#should I post videos of the tunnels? I obviously can’t post any videos of the musical part of the night

[juniperhillpatient]

saw a rock musical my brother did the lights for & then explored the abandoned tunnels under the theatre which was once a tuberculosis hospital. I don’t get out much but when I do it’s something sick

[lloydskywalkers]

*sweats* yeAH i know the one gbdfjgh. It’s very much a Halloween-centered piece so I was incredibly sad tumblr decided to end its life the one time i actually hit a deadline i’d set for myself, but it’s been kind of just...marinating in my docs folder since then. I might post it formally on FFN eventually, but in the meantime, i’ll post it on here below the cut!

“Guys, you will never guess what’s running around Ninjago City."

Jay’s announcement is met with a distinct lack of reaction, which is pretty disappointing, because it’s the kind you drop for a dramatic pause and reaction. And he did — try to, at least.

However, instead of reacting properly, like anyone in their right minds would, his team is woefully un-reactive. Nya continues to snore into the couch, her face pressed against the couch pillow in a way that’s gonna leave a spectacular mark later, and Cole’s too busy referee-ing Lloyd and Kai, who are in the middle of their sixth round of Dance Dance Ninja Revolution, which Jay can’t really blame him for, because they chose a Rihanna song this round and they’re getting a little too into it.

“How did you get that bonus and I didn’t!”

“You gotta pop your hip on that last move, like this—"

“What, and crack my spine in half?”

“I mean, your bones are pretty fragile.”

“Fragile?!”

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re so old.”

“I’ll crack your spine, you tiny brat—"

Zane is the only one to actually acknowledge him, even if it’s a slight cock of his head from where he’s video-chatting Pixal, making him the only one of these terrible people Jay actually likes right now, unless Kai manages to make a comeback and beat out Lloyd, in which case he’ll celebrate with him.

But it’s looking unlikely.

“Are you talking about the vampire rumors?” Zane asks.

Jay’s expression sours. Never mind, he retracts his appreciation of Zane now. Way to steal his thunder.

Kai snorts from where he’s waving his arms in a butchered kind of Macarena. “Seriously, Jay? Those rumors crop up every year. There’s no vampire.”

Jay glares at him, mentally switching his loyalties to Lloyd, as it looks like he’s going to wipe the floor with Kai anyways, because he’s just snatched that one difficult bonus Kai usually wins where you hair-flip like a diva.

“This is for real, though,” Jay argues. “It was reported on the police scanner. Someone’s running around biting people!”

“Maybe they’re just into that,” Nya yawns, burrowing her face further into the couch pillows. “Don’t be so judgmental, Jay.”

Jay colors, and Kai chokes. Lloyd gives a triumphant crow of victory, doubling his score at the last minute, leaving Kai solidly in the dust. Kai makes a sour face, collapsing on the couch and crossing his arms.

“You cheated.”

“Not my fault you got distracted,” Lloyd shrugs. He turns to Jay, wiping the sheen of sweat from his forehead and looking curious. “Wait, they’re really reporting that someone’s out there biting people?”

“Or something,” Jay says, quickly seizing on the attention. “Something bloodthirsty that goes around biting people’s necks, which obviously has to be a vampire.”

“It says here it steals their wallets, too,” Zane remarks, scrolling through the news article.

“A wallet-stealing vampire,” Jay amends.

The others look decidedly unimpressed, which is rather insulting and extremely disappointing. Geez, you fight one giant stone titan and a few mythical, apocalypse-bringing monsters and suddenly no one’s impressed by anything anymore.

“Sounds like petty crime, not our thing,” Kai yawns. “Besides, vampires don’t exist.”

Jay sputters. “Are you kidding me?” he exclaims. “They totally exist!”

Cole raises an eyebrow at him. “You know those vampire books are fiction, right?”

Jay presses his lips together tightly. “Are you telling me,” he says, stiffly. “That after everything — everything we’ve seen — which includes and is not limited to warriors made up of tiny snakes, a walking eldritch horror that’s actually another realm, and living skeletons — you don’t believe vampires can exist?”

