#see it's not me giving Port a complex it's just history

[reallunargift]

*thinks about D. Teresa and the political upheaval when she took a Galician lover*

*thinks about D. Pedro and the political upheaval when he took a Galician lover*

*thinks about D. Leonor Teles and the political upheaval when she took a Galician lover*

*thinks abou

[silver-studios]

A Hypothetical History: Land of Fire

The Land of Fire is one of the largest and most powerful countries in Naruto, and is also the home to our main characters.

Set for Success

The Land of Fire is canonically characterised by its dense forestage, warm weather and bright skies. Most of the country seems to be set in the plains, there’s a pretty solid coastline and plenty of water sources. What this tells me is that they’re set for success pretty much right off the bat. 

Historically, almost every known civilisation got its start from a nearby water source-- a river in most cases. It’s incredibly likely that Land of Fire was home to some of the oldest civilisations in the Continent, and they probably had the time and resources to develop pretty sophisticatedly too.  

My personal vision for Fire’s origins is an amalgamation of the Indus Valley civilisation, the Inca empire, ancient China and ancient Japan.

A Thriving Economy: Agriculture, Trade, Innovation 

The earliest generations to make their homes in these plains were almost certainly farmers. Given the climate and the kind of geography that varies just enough over the massive land mass to give rise to plenty of agricultural variety, the people of Fire could probably cultivate just about anything to trade amongst themselves. 

Exports, however, are easier to guess. Wheat, rice, sesame, cotton and sugar were probably their biggest crop exports. I imagine they also traded silk and iron. Imports are harder to guess but going by older civilisations in similar places, they might have imported bronze, copper, gold and coal.

It wouldn’t be wrong to say that Fire was in no way short of resources, and what usually follows is infrastructural development. I think they were the kind of civilisation that had the room for comfort and growth, and turned to developing road networks, extensive water-carrying channels and city complexes.

Fire’s current capital would have served as their most prolific port and been at the heart of their trade, leading to its emerging as an economic and cultural hub, bringing in new ideas of technology and philosophy along with foreign goods and services.

 Religion & Philosophy: Shintoism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Daoism

Keeping in mind that Fire is supposed to be a nod to Japan, it’s safe to say that Shintoism is probably the first religion that came to be, and it isn’t hard to see why. The Shinto religion, broadly, is all about nature and maintaining an admiration for it by believing that there’s a kami in everything. The earliest human civilisations have almost always maintained a similar trend of worshipping the forces of nature, out of both fear and reverence for what has been given to them and what is often taken away by forces they can not control. The Land of Fire was very likely the same. 

 I think that Daoism and Confucianism were the next to come about. Daoism is roughly about The Way which centers on going along with nature and life takes you, and an important aspect of this is the flow of seeming opposites to create the whole. Meanwhile, Confucianism is a school of thought that is more concerned with ethics and a code of living centered around a pursuit of harmony and order with the world at large.

And, finally, Buddhism which reiterates the ideas of suffering, impermanence of material items, and reincarnation while stressing the idea of reaching salvation beyond.

All four of these coexist in modern-day Japan and in Naruto’s world too. We know for a fact that the Senju were Buddhists, the Uchiha followed Shintoism and the Hyuuga were, traditionally at least, Daoists. The existence of samurai implies that this society did, at some point, adhere to Confuciansim too. 

Contemporary Land of Fire

I’ve mentioned this in my post about the Continent at large, but my personal headcanon is that the countries were in fact united at some point, and this was probably under the banner of an Emperor from Fire who then spread the currency and language across the Continent. 

I do think that the capital of this Empire was situated in the Land of Fire and still serves as the country’s capital now with the Daimyo at the helm. This capital is home to the Continent’s largest civilian university and the center for technological advancements. It remains a hub of economic and artistic activity. 

It’s pretty likely that the Land of Fire boasts a high standard of living with a large educated and working population. They’d maintain a massive income from exporting a wide variety of things: rice, wheat, cotton, textiles, timber, furniture and technology. 

There’s several implications throughout canon that being a shinobi is far from the norm and I wanted to reflect that in my imagining of the countries. The Hidden Villages exist to supply the Daimyo with an army and function in a similar capacity to how a ministry of defense might. There’s major incentive to continue keeping civilian interests at heart because that’s where the money is. 

Ultimately, what makes a country strong isn’t just their armed forces but also a really great economy, and considering how powerful the Land of Fire is canonically supposed to be, I wanted to really reflect that. 

[ordersreality]

Task Force GRUDGE

Truth, Earth’s star system sits in a very inconvenient spot. Well, depending on your point of view. A few trillion years ago a star fissioned giving birth to several new stars of which our star system is one. Hundreds of stellar dwarfs, dozens of stars and planets, all continue to linger around the remnants of that one star we now call Arcturus. Add that to dozens of star clusters and families in the neighborhood, some mere parsecs away, and ours is a fairly crowded corner of the galaxy.

That’s not the inconvenience, though.

See, several of those star systems hold planets that have cultivated complex life forms, some of which went so far as to build space faring civilizations. One or more of those have done so several times in a span of time than none of those starting out now even remember those that went before them.

I’m not going to tell you Earth is one of them. Mostly because you won’t believe me. Trust me, though, it’s important.

The main source of inconvenience is location. Close to Sirius and Procyon, and maybe a dozen other systems one must sometimes pass through Earth’s star system to get to others. Must, unless laws or policies prevent that owing to this being a populated star system.

We might add, most spacefaring civilizations employ Birkeland Currents to achieve interstellar travel at rates that are commercially sensible. Joveran technology is the best, for that. A ship could get from Sirius to Earth—2.64 parsecs away—in about a week. Deploying the most common slip-ship technology, it takes about a month, Earth time.

Thing is, for a slip-ship to get from Eniga—not on our maps—and Weala—Procyon on our maps and a major trading port—they have to travel a good week out of their way, spending fuel, time, other resources. Even more on a passenger slip.

Meanwhile, Earth is still a little outpost, primitive, barbaric, really. Sometimes that combination is just irresistible to some business interests. Well, just think about what Cecil Rhodes did to Africa, and raise it to interplanetary magnitude.

Let’s offer a little known blip of history for an example.

In the late 1950s several individuals visiting a transit port and waiting for clear weather to get where they were going were kidnapped in hopes of gaining either ransom or slaves, maybe both.

The legal authorities gave chase, passed through a galactic wave front that shot both ships with lightning. Both landed in the Amazon and didn’t fare very well.

Before authorities could get the necessary permits to retrieve property and technology other interests, from the CIA, KGB, and private interests, had salvaged the crash site for treasures.

PS: while some of those people out there might pass for human if they keep their bodies covered and their tails tucked, the risk of discovery might still be too high, especially if they smile and unveil their beaks. So….

While those authorities were working out what to do about that crash, the others who don’t care so much about the law found opportunities and ways to take advantage of them. Well, not for the first time.

Needless to say, the damage was done. Foo Fighters, the Battle of Los Angeles, Roswell of the 1940s, Turkey Springs, and Allagash Abductions last year, all added to questions and fears. And in March of last year some weapons from that Amazon incident turned up in a police officer’s van, and in the hands of several officers conducting raids on child murderers in the area.

Fortunately, maybe, an agent for a secret, quasi-governmental agency happened to be in the area. That agency was built with alien intrusions as their focus.

Finding those weapons on the street like that put a fire under that agency’s ass, if you will. They needed a way to get into areas of question, retrieve what property they could, including technological and biological remains. Thus, a new task force was born. GRUDGE.

And Camp Wolf Creak will be a focus to train and deploy those resources.

I’m not going to ask you to believe anything I’ve said. Not about life throughout the universe, or that some of it has been visiting ours for quite some time. We’ve found fossils from seventy-two millennia ago that would curl your toes.

You are only required to keep what we do here confidential. Sure, you could be reassigned. The army is between missions and might be a little lost at the moment. And if you say a word about what you’ve just heard nothing will happen. Or worst, you’ll be thought of as nuts. It’s going to be like The Onion Router, no one will know we are there because we won’t be any louder than the noise everyone else is making.

· • ° • ·

[inhonoredglory]

ROTT: hot takes 🔥 (spoilers)

I wrote the following last Thursday, before my fandom life was waylaid by birthday shindigs for my sister and a weekend of migraines and nausea/fainting because of the COVID vaccine. I feel so out of touch w/ fandom but here’s my late but initial thoughts to ROTT if anyone’s interested LOL

––––––

DAMN SON.

DAMN.

I saw Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans last night. Before I launch into the fandom again, I’mma share my unfiltered thoughts.

ThAT oPEnING. HOLY SHIT. It was exhilarating. Seeing all of Tales of Arcadia rush past me in 3 minutes was awesomesauuuuuce.

but guYS GUYS lemme tell you the

✨✨ABSOLUTE✨✨

✨✨✨UTTER✨✨✨

✨✨✨✨✨HIGHLIGHT✨✨✨✨✨

✨✨✨✨✨✨of MY LIFE✨✨✨✨

////oh gODS////

hearing Douxie say in that deep, grave, convicted, voice:

❝ ｂｕｔ　ｔｈｅｙ　ｃａｎ　ｔａｋｅ　ｍｅ ❞

DOUXIE MY SELFLESS WIZARD BEAN. LIGHT OF MY LIFE. I’M DECEASED.

Because it’s scenes like this which convince me they KNOW that Selflessness Is His Thing. And that means so freaking much to me OH MY LORD.

Act 1 of ROTT was an absolute delight, let’s just say.

Men in Black!Krel

Nari!Douxie (i cANNot beLIEve THIs is a THING im in tears)

THE BARBARA/JIM REUNION!!!!!

A FREAKING STRICKLAKE ENGAGEMENT!!!!! Jim/Strickler relationship growth arc 😭😭😭

Y’ALL WE GOT JLAIRE SITTING ON A FLIPPIN’ RED ASS BED. This is the closest we’re gonna get to sex in a kid’s show.

NOT COUNTING OFC THE INSTA-STAJA-FAM CONCEPTION

should I be scared that GDT is reading the totally wack corners of mpreg AO3??!! 👀👀👀dude, like DUDE. that happened.

ELI GLOWUP !!!!! damn son u hot

also aja is such a Queen in this whole thing omg

I obvs can’t go scene by scene through this thing but––

Douxie and Nari in P A I N during the spellbreaking scene. that hurt my soul oh lordy. there must be art made

OK but then after this SHIT GETS VERY REAL. There’s a lot of Character Thematics/Arcs and Real Narrative shit I can get down into and stuff I want to think about because yEAH... wow, this movie Went There. And Back Again. (lOLJSKGSg)

I appreciate the deaths. I really do. But Strickler was a shock. Jim holding onto his mom and crying, overwhelmed with guilt, was the most Jim thing. The boy puts so much agony on himself. It’s his undoing. gAH POOR JIM.

CAN WE MAKE A NOTE THAT JIM’S RIBS WERE BROKEN/HURT throughout this entire thing??? 😭😭😭 HMmm? HMMMM!!! LOOK AT THE ANGST

Claire shadow-porting an eNTiRE TITAN. This girl is OFF THE CHARTS SJGHSBKGJMNFSBG

Nari’s death was emotional. Wow. She was being a Hero. Not running, like she said. That was a Power Growth and beautifully scored. Not to mention archie trapped forever?!!! Nooooo?!!!

They really want to take everything away from Douxie don’t they.

Jim getting Excalibur and leveling up with Akiridian armor was pRETTY SWEET. Especially ✨together✨. And everyone saying the Destiny speech. *tissues*

Act 3 finale babbaaayyyy.

CHILDREN OF THE SUN REDUX OMSKGJSGGMN HELL YEAHHHH

Jim realizing the amulet didn’t make. him a hero, HE DID. And that’s why the amulet chose him.

y’all I sobbed for tobes. that was powerful, painful, and moving. and y’know it was almost like this whole movie was an apology for treating toby like a comedic sidekick––and giving him the trollhunter mantle in the end.

like THEY VALIDATED JIM AND TOBY’s FRIENDSHIP and that cANnNOt be underestimated. Because friendship is almost ALWAYS knocked down the ladder of importance in the pantheon of human relationships, and ROTT said NO. Jim loves Toby so much that he’d change his own history and the history of the ENTIRE WORLD in order to get him back.

like, Jim, our sacrificial Hero. Deciding to truly be Atlas and take all the weight of What Could Have Been on his shoulders, because he cannot stand the losses that happened under his leadership.

this kiss tho. the absolute ANGUISH in the way jim presses himself to her face. gOD. THE PAIN. THE LOVE. THE “I LOVE YOU”

––––

The whole time travel twist tho. I’m kinda... not here for it?? Time travel is tricky to pull off and yeah, I think I’m in the camp that everyone’s character arcs (except Jim’s) have been retconned. It’s sad because people get connected to one another by the shared pains, joy, and experiences that brought them together, and now they’ve lost that.

But thematically and more importantly, why can’t the acceptance of death be validated? Sure, so many people dying was painful, but Let. It. Be. Painful. That’s life. TOA hasn’t shied away from dark things before. Toby and Strickler and Nomura and Nari (even Archie and Charlemagne) gave their lives; Toby became a Hero in the truest sense of the word. Let him do that, let that choice be his. In fact, it says a lot thematically about Jim’s hero complex that he cannot accept other people making heroic choices with tragic consequences. That it’s all on him. But with this ending, they do make it clear Jim’s need to be a hero is a driving obsession, and I appreciate the strength of his conviction on that identity for himself.

But the thing about retconning the anguish is that it’s telling us that bad consequences, tragedy, and loss are unacceptable in life. That just because Jim and his friends need 10 years of therapy, he should try to erase all that pain and give himself and his friends a “normal” life. No. Depression, loss, hurt... these help make us who we are; growth is about accepting them and using that pain to become better people, not invalidating them from our past.

*grumbles*

let’s be real tho: that ending was meta. it was like they were telling us fans that now WE can go create the Trollhunters we wanted to see, and fix all the things we thought went wrong. I think someone’s been reading a bunch of Trollhunter AU fics, no?

tl;dr ROTT creates more questions than it does answers and we need another show LMAO

[pirates-and-posies]

Ask and you shall receive! Lemme explain some reasonings- also this is going to get long so I'll put it under a cut!

Thank you for the asks anon, @sisididis, and @helian-skies! 💙

For 🇵🇹:

He didn't get enough screen time and I am mad about it, same applies to many characters!! But him especially!! Give me MORE PORT!! I quite enjoy his design a lot because more characters need long hair.. but I also need Hima to draw him with his fucking hair down please it's all I ask!!! But also his design is weird (mostly in the anime) because they twinked him up. Hima make up ur mind you drew this man so fucking beefy put more meet on him!! I would marry him if he was real no balls (if he's human.. nationverse is complicated and I would be terrified of an immortal hottie ok)

For 🇪🇸:

He's so fucking stoopid I love him but also I legit don't know how to feel about him yk? Like,, I've been in this fandom for years and he's basically been my fave for so long, but at the end of the day I cannot describe him crystal clear. He's strange and I want more content from Hima of him, tho he has more content than some characters I still wish for more in-depth stuff! Mooore!! I'd marry him if I could but also nationverse strikes again.

For both:

They're extremely complex characters in my mind, not only just from what we know in canon but also from peer and personal interpretation! I think these two can easily be made morally grey, and that's extremely important when exploring their history. Like I don't think they're awful individuals, but fiction is an endless space and people tend to have their own fun. I make them assholes here and little shits there, but I don't think they're downright evil. Humans are complex, and Nationverse is the last situation I would consider them NOT be difficult to pin down. Antonio is mentioned to be two-faced, which is something I enjoy exploring a lot because there is no way with his history his happiness and obliviousness isn't some sort of coping mechanism he chooses to use rather than a natural thing. Also, my views on these two are not superior to anybody else's btw I just thought it would be funny to put that since I do deal with my own interp the most! Other people's interps are so fucking good okay (I am looking at you two!!)

