#see people contort whatever values or morals they have just to find a way to justify their acceptance & endorsement of their own suffering

[blessedmoonsoul]

ok might be my third world privilege but if i had the option to vote for someone who I agreed with 30-40% of their policies i won't be excited or pleased abt it but I'd be in that polling booth doing my part idk

[motleyfolk]

I saw your post about "Cringe Culture is dead" and while I agree with it, I didn't agree initially because I started realizing I partly don't view cringe the same way. My friends and I have been redefining cringe in our circle so my initial disagreement was me thinking about it from my friends perspective.

Like elderly people dancing in a club MAY be partly cring enducing but not part of cringe culture in my group. It is just some folks enjoying their time and theres nothing wrong with it.

Wars, starting fights over stupid shit, being manipulative, all that's cringe but kids trying cosplay, artist drawing anthro animals (this isn't just a furry thing) and stuff like that isn't cringe.

Then I realized, yeah the popular idea of cringe culture is dead. People really should enjoy themselves but maybe we can all try to redefine what is cringe to something that genuienly gets us reeling back? I'm not sure if this makes sense. Sorry for the ramble.

Don't apologise for the ramble, I like a good ramble.

For me, my new definition of cringe is people doing things that make me physically recoil. Like face contorting, toes curling, shoulders hunching kinda way.

That's still most people's definition of cringe, the problem is they apply it liberally and don't have the common and social sense of when to keep it to themselves.

Stunning your toe into the wall with a toothpick? Makes me cringe. Watching old anime crack compilations? Makes me cringe. Seeing Urban Outfitters? Makes me cringe.

Do I openly cringe at the first two? Yeah. Did I walk into Urban Outfitters today and make a face at every customer I saw? No, because I'm not an arsehole.

You usually can't control what you cringe it. No one is morally pure, you might genuinely find furries or the Naruto kid fans that ninja run through the hallways as cringe and whatever, shit happens. The problem happens when you take that private judgement and make it public, putting it into other people's minds and weighing them with it.

That's what cringe culture is, the arrogant and self important action of forcing your reaction to things on others in attempt to shame them out of innocent forms of self expression. That's the culture part of it, people expressing their arrogant opinions to make that the new value consensus and shaming those that don't fit it so they will now mold into it.

Its not just a new thing people do on the internet or white, middle class teens and young adults do. Everyone does it, has been doing it, for centuries. People have always been seen as outcasts and shamed when they don't fit social norms. Now we just do it on the internet too, a place that originally was full of people outside of social norms (the nerdy star trek forums and all). Since the internet is now everyone + one trillion bots raised on dry hate feed the old value consensus is now being applied here.

We should bring back the definition of cringe to being something that makes you eeeeeeesh 😟😟🫣. We should also bring back not feeling the need to share negative opinions and learning to keep them to ourselves and dealing with them instead of giving them to others to deal with.

Now I've rambled. 🤝 Same time next week pls

[toxicsamruby]

what are your thoughts on sam as a man of color?

OKAY so i do sort of go into this in my fic but im not gonna make u sift thru it for my opinions cuz i like to hear myself talk :) also disclaimer im gonna be exclusively talking abt the early seasons cuz i dont know or understand whats going on post s4. also also disclaimer all the posts im making abt this r about john as a white man and maryam as an arab woman . OK lets get into it

so one of the big differences btwn sam and dean is a question of assimilation. and dont get me wrong both of them do it in different ways but the first information we get about sam is that he’s trying VERY hard to assimilate not into the hunter cowboy culture that dean is but into the PROTECTED lifestyle of middle/upper class normalcy and ivy leagues and a pretty blonde wife and a respectable job in tax law or whatever. like a lot of sam’s characterization in the early seasons is about striving not necessarily towards “Normalcy” (although thats an essential part of it) but, more broadly, towards the moral ideal that’s been set forth by the white supremacist christian hegemony of american culture. and this manifests in the way that he runs away to stanford and tries so so hard to fit in, and also in his self destructive devotion to the christian god. it’s almost entirely based in a feeling of being unclean or unholy, and he believes in god not as a comfort but as a desperation for salvation, or a purification of what he believes is dirty blood.

so sam is TRYING to assimilate into this mainstream moral ideal, we see that, and there are times where he actually almost succeeds! he got into stanford with a full ride on his own merit! he did really well all four years, and he ended up with friends and a white woman he wanted to marry and entrance into a career that would have marked him as a respectable and fairly well off man for the rest of his life. he is a faithful christian, he prays every day and he reads the bible and he genuinely believes. surface level, he might have been comfortable forgetting about his roots and assimilating successfully for the rest of his life. but, crucially, he DOESNT succeed. why?

there is something marking him as “different” the entire time, something inherent, something he can’t shake off no matter how hard he tries to repress it. at stanford, of course, its his childhood, the monster hunting, the fucked up family, the extreme poverty. with christianity, its the demon blood. he can pretend all his life to be a good christian middle class lawyer with a nice white wife and a nice picket fence, but at the end of the day that life was not built for somebody like sam, and to succeed in it he will have to repress parts of himself that will never go away.

put this into the context of race. i said that i think dean’s relationship with gender white supremacy americana etc becomes more interesting when he’s a brown skinned man of color. dean is unable to assimilate into the kind of life that sam aims for. he has a markedly more antagonistic relationship with cops, he couldn’t get through school even though he’s demonstrably very intelligent, and he just doesn’t make the kind of first impression that sam does; people see sam as sweeter, kinder, more trustworthy, somebody who can be reasoned with. dean, by contrast, is usually treated with more wariness, more distrust. it’s dean who’s the primary target of the manhunt (before they fucking dropped that plotline lmao). all of this evidence taken together, sam, i think, is noticeably lighter than dean, maybe even conditionally white passing.

and this is an important part of how he’s trying to assimilate. he can feel that he’s ALMOST there, that he can ALMOST be the american moral christian ideal he’s been taught is more important than anything, if he can just contort himself into something that closely resembles a middle class christian white man. but that’s all he can ever do, is RESEMBLE that, no matter how hard he works. so he might be a token diversity point at his workplace or his school: of course he earned his place there, but he’s still aware that his position doesn’t come with the same ease of the middle class christian white man sitting next to him. so sam tries to make himself smaller, keeps himself clean shaved, his hair neat, doesn’t let himself tan too much, speaks softly and eloquently, represses his anger, doesn’t talk about his family, dates white girls, has unthreatening career aspirations, tries so so so so so hard to be a good christian because maybe, he thinks, someday he’ll wake up and he won’t feel like he’s wrapped in cellophane, separated by something clear but strong from the culture he’s trying to earn a place in. maybe he’ll feel one day that he’s earned his place, that he’s just the same as everybody around him, that he won’t have this unspoken but obvious difference to him that follows him everywhere. he thinks maybe he’ll be able to separate himself entirely from monstrousness, that one day he’ll pray and it won’t feel like begging to be somebody else.

but when dean comes for him. slowly but surely, he starts to realize that there never has been and never will be a place for him in this american white supremacist christian culture, and the cracks start to appear. he realizes that he’s never really felt at home anywhere, that the roots he’d tried so hard to put down were all wrapped in cellophane too, and after jess’s death, its the easiest thing in the world to pull those roots up because he never belonged there anyway. he starts getting angrier, stops caring who hears him yell. he stops repressing the powers that he’s been hiding from himself for as long as he can remember. very slowly, he looks this fact straight in the face: he is a monstrous Other, and he will never be anything else. he’s always been more self aware than dean, but it doesn’t help him now. he becomes angrier and more desperate all at once, pushing dean away and pulling him closer at the same time, praying more vehemently and still using his powers more often, letting himself become scarier looking and still sweet talking cops. he’s in this permanent state of conflict, because it’s virtually impossible for him to realize that the value system he’s had such faith in his entire life is false and cruel, so when he finds that he’s permanently locked outside of it, it doesn’t help him, it only convinces him that he’s a monster.

[zynart]

there ARE things we owe to each other

I mean. Yeah, sure. Nobody is *owed* fair treatment and everyone has the *right* to go about life in whatever manner makes them happy without any consideration for the well-being of others or your responsibilities toward society. But I sure as hell am gonna judge and avoid people for it

I always have trouble remembering that: that all the language comes from and all the community online or anywhere is still made up of mostly flawed, often well-intentioned but sometimes disingenuous or bad-faith human beings, regardless of like, subculture dialect or vocabulary set. People will use social justice lingo to justify anything to let themselves off the hook for doing whatever the fuck they want without having to feel guilty. Just like people use the language of academia or religion or philosophy or whatever else, for the same: to have their moral cake and eat it too.

The world is just full of people who do shitty things but still have a conscience. Probably including you and me and most people, really. And it's maybe just a very human impulse to try find any contorted justification that can enable our selfishness and temptation. That tells us that what feels good or what is easy is actually right. I feel it too. And we just use whatever toolkit of beliefs and ideas is at hand to come up with arguments to convince ourselves. Or we just see someone else phrase it in a way that does and it feels like permission.

"Your identity is an idealized self-image that guides your behavior. Your reputation is the social consensus about how you actually behave."

And I don't see that as deliberate. Or not mostly deliberate, at least. Not usually. I think people who do this do believe in what they profess to believe in, generally. Or at least believe that they believe in it. You kinda have to, for arguments spun from them to be able to convince you. Our identities have to align with what we do. And sometimes doing that sucks

I'm not letting myself off the hook here. I know I’m not immune from the impulse to resolve the cognitive dissonance of being weak or selfish in ways I know I can't actually justify.

But my point is. Twitter is still made up of people, and most of us are flawed and scrambling to resolve those dissonances. With self-care and self-care-adjacent language, the affirmations of self-care and the permissions it gives us is so important and so rewarding, and extending that same feeling to play free safety for your conscience is just *so easy*

But even if I may understand it, I think it's disingenuous and gross to frame a complete abdication of your responsibilities toward others (such as treating them fairly or with respect) as moral. A moral framework like that is completely inconsistent with my values. And I think it's inconsistent with the entire philosophy all this language draws from. Social justice in many ways is about our responsibility to each other, about how we owe it to the world to make the world better for others regardless of the luck we're born into through genes or family or circumstances.

But that's not an indictment. I don't think the tens of thousands of people who shared this or those of us that falls into this are bad people. People who use social justice language to justify zero accountability or responsibility to treat others well are just taking the easy way out to resolve the dissonance of a guilty conscience. As humans do. Idk

It's shitty and corrosive to both the self, that exists in relation to others, and to society, which is built on the idea that we do have responsibilities toward others. As opposed to basically Ayn Rand with trappings of anticapitalism, which is what this is. I mean, talking about the alienation and atomization of people under capitalism has made its way into the Overton window for a while now..

The appeal of Ayn Rand libertarianism is the idea that acting purely in your own self-interest is actually the moral thing to do. It's about making people not feel bad and feel like heroes for treating others like shit, a free pass to be selfish by absolving yourself of any duty. It's the most comforting moral ideology possible. And if we see ourselves getting to the same conclusions as Ayn Rand acolytes, that's not great

if you liked this, feel free to check out my other 'essays' on internet/pop culture stuff on my homepage. here's a selection:

· “book lovers” don’t love anything about books and it’s weird (or, defending classic novels)

· humanity is worth loving, humanity is worth saving

· i trained a neural net on 10,000 irony-poisoned tweets and it just gave me cringe?

· what makes someone good, bad, cancelled, or redeemed? i don't know either!

· please tell me if you have a definitive answer on what makes someone a bad person

· ok, fine, my social justice politics feel a bit like religion sometimes and that’s ok

· after the deluge (short story) (dispatch from an island state post climate apocalypse)

[back to home]

[bonesaldente]

Ferocious I Darth Maul x Reader

Chapter 6: The Interrogation

last chapter

all chapters

ao3

words: ~1800

_____

He hears the prisoner before he sees her. The woman who was so inconspicuous in the throne room is now cursing him, the troopers, and the entire Republic out at the top of her longs, her voice echoing through the corridor. At least he highly suspects it is her voice; it is undistorted and clear, much lighter than the voice he remembers.

“... And your brothers and every single person who has taken part in this, no mercy, no survivors, and if you think you can-”

The angry ranting stops at once when Obi-Wan steps into the woman’s view.

For a moment, his breath is taken away. This face… It is like he is back on Naboo, carrying the lifeless body of Master Qui-Gon. The memory hits him hard and unexpectedly, causing him to falter in his step for the fraction of a second before he regains his composure.

“You,” the woman looks daggers at him through the force field that separates her from the outside, suddenly not looking like the woman he remembers at all but much more like how one would expect Spectress to look like under that signature mask, except for much more… human. And vulnerable.

He does not like the swell of pity he senses rising in himself when he catches a glimpse of her bloodshot eyes and the bruising on her cheek - after all, she stood by and watched as Satine was killed, slaughtered by Maul, and even appealed for his own execution.

But Revenge is not the Jedi Way… And neither is resentment, no matter the deed.

“General,” The guards salute him. “We have confiscated her belongings and searched them for any tracking devices.”

“And you are certain that she is unarmed?”

“We’ve run several scans, sir.”

“Good.”

He assesses the situation briefly, taking in her hands that are cuffed to the table.

“Open the cell, I wish to speak to her.”

She has stopped speaking, only glowering at him when he enters the claustrophobic space.

“You got a lot of nerve-”

“Please,” he interrupts, sitting down. “Do not make this any harder than it needs to be.”

“I am- It was you who kidnapped me!” Her features are contorted in rage and with it, her light accent shines through otherwise flawless Basic.

“Kidnapped?” Obi-Wan questions. “You have multiple open arrest warrants and were complicit in the violent takeover of Mandalorian rule-”

“That took place in a neutral system and is thus not under Republic jurisdiction if I have to remind you. Besides, it was Pre Vizsla who pushed your duchess off her throne,” Her voice takes on another, more malicious undertone while she widens her eyes mockingly sweet, “Obi.”

The old nickname stings more than he would like to admit, especially coming from someone who was there when it happened, but he forces himself to remain objective... and fair.

“We have a few questions for you. If you cooperate and answer them truthfully, we will be able to lower your sentence considerably.”

Considering she is responsible for the assassinations of multiple senators, her prison sentence is still going to be at least two digits, but there could be worse things. Aside from that, Obi-Wan has seen how quickly one could escape from prison. Somebody like Spectress, who is already known for being one of the... craftier faces of the underground could probably-

“Lower my sentence?” She sounds almost offended. “After you unlawfully took me from my planet? I don’t think so.”

His heart sinks when it becomes painfully obvious that she will do anything but cooperate, even though he expected that going into it.

The prisoner leans forward on her elbows, a dangerous glint in her eyes. “You will regret this, Kenobi:”

“Look, as much as you may dislike this, we have the upper hand here. We can start simple. Your name?”

“None of your concern.”

“Since you have committed crimes against the Republic, it is, actually.”

She rolls her eyes shifting away from him again, unresponsive.

“Perhaps something else, then. What do you know of the creation of the clone army?”