“Well, yeah,” Kai says, simply. “Because those other things are real. Vampires aren’t.”

“You didn’t even think the Serpentine were real!” Jay accuses, because Kai’s opinion is clearly trash here, and he obviously should’ve started by attacking Cole, or Nya.

“Jay, chill,” Lloyd says, rolling his eyes. “Whatever it is, it’s not a vampire, unless someone stumbled off the set of a B-movie horror film. They don’t exist, Jay."

Jay opens his mouth, prepared to fire back, because of all the people to argue with him, Lloyd has no right at all, he’s a walking eldritch mutant himself — when Lloyd suddenly continues.

“It’s clearly a werewolf, if anything.”

Jay stops, his mouth half-open. He blinks. “Wait,” he narrows his eyes at him. “You don’t believe in vampires, but you’re game for werewolves?”

“Yeah,” Lloyd shrugs. “Werewolves make sense.”

“And vampires don’t?!”

Lloyd shrugs. “I mean, after Akita and the Formlings, you know?” He pauses, eyes widening as he contemplates something. “Wait. Is Akita technically a werewolf?”

Jay seizes the opportunity. “If she counts as one, then Oni count as vampires,” he argues.

Lloyd frowns at him. “What? No. That doesn’t even make any sense.”

“Oh yeah?” Jay counters. “Then explain why they both have fangs. And glowing eyes. And drink blood.”

“I don’t drink blood!” Lloyd exclaims, indignantly. “And neither do Oni!”

“How would you know?” Jay challenges. “You’re just a tiny little quarter Oni.”

Lloyd glares at him. “A quarter Oni with teeth that can bite you—"

“Okay, okay!” Cole says hastily, shouldering between them. “No one’s biting anyone, geez. I’m taking this opportunity to declare it time for bed.”

“Aw, but I didn’t get to trash Kai yet,” Nya yawns, waving absently at the still-scrolling game on the television. Zane quickly turns it off.

“We can trash each other tomorrow, after six a.m. practice,” Cole huffs. Everyone groans in unison at the reminder.

“We should start getting skip days,” Kai grumbles into the pillow. “Like, mandated days we get to just sleep in instead.”

“You would use that every day,” Zane sighs, tugging him up. Jay watches as they slowly pack up, preparing to head off to bed.

Unbelievable.

“Wait, so we’re just gonna let this thing run loose?” he exclaims, waving his arms in the air. “Ignore our civic duty for sleep?”

Cole pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “Jay, there’s one article about it, and these kinds of things crop up every year,” he sighs. “It’s just some Halloween pranksters using it as an excuse for petty crime. The police can handle it, okay?”

“But a vampire,” Jay bemoans. “What if it’s real?”

“Or werewolf,” Lloyd corrects. Jay would elbow him for that, but — aha. Lloyd has that spark in his eyes, the one that means trouble. Jay’s hooked at least one person then, even if it’s for the totally wrong reason.

“Whatever it is, according to reports, it will still be here tomorrow,” Zane says. “Halloween isn’t for another day, and it usually strikes then. If it means that much to you, we can look for it then.”

Jay squints skeptically at him. Kai and Cole are both wearing expressions that say they will not be helping with that particular excursion, and Nya’s already halfway into her room, clearly writing him off as well. Hmph.

“But by then, we won’t have a sighting to follow,” Lloyd says, hesitantly.

“Good,” Kai grumbles, apparently done with the conversation. “Then we can forget about make-believe monsters.”

Jay is pleased to find that he and Lloyd are still just as effective at giving people the stink-eye in perfect unison as they’ve always been.

“Drop it, guys,” Cole warns, his dark eyes tired. “You can argue over this in the morning. When we’re all dead tired at dawn practice.”

Jay scowls, but he nods. He knows a lost cause when he sees one.

However, he also knows when a cause isn’t lost. He trades looks with Lloyd from the corner of his eyes, and Lloyd gives him a tiny, imperceptible nod. Halfway into their bedroom, Kai suddenly turns on them.