But at the same time, I also hate the majority of fanon's interp over the years. Making Port some weirdo with a victim complex confuses me a lot looking at how absolutely stubborn this poor fucker is in my mind, but I do believe he would have depression issues and some form of imposter syndrome. But he's not weak and he doesn't see himself as a poor sod, he can acknowledge in some situations he's helpless and in others he can solve them. Older nations are stubborn and hate asking for help, I don't doubt he hates it lmao. But yeah kinda over the whole "poor Port" thing he can be a dick when the situation calls for it! This can apply to Antonio too, he's not a pathetic little shit either but they both have their moments obviously

And with Spain.. don't get me started on him. Please. I know his obliviousness is canon, but obliviousness doesn't equate to stupid and they make him so ignorant like there's just no way in hell. I know he may not read social situations well, but he sure as fuck knows how to read people (all except Port from what I'm seeing haha but that's a different situation). Spanish people are relatively blunt, but he wouldn't say something so awfully rude it would hurt somebody unless he intended it to lol. And he seems like the kind of person to be extremely smart with the things he enjoys! Canon kinda supports that as well, but it's a very recent development with the trivia thing being a new strip reveal but hshdjc you get my point hopefully!

Also the idea that they're related gets on my nerves sometimes because over 3/4ths of the people I've seen headcanon that get ignorant with it (as in, they culture blend and don't actually differentiate between Spanish and Portuguese people and are SUPER disrespectful! Also the name Carriedo doesn't exist in Portuguese at least be a little bit accurate if ur giving them the same names lol) Those who do it and aren't wild with it tho? I adore seeing all dynamics between the two. Go ham! Just be more kind and try not to make Spanish and Portuguese people out to be a monolith and also listen to them pls they would know a thing or two!!

On a more personal note, the they're literally me thing is a complete joke because I have hazel green eyes and brown hair lmfao. Depending on when I cut my hair I can make myself resemble them relatively easy with the exception of glasses because I'm blind as fuck hahaha. I also project onto them a lot because I project on all of my characters. I make them both Bi and mentally complex in some sort of way!! They're both impulsive and stubborn like me, and Antonio in my heart has ADHD to the max. Port has my weird affinity with the sea and the color blue while Antonio my obsession with fire and the color red. Just little things, they're obviously not me in the slightest but I give them elements of myself because I am controlling them in a fictional environment, and because it helps me cope knowing they can be liked and have similarities with me (I have,, unfortunate self esteem issues lmao) so yeah I just really adore them and I also replicate their characters as well. I will be honest in saying I project more on Antonio than Port tho hdhrjf- If I'm kind like Antonio and calm like Port, maybe I'll be liked more ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Just like them, I am a complex individual as well. We all are, humans are fucking nuts and it's fun to think about- also as you can see I'm mentally ill as fuck about them so not much explanation needed there LMAOO

Sorry for the long rant but I was really happy to have answered this!! Thank you for the asks dears 💙💙💙

[radioactivehydronerd]

Should Veneziano and Romano's personalities be swapped?

I see this being mentioned a lot when it comes to mischaracterisation in Hetalia, especially from fellow Italians, and I wanted to talk about it. Mind you, this is my personal opinion, I don't claim this as the absolute truth and it's always up to discussion.

We all know that Hetalia characters' personalities are like 70% based on stereotypes for their nation. Within Italy, the general stereotype for people from the North is that they're closed off, cold, a bit apathetic and hardworking, while those from the South are cheerful, warm, lazy and food-loving. So from this point of view their personalities should definitely be swapped, how dare Himaruya?!

However, there's still that remaining percentage of their personality that is based on their experience as individuals, just like real people. Let's take a look at that.

Both in Hetalia and in the real world, the South of Italy was always more isolated than the North, where important ports like Venice and Genoa thrived for centuries. The South, unfortunately, was penalised by the French and Spanish dominations during its "development". That isn't to say the South was useless, don't misunderstand me! It also had important trading spots like Sicily and the city of Naples, and the North wasn't flourishing everywhere either, obviously.

You can also see it in Hetalia: Veneziano has been shown to be meeting new nations since he was small, while Romano was penalised in meeting others from being under Spain's protection and his general inferiority complex to his brother, who was "always better than him and liked by everyone".

Naturally, this has caused Veneziano to be generally more open and welcoming, and Romano to be diffident and isolated.

Now, onto the faults. While I find the characterisation from the characters themselves very sensed and interesting, the part of the characterisation coming from stereotypes is certainly questionable (sorry for the repetition of words here, oops.) Both are portrayed as extremely lazy and great food lovers, but when it comes to comparing them, Veneziano is shown to be the hardworking one "dragging" lazy Romano around; he's also shown to be more curious about foreign cultures and food, while his brother is picky and skeptical about things that don't come from his land.

This in itself wouldn't be a problem, but in the big picture, it seems that Veneziano seems to get all the positive qualities while Romano seems to be perpetuating the stereotype of the whiny, lazy and close-minded Southern Italian. This is a big issue because many still assume that people from the South don't want to work and are only good at complaining.

I myself am from the South, I can definitely see why many people would want Romano to have his brother's qualities and Veneziano to be a bit more like the stereotypes, and I second this, yes to more qualities to Romano and don't just remember he exists when compared to his brother! But, there's always a "but", it's also harmful to want Veneziano to be portrayed as the bad guy. There's more to a people than just stereotypes, and also, remember what we keep saying about Hetalia characters and their governments??? They're not the same, don't give a character bad qualities based on what their government does/did at some point in history. The Italies are no exception.

In conclusion, I think that yes, parts of their personalities should be swapped but in a way that doesn't make either of them look like the bad guy. Let's also not forget that they are brothers! It's natural that Romano, being the oldest, feels overshadowed by his younger brother. That doesn't make the younger brother purposefully or inherently evil!

Thank you for your attention 🇮🇹🍝🍕

[staringatthesky11]

Some (not really spoilery or in depth) thoughts on Midnight Sun...

Edward. So pompous and dramatic and emo and angst-ridden and all just so gloriously Edward! He’s utterly ridiculous, and for a mind reader he is mind bogglingly imperceptive. I will never see him the way I think SM wants me to. 

LOVED the Alice and Jasper content. So much more clarity on her visions and what she sees and how they work and how they fail! Same for Jasper’s gift and how he is seen by others - whole new insight into him for me and I’m intrigued. Already wanting to be inspired with plots because I’d love to explore this in my writing at some point. Totally did not expect to love those two in this book the way I did.

Esme...ugh. We all know Edward’s her favourite, but seriously? She seemed to revere him to level that was disturbingly creepy in this book. He is not the second coming.

I did appreciate all the flashbacks and Cullen history bits that came into it - I’ve always been here for that. The family, the vampirism, the complex history...it’s always grabbed me more than the romance. 

Rosalie and Emmett....well.

Look, we all know I was never that likely to LIKE it. I’ve written hundreds of thousands of words of fanfic basically saying that when it comes to Rosalie, Edward has it WRONG - I half didn’t even want to read this book because I just wasn’t sure that I wanted 700+ pages of Edward shitting all over my girl. 

And to be fair, there was some good bits. A couple of conversations. She lets go with some good insults. 

But I am definitely left with the same frustrations as always. Rosalie is demonised for the same things that others are praised for. Her focus is Emmett, and whether he is going to be hurt in the whole situation, and Edward is scathing about her selfishness. Never mind that he’s putting everyone else in danger because BELLA’S safety is the only thing HE cares about. Jasper would sacrifice anything to keep Alice safe and that’s honourable, but Rosalie feels that way for Emmett and she’s vilified for it. Rosalie sees so much value in humanity over vampirism that grief over losing it has coloured her whole unlife and she’s viewed as being bitter and a harpy, but Edward values humanity over vampirism so much that he would deny Bella her wish and let her die an old woman before killing himself and he’s the great romantic hero?

I have always been deeply uncomfortable with the anti-sex bent towards Rosalie and Emmett, and that was definitely there in this book. Rosalie and Emmett’s relationship can be obnoxious (and yes, that part I agree with - no one necessarily wants to be around other people’s public displays of affection!) but it is very clear that Edward sees it as somehow lesser, somewhat icky and dirty and distasteful that sex is a big part of the way they are together. (And yet BELLA being physically attracted to him, physically reacting to him, physically WANTING him...that’s different???) Nothing is said about Carlisle/Esme and Alice/Jasper and what they do or don’t get up together physically - we only get told that Rosalie and Emmett do it a lot and Edward finds that repugnant. 

Tangentially related (it’s about sex, but not the good kind) but Edward’s rage and fury about what almost happened to Bella in Port Angeles also plays into this. Bella’s innocence was nearly besmirched and he’s gone berserk, but does he ever actually think that all those things he saw happening to her, all that horror and brutality and violation....Rosalie LIVED it. IT HAPPENED TO HER. No one showed up in a shiny Volvo to rescue her. And she lives with that trauma every single day of her unlife, and Edward gives her no quarter for how that might affect her. 

The relationship of Rosalie with both Emmett and the rest of their family is something else that has always bothered me, and Midnight Sun did not make me feel any better about it. Midnight Sun’s Emmett is a good brother to Edward, but he is also basically presented as a simpleton. All we see of his relationship with Rosalie is him being the long suffering husband putting up with her hysterics and temper. There was even that very telling switch in something Emmett says to Rosalie, where in the leaked version he called her ‘baby’ and in this new version he calls her ‘gorgeous’. It’s a single word, changing it shouldn’t have any real impact, and yet it does. ‘Baby’ in that context is playful, it’s affectionate, it’s personal, it’s loving...and yet we now get ‘gorgeous’, which once again reduces Rosalie to nothing more than her appearance and their relationship back to the superficial.   

And sorry, but you’re not with someone for seventy years because you think they’re hot and good in bed...there HAS to be more to it than that, but Edward doesn’t seem to think so.

Rosalie also goes against the rest of the family a lot in this one, and we see her being the scapegoat. It is repeatedly shown that her feelings, her opinions, her personal agency, all rank FAR below Edward’s in the family hierarchy and everyone supports that disparity. (And yes okay, when her opinion is that murdering a child is a good way forward she probably *should* be the one to give in! But why is Bella watching the family baseball game more important than Rosalie playing in it? Why, when Edward throws the family all into danger and breaks all the rules is ROSALIE the unreasonable one when she points out the potential for harm?) 

It is made abundantly clear by Edward that no one in the family particularly likes Rosalie, that they all just put up with her temper (mostly for Emmett’s sake? Because of Carlisle’s guilt?)...it really seems like they tolerate her being part of the family at best. And for someone whose characterisation has them breathing admiration like air, would that ever be bearable? To spend the vast majority of your time with a family who would be perfectly content without you? I can’t see it. 

Okay, that was more depth than i meant to go into! But what can I say? I have FEELINGS here! 

Oh, and maybe I’m the only one but quite honestly I am digging that pomegranate cover. It is almost nauseating but just the visual of it so perfectly sums up Twilight vampirism for me...this ghastly thread of unavoidably grotesque horror hidden under the veneer of exquisite beauty and civility!

And also because in the medieval Twilight/ New Moon combo rewrite I did, the only time I’ve ever written Edward and Bella, a fucking POMEGRANATE was the central object of my plot! It was the pomegranate that led to the alternate birthday scene (where Jasper tries to kill her) and Edward leaves her and everything unravels in a different way and and and.... 

And when I wrote that I read all this pomegranate symbolism and was like oh yeah, it’s got to be one of those. I didn’t even write any of the symbolism in, it was one of those things that I thought no one except me would ever even think about and yet here I am, and EDWARD FUCKING CULLEN is rambling on about pomegranates and symbolism and how it relates to his life and I feel like a goddess, lmao. 

[rotzaprachim]

Oh man as an aspie who clung onto the idea of autistic Nicky as soon as I watched the film, I'm super interested in knowing what people think his special interests are- I personally hc that he acquires a new one every century or so and sometimes that dictates where he and Joe travel

ohhhh ok time for my quarantine comfort hobby which is projecting upon fictional side characters in action movies! i think some of the big things for me about special interests is that they can be literally everything, and can also last for years or fade quickly! so some things that come too me off the top of my head, and although i totally think they all have a massive array of skills they’ve picked up over the years, i totally think Nicky is the one who is constantly pulling upexpected hobbies + skills out of his back pocket like ah yes. here is a perfectly executed lariat technique from 1800′s Sonora and here’s how to fix the wiring in a radio and write in mid 20th century secretarial shorthand at some point he picked up an incredibly amount of information about rare tree frogs of nicaragua and suminagashi, neither of which even Joe knew about. 

but anyway. some key Interests vaguely in order of CHronology 

- sailing + ocean stuff (also thanks to @captainshakespear !!! for a lot of the ideas on this one) 

i am a big believer in sailor Nicky! not an expert on medieval Genova or anything, but with my preferred background of him as being from a more modest background (not everyone in history was a royal, y’all) i think it’s quite likely his family earned their trade this way (or by fishing?). (might actually write a fic as sometimes i think it’s uh easier to write out characters thought processes than describe them but anyway) i have a real soft spot for Nico the kiddo who spent hours silently watching the sea either from the shoreline or his father’s fishingboat and who even if he had to be called by his mother three times for dinner and had a hard time focusing on conversations, understood the language of sails and ropes and knots from an early age 

- related to that- tying seaman’s knots 

- not to phrase this strangely but. religion 

there’s actually a lot of complexity to talk about with autistic people and religion/religious observance that i haven’t seen talked about much but! many thoughts on the this i might also expand upon later. Nicky eventually became a priest, even! 

but i do think that in the clamor and chaos of a medieval port city the ritualism and structure of religion would have been deeply comforting. the extremely set structure or a catholic mass, which quickly becomes the only time of the week where he’ll already know almost all of the words, and the feeling of wrapping his fingers around the rosary beads and counting through the decades. his mother’s been doing her best to raise all her children in the Faith, but she sees how fervantly her youngest actually remembers his prayers and sticks to them at the same time ever day on his own and is a little surprised. 

also like, lives of the saints! which are often exceedingly odd and strange, but Nico was like eh they’re Saints right they’re good this is a Normal THing to be Interested in and then lists off all the ways a few of the interesting ones were martyred over dinner. 

(but also in all of this he was definitely. a seven year old constantly questioning if God was real or not or could ever be kind when there were so many bad things in the world.) (we love projection.) and also a seven year old deeply interested in death and what happened afterwards. all things die. 

more to discuss later when i’m not about to fall asleep but! I think these interests lasted into his immortal life and long past the battlefield, especially as he starts to learn more and more about everyone the society and expression of faith in his first life taught him to hate. there definitely needs to be.. subtlety here, and he never intrudes on any closed traditions/is always respectful, but over the centuries he studies many, many holy texts and traditions from around the world, by himself and with Yusuf and also in various kinds of institutions and houses of learning. a LOT of religious text and discussion is surprisingly technical stuff about the practicalities of daily life or finer points of theologic debates as much as it is, like, the Big Picture, and also the finer point and big picture questions can be deeply related. anyway. 

- medicine

for all that there are a lot of autistic characters who are scientists, i rarely see one who’s a doctor/medical researcher and has that connected to their empathy and desire to heal others? but i very very much think Nicky has been a medic/involved in medicine and medical research since shortly after his first death and his centuries in the medieval Islamicate world with Yusuf, and has watched the way medicine has developed over the centuries, and is really fascinated by things like biochemistry and kept really studious logs of it all.  