“The clones?” The mercenary furrows her brows. “What would I know of them? And why would you care, isn’t it you they work for?”

He chooses to ignore her last question, instead pushing further.

“We know you were acquainted with Jango Fett, and that you’ve been to the facilities on Kamino.”

She only quirks an eyebrow, in turn ignoring him.

“Pardon my choice of words, the clones don’t work for you, I forgot. They don’t get paid, do they?”

“What was your relationship with Fett?”

“Again, none of your concern. Hey, you!” The woman looks over his shoulder at one of the two guards standing by the cell. “Do you get paid for this? And did you choose to risk your life for people who don’t even care about you?”

Obi-Wan glances at the trooper, Flamer if he recalls correctly, who remains unmoving, though his back straightens almost unnoticeably.

“Again, it is my concern. Were you related?” She scoffs in response. “Were you a client? Partners? Lovers?”

The last word makes her grimace in distaste.

“We were friends, Kenobi, a concept I’m sure must be quite foreign to the likes of you.”

“Friends?” He raises an eyebrow. At last, something to go off of. “Do you know who hired Fett as a genetic donor?”

Her eye twitches.

“I find it quite presumptuous of you to be asking me all these things… After all, it was one of your Jedi knights who decapitated him. Perhaps if you had been more considerate then, you’d now be able to ask him yourself.”

For a moment, heavy silence hangs in the room like a cloud of smoke. “But you can’t,” she concludes. “Because you murdered him.”

Oh, her tone is so bitter, Obi-Wan knows his death struck her hard, even though it had been years back.

“I do not believe he was solely a friend of yours,” He comments. “I think he was more than that, or you would not be so caught up on his passing.”

“His violent murder? You are correct, it was quite memorable, not only to me but also to his son,” she spits. “I believe you’ve met him, haven’t you? How does it feel knowing one of you slaughtered his father before his own two eyes? How can the Jedi be so morally condescending after all the families they have ripped apart?”

“Your family amongst them?”

“Numerous families, Kenobi. And yes, most recently, you have torn me from whatever I had on Mandalore.”

“Did you consider Jango Fett family?” He presses on further.

“Does it matter? Certainly not to you, right?”

“We are trying to get to the bottom of a case here,” he explains calmly. “And any information you have may prove to be useful.”

“Why would I help you?” She snorts. “To get one life sentence instead of two? A cell with a window? An autograph from the famed Jedi general himself?”

Obi-Wan has a strong urge to bury his face in his hands in frustration. Instead, he puts on the kindest smile he can muster at this moment.

“Because I believe that you, contrary to popular opinion, do have morals. We are looking into something that goes deeper than a simple feud you have with our order, even deeper than the hatred Maul harbors for it… and me.” He closes his eyes for a second to reflect.

“I am asking you, in all seriousness, if you can give us anything that could possibly point us in the right direction.”

The woman looks at him differently now. The constant scowl is gone from her features, replaced by a slight frown.

“You speak of the Sith.”

“What do you know of them?”

She glares at him. “More than you.”

“Then I take it you know who the master is?”

Something flashes across her face, brief enough to miss it if he blinked. Silence ensues as she seems to ponder, intense eyes focused on something invisible in the air

He holds his breath, feeling the revelation so close.

“I…” she finally begins hesitantly, “He is-” She gulps and goosebumps rise on Obi-Wan’s spine when he sees her fingertips tremble against the metal table, wondering who could have the ability to instill this much fear in a person.

Her mouth opens to continue, but no words come out. She blinks in confusion, trying again and looking down to the side when the words refuse to leave her mouth.

“He is… he controls…” The words come out in a strained voice, but before she reveals concrete information, she starts choking as if something is closing around her windpipe.

True, sincere panic fills her eyes when her hands struggle against their restraints as she attempts to claw at the invisible force around her throat. Intuitively, Obi-Wan reaches out, despite there being no physical enemy. His hand drops when she flinches away from him, too, but in that moment the invisible attack ceases and she gasps for air, slumping forward, facing the sterile floor.

Neither party speaks for a minute.

“I can’t help you,” the woman eventually states, voice hoarse. “Just know you face an evil of a scale that you can’t… comprehend yet.”

The atmosphere has gone through such a complete change that Obi-Wan feels it is unwise to continue the interrogation much longer.

“Thank you for your cooperation.”

“I am not cooperating,” she hisses, right back to being the renowned mercenary. “I just know we have a common enemy. Which does not” Her glare tells him she knows he was about to make a hopeful comment about working together, “make us allies. I still despise you and everything you stand for.”

“Well, it was lovely talking to you. We will resume tomorrow.” He pushes the metal chair back, moving to stand up.

“Wait.”

The urgency in her voice makes him freeze for a moment.

“Something else you would like to tell me?”

“Give it back.”

“Give what back?”

“My stuff, Kenobi. You have taken several of my possessions, some of which were,” she curls her lip, ���of value to me.” “What exactly are you talking about? Perhaps if you show more willingness to work with us in the future, something could be arranged.”

“For one, I want my anonymity back, but you destroyed that option when you took away my mask while I was unconscious.”

The last words are delivered with force, her gaze downright deadly.

“But that’s not all. You took something else, something of… sentimental value.”

She glances at her hands.

“When I was kidnapped by your rebel friends, I was wearing a ring on my right hand and somebody took it. All I want is to have it back, is that too much to ask for?”

A ring? He didn’t expect a request so… mundane.

He gives her one last look before turning and leaving the cell.

“We will talk tomorrow.”

“Can’t wait.”

_____

notes: Whew, quite a bit of dialogue in this one, though I have to admit that I do really enjoy writing it :)

See you all next week ~

@princessayveke @spaghetti-666 @noiralei @larawl @secretnerd00 @bagpipes606 @zabrak-show @brilliantbutbatty @eleine-t1d 

[my-brothers-corrupted]

Chapter Four - Part 2

Blue and Henrik try to take care of each other after the difficult night Anti caused them before returning to their twins.

Tws for discussions of abuse between brothers, threats of stabbing, and mind control.

Part 2 - okay i really want to title this chapter 'I'm a healer, but...'

Part 2 - In the Silence Between

Anonymous asked: Henrik? Was a camera left with you?

By the time the sun rises the next day, there is enough light for you to make him out again.

It takes him a long time to stir, curled up like a worm on the sidewalk though he may be. He is still concussed. You know from the first moment he squints his eyes up at you, blinking as a mole blinks. He sneezes and it makes him cry for pain, curling back down around his aching head.

The chains on the door clink. He sits up fast and only worsens the pounding in his head, letting out a low groan and shrinking away from Blue’s body as the door fall open wide.

“Dok,” whispers Blue, faltering to his knees beside him. “It’s me.”

“Liar,” hisses Henrik, shoving his shoulders. “Get away from me, you fuck.”

Blue reaches gently out for his hand and intertwines their fingers like a pinkie promise. I’m here. I’m with you.

Dok breathes out a terrified sigh and draws in relieved air, wiping at his aching head.

“You hot?” murmurs Blue.

“So hot,” he whimpers. “I am melting.”

“Let’s get you in the shower.”

“Blue… thank you.”

“Come on, darling. Blue’s here. It’s still my job to take care of you, little brother.”

Anonymous asked: Blue, are you doing okay? I know Henrik is priority but I imagine Anti just disentangled himself from you, right?

“You’re pale,” whispers Henrik. “You feel alright?”

“I’ll be okay, Dok. I think I’m getting used to it.”

“I don’t want you to get used to it,” answers Dok, distressed.

Blue leads him towards the other bathroom on the second floor, his arm wrapped around Dok’s waist. His eyes wear darkness.

“We share dreams in the same head,” he says, helping Dok sit down at the bottom of a bathtub. “Sometimes, in the night, I hear him talking to me, but I try not to answer, and he tries to make himself stop.”

Anonymous asked: Henrik, how hurt are you, if you know? I hope not too badly. You don't have to answer, though, your brain might be a little foggy right now.

“I would need a CT to know for sure,” he mumbles, gasping as Blue turns the showerhead right on him. “Fuck, Blau, I’m still dressed!”

“Your clothes are a mess, bud. I think you threw up.”

“We have a washing machine now.”

“Want to risk Trick seeing that in the wash and asking questions?”

Henrik winces, closing his eyes.

“Dok, Anti told me what he’d do to Trick if you let him know. But maybe it would just be better to tell him. He’s going to find out eventually anyway, and it could turn him to our side - ”

“Stop!” snaps Dok, whirling on him with fear in his eyes. This makes him groan again, clutching at the dent in his forehead. “I won’t risk his skin for my own…”

Blue doesn’t press it. Dok’s having a hard enough day as it is. He rolls up his pants and sits on the side of the tub besides his little brother, covering the dent as he massages shampoo into his hair.

“Is that nice?” he asks with a soft laugh, seeing Dok relax.

Henrik nods quietly, wiping at tears in his eyes.

“I’m sorry, my love.”

“It’s not your fault,” whispers Dok.

“Do you think your head will be okay?”

“Tell me if you notice me losing any skills or awareness. Most likely the damage won’t set in until we’re much older.”

“Like an American football player.”

“They say every concussion takes six months off your life,” agrees Dok morbidly. Blue leans down to hug his soapy head to his chest for a second.

“You can have six of mine,” he offers gently, opening the body wash.

Anonymous asked: Hm I guess when he's in control he takes the split consciousness and completely submerges you in it so it's basically just him but when you're both unconscious, it's more even between you? Like if he's in a state of rest, he's not completely taking you down, but since your body is pretty much resting for two people it's not enough to completely hand control back to you since you're the one who has to deal with the effects? Am I reading into that correctly?

“Maybe.” Blue tries to wrap his head around it all at once, his eyes flickering. “I… don’t know. But sometimes when he’s awake I feel something between us too. It was like that day where the magician came to our home in Singapore, when Anti and I were both trying to protect Trick. Like… we’re almost working together. But then we pull away again. It makes me a little afraid.”

Blue cleans Dok’s stained beard with a washcloth, letting him rest against the side of the tub, his shadowed eyes closed. “It makes me wonder if I’m not more like him than I want to be, for us to be able to see each other like that. Your chest and face are clean, do you want help with the rest?”

Dok makes himself wake up again and takes the washcloth. Blue steps back to give him some privacy. He catches sight of himself in the mirror on the wall.

Pain and grief flood his features. He turns away from the image of himself. Supposedly himself, anyway.

That is not a person he recognizes.

sophiness asked: My favourite thing is the fact that we can only see what's rly going on in Anti's head is when he's having an existential crisis.

Blue gives a low chuckle. “What, do you have the tea? I hope he’s having a fucking breakdown. Maybe if I can learn a little bit more about how he thinks there will be a benefit to this possession shit after all.”

Anonymous asked: Oh that's.. interesting. If that's not too personal, what are your shared dreams like? Is it coherent at all?

“I think there were snippets?” says Blue. “Snippets that I understood. Like Dap’s eyes, and Trick just staring at us, but his throat was bleeding the way Anti’s does. And then there was this really weird, like, figure at the door, with the forest around it. And they frightened me, but it made Anti move towards it, and he was talking, but I couldn’t hear what he said to it. And then the figure turned and walked away from him while he was trying to reach it, and he woke up upset, and laid with Dapper for a long time. But then, I don’t even remember all of our waking moments. I think he can shut me down when he has the energy and thinks to do it.”

“Well, you’ve got one thing right, at least.”

Blue yelps and turns to see Anti standing inside the bathroom. The door is closed and they didn’t hear it open. Blue bites down the urge to swear at him, the memories of last night still too fresh in his mind. He sits down on the side of the tub to shield Dok, turning his eyes away from Anti’s.

“That’s what I thought,“ snipes Anti, advancing on them both. Ignoring Dok’s nakedness, hidden to you by the side of the tub, Anti pushes back his hair and examines the dent in his head, pulling his hand away after a moment and staring down at the two of them.

“Can we go back to our twins now, Anti?” asks Dok. “Please?”

“Now that’s a more polite way to ask than all that screaming and thrashing you two got up to last night,” sneers Anti. “Yes, you can. On one condition.”

“What?” asks Blue, knowing he’s waiting for a reply.

“Blue’s body is a fucking wreck. You two make sure it gets fed and watered and whatever. And Dok, I want you to make him exercise.”

“To make him exercise? Your idea of exercise is play-fighting… or just real fighting. He can barely walk.”

“I’m not an idiot, Arzt. Aren’t you supposed to be a doctor? Make him stronger again. Use the pool. That’s easier on humans. Good for you.”

“I’m not a physical therapist, Anti, I’m a heart surgeon.”

“Are you arguing with me?” asks Anti in a sickly sweet voice. “Would you like an up-close view of a heart that needs fixing right now?”

Dok flinches away from him, shaking his head.

“Just don’t let it fucking die or something stupid. I need it functional. Got it?”

Blue wraps his arms uncomfortably around his stomach. Dok looks up at him.

“Got it,” they both say.

“There’s my good pets,” says Anti, his face contorted with derision, and, mercifully, he leaves them alone again. If you’re watching your cameras, you’ve seen that he has not left Dapper’s side for the past hour, the two of them having a lie-in in the great big bed, wrapped warmly around each other.

Anonymous asked: Regardless of morals and standards, everyone has hopes, dreams, fears, and values. Anti's are crooked but it's not impossible for his to align with yours at times. honestly your want for control is probably growing since it's been stripped away from you. That doesn't make you Anti, that makes you human. However I certainly don't trust the magical connection between you two, it's clear that it's not just skin-deep (pun intended, fuck you) so if you say things are creeping too far, it's too far.

Blue sighs through his nose. The day has just begun and already he’s so tired. He doesn’t want to go downstairs. He doesn’t want to swim. He just wants to go back to bed.

But he’s got them to look after, no matter what the doubts in his head, no matter the growing connection between himself and the creature that’s been putting him on for pajamas at night.

And, he thinks, as he towels Dok’s fluffy brown hair between one of the thick bathroom towels in the cabinet and wraps it like a blanket around his thin shoulders, it’s not really so bad when there are moments like these. Dok looks at him like he’s in awe of him, dazed and trusting, clinging to Blue’s shirt.

“Let’s go take you to your little brother,” he says, leading Dok towards the stairs.

“Airplane,” mumbles Dok, rubbing at his head.

“What?”

“Airplane.” He points to the top stairs. “De flugzeug.”

A small paper airplane is waiting for them. Blue picks it up cautiously, waiting for tricks.

But it’s just the poem his twin sent him as a present, the one he tore out of the book. And if you saw only the beginning last night, the morose ramblings of a reflective man, here is the finish:

And yet I still am half in love with pain, With what is imperfect, with both tears and mirth, With things that have an end, with life and earth, And this moon that leaves me dark within the door.

You see Blue’s mouth curve into a small smile that is entirely his own. And there, at the bottom of the banister, fast asleep against the stairs, waits an imperfection for whom he would suffer all things: Ro, waiting for him.