“And you guys better not sneak out to hunt it down by yourselves,” he says, his eyes narrowed. “The police have it covered. There’s no such things as vampires or werewolves, but if I wake up at three a.m. tonight and find out you guys snuck out, you’re gonna wish one had already killed you.”

“Geez, overreact much?” Jay mutters.

Lloyd rolls his eyes. “We’re not gonna sneak out just to chase down a few rumors, Kai,” he scoffs. “We’re not stupid.”

Kai eyes them both. Jay can almost see him mentally scrolling through Lloyd and Jay’s Best Hits, Screwing-Up Edition, in his brain, and he doesn’t like it. Like Kai has room to talk about dumb decisions.

Kai finally shakes his head, sighing as he heads for his bed. “I swear,” he mutters to himself. “If I have to fish you out of a river later…”

“You won’t!” Lloyd promises cheerfully. “Word of honor.”

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

As it turns out, Lloyd’s word of honor is garbage. But so is Jay’s, so he’s not gonna judge.

“Okay, the reports said it was last sighted over in the east sector in the sewer tunnels, so I vote we start here,” Jay tells him in a hushed voice, as they plot their path from one of the city rooftops, the dim streetlights blinking down below. “There’s a bunch of bars and stuff around, so if I was looking to steal someone’s wallet by biting them, I’d go here. Down for a stakeout?”

“I’m game,” Lloyd says, slightly muffled through his mouth of—

Jay blinks at him incredulously. “Are you eating our garlic bread right now?”

Lloyd freezes, shifting guiltily and quickly swallowing. “No-o?”

“Lloyd!” Jay hisses. “We need that for the vampire!”

“Then you should’ve gotten actual garlic,” Lloyd hisses back. “I got hungry, and we’re carrying around garlic bread! Can you blame me?”

“Hmph.” Jay glares at him, then snatches the bag Lloyd had been hiding behind him. Lloyd makes a face.

“S’not like we need it anyways,” he mutters. “Garlic doesn’t work against werewolves.”

“It’s not a werewolf,” Jay retorts. “And even if it was, it’s not like we have any silver.” He frowns. “Wait, doesn’t silver work against vampires too? Maybe I should’ve gotten us some…”

“Got it covered,” Lloyd says, pulling a small ziplock bag from his sweatshirt pocket. They’ve opted to wear civilian clothes tonight, as one, they’re trying to be inconspicuous, and two, it’ll make it a lot more difficult for Kai to claim that they were out breaking their promise if they aren’t in very distinctive, undeniable gis.

“I snatched a pair of Nya’s earrings earlier,” Lloyd continues. “Sterling silver counts, right? ‘Cause they even have these little bits on the back you can stab people with.”

Jay blinks rapidly. “You snatched her—"

Well, actually, on second thought, it’s not the worst thing they’ve ever stolen from each other. And it’s definitely not the worst purpose for such a theft, either.

“Okay, nice, we got silver,” Jay says instead, trying not to think about what Nya’s reaction to finding out her earrings were used as lethal injections for a vampire is going to be.

“The better prepared, the lower the chances of dying horribly,” Lloyd says, cheerfully.

“Please don’t phrase it that way.”

“You literally said that exact same thing to me last week, on the Metallonia mission—"

“You must’ve had water in your ears,” Jay waves him off, knowing full well he did say that but having zero intent of admitting it. “Anyways, it’s just one vampire. We can handle this, easy.”

“Or one werewolf,” Lloyd says, pointedly.

Jay takes a very long breath, then lets it out. If it were Kai or Cole, maybe he’d pick the fight. But it’s Lloyd, and he’s risking Unholy Big Brother Wrath as it is.

“Fine,” he half-surrenders. “If it’s a werewolf, we can handle that too. But it’s not, because it’s clearly a vampire.”

“That’s what it wants you to think,” Lloyd grouses.

Jay rolls his eyes, shoving the rest of their supplies back in his ratty old backpack. He cranes his head over the edge of building rooftop, watching the evening crowds just beginning to flood into the bars.

“Now what?” Lloyd whispers, materializing next to him.

Jay, with his reflexes as sharp and well-honed as they are, does not nearly jump off the roof at Lloyd’s sudden appearance. He doesn’t squeak, either, the look Lloyd is giving him is just — Lloyd being a terrible gremlin.

“Now,” Jay clears his throat instead, taking on an air of expertise, because he is an expert. “We wait.”

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

In the excitement, Jay has, tragically, forgotten how absolutely boring stakeouts are.

Really, he should’ve brought a board game or something.

“—somethin’ strange, in your neighborhood. Who you gonna call.”

Jay punches his hand in the air without enthusiasm where he lies on his back, yawning, “Ghostbusters.”

“Dun dun, dun dun, du-du-dun—" Lloyd continues humming the bridge, staring up at the sky where he’s got his arms beneath his head, sprawled out next to Jay.

“You know, I still swear I heard the ghosts playing this back at Styx,” Jay murmurs.

Lloyd’s humming halts, and he snorts. “Maybe they had a sense of humor.”

“Heh. Yeah.” Jay frowns. “So wait, this is your favorite holiday song? The song about ghosts? Really?”

Lloyd nods. “I ain’t afraid of no ghost,” he sings.

Jay makes a face at him, then shrugs. Well, he guesses he doesn’t have room to judge people’s coping mechanisms. He still deals with spiders by blowing the entire room up. “That’s one way to deal with it, I guess.”

“I like the irony,” Lloyd continues, with a lopsided grin. “Also, like, do any of us deal with our issues?”

“Ye—" Jay pauses, considering. Huh. He knows they’ve all been putting off therapy, but sometimes they, like…cry all over each other? At three in the morning? That counts, right?

He supposes that doesn’t quite equate.

“I stress-baked eight batches of brownies with Cole one night and ate half of them after the Oni thing?” he offers weakly.

Lloyd stuff a fist over his mouth, holding back a laugh. “I ate a whole container of frosting with Nya after the SOG thing.”

“That’s where it all went?” Jay snaps his head up, his eyes accusing. “Lloyd, that was our only cream cheese frosting! I was going to use that for a meltdown!”

“Oops,” Lloyd says, unapologetically. Jay digs his foot into his side, and Lloyd jerks away, giggling.

“You, I’d expect, but Nya…” Jay grumbles, processing this betrayal. “That’s like, cliché teenage heartbreak coping there.”

“Well, I mean,” Lloyd says, his smile suddenly painfully forced. “Kinda…was. A bit.”

Jay frowns. “Wha — oh.”

Oops. Too late, Jay realizes that he has accidentally stumbled into a mine zone. He should know better, seriously — Lloyd probably does not want to talk about teenage heartbreak right now. Or any time…soon, considering his last and only romantic excursion kind of…stabbed him in the back and got crushed by a building. Amongst other things.

“So!” Jay quickly says, trying to cut through the sudden awkwardness and turn the conversation to something better. “How is, uh, your life going, in that…area…?”

Never mind, Jay’s mind screeches at him. Abort, abort, this is going somewhere worse—! Maybe if he’s lucky the vampire will just come attack them now. That would probably go better.

Lloyd’s expression screws up, like Jay’s forced him to eat a lemon, or a ghost pepper, or like, swallow pure Venomari venom. “You mean my love life?” he spits, as if the word love is a personal insult.

“Not necessarily,” Jay says quickly. “I mean, no, but also…yes?”

“Nonexistent as usual, which is probably the best I can hope for,” Lloyd mutters, kicking at the ground.

Jay bites his cheek in sympathy. His poor baby brother. His voice finally stops cracking and he immediately decides to swear off love for life.

“Look,” Jay says tentatively, feeling like he should at least try to impart some wisdom on his kid brother. “Have you thought about like, I dunno, trying to meet new people? Just like, you know, being open to, uh, the idea of trusting someone…like that?”

“Yeah,” Lloyd grinds his teeth. “I’ve also thought about getting ‘love is a joke’ tattooed on my wrist as a nice reminder because that’s about how well it tends to go for me.”

Jay cringes. “Aha,” he breathes. That is — that is bad. Yikes, that’s…bad bad, maybe they should book a therapist. One of these days. Probably sooner than later, going by that statement.

Lloyd sighs, suddenly deflating. “I dunno, Jay. I just…maybe someday? I don’t really wanna think about it.” The edge of his mouth twists wistfully. “It’d be nice to just be a kid again, so I could stuff my face with candy instead.”

“Hey,” Jay says, elbowing him. “Who says you can’t stuff your face with candy now? We can totally hit up the store on the way home, you know. Zane can’t stop us if he’s not here.”

Lloyd cracks a grin, and Jay is infinitely pleased with himself. “After we catch the werewolf?” Lloyd asks.

Jay glares at him. “After we catch the vampire, and I prove all you heathens wrong,” he grinds out. Lloyd snickers.

“You’re fighting a losing—"

A piercing scream rings out from the streets below, and Lloyd and Jay jolt to their feet in well-experienced unison. Jay sweeps his eyes across the street below, his head whipping widely back and forth as he tries to spot—

“There!” Lloyd calls, already sliding down the fire escape. Jay follows his arm, and spots a disheveled man now crumpled in the street, other partygoers crowding around him. Lloyd’s hand is pointing just beyond, though, locked on the shadowed, dark figure fleeing into the alleyway.

Jay grins viciously at him. Lloyd grins back.

Normally, they’d have Zane at their backs, insisting on safety and such nonsense, but tonight it’s just Lloyd and Jay, who gold-medal at being an awful combination of adrenaline junkies. So by the time they’ve finished hurling themselves off the building and surfing down a couple of unfortunate clotheslines, they land in perfect synch just behind the fleeing figure. They immediately break into a sprint, following their quarry down the dark alleyways and gaining rapidly.

One of the few perks to being the smallest on the team — Jay and Lloyd are fast.

The figure jolts, finally realizing it’s being pursued, and suddenly takes a hard left. Jay yelps as he almost overbalances, his momentum nearly toppling him before Lloyd catches his arm, yanking him upright. They follow where the figure’s fled into an abandoned tunnel, one of the ones Jay recognizes leads to the sewer.

“Why in here?!” he gasps between breathes, as their feet splash through dirty rainwater the deeper they go. Ugh, he hates these tunnels — they’re too small and close and dark.

Lloyd doesn’t grace him with a reply, simply lifting his hand up in an eerie, makeshift green flashlight that lights up the tunnels around them.

“They went that way!” He hurls the bright globe of energy down the tunnel, throwing green shadows up all around, and illuminating their prey far ahead.

Darn it, Jay curses to himself. He forgot vampires are supposed to be fast, too. They need a way better plan then just running after it.

“Trap, we need a trap,” Jay pants. “What do they do in Scooby-Doo to catch the vampire?”

Lloyd glances at him incredulously as he runs beside him, his hair dyed a white-green in the eerie light where it bounces around his head. “Scooby-Doo?!” he exclaims. “There aren’t any vampires in Scooby-Doo!”

“Uh, yeah there are,” Jay argues, ducking under a rusted pipe. He almost has to pause to swipe his own hair out of the way before he gets blinded by falling curls. Mental note, book a haircut later. “Remember that movie with the bands and stuff?”

“Oh. Right,” Lloyd huffs, sliding through a puddle of water. “Forgot about that. Don’t they die or something?”

“I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking you! Come up with a plan, you’re leader!”

“Not right now, I’m not!”

“You can’t do that — you’re our designated team captain, live up to your role!”

“Only in big crisis situations!”

“This is a crisis!”

“Fine! Here’s me leading — I order you to come up with a plan.”

“Oh for — what kind of Green Ninja even are you, huh?”

“Oh yeah, static for brai—agh!”

Their argument is cut short as the floor suddenly decides to take the day off, and drops neatly out from beneath their feet. Jay screams, Lloyd shrieking beside him as they both go tumbling down the sloping sewer tunnel, sliding through broken rock and upturned stone. The sharp slope finally evens out, leaving them to roll to a graceless stop in a heap of limbs and freezing rainwater.

“Ew,” Jay scowls, swiping at his hair as he kneels, supporting himself on one hand. “Sewers are the worst.”

“Ge’off me,” Lloyd wheezes, hitting his shoulder. Jay belatedly realizes that he’s got one elbow and a knee digging into Lloyd’s middle, and pulls back quickly.

“Whoops,” he says, cheerfully. “Hey, no broken bones, at least!”

Lloyd just makes a face, straightening his hoodie. He pushes himself to his feet, offering a hand to Jay and hauling him up. Jay brings a crackle of lightning up in his fingers, squinting around the tunnel they’ve fallen into. Lloyd finally remembers to pull out their actual flashlight, and shines it warily around the tunnel, lighting up the old, molding stone around them.

“D��you think they fell, too?” Lloyd questions, taking a hesitant step forward as he brandishes the flashlight like a weapon.

Jay shrugs. “Vampires aren’t normally clumsy,” he says, starting down the tunnel. “But who knows.”

Lloyd pauses for a moment, reluctant, then quickly hurries to catch up, falling into step beside him.

“Ninja aren’t normally clumsy either,” he huffs.

Jay snorts. “Have you seen us?”

Lloyd eyes him. “I control your training schedule, you know.”

“A heinous abuse of power which never should have been given to you,” Jay sniffs.

Lloyd’s eyes narrow. “I’ll stick you on stair sprints. Endless. Stair sprints.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Jay retorts. “You’re too chicken to do that. Too soft.”

“I am not!” Lloyd says, offended. “I’ll make you run a gazillion stair sprints, watch me.”

“Oh yeah? Whatcha gonna do when I start tearing up on you, Mr. Marshmallow Heart?”

“My heart is not a marshmallow,” Lloyd grinds out. “It’s—"

“More like cotton candy,” Jay nods. “‘Cause you hit it with one tear and it melts all over the place.”

“I will trip you face-first into sewer water,” Lloyd threatens. “And stop using candy metaphors. I’m starving, and you won’t let me eat the garlic bread.”

“That’s ‘cause we need it for the vampire!” Jay huffs.

“Werewolf.”

Jay throws his hands up.  “Do you need glasses or something? Because tell me, please, if that looked anything like a were—"

Jay cuts off abruptly as he and Lloyd freeze. Directly across from them, a mere ten feet away in the connecting tunnel, the hooded figure they’ve been chasing freezes as well. For a beat, the three stare at each other, the only sound the steady drip-drip of the sewer tunnels around them.

Then—

“It’s the vampire! Grab it!” Jay yells.

He and Lloyd dart forward just as the vampire makes to run, turning for the tunnel. Jay side-steps, using the wall to push himself up and flip neatly over the vampire’s head, landing in the tunnel before them and neatly cutting them off. “Gotcha,” he grins.

The vampire’s eyes widen from beneath their hood, and they backtrack, only to nearly run into Lloyd, who points the flashlight threateningly at them.

“Stand down,” he orders. Jay rolls his eyes. Oh, now he decides to sound like a leader.

The vampire makes a hissing noise of frustration, shaking their head. Lloyd goes to move forward, a familiar green glinting at the edges of his fingertips—

When the vampire suddenly snaps into action, rushing at Lloyd. Before Jay can blink, they snap a leg up to kick the flashlight from Lloyd’s grasp, snag him with their forearm, bare two glinting teeth, and—

Snap. Lloyd gasps sharply, his eyes going wide as the vampire bites right into the juncture of his neck and shoulder.

Jay shrieks. “Lloy—!”

His scream cuts off, trailing into a gaping wheeze.

Jay is not entirely sure what — no, he’s not sure why what happen next happens. Maybe Lloyd panics. Maybe he forgets he’s a god-powered elemental with the capability of blasting people to heck with his hands for a second. Maybe both his Oni and