it was a religious experience and i unexpectedly cried during nina cried power and then called myself “Luka B” when ordering at the classy taco bell across the street after getting a glimpse of alexxx ryan in the flesh. (fav music)

now it’s december and my seasonal depression is a little worse than it’s been the past few years but i’m managing.  still shipping and writing and i just got called out about ivan again last week.  i’m 2 for 2 here!  el clásico was boring but also it was gay and my heart my heart my heart ! Anything could happen in the last 10 days of this year and honestly...I’m pretty sure I’m ready.

Most importantly this year, despite it being not that great in a lot of ways, I developed a lot more self confidence, made many important realizations, and became a lot more peaceful (despite how this post makes me sound) and wiser and less bitter and pessimistic.  And i became outspoken enough about antisemitism on the left to lose friends over it...3 for 3.  i can’t say i’m displeased with these developments.

Hasta 2020! <3

[clonerightsagenda]

The epilogues look terrible and I don’t want to spend my time reading them... but I love + trust your judgement and your takes on things. Could you summarize them? (No pressure if you don’t want to)

OK, it’s been a few weeks since i read it, but I will do my best.NOTE: This is probably not comprehensive and definitely not objective. As a supplement, I did some poking around, and the MSPA wiki has some bullet points. I also eventually found another  summary on tumblr, albeit by someone who also didn’t like it, so it is probably biased as well. 

ANOTHER NOTE: Those content warnings weren’t a joke. Below are references to sexual content, assault, suicide, sexism, transphobia, character death, and probably some other stuff.

WHAT HAPPENED:

In the prologue, Rose summons John to inform him that he needs to defeat Lord English right now, or they will all experience terrible consequences. These are mostly meta consequences you can interpret as ‘if we don’t produce new Homestuck content on its 10th anniversary, everyone will give up on this franchise for real, and also canon doesn’t seem stable when the big bad never got beaten’. John goes to visit Roxy and Calliope before he leaves and is given the option to eat either meet or candy. This represents a choice he is supposed to make, and that choice creates two timelines.

In MEAT, John travels back in time and gathers three 16 year old versions of his friends. They confront Caliborn in the battle he represented in his Masterpiece and are sucked into the house juju. Vriska activates it, but not before being pulled into the black hole. Rose and Jade die immediately, with Rose’s body being destroyed and Jade’s falling into the black hole, because why should women get to fight the story’s biggest misogynist. Dave lands a solid hit on English before having his head bitten off Mami from PMMM style. John gets chomped on as well and a gold tooth ends up embedded in his chest. Davepeta appears and drags the wounded LE into the black hole. John finds his father’s wallet, retrieves his car, and slumps inside. Terezi appears, in bad shape after a long time wandering the ring. She seems confused at his state (explained because in CANDY she has been texting that version of him for years). She removes the tooth from his chest and they have sex.

Meanwhile, on Earth, Dave and Karkat have avoided talking about being a relationship for seven years, while Jade harasses them about becoming a threesome. This is explicitly tied to her abandonment issues but also she is referred to as a slut so like. Don’t love that. Jane is running for president, and Dave thinks this is terrible because she’s a woman fascist and doesn’t understand the economy and Karkat should run instead. Other shit is happening but I lost track. Rose is ill because she’s becoming her ‘Ultimate Self’ and seeing all timelines. Dirk claims he’s overcome the same problem and offers to help her but ends up controlling her and revealing he is the one actually writing this narrative.  There is a bit where the narration starts addressing the reader directly and then turns orange which I admit is genuinely cool and might have been interesting if done with characters I didn’t actually care about.

Dirk amps up controlling the narrative, directly forcing people to do and think certain things. (For example, he sequesters Rose away in his workshop and tells Kanaya via narration she believes Rose is better off with him, and she uncomfortably agrees without understanding why she thinks that.) He supports Jane’s bid for the presidency, even though she wants to crack down on trolls because they are naturally violent and reproduce too fast. Everyone tries to get Jake’s endorsement because he’s popular, which includes Jane attempting to seduce him in a very uncomfortable scene.Then Jade slips into a nice coma, because it’s not Homestuck without Jade losing her agency, and alt!Calliope starts using her as an avatar to take control of the narrative away from Dirk. They have some back and forth arguments before he is pushed out which, again, is genuinely clever but would be more enjoyable without all the edgy bullshit. Dirk eventually tricks alt!Callie and sedates Jade, taking back control of the story. Jane wins the presidency. Also at some point Meat!Roxy and Callie ID as nonbinary and start using they/them, and narrator!Dirk freaks out about it and misgenders them a lot, which is character assassination bc everyone knows Dirk is a trans icon. Anyway. Dave and Karkat have an awkward talk about their relationship where they keep dancing around things and Dirk tries to force Dave to kiss him. Dave gets frustrated because he’s aware someone is trying to make him do something (like with the Aimless Renegade), and eventually yells at Dirk to get out of his head before kissing Karkat. Terezi brings John back to Earth, and he begins to fade, since apparently LE’s tooth was poisoned with something more powerful than god tier that makes you irrelevant. Possibly a meta commentary on the hero or story not being needed once the big bad is gone. Terezi is sad about this and listens to him bleed while she smells him die. Then Dirk contacts her via narration and implies he can help her. She gets a text (later revealed to be Vriska). Dirk gets a spaceship from Jake after forcing him via narration to grovel about how much he loves him and then rejecting him and flying away with Rose and Terezi in tow. Jade wakes up long enough to tell everyone Dirk’s gone bad before she gets repossessed and starts pointing in his direction, prompting everyone to give chase. 

There is a final scene that will make more sense later, so I’ll add it later.

CANDY

John decides not to go fight LE. Roxy is delighted, and they began dating. Calliope tells John it is time to let Gamzee out of the fridge. Gamzee pops out and claims he is redeemed in a long speech making fun of sloppy redemption arcs. He then proceeds to be terrible for the rest of the story.Candy essentially satirizes Harry Potter epilogue style fics. Jane marries Jake (it’s implied she essentially roofies him with the trickster lollipop) and has Gamzee on the side. They have a son named Tavros. John and Roxy have a son named Harry. Rose and Kanaya adopt a troll clone of Vriska and name her Vriska. Jade, Karkat, and Dave are all dating, but Dave and Karkat are miserable. Dirk kills himself when he realizes the timeline went off kilter. Jade’s corpse from the Meat timeline crashes to earth, and in the middle of the funeral (which was genuinely a good scene) she sits up, possessed by alt!Calliope. Alt!Callie sequesters herself on the old meteor, now landed, and explains to Aradia and Sollux that this timeline is a dead end and she is protecting it from the influence of the prince. She also, in a parallel to Dirk’s reveal in Meat, talks about how every narrator has an agenda even if the text is formatted to make you not realize that.Jane becomes a fascist dictator and begins oppressing trolls. Karkat eventually get sick of being in a trio and runs off to be a resistance leader, including getting a sick eye patch (reference to Summer Teen Romance). Meenah stole the Ring of Life from Meat John and lands in the session; she and Karkat begin dating. Other ghosts begin falling from the sky as well, and Gamzee converts them to his redemption religion.John feels like something is really off.  His only solace is texting Terezi a lot, and he seems closer to her than he is to his wife. He and Roxy break up for a while and then (non-romantically) reconcile. Jake eventually leaves Jane and takes Tavros with him. Jade and Dave become rebels as well, then Dave meets a hologram of Obama, who helps him attain his ultimate self, putting his soul in a new robot body. 