Anti can do what he wants to him in the night. Daytime is for daylight, and the sun shines off his brothers.

.

“Hey,” murmurs Trick, sitting up in bed. “Hey, stop. What’s that? Where’d you get that?”

Dok turns away from the fingers approaching the purple dent in his head.

Trick stands up and forces him to look at him, his eyes wide and worried. “Don’t look away from me. Where’d you get that? Fuck, your pupils are totally fucked up. Sit down, bro, hey, I’m here. Noodle, come sit on your uncle’s lap. I’ll go get you an icepack, Dok, just - ”

“No,” says Dok, reaching out for his wrist. “No, Trick, just stay.”

Trick is supposed to be giving orders these days, but even if he were a commanding personality in the slightest, he would still do what Dok asked of him. He sits down beside his brother on the bed they are not allowed to share, staring at that wound in his head like God put it there and now it’s Trick’s job to crash down St. Peter’s gates and enact a swift revenge.

“Tell me who,” says Trick, pointing at the wound. “Who did that to you. Red, huh? You did something he didn’t like and he grabbed you again? Or Dapper?”

“Stop,” says Dok, more afraid by the guesses than he would have been if Trick had begun to guess his secret. “Don’t - how can you say that?”

“Red’s done things like this to us before,” says Trick bitterly, getting to his feet again. “I’ll fucking show him to lay his hands on you.”

“It wasn’t Red! I hit my head on the bathroom counter. Slipped on my clothes as I was changing. It was stupid.”

Trick sits down, distraught. “Dok, you never lie to me. That’s supposed to be why we’re twins. You and I, we got each other’s secrets. Even the really secret secrets. You have to trust me.”

Dok’s eyes water. He turns away, hiding the bruise beneath his palm.

Trick sits miserably beside him, staring at the floor. Noodle watches them with concern, sitting on Trick’s feet. “Mrr,” he prompts them, butting Henrik’s calf.

“I just got you back,” whispers Trick. “I wish we could sleep together again. Then I would know you were safe from everybody and everything. And that no one was going to take you from me again.”

He glances over and his hands reach out. For a second, Dok thinks he’s going to touch his shoulder and draw him in to hug him - but instead, Trick reaches out and wraps his hand around one of the raven necklaces on Dok’s breast.

Henrik feels a stone in his throat. He can hardly breathe. Trick glares at the necklaces. He hates them. He hates that they’re there. He hates that the magicians put dangerous thoughts into Dok’s head so he has to stay upstairs with Anti. He hates that his twin just lied to him.

“What if I said it was Anti?” croaks Dok, his voice shaking.

“Who was keeping you safe instead of me?”

“Who hit my head.”

Trick looks up, surprised.

And if Dok’s concussed, well - Trick’s eyes are more glazed over still.

“Anti’s never hit you,” says the person in the world who’s been with Dok every time Anti has made him bleed, bruise, and cry. They used to commiserate in whispers under the covers of their nest, reassuring each other through every pain that came with hands clutched together and secret, distant hopes to live a better life someday, together. Now, Trick’s familiar voice is thick and sleepy, and not from the cozy comfort of their brotherhood - he sounds drugged more than tired. Noodle leaves his feet and hides away under the bed soundlessly. “He would never.”

It’s Dok’s turn to stare at the floor. He wants to cry or scream or protest, but in the end he just feels dead.

Trick drops his hand from the necklaces. He reaches for Dok’s face and rubs his brother’s beard against his knuckles, setting his head down on his shoulder.

“Did you miss me?” asks Dok softly. “While I was away?”

“I think I tried to,” answers Trick, sounding confused. “But it was hard to remember, I guess. I just knew I was lonely without you next to me. And last night, I was lonely again like that.”

“You should stay closer to Red,” murmurs Dok, ready for a change of subject.

“I hate him,” whispers Trick. “I hate everybody but you and Anti.”

“Don’t say that, Trick. I know it’s not true.”

Trick snuggles closer to his shoulder, closing his eyes. In the morning light, they are hand-in-hand.

Dok doesn’t know why he feels his brother is being taken farther and farther away from him every time they speak.

“I love you,” says Dok. “More than anything.”

“I love you too,” says Trick, sharing a rare kiss with him, pressing his mouth to Dok’s cheek. “Lie down and rest. Your head has to be killing you. I’ll make you breakfast. This house, this place - it’s everything we need, man. Months and months we’ve been hoping for a place like this and now, finally, I actually get to take care of you the way I’ve always wanted to.”

“With food?” asks Dok, trying to smile weakly at him.

Trick smiles back. “Yes,” he says. “With food.”

He isn’t often himself, lately.

But his love language is bacon and orange juice and sweet summer watermelon, and he still loves Dok.

Anonymous asked: What do you remember of the marketplace, Trick, when everyone was reunited again? Everything? Pieces? Did Anti take you aside to "fix" things for you afterward?

“Ahhh.” Trick tilts his head back and forth as he cuts up sourdough bread for toast. “The marketplace recently? We… were coming to get Dok and Red back cause Dok got away from the magicians and Blue was feeling well enough to travel. But Anti was wearing him because he knocked me out to try to protect me.”

Trick’s mouth thins irritably for a moment, but he’s trying to stay positive.

“But then there was some guy with Red, and apparently he got really attached to him, because he wouldn’t come with us when we said we needed to go! And Red is like, wanted for murder and a ton of other shit in Peru. And England. And kind of everywhere? So I don’t know how he was planning to stay hidden without Anti. I think he was just being emotional. But anyway I convinced Dok to come with me and Anti left Dap while he went to go get Red and convince him to stop being dumb. By the time he came back, Dap had gotten out, and that was how we ended up… yeah.”

Trick stares down at the knife in his hand like he’s acknowledging its power for a moment, his eyes afraid.

“I think after that it was just a blur of trying to deal with the fact that Dapper almost… did that. And Anti and Blue were both sick, and Dok was all shaken up, and everybody was losing it. I was just glad to get out of the fucking country at that point. Anti and I were together on the plane. But we talk a lot these days. I’ve wanted us to be able to get along for months. Some days he spoils me like he usually does Dapper and it’s wild. I’ve been good! I’m proud to get rewarded for that cause I really have worked hard for us, I think. Is that too much to say? I’m happy we’re all together again and that I finally convinced Anti I’m worth having.”

He smiles, searching the cabinets of the dead man for dishes. “He’s been helping me whenever I get freaked out. I haven’t felt depressed in ages. Having Blue possessed and Dapper suicidal, I think I would have flipped out, but Anti just makes everything… calm, inside my head. I really fucking need that. I’m scared to be alone with myself sometimes. I’ve had more than one attempt in my life, you know. Dok shouldn’t have to handle me alone, so it’s really good that Anti’s helping now too.

“But… Dok’s acting weird. Anti says he needs to correct what the magicians did to him. I hate that they changed him. I should have been there with him to watch him. Now Anti’s starting to dislike him because he won’t take those necklaces off. I don’t want him to get in trouble. Anti might give him to Dapper or Red or something instead of me.”

Trick’s face fills with distress for a second, wiping at his eyes. But - breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out. Breathe in -

Five seconds.

He feels okay again.

Humming distantly to himself, he picks up Dok’s plate and carries it back towards the bedroom, his eyes wide and cloudy and calm.

Anonymous asked: he can't take the necklaces off, trick. anti's just worried over it because he doesn't know what will happen, i think.

“That’s probably true,” says Trick. “Secretly I think Anti’s scared of more things than he lets on, but he’s tough for the rest of us. I don’t think he wants to see Dok hurt and we don’t know what those necklaces do. He said some weird shit when he tried to explain them to me. I’m worried he might be delusional. Dapper’s had some weird delusions, stuff like being one hundred years old, and he can get really, really stressed if you try to contradict him while he’s psychotic. So I’m just trying to meet Dok where he’s at until he kind of settles in again. I think it’ll be okay, though. I feel… fuck, I feel safe, you know? Safe mentally, safe in this house, safe with my family. Like no one’s going to hurt me, including me. And it’s been a really, really long time since I felt that way. So I’m just - I can take anything anybody throws at me right now. I’m just happy things turned out so well for us, even with some lasting problems we gotta fix. But we will fix them. Everything’s going to be okay.”

Anonymous asked: Well you're right about things going to be okay. Sooner rather than later I hope. I think it might be good for you to approach all of your brothers when you can Trick, talk with them. Not just Anti and Dok. I think opening a dialogue between the others may help clear the air a bit, yeah?

Trick deflates a little, looking back at the rest of the house as Dok sits up and tries to eat despite his nausea, not wanting Trick to feel like he’s not grateful or become more worried. Trick crosses his arms over his chest, his eyes narrowing down into a familiar look - the same way he stares out the window when he’s keeping watch.

“It was really scary when we were up on that mountain,” he murmurs. “And I would never want Dap to get hurt or be unhappy. I love Blue, but how am I supposed to trust him after what he did? And Red, well.”

Trick closes his eyes and shakes his head.

“I don’t know. We’ve never gotten along. Probably better to just leave things as are.”

“Not sure that will be an option,” Dok tells him from the bed. “You and Ro will be spending a lot of time together whether you like it or not, seems like.”

“He can keep sleeping on the stairs,” mutters Trick, guarding the door to Dok. Red won’t hurt them anymore. You have been with Red throughout the last few weeks, but Trick has not seen him since New Year, when he was being so ferocious and bitter with them, chained by the leg to his room. He doesn’t trust his brother not to strike his head as he passes. But if Red tries now, oh - Trick will show him. Trick will show him.

Anonymous asked: Don't you think you're being a tad abrasive? You guys do a lot of improv when it comes to keeping yourselves and each other safe. It's not always as simple as just following the rules, and not everyone is on the same page on how to handle themselves.

“Red can’t slap us,” snaps Trick. “There’s a hard and fast rule. Nobody should be hitting each other around here. Nobody should be dragging us or hurting us. We don’t have to excuse that sort of behavior. Anyway, I don’t have to talk to you!”

“Since when do you dislike the cameras so much?” asks Dok.

Trick frowns, turning to him. “Dok, come on… half of them are assholes anyway.”

“We used to have fun with the cameras,” grumbles Dok, turning away from him. “These days you are always annoyed. Well, I still like the camera people, so please don’t be so mean.”

Trick is abashed beneath his twin’s disapproval, wringing his hands anxiously in the doorway. “Dok, come on,” he whines, but his brother doesn’t look back at him. Trick paces, distressed.

Anonymous asked: C'mon Trick, you can't hate Red that much. I mean, yeah did some horrible things but it was mostly all on Anti's order. And he's also been through some real tough stuff while he was away with Dapper. Cant you give him a chance, just a little bit?

“We’ve all been through tough stuff, fuck! But I never grabbed Red by the hair and made him cry or anything like that! Fuck!”

Trick kicks the door, tears welling in his eyes.

“Hey,” snaps Dok. “Just take a deep breath. You don’t have to go beg to be Red’s friend right now.”

“I don’t care about anyone but you and Anti,” repeats Trick vehemently, circling like a caged dog. “I don’t care, it’s better just to stay home in your nest, don’t gotta go out and meet anybody. Don’t have to worry about how nobody likes me if you and Anti like me, don’t have to. Don’t have to let anybody hurt you again!”

“Why don’t you feed Noodle?” suggests Dok. “He’s probably hungry.”

Honestly, he’s not so perturbed by his brother’s anger. Trick was at the bottom of the hierarchy for a long time and his hatred for Red was simmering the whole time, not just because of the hitting, but because of the favoritism. This isn’t the first time Trick’s vented to him about it. Dok’s just glad Trick hasn’t been retaliatory yet - but he fears Trick’s lingering fear of his big brother is the only thing stopping him from putting Red in his place the same way Anti always put Trick and Dok in their places at their oldest brother’s feet.

And hey, Dok has his own grudges with Red, but at least he has some perspective on the situation. He knows Red’s been trying to survive just like the rest of them. He’s kept food in their stomachs too, sometimes at the cost of his own dinner. He can forgive him if he’s trying to be better to them.

Anonymous asked: It's fair to hate him after what he's done, even if it was under Anti's orders. But he's gotten back to himself a bit, the person he was before Anti. The Red he is right now is kinder than the one you remember, Trick.

Trick rubs at his eyes unhappily and shrugs, trying to stop himself from really crying. He’s embarrassed. Red still scares him no matter how mopey and sad and hollow he seems these days. He just wants to go away with Dok and Anti and maybe Dapper, and, well, Blue could come too… but he’d be sad without Red…

Trick lets out a short, unhappy sigh, sitting down beside Dok, who rubs his back almost instinctively, recalling to them both long nights on the watch at the window with only Dok’s hands to keep Trick’s muscles from straining.

“Red is your family,” says Dok. “I think really we all love each other, it’s just not that easy. Try not to be so angry with him. He’s really unhappy, you know.”

“Yeah,” says Trick. “All he did all of last night was sit in that library and look out at the sun as it went down.”

“Red has always kept us as full and as safe as he could,” says Dok, handing his brother a half of his toast. Trick nibbles unenthusiastically on the bread, leaning against Dok. “Do the same for him if Anti gives you a choice. Yes? For me? For Blue?”

“I’m not going to hurt Red,” mumbles Trick. “I’m just man-scaping.”

Dok snorts hard and Trick laughs wearily at his own joke, pulling Noodle onto his lap to pet his golden cat’s warm head.

Anonymous asked: Why do you trust Anti over Dok all of a sudden? You've been with Dok through years of torture and pain and heartache at the hands of Anti, you've been forcibly removed from him, you've been forced to run a 40 minutes walk and break into a store as punishment for not doing something you weren't even told to do while Anti threatened to torture Dok. Look at the burn scar on your hand. Remember that? And you say Anti would never hurt you two? BS.

“Break into a store as punishment?”

Trick stares at you, blinking. “I don’t think we’ve… no, or… that was for… medicine?”

He stops short, furrowing his brows at the floor. “Torture Dok. And the burn scar on my - ”

He opens his palm and falls silent.

The welded spiderweb of his hand stares back at him in pink and white, glistening under the lights. His stomach flips; he stares. He remembers the warmth of Dok’s body beside him growing colder, colder.

“I’ll make you a fire.”

“Anti said to stay hidden.”

“I’ll make you a fire.”

He curls his fingers into a fist.

Anti did do this to him. For making a fire for Dok.

Anti did this to him because he was angry, and he was violent, and he decided he wanted to hurt Trick, and that was the only reason.

“Shit, shit,” whispers Trick, clutching his hand to his chest. “Oh, no. No, no.”

“Trick?” Dok gets up on his unsteady feet, tottering over to his brother to hold him. “Hey, hey, I’m here. What’s - ”

“Anti hurt me, he hurt me,” whimpers Trick, eyes wide, his green hair falling into his eyes. “He still hurts me, he slapped me, he slapped me for kissing a girl and I fell and hit my head.”

“Trick, hey, look at me.”