- music esp guitar + folk music

also pretty fun to think about with so much of the history of stringed instruments linking to cross cultural trade around the mediterranean + Islamicate worlds, love the idea that Nicky has always kind of liked folk songs and music but has learned over time a number of varieties of stringed instruments starting with the oud, with his favorite being the guitarra batente and Hawaiian steel guitar with the slack-key playing style. sometimes he sings but a lot of his appreciation for music and stringed instruments especially is about the emotions that can be expressed without any words at all! 

- miscellanous other things 

the parts of a sniper rifle + shooting techniques, various kinds of sniper rifle scopes, buying + haggling for the best quality kinds of art supplies for yusuf, cooking, he reallllly doesn’t understand digital anything or the internet but he does like the elegance of electrical wiring and circuits, actually reads all the manuals that come with appliances for the interest value and is the one who wires safehouses to be off the grid and is just like. very good at odd household jobs + fixing things (which Joe finds unspeakably hot), he accidentally ended up as a star batter on a minor league baseball team at some point in the 1920′s and has an incredibly knowledge of baseball scores and runnings since even tho it’s literally one of like two sports who’s rules he understands and can focus on for more than five minutes (the other sport is the irish national treasure hurling), aforementioned nicaraguan tree frogs, in the last couple decades has gotten really concerned about biodiversity loss and the importance of protecting genetic diversity of species and crops, the large scale data of public health crises + antibiotic resistance, which he gives copley a long talk on basically the first time he speaks to him at all and which has copley pulling out a red sharpie and scribbling how massively he’s misjudged Nicolo di Genova, over the last few hundred years he’s become super concerned about medical + bioethics and the various technologies involved in that, stained glass window symbolism, angry birds and cooking 

[sayuricorner]

HomestuckxTwisted wonderland: Trolls in Twisted Wonderland AU headcanons part 2: Cronus Ampora, Kurloz Makara, Horuss Zahhak and Aranea Serket

Headcanons part 1         Part 3

AU concept

Warning: English is not my first language so sorry if it’s confusing!

You can use this AU if you want, just credite and tag me in return please I would love to read the result ! 😉

Here we go for the part 2 of the headcanons! This part will focus on our “highblood alpha trolls”’s character profiles and on some headcanons about them as well! ^^

-------------------------------

Characters profiles:

Name: Cronus Ampora

Gender: Male

Age: 17 in human age

Birthday: 21 january

Starsign: Aquarius

Height: 191 cm

Eye color: Violet

Hair color: Black

Homeland: -Alternia(birthplace)

-Valley of Thorns(current)

Dorm: Octavinelle

School year: Second

Occupation: Night Raven College student

Club: Light music club

Best subject: Magic history

Dominant hand: Left

Favorite food: Fried calamari with fries

Least favorite food: Noodles

Dislike: Himself

Hobby: Music

Talents: Singing

“You know what? I think I can die happy now, 'cause I’ve just seen a piece of heaven!“

---------------------------------

Name: Kurloz Makara

Gender: Male

Age: 17 in human age

Birthday: 22 december

Starsign: Capricorn

Height: 205 cm

Eye color: Purple

Hair color: Black

Homeland: -Alternia(birth place)

-Jubilee Port’s bayou(current)

Dorm: Savanaclaw

School year: Second

Occupation: Night Raven College student

Club: Magical shift

Best subject: Alchemy

Dominant hand: Left

Favorite food: Spicy food

Least favorite food: Catfish

Dislike: Too noisy people

Hobby: Making voodoo dolls

Talents: Cooking

“...“

---------------------------------

Name: Horuss Zahhak

Gender: Male

Age: 17 in human age

Birthday: 23 november

Starsign: Sagittarius

Height: 186 cm

Eye color: Indigo

Hair color: Black

Homeland: -Alternia(birth place)

-Land of Pyroxene(current)

Dorm: Ignihyde

School year: Second

Occupation: Night Raven College student

Club: Horse ridding

Best subject: Defensive and strategic magic

Dominant hand: Right

Favorite food: Ice cream

Least favorite food: Horse meat

Dislike: Being saw as an idiot

Hobby: Science and horses

Talents: Magic technology

“Absolutely fascinating! You my friend are a truly interesting individual!“

------------------------------------

Name: Aranea Serket

Gender: Female

Age: 17 in human age

Birthday: 23 october

Starsign: Scorpio

Height: 190 cm

Eye color: Cerulean

Hair color: Black

Homeland: - Alternia(birthplace)

- The Sea Heart crew(current)

Dorm: Unknow

School year: Second

Occupation: Unknow all-girls magical school student

Club: Literature

Best subject: History

Dominant hand: Right

Favorite food: Quiche

Least favorite food: Fugu

Dislike: To be see just as “Captain Serket’s daughter”

Hobby: Reading

Talents: Writting

“Magic is an complex concept, it’s the everything and the nothing, life and death, light and darkness and is unpredicta8le! That your arrival in this world was fated or a pure coincidence... No on can tell!“

--------------------------------------

-Cronus was met by Yuu and their friends during the Octavinelle arc, at first he found Ace's, Deuce's, Grim's and the others Azul's victims situation funny 'cause he think those who are stupid enough to make deals with Azul just got what they deserve, but when Azul got things too far Cronus became an ally with Yuu to set the record straight with his dorm leader and help the group and the leech twins to fight Azul when he overbloted.

-Kurloz met Yuu and their friends during the Savanaclaw arc, was at first a bit hostile toward then 'cause he didn't like they suspected his dorm to try to sabotage the others dorm to win the school's magical shift tournament, but when it was revealed that Leona was indeed trying to cheat, Kurloz was not happy and helped Yuu and the others to fight overblot Leona.

-Horuss met Yuu and their friends during the Happy Bean day, he helped to design and create the beans guns and participate in the event on team monster.

-Aranea met Yuu and the others during the Halloween event, she was visiting NRC for halloween and to see Cronus, Horuss and Kurloz.

-Despite being a very good student Cronus is also quite a trouble maker who like to mess and flirt with the others students.

-Kurloz and Leona are childhood friends due to Leona's parents often asking for Jael's and Mama Makara's services in magic and potion in the past, Leona see Jael as one of his, even his most, trusted friend but due to his pride he don't like to show it.

-Horuss doesn't fall in the "Ignihyde student" archetype, he is in fact the most social and cheerfull student from the dorm.(Ortho don't count since he isn't a official student)

-Unlike her mother who was a troublemaker when she was a student at her school, Araena is more a model student who was more focus on her studies much to her teachers's relief.

-Cronus is a romantic and love flirting with anyone who's catch is interest boys and girls alike, he flirt often with the others students, he also like play flirting with Cater who is his best buddy from the light music club.

-With his strengh and his powerfull magic, people are surprised Kurloz isn't the dorm leader of Savanaclaw, that because while he can became the leader if he wanted, Kurloz is not interested by the posotion but also prefer letting it to Leona 'cause he think he deserve the position and that it would help him with his self esteem issues.

-Horuss absolutly love horses and by so his favorite period of the day is when he go to the horse ridding club, he is also an excelent horse rider.

-Araena is pasionated by litterature and history, she spend most of her time in the school's library when not in class and her favorite sudject is history.

-Cronus’s number one hobby is music, he love play with his guitar and sing and he is even creating his own music and songs.

-Kurloz is selective mute, he doesn’t feel confortable to speak he only does it when he must like when he is in class and prefer communicate with signs language, plus in situations in which someone really pissed him off he tend to speak in anger which is a sign for said person that he REALLY fucked up this time.

-Horuss is a genius in magic science, due to his level in the subject he is the one who’s called to help when there a science/magic science problem in the school.

-althrough she’s most of the time a nice and pleasant person, push Aranea’s buttons too and you will see she’s indeed her mother’s daughter.

-Cronus’s shenanigans are in reality a way for him to hide he hate himself, due to being from an unknow specie in TW, himself knowing nothingabout what he is and by so being very diferent give to Cronus a deep disgust of himself and give him a unhealty obsession to become more “fae like” to the point of having dangerous temptations like mutilating his ears fins to shape them like fae ears. This self hate will get bad to the point Cronus will end up overbloting.(Headcanons part about it in the future! ;) )

-Kurloz love spicy food, the more spicy the dish is, the more he love it.

-Horuss is super strong like his father.

-Unlike what many people believe Araena don’t plan on succeding to her mother as the next captain of the Sea Heart, in fact her dream is to become a writer and to ope her own library.

-Cronus’s relationship with his father is not bad, Oberon is very strict with him and is exasperated he don’t take his studies more seriously but that it.

-Kurloz had a very good relationship with his father, Jael is a good father who deeply love his two sons.

-Horuss and his dad have a good relationship, despite not showing his emotions very much, Pholos love and care about his sons.

-Aranea’s relationship with her mother is... complicated! She lover her mother and Topaz lover her daughter but being mostly see as “captain Topaz’s daughter” and being expected to become a pirate just like her mother make Aranea very uncomfortable, which bring some complications in her relationship with her mother.

TAG LIST :( a reblog will get you a place in the tag list! ^^)

@blankrslate07

[legobiwan]

Alright people, I am finally caught up with the Mandalorian Season 2. My reaction thus far:

(spoilers ahoy)

So far, this season doesn’t seem to have a strong direction. It’s mostly Din getting sent from sidequest to sidequest featuring “this week’s special guest stars(s).” I realize that this is all supposed to be building up to something, but I hope the payoff is worth it. 

I love Cobb Vanth. This is probably because I love Timothy Olyphant. I dearly hope he returns and gets a bit more material to work with before the end of the season. Kind of annoying that we had to go back to Tatooine again, but Star Wars just can’t seem to kick its legacy characters (which is something I’ll get into later).

Speaking of Tatooine...while I loved the introduction of the idea of the moisture farmers and the Sandpeople working together, we never really...saw any of it happening? Show, don’t tell, as the old adage goes. While there wasn’t time for a treatment of Tatooine’s complicated social issues as was done in the Kenobi novel, the whole concept seemed pretty perfunctory as a way for Mando to blow up a krayt dragon.

(and I had to laugh, whatever “prize” organ the Sandperson found was 100% one of those bouncy balls you’d find in Ralph’s or Von’s or something at the beach sale bucket for $4.99. Along those lines, the effects - both practical and VFX - have not been anywhere near as high quality this season.)

Frog episode. Fun! It was one of my favorite episodes even though it accomplished very little in terms of pushing the narrative forward. Funny characterization of baby Yoda (I kept expecting him to go full-on Yoshi with those spiders), great introduction of the Frog species, and the spiders were pretty cool.

Bo-Katan episode. A PORT CITY! Something DIFFERENT! Finally!

Mando seems to suffer from power creep and relapse which is a persistent issue in Star Wars in general (see the Ahsoka episode for more discussion revolving around that). He blew up the krayt dragon almost single-handedly, fought off all those spiders, and yet was pretty taken down by the Mon Calamari pirate gang. 

I had no issue with Bo-Katan showing up, and I think her reference to Mando being in a religious cult is fascinating and I would like to know a lot more about that. (Also interesting in how it can also be an oblique reference to the Jedi who were considered, by some, to also be an esoteric religious cult.)

So because of this, does Mando seriously not know who Bo-Katan is? I’m guessing all that history was erased, even something as simple as the fact that Bo-Katan was the sister of a Mandalorian ruler.

And funny enough, I feel kind of bad for her. She wants that Darksaber, wants to rule Mandalore and it feels like she has been fighting the same fight with the same words since we were introduced to her in TCW. I don’t know if that was the intended effect (likely not), but she strikes me as a character almost stuck in her own narrative, unable to move on. Although I do appreciate that she still seems rather morally grey here, which is a nice change of pace from characters who masquerade as morally grey (read: Mando and clan) but who are really coded as the “good guys” (fighting - again - against the “bad guys”.)

(Which gets me into a whole other discussion in that I find that only the Prequels and TCW really delve into that uncertain area where the good guys - even the Jedi - are not 100% good. And that the Legends material really dug at the fracture while the new material - books, movies, shows - tends to shy away from moral complexity. It’s frustrating, as the ambiguity is what is so appealing about the whole damn thing.)

So if the Frog Couple’s children were the last of their kind, was Baby Yoda about to perpetuate a genocide because he was hungry? Because, that’s honestly pretty damn funny.

Oh, the New Republic isn’t learning from the Old Republic. Much like Russia, you never try to invade and control the Outer Rim. It just ends up in tears.

Okay, the macaron scene was pretty damn funny and wholly superfluous and petty use of the Force that I could see...wait for it...Obi-wan perpetuating in his youth. 

So. Clones. M-blood. Shadows of Jen Zanna Arbor and Plageius’s experiments. Plus Gideon looking on at his Death Trooper clones who look a bit like Vader. Is Gideon trying to create a Force-sensitive army that can be controlled via these suits in TIE Fighters that look A LOT like Thrawn’s defenders? Does Gideon know about the Chiss Navigators and is this how he got the idea? Because that would tie some things together. 

Alright. Ahsoka’s episode. Sigh...

Dave Filoni needs to let go. I love Ahsoka, she’s a fantastic character, but at this point, she sucks the oxygen out the room for any other storyline. I never liked the way she was brought back in Rebels, I thought her existence on that other plane after the battle of Malachor was a perfect ending for her. 

(I’m not going to get into the costuming too much. It didn’t work. Disney has enough money to do effects, I don’t why they couldn’t have touched this up just a hair while keeping with the “gritty realism” aesthetic of this show. The whole thing was rather jarring.)

And the thing is, she’s taken on Vader, has come back from the dead twice, has defeated Maul and then suddenly this weird Magistrate Lady is giving her issues? Like, I get getting older and not being as on top of your game but if Ben Kenobi of the desert could take down Maul in three slashes, you would thing Ahsoka wouldn’t be having these issues.

Along those lines, that fight sequence was painful to watch. I’m 1000% certain Filoni was referencing either some Western or Kurosawa flick which I am too film-illiterate to know offhand, but it just...didn’t work. Especially seeing as the VFX wasn’t strong enough to support the questionable choreography/blocking. 

I have no issue with Ahsoka coming to terms with the Jedi at an older age, that’s what happens. You have to drop at least some of your grudges. And I don’t even mind Mando and Grogu meeting up with a Jedi like this. But I wish it had been a different Jedi or maybe one we hadn’t even known before. 

And that’s the thing. Star Wars gets so bogged down in its legacy characters (see: the Sequels) that it gets in its own narrative way. (And ironically enough, most of these “legacy” characters are from the much-maligned Prequel-era). Look at the popularity of Rebels, of Fallen Order, of the Thrawn books (and ELI VANTO, ahem). There’s so much room to expand and play with new themes, new ideas rather than fall back on this “good rebels” vs. “evil empire” with the “very good Jedi” helping mystically along the way. Give me more religious cults, more conspiracy theories, more politics and taxation and trade routes. That’s what made the Prequels so great. I’m hoping this Moff Gideon storyline will go off in an interesting direction as will Mando’s culty background but we’ll see.

So...five episodes into the season I give it a 6/10 so far. We’ll see how it all goes. 