Oh, also Vriska falls out of the sky, has hatesex with Gamzee, kills him, and then talks with Rose and Kanaya’s Vriska about how she loves Terezi. Then she texts her, as seen in the Meat timeline. Isn’t Vriska 13 and Gamzee an adult at this point? Probably. There’s a lot of questionable age stuff in this.

I’m sure I missed some details. Can you tell I’m losing steam.

Anyway, the two last chapters of each section reference the other storyline. At the end of Meat, Lord English’s body falls out of the sky, and alt!Callie (still in Jade’s body) devours it, becoming powerful enough to battle Dirk. Candy!Davebot arrives and he and Aradia jump into the black hole in pursuit.At the end of Candy, Dirk’s ship nears a new planet where he intends a new game of SBURB to be played. Rose is in a robot body serving as his handmaid essentially, and Terezi’s also on board.  

TAKEAWAYS:

There are a lot of different interpretations of the epilogue. A mockery of the two extremes of fanfic. Andrew Hussie continuing the theme of ‘all authors are tyrants by nature’ and using his self-insert to display how he hates his own story but also can’t stop telling it. Dirk trying to create conflict by making himself a villain because otherwise they’ll lose relevance and disappear. Musing on how being arbitrarily labeled 'grown up’ when you’re not ready (aka handed godhood by a game that doesn’t understand people) can fuck you up, and there is no single winning screen in life. Just a big old meta experiment on unreliable narrators. I can see where some of this is coming from, but frankly, I found it disturbingly sexist (even if it is intended to be so for effect). A lot of the sex and violence felt over the top and graphic just to be #ow the edge rather than serving any narrative purpose. Also, authors can do what they want with their texts, and they’re allowed to write tragedies, but after Hussie’s self-insert informs Caliborn that the most important stories are about friendship and teamwork and the fandom (that I’ve seen anyway) really responding to the bonds between characters, it felt cruel. That’s my feeling. Not everyone shares it. But hey, I’ve got my solution.

[alethiometry]

get to know the blogger // tagged by @thatsouthernanthem​!

i’m tagging: @valxori​ @businessboyjared​ @the-gothic-assassin​ @ellrond​

Name: charlotte

Height: 5′3″

Wearing: my halloween pjs!

Introvert or Extrovert: introvert babeyy

Siblings: i have one younger brother and we’re almost 5 years apart

Following: 223

Followers: 1,646 but i’ve also had this blog for over a decade so i’m fairly certain ~80% of those accounts have probably been inactive for years lmao

Degrees: BA in art history which basically amounts to me spending 4 years realizing how much i hate academia... but hey it landed me a stable albeit ridiculously underpaid job for three and a half years lmfao

Instruments: i played flute from elementary through high school! i can probably still remember some stuff, but i also sold my flute last year :|

Favourite author: tim o’brien

Favourite Star Wars: the one with laura dern and actual asian characters

Last Google Search: “don’t starve together crockpot recipes”

Recommend a video game: assassin’s creed odyssey, greedfall, don’t starve together, stardew valley, pokemon sapphire, journey, abzu

Recommend a music album: DIRTY COMPUTER BY JANELLE MONAE

Recommend a book: the things they carried! it’s a fictionalized memoir about the author’s experiences fighting in vietnam, but even if you’re not interested in that period of time, it’s an extremely poignant meditation on truth and storytelling! tim o’brien has a very distinctive voice and the anti-war messaging, pithy dialogue, and nonlinear/unreliable narration is exactly my cup of tea!

Recommend a recipe: bold of you to assume i write down anything i cook. uhh okay here is my go-to sauteed kale recipe (kale haters can go fuck themselves):

ingredients:

half an onion (white or yellow)

one bag (two bunches) kale -- should be torn into bite-sized pieces

3+ garlic cloves

3-4 tbsp tomato paste

juice + zest of half a lemon

salt and red pepper flakes, to taste

steps:

dice onions and mince garlic. heat oil in a large saute pan until very hot (oil should be shimmering). add onions and cook until soft and translucent, almost brown. add garlic and saute until fragrant.

add kale and stir until wilted and bright green (if the pan is too small, add in batches). add tomato paste, lemon juice and zest, salt, and red pepper flakes. taste frequently and adjust how you like it.

at this point you’re done and honestly i could eat this plain, but it’s also delicious with:

pasta

ravioli (this is literally the only way i enjoy ravioli. chinese dumplings >>>> these stupid flat italian knockoffs.)

roasted chickpeas (coat one can in oil, season with salt, and roast at 400F for 15-20 min, then mix in)

couscous (extremely yummy if you mix this in and throw it in the oven to let the couscous crisp up!)

chicken

steak

would probably also taste good folded into an omelet or like a frittata if you’re feeling fancy, but i haven’t tried that and probably never will, because eggs are the ONE thing i am inexplicably horrible at cooking.

you can also replace the onion + garlic with a couple diced shallots, and add some freshly diced beefsteak, heirloom, or cherry tomatoes – just cook them until the skin starts to blister, and then crush them with a wooden spoon to the juices and flavors get distributed!

Share a creative thought that you had today: “what if i added a few dollops of gochujang to my bolognese sauce?” (spoiler alert: it’s fucking delicious)

[simonjadis]

"Subverting expectations" should be something akin to what it adds to the story and not outright replaces. In addition, a writer should employ it based on what they feel in right for their characters and story with deep consideration. It seems like with recent examples that need no introduction do it to "please the audience" when they should write the sort of the story they'd want to read and/or watch themselves. It should come from the heart if you don't mind cheese.

I had not heard of that cyborg incident, anon! That sounds great.

(And I’m behind on DuckTales – the last episode I saw was Della’s first episode; I love Paget Brewster as her voice almost as much as I loved Paget voicing Poison Ivy)

I totally agree with you!!

Sometimes, I am horrified when I learn that feedback has convinced a storyteller to go in a different direction, even if I 100% understand why. Other times, it’s a great thing.

1. Good Case: Griffin McElroy is informed by fans of the Bury Your Gays trope, and his narrative returns two Tragic WLW as dryads (I’m not there yet in The Adventure Zone; I’m so nervous about continuing The Suffering Game)

2. Bad Case A: video game creators listen to disproportionate outrage from entitled forum bros and yield to their demands to include less queer content and fewer characters of color in the next game, or to sideline that content and those characters

3. Bad Case B: Joseph Morgan is a handsome, talented actor, but his desire to go forward with the story of Klaus Mikaelson on The Vampire Diaries should not have changed existing plans. I know that this is Extremely Writer Of Me but, to my mind, that’s like putting on a puppet show and one of the puppets whirls around and tells you to not kill him off. I’m not mad that the spinoff happened or anything, I just think that Klaus is a terrible person who deserves to die, however sympathetic aspects of his backstory may have been.

Anon, you wrote “a writer should employ it based on what they feel in right for their characters and story with deep consideration“

the line about with deep consideration is especially good, and something that many of us forget to express

because I’m gay, I’m going to pick an example – there are stories I might write in which the word “faggot” appears a great deal. it’s a slur, but it might be appropriate for characterization or setting. that doesn’t mean that it needs to be part of the story that will be consumed by an actual human audience, some of whom may have heard that word yelled at them at the worst moments of their lives

I could also write a fantasy setting in which that words holds no particular meaning, and someone’s name might happen to be that. it’s not like the fantasy character speak english or have that slur – the name just happens to be that, and exists within that world’s context. BUT again, this is going to be consumed by an actual audience, and I can just … not do that

in a previous post [X], I discussed worldbuilding and narrative choices, and used a domino/marbles analogy. another analogy might be baking – you choose the recipe and the ingredients and how they’re introduced and combined, but once placed in the oven, it all has to work naturally – you can’t force a cake to rise

if you do that in a story, people will know that something isn’t right

but choosing the recipe/ingredients and how they’re combined isn’t an excuse to do whatever you want.

you can choose to, as you note, set things up so that a woman who might have been fridged will instead be in a position to become a cyborg. (I don’t know a good baking analogy for that)

there are ways to include bigotry, death, and horror in your worldbuilding without focusing upon these elements for shock value, and that’s because the storyteller also controls the perspective

for another poor analogy, let’s say that you’re using your phone to record a video tour of your house – a walkthrough. you can use camera angles to avoid showing that place where the carpet just isn’t the same as it used to be, or that side of the couch that the cats chose as a scratching post, or that place where your drunk buddy decided to throw food onto the kitchen ceiling to see what stuck and now it’s discolored. storytellers can do this by choosing who (first person or third person limited) is telling the story, by choosing an unreliable narrator (usually just someone without the social awareness to realize what’s going on around them), or by taking the story in other directions

which means, and I know that this is a tangent but you reminded me of it, that stories can avoid gratuitous depictions of sexual assault or domestic violence and focus on fun things, like werewolf violence or whatever. it doesn’t mean pretending that those things don’t exist, it’s just prioritizing what gets “screen time”

that’s another place where deep considering comes into play. what things need to be part of the media experience, and which things can’t be left aside? for example, with very rare exceptions, i recommend against following the story of anyone experiencing gastrointestinal distress and related symptoms. someone can have a stomachache and then stay in bed with a time skip or someone else’s POV for a while. with rare exceptions, we don’t need to follow that person into the bathroom. the same is true with sexual assault and domestic violence, only this time we’re adding potential reader trauma to the list of reasons to tilt the metaphorical camera in another direction; if a character says that their ex was “a bad man” or warns someone away from X tavern, I believe them

obviously, sometimes stories do include horrifying elements; there are very few absolutes in writing

[barely restraining myself from talking about showing-vs-telling and some discourse I’ve seen about it]

I absolutely do not mind cheese, anon, and I agree that stories should metaphorically come from the heart

I do think that a lot of television writing has less of that because it’s, well, a job. the story should still make sense, and ideally everyone in the writer’s room feels passionately about some aspect of the project, but any mercenary writer is going to have some things where they just do their best and then call it a day. the story needs to make sense and engage audiences, but it doesn’t have to be a passion project

if a writer does a good job of entertaining themselves, they’ll usually do a decent job of pleasing the audience. there are exceptions.

not everybody has a foot fetish, Joss

[dontcallmecarrie]

Moments of A Dying World

Yes, another fic idea. Except this one’s nowhere near as light as the ones I’ve done in the past. [Unless you’re in the mood for a “rocks fall, everyone dies” thing, anyway. Hamlet-levels of death, in this one. Thus the cut.]

Title from Disturbed’s “The Vengeful One”, which should clue you in that no, this is not a happy fic idea. 

Warnings: mental health issues, mental instability/insanity, dubious morality, unreliable narrator, evil Tony Stark, codependency, an amoral JARVIS, not Wanda friendly, character deaths, not a fix-it, an apocalypse of sorts, and an unhappy ending. Dead dove, do not eat—this is me taking everything to the most logical conclusion I can think of.

I’ve asked myself this before, when I came up with TWiFFON: even though we all know that when it comes down to it, heroism is as integral a part as genius is to Tony Stark’s character, let’s play a game, shall we?

What would it look like, if Tony Stark were to to snap? 

I mean, sometimes it feels like part of the fandom wants him to. Some cast him as the villain, the evil mass-murderer who wants to lock up poor innocent Steve and his friends. The man behind the curtain, the mastermind behind it all.

Fine. 

If they want a monster, then I’ll give them one.

Only tricky part being, when and how would this work? Because we’ve seen him betrayed multiple times, backstabbed and tortured, and it all only made him burn brighter rather than break. But hey, if they really want to seen Tony Stark as a villain...

Wanda fucked up. Badly.

So, so, so badly, and the foolish child even thought, up until the end, it hadn't been her fault. It's not until her last moments, when she's taking her last, desperate breaths, and looking him in the eyes, trying to be defiant to the end, that she sees.

That she notices the gleam of something horrifyingly familiar, almost hidden behind the madness, and realizes that her initial attempt at vengeance for her family had gone so, horribly, right.

But I'm skipping ahead, aren't I?

See, Wanda fucked up, when she mind-whammied Tony Stark, back when she first met him in Sokovia. In her arrogance, still high off the feeling of power rushing through her veins, that she didn't realize at the time, the consequences of just what she'd tampered with.

Tony Stark, at the time, had been a genius who'd burned so, so brilliantly, and, though not many had been aware of at the time, had been dealing with mental health issues. As per usual, Tony being Tony, everything he dealt with was with higher stakes, and his PTSD had been much the same way; his mind had been working on overdrive just to carry on with his life.

 Simply put, Wanda's thoughtless meddling was the straw that broke the camel's back. Thing is, in this analogy, the 'camel's back' was Tony’s mind and morals and rationale and psyche. Tony Stark had burned brightly for so, so long, had been a supernova— and, much like the life cycle of a star, it had only take a bare hint of a nudge, for it to become a black hole, consuming everything in its path.

 Tony Stark entered Sokovia wanting to make the world a better place. He left it, wanting to see it burn. 