“He used to lock us in that room with the blood on the walls,” sobs Trick, reaching out for his brother’s shirt, and Dok draws him in, clutching tightly to his elbows. “Because I would tell him he couldn’t make you torture anybody else, that he was making you lose your mind, and you would be in that dead-space for hours, just staring at the wall, whispering about surgeries and tumors beneath your skin.”

“Trick!” cries Dok, shaking him. “You’re making yourself upset, stop! You don’t have to think about it right now, okay? You don’t have to - ”

“Think about what?” Trick blinks, looking up again. “What… were we talking about?”

Dok stares at him, his head drawing slightly back in confusion. “Um. How we used to get locked in the bloody room after my… surgeries.”

Trick watches him, frowning.

“Trick?”

“What bloody room?”

“With the chairs, like, the rocking chairs? Do you remember? In a house he stole from someone. There were pictures of their kids on the walls.”

“What are you talking about?” laughs Trick, confused, touching his cheek. “Hey, whoa… who did that to you?”

He points at the bruise on Dok’s head. Dok’s whole face is drawn back with fear, staring at his brother’s blank eyes.

“Dok, tell me,” murmurs Trick, alarmed. “Who did that to you?”

“What if I said it was Anti?”

“It wasn’t Anti,” whispers Trick, touching his own head like it aches and letting his eyes slide shut. “He doesn’t hurt us.”

Dok has gone very still.

“Have the rest of my eggs, please,” he says, pushing Trick gently towards the bed. “Before Noodle eats them. I’m not that hungry.”

“Are you sure?”

“Promise,” answers Dok. “I’ll be right back. I need to handle something.”

Trick drifts towards the bed, looking sleepy.

“What is he doing to you, what is he doing,” you hear Dok whispering as he moves, over and over and over again. “What has he done in your head, what is he making you think, what is he doing to you, my heart, my heart.”

He is still whispering it when he steps into the kitchen and picks up the knife Trick used to cut fruit for his breakfast - a big, stern, silver cutting knife.

“He’s not going to be able to think like himself til he’s dead,” hisses Dok, unsteady on his feet, his mouth trembling with terrified worry. “He’s stuck in his own head. What is he doing to you, what has he done…”

nikkilbook asked: ....Doc. I’m gonna need you to clarify which “him” is which. And then I’m gonna need you to take like twelve deep breaths and find your whole chill.

Dok is breathing hard and miserably, his eyes beginning to get red again. He tries to breathe deep and sobs instead, pulling his hand through his hair.

“I want Anti to stop hurting him,” he says, his whole face scrunched up like a child’s as they try not to cry. “I want to take him somewhere safe and not have to keep watching this happen.”

Anonymous asked: Hen, what are you doing, love? Do you have a plan for this? You need to make a plan before you do something like this, just in case it backfires.

“I don’t want to make a plan, I can’t think, I just want, want… I want…”

He tries to take a step forward and stumbles, losing his balance and crashing to the floor with a yelp. The knife scatters away from his grip and he yelps as he lands hard on his wrist, curling up on himself.

Footsteps come rattling towards him, heavy and thunderous, and he recognizes them for who they belong to before Red is even barking his name and kneeling down beside him, laying a hand on his shoulder.

“Dok! What happened? Did you trip? Hey, did you know you have a bump on your head?”

Anonymous asked: Whoa whoa whoa! What are you doing? You're gonna go kill Anti? With a knife that'll probably be knocked out of your grasp effortlessly and then dug into you?? Dok, be smart about this. You're in no shape to be rebellious right now

“Hey!” cries Red, alarmed. “Fuck, don’t say those things, you’re going to get him in so much fucking trouble. Dok, tell me right now you weren’t going to hurt Anti.”

“Maybe I was,” cries Dok. “What then?”

Red grabs his chin, pulling him up to sitting despite a low yelp of protest.

“Dok,” he says, leaning in close. “It’s really important that I hear you say right now that you weren’t planning to go hurt Anti.”

Dok stares at him, eyes watering.

“I’m sick of living like this,” he says.

“Take that back,” says Red, low and dangerous. “Right now, before Anti punishes you for it. Right now, Dok.”

pine-storm-season asked: Deep breaths, buddy. I know, you want something to change. But we can't do anything just now, and so you have to wait, okay? Things will get better than they are now, I promise.

Dok works on deep breaths, miserable in Red’s hands. It’s the thought of this - Red’s hands, the realization that Red is so sincere about what he’s saying that he’s willing to touch Dok’s skin with his own despite his hatred for the sensation - that gives Dok a breath of clarity. He tries to calm down again, pawing at Red’s hand on his chin.

Dok whimpers, clutching at Red’s hand on his chin. “You’re holding me too tight.”

Red’s expression changes, a flash of alarm cutting through him. He drops Dok immediately. “Shit. I’m sorry, Dok.”

Dok wipes at his eyes, sniffling. “Can you help me walk to Blue?”

“I need to hear you say that you weren’t planning to hurt Anti,” murmurs Red.

Dok stares up at him, finding himself in a sudden, concussed sort of wonder for him. Red’s long been Anti’s, but he’s always been like this too - protecting them. If you’re going to say bad things about Anti, say them where his cameras don’t hear. If you’re going to break Anti’s rules, do it where the cameras aren’t looking. If you’re going to entertain faint dreams of rebellion, keep them in your sleep where they belong.

Trick pretends Anti doesn’t hurt them. Dapper drifts into fantasies. Dok used to hope that one day Anti would be better to all of them. Red has never done any of that. Red minimizes pain wherever he can and takes whatever comes their way, and he keeps living. Most of the year he’s been with Anti, he’s done it without even a twin.

“How have you been doing this, Red?” sighs Dok. “Aren’t you just hopeless?”

“I got things that keep me going,” says Red, but there’s a grief in his face that wasn’t there before Peru. “Long as you’re all alive, that’s all that matters.”

“No,” croaks Dok. “Don’t you see? That isn’t all that matters.”

Red doesn’t answer. He sits looking at Dok, ready to catch him if he falls again.

“I wasn’t planning to hurt Anti,” lies Dok.

Red nods. Deniability - even a shred - is the most important thing. It means that if Anti reacts, Red can defend him. He was concussed, anyway. He wasn’t thinking clearly, Anti! He can already plan the conversation he’ll have if Anti comes down the stairs to hurt him.

nikkilbook asked: Red, keep Dok away from sharp knives for the immediate future, cuz I still can tell if he was planning to murderize Anti or mercy-kill Trick.

“Yes, I’m going to pick this up and put it in the sink,” says Red tentatively, stepping away from Dok to get the knife and move it. “Might be better just to get rid of all the knives in the house, honestly, or at least lock them up somewhere. I got too many brothers with some dangerous habits. Did you think there was something beneath your skin again, Dok?”

“No, I’m okay.”

“Okay.”

Anonymous asked: Dok, I don't think trick is too far gone for us to snap him back to reality like that with just a memory. The downside here is that the snapback is basically a factory-reset. I think we need to relieve the pressure on his mind over time so he doesn't have a full mental collapse. It's not just his memories being repressed but the emotions too. Maybe a breakdown is inevitable, but we have to coax him through it not just shut it down or he'll just snap back into Anti's blissful ignorance again.

“Hey, what happened?” asks Blue softly, limping into the room. It took him a couple minutes to follow after Red. “Why are you sad?”

“We’re okay,” says Red. “Not a safe thing to talk about.”

Dok doesn’t even look up at Blue, fixated miserably on the floor.

“There are many things not safe to talk about,” answers Blue cagily, turning his gaze towards you just for a moment before looking away again. “Wise though they may be.”

“I want Trick to be Trick again,” mumbles Dok. “That’s all.”

“Get off the floor,” Blue prompts him gently. “Let’s go hang out on the couch and see if the cable still works.”

“I need to keep him thinking,” says Dok, trying to mull over your words in his spinning heads. “Remind him who he is little by little.”

“Shh, Dok,” pleads Blue, Red watching uncertainly from the kitchen.

Anonymous asked: Are you doing okay, Dok? Well... considering everything probably not but uh... how's the head?

“I’ll get an icepack,” offers Red, turning towards the freezer. “If I can find one.”

Blue sits Dok down on the couch, kneeling down in front of him to look up.

“You’re concussed,” he whispers. “You didn’t have a real plan or anything, just anger and fear. If you let your emotions drive you Anti will destroy you every time, Dok. You have to be patient. I know it’s impossible, but you have to do it.”

But Dok -

Henrik.

Henrik is shaking his head slowly, biting down hard on his lip. Blood trickles from between his teeth in reply.

“I will not be passive again,” he says. “I will never be passive again. I refuse. Besides, we don’t have much time. We will lose our fight if we don’t act on it. Or worse - we could lose our brothers. Blue.”

He leans in close, pushing you slightly away. When he speaks, you catch only the barest whisper, pressed into Blue’s ear.

“No long waits. Today, we begin planning. Let us make this chapter of our lives short and scarlet.”

Blue looks at Dok, and then to Red, turned towards the kitchen. From here, Blue can hear him humming dreamily - love songs for his fiance. Love songs for his broken heart.

Blue’s own reflection looks back at him from Dok’s eyes, and he sees Anti.

He will destroy every trace of him if that’s what it takes to keep the others safe. If that’s what it takes to give them a chance at happiness. If that’s what it takes to see his own eyes in the mirror again. He doesn’t need magic. He has Henrik, and Henrik has him.

Blue nods once. Dok touches his hand.

In the silence between them, a revolt.

[autokratorissa]

Considering that civilizational collapse may happen within 100 years, do you think people can justify having children? I've seen some people get upset and call anti-natalists 'post-modern christians' but they never clearly answer why we should keep having children. Never mind that "be fruitful and multiply" is a central tenet of Christianity. Anyways, I'm curious about your thoughts on this matter.

While procreation is obviously very proactively encouraged—arguably even demanded depending on the denomination and period one’s talking about—in Christianity, it’s not exactly unique in that regard; all religions tend to have a pro-reproduction (a ‘natalist,’ you could say) message somewhere in their canon. Many early Christian heresies, though, especially those influenced by the Gnostics and Hellenistic schools like the Platonists and Pythagoreans, did ascribe some kind of negative value to birth owing to their identification of God/Yahweh as the demiurge, and so his creation—the world—being inherently imperfect and flawed, so, even though Gnosticism can hardly be considered the flourishing worldview it once was, “be fruitful and multiply” cannot, in good faith, be considered the final word in Christian attitudes to reproduction. And antinatalists are not ‘post-modern Christians’ (what would that even mean? It’s a patently ridiculous term); anyone saying that is operating under precisely the kind of Christian-dominated thinking they’re accusing antinatalists of. Early manifestations of philosophical antinatalism were predominantly Buddhist (in India and China) and secular (in the Hellenistic world), and from a time before Christianity existed at all, all of which clearly refutes that kind of criticism, at the very least in a strictly historical sense. We should always be mindful of the cultures we exist within, however, and certainly for those in Europe and the Americas, the hegemonic power of the Church and Christian ideology cannot be ignored, even if it is seemingly less powerful and all-encompassing now than it once was.

What are my thoughts on the matter? I think people who don’t know better think antinatalism would consider them as somehow morally wrong—evil, even—for having children, but that this just isn’t true. Similar to a lot of the common responses to nihilism, these people have a knee-jerk reaction based on very little actual knowledge but plenty of emotional baggage, and in this case literally millions of years of biological and social pressures making them view childbirth positively. They think the antinatalist would consider them, individually and as a person, to be bad for having a child, and even that that child itself would represent a moral evil, and not that it is the act, the process, the socio-cultural and biological urge, that is being critiqued. There are also obviously degrees and variations to all things; antinatalism is not a position which can typically be considered to paint in absolutes and categorical imperatives for moral action. Antinatalism isn’t even a doctrine that necessarily seeks to stop all procreation; it simply applies negative value to the act of creating life. On one level, the consequences of such a philosophy are radical and perhaps difficult for many people to stomach, but more often than not it leads to undeniably rational ideas that benefit us all. A good example of this is the very simple and quite common (see, for example: Vetter, The production of children as a problem for utilitarian ethics, de Giraud, “Mobiles et Mécanismes réels de la Procréation,” c. Narcissisme, L’art de guillotinerles procréateurs: manifeste anti-nataliste, and Rulli, The Ethics of Procreation and Adoption) antinatalist observation that, while there exist children without parents but who do want them (those in foster care; orphans, those unwanted by their biological parents, etc.), for people to make the active decision to have a biological child of their own and not adopt is simply unjustifiable under any ethical framework: the act of adoption reduces the amount of misery in the world; childbirth, adds to it.

The creation of sentient, self-aware beings is cruel, unnecessary, and fundamentally and irrevocably based on a complete disregard for the interests and autonomy (see: Shiffrin, Wrongful Life, Procreative Responsibility, and the Significance of Harm, and Singh, “Shiffrin’s (Reluctant) “Anti-natalism”” and “Objections to Shiffrin,” Assessing anti-natalism: a philosophical examination of the morality of procreation)—which has often been considered the basis of all morality (cf. Christman, “Autonomy in Moral and Political Philosophy,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)—of the hypothetical, unborn child. There is no way to avoid any of this. The world is a bad place, we know this to be so. By having children, we condemn them—by force, by an act of violence against them—to a life that knows some quantity of misery, suffering, angst, pain, and all the other things we think best to avoid. Therefore the unavoidable truth is that we are knowingly causing a suffering being to know misery and pain, when we very easily could have not. It’s extremely hard to even attempt to justify that kind of relationship and act.

As with pretty much anything in pessimist and other allied philosophies, I think Schopenhauer represents an excellent starting point—though by no means end point—for someone interested in antinatalism. It should be stressed that, as a Kantian (more specifically as a transcendental idealist), Schopenhauer thought that the creation and destruction of life was mere phenomena, not Ding-an-Sich [thing-in-itself; noumenon, that is, what exists independent of perception], and so did not place as much of an emphasis on actually avoiding and stopping procreation as an act as other, non-idealist antinatalists may advocate, but nevertheless I do think he does, in his typical style, express the kind of reserved whimper of philosophy that I can’t help but feel belongs to antinatalism:

“If you try to imagine, as nearly as you can, what an amount of misery, pain and suffering of every kind the sun shines upon in its course, you will admit that it would be much better if, on the earth as little as on the moon, the sun were able to call forth the phenomena of life; and if, here as there, the surface were still in a crystalline state.

[…]

“If children were brought into the world by an act of pure reason alone, would the human race continue to exist? Would not a man rather have so much sympathy with the coming generation as to spare it the burden of existence? or at any rate not take it upon himself to impose that burden upon it in cold blood.”

Schopenhaur, qtd in “On the Sufferings of the World,” Studies in Pessimism

Schopenhauer saw procreation as a weakness; not an evil thing, it should be stressed, but a weakness, brought about by the cravings of the flesh. The urge to have children and likewise the way in which we all too easily create pregnancies without even planning them results from our being, in effect, tricked by the Wille zum Leben [will to life; the thing-in-itself]. As I say though, Schopenhauer was working in the Kantian tradition, and so all life as we understand it, in his philosophy, is simply appearance; true freedom, that is, the only escape from not just procreation but most suffering of any kind, can only come from a rejection and overcoming of the Will. Poetically beautiful as this line of thinking may be, suffice to say few of us are committed Kantians today.

To specifically answer your question about whether it’s possible to justify having children now, in 2019, as the very world burns around us, yes, of course it’s justifiable. We as a species can consistently find justifications to support whatever we want. Only rarely does justification proceed action. Personally, however, I cannot justify it. No amount of logical contortions or moral arguing seems to affect that. But will people have children, and not simply as sporadic accidents and in unavoidable situations, but by the millions and through predetermined planning? Of course they will. And would I give a different answer if I were alive at any other point in history? Unlikely. All we can do is try and make life as pleasant as possible for those of us that are here, and, yes, to try and stop those that come after us from making the same mistakes we have, the first and most significant of which always necessarily being our creation itself.

[meditationadvise]

Celebrate Independence in Your Practice

Independence Day is the day the USA decided to stand for the long tough struggle toward freedom from international oppressors, that sought to dictate their financial, religious, as well as moral lives. As well as while the nation and vacation itself could be thought about to be shrouded in contemporary misunderstandings as well as misuse, the lessons of the day remain touching life. It is a lesson of equality, trust and also love in others, and the guts to press on regardless of relatively impossible odds.

What is Independence

There is little a lot more we cherish in the West compared to our ability to act autonomously. The capability to live life the way we choose is at the helm of our value system, and from that, extraordinary diversity is birthed, impacting every little thing from our love life to our spiritual technique as well as whatever between. Just what this is personified in is the practice and also belief that features the concept of independence. The independent individual decides things for themselves, as is not led by approximate or the dominating dogma of the day. The absolutely independent individual recognizes the unique, multi-faceted world and likes it for enabling them to include in their own dimension to it. The independent individual sees themselves as well as doesn't with to compare their being to various other, but rather comparison, to find differences as well as individuality, however with a shared experience of the human condition.

On this particular day, this is the self-reliance that is celebrated. The boldness and vision that fantastic people, men as well as ladies, saw, centuries earlier, which seem so average today but were greatly advanced in their time.

Independence in Your Practice

Yoga, in lots of methods, embodies this same freedom. As we begin our technique, we relocate slowly, learning how to come to be mindful of our body, however also the best ways to manage and also route it. We extend as well as contort in means only our body can, for every people have a special and also dazzling vessel that connects us to our floor coverings. In the very same way, we progress individually. No two professionals coincide, delighting in individual understanding experiences, lessons, and also epiphanies while participated in yoga.

Beyond the floor covering, though, yoga does something extra for us: it leads us far from concern and also toward knowing. In this feeling, understanding stands for the really understanding that cultivates the wish for freedom mentioned over. It encourages us to escape the understandings of what efforts to manage us-- emotion, instability, concern, loneliness, discomfort, and also unpredictability. The continuous technique of not simply hatha yoga exercise, however likewise other forms, like rule yoga, enhance a sense of ability in our minds. We can perform that asana. We could exercise that concept of non-harming. We could locate faith, love, and also self-confidence in a simple phrase, repeated as well as implied to concentrate our mind.

Finding Your Independence

July is the about time of the year, with 6 months behind us, and 6 months in advance. We bask in the lengthy, cozy days of summer season, as well as our spirit soars as high as the temperature. Yet in this time of blissfulness, take a moment to mirror on your life, and just how yoga has influenced it. Assume for a moment past on your own. Consider the huge world, with it's many individuals, it's several issues, and it's several appeals. Ask yourself how you play right into this grand scheme. Where do you exist in this now, and just how will you choose to exist in it as the future continues to be realized? Every minute of time, from the one experienced just a sentence ago to the one knowledgeable currently, is an opportunity to accept and also grow the very significance of you. It's a chance to grow you independence.

[paganchristian]

An alligator we saw, which we see them often around here.  

That always also feels a sign, especially at this particular lake.  The fearful nature of things somehow inspires peace in me, not that I’m scared of the alligators since they’re not anywhere they could or would try to get to us, from where we can see them, from a distance.  But still, alligators are not the kind of beast that usually inspires calm spiritual feeling are they?  Well, to some, to me, something about the power, the primal instinct, or is it something else, that I can’t even consciously explain?  I think that the latter is a big part, beyond my conscious ability to even know, just feel it instead.

I feel like God wants me to be alone, be quiet, think only with Him, to talk  with Him.  Or wait for Him.  It’s gets very scary to wait and talk and be silent with Him when, ... 

 I’m so in danger and not sure that He wants me as I am.  Speaking of all the Hell beliefs.  

When I can’t believe and do what they keep saying I must to just stay out of Hell, which is why I can’t entangle myself too heavily in that, because then what will be happening is that I will believe out of sheer fear and false guilt.  But that won’t settle my problems, because deep inside it’s not true belief and I will be less and less able to function and feel good, ...

but instead, my life will spiral due to mental illness after the point of becoming entrained to believing false insincere beliefs. 

Yet, I still keep much of the belief system, ...

And so even if I don’t fully believe in all that at all, Hell, sin, rules, in all of their full array, well, I still believe in the silence, the prayer, the speaking, the sensing and being shaped by something.  

Because yes, it’s something that I’m only ever accessing when I seek only spirit. 

While my life feels burning, on fire, burning down, in many ways, and there seem to be no guarantees.  

I feel like some kind of overly dramatic, victimhood-mentality person who can’t get out of it.  Because culture and everywhere everything, religions, and values all they all say, the same things, don’t be a victim, but I feel like a victim and can’t help it.  There is no point about talking about the cornered state I feel in, or how God helps me there, even if He doesn’t rescue me from that state.  I have to go be there and wait it out. And sooner or later hoping and feeling that a rescue and solution will improve, yet how much and if it will be visible improvement to others?  No guarantees, because if religion says to me that,...

 following my God will lead me to suffer horribly, then how can I think that seeking the blessing of my God will lead me to anything called success by others’ standards?  What if I look all the more shameful and debased and not just to fail worldly standards of health, wealth, and glamor, and intelligence, and what not.  To fail even things that other people who share my God and religion (or half-religion, pagan-Christian, the Christian half would say, at least, I look to have failed, and degenerated into a worse state than before I began).  If something would rescue me I would take that help.  My other religions seemed doomed down a similar path and when I was uplifted by this new path.

of Christianity that I’ve been exploring, I thought it was a sign that God would save me from torment.  They say that He does, some say..  So some say that even if your outer life looks so very bad, and your mental and physical health suffer, somehow in that you still feel God’s peace and that tis the higher thing that transcends and contains all your suffering.  

  And others say that that peace might not even be there, quite clearly at all, yet, only love for God and belief in God, and submission to God, because He will not absolve you from any of your psychological and emotional torment as you feel maybe even that maybe you are doomed for Hell and you’re continually trying to save yourself.  I can’t live that way, as I have a life to live with caring for my family and other responsibilities, all that would be drowned if I convinced myself that I might be doomed then thought of that much.  

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  As an aside to explain more fully what I know will happen if I continue this line of beliefs that Christians seem to force-feed me no matter how much I insist I can’t do it-I know based on previous experience that living with the continual doubt of my destination for Hell or Heaven makes me unable to carry on my basic duties as a mother and basic self-care, etc.  I just self-destruct, become ocd and wrapped in constant worship, religious reading and then rebelling into sinful behaviors to the pint of extreme self-destruction, eventually driving me to cast aside religion as it becomes obvious it’s not making me a better person or doing me any good or anyone who depends an d needs me either.  Not even God, unless someone has some contorted belief that bey believing I’m doing better or that I haven’t tried hard enough, but I keep trying and trying and can’t believe that is true, so I just throw religion away.  That is the conclusion of that line of thought, and belief and behavior. ). 

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

But some try to combine the two states- you feel God might put you in Hell (or you put yourself there) and still you feel loved by God, so you just bask in His love, even feeling that you might go to Hell.  It doesn’t seem to settle in my mind in a balanced way to try to juxtapose those two ideas and make them calmly cooperate.  If Hell was, as many say it is, just obliteration, instead of continual torture, maybe it would be possible tp find peace in that.

Still this path is different and while I felt the old path was good while I was on it, I felt it was bad afterwards.  I guess what looks good is relative, to the best you’ve had or seen r figured out yet.  This now feels better than that because the hope and orientation towards the afterlife, and seeking first the kingdom, heaven on earth, heaven inside you, even in the middle of suffering.  

And in that suffering, still, God’s grace enough to make it worth it, God’s goodness enough to believe and keep suffering for him, even if this path sometimes seems to lead to more suffering on the outer dimensions of your life, but inside your heart, it’s like suffering for a loved one to be true to them, to help them, and so it feels for me sometimes, with this path.  God feels that real, the pure, that above and high beyond it all, so that He is worth it if I was to die a martyr, except not,... I don’t know if my faith would truly extend as far as all that  ..

Because this belief system doesn’t make anything hinged upon worldly success, not even necessarily moral success (just keep repenting and trying),

Which that feels better to me than proving myself by absolving some vague idea of karma, 

Whilst also, the emphasis on trying to do the best you can towards this world’s responsibilities likewise feels better than the idea of my other path.. about the world,.. the idea that somehow it’s not real, not to be figured out or taken with too much weight.  It’s all maya, let if go, .. it’s all to help you grow or detach.  And if your loved ones suffer but you can’t see how to help them then it’s their karma, to their very death and self-destruction, let it go.  If you can’t help them, and if you can’t help yourself, let it go.  Let it be.  

 Still, ...  Still, how much different is this from the other path, i

When you dare to look it straight on clearly and honestly, if you think all the possibilities to their final end,...  doesn’t it seem there isn’t a huge if any significant difference in the results and the bind you are placed in, possibly?  

And am I missing something?  Because, ...

I think that it’s becoming more clear and unavoidable, in light of recent events in my path with God, that at the end of this path, this new Christianity I have found, then it feels some might reach the same cornered, miserable, meaningless-seeming trap.. as in the case of Job, who is taught through suffering to just have faith and let go.  With no explanation, and because indeed, a test of faith or whatever, by God, for being a holy person.   

But this path is still better because it’s shown me a system of morals that feels more right to me, even if I don’t see those morals being played out in this world, in my life and others’ lives.  But the morals I believe in and the energy and love of God I see and feel and understand, those are better than the other path, even if I’m waiting for the hope of Heaven where I hope to at last see that God is really fair and there’s some point and purpose to all this senseless and destructive-seeming torment, with no silver-lining worth calling by that trite name.  Kind of like a band-aid for a festering deadly wound, why care about the band-aid silver lining?  Yet I find so many “positive thinking” people pushing that line of thought on me as if it matters that the sun shines when my brain is depressed beyond any relief and my loved ones are destroying themselves and I’m beyond finding any other loved ones and God is not helping with any of this in any clear promising way and God’s love often feels distant and cold so I’m left alone too also wondering if I’m even going to Heaven...  Yeah silver linings, I’m still alive, the sun shines, I have a roof, a roof to a prison. 

[whitelippedviper]

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin. Fuck war, love comics.

So I’m making my way through Yoshikazu Yasuhiko’s Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin and like I’ve seen Yaz’s work before.  I have the first volume of Venus Wars--but it just didn’t click for me. MSG: The Origin tho is goddamn sorcery on the page. You need to know this first off, you don’t need to know anything about Gundam to read this.  The whole thing is this is the book retelling the story that started it all but like Yaz’s from the heart version.  And two volumes in, which is like...1000 pages of comics, and this is a masterpiece.  

I’m mostly going to talk about the art, but story wise, military stuff is generally not my bag.  Unfortunately, it’s a genre that is grossly popular in American comics, not just in straightforward military stories, but superhero comics as well.  Too often these heroes have design updates that are all too happily to enlist heroes whose past models leaned more heavily into daredevil circus performers or wrestlers.  You know the look.  When your favorite hero goes from tights and a cape look to body armor looking shit everywhere.  War on crime right? And then these companies on their film side have all kinds of connections to the military industrial complex--hell these companies often employ ex-military, or in some notable cases ex-CIA to write the damn books.  And when you couple that with how interested the military has always been with warping people’s brains to keep the war machine humming(they once put acid in a whole town’s water supply just to see what would happen!) it’s quite unnerving!  So besides being extremely anti-war in practice, I’m also pretty tin foil hat when it comes to seeing the edges of the military in pop culture, particularly when the message is like “look how cool this is!”

Which as a sidebar is one of the things that makes the Aubrey Sitterson GI Joe thing complicated to me, because like...I don’t think GI Joe is a good thing, and I don’t believe leftists should be getting their pay pushing paper for something that could not BE more military industrial.  Like let's make kids think how cool being a soldier and going to war is--and then those kids grow up, and what a surprise we are in like ten wars that we know about, and will be for forever--and you get this kind of brainwashing that turns Kapernick trying to say “hey, maybe cops should stop shooting black men” into a debate about “respecting the flag” because the NFL is in bed with the military….agh.  I hate it.  I hate it all.  From Operation Condor, the firebombings of dresden, hiroshima and nagasaki, the genocide of the american indian, fallujah, Abu Ghraib, our complicity in Saudi atrocities in Yemen and Qatar...we are not the good guys of history!  We kill for empire, but our empire isn’t colonies, it’s more war. Our chief export is war.  And I would love to expatriate to a country that doesn’t have these values, but I don’t know if even then I could shake that shit from my stomach.  And even more insidious than our war is our financial arm, our banks and investors who have killed as many people with pens as any soldiers with guns.  We are an empire of atrocity!

So when I see military comics, or cop comics, it just reminds me that I live in the most warlike country of the last 100 years, and all of those innocent people that are caught up in our bombs, and the way we turn whole regions into chaos to serve our ends and make more money--my relative prosperity as an American is built on the bodies and bloodshed of innocents the world over.  I mean why is America what America is?  It’s because WW2 basically moved europe's wealth to the US, and then we spent it on more bombs and we stepped in not because of any real moral thing--we stepped in because england owed us too much for us to let them go down.  We as a country became a world superpower, the world superpower, through war profiteering and slavery.  That’s a huge aside, but I’m saying, I fucking hate war.  And maybe find ways to not contribute to more of those sort of comics?  But more than that in an aesthetic sense, the codes for military in American comics are so bland and it seems half the time to justify not having to do interesting character designs. So surely there is a better fit for someone like Sitterson who has the politics I do, I think, than writing war comics to a patriotic pro-military audience, so I wish him the best, but fuck GI Joe. (And as an aside aside, if it were Frank Miller and not Aubrey Sitterson with the controversial opinion that book isn’t getting dropped--these companies only do these things as financial calculations, and if you are a big enough cash cow you can say or do whatever you want in comics for the most part but if you aren’t--you better protect your neck because these companies don’t have your interests in mind. And we live in stupid times) So I can fuck with Gundam because 1) it hates war as much as I do. And 2) they’re not trying to make everything look like utilitarian military shit.  They’re about looking goood while they are hating war.   The story is really rich, background characters positively radiate and each have their own character which comes to the fore at different parts.  In some respects, Amuro Ray haunts this comic like death, because he’s the end of so many terrific characters that you really grow to love, and the Federation cause is somewhat murky at best, as is their exploitation of kids like Amuro. I kind of think Yaz does my favorite faces in all of comics, unseating Jose Munoz:

This kind of caricaturing is really lovely for a story this rich and dense, because you get so much just from how a character looks and the faces they make, and it’s quite appealing to look at I think.  There are characters you fall in love with just because you want to see Yaz draw their face again.  The range of expressions he has in the toolkit is amazing to me. Yaz’s style in general to me is like magic.  Lines don’t connect, and it’s like he can just shift around these minimal set of lines and accomplish anything on the page.  It’s like he has a set number of lines that he’s working with on every page, and he just dips his brush into the page and waves it around and those lines bend and contort into perfection.  He’s one like Kirby where he kind of just sits down at a page and the images come out of his brain.

 It’s not overly rendered, but it still is textural and inky.  I think this also has my favorite lettering in comics.  I don’t know who was responsible for it in english, but I love the obvious care that went into varying the lettering, and just how gentle and elegant it is.  It probably was just a font in a computer--but it doesn’t FEEL like that, which is cool. Oh also Yaz watercolors various pages in the book, and they are almost all stunning.  I’m planning to read his Joan of Arc book which is all watercolored, so that should be interesting. But I think what comes across more than anything reading these books, because of not only the comic, but the production value of the books themselves--the hard cover, the essays at the back, the slick pages, the thoughtful lettering--what comes across from stem to stern is that these books are a labor of love and passion in a way that you would not expect from the retelling of a decades old giant anime franchise!

Hideaki Anno said in his essay in the first book: “And I sense a certain good grace.  He decides to draw Gundam--well known to the masses as a premier franchise of the plastic model and anime industries--not from weariness, not as expiation, nor to return to his roots, but in earnest as a work of his own” and I think he’s absolutely correct.  There’s a love and attention to every inch of these books that is really inspiring to behold whether as an artist or in whatever you do to fill out your days--seeing something, anything, done by a master, with care and concern is a special thing to behold.  I mean I don’t know for sure that Yaz actually gives a shit about this book--but that’s what comes across on the page.  It comes across that he cares about these lines, about these stories, vividly, and even more surprising, the people whose charge is getting the work out to others, they seem to care just as much, so what you get is a very very special book.

In some ways, these dueling masters, Char and Amuro Ray, also express this concern and care.  At one point Char loudly criticizes Amuro Ray for his lack of style.  And while Char’s vanity, his secrecy, his romantic rogue ideal is extremely alluring, and any scene he’s in, I’m pretty glued to the page--he’s like Harlock or Queen Emeraldas.  We don’t have these kind of artist villains in American comics for some reason.  The closest I’ve seen was Ron Wimberly’s Prince of Cats which has characters who besides their bloody monstrous ideas, consider style to be important.

But even with all of that going on with Char, I’m surprisingly drawn to Amuro Ray--who is a character even without watching the original Gundam series(something I’m planning to rectify this winter--trying to finally knock out all the Gundam I’ve put off for years) that you just kind of know even without ever knowing why.  He’s a legend.  Like Luke Skywalker.  Even his name when you say it, you feel like you are speaking the name of a god.  But he’s a punk kid who has been dragged into this war against his will, and is desperately trying to balance doing the right thing, and keeping his identity.  I love that sometime he just refuses to go out in the Gundam which puts Ltg Bright in these particular binds(Bright might lo key be my favorite character in the series weirdly, for how he kind of morphs through being a snotty prick, to being in over his head, to being someone capable of real genius creativity. I’ve been watching Iron Blooded Orphans which is a Gundam series about child soldiers and is really brutal and depressing, and Orga is kind of like Bright mixed with Char.) His mercurial nature speaks to the nature of his art versus Char.  Amuro Ray belongs to the fickleness of inspiration, so because of that he’s not really reliable, but when he shows up he’s capable of things Char isn’t, moments of improvisation and grouchy genius that are the linchpins of the romantic appeal of the series.  

Versions of this character archetype I feel usually are supposed to be incompetent or dumb to those around them, but their conviction carries them, they have the most will--but in Amuro Ray’s case, he’s just an asshole.  The despair of it all, which is never lost on Amuro is that whether he does something, or doesn’t do something, people are going to die and it’s going to hurt.  And knowing that, that in the end horror is inescapable, and that death is undefeated--like what do you do?  How do you function?  What do you choose when there are no good choices?  Char is a little different, because his aim is revenge.  Which that side of Char that he hides behind his rogue’s grin, and devilish acts is really stunning when it first comes out in these early books.  He’s so careful to let that out, and when it does, you’re like “oh man, Char isn’t playing the same game the rest of you are”.  Agh.  It’s soo good. Comics like these keep the fires going.  There’s an infinity of them out there to be sure, but nothing makes me happier than a truly great comic.  Those comics that years after you remember the experience of reading them, where you were, what music was playing.  A great comic is a great lover.  It won’t last forever, though there’s a LOT of this book still for me to read--and I get in this mode where I both want to just inhale the whole comic as fast possible, and I don’t want this experience to end.  This is that sort of thing.  Which should be evident, since I bothered to write about it, haha.  I could never just review comics.  I’m like Amuro Ray with comics criticism, I need the right situation to be compelled to climb in and do it.  I don’t fundamentally love writing comics criticism--but when I experience something great, I have to talk about it and write about it.  Comics like these affirm everything about being involved with comics for me.  Check it out, see if you feel the same way.

If you liked this essay, and want to see more like it, subscribe to Sarah Horrocks’s Patreon.  For as little as a dollar a month you can help a comic topic in need get the coverage it deserves.

[ephemerational]

Direction (V)

Message to “headless herald of hexadecimal hackery”:

“Sup. What are we gonna do about that webcomic idea?”

“I would need you to write it, otherwise I don’t know what to draw. Also how do you intend to pay me?”

“Just wanted to check in if you’re still interested. What do you mean, we’ll get money from selling merch and s…

“Don’t even try claiming that it will finance itself, I know comic artists, it’s never profitable”

I delete the message

“Don’t worry, I’ve still got a bit of cash, and I can write some articles for a quick buck”

“Fair enough, but you’ll have to pay for each page in advance.”

“And write comprehensive, comprehensible scene descriptions, from the explanation, it really wasn’t clear what tone you’re going for”

“Picture some insane posturban clusterpunk bullshit with metasensical absurdo abstractivist elements”

“Hold it right there, that sound sick, and real aesthetic, but those descriptors don’t mean anything. Posturban doesn’t even sound like a word. Be concrete and this is gonna be dope.”

“Yeah, I’ll send you some shit later”

In a strange state of inspired panic, I open Word. Last edited-turns out to not be anything related to the comic. Barely even three lines of text.

“My brain is broken, my mind is melting, and my psyche splattered across an uncountable number of unfinished documents but it’s thankless thinking with this corpse of a cortex, this cracked cranium full of incoherent ideas”

Sort of ironic for that to be the message of an obviously directionless, unpolished and unfinished piece of writing from a me that was either very tired or very drunk. Doesn’t matter. Delete.

“Hey brother, care for a good time?” called the coarse voice of a man, whose lung had clearly come into contact with more THC than oxygen, from a dark alleyway, trying to sell either bitches or drugs. I didn’t look to check which, seeing how I couldn’t afford either. “dark alleyway” in these parts at least is only a contextually meaningful descriptor, seeing how someone from pretty much anywhere else would consider the street I was running through at that very moment a particularly dark specimen. It had however not the slightest chance of comparing to the sheer amount of unfiltered lumodeficiency and delinquency that radiated from the offshoot the dealer/pimp called his own.”

What? No! This is a comic and not a fucking novel. Also wasn’t the protagonist supposed to be a hoodrat himself, why would he think/talk like this then? Fuck this, tabularaza the shit out of that and start from scratch. Jesus!

“ya’ll n****s…”

Can I say “N****s”? It would be kind of immersion breaking if I didn’t, or rather the characters didn’t. Not me who’s talking after all. On the other hand I’m pretty sure that’s not something those who would get upset over it are likely to care about. I could just claim that I am black, which is arguably even more racist, but they leave me no choice. Sacrifices have to be made to preserve the believability of a story.

Words flow onto digital paper the way it has always been. Opening a document and reemerging from the trance once a substantial amount of words has come to fill it. The text rarely even correlates to the thing that had been thought up, if there even was earlier consideration of what the white space might hold. It’s fascinating. Getting up is hard, speaking is hard, remembering is hard, but thinking? Thinking is passive. Not thinking is impossible and writing is just thinking while sitting at a keyboard.

Paragraphs about a young man trading the keys to a run down apartment to some thugs in exchange for them pretending to pursue him through the neighborhood replace nothingness. The chase, accompanied by gunshots, leads down the complex’s stairwell, through busy streets, a woman’s kitchen window and some dimly lit alleyways, one of which contains a bar called “Exisle”. Only the letters E-s-l of the neon sign are illuminated in a slightly on the nose reference to the cult classic “Regilith- The king’s rubble”.

The so far and henceforth unnamed main character, a morally light grey scam artist, upon bursting through the door, meets his contact. The journalist pulls on his cap twice as a signal, though this isn’t remotely necessary, as his nervous demeanor and pretend-poor style of clothing make him stick out like a sore thumb. He is dressed the way I would if I were to attempt to fit in in the huts, something I would imagine to be entirely unconvincing.

As the outsider scrolls through a newsfeed, reporting on the commotion outside, he is approached by the main character, whereupon they engage in some banter about who blew their cover more. The scam artist’s chase outside was of course a farce to present the image of someone worth chasing. He trades a USB-drive of unknown content against a decent amount of cash before ordering two whiskeys, the joke being that the bar owner is an Indonesian refugee who does not speak English, every order therefore resulting in a mystery drink, something the reporter did not expect. The main character’s scheme of unknown purpose proves successful as the two men part ways amicably.

That’s a good start, keeping things unexplained, building mystery. Good shit. I should ask Jerald if the “Exisle” thing is too on the nose though. Explicitly mentioning that the owner is Cuban so quickly after establishing the establishment seems kinda cheap, as opposed to simply having him talk with an accent, or acknowledging his origin later in the comic, when the audience has gotten used to the bar’s name. Whatever, that stuff can be ironed out later, for now this is a pretty solid hook. A bit of Momchelo… ah shit, it’s empty… A swig of actual whisky to celebrate then!

Just as I lift the bottle to my lips and tilt my head backwards in a “strangely cartoonish” manner which was once described as “Clearly indicating that [I] value the aesthetic of excessive drinking almost as much as the act itself”, Lloyd enters the room, contorting his face in a combination of pity and disgust.

“You made it to the kitchen, I see”

“Prepare to be even more impressed, as I tell you that I sleepwalked there from Lo’s room”

“Apart from the fact that I somehow find that less impressive than you moving your waking ass self to the ground floor; why the fuck were you in Lo’s room? Is he actually here for a change?”

“Nah, I just ate his stuff. Also talked to him for a bit, wrote some scenes for a webcomic… Pretty productive day overall if you ask me. If that was all the same day.”

“Man, I haven’t seen the guy in months now. I see how this house isn’t particularly welcoming to socially functional people, but still. Does he have a new girlfriend?”

“Haven’t heard anything since space girl broke up with him”

“Catherine?”

“Yes. Who else could I possibly mean by that?”

“I don’t know? I just find it weird that she got a cool sounding nickname”

“Just going with what fits, there are no personal feelings involved, freeloader.”

“Good to know. Say hi to Lo if you talk to him again, he never responds to me.”

“Will do. After I empty this bottle that is.”

“You can’t be serious”

“I wasn’t, but after that challenge: Watch me!”

A two thirds full bottle of hard liquor doesn’t go down as easily as a few cans of Momchelob, but it has the interesting effect of numbing my throat after the first few gulps, making the sensation of the liquid flowing down into my stomach almost surreal.

Lloyd either hasn’t dropped his disgusted expression over the duration of our talk, or he has chosen to reuse it now.

“I’m going to bed, try not to throw up on the floor again.”

I enjoy a few more minutes of almost sobriety before my vison cuts out.

[hogwartswelcomesyou]

Zodiac Signs and Hogwarts, by Mods Olga and Tory

((Note by Tory: The intent for this analysis was to examine how our  astrological signs’ traits are manifested in characters sorted into our houses -- alas, our mods Jinxy and Abigail, noble representatives of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, have considerably less representation to work with, and so were not able to contribute this time around. Don’t worry, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw -- we love you too!!))

Gryffindor - Aquarius [by Olga]

- Arthur Weasley (February 6th 1950)

Like many who share this sign Arthur Weasley is an original and inventive person. He’ s fascinated with the world of muggles and is keen to get to know their innovations and inventions. His creative and observant nature allow him to come up with his own ideas to use muggle tools in the wizarding world.

Arthur and Molly Weasley, who are both friendly and optimistic people, sure do know how to keep up a good mood and how to care for their many children. Arthur himself is a caring and sociable man. The way he immediately includes and accepts Harry into his family and how he supports his children is also very typical of an Aquarius. They’re often liberal parents and like to be their children’s friends more than authorities who tell them what to do and what not.

Just like themselves they want others to be independent and objective when it comes to debates and views. They are willing to accept someone’s opinion as long as it’s based on facts. Nevertheless they sure have morals that they follow. Arthur Weasley, for example, who is working in the Ministry of Magic in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts, is performing a rather humanitarian work. He is rather concerned about doing what he thinks is right and important than something that pays well. Working overtime and really loving his job, Arthur really is a great example of an enthusiastic Aquarius.

- Lily Potter nee Evans (January 30th 1960)

She is another great example of an Aquarius in Gryffindor. Lily has always been described as a clever and quick-witted student and person in general. Her ambitious and interested mind is a typical trait of an Aquarius. Doing well at school is usually based on their actual interest in the subjects and being involved in what is being taught rather than just studying to be good at something just for the sake of it.

Another aspect is Lily’s non-judgemental personality. She accepts everyone the way he is and sees good in everyone. People are people to her. No matter what they do and who they are. Being accepting  and charismatic she’s always had quite a big circle of friends and cared about those who needed help even if they didn’t admit it.

Her love for James Potter and his close friends also shows that she was able to befriend those who she might not have considered liking in the first place. Especially James really had to win her over before she fell for him. Again the Aquarius’ objective side of hers was showing. She managed to accept and love a boy so arrogant and so straight-forward despite his flaws.

He was the person she married and she had a son with for whom she died. The highest of the sacrifices one can make for another human being. Lily died to make someone else live and her selfless and brave nature (and of course her motherly love) allowed her to do so.

Slytherin - Capricorn [by Tory]

- Tom Marvolo Riddle “Lord Voldemort” (December 31st, 1926)

Well, now, I’ve really stepped in it, haven’t I? Yep -- I share both my house and my astrological sign with the worst villain in the Harry Potter universe. Old Moldyshorts is prooooobably not the best example of how to show off the values of your house that one can find in your horoscope, but even I must admit, of all the signs, Tom does definitely fit Capricorn’s traits the best.

The most “Slytherin” trait that Capricorns express is ambition. It is the one word that you notice right away in both category’s descriptions, and it’s something Tom has in spades. He doesn’t just want to be a talented wizard -- he wants to be the best, the most powerful, and he won’t stop until he gets it. This also touches on another Slytherin-like trait of Capricorn’s, determination.

Capricorns can also be known for being conservative, which in the hands of a Slytherin can hint to a love of history. Tom in particular embraces this aspect of Slytherin in the pieces he chooses to turn into Horcruxes. Rather than choosing one lone rock on an abandoned beach or a grain of sand in the desert, Tom chooses objects of historical significance and personal significance to him -- Hufflepuff’s cup, Ravenclaw’s diadem, Slytherin’s locket and ring, his diary, Nagini...all of these things mean something to him personally, and reflect his past.

Finally, both Slytherins and Capricorns are known for their leadership skills, and once again, Tom shows off the exact wrong way to use them. He is so talented at schmoozing and charming that he is able to bring together a band of deplorables and use them to terrorize and subjugate the Wizarding World. Truly, if you need more evidence of how dangerous of a combination this can be in the wrong person, you need look no further than He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.

- Severus Snape (January 9th, 1960)

The grayest and most controversial Harry Potter character of them all, without a doubt, is the Hogwarts Potions Professor and Head of Slytherin house, Severus Snape. Whether you love him or hate him, however, I think few can deny that he shows off both the good and the bad of Slytherin house, and therefore of the sign he was born under. Since we have already touched on the worst of Slytherin Capricorns through talking about Tommy, though, let’s see if we can delve into the best aspects of a Slytherin Capricorn through wittle Sev.

To start, Capricorns tend to have a very thick outer shell that hides a lot of their innermost feelings, to the extent that many see them as detached and unemotional. Sound familiar? Yeah, it’s pretty much Snape to a tee, and very much Slytherin as well. Slytherins in general tend to put forward a very confident face that hides a lot of their insecurities. As much as Slytherins care about the impression they make, however, they frankly don’t care who dislikes it -- and neither does Snape.

One Capricorn trait that is sometimes put at odds with Slytherin sensibilities is the sign’s fixed down-to-earthness. Slytherins are usually the sorts to adapt and contort to whatever situation they find themselves in, but Capricorns are resilient and never budge from what they are committed to. Snape shows off this apparent paradox perfectly in his commitment to Lily, Dumbledore, and the Order. Snape is flexible enough to work as an effective spy, but his inner code of morality never shifts. Once he decides he’s with you, he’s with you for the long haul and will use his inherent flexibility to fight for you.

Last but not least, let’s touch on Capricorn’s relationship with risk. Capricorns, like Slytherins, are not reckless sorts, but they are still willing to flirt with risk once they have thought it through and rehearsed all possible outcomes. They may be calculating, but they are brave -- and is that not what set Snape apart from Karkaroff, upon Voldemort’s return? Snape saw the danger ahead, weighed all possible outcomes, and decided to fight with the Order anyway. This shows how Slytherin house, despite valuing self-preservation, can still choose fight over flight...as long as it is done consciously and thoughtfully.

[scarfdyedshadow]

"I am not particularly smart, and although I try to stand on virtue, I have never truly felt the value of a human life. Countless times I've seen my own death, felt my own death... of course I could never feel how precious life is. Yet, what of it? Until the end, I'll live according to my own desires. I don't need to understand life... I just need to live it." - Berserker

True Name: Sagramore le Desirous Alignment: Chaotic Neutral Attribute: Man Class: Berserker STR: B CON: B AGI: B MGI: C LCK: D Noble Phantasm: B Legend: Berserker's True Name is Sir Sagramore of the Round Table, a warrior known just as well for his fighting prowess as he was for his hotheadedness and carelessness. He was born of royal stock, the son of the King of Hungary and a daughter of the Eastern Roman Emperor Hadrian. When his father died, her mother would remarry Brandegoris of Britain. From his step father, Sagramore would hear of the valiant King Arthur and his war against the Saxons, and ever impulsive, left his comfortable upbringing in Constantinople to fight at King Arthur's side, for his efforts being knighted as one of the Round Table. As a knight, he would participate in numerous campaigns and wars, particularly those that included rescuing and seducing young virgins. His lovers included Queen Sebile of Sarmenie and the Lady Senehaut, with whom he would have a daughter. Eventually he would enter into an accidental but happy marriage with a woman whose name history didn't record. At the battle of Camlann, he remained loyal to King Arthur and was among the last of the knights to fall before Sir Mordred. Summoned as a Servant, Sagramore is as he ever was. He is impetuous, hot headed, careless, heedless, and something of an airhead. With little regard for others, he lives in accordance with his own desires, doing whatever he feels like doing from moment to moment. Chatty and friendly, he is nonetheless painfully awkward socially due to his obliviousness and quickness to anger. He takes offense quite easily, but is also the type to sulk, realize that he was wrong, and apologize. He is quite perverted, but his bluntness and idiocy make him more of an amusement in that regard than anything. Living life day to day, he does fun things and slacks off, works hard and helps out, forgets something important and remembers something minor... everything he does is equally part of his desires, part of his way of life. Yet, at times, his detachment seems beyond that of a typical airhead. From the time he was a child, Sagramore was unable to attach proper value to his own life or that of others. Constantly seized by epileptic fits, constantly witnessing what seemed would be his own death, death became something more familiar and easily understandable than life. Life is a terribly fragile thing, something that can be extinguished in a moment, so what does it matter if it's ended? This detachment allows Sagramore to kill without mercy or remorse, seeing the end of a life as the natural state of things, a minor act comparable to crushing a fly. Though he is unable to comprehend the evil of killing, raised to be virtuous, he follows the moral guidelines on life and death without understanding them because people smarter than him say that is what is right. At the same time, he cannot comprehend why anyone would be sad about his own death, why he should preserve something as fleeting as his own life. Ever feeling death's closeness, he acts without thought for life. It is because of this he lives without regard for his own life, and without regard for his own death. To be happy and to be angry and to be sad and to do what you want are all the luxuries of that called life, and should be fully taken advantage of. Rather, it could be said he does not strongly think about anything, and just lives according to the feelings of the moment as a result. Yet, at the same time he feels a certain envy for those who fear death, those who get sad about death, and those who live life with purpose because of death. He feels a certain anger towards those who seem like they have the answers out of his reach. His wish for the Holy Grail is to understand the value of his life... to understand why anyone would cry for him. At the end of the day after all, he is an angry idiot with a head full of hot air, after all. Tactics: Berserker is an oddity among Berserkers, more comparable to a Saber in some regards. Despite his carelessness and hotheadedness, the fighting prowess he was renowned for in life remains undiminished. He is equally skilled in fighting as a knight in virtuous one-on-one duels and fighting as a soldier in a war against a great number of enemies. His skill as a warrior is without question, but his personality can be difficult to manage, as he has a tendency to rush into battle without thinking or planning. His Noble Phantasm, when used properly, can turn the tide of a battlefield in an instant. Berserker, as expected of a Knight of the Round Table, can be a highly effective Servant... if one can understand his quirks and mitigate their drawbacks. Class Skills: Madness Enhancement: E The Berserker Class Skill, raising basic parameters in exchange for hindering mental capacities. At this Rank, Berserker retains reasoning, albeit such is adversely affected by his Personal Skills. Thus, rather than affecting his parameters, at this Rank he only loses the ability to capacity to feel pain. In life, Berserker was infamous for the almost inhuman frenzies he fell into on the battlefield, but in his particular case, those have been compiled into his Noble Phantasm. This Skill's Rank merely denotes his level of reasoning when his Noble Phantasm is not active. Magic Resistance: C A Skill that denotes protection against magical effects, an ability that cancels spells altogether. At this Rank, it can cancel spells with a chant below two verses, but cannot defend against magecraft on the level of High-Thaumaturgy and Greater Rituals. Berserker retains this Skill despite his current Class Container, due to his great prowess as a knight and the low Rank of his Madness Enhancement. However, this Skill is fully sealed upon usage of his Noble Phantasm. Riding: C A Skill that denotes the ability to ride mounts. At this Rank, most vehicles and animals can be handled with above average skill, even vehicles that did not exist in the time period he lived in. However, Berserker cannot ride the likes of Phantasmal Species. Berserker retains this Skill despite his current Class Container, due to his great prowess as a knight and the low Rank of his Madness Enhancement. However, this Skill is fully sealed upon usage of his Noble Phantasm. Personal Skills: Evaporation of Sanity: D A Skill that denotes that one's reasoning is disappearing, making it impossible to keep any secrets. Berserker will carelessly speak of his own True Name and even weaknesses, has a tendency to forget important information, etc. However, this Skill also serves as Instinct of a sort, allowing Berserker to find the optimal course to take on the battlefield. In life, Berserker was infamous for his carelessness and lack of restraint, being granted the title of Impetuous because of it. Multiple stories noting him as an airhead exist. At the Boundary: C A Skill for those who walk within the Valley, are as one with Death and are familiar with its ways. Mental interference and charms are generally ineffective. Berserker suffered from numerous epileptic fits in life, which manifested themselves suddenly. During each, he felt as if he could feel and see his own death, and after constant iterations he came to an understanding with his own death that few living beings experience. Sir Kay would thus grant him the nickname 'le mort jeaune', meaning 'the dead youth', as he seemed to walk with death even while alive, and that he would die was the constant belief of those around him. Migraine: B A Skill denoting a curse placed upon Berserker due to their state in life. The effectiveness of mental Skills upon him is decreased considerably as a result of this Skill. In life, Berserker suffered from severe headaches and hunger pangs after cooling down from his fighting frenzies. Furthermore, from birth, he suffered from numerous epileptic fits that further interfered with his ability to critically think. Although his headaches used to be restricted to after battle, due to misconceptions on the part of those around him and their becoming an inextricable part of his record, he has the capacity to feel headaches and hunger at any time. Noble Phantasms: Name: Le Desirous - Rage Until You Die Rank: B Type: Anti-Unit (Self) Range: 1 Maximum targets: 1 Berserker's sole Noble Phantasm, the crystallization of his life lived upon the battlefield. It has been recorded that when fighting, Berserker "knew no limits" in battle. On the battlefield, once his blood was boiling, he was said to have fallen into frenzies comparable to the warp spasms of the famed Cu Chulainn of Ireland. In such a state, he would continue to rampage until all those before him were felled, but would also eventually cool down if circumstances permitted. After these frenzies, Berserker was plagued with hunger pangs and severe headaches, a demerit that offset the legendary fighting prowess he demonstrated. Berserker ever lived his life in accordance to his own desires and impulses, earning the title le Desirous, in addition to others such as the Impetuous, the Rash, and the Unruly. He could be called a man in control of his own madness, a fool that ignores conventionality. Upon activation of this Noble Phantasm, Berserker's Madness Enhancement receives a Rank-Up to A, stripping him of his reasoning and sending him into a frenzy. He will rage beyond human limitations, his rampage so like the legendary warp spasm that his body will contort and twist itself inhumanely in order to fulfill his desire of killing his enemies. Because he will not permit himself to die, this Noble Phantasm also grants him the equivalent of Battle Continuation at Rank A for the duration of its usage. Furthermore, due to his unique state of mind, he is still amenable to the verbal suggestions and commands of those he considers his allies, particularly his Master. Even as a madman with no regard for life, he clings to virtue and doing solely what he wants. This Noble Phantasm can be cancelled as such, and also possesses low mana consumption, effectively allowing him to boost his fighting prowess on demand. However, there is are drawbacks to this Noble Phantasm After each use of this Noble Phantasm, his Migraine Skill receives a Rank-Up to A, plaguing him with severe headaches and hunger pangs that leave him combat ineffective for a short time. Furthermore, his frenzies in the long term damage his body, drawing him closer to death with each usage of this Noble Phantasm. There is a limit of times this Noble Phantasm can be used before the end Berserker ever witnesses will come to fruition. While it may make him a deadly weapon, this Noble Phantasm must be used carefully and with its limited number of uses in mind.

[whodunnitaceattorney]

Murder Three

Wocky Kitaki rubbed his eyes and groaned. He couldn’t bear waking up to another day in this Hell - yet here he was.

Whoever was responsible for his imprisonment was going to end up in a world of pain, he would make sure of it.

He then remembered what had happened last night. Lotta and Max - they were in danger. Wocky threw on his jacket and rushed out of his room, only to find Phoenix sitting alone in the Main Hall.

“Wocky. You’re the first one up,” Phoenix said listlessly.

“Yo, we ain’t got time to chat!” Wocky exclaimed. “We gotta check on everybody. Something crazy coulda happened last night!”

Phoenix shook his head. “That’s not likely. But I do need everyone to gather here, so if you want to go make them get up, I’m not going to stop you.”

Frustrated with the other man’s attitude, Wocky muttered some obscenities and stormed off.

Several minutes later, all nine guests were together in the Main Hall. Like the others, Wocky was relieved to see that they all had survived the night, even the ones who got a Scared card. Still, he was hesitant to celebrate just yet, especially with Phoenix preparing to deliver news. It didn’t seem like a good sign.

“I’ve received a new message from the killer,” Phoenix began. “It seems that they have prepared an activity for us today.”

Heads began to shake. The resounding response was not an enthusiastic one, but Phoenix continued anyway.

“This activity is a competition of sorts. It will require that, one at a time, each of you enter a room and search for an item. You will each have five minutes to conduct your search.”

“What are we searching for?” Adrian asked nervously.

Phoenix nodded, as if he had been anticipating the question. “Hidden somewhere in the spare room is a clue to our captor’s identity, as well as their reasons for forcing you to play this game. You will enter the room from the dining room and exit out into the Main Hall when your time is up. You will then proceed to your room and speak to nobody until the activity is done. If you find the item during your turn, you may keep it for yourself.”

Ema bit down on a Snackoo. “That means the people who take their turn later have an inherent disadvantage.”

“The killer has already determined the order in which you will play. Rest assured, it was determined fairly,” Phoenix replied.

The anger that had been slowly bubbling up in his throat finally escaped from Wocky. “Mr. Wright, this is straight up wack. I don’t want to participate in another one of the killer’s games - that’s just askin’ to get whacked!”

Will and Viola expressed their agreement. “We don’t have to do this just because the killer asked us to, right? We can all just agree not to…” The burly man suggested.

Lotta was pumping her fists with emotion. “Now ain’t y'all seein’ the opportunity we’ve been given? If there’s one thing I learned from being an investigative photographer, it’s that you take every chance you can get to score the big scoop! We gotta do this!”

Jean and Vera nodded. They wanted to get every bit of information they could about their situation - it would be ammunition later.

The group was divided, but Wocky was not ready to back down. He turned his focus to Phoenix, who was silently watching the discourse.

“Yo, how the fuck can you just let this happen?” Wocky hissed. “You used to be a lawyer. You protected people. But ever since we’ve been stuck in this joint, you haven’t done shit for us. I can’t even trust you anymore!” The words shot out like arrows.

A hush fell over the room. He may have been abrasive, but Wocky finally brought up what had been bothering everybody. Phoenix gripped his beanie and shifted awkwardly at the attention.

“Fine,” he sighed. “I suppose I haven’t been forthcoming enough with you. I’ll explain myself a bit more.

“As I said on the first day, I was invited here by a friend. She claimed she wanted to meet here and catch up on the years she had lost. But she never arrived, and then the avalanche came crashing down…

“Then, when we found Bikini’s body, and I got the first message from the killer… It included a voicemail. It was her, my friend, and she was screaming for help. She said they have her trapped at the Inner Temple on the other side of the river.”

“So… There’s no question about her having been kidnapped by the person who trapped us?” Vera asked.

Phoenix shook his head. “It had to be her voice. And now, I’m starting to wonder - there’s no way she could survive more than one day out there without food and warmth. So someone has to be out there with her, right?”

An ominous possibility was sinking in, but nobody could bring themself to say it. Phoenix spared them the agony.

“That’s why… I don’t think it was just one person who did this. I think it could be the work of an organization,” he said. “I thought maybe if I sat back and observed the group, I could determine who was really telling the truth, and who wasn’t. But two people have died and I still haven’t figured anything out. Physically, I’ve been feeling worse every hour.”

Despair was washing over the guests. Was there anything they could do to prevent them all from being murdered? Max or Lotta… And then who next? Was it worth it to fight back?

Before they could begin to argue once again, Wocky and the others turned to hear a trembling Max speaking.

“I think… We should try to stay positive. And we should do everything in our power to try to find out who brought us here… Even if we are playing into their hands. It’s the only choice we have.

Lotta slapped him on the back. “Us country folk can’t be scared for nothin’. We’re gonna find that rotten killer, reckon course!”

This show of bravery provided a morale boost. The guests agreed they would participate in the activity and share whatever they found with the whole group.

Phoenix supposed he could be more useful to the group elsewhere. “While you guys do that, I’ll go out and search our side of the river. Maybe the killer left something behind when they blew up the mountain.”

So it was decided, and the guests made their way to the dining room.

Phoenix’s phone contained the list in which the guests would enter the spare room. Ema was at the top, while Max and Lotta were at the bottom. Having demonstrated their dedication to the group, they brushed off all offers to disobey the turn order. 

“If we’re gonna do it, we gotta do it right!” Lotta affirmed. Max nodded along with her, though the worry contorted his attempt at a confident smile into something less convincing.

After taking a deep breath, Ema opened the door to the spare room and stepped inside. Apart from the occasional bump or footstep, no noise was heard until five minutes later, when the alarm on Phoenix’s phone went off. The next guest entered, and they proceeded as such.

Wocky waited for his turn with a scowl on his face. He still wasn’t okay with doing this, but did he have a choice at this point? Max had practically poured his heart out. In any case, he knew he would at least try to find whatever clue was hidden that could help them.

When the buzzer indicated it was finally his turn, Wocky entered the room with all the swagger he could muster. But in an instant, he was knocked back in disorientation.

The spare room, which had been locked up until this point, was deceptively small. There was very little light coming in. And there was something else messing with Wocky’s visibility - what was it? Smoke?

Either way, Wocky was trying his best to search around. The room was filled with random odds and ends. There were endless tables and desks lined with strange knickknacks and stacks of old books. Clearly this was a sort of storage room for the Temple’s belongings.

Wocky stumbled about, accidentally knocking things over, lifting objects to peer at their undersides, flipping through crumbling manuscripts, but nothing of value could be found. Before he knew it, he was hearing the alarm meaning his time was up. Defeated, he proceeded out the doors into the Main Hall, though it took him a few moments to find it. He shut the doors of his room and flopped down on the bed, praying that somebody had found what they needed.

It was about a half hour later and the Temple was quiet. Phoenix was retrieving his phone from the dining room, where the last guest to enter the spare room had left it behind. But - what was that on the doors? He walked towards them and tried to open them. They wouldn’t budge.

He knew what he needed. Returning from the kitchen, he held it in his hands, hesitating before moving to open the doors.

The spare room was dark, but the light from the dining room streamed in as he held the door open. He scanned his eyes around the room. Everything seemed okay, right?

Everything was… Okay…

Phoenix attempted a scream that came out as another wracking cough. A body lay on the floor several feet away. LOTTA HART was still and lifeless.

Phoenix would soon find a message waiting for him.

You know the drill. Crime Scene: Spare Room, Last Known Whereabouts: Dining Room, Morgue.

Lotta Hart @hartographywithlotta, you have been murdered. Thank you so much for bringing your enthusiasm and your charm to our game!

For everyone else, locations are open, so message me now to reserve one. Clues will not be sent out until tomorrow.

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

This year’s Earth Day has given us a chance to reflect how the environment is more threatened than it has ever been. Worst of all, this is all occurring with indisputable evidence of the causes, dangers, and solutions to climate change readily available. The fact that climate deniers can still triumph in light of vast supporting evidence is not only shameful, it’s surprising. We know the answers for how to address this, why can’t we do so as a society?

The reason of course is because climate change is not just a scientific problem, it’s a communication problem. The contortions of reason that are needed to moralize the destruction of our planet are too easy to believe, because the problem takes place across a vastness of time and space that allows for plenty of willful misinterpretation. It’s not a problem you can see happening in front of your face, and it’s not one that immediately threatens you, so it’s an easy one to dismiss. How do you reach people from deciding climate change is false, despite overwhelming evidence? More evidence clearly isn’t going to help, and thanks to the backfire effect, will probably make the problem even worse.

Things are different, however, in the realm of experience. There’s a power to what you experience personally above what people tell you; you value the conclusions you come to on your own infinitely greater than those which are foisted upon you. Notably, there is only one medium that provides you with interactive experience, and that is the medium of video games. Within the experiential power of games, I believe we can find some of the power to untie the political knots that wrap up climate change, creating an experience in a virtual world where climate change is a problem you can see in front of your face, and it immediately threatens you.

There’s a magic to the world of video games, they create out of thin air these worlds that matter intensely to the player, that are occupied by their friends, that are self-motivating and important to their lives. The value of that is hard to overstate, and it creates an opportunity to reach people that is unique across media. Our game Eco creates a virtual world that you share with your friends/classmates for which you are responsible, created within a simulation of thousands of plant and animals lives, lives which can be impacted by player actions. In this game, the oceans can be polluted, forests cut down, the atmosphere wrecked with CO2, species rendered extinct, and food supplies destroyed. Players are capable equally of saving or destroying this world.

The key to this approach, however, is in the positioning. Your goal in the game is not protect the environment, indeed the player is incentivized in the short term to do the opposite, with huge gains of natural resources available for the taking. The goal of the game is to build, creating a civilization where all of your resources need to come from the finite supply found in nature. In the longer term, though, the environment comes into play, and if players neglect it and pillage resources without regard to the impact, it can wreak havoc not only on nature but on the society they have constructed which itself depends on nature. By positioning environmentalism in this role, not as goal but as consequence, you allow the player to arrive to it as their own conclusion, through the logical extension of their own behaviors, which is far more powerful than beating them over the head with it. It’s this role as consequence, as an element to their success and result of their actions, that allows environmentalism to escape its characterization as something negative that hampers you, showing it instead within a larger-picture where it contributes to your success.

This approach leverages one of the most incredible abilities of video games, to take a real world of such vastness that it can never be completely witnessed, combined with a climate process that takes multiple lifetimes to play out, and compress it into a virtual world in such a small amount of space and time that a small group can witness its effects entirely. What happens so slowly that we get only a still-frame in reality can be rendered in full-motion, lived-in color through a video game. Within Eco, the processes of climate change and societal impact happen over the course of 30 days, with a few dozen friends or classmates, in a world small enough to see all of it.

These worlds can have valuable analogs to the real-world, functioning under scientific models of ecosystems and climates and economies that run continuously, determining how the impacts of many players combine into a summed effect on the world, and, critically, sharing that information with the player. In Eco, the simulation data is exposed to the player through graphs, heat maps, and large sets of data, and a core focus of the game is using that data as evidence to propose laws and systems of governance to your peers, guiding the group to a successful balance of ecosystem and economy based on data. Players are the source of the problems in the game, as well as the architects of the solutions.

And in the end, the fate of this world is determined by how well the players are able to overcome their individual biases, agree on problems and solutions and implement them, all within a system where they are highly incentivized for individual success through the selfish harvesting of the environment. Eco is ‘Tragedy of the Commons, the Game’, and whatever the fate of a world it will be sure to be impactful on its players. Either they band together and balance individual incentives to the contrary, saving their world, or they succumb to individual biases, to denial of demonstrable truths, and their world is permanently lost. That vulnerability of the world, the capacity to lose it all, is a gift to the player, the means to see the stakes of the real problems we face through the lens of a virtual one that players immediately feel.

In the woeful political state we’re currently in, where facts and evidence have ceased to have value, where our leaders opt for short-term gains at dire long-term consequences, where willful disregard of evidence is the norm, I hold out hope that there are yet still ways to reach people. That people at their core are good, and don’t actually want to destroy the world tomorrow for a slightly higher yield today, and through the gift of virtual experience we have a window with which to reach them, to let them arrive at conclusions on their own from simulations based in science, in worlds they care about, experienced with people they care about, and see beyond the short-sightedness that pervades our current era to build the solutions we need.

[embedded content]

John Krajewski is CEO and Founder of Strange Loop Games, and the designer of Eco. Eco is funded by a Kickstarter and a grant from the US Department of Education, and is currently available to download in Alpha.

[symbianosgames]

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

This year’s Earth Day has given us a chance to reflect how the environment is more threatened than it has ever been. The US government is chiefed by a leader who purports that climate change is a Chinese hoax. The EPA is under threat of being massively defunded. Whatever modest gains were made in previous years are being rapidly rolled back. Worst of all, this is all occurring with indisputable evidence of the causes, dangers, and solutions to climate change readily available. The fact that climate deniers can still triumph in light of vast supporting evidence is not only shameful, it’s surprising. We know the answers for how to address this, why can’t we do so as a society?

The reason of course is because climate change is not just a scientific problem, it’s a communication problem. The contortions of reason that are needed to moralize the destruction of our planet are too easy to believe, because the problem takes place across a vastness of time and space that allows for plenty of willful misinterpretation. It’s not a problem you can see happening in front of your face, and it’s not one that immediately threatens you, so it’s an easy one to dismiss. How do you reach people from deciding climate change is false, despite overwhelming evidence? More evidence clearly isn’t going to help, and thanks to the backfire effect, will probably make the problem even worse.

Things are different, however, in the realm of experience. There’s a power to what you experience personally above what people tell you; you value the conclusions you come to on your own infinitely greater than those which are foisted upon you. Notably, there is only one medium that provides you with interactive experience, and that is the medium of video games. Within the experiential power of games, I believe we can find some of the power to untie the political knots that wrap up climate change, creating an experience in a virtual world where climate change is a problem you can see in front of your face, and it immediately threatens you.

There’s a magic to the world of video games, they create out of thin air these worlds that matter intensely to the player, that are occupied by their friends, that are self-motivating and important to their lives. The value of that is hard to overstate, and it creates an opportunity to reach people that is unique across media. Our game Eco creates a virtual world that you share with your friends/classmates for which you are responsible, created within a simulation of thousands of plant and animals lives, lives which can be impacted by player actions. In this game, the oceans can be polluted, forests cut down, the atmosphere wrecked with CO2, species rendered extinct, and food supplies destroyed. Players are capable equally of saving or destroying this world.

The key to this approach, however, is in the positioning. Your goal in the game is not protect the environment, indeed the player is incentivized in the short term to do the opposite, with huge gains of natural resources available for the taking. The goal of the game is to build, creating a civilization where all of your resources need to come from the finite supply found in nature. In the longer term, though, the environment comes into play, and if players neglect it and pillage resources without regard to the impact, it can wreak havoc not only on nature but on the society they have constructed which itself depends on nature. By positioning environmentalism in this role, not as goal but as consequence, you allow the player to arrive to it as their own conclusion, through the logical extension of their own behaviors, which is far more powerful than beating them over the head with it. It’s this role as consequence, as an element to their success and result of their actions, that allows environmentalism to escape its characterization as something negative that hampers you, showing it instead within a larger-picture where it contributes to your success.

This approach leverages one of the most incredible abilities of video games, to take a real world of such vastness that it can never be completely witnessed, combined with a climate process that takes multiple lifetimes to play out, and compress it into a virtual world in such a small amount of space and time that a small group can witness its effects entirely. What happens so slowly that we get only a still-frame in reality can be rendered in full-motion, lived-in color through a video game. Within Eco, the processes of climate change and societal impact happen over the course of 30 days, with a few dozen friends or classmates, in a world small enough to see all of it.

These worlds can have valuable analogs to the real-world, functioning under scientific models of ecosystems and climates and economies that run continuously, determining how the impacts of many players combine into a summed effect on the world, and, critically, sharing that information with the player. In Eco, the simulation data is exposed to the player through graphs, heat maps, and large sets of data, and a core focus of the game is using that data as evidence to propose laws and systems of governance to your peers, guiding the group to a successful balance of ecosystem and economy based on data. Players are the source of the problems in the game, as well as the architects of the solutions.

And in the end, the fate of this world is determined by how well the players are able to overcome their individual biases, agree on problems and solutions and implement them, all within a system where they are highly incentivized for individual success through the selfish harvesting of the environment. Eco is ‘Tragedy of the Commons, the Game’, and whatever the fate of a world it will be sure to be impactful on its players. Either they band together and balance individual incentives to the contrary, saving their world, or they succumb to individual biases, to denial of demonstrable truths, and their world is permanently lost. That vulnerability of the world, the capacity to lose it all, is a gift to the player, the means to see the stakes of the real problems we face through the lens of a virtual one that players immediately feel.

In the woeful political state we’re currently in, where facts and evidence have ceased to have value, where our leaders opt for short-term gains at dire long-term consequences, where willful disregard of evidence is the norm, I hold out hope that there are yet still ways to reach people. That people at their core are good, and don’t actually want to destroy the world tomorrow for a slightly higher yield today, and through the gift of virtual experience we have a window with which to reach them, to let them arrive at conclusions on their own from simulations based in science, in worlds they care about, experienced with people they care about, and see beyond the short-sightedness that pervades our current era to build the solutions we need.

[embedded content]

John Krajewski is CEO and Founder of Strange Loop Games, and the designer of Eco. Eco is funded by a Kickstarter and a grant from the US Department of Education, and is currently available to download in Alpha.