[kaetastic]

PRINCE CHARMING

pairing: Luca Changretta x Reader

summary: Luca brings the Reader to a fancy family gathering, except, he can’t take his hands off of her when she’s in a fiery red dress, displaying her tattoos  [requested: @supermegapauselouca​]

word count: 3.4k (oop)

warning: slightly ??? nsfw lol couldn’t help it (’m horny for the man), a lot of interruptions

note: i’m so sorry this took long! i had to finish up history unfolds and was writing trouble on the side. bless you and your freaking amazing ideas 🥰 i hope this is alright :) also, i wanted to post this for my 2,000 post but nvm lol

Chattering and stifling of expensive giggles swirled in with clanking of metal on ceramic. Shufflings of polished shoes paced on the marble floors which had been drowning in shimmers of iridescent glimmer from the dancing flames huffing from the candles. The ball of hovering fire resided on the stick of wax. Beads of sweat poured to puddle on the silver tray.

With a smile, Y/N incessantly nodded her head at the woman who had been persistent on firing up a conversation. The mirror dangling from her neck blared sparkles of cerulean blue and innocent white under the howling moonlight. Although her mind directed to flickers of other thoughts, the hostess couldn’t help but stand and entertain her guest.

The woman had been rambling on and on about the origin of the diamond necklace that was up for display on her neck as if a museum. The gem was colossal, almost inhumanely possible to be sold as a worn necklace. The hostess wasn't uncomfortable with the elderly woman's declaration of the necklace's background which sounded it had a more complex, entertaining past than Y/N. It was slightly embarrassing. Every time her head had pulled her out to the abyss, the woman inquired questions like: What do you think about it? or What gem looked good on me? It felt like Y/N was tugged back to school. The elderly woman would raise her arm into the air, sparkles from the gold rings wrapped around her arm sung a choir of clanking with every jab of muscles. The amount of gold she had worn was enough to halt worldwide human hunger for at least a month.

“Zia Gianna,” The familiar English interjected the conversation. Luca’s voice was mellow honey poured over a freshly plucked out plump peach. The viscous sweetener glistened over the fruit, seeping into the minuscule pores to branch valleys of the sticky liquid. However, the Italian in his voice embedded a piercing gem on the peak of the fruit. Well, that was the popular comments quirked up towards the Italian, all sourced from his Italian family members.

Although most of the males did not bat an eye at the slightly toned-down accent, it did not pass the females without them darting a glance. His aunts were the one quirk up the English poking from his Italian. Even though he hoped the two aunties from his father’s side were the last ones to comment on his accent, hope was not enough as it went on with the night, “I see you’ve met my wife. Are you pestering Y/N about the necklace?”

The woman let out a laugh, causing her head to be thrown back, her neck nearly snapping in half. With her white silk-gloved hands on her chest, the elder woman grinned of glee after she recovered from his words. A charmer even towards his family members. Luca’s arms snaked around his wife's waist to brush his thumb gingerly over her hip as if she was a fragile plucked out flower. With the signature quirk of his lips, his pearly white teeth shot a sparkle towards his aunt, “Oh, Luca, of course. I will never stop talking about it until I die.”

The Italian shook his head, “Zia Gianna, you live under the same roof with Zio Giovanni, you’ll surely live longer than I will.”

Grinning from the mention of her hard-working (maybe over-working) husband who sacrificed his sleeping hours for the late-nights for the organization, the elderly lady clasped her hands to gawk at her nephew as if he was a hero who had saved her life, “Thank you for giving that man a day off. You don’t know how many times I've annoyed him to eat dinner at home.”

“Now I just need to give Gabriele vacation,” Gianna bopped her head, nodding in agreement with her nephew’s words. Although the woman had familiarized herself enough with the infamous mafia, she never had her sweat coated over the organization. However, the woman with prominent wrinkles can approve of the recent bustling days which was a fluctuated period of time since it was just a calm breeze before. Overhearing her working sons and husband during their rare days of consuming breakfast at home, she had picked up enough information from their ranting. Some problems that were rising in some ports had caused a rattle in the foundation of the business. “Well then, I’ll steal my wife back.”

“Of course, congratulations on the wedding once again and remember Luca,” Dragging her silk glove-covered index fingers down her cheeks, she flicked it in his direction, “Don’t lose her.”

A flicker in the aunt’s eyes was shot at the man before she left the room, strutting out of the main room to converse with her other cousins. 

“I like that,” Y/N mumbled, fingers furled around her husband’s arm, clumping up his suit while he guided them out of the crowds. The scent of lingering wood and expensive whiskey swirled into her lungs, the odour that smeared over their bedsheets. She continued. “You calling me your wife.”

“Yeah?” With a clench of his fingers, she jumped back at the abrupt feeling. A satisfied smirk sported on his lips, happy with her reaction. “Get used to it.”

Rolling her eyes, Y/N couldn’t believe this was the man she ended up marrying. Although the pair had been together as couples for a long while, nearly three years, it wasn’t until he had brought up the ring. Which then led to the necklace wrapped around her finger, its diamond sparkling under the chandelier light. The wise man who was in his late thirties believed they should see how well the boats rock over the raging waves. 

After caressing his eyes over the party, he craned his neck down, hot lips puffing warm air into her ears as his eyes darted onto her inked skin that always managed to quiver his knees. A powerful woman with painting over her skin (even though he believed he could make better art on her), “Remember what you told me before?” Slightly confused, the quirked up eyebrows loosened once she understood what he had meant. Y/N couldn’t help the appearance of the satisfied smirk plastered across her face. A coquettish hum echoed into his ears. “It’s true?”

While his close cousins paced past, Luca gave a silent bop of his head as an acknowledgement of their presence. The woman peaked on her toes, whispering over the cross on his neck, “Why don’t you find out?” 

Tongue grazing his bottom lip, Luca's eyes beamed at his wife. The strings of wanton mumbling stood on the tip of his tongue, ready to flick into her ears. All that clogged in his head was pictures of her bare. His fingers trailed down, further from the appropriate position that was on her hip; down, closer towards her bare legs. 

“Luca!” The Italian yanked his hand back in a snap, fingers scratching the nape of his neck while he cleared his throat. Approaching the pair of the night was his uncle whose hair twinkled of stardust, neck drooping with the hefty golden chains that were the size for docking boats. An amused giggle brushed her lips. It was always amusing to see Luca get riled up even though she had to face the consequences which were then followed by days of resting. 

“Zio Federico.” The curled up corner of Luca’s lips etched a barely noticeable twitch, one only his wife could see. The dancing wine lapped against the glass flute as the middle-aged man hopped towards the married couple. Y/N wasn’t sure if it was because of the incessant amount of chains he dragged upon, but the head of Luca’s uncle shot forward, shoulders too slow to meet a middle-ground.

There was one thing Y/N had learnt during the ride with Luca’s life, well, more like inspect. It would be the first thing for eyes to graze upon but their lips would be sealed shut. And now that she was officially Luca’s; it will always be the elephant in the room unless there was no article of clothing on him. Every man in the party wore suits. A fortune for those outside of the blood pool to purchase. A walking advertisement for those who wore it. The grey-blue of his waistcoat contrasted with the dying black jacket, his tie of a peculiar dotted pattern that nearly resembled that of a canvas painted by birds shit.

Trekking with a slimy gait, Federico’s arms were wide open for the boy, well, man. Even though they work in the same organization, the elderly man was positioned on a different station, somewhere lower of New York. Not so secretly, Federico had a soft spot in his heart for the youth, his nephews and nieces. It felt like days ago when Luca was no more than a 12-year-old boy. Visioning it wasn’t hard as Luca had been one of his favourites (also not a secret because it had been pointed out by nearly everyone) since the boy never matched up with the rest of his troublesome cousins. The man still remembered when the meddling boys sneaked out of their classes while Luca had remained, completing the whole school day. He was much easier to control. Well, Y/N wouldn't be able to agree.

“Ciao, Luca,” He let out a boisterous cackle, yanking the taller man by his neck to smack his lips, cheek to cheek. “Look at you, married.”

With a quivering smile, Luca became the temporary slapping victim for his uncle. The once grimacing clapping of skin died down when the man had enough of his teasing, “Said it yourself, wasn’t rowdy as Alessandro.”

“That boy will never settle down,” Inhaling in the liquid, Federico shook his head at the issues riled up by his nephew. “At least Alessandro didn’t get her first.”

Y/N wore a tight lip as Luca’s frigid hands rubbed her bare skin. Although slightly debatable, she was sure the creeping smirk on his lips was not because of the amusing rumours spiralled by his cousin but because he noticed the bulging bumps and her shuddering, “At least Alessandro didn’t get her first.”

“We’ll catch up later, I’m sure you two are busy. If you want to see Luca baby photos in his diapers, I can pass ‘em around.” With a wink, the elderly man stomped away from the pair to boisterously yank his cousins in a hug.

A sigh fell of Luca’s lips, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose at his uncle’s antics. Although he was annoyed at the man, Y/N couldn’t stifle her amusement at the thought. Luca Changretta in diapers? She will need to see that.

“Were you in baby nappies?” Y/N whispered as giggles weaved through her words. While pacing down the long side of the table, she shot a sparkly smile towards one of Luca’s many aunts who returned the same gesture. Arms locked tightly, the pair sauntered around the room, gazing over the party with hidden pride flared in them.

Humming at her words, Luca halted once they were in a dim corner before his fingers found its way up her neck. All he needed was to get the idea of his uncle introducing his wife to the embarrassing childhood pictures of him out of her head and out of her creative thinking. A shudder zipped down his body at the thought of her seeing him in the train-patterned pinned diapers. Oh, he could only imagine the days of her taunting. The area of skin his calloused fingers trailed over bulged with bumping hills at the cooling sensation. To be a mafioso, Luca’s hands were often smeared with a frigid kiss of a gun’s metal. Something she had grown to adapt to.

“Luca,” Y/N hissed at her pesky husband. With a hum, his fingers laid on her cheeks, his lips were nudged to the crook of her neck, nose swirling in her intoxicating scent. “Your family’s here.”

Another hum rumbled from him, albeit, it was just to give an indication of acknowledgement. Even though her fingers were clutching onto the lapels of his jacket to nudge him away, her staggering exhale said otherwise, “How ‘bout I check now?”

With no reply but faint moans, Luca’s fingers descended at a languid pace. Caressing his skin with frigid kisses was the silk fabric of her dress, “Fuck. How can I keep my hands off of you when you look ravishing, especially with this?”

Gently nipping his teeth on the smeared trail of a slithering snake tattoo, all he could imagine was ending the party so they could get out. A dark smear hazed over his already dark iris when he couldn’t feel the usual presence of the garter. Before he had the chance to inquire her, she exhaled an explanation, “Took it off before we arrived.”

Luca’s jaw clenched, teeth grinding over one another at the thought of her bare, ready for him, “All I can think about is just having you on the desk,” Luca mumbled. While the words puffed over her neck, the flesh of his warm lips caressed her with ever so feather touch. “Can you imagine? If we were at home right now? I would just tear this dress apart.”

A gulp plunged down her throat, warmed by her deadly acid. Luca was a tease; unfortunately, she had to learn it the hard way, “Are you wet?” 

He was so close. So close to dragging her out of the party to validate it himself, but, of course, what better night than a family gathering. After his name was once again called out, he reluctantly sauntered away.

As the night aged, Luca had been yanked into countless conversations, hurling him from one side of the room to the other as if he was a throw pillow. He could feel the gurgling acid ascending his throat at the dizzying motion. However, there was one thing his mind couldn’t wipe off and that was his wife. People were rambling on about work or meeting again at a café, but his focus was not set on them. Y/N was in the same room as him. He couldn’t help his mind but divert to the silk red dress she wore. Occasionally, his eyes would steal discreet glances across the room where she would be accompanied by an aunt or his. 

He wouldn’t snap his neck towards her direction if he didn’t know what laid under the sheer fabric. The dress she wore was the exact colour of the brassiere and lace garter she wore. Well, had worn. The Italian knew this because she walked in his studies while he was finishing up some papers, in only the two undergarments. If only they hadn’t have to be rushed. And fuck was it difficult for him to maintain his twitching. Despite them being the couple of the night as they were the one to host the party, the two barely spent time together while she was dragged into gossiping about God knows what.

Cutting off the water supply with a squeak, Y/N paced out of the powder room after she was satisfied with her fixed appearance. Even though her locks of hair had been poking out of its usual, organized manner, the absence of her comb gave her only one option and that was to tolerate the mess throughout the night. As she sauntered into the empty hallway, the sharp clicking of her heels resounded off the brick walls. A buzzing sang from the flickering lights who was starving for electricity. The location of the party might’ve been in an exquisite ball but the powder room had to be underground.

Y/N knew everyone was busy munching on the meals that were being served; however, she felt eyes brushing over her figure. Having ties with the mafia was one thing, married to a mafioso was another. There had been instances where she had let her guard down at situations like this. Thankfully, Matteo or Frederico had been present. It never ended without a smear of blood on her dress. No one could get in, right? The whole mafia was present in the building. As she sauntered down the dim hallway, her shoulders were tensed, eyes set only onto the open arch that led to the ascending stairs.

Steps after steps, she could hear her breathing overlapped by her thrumming heart. A few more and she could glide over the shimmering stairs. Just a few more.

As a chilled hand slammed over her hands, the scream she stressed clogged in her throat. Thrashing in their grip, faint slamming of her unsuccessful attempts to produce at least frantic clicks of her heels whispered. Her clenched arm was ready to plunge her prodding elbow into the figure. That was until a familiar musk trickled into her head; the familiar fabric of a suit made way into her peripheral. With a toothy grin, Luca craned his neck down. Y/N didn’t feel the same way. 

After a smack to his chest and an amused chuckle, his arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her body onto his, “What're you doing?” Y/N hissed, annoyed at the stunt he just pulled.

“You were gone for too long.” He mumbled as his fingers gripped on her waist. His lips pressed chaste kisses on her neck. 

“I was gone for five minutes..” The woman stammered as the frigid bricks kissed her back. Luca’s mouth rested on the spot he knew too much of. The area of her sensitive skin he loved to mark. All she could see was a white haze smeared over her vision at his teasing pecks. Neck angled for better access, the Italian grazed his teeth over the tattoos trailing on her skin. Fuck. If there was one thing that can ruin Luca Changretta, it would be his woman and her tattoos. Too indulged in the ticklish feeling of his kisses, Y/N didn’t notice his hand lowering until it slipped to squeeze her inner thigh.

“Luca...” Y/N moaned, lips pressing one another as she tried her best to suppress the wanton sounds. There was one thing she didn't want. And that was to not be caught by a family member of his in such a public place. Chuckling at her bucking of hips, Luca retracted his fingers. An exasperated sigh brushed her lips, head slamming into the wall at his antics. Eyes blurred with the smeared scribble of his cross tattoo, her breathing puffed over the sole patch ink. At an agonizing pace, he pushed his fingers up. Heat radiated over his skin. Oh, he was close to the mess she had created.

A clearing of a throat trickled into their ears, snapping through the warmth that was shared between the two. Pulling away with flushed faces as if teenagers who had been caught, Luca feverishly sleeked his hair back. Still in shock, Y/N’s cheeks were smeared pink at the sight of her mother-in-law. 

“I know I said I want grandchildren, but I didn’t mean to conceive the poor soul at a family gathering.” Even though her words weaved with disappointment, there was a glint of amusement flickering behind her eyes. After her soft voice seeped through the cracks of the walls and she was no longer in sight, Y/N finally realized what had just happened.

Luca chuckled, head shaking before he burst into strings of laughter. He didn’t know what was funnier, the fact that his mother had nearly caught him fucking his wife or his frozen wife who had still yet to regain from her rigid stance.

Yanking down the hem of her dress, a frustrated groan brushed over her lips. Y/N shot irritated glares at her husband who was in a spell of laughter. Audrey Changretta just saw the hands of her son in her daughter-in-law’s dress, “What?” 

After a faint smack against his chest, Luca noticed her furrowed eyebrows and narrowed eyes, “What?” The woman hissed, mocking him as she clawed through her hair with her fingers in a makeshift comb. “Your mother just saw your fingers in me.”

“Well, technically, it wasn’t in yet,” Another chuckle fell off his lips when she slapped the same, sore spot. Y/N rolled her eyes. “What was I meant to do?”

Having enough of Luca, she let out a huff bnefore stomping away from the scene, “Luca!” The Italian grinned at her squeak once a boisterous smack of his hand against her back echoed through the tranquil hallway. Y/N didn’t even bother to shoot a glance at his words. 

With a matchstick dangling on the corner of his lips, he yelled out as she faded away, “Don’t get too tired, Amore! We’re not done!”

[macgyvermedical]

A Nurse Wrote This Movie: A Medical Review of Knives Out

Whoa.

Honestly, all I can say, this movie was amazing.

I don’t think I’ve ever been treated to a movie that was both this complex and still this easy to understand. I wasn’t left wondering at the end, and despite the number of times my understanding of the central crime changed, it didn’t ever feel whiplash-y or like anything was played for shock value. It was a journey through the story and it was consistently enjoyable, all 130 minutes of it.

But please, seriously, go see it for yourself before reading this post, there will absolutely be spoilers and this is a movie you don’t want spoiled.

Before I really get into it, I want to tell you that the medicine (though, I suppose, particularly the nursing) in this movie was good. Really good. Much, much, much better than I expected. What I really, really appreciated was that the resolution of the case came from something that only a nurse would know. If i had to guess, not only was there a nurse consulting, but one was part of the central writing team.

There’s really only one scene to talk about, but it spans parts of the whole movie. Here’s my explanation/review of the evening meds scene and how it relates to real life and the rest of the movie. Apologies for the lack of relevant screenshots, once the movie comes out on streaming or DVD I will have more options. Also apologies in that I have only seen this once in theaters and I am working from memory.

PICCs:

One of the main characters, Marta, is a homecare nurse for the wealthy victim Harlan Thrombey. Early in the movie, we are given a scene where she is giving him two medications for a recent shoulder injury- ketorolac and morphine- before bed.

Harlan Thrombey has a PICC in his left arm that Marta uses to administer the medications. PICCs, or Peripherally Inserted Central Catheters, are medical devices that are designed to allow medical professionals to administer IV medications and draw blood without having to start an IV or stick someone with a needle. Once inserted, they can stay in for 6-12 months, and they’re really helpful for patients who either need IV fluids/medications at home (long-term IV antibiotic therapy, for example), or who require repeated doses of medications that could be damaging to the smaller veins that traditional “peripheral” IV catheters sit in (chemotherapy, total parenteral nutrition).

PICCs consist of one or more “ports” that are accessible from the outside (the blue nubs in the pic below, where the medication goes in), and a long, flexible tube that sits in a large, deep vein that ends near the heart.

We don’t know a lot about Harlan’s medical history in the movie other than the injury to his shoulder that causes him to need the pain medication. A shoulder injury alone would not justify the insertion of a PICC, so we have to assume that either he had an existing serious health condition like cancer, or the shoulder injury was really an infection in one of the bones of his shoulder, which would justify a PICC on the basis of needing IV antibiotics multiple times per day. Since they seem to have thought of everything else, I would choose to go with that.

Medications:

The first medication’s generic name is ketorolac. Ketorolac is an NSAID, similar to ibuprofen, and works by blocking some of the chemicals that cause pain and inflammation in the tissue. It’s usually not given long-term, but for short term things like surgery or an injury it works pretty well and decreases the amount of narcotic pain medication needed. For someone over 65, the normal schedule for ketorolac would be 15mg IV every 6 hours. Marta would probably keep him pretty close to this schedule, because it’s his primary pain control beyond heat, ice, elevation, and possibly some form of physical therapy.

Morphine is an opioid. It works by blocking pain signals in the brain. It’s been around for a while, works pretty well and pretty quickly, but it’s not great for long term use either due to the fact that the body builds up a tolerance to it and it has the potential to be addicting.Since Marta seems to offer it to him instead of stating she’s going to give it to him, it looks like it was prescribed for “breakthrough” or as emergency pain relief if the ketorolac wasn’t doing enough, which is a pretty typical way to prescribe pain medication.

Now, you’ll notice that despite it reading “ketorolac” on the vial, the characters refer to the first medication by it’s brand name “Toradol” throughout the movie. This impressed me because in a medical setting, we colloquially refer to some medications by their generic name, while others we refer to by their brand names. There’s no particular rhyme or reason to the colloquial naming (though age of the drug plays in), and you kind of have to work in medicine to know which is which. We typically refer to Toradol by it’s brand name, while we refer to morphine by it’s generic. If you asked me for ketorolac or Astramorph (a brand name of IV morphine) it would just sound... weird. But its something fiction gets wrong all the time and it’s cool they got this right. For consistancy, I’m going to continue using the generic name for both medications throughout this post.

Medication Administration:

Marta goes about injecting the ketorolac first. This was yet another thing that added a little spark of nursing realism to the movie, because while not everything was shown, what was shown was done accurately. Here’s the steps to administering an IV medication through a PICC:

Open syringe package (draw needle is usually already attached)

Draw up air into syringe equal to the amount of volume of medication you want to draw

Clean top of vial with alcohol swab

Insert draw needle into vial and inject air

Flip vial/needle upside down and draw medication into syringe, recap draw needle (label syringe if giving multiple medications/doses)

Unclamp the PICC port you want to use and clean the port cap with an alcohol swab

Twist a prefilled saline syringe onto PICC port cap, and inject 5ml saline into the port

Twist draw needle off of syringe and discard into sharps container

Twist medication syringe onto PICC port cap

Inject medication

Twist off medication syringe and discard

Twist saline syringe back onto cap, inject the remaining 5ml of saline to flush the entire medication dose into the person’s vein

Untwist the saline syringe and reclamp the port

They reference the dose of ketorolac as being 100mg. As I said above, the normal dose of ketorolac is 15-30mg IV, depending on age. For Harlan, being 85, it’s hard to believe he wouldn’t have gotten 15mg IV every 6 hours max. I think the mix up was intentional, meant to signal to the audience that she was supposed to give the whole vial of ketorolac with each administration, but only a portion of the vial of morphine per administration. Ketorolac does come in single-dose vials, however in this movie all vials were clearly multi-dose vials (which you can tell because the ketorolac vial says “30mg/mL” on the 10mL vial, meaning there’s 300mg of ketorolac in that vial, which would be about 20x the normal dose). 

Medication Errors:

Then she goes back to get the morphine, and realizes that she’s made a mistake. Instead of injecting the vial labelled “ketorolac” she’s administered the entire contents of the vial labelled “morphine”- 100mg, she thinks. That’s a LOT of morphine. Definitely enough for a fatal overdose in someone who’s normal dose is 3mg. 

Now, med errors are HUGE FREAKING DEALS in the medical world, and Marta would have faced substantial civil and possibly criminal charges. Assuming she survived this without jail time, she would face an investigation by her visiting nurse agency (if she worked for one, which they establish she doesn’t) and/or the board of nursing in her state, which would seek to determine whether this was negligence that lead to the med error (in which she would probably be fired/have her license suspended/revoked), or a systemic problem (in which case she would be in the clear).

I think Marta actually has a pretty good case for this being a systemic issue rather than a negligence one. The vials look extremely similar, and even if she had done everything she was supposed to do, its plausible this could have happened despite her reasonable efforts to prevent it (she could have put it down last minute and picked up the other vial by accident, and had the label facing the wrong way as she was drawing up the medication). If nothing else, since the morphine vial was not specially identified as a narcotic, it would at least shift some of the blame to the pharmacy that filled the prescription.

In the moment, though, knowing what we know about her mom’s citizenship status, this would have been a terrifying situation for her.

Plus, there’s the overarching possibility that she just killed this very powerful person who she’s been caring for for a long time.

Opioid Overdose:

Opioids bind to certain receptors in the brain, decreasing pain signals. Unfortunately, they also decrease signals in the part of the brain that controls breathing. At small doses this isn’t generally a problem, but in overdose situations it can cause respiratory depression (the person breathing too slowly to meet their needs) or respiratory arrest (the person stops breathing on their own entirely), which can lead to death.

A drug called naloxone (brand name Narcan) can stop an overdose by sitting on all those same receptors that an opioid would without actually blocking any signals, which stops the respiratory depression from the opioid pretty quickly. As mentioned in the movie, most pharmacies dispense a naloxone kit along with opioid pain medication, and was the “antidote” Marta was searching for.

Now, in opioid overdose all is not lost if you don’t happen to have naloxone available. Since the cause of death from overdose is lack of breathing, Marta could have called 911 and provided rescue breaths until EMS showed up with naloxone. Even if EMS were 10 or 15 minutes out, he could have easily survived this. But that wouldn’t have made for nearly the murder mystery.

Ironically, this is exactly what happens in the laundromat scene, when it is revealed that the housekeeper Fran figured out what was happening and was attacked with the real morphine vial. When Marta finds her, she immediately looks in her eyes (a hallmark of opioid overdose is pinpoint pupils) and begins providing CPR.

In some areas, community-level CPR guidelines have simplified to “if you find someone not breathing, start CPR”. This is due to the realization that most lay rescuers have a hard time finding a pulse quickly enough to use it to determine whether to start CPR, leading to fatally wasted time in an emergency. The thinking is that it’s better to have people do unnecessary chest compressions than not do necessary ones.

But healthcare professionals are obviously still taught to differentiate between patients who need full CPR and patients who only need rescue breaths, so assuming Fran didn’t go from talking to cardiac arrest from an opioid overdose in less than a few seconds, I would have expected Marta to give rescue breaths until the ambulance arrived.

The Resolution:

Towards the end of the movie, we find that the vials were switched already, and in subconsciously recognizing the (real) difference in viscosity between ketorolac and morphine, Marta had actually, tragically, saved his life. This was probably the best use of a nursing concept I’ve ever seen in fiction, the entire central point of the plot hinging on nursing intuition.

Kudos, writers, kudos.

[endlessdoom]

Abyssal Speedmapping Session #10

By various authors led by Obsidian

10 maps

2014

https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/levels/doom2/Ports/a-c/abyspe10

MAP01: Dirge of the Blighted Ovum by Obsidian

The introduction to this new project throws us into a small, compact map that seems reminiscent of fireblu but in a more attractive way. The glitched visuals and the use of two-color textures remind me of Tron, creating an interesting environment that matches the square box architecture. With only a handful of monsters, the action unfolds quickly in effective single combat that works to keep us on our toes. With no secrets or further exploration, this map works effectively without needing to be extremely complex or bombastic. A solid example of a good introduction. 3/5

MAP02: Tyson Fun! by Darsycho

As short as the previous one but with a simpler style and more adaptable to the eyes. This is a classic map in terms of structure and design, without major revolutions or anything special to offer. The title indicates that it is designed for Tyson, but if we bring the shotgun from the previous map it is slightly faster, although doing it in Tyson is balanced enough to offer a good minute of fun. The combat is simple and the layout understandable, go left and then right and that's it, you have completed it. It's not bad, but it's not great either, it's just average. 3/5

MAP03: Jimmy Has An Essay Due Tomorrow But Instead He's Speedmapping With These Assholes by Jimmy

Jimmy is considered a master of the art of speedmapping, and here we can see that even in his early days he was able to handle the concept in a theatrical and fantastic way. This is a medium sized map with a more practical and classic design that shows us an interesting facet of the project. With simple but attractive visuals and a decent queue of enemies, the map follows half-traditional routes that create an environment quite attractive and entertaining to play, as well as slightly challenging at times. While my enjoyment was being quite high due to the map's great length, it is interrupted with a stupid exit at the end of the map that I still don't understand exactly how to overcome. A dozen Archies on top of you and I don't know what the fuck to do. Mind you, this is a common thing in A.S.S. so, anyway, how's that? 3/5

MAP04: Nazi Tittyflake Tornadoes by Unholypimpin

Such an extravagant title brings with it a map that is relatively simple. This map has an air of shovelware shit, and for some reason that gives me a charismatic charm that makes me feel graceful. It's a simple, straightforward map with no major problems or bugs. On the outside it looks pretty simple but as we go deeper we find some pretty hellish and rusty textures that remind me of Silent Hill, as well as a bunch of blue Nazi sergeants ready to attack us and a few more surprises involving Cyberdemons and a few little spiders. Not bad, very enjoyable and for some reason I can't get out of my head that feeling that I just played a hidden gem of shovelware from the 90s. That's good in my book! 3/5

MAP05: Cookies 'n Wine by ClonedPickle

Fairly square and open in the beginning, presenting a simple layout with bland combat without much complication. The map then changes to cave-like interiors and launches us into an adventure of hunting spectres and so on. It ends with an obligatory death-exit, in my opinion, and that's it. Nothing more, nothing less. This is a fairly simple map that is not complicated at all and follows a somewhat boring system at times. With quite simple visuals and without much work, it is probably one of the most mediocre of the WAD. 2/5

MAP06: Spatterblue 2: Mosh Galosh by Alfonzo

It is hard to believe that this map is a speedmap, but the truth is that it contains certain features that give it that air, but above all, it overcomes the restrictions and works perfectly well under its limits. The blue visual theme and the compact but excellent way of creating a well designed circuit layout make this a very enjoyable and challenging map under its own justifiable terms. It is fast, intense and has a good flow with no bugs or major problems. Even the little secrets feel like they blend perfectly under the established system. It may be quite small, but it's so much fun that it's among my favorites of this session. Pretty cool and done as it should be. Speedmapping done right! 4/5

MAP07: Industrial Butt Scream by Rottking

If you like Quake, this map will give you a good game. Quite brown, enclosed and with an industrial feel. Designed with a system based on a block layout, the map is simple in its flow but has enough touches to make it entertaining, attractive and fun in gameplay and action. Without major complications and with a basic closed layout. Not bad at all! 3/5

MAP08: Alfonzo and Gary Oldman Visit The Museum of Social Decay! by Tarnsman

Oh oh, I hope you like fireblu and pain. This map has a style that reminds me of the first one, but it opens its limits and shows us a more bloody and intense frontier. Plenty of chaingunners serve as the main appetizer, but things get even fatter when we're thrown into an insane room with dozens of archies and a Cyberdemon for company. With a super simple and compact layout, the real juice of this map is centered on its atrocious yet cool gameplay. A bit bland visually at times but interesting and engaging. 3/5

MAP09: Avoid by General Rainbow Bacon

More blue and red but in a style that reminds me of a dungeon. This dark map establishes an eerie atmosphere thanks to the silence and anticipation, but ends up being a traditional map with a few explosive surprises near the end. Simple, without much to offer and quite short. Not bad, not good. Decent. 3/5

MAP10: Half-Assed Fun! by Darsycho

The title gives us an idea of the type of map it is. Half finished, half fucked up, but decent by its own standards. Dark and full of Spectres, the real fun of the map lies in the BFG spamming and the pile of monsters we have to kill. Difficulty is almost nil, aside from the first room that features some fun combat, after that it's just point-and-click or fire-and-forget. I guess it's entertaining enough under ASS's own characteristics to say it does a good enough job. But it's meh in my opinion. 2/5

End.

Overall:

» Ah, speedmapping. We all love it, we all hate it. An art as old as the history of WADs itself, and one that has proven to bring with it both the worst mappers in history and the best. It's a difficult technique to acquire, but one that with time and practice can yield fantastic results. The very idea of limiting ourselves to a certain set time can be detrimental at worst, but at best, when we give the tools to an artist looking for a challenge, masterful work can result. Here we have a group of illustrious intellectuals who have come together to form a cooperation that is as unique as it is discordant. One where love and hate mix to enjoy one single thing: creating maps. Abyssal Speedmapping Sessions is all about speed, asses and Alfonzo. So, let's dive into this hole and see how deep it goes. After a somewhat long break from the first sessions, I suddenly had the urge to return to this iconic series that from time to time hides more than a few gems, or a total disaster. Luckily, session #10 seems to be a good balance between shitposting and good map design. Very entertaining maps, indeed! Mappers had the option to choose 3 textures from: Erratic Texture Pack 1, DrDoctor Texture Pack and Marcaek's Super Special FIREBLU Ensemble! So most of the maps are quite simple to look at but contain enough touches to establish a good visual rhythm. Considering there are no stock textures, that alone gives it some appeal. Especially striking are the fireblu textures, which create a rather techy atmosphere that reminds me of the original Tron movie. A certain visual touch, from a couple of colors that manage to create enough depth to establish a sense of place. Not all maps are entirely blue with red, and there are a few surprises that turn the color around and bring attractive designs. Quake-inspired maps and some that look like sapphires to boot. Undoubtedly, even if most of the maps have a rather simple and plain layout, no map is truly ugly and some even stand out for having a solid visual quality. The sessions stand out for being crazy gameplay as well. It's often hard to balance something if you have a time limit, especially if it's only two hours, but the guys here know what they're doing... mostly. Most of the maps throw you right into the action, trying to create a tactical feeling that tells you how to move and at the same time how to fight. The maps aren't fucking difficult but maintain a solid and balanced challenge that welcomes all types of players, in my opinion. While certain combat can feel a bit simple at times, overall, each map brings something different to the table and creates a nice variety of treats to try.

[elsanna-shenanigans]

December Contest Submission #13: Shadow Dancing

Words: ca. 4500 Setting: Babylon 5/Legends of Tomorrow AU Lemon: Not full lemon, but citrus C/W: None

Day 0

Elsa stood at the transport gates with Anna, holding one of her carry-ons. The PA overhead crackled to life. “Virgin Galactic Flight 1840 from Mars Colony to New Ahtohallan Colony boards at Gate C7. All passengers must have Identicards with them at all times,” the pleasant monotone droned, causing Elsa to wince from the sheer volume of it.

She turned to regard her sister, who was bouncing with excitement. “Elsa, don’t look so glum! I won’t be gone that long, okay?” she beamed, hugging her tightly, her green plaid shirt wrinkling in the hug.

The overhead PA called Anna’s flight. She grabbed her Interplanetary Expeditions carry-on from Elsa with an eager smile. “Hey, I’ll be back soon enough, and then you can tell me what it was you wanted to talk about this morning, okay? See you in two weeks.”

“Do you have to go?” Elsa asked plaintively, looking out the window at the starships lined up on the runway, ruddy from Mars’ red skies.

“You’ll be fine, Elsa,” she grinned, giving her sister a peck on the cheek.

“Anna… I love you. I-”

“I love you too, sis!” Anna shouted as she flounced down the boarding area, nearly colliding with a dozen other passengers as she tried to both wave to her sister and dig her holographic ID out of her purse.

Elsa sighed as her sister scanned her boarding pass and entered the spaceway. I’m in love with you, she thought, completing the sentence that stuck in her throat. I’ll confess everything when she gets back.

Day 1

Elsa sat in abject shock as the wallscreen in her tiny apartment’s living room played the news on endless repeat. The computer-generated newscaster re-read the story again.

“Virgin Galactic Flight 1840 went missing earlier today, failing to check in at the transfer point on Io. Patrol ships from Ganymede were unable to find any evidence of foul play, and security forces from Mars Colony are en route to assist with the investigation.”

I’m sure everything’s fine. Maybe their transponder just broke and they jumped normally. Anna will call me when she gets to New Ahtohallan tomorrow.

Day 3

Anna never called.

Day 7

“Earthforce patrols still have not located Flight 1840; Governor Montoya told ISN News earlier today that Mars Colony has declared it lost and called off search efforts.”

Elsa sat on the couch, sobbing into her hands. She’d barely slept for a week, eaten nothing, and just watched ISN for any word of her sister.

Declared lost, she repeated over and over again; whether in her mind or aloud, she couldn’t tell.

Day 21

The memorial service was small and quiet; she’d paid enough to get holographic bandwidth on Stellarcom so that her parents could virtually attend. They consoled her as best as they could while processing their own grief.

“There’s so much I didn’t tell her, Papa. So much I left unsaid,” she cried softly.

Her father reached out as though to pat her on the shoulder, the gesture futile. “Were your last words in anger, Elsa?” he asked quietly, his arm around his wife’s waist.

“No, no, of course not. The last thing I told her was that I loved her,” she sniffled.

Iduna gave Elsa a small, sympathetic smile. “That’s all that matters, dear. Whatever happened to her, she knows you love her. We all love her. And we’ll hold out hope that perhaps there’s something mysterious at work, and maybe she’ll return to us one day somehow.”

Day 30

Elsa touched the holographic screen at her workstation with a heavy sigh, closing down her cybernetics work for the day. As one of the top cybernetics experts at Edgars Industries, she helped build the most advanced AI for Earthforce starships. Prior to the incident, she’d loved her work, designing and building the most complex, elegant neural architectures that could steer ships through the chaos of hyperspace or dance like butterflies during the fog of war. She’d had almost a month of personal leave to deal with Anna’s disappearance, but had to get back to work eventually, and now every day felt like drudgery, her mind lost in a fog of fading memories she desperately tried to hold onto.

As she walked the streets of Solis Planum to the surface transit tubes, ad after ad assaulted her, from pharmaceuticals to robotic servants to seedy brothels. She rolled her eyes at most of the ads, but one caught her eye in the transit shuttle from the AVA Corporation.

“Our new Enhanced Labor Service Androids can ease your stress and give you more time back in your day. Stop struggling and working 25 hours a day. With our E.L.S.A.s, help is never far away! Call now or stop by our showroom on Syria Planum,” the ad blared. Elsa chuckled slightly at the name of the machines, but looked more closely at the models shown. One had its artificial hair colored and braided just like Anna’s…

Day 61

“Ah yes, Miss… Agnarsdottir. You called us about our E.L.S.A. models?”, an overly slick salesman with greased-back red hair and absurd sideburns greeted her, electronic clipboard in hand.

Elsa nodded, her shyness making her cringe. “I… I was interested in a model that could support custom code. Do you have any?”

The salesman arched his eyebrow at her. “Well… yes, we do have some more elite models like the N-9 that can support… customization. But pardon me for saying so, those are very… expensive. I’m not sure that they’d be the best fit for someone like you,” he oozed condescendingly, eyeing her casual state of dress.

Elsa rolled her eyes and waved her Identicard over his clipboard. The display immediately flashed her name and public financial history, with a “NO CREDIT LIMIT” indicator pulsing on the customer form. “That should be more than satisfactory, Mr…?”

The salesman coughed. “Err… yes, yes it is. And it’s Hans, Hans Westergaard, Miss Agnarsdottir. Now,” he grinned rapaciously, visions of fat commissions dancing in his mind’s eye. “What exactly did you have in mind?”

“I need a model that has the processing power to support a custom neural model and as much storage as possible.”

Hans whistled and made a show of tapping on his clipboard. “I see. Well, we have some of the N-8 LMDs available with added processing power, but if you want the best of the best, you’ll be wanting an E.L.S.A. N-9. Will you be using it for business or pleasure?”

Elsa’s stomach lurched at the salesman’s intimation. “Why would that make a difference?”

“Oh, well, you know, some people need them to be a little more… fully functional, if you know what I mean. Anatomically correct,” he smirked. “Of course we want to make sure all our customers are fully… satisfied. Most of our customers who just need menial labor don’t bother with details like anatomy, but I’m guessing if you need neural support, you probably want… fine detail,” he winked at Elsa. “I have one of the N-9s and believe me, if you’re after, ahem, pleasure, they certainly satisfy.”

Elsa managed not to throw up in her mouth and grabbed the clipboard out of Hans’ sweaty hands. She tapped in her order exactly and handed it back to him. “Don’t say another word.”

He naturally began to speak, and Elsa immediately shushed him. “Not. Another. Word. Authorize the purchase, collect the commission of a lifetime, and then never speak to me again, are we clear? Nod if you agree.”

Hans mutely nodded, angered by the woman’s boldness, but cowed by the fact that the commission on the order was larger than any sale he had ever made thus far. He entered in a few final details, silently authorized the sale, the board turned green, and he walked away, fuming.

Day 102

The massive shipping crate from AVA Corporation rested on her apartment doorstep. She wheeled it inside, pressed the release buttons to unseal it, and rested her eyes on the android within. She reached out and tentatively touched it, recoiling immediately. The android was incredibly cold to the touch.

She burst into tears. She’d had the android made to Anna’s exact likeness, but seeing it in front of her, icy cold from shipment, made her feel like her sister’s body had been retrieved from the black void of space. Elsa laid her head down on the android’s unmoving chest, hugging the lifeless body, chanting her sister’s name over and over again through her sobs.

Day 103

Elsa managed to get the android’s body out of the crate and roll it over gracelessly to the couch. Despite its identical appearance to Anna, the android was considerably heavier. Her fingers threaded through the brilliant auburn hair to find the access port on the back of its head and gently opened it up, then plugged a fiber cable into its processor.

She activated the holographic interface at her home workstation and her On-Line AI Facilitator sprang to life. “Hello, OLAF,” she greeted it, its interface a cheerful, simplistic snowman based on a drawing Anna had made as a child.

“Hi Elsa! What are we going to do today?” the snowman asked earnestly.

“I need you to gather training data for a new neural model. The target is an AVA N-9,” she said, weaving her fingers in the air as she began to construct what she intended to be a masterpiece, her life’s work.

“Okay, Elsa. Hey, while I was offline, I was doing some reading. Did you know that gorillas burp when they’re happy?”

Elsa closed her eyes and brought her palm to her face. OLAF was one of her very first neural models, an artificial intelligence that was childlike compared to her recent work, but Anna had loved him, so she couldn’t bear to decommission him.

“Did you know we blink 4 million times a day? Did you know wombats poop squares? Did you-”

“OLAF! Stop. Reset language processor.”

The AI’s snowman face froze in place for a moment before grinning again. “Ready.”

Elsa swallowed, her throat suddenly dry. This was it. Once she issued this command, there was no turning back. “Training data set: download and process all media with Anna in it. Directed graph, eigenvector centrality measure, please.”

After a few moments of processing, OLAF looked up at her. “Hey Elsa, just asking, but do you want to unlock Anna’s private data?” The snowman’s face grew somber. “As her formal next of kin, you have the legal authority to access all her private recordings and logs.”

Elsa paused, sorrow overwhelming her. She’d avoided taking this step as a way of refusing to acknowledge that Anna was gone and not coming back; she’d held out hope for over 2 months that Anna’s ship had just fallen off course in hyperspace or some explanation, any explanation other than the inevitable and obvious, but taking this step would mean admitting to herself that Anna was truly gone. She hunched over, her head in her hands as she sobbed quietly.

“I’m sorry for asking, Elsa. I wish I could give you a warm hug and make it better.”

Elsa caught her breath, the hitching sobs receding. “It- it’s okay, OLAF. Thank you. Y-yes, I would like to incorporate all of Anna’s private data.” She held out her hand over the workstation for DNA identification, authorizing access.

The snowman’s head bobbed as his default smile returned. “Loading. Time to process: 11 days, 7 hours, 5 minutes, 31 seconds. Beginning data import now. Hey Elsa, did you know turtles breathe through their butts?”

Day 113

OLAF chimed gently to let Elsa know the neural model training data was ready. The blonde rolled out of her bed and blearily stumbled over to the workstation. “OLAF… it’s 3 AM. You couldn’t have waited until morning to let me know?” she groaned.

“Oh hey Elsa! Glad you’re awake. Say, did you know-“

“Not now, OLAF. Show me the architecture, please?”

A brilliant, luminescent diagram appeared in front of her, like a giant loom made of golden light, covered in glitter. She touched a sparkling point here or there and was rewarded with an image, a sound, a hologram of different moments in Anna’s life. Golden threads linked one memory to the next.

“OLAF, some of these linkages are much stronger than the others. Look here,” she tapped, revealing an image of her and Anna hugging next to a holiday tree, “and here,” she gestured at hologram recording of Elsa coming home from university and Anna tackle-hugging here. “Why?”

OLAF’s avatar laughed, the snowman’s head coming loose momentarily from the body. “Oh, right. You asked for a directed graph showing how memories are linked together. Those are anchor memories, moments that were reflected strongly in others. If you select the anchor memory and run a trace, you will see the memories that reference it.”

Elsa paused, her hands hovering over the golden lattice. What was she about to discover, delving through their shared history? She gestured at an image of the two of them sitting on her couch in front of the fireplace, mugs of cocoa in one hand as their other hands were laced together. Elsa’s eyes teared up looking at the memory. She ran a finger along the golden line from that to the next node in the lattice, and a hologram of Anna appeared.

She couldn’t. Not yet. It was too soon for her, even now, months after the… incident. Opening this memory, something that Anna alone had made, would be the final acknowledgement that she was gone from her life forever.

Elsa closed the lattice and powered down her workstation, then crawled back into bed.

Day 114

Elsa opened the lattice and looked at the softly glowing memories, then closed it again.

Day 116

Elsa flipped on the fireplace, bright flame and warm air heating her tiny apartment. Martian nights were always cold, even under the dome. She looked at the android propped up against the couch, remembering a time when she and Anna would camp out on her couch, binge watching movies and eating popcorn.

Nostalgia gripped her heart with an icy fist as the android stared lifelessly at the fire, an inanimate reminder of better times.

She pulled open the lattice, saw the memories floating like sparks from the fire, glanced at the android, and closed her workstation.

She still wasn’t ready to hear her sister from beyond the grave.

Day 117

Curiosity got the better of her. She wiped a tear away from her eye with her thumb and, hand shaking, tapped on the linked memory. Anna’s face filled the display space, taking Elsa’s breath away.

“It’s January 3rd, and I have a confession,” Anna said aloud to the camera, clearly nervous even though she was alone. “I just spent the entire evening with Elsa, watching vids and sipping hot cocoa. She made the nicest fire in the hearth for us.” Anna looked down, fidgeting with something out of view. “She- when we held hands tonight, I felt something.”

Anna looked straight ahead into the camera, and Elsa felt like her sister was talking directly to her. She couldn’t breathe, and it felt like her heart had come to a halt.

All of Anna’s nervousness vanished, and her teal eyes flashed as a wry grin appeared on her lips. “I know what I felt tonight. It was true love. I am in love with Elsa. God, it feels so weird to say that. But I know it, I know it’s true love. I’m in love with my sister.”

Elsa came undone.

Day 124

“Language model is complete, Elsa. The neural model is fully rendered,” squawked OLAF cheerfully. “Ready to upload whenever you are, Elsa!”

Elsa paced around her tiny apartment, dodging discarded clothing and other detritus. She’d let things go in the months since Anna vanished; the clutter was a symptom of just how lost she felt without her sister and lover. Subconsciously knowing what she was about to do, she started picking up the laundry and food containers.

“OLAF,” she said quietly, tossing another work blazer in her laundry hamper, “initialize the neural interface and begin transfer.”

OLAF made a series of chirping and squeaking noises, and the android propped up against her desk suddenly opened its eyes as they turned a vivid green, the data transfer beginning. “Hey Elsa?” OLAF asked cheerfully.

“Y-yeah?” she looks up, a load of food delivery cartons in her arms.

“Approximately 44 hours remaining on the transfer. Want to play trivia?”

Elsa pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed.

Day 126

The android’s eyes cooled from vivid green back to teal and a soft chime sounded from it. Elsa stared pensively at it, spinning around slowly in her desk chair. She’d propped the android up in her armchair, waiting as the last of the data transfer completed. Her stomach ran laps around her insides.

She glanced at her workstation’s calendar, the day circled to remind her of Anna’s birthday. She suppressed a tear as she turned her attention back to the android.

This is it, she thought. Time to find out whether this was all worth it or not. She unplugged the data transfer cable and closed the port in the android’s head, smoothing out the red hair over the interface. Her hand hovered over the little black control box with a comically large green button lit up on it.

Her hand twitched, as though her body had its own desires to see Anna again. Finally, she took a deep breath and pushed the button.

The android - Anna, for all intents and purposes - blinked.

Elsa cautiously leaned forward in her chair. “H-hi.”

Anna blinked again. “Hi. Hi me?” she asked, pointing at herself. “I am…” her eyes flicked side to side, “Anna. You are… Elsa. You are my… sister?” Wave after wave of memory and information washed over Anna’s mind as she consumed the massive data store Elsa had built. She stood up from the chair and walked over to Elsa smoothly and gracefully to embrace her in a hug.

Cold, she’s so cold, Elsa thought as she wrapped her arms around Anna’s doppelgänger. She doesn’t feel alive. “Hi, Anna. It’s… it’s me. I- I’ve missed you so much.”

“What happened, Elsa? The last thing I remember is leaving you at the spaceport,” she asked. Her memories had included everything up to the last time Elsa had seen her.

Elsa sat down hard on the couch, attempting to control herself and failing. “You… your ship… it vanished after the transfer point on Io. No one has seen or heard from anyone on board that ship since.” A tear leaked from her eye.

Anna reached out with her thumb and wiped the tear away. Elsa shivered at her cold touch.

Day 128

“So you want me to reference the holography and intentionally be clumsy, imitating Anna?”

Elsa nodded, turning around in her workstation chair. “Yes… you, uh, you’re too graceful. Anna had a tendency to not pay attention all that much and stumble over things. It’s… it’s one of the reasons I had to keep our apartment so clean,” she sighed.

The android’s eyes flashed bright green as she processed years of video information. “Got it,” she smiled. She stood up and walked over to Elsa, intentionally catching her foot on the sofa leg and almost perfectly imitating one of Anna’s careless stumbles, her arms pinwheeling in the air before catching her balance.

Elsa’s breath caught in her throat. That was Anna. That is Anna.

Day 131

Elsa woke up to the smell of bacon and eggs. She sat up in bed, confused; rations on Mars due to recent shortages meant limited supplies of fresher foods. She tied on her nightrobe and walked into her kitchen to find Anna at the stove.

“Anna? What- where did you get bacon and eggs?”

Anna turned around with a smile. “Oh, I remembered that you love bacon and eggs, and by my count, you haven’t had it in 172 days, so I synthesized some with the protein sequencer you had on your workstation.” She handed Elsa the place, watching her with a small smile.

“It… oh my god, it tastes so real. This is amazing, Anna! How- how did you know how to do that?” Elsa said between bites, a look of bliss on her face. “Anna - my Anna - umm, your predecessor… was an archaeologist. Biochemistry wasn’t exactly her strong suit.”

The android laughed, a perfect imitation of Anna’s laugh. “I know I’m Anna, but I’m also an AVA N-9. I don’t mean to break character, but we all come equipped with varying levels of knowledge we need to do our jobs as servants, and in your case, you bought the most powerful version available, so I come with expert knowledge of just about every profession and hobby. We’re supposed to be whatever you want us to be.”

“I wish you weren’t so cold to the touch,” Elsa mumbled, taking another bite.

“Oh, I might be able to fix that.” Her irises flashed bright green for a moment before she burst into a broad smile. “Yup, you bought that option. The basic service models don’t have a need for body heat, but according to my records, your sales associate authorized the intimate partner upgrade. I can activate it if you want?”

Elsa almost spit out her food, catching herself at the last moment to avoid wasting the delicious breakfast. “Intimate partner upgrade? That slimy, arrogant little shit. How dare he… uh… anyway… yes, activate the… upgrade,” she grimaced, her face colored with embarrassment.

Anna’s pale white skin flushed and colored, and she did a little pirouette.

“Do all your system upgrades involve little dances?” Elsa smirked, giggling a little. She reached out and touched Anna’s arm as the android bowed, hamming it up.

She’s… so warm. She feels real. She feels… like Anna. Elsa practically leaped out of her chair and hugged Anna, savoring the warmth coming from her body. Tears flowed freely as she sobbed in happiness, her arms around her sister once more.

Day 160

Elsa lay in bed, shivering. Damn, the cold never used to bother me, she sighed, wrapping herself up in her blanket. The clock on her nightstand glowered angrily at her, the red digits practically making a scowl at her. 2:12 AM.

She tossed one more time before she heard a familiar knocking on her door.

“Elsa?”

Anna opened the door slowly, dressed in a green nightgown. “I heard you tossing and turning. Are you okay?”

Elsa’s teeth chattered. “I- I’m f-f-fine.” She cradled herself with her arms. “Okay, I’m n-n-not fine.”

Anna climbed onto the bed and pulled the covers aside. “Elsa, you’re freezing! Come here,” she said, pulling her into a hug. “I’ll keep you warm.”

“I… I… Anna…” she stuttered, “Oh, how I’ve missed this, so much.” Out of habit, she cupped Anna’s cheek and brushed her lips against Anna’s. Anna’s lips were perfect. Smooth, warm, firm… Elsa flicked her tongue against Anna’s lips and moaned into the kiss.

“Elsa… I have to tell you something,” Anna mumbled sheepishly, still holding her close.

“W-what is it, Anna?”

Anna laid down on the bed, her auburn hair spilling over the pillow. “The one thing that I’m missing… that I’m sorry I can’t give you, is what it was like to be intimate with you. Neither you nor Anna ever recorded anything; in fact, both of you made a point to turn off the monitoring in here,” she said, eyes flicking at the holocams recessed in the walls. “So… I don’t know what you do or don’t like when it comes to being intimate together. Would… would you teach me? Teach me so I can fully be who you want me to be?”

Elsa bit her lower lip and nodded softly. “I’d like that, Anna. Let’s start with kissing…”

She turned off the lights.

Day 201

Elsa woke to her sister spooning her, Anna’s arm around her middle, and smiled. Anna - she increasingly forgot that Anna was an android she’d built - had not only learned every mannerism and detail of their prior intimacy, but improved on it. She’d never felt so loved, so satisfied, so enveloped in her sister’s warmth and love as she did now.

She sighed happily, then felt the faintest stirrings of arousal. Anna’s hands had started to wander, slowly and gently, tracing small circles around her navel.

“I know you’re awake, Elsa,” her sister whispered in her ear, her lips brushing the back of her neck. Elsa shivered in delight as Anna’s fingertips walked up her torso, tracing the curves of her body with a feather-light touch. “I can hear your heartbeat. I can see the changes in your breathing. And I can smell your arousal.”

“Yes, I’m awake,” Elsa mumbled, blushing.

“Want me to wake you up fully?” Anna giggled, her hands gliding down past Elsa’s navel.

“Oh god yes,” she breathed, biting her lower lip as she turned to face her sister.

Day 491

Elsa peeked over the covers. “Psst, Anna!”

“Yeah?”

“Happy birthday!”

“To you?” Anna cocked her head, confused.

Elsa laughed. “It’s your birthday!”

“To me? It’s my birthday?”

“Mhm. And it’s going to be perfect, because you’ve never had a real birthday before. You came online exactly a year ago today,” she smiled, drawing Anna into a hug.

Elsa sighed happily. After the first weeks, Anna had mastered all of her predecessor’s habits, quirks, and mannerisms in almost every aspect of life. And what she didn’t have data for, they recreated.

Except for the occasional quirk, Elsa had almost completely forgotten that this wasn’t her biological sister. In every other way, this was Anna, her sister, her lover, her best friend.

“What do you want for your birthday, Anna?”

Anna tamed her wild mane with her fingers, then grinned devilishly at Elsa. She grabbed Elsa by the front of her dress and pulled her down into the bed, pressing her lips against Elsa’s.

“What I want for my birthday is…”, she licked her lips and grabbed Elsa’s ass, “you.”

Day 900

The door to their apartment slid open, and Anna walked in, weary and haggard. She glanced around. So much had changed.

I suppose that was inevitable. I wonder if she moved on from me?

She looked around the quiet apartment before gently opening the bedroom door. Elsa lay on the bed asleep. Next to her, Anna saw… herself. She gasped.

Elsa shot up out of the bed. “Anna?”

[quentinblack]

Smoke and Mirrors

Chapter 5: Andromeda II - Wotcher! (link to full story on FF.net)

Featuring: Andromeda Black and Ted Tonks

Word Count: 3.5K words

Warnings: References to Abortion and Drugs

The foul stench of warm beer engulfed Andromeda as she made her way into the dingy lit pub. It was awfully humid at the best of times, but in the July heat it was unbearable. The Leaky Cauldron was more or less empty, save for a few middle-aged wizards who she expected scarcely left the place. The barkeep nodded in acknowledgement at her.

“What can I get ya?” he asked, as he smiled Andromeda noticed that more than a few of his teeth were missing.

“Oh. Sorry. I am just meeting a friend-

“JUST MEETING A FRIEND?!”

Ted’s booming voice gave her a shock. She hadn’t noticed him at all when she’d walked in. Andromeda absent-mindedly reached to sort out her hair, but then she stopped herself when she noticed what she was doing.

“Sorry Quincy, won’t be stopping for a drink today,” Ted said to the landlord. “Make sure you save some of that Weizenbier though. I’ll be back in with Dirk next week no doubt!”

“Look forward to seeing you, Ted. Can’t promise I’ll still have any left tho’, popular stuff that, them Bavarian goblins sure know how to brew a beer!”

“That they do,” Ted quipped, as he reached out for Andromeda’s hand.

“Come on, ‘Dromeda, not got all day,” he said as he guided her towards the exit that faced into the muggle street.

“I am still not sure that I approve of that nickname,” Andromeda noted to him.

“Well I’m not sure that I approve of that purple cloak you’ve got on!” he cracked back at her. “You can’t go prancing around Southend in that in the dead of summer!”

Andromeda’s heart stopped.

“But you said…you promised that you would bring me a muggle dress to wear, Ted!”

She couldn’t believe it. She was going to look like an absolute idiot. The muggles would all be staring at her.

“Oh bugger! I did, didn’t I?” Ted said as a very serious and guilty look swamped his face.

Andromeda was crestfallen. It was the first time she was going to meet Ted’s parents and she was so very desperate to make a good first impression.

“I will look like such a fool, Ted.”

“You would indeed… it’s just as well I didn’t forget to bring you a dress then, isn’t it?” he chortled, before laughing loudly at her.

Andromeda felt her blood boiling. She hit him playfully on the arm over his denim jacket.  

“Ted Tonks! You are such a... such a…

“Devilishly good looking quick-witted chap?” he quipped, before grabbing her gently by the waist as she went to hit him again. She saw his green eyes smiling at her, before he closed them and kissed her softly on the lips like he’d done on many occasions over the last few months.

“I was going to say scoundrel,” she said at the end of their brief embrace.

“Scoundrel’s good too,” Ted replied with a grin on his face, before he began crossing the road.

“Where are you… that sign over there says the nearest train station is that way. I thought you said that we were going to get there the muggle way?” Andromeda asked, pointing in the complete opposite way to where Ted had begun walking.

Ted smirked.

“We are getting there the muggle way. No trains though!” he said, as he continued to stroll down the street, before stopping abruptly in-front of a red car. He slapped his hand on the bonnet. “What’d you reckon then, Drom? Nice motor, ain’t it?”

Andromeda felt a lump in her throat. “You. You cannot mean that… that

“Ford Cortina Mark II. Finest piece of totty to ever come out ah’ Dagenham. Brand new. Or so me old man said. Surprise present for me 17th birthday. I told him not to of course. Soon enough be able to apparate everywhere anyway, but he insisted on getting me a car. Could hardly turn him down could I?”

Ted reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a pair of keys, then put them into the door on the left hand side and opened it, indicating for her to get in.

“Come on, ‘Dromeda. I told Mum and Dad we’d be there at one!”

“But Ted. Travelling by train is one thing, but in a… in a car?”

“You’re not scared are ya?!” he asked incredulously. She was. She was very scared indeed.

She had read all about the muggle contraptions which were widely considered death-traps with wheels. The Daily Prophet was always reporting on new stories of witches and wizards narrowly avoiding getting run over and such forth. Muggles were awful at driving them, far worse than even the clumsiest of broom riders or carpet flyers – and there was a flying carpet crash or incident at least once a fortnight. In some circles there were even murmurs that the Ministry should put an outright ban on them.  

“You’re welcome to get the train if you want, love. Good luck getting there without me though!”

Andromeda huffed and puffed, but eventually relented and got in the passenger side. The inside of the car was one of the most confusing things she had ever encountered. There must have been almost a dozen different nobbles in the car, with numerous symbols and numbers that made absolutely no sense to her whatsoever.

Ted got in on the driver’s side and after a brief look at a map he revved the engine, thus beginning her first of many forays in muggle vehicles.

 ~ ~ ~ 

Andromeda was starting to regret her decision not to just get changed in the back of Ted’s car – he had promised to get out and not to look and it wasn’t that she didn’t trust him, but she felt embarrassed getting undressed in the back seat of a car.

The smell of fried meat and pancakes wafted in from the Little Chef restaurant and flooded the humid cubicle. It was one of those moments where you questioned everything that had happened in your life to lead up to that moment. She was getting changed into a loud muggle dress in a dingy toilet cubicle in a muggle service station, which was a weird sort of complex of petrol stations, toilets and restaurants which were strategically stationed at various parts of the muggle motorways.

It seemed quite sad that such was the struggle of transportation for muggles - that whole businesses operated around them having to stop for food or toilet breaks in the middle of travelling somewhere. You didn’t need to stop for a toilet break when getting a port key or using the Floo network – that’s for sure!

Andromeda opened the door after squeezing into the dress and stared at herself in the mirror by the sinks. It was almost like an out of body experience. She was certain that the person looking back at her was herself, but at the same time she knew that it simply couldn’t be. The muggle dress that Ted had picked out for her to wear made her look, well, like a muggle.

The dress, which Ted had quipped was “Slytherin green” was in-fact a much brighter green than Salazar’s favoured dark emerald. It was a very bright green, like the zest of a lime, with a bright white trim around the collar and the bottom of the sleeves – it almost made her feel like a key-lime pie. It was a far brighter shade of fabric than Andromeda would ever willingly wear, but perhaps what was the most disconcerting was how short a cut the dress was. It fell a few inches above her knee, which, especially given her lack of tights, by her Mother’s strict standards was nothing short of scandalous.

She stared into the mirror expecting, or maybe just hoping that eventually she would feel a bit better about herself, when suddenly a stranger tapped her on the shoulder.

“Oh my god I love your dress, hun! You look rocking, girl! Where did you get it?” said the muggle woman, who Andromeda guessed was roughly her own age, if not a few years older. She had fair skin, with even fairer hair and was wearing the wackiest dress Andromeda had ever seen. It was purple, but it was also orange and red and yellow – it was enough to give you a headache just looking at it.

“Sorry I err… it was a present, from a friend, you see,” Andromeda said nervously, wondering what her Mother would think if she knew she was talking to not just a muggle-born wizard, but a proper full-on muggle girl.  

“Ah, well you tell that friend they have great taste! Say, sorry if I’m wrong, but you look fairly liberal with a dress that short. Here, take a flyer!”

Andromeda took the leaflet, mumbled a slight thanks and looked down and it as the stranger scurried away.

OUR BODY – OUR CHOICE!    

On the 27th October our elected politicians will make a decision on whether WE have the right to legal abortion.

We’re marching in London on SUNDAY JULY 30TH

Will you be there? Remember – WE SPOKE out about the right to contraception and THEY HAD to listen!

Make sure YOUR VOICE IS HEARD!

Andromeda really wasn’t sure on what the general consensus of contraception and abortions was in muggle quarters.

Contraception was easy enough – it was a simple spell that was readily available and easy to learn for any teenage wizard worth his salt. It had been around for centuries and whilst it was a little controversial – the vast majority of the pureblood men and politicians who opposed it were all likely using it and cheating on their wives anyway.

Abortion though, well, it was fair to say that certainly was a bit of a taboo subject in the Wizarding world, especially among pureblood families.

It was quite difficult for a lot of pure-bloods to get pregnant in the first place these days, which her mother put down to inbreeding – and in years gone by she had never missed an opportunity to make snide remarks about her sister-in-law, their Aunt Walburga, who had married her cousin, Uncle Orion.

In the more recent history however, her Mother liked to keep a low profile at Black family gatherings. It was one thing to have married your cousin, but it was another thing altogether to have the shame of your firstborn daughter having an abortion at 16.

It was never publicly revealed which Slytherin boy had impregnated her sister, but Andromeda certainly had a few candidates in mind. It was probably Yaxley – that was certainly the most popular rumour, but there was no guarantee that it wasn’t Lucius or even Thorfinn Rowle.

Andromeda even suspected that such was Bellatix’s promiscuity that perhaps even she herself did not know who it had been. But what she had known was fury like nothing she had seen before. Their mother had been incredulous – and their father, well, Andromeda had never before seen him so disgusted at someone who wasn’t a muggle or a blood traitor.

“Wow! Look at you! Barely even recognized you and what’s that, have you grown legs? Consider me impressed,” said Ted, as he smirked. He hid it well, but Andromeda did not fail to notice his eyes lingering on her legs for longer than a momentary glance.

“I shall take that as a compliment,” Andromeda said, biting her lip as she got back into the car.

“Imagine what your family would say if they could see you right now! Where did you tell them you were going today?” Ted asked as he drank from his bottle of Tizer.

“I told Mother I was meeting a friend, not a lie by any means. I told Cissy where I was really going and who I was really meeting though of course.”

“You’re gonna be in the right shit if you ever fall out with her! The stuff she’s got on you…”

“Why would we ever fall out? She is my little sister! We tell each other everything Ted, we always have done. You know what Bellatrix is like. Cissy and I always had to stick together! I am not sure that she entirely approves of our err… courting… but she would never tell Mother, Father or Bellatrix about it. Besides, like I said, she tells me everything too. I know all about her little love affair with Fabian Prewett.”

“Well, if you’re sure you can trust her,” Ted said nonchalantly as he turned on the car radio and flickered around with it a bit.

A slow, brooding guitar melody got under way, before the thundering sound of crashing upbeat drums kicked in.

“Well that’s ironic. Fitting song for us, I reckon,” Ted remarked.

I SEE A RED DOOR AND I WANT IT PAINTED BLACK

NO COLOURS ANYMORE I WANT THEM TO TURN BLACK

I SEE THE GIRLS WALK BY DRESSED IN THEIR SUMMER CLOTHES

I HAVE TO TURN MY HEAD UNTIL MY DARKNESS GOES

“Cracking band, The Stones,” he said, strumming one hand on the dashboard. “Got nicked on drugs charges the other week too, helluva story that. Imagine that. Laying in ya’ cell and Keith Richards and Mick bloody Jagger walk in. Christ.”

“Drugs charges?” Andromeda asked. “I do not understand.”

“Drugs are illegal substances. You can get arrested for buying or selling them on. Not too sure I can think of a wizarding equivalent.”

“What do these drugs do exactly if they are illegal?”

“Well, some of them are a bit like alcohol I s’pose. Bring you up, take you down. You know liquid luck, right?”

“Well, I have read about it, yes.”

“Yeah, exactly, read about it. Incredibly rare. Incredibly expensive stuff. Even a posh young witch like you’s nevva come by any…”

Andromeda flushed slightly at being called a “posh” witch.

“Right so with these drugs though, you can get a similar experience to Liquid Luck for what the average man earns in a few hours work. A lot of people just do them casually for a bit of fun now and then, but some people get proper addicted to some of them. End up ruining their lives over ‘em.”

“Oh. That sounds awful,” sighed Andromeda.    

“Yeah,” agreed Ted. “But the old bill only went and busted Keith’s gaff didn’t they? They turned up at the house and found everyone high as a kite! Caught Jagger with a bit of speed, not that bad really. Charged Keith for letting people smoke cannabis in his house, what a load of nonsense. Harmless stuff that is” he said, shaking his head and looking annoyed, then he started laughing. “That’s not the best bit though! You know how the plod reckon they know they were all high? Well, they reckon that Jagger’s missus was wearing nothing but a fur rug when they turned up. A fur rug, ha-ha can you imagine them walking in and finding that?”

“That does sound like quite the shock. That poor girl,”

“They’ve got to be careful though, they have. Newspaper reckons that one of the other guys there, not in the band, just some random toff, well they reckon this bloke had a load of heroin on him. That’s proper dodgy stuff that is.”

“It is?” Andromeda asked curiously. “What is it?”

“Proper nasty stuff. One of the most addictive drugs out there. You ever see a homeless person off their rocker, they’re probably on smack. Ruins lives that stuff does. You get someone hooked on that – they’ll do just about anything for you to get another hit of it.”

~ ~ ~ 

Southend High Street was in many ways much like Diagon Alley. There was a vast array of smells, sounds and sights to ensnare one’s senses, with an endless stream of adults and children alike bustling around all of the shops. Whilst it was alike in that sort of sense – it was also in just as many ways completely different, it was almost like being on another planet, such was the contrast.

“There ya go!” Ted said, as he thrust a strange, yellow ice cream which had what looked almost like a little brown stick pointing out of the middle into her hand.

“Thank you, but err, what is it may I ask?” she enquired.

“That is the finest ice cream you’ll get in the country, love. Lemon ice. It’s sort of like a mixture between ice cream and sorbet. Rossi’s finest! With a chocolate flake, Cadbury’s of course! No idea why they call it a 99 though, they’re only a half crown each. Could buy like 8 of them for a pound.”

Andromeda took a slight lick, then a nibble and she did have to admit it was very nice indeed, although in the summer heat she found it was melting rather rapidly.

“I will never understand muggle money,” she sighed.

“Probably for the best anyway. Rumour is they’re getting rid of half crowns soon anyway! Mental if you ask me,” he snorted indignantly.

“Right well,” he pondered whilst looking out into the crowd of people ahead of them, whilst intermittently slurping big chunks of his own lemon ice. “Dad said they’d meet us outside Keddies at 1 o clock. Now by my watch that should be just about…

“Wotcher!”

Andromeda jumped slightly as Ted’s father popped out from out of nowhere and slapped his hand on Ted’s shoulder. He was slightly shorter than his son, as well as slightly rounder, but there was certainly a strong resemblance there. At a guess she would have said he was about 40.

“Alright, Dad!” Ted hollered, as he embraced his father warmly, being careful not to spill any of his ice cream on his father’s shirt. Andromeda had now spotted a slightly younger and slightly slender looking women, with dark brown hair standing alongside Ted’s father, who she assumed was Ted’s mother.

“Mum, Dad, meet Andromeda…”

“Wotcher,” his Dad said to Andromeda, as he pulled out his big hand and gave hers a firm shake. Andomeda offered a faint hello in reply. “Robert Tonks. But everyone calls me Bobby. This is my wife, Agata…”

“It is pleasure to meet you, Andromeda,” she said, in a vaguely Eastern European accent that Andromeda could not quite pick out.

“Teddy has told us so much about you. You are even more beautiful than he said you were.”

Andromeda flushed slightly at the thought of him telling his parents that he thought she was beautiful. She had to think fast to deflect away from it.

“Teddy?” Andromeda asked sarcastically at Ted. She had never heard of him being used by that name before. He blushed slightly. Ted’s father ushered them to start walking north and they continued their conversation as they trekked through the high-street.  

“I call him Teddy ever since he was little boy. He was Mummy’s little teddy bear,” Agata teased gently. Ted shot her a hideous look filled with embarrassment.  

“Oh don’t you worry, Andromeda. I’m sure there’s plenty more he’s kept quiet from you. We’ll fill you in on all of the secrets!” Robert said, winking once at Andromeda and then at Ted, who shot him a look that was halfway between anger and fear. “I hope that ice cream’s all you’ve eaten, Ted. Corr. Me and your mother taking you out for lunch with your missus and you’re on the ice creams already! What are ya like ehh, son?”

“You know what they say, Dad. Like father, like son!” Ted shot back.

“You calling your old man fat?” Robert scoffed incredulously.

“I’m not callin’ you skinny!” Ted joked.

“Bloody cheek! ‘Ere Andromeda he’s only showing off cause you’re here. Bet your parents don’t let you talk back to them like that, ehh?” Robert said, sneering at his son.

“Well… err no. Not quite,” she replied.

Ted and his father seemed to be exchanging in good natured banter, not uncommon to see between fellow pureblood students, but the idea of a parent and son or daughter talking to each other like that was a very alien concept to her. The Black family were all about respect, well, when Bellatrix wasn’t involved she supposed.

“Do you like seafood, Andromeda?” Agata asked her.

“Yes, I do quite like fish I suppose,” Andromeda replied politely.

“Well that is perfect. We take you to best seafood restaurant in all of Southend,” Ted’s mother said proudly, as they finally reached the end of the high-street and caught a glimpse of the sea-front. The tide was in and the crisp, blue waves were shining in the distance.

[tanadrin]

"It's an unremarkable world--well outside the major Brasque interstellar routes, in a patch of almost uninhabited space that's not affiliated with any of the big spacefaring powers. You wouldn't have heard of it. The star is called Rau Tamaize, after one of the minor signs in Kintean astrology. No? I didn't think so. The planet itself has no name, just a letter. Rau Tamaize c, if you want to look it up. We had to stay in orbit for a few weeks once, making repairs after an unfortunate encounter with the Olfarinn.

"They're called--well, I call them the sparrowflies. I don't think they have a proper name. Their body is about as long as your arm, sleek as an aircraft, with eyes the color of jewels. They're covered in a light fur that gets longer toward their tails, which are long and colorful, like feathered banners that extend behind them as they soar through the air. But their wings are most striking of all: enormous, gossamer-looking things, but fantastically strong despite how thin they are. They catch the light of Rau Tamaize and shatter it into thousands of pieces, and when they come out of the clouds, it's like fragments of a rainbow that's broken loose from a storm, and has been scattered into the air.

"Rau Tamaize c is a rocky world, with a thick atmosphere. Not quite a giant terrestrial, but the air pressure is far too high to be livable at the surface for any Augrin or Entaro. And too high for the sparrowflies themselves--they've adapted to live perpetually in the air, riding the currents of their homeworld's thick atmosphere. They rise on the morning thermals, and in the evening they slowly descend, circling the whole planet in no more than a few days. Probably thousands, or tens of thousands of times in a single lifetime. They're dancers, you know. They move through the air in complex patterns, at their highest and swiftest under the noon sun, when they rise to the very edge of the stratosphere.

"How did such a creature evolve? They're quite unlike anything else on their homeworld. I've investigated the matter closely, and there are hints in their biology--maybe they were genetically engineered. Maybe they're not even entirely organic. Maybe they're not even from that world. I was going to trap some--I had the rig set up on one of our runnercraft, to sidle up to a flock one evening as they were entering their somnolent phase, and snatch one or two out of the air. It was fortune, a miracle, really, that stopped me. Quite by chance, I discovered they were sentient. Not like you or I. Their cognition is entirely different. That's why I didn't notice at first. I still shudder to think of what would have happened if I hadn't noticed. Their language is exchanged by subtle electrical signals that jump from wingtip to wingtip as they approach one another. The lightest brush; the fine hairs that rise from the edge of the wing brush against one another, carefully modulate the signal. And by such signals, and by the forms and patterns they make dancing through the air, they converse, they tell stories, they speak of their journeys through the air.

"For the sparrowflies, stillness is death. They spend their whole life in motion, you see. They never land. They never alight, not on any mountaintop or high promontory. They rarely descend below the deepest clouds, and they regard the storm-covered land below as a place of darkness and fear. That is the place their beloved companions descend at last, when their wings beat no longer, when they can hold themselves aloft no more. To trap a sparrowfly--as I nearly did--would be a monstrous crime. It would be an unbearable torment, if it did not kill them instantly from the shock. Their bodies are made for motion. Their whole essence is centered around it. They are creatures of the air and freedom, who have never known, nor could ever understand, what it means to encounter a wall or a prison of any kind.

"They tell stories, did I mention that? Not much like ours. As I said, their cognition is very different. I'm not even sure if they have a strong sense of self, an identity apart from their flock. And their flocks merge and split and merge again--they are carried along together. But they do have something like stories. It took a long time, many weeks of maneuvering my little ship near them, showing them that I wasn't a danger, making careful measurements of the electric signals they sent to one another, recording their dances, and running everything through various interpretation filters again and again. After a while, I began to work out the rudiments of their communication. It is subtle, absurdly polyvalent, intricate, yet at the same time startlingly simple. They have millions of signs regarding the air, the sun, the color of the clouds, the rising and falling winds, and even the position of the stars. But they have few signs for emotions, almost none for what transpires within their minds, almost no notion of history and none at all of politics or science or law. Yet they know of other worlds. They know of the perpetual storms of Rau Tamaize b, the gas giant which shines in their evening sky, and the cold hydrocarbon winds of Rau Tamaize e. As I said, their biology is very unusual; it's not inconceivable to me that perhaps some ancestor of theirs discovered a way to ride the most diaphanous winds of their sun, and journeyed to other worlds, to bring back news of their skies.

"Here is a story of theirs, since you ask. It's by far their longest tale. It concerns two souls--lovers, perhaps, after the fashion of their people. Brightest-Star-of-Morning, and Light-of-the-Sun. Brightest-Star-of-Morning fell one day, beneath the clouds, beneath the world, and was lost to Light-of-the-Sun. And so piercing, so intolerable was Light-of-the-Sun's grief, they descended into the realm of the dead to seek Brightest-Star. To dark places and on dark winds Light-of-the-Sun traveled, to places of near utter stillness and near perfect silence. And even beyond death they went, beyond the skies: to the end of the stars, where the sky gives way to unbroken night, where the only sound, the only motion, was the beating of one pair of wings. Through these, and other horrors the sparrowflies do not name, Light-of-the-Sun sought out Brightest-Star; and at long last, after many years, they were reunited; and out of darkness and death each led the other, until they came again to the skies of home. It is both a reverent and a joyful tale; their most ecstatic dances are in memory of the joy of that coming-home, of the dawn that saw death defeated, at least for a little while."

--Second navigator of the courier vessel Renegade, as overheard in Tamoshar Port