And so he did, with his suits and connections and devastating intellect.

It was almost alarmingly easy, actually. He'd returned looking slightly shaken, slightly off, but not as if he'd had everything that made him Tony inverted so drastically. Thing is, he hadn't been just Iron Man; he'd also been the Merchant of Death, once.

Tony Stark had, once upon a time, made weapons of the highest caliber, dealt with mercenaries and generals alike with a striking blend of charisma and ruthlessness, easy as breathing. He'd buried it, left it to be forgotten in the dust, after Afghanistan—until Wanda happened, and the rest is history.

Ultron came online, dazed and confused and sanity already eroding from the Mind Stone's influence; it was only par for course, really, that his first introduction to the world was the Merchant of Death’s vicious smile, and a JARVIS whose only concern was his creator's safety and happiness. [If Sir wanted to see the world burn, then he would give him the spark to set it ablaze.]

In another life, the AI would have tried to soothe Ultron, would have tried to stabilize him and show him humanity's goodwill. In this life, however…

 While the Avengers relaxed, and had a party to celebrate the fall of HYDRA's last stronghold, nobody noticed that Tony never showed. While everyone was seeing Thor off to Asgard, Scepter in tow [though Ultron had relieved it of the Mind Stone], JARVIS taught Ultron how to access launch codes and crash stock markets, how to obliterate his enemies. While everyone else returned to their daily lives, Tony set to work. 

  Really, the Earth never stood a chance.

 Oh, sure, it put up a decent fight nevertheless, once word got out, but it was little more than a foregone conclusion when the chips were down. [An enemy had once said Iron Man was “a masterpiece of death. A man with a dozen of these could rule all of Asia”; Tony Stark had a Legion.]

 The Avengers took surprisingly long to fall, but once their team was broken, the rest of the world didn't hold out for much longer. Everyone tried to run, to hide, in the end days; Wanda was among one of the last survivors, one of the 'lucky' ones to have survived seeing her home—her planet— turn to ash around her once again, but it really didn't matter once Iron Man breached the last of the strongholds. She, however, was one of the few to realize just what she'd done, though it was only for a few seconds, in the end.

  Lord Thanos' arrival to Midgard was heralded by a spectacular invading force…which may have been for naught, if the burnt-out shell of a planet was any indicator. Hmm...he could've sworn he hadn't been here before, and yet the ruins of a vast civilization that appeared to have been on the cusp of a new era told a starkly different story.

Nothing was left, nothing but a madman on a throne of ash and dust, nothing but a madman with a smile like bared teeth. 

Fascinating, that.

  Maybe the Merchant of Death tries to take Thanos on. Maybe, with Ultron and JARVIS and their practice with Earth, he even manages to succeed, because this is fire fighting fire, a madman fighting the Mad Titan, the Merchant of Death fighting the one who sought to court it. Maybe years pass and all that’s left is a barren wasteland of a planet with two immortal beings that become the stuff of legends and horror stories, a warning to the rest of the realms that cannot help but wonder at their creator. 

  And maybe Thor, safely back at Asgard, can't help but wonder what went wrong, even centuries later. 

...I told you guys it was not a happy story. The urge to see the world burn means that there’s nothing left but ash. 

Tony’d die alone, the last human on Earth, unless JARVIS does something drastic like try to upload his brain like Zola did in The Winter Soldier. [Which he totally would, by the way, if he ever figured out how: he is fanatically devoted to keeping Tony safe and happy, regardless of what that means for the rest of the world.]

Ultron, meanwhile, is content; his perceived creator [because sorry but I still call bull on Tony having created a murderbot in canon when the Ominously Gleaming Alien Artifact was right there] was to help him complete his mission.

Fun fact: of them all, Ultron’s also the most moral one. If anyone were to crash-land this dimension, he at least would only care about just sending them back, rather than try to kill them. [Not his dimension = not his problem.] Tony would not be nearly as merciful, and JARVIS...well. You get the picture.

I don’t doubt that there’s probably a better villain name for Tony Stark, but I also couldn't resist the idea of the Merchant of Death vs. Thanos’ army.  

[...and the more I think about it the more detailed it’s getting oops]

[operationrainfall]

Title Chasm Developer Bit Kid, Inc. Publisher Bit Kid, Inc. Release Date July 31st, 2018 Genre Metroidvania Platform PC, PS4, Vita Age Rating T for Teen – Fantasy Violence, Mild Blood, Alcohol Reference Official Website

I’ve been following Chasm since I first played it at PAX back in 2015. It certainly made its mark on me then, and I’ve been not so patiently awaiting the release date ever since. The game has been delayed a few times, and it totally caught me by surprise when I learned of the release date a day or two before it came out. Thankfully, I was able to talk with developer Bit Kid and and they were kind enough to provide a review copy, which brings us to today. It’s a major challenge for a project to live up to its potential, that wealth of expectations thrust upon it by eager fans. Was Chasm able to deliver on the promise of quality I played in the demo 3 years ago?

While it’s true Chasm is a Metroidvania, I would go a bit farther to help narrow down which sort. In my opinion, it’s most styled after the Castlevania Metroidvanias which released on the Game Boy Advance, specifically it felt like a mixture of Harmony of Dissonance and Aria of Sorrow. To the uninitiated, that means it has complex, seductive graphics, challenging bosses and some very linear exploration. That last point isn’t a complaint necessarily, just something fans of the genre should be aware of. To be fair though, there had to be some exploration that felt a bit blander since the layout of the dungeons are procedurally generated each time you start a new game.

That’s not the only way Chasm reminds me of some great Metroidvania titles. It also manages to capture that air of menace and mystery so crucial to those games. While it’s not very dialogue or plot heavy, you will have important revelations narrated by Professor Baden as he navigates the sprawling corridors you discover. You’ll also find journal entries that do a good job of coloring the world of Chasm and setting the stakes for failure. (This aspect of the game really reminded me of La-Mulana.) The only downside to this approach, at least for me, was that the main character you play is a blank avatar. You can name him whatever you like (I went with Hoss), but other than that he has no distinct characteristics, dramatic backstory or even any dialogue. He’s just a blank canvas you can paint whatever you want onto. While that’s not necessarily a problem, it became a niggling concern for me later in the game.

The premise of the game is that you’re sent to investigate a mining town called Karthas where a giant hole opened up and spewed forth monsters which captured most of the villagers. Your job is to investigate what’s going on and try and save the day. Though things are kept relatively open ended, and you’re mostly left to your own devices, you’re essentially exploring, fighting monsters, saving villagers, rinse and repeat. This pattern is spiced up with a handful of quite challenging boss fights, but other than that it’s pretty predictable. And while you are left to explore on your own terms, the layout is always pretty linear, and you’re unable to proceed past certain points without the proper abilities. These are acquired by finding arcane artifacts, and result in skills most fans will be familiar with – double jump, wall climb, hover etc.

One way that Chasm keeps things interesting is that whenever you rescue a villager, they’ll offer their services for you back at Karthas. (Not unlike the system in Order of Ecclesia.) Thankfully the game has a smart teleportation system, and once you find the proper nodes you’ll be able to effortlessly explore and return to safety when needed. Which is good, since every service found in the game is only accessible in Karthas. By rescuing the villagers, you’ll unlock an item shop, blacksmith and even be able to buy magical spells from an old woman. That last part was especially helpful, since every sub weapon in the game can be unlocked in whatever order you please, for the right amount of gold. (I just wish there was a way to control which sub weapons you have ready to throw, since instead you’re forced to cycle through everything to get to the one you want.) And that brings me to one complaint I had with the game – I never seemed to have enough money. You’ll find most items are relatively expensive, which often leaves you to decide between buying healing potions, new equipment or magical spells. To be fair, you will find item drops from foes on occasion, but the drop rate is quite unpredictable and thus unreliable. Even when you find the villager who will buy gems from you for a hefty price, you’ll still be cash starved most of the time. Thankfully, you’ll always be able to restore your health at save points, though your MP can only be restored back at Karthas, by shattering lamps or with the aid of a tonic.

Make sure to save frequently!

As far as controls, I was very pleased with Chasm. Everything felt tight and intuitive, other than the dash move being tied to the Y button instead of a shoulder button on the XBox 360 controller. It’s effortless to jump around, wall climb, and slash your foes to ribbons. And that’s a good thing, since the combat is fast, furious and somewhat unforgiving. The saving grace is that enemies have lots of visual tells for all their attacks, so once you learn what to expect, you can anticipate and avoid their most devastating moves. This goes double for the challenging boss battles, though don’t expect to get through any of them unscathed. I found the bosses to be the highlights of the game, though there’s plenty of memorable minor enemies, such as the recklessly charging Meatman or the explosive Mushboom.

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Visually, I was quite impressed by Chasm. This is retro done right, with gorgeous pixelated art and tons of details that make this world come to life. Enemies range from comical to homicidal, and nothing feels out of place. I also appreciated smart and efficient use of the screen to display your stats, a clear map screen and even a pop up that appears to show you your current experience when you defeat enemies. This is a game that has done its research and knows what fans of the genre demand, and they delivered. Likewise, the music is wonderful and atmospheric. Each dungeon has it’s own score, and it can range from somewhat Western to downright Medieval. The sound effects also do a great job of grounding you in the game and helping you react intelligently to combat. Put simply, this is a Metroidvania that looks and sounds like what fans have come to expect, and does so with style.

I wish I could end on that high note, but now I feel compelled to mention some areas where I feel the game dropped the ball. Yes, visually the game is beautiful and the controls work quite well. But there’s more to a Metroidvania than just those features. One issue I mentioned earlier was the main character’s lack of personality. This became a problem for me late in the game when I realized his lack of emotion made it harder for me to care about the late game plot elements. Sure, horrible monsters threaten everything, but it’s hard to care when your hero seemingly has no nuanced reason to want to save the day. That may sound a bit critical, but there are other more relevant areas the game becomes problematic as well. About halfway through my 9 hour playthrough, the game started to throw up roadblocks without any clear way how to progress. Multiple times I was forced to look online at FAQs to figure out what I was missing, and oftentimes it was something I wouldn’t have guessed on my own. An example is when you reach the Keep but need the Parachute to progress. Problem is, to find that you need to get a black feather and then return to the Catacombs, find a specific chamber, and then proceed. Unfortunately, given the rogue nature of the dungeons, I was unable to check any online maps for clarity, and had to wander around til I finally found the right room. Which would have been a breath of relief, had it not led me to a pitch black labyrinth full of buzz saws, hideous new monsters and poisonous traps. This was easily the most challenging gauntlet in the game, and unfortunately it was only a sign of things to come. Later on you’re forced to beat what I thought was an optional area just to get an artifact that allows you to proceed past watery depths. Without it, you can’t reach the final area at all. I realize a Metroidvania is partially about exploring the unknown, but getting lost in this sort of game should be a temporary trial followed by a quick eureka moment, not wandering around aimlessly without being sure if you’re even properly equipped to proceed.

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This brings me to another complaint – some things are entirely unexplained in the game. While I don’t necessarily want my hand being held through every hardship, basic mechanics should be clear. However, I was never able to figure out how to level up my magical spells, despite them apparently being capable of leveling up. I also never figured out how to move some stone gates in a couple of areas, even after spending a lot of time exploring every nook and cranny. But perhaps most frustrating for me was that Chasm didn’t live up to it’s rogue nature. Sure, dungeons are different every game, but it’s always playing through the same dungeons with the same items. After playing another Metroidvania called A Robot Named Fight, which does a good job of constantly unlocking new features for progressive runs, the procedurally generated elements in Chasm felt bland and lackluster by comparison. It left me wishing that the game hadn’t embraced rogue at all, and had just tossed in a couple more dungeons and even some alternate endings instead.

I never did figure out how to get past here…

For $19.99, you could certainly do much worse than Chasm. While I don’t feel it entirely lived up to my expectations, it does a lot of things right, and looks and plays quite well. Unfortunately, the decision to make it rogue and the lack of a developed main character prevents it from making its mark as a true Metroidvania classic. But if you enjoy Metroidvanias and are looking for a fun if flawed experience, you should give Chasm a chance. If nothing else, the highlights of this game makes me anticipate whatever project Bit Kid does next.

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”3.5″]

Review Copy Provided by Developer

REVIEW: Chasm Title Chasm

[overcaffeinated-creative]

Repairing Friendships

Summary: A character study with Kamelia staring at the unreliable narrator. IT’s set about six months before the Clone Wars start. Every word she speaks drips paranoia. 

Characters: Kamelia Malo, Solus Vetra, Lumi Kirrin, Jazari Naaji

Rating: T maybe?

Warnings: I can't stress the unreliable nature of Kamelia enough.

Kamelia came to the small gathering later than expected. It took her by surprise she decided to show up at all. Things had grown distant between the four of them as the years passed. While they had become early Padawans she remained among the Initiates far longer. Until well past fifteen in fact. Between their different schedules, and superior talents she admitted ruefully, they should have stayed separated. Yet, now they offered her a simple in with their group again.

Just sitting among them now was like being in one of those teen holodramas. The sort she loved but would never admit to watching. To her, those three could have easily fit in among the main casts. Powerful, elite girls who started with the Galaxy served up to them on a silver platter. Yet, they still played dangerous games to pass the time. Noting the smuggled bottle of wine passing between them she knew they cared nothing for rules. It really was like being invited to a new, unwelcoming world. Yet, she felt compelled to see how their lives had turned out.

She wondered if their picture perfect group had in-fighting like the dramas. Their Trio did consist of three Black Beads, with two hailing from Katarn Clan. Avoidance, manipulation, secrecy, and violence was rumored to the lifeblood for those sort. Sure, people admired their rare (and coveted) training but said training came at a cost. Everyone knew their moral compasses never pointed due north. Kamelia imagined it made it hard for them to keep friends at all. No matter the relationship the urge to screw one another over or spy would always be there. An unhealthy paranoia bred from dancing in the shadows of the Dark Side but supposedly resisting.

Paranoia crept abruptly up Kamelia’s spine from those thoughts. Was their attempt to renew their friendship with her just a game? When Jazari, the ring leader, invited her to this she sounded genuine. Even going so far as to say they all missed her. But, that could so easily be a lie. Lumi was too much of a stone cold bitch to miss anyone. Solus was an overly anxious mess that barely fit the Order. Jazari used to be the Nice One yet that could have changed. Maybe when she left they would all laugh behind her back. They were special, everyone knew they were special, but she was not. Compared to people who remembered lives outside the Temple, with impressively high midichlorians, and secret training she was painfully boring. It was hard to believe they were ever friends before.

Sipping from her juice, Kamelia used the sweet taste to focus. Her mind was too occupied with the future again as her master would say. In the here and now, they wanted to be friends again and she would accept. While unprompted, it was a kind offer to make for people not known for such actions. Unlike them, she refused to grow paranoid, exclusive, and apathetic. With their skewed morals they could understandably be those things. If anything this could be the Force wanting her to help them back to the right path. It was her job to help heal the broken as a medic and they were broken.

Sometimes, she wondered if they realized how they sounded to outsiders. The recent Padawan hung out with them for less than a night but was already witnessing their brokenness. Lumi recounted the story of some guy handing her a love note earlier. Something handwritten on flimsi then meticulously sealed with a plum ribbon. He even called her beautiful to her face while stuttering. She imitated his minor confession while scoffing as if the word was an insult. To rub salt in the wound, Lumi even brought the letter to share with them. To her ears, the young man’s words were both pretty and heartfelt. He had a crush he was trying to navigate through without breaking the rules. Yet, Solus laughed along at the prose while Jazari rolled her eyes. Both of them agreed it was insulting.

If honest with herself, Kamelia was envious at the exotic beauty they so often ignored. Compared to them she was merely human. A plain, some days awkwardly shaped human with normal, boring coloring. A slight tan with a few freckles, brown hair, and dark green eyes was nothing next to their brightness. Nor was short, sort of slim, but very stacked impressive next to literal goddesses (even if their chests were all smaller). At best, her beauty came from her personality and soft muscle tone. It keep people from calling her intimidating so she had to love it. Healers should never scare their patients.

Across from her, Lumi sprawled over three mediation cushions head on her back. Her head was pillowed on Jazari’s lap with lekku fanned out and ends curled. She looked every bit an escaped muse from a classical painting or a fountain statue come to life. Already Lumi was classed as hot, as Twi’lek were known to be, but even by their standards she was devastatingly sexy. Not even her more common base color was a slight because her patterns made her look like a nebula. It was frustrating to watch her layer that beneath robes, sweat, and engine grease. With no effort Lumi could have the world eating from the palm of her hand. Yet, she chose to be Jedi. Why would she spend so much time dreaming of the stars when she was capable of owning them with looks alone?

Solus sat above Lumi on a meditation block while scribbling away in her sketch book. What Lumi had in pure sex appeal Solus had as a more innocent sexy. Nothing about her screamed intimidating; a waifish figure with long, white curls and full, fuchsia lips. Even her predatory fangs could be passed off as cute with the right smile. Coy Imp was what the tiny girl called the act she proudly weaponized. In passing, she had even admitted to being a landed countess on Mandalore. Yet, she stayed in the Order as a future, failed Jedi. To Kamelia is was so unfair to see their resources wasted.

One hand was scrolling through her datapad but the other rubbed the base of Lumi’s lekku. In her opinion, Jazari lacked much of the sex appeal attributed to her. Far too tall with ugly hair jumped to Kamelia’s first when she thought of her former friend. She wore the strange nerf tail, Padawan cut of Master Kenobi and Padawan Skywalker’s fame. Combined with her calloused hands and defined muscles she should have looked manly. Yet, people loved it. Clad in mostly black robes she slipped between expectations. They loved the self assured way Jazari carried herself and the kind, intelligent words she spoke. A few also mentioned the brilliance she possessed as a slicer. Any company or runway (Kamelia inwardly balked at her being compared to a model) would be lucky to have her.  Perhaps, she should be thankful after all that Jazari put so little effort into her looks. Otherwise, she would be another unmatchable class of beauty.

-

“Something wrong?” Solus asked sounding almost concerned from her perch. “You keep looking at us funny.”

Kamelia felt her face blister red at being caught with her mind drifting. “I’m just amazed is all,” she stuttered out. “It’s been forever since we’ve hung out and everyones’ changed so much.”

“Huh.” Solus lifted the bottle of wine to her lips for a long sip. “Guess it has been a few years. We weren’t old enough to drink last time.”

“We’re still not old enough to drink nor allowed.” Left off was her personal opinions on them so brazenly breaking the rules. While Masters Zey and Drayson were impressive they were nothing next to Master Windu. Yet, all of their Padawans felt comfortable chancing their reputations for a vice.

“Depending on the rules you go by we are,” Solus laughed before passing the bottle to Lumi. “By my peoples’ standards I’m an adult. Master Leska even did a Coming of Age Ceremony with me to cement it.” Her sketch pad dipped down to show several nude figure studies. “And Padawans drinking is frowned upon but not forbidden.”

Jazari laughed with teeth shining against nearly forest green lips. “Sol’ika has a point. We’re not really told not too.”

Cold silver eyes bore into her own while Lumi took several silent sips. An unspoken dare to challenge anyone further on the matter. “Want some? It’s the best batch yet,” she purred in her Ryl toned words.

“No, thank you. I’ve got a shift with the Master Che in the morning and I can’t risk it.”

[brinshannara]

Supergirl S1 Appreciation Week - Day 3

Supergirl S1 Appreciation Week

Why you love Season 1

I feel it necessary to state, again, that I love a few things about Season 2. I really, really, really do. I love Alex’s coming out story. I love the introduction of Maggie Sawyer. I love the buildup of their working relationship, friendship and finally romantic relationship. I love it all. I love that Winn is now at the DEO. I love a ton of little moments that are just perfect between various characters.

So Season 2 has a place in my heart, despite some of the other problems I have with it.

It’s no Season 1, though.

Season 1 focused on the women

Gasp. A show that focused on women? That focused on a young woman (Kara) and her sister (Alex) and had other, strong female characters like Cat Grant and Lucy Lane and General (!) Astra? Season 2 no longer has Cat Grant or Lucy Lane or General Astra. Instead, we do have Maggie Sawyer (who gets about five minutes of screen time per episode), we have Lena Luthor (who is a recurring character and is occasionally the focus of the episode but not usually) and we have Lillian Luthor (another recurring character who occasionally has big chunks of screen time, but not usually). We also have Rhea, who is played by the outstanding Teri Hatcher (my favourite Lois Lane ever), but her role has been fairly small so far.

Instead of strong, deep characters like Cat, Lucy and Astra, we have Mon-El, who takes up an inordinate amount of time in almost every episode in which he appears.

So I definitely loved Season 1′s focus on the women and it’s something I miss about Season 2.

The discussions that don’t happen elsewhere

There’s an episode, Red Faced, where Cat takes Kara for drinks and talks to her about anger and emotion in the workplace.

I sat there, on my couch, watching this dialogue about the things no one ever talks about when it comes to being a woman in the workplace. 

“When I was working at the Daily Planet, Perry White picked up a chair and he threw it out of the window, because somebody missed a deadline. And no he didn't open the window first. If I had thrown a chair, or, my God, if I had thrown a napkin, it would have been all over the papers. It would have been professional and cultural suicide.”

Being a woman in a daily workplace was something I was getting used to when this episode aired. Most of my life, I’ve freelanced, worked remotely or been a student. When this episode aired, I’d made my first hire as the head of my department at work. I worked at a tech company, so the atmosphere was casual, but it was still very much an old boys’ club. And so Cat’s words rang so true to me. This discussion about the differences between what Perry White has the freedom to do versus what Cat couldn’t do (even throw a napkin!), was so good to hear. It wasn’t all in my head that there were double-standards at work. It wasn’t me being stupid that caused so many of my male co-workers to try to explain (MANSPLAIN) things to me. It was this. This is the “norm” for society. And I actually got teary-eyed because this made me realize, emotionally, that it wasn’t just me. I’d known that sexism and misogyny occurred, of course, and I’d had a couple more obvious run-ins at work previously, but I didn’t recognize the more subtle issues at work.

So it’s discussions like that, about women in the workplace, about what it takes to be successful, about the struggles we will endure, that I loved. And I miss.

(Again, not to say I don’t love some of the discussions in S2. Alex’s coming out speech to Kara is one of the things that has resonated with me most in basically all of television. But that’s about being gay, about pushing down feelings and memories and not accepting yourself. Very important, but not nearly as common, as widespread, as the simple act of being a woman in the workplace.)

The compelling storylines

Look, not every episode of Season 1 was a winner. There were some boring ones, some duds, whatever. Every show has a few meh episodes every season. But episodes like Red Faced, Human for a Day, For the Girl Who Has Everything... these are some amazing episodes. Not necessarily all perfect episodes, of course, but the discussions in Red Faced and how Kara channels her anger, these are superb. How Kara still wants to help while hurt and without her powers in Human for a Day? So amazingly in-character and yet you want to hold her back from doing so. And the false Krypton reality in For the Girl Who Has Everything... Oh God, my heart still aches for Kara.

Again, Season 2 has had some great episodes, too, but I felt Season 1 was usually more solid than S2 has been.

The joie de vivre

The sheer joy we saw in Season 1 is oddly missing. Kara is mopey and more and more isolated in Season 2 -- and I have to hope that that’s by design, in the hopes that the whole bunch of characters will reunite to face a threat by season’s end -- and she’s just not the same Kara.

What happened to the Kara who was so delighted when Barry brought her an ice cream cone while demonstrating his speed? That look, that one “YES!”, that alone can convey how joyful Kara is. There are other examples, like Kara threatening Alex if she doesn’t let her have the last potsticker and throwing a pillow at her face. Like Sister Nights and Game Nights. We don’t see these anymore. And I miss them terribly. I definitely loved S1 in part because it showed us how joyful Kara was.

The complexity of the relationships between characters

So, like, all of this is gone, these days, IMHO.

In Season 1, we had:

- Alex in the DEO, who had been lying to Kara forever (not a fan of the lying, but the complexity is fascinating) - Alex who killed Astra and let Hank/J’onn take the blame (again, not a fan of the lying and was glad it got resolved quickly, but YOU KILLED YOUR ADOPTIVE SISTER’S AUNT, WHO WAS ONE OF TWO BLOOD RELATIVES STILL ALIVE, ALEX! Complex.) - Astra, who was trying to take over the Earth for Myriad and would go through Kara if she had to - Hank/J’onn hiding who he was and how that affected his relationship with Alex - Eliza and her relationships with both Kara and Alex (still happens about as often in S2, to be fair, and we do have Jeremiah thrown in there now) - Lucy and James vs. Kara and James - Winn’s place in Kara’s life

I mean, I could go on. In this season, we do have some Daddy Danvers drama, which is great, but what else? Some tension about Kara not being Alex’s number one priority all of the time, due to her relationship with Maggie. And? The Guardian storyline, but that’s not been done too well, IMHO -- and I mourn the lack of James in recent episodes. Then what, Mon-El lied about being the prince? Come on, we all knew Mon-El was the stupid prince from the moment he told that BS story, because, hi, UNRELIABLE NARRATOR. And apparently lying to Kara for 9 months or whatever is fine, so that’s not adding any complexity to things. :P

Relationships have gotten very simplistic in Season 2, at least compared to Season 1. I don’t hate all the relationships and such, in terms of enjoying that Lena and Kara are friends, Maggie and Alex have gotten together, etc. But I do miss how layered things could be. Think about how Non -- Kara’s uncle (by marriage, but uncle nonetheless!) -- planted the Black Mercy for her. Think about how Kara had to say goodbye to her family again in order to escape. Think about how Alex risked herself to save her sister, to bring her back. Think about how Astra and Alex had a temporary ceasefire to allow Astra to tell Alex what was going on.

This is compelling and complex.

And I miss it.

See you tomorrow for another day of Supergirl S1 Appreciation Week.

[drink-n-watch]

I decided to just stop assuming things in Steins;Gate. What’s the point? I mean sure, episode 7’s ending brought up so many questions, memories, feelings! This time surely, they’ve overplayed their hand. If it gets resolved in the first scene as it usually does, that’s going to be just as cheap and hollow as the Amadeus thing from the previous episode. If it goes on for too long, it’s going to get grating…

fine, be that way!

I cautiously examined this Kurisu. Or should I say this girl that looked like Kurisu. Which one is she? Which world line are we on. Can I….

And then everything just crumbled. My questions, my doubts, my misgivings all blew away like dandelion seeds in the wind. That hug had to be the most cathartic thing I’d seen all week. And maybe it was this fragile emotional state that lead me to overpraise the moment in my mind. However, I could have sworn it was better animated. Unlike in last week’s fight, Kurisu’s lab coat folded and creased as Okabe’s arms wound around it. Long shadows snaked their way across with the bend of her body. All these little details added to emphasize the sudden, clumsy and a little brusque explosion of relief and love. My heart followed right along with its own awkward skips. The OP hadn’t started yet…

I’m not particularly emotional and generally uninterested in romantic tales. Well usually. The original Steins;Gate is the only actual romance I consider to be on my list of favorites. I’ve never tried to hide my bias. These reviews aren’t the least bit objective… Okabe be Kurisu together again was exhilarating. We could finally take a moment to celebrate.

this is the happiest screencap I could get…

See what I mean about assuming things…. I didn’t even get the first balloon filled with helium that the other shoe dropped. Of course, it was too good to be true. Of course, equilibrium had to be sustained. For Kurisu to be standing there, something of equal value had to be traded. All it took was a simple mention of how much Mayuri was missed for cruel reality to drag Okabe and me right back to earth.

A few weeks ago, I obliquely accused Okabe of being cold to Mayushii. You see, in both the anime and the game, after literally tearing reality apart in order to save Mayuri, Okabe and I eventually turned our full attention to Kurisu, seemingly almost forgetting about our childhood friend. We all tend to do that, don’t we? Push faithful companions to the sidelines when a new flame catches our fancy. I always thought this was a bit careless of Okabe but relatable. Stil, he must have known at least on some level how special he was to Mayuri.

Assumptions man…I just never learn.

I challenge you to take a screencap of a smiling Okabe

This Okabe is simply not the Okabe I knew. This was made clear to us from the very start. And this Okabe had chosen Mayuri to begin with. He had actively stood by his friend and given up the promise of new love. And having Kurisu back in no way made up for losing Mayuri. I adored this.

This is the Okabe that gave up. The Okabe that resigned himself to losing someone he loved no matter what and who took on all the guilt and responsibility for that loss. We find out through conversation that this world line’s Okabe had been just as traumatized and shaken about losing Mayuri as ours is about Kurisu. He may love them in different ways, but he clearly loves them both. I’m sorry I doubted you. You’re a good friend Okabe.

I rather enjoyed that all the upheaval of the last episode was put on hold. Not a single sighting of Moeka or FB. No sign of secret codes. Mayuri’s cosplay friends have never been introduced to the lab members. As Okabe tried to get his bearings and explore this new world line, Steins;Gate 0 mined the nostalgia of the original deeper than it ever had up until now.

discovering a new catgirl maid for the very first time

The lab was back to its former glory, phone microwave and all, all be it (revised). Daru was short tempered and unimpressed, Faris was a caricature, Ruka was introverted and shy. As for Kurisu…. Amadeus had never really been a perfect copy to me. She was fine, but just not the same girl.  I liked Kurisu in the original, but she was never my favorite character. There’s something too uncomfortably recognizable about her. I was ok in a world without her.

This Kurisu was the real deal. She was the person I remember, granted from the end of the series rather than the beginning. As the episode progressed, I had to agree with Okabe, Amadeus doesn’t hold a candle to her. There’s just no substitute for the original. I’m not entirely sure at which point in the episode I suddenly realized how much I had missed Kurisu. Since the beginning of Steins;Gate 0, I’ve never felt this comfortable or safe. Everything is going to be all right – Kurisu will help us figure it out. She always knows just what to do.

I know I occasionally refer to Okabe as “we” or even “I”. It must be confusing for you. I figure if you’re one of my regular readers, you have a pretty good tolerance for muddled. I’ll try my best to keep this next part comprehensible. No promises.

well I promise I’ll try…

Okabe and I got lost. Not literally, we know the town pretty well, but figuratively. The choice between Mayuri and Kurisu had already been the hardest thing we had to do and now it’s being dragged up all over again. Sure, we could just try and get back to our world line, pretend this was yet another nightmare. But can we really make the decision again. Kurisu is here and she’s real. Mayuri is gone. Can we again sacrifice the real girl for the one that was? Will it even change anything? Does any of this suffering matter in any way?

We were spiraling. We argued about it some. We both knew there was no solution here. No lesser of two evils, no greater good. OK, the preventing WW III thing could fall into that greater good category but we won’t even be able to tell if we accomplished that anyways. Playing with the fabric of the universe is a pretty imprecise science. We were talking in circles, trying to perpetually delay a decision we were no longer able to make.

And then of course, Kurisu saved us. Her simple speech and calm demeanor was our port in the storm. I never realized how much I had come to rely on her. I never realized how important it is to be someone people can count on.

I let Okabe and Kurisu go on a walk together. I figured they needed some alone time. I could tell things were going to change no matter what.

sometimes you just get that uneasy feeling

Aside from romance, the genre I tend to have the least patience for is full blown drama. I’m extremely picky with dramatic scenes. As soon as Kurisu brought Okabe to visit the Shiina family grave, I did a few eye exercises, assuming I would be rolling them soon. I was just a touch heavy handed but Kurisu can always be counted on to keep things even keeled. As the scenes went on to mirror the image of little Mayuri staring off into space all alone at her grandmother’s grave, I completely stopped caring about how cheesy it was.

Okabe and I had spent countless hours worrying about that little girl. Watching her from a distance and desperately racking our brains for any way to make the pain a little more bearable for her. We would have given anything to make her smile just for a second, to shake her back to life, to make her feel anything. We had wanted to save her ever since we were children.

Kurisu and I watched Okabe in silence and hoped he would be ok. We hoped he could find his way out of this endless maze. We silently agreed that we would help.

everyone took this screencap – I don’t care

So far, Steins;Gate 0 has made a habit out of ending on shocking cliffhangers. Although I wouldn’t exactly call the ending of episode 8 boring, it wasn’t exactly a cliffhanger either. Seeing Kurisu running by herself as the closing credits rolled had me glued to the tv. Seeing the future gadgets team, Mayuri included, made my heart jump. Watching Kurisu hesitate by the door had me holding my breath. Hearing her confess, was everything I needed. It was a good place to stop. Satisfying and devastating.

I have speculated more than a few times that Steins;Gate 0 is playing with the viewers. Not in the classic unreliable narrator way – I do believe the events we are seeing are happening and in exactly the way they are shown, but I think the natural assumption that these events are taking place in a world line we are already familiar with has yet to be proven. Episode 8 ostensibly takes place in world line alpha but some little things didn’t add up for me. Amane was in Mayuri’s comiket picture, but I could have sworn I’d already seen all the alpha variations of that pic and Yuki was never in them. The news is still reporting on the mysterious earthquakes even in this world line. Even Okabe seems to have noticed some discrepancies between his version of the past and this Kurisu’s.

I don’t actually know anything, this is just wild assumptions of course. All I really know, is that it was good seeing the real girl again. I hope we go see alpha line Maho next.

I also couldn’t stop taking screencaps. I really liked this episode:

Steins;Gate 0 Ep 8 – Okabe And The Real Girl I decided to just stop assuming things in Steins;Gate. What's the point? I mean sure, episode 7's ending brought up so many questions, memories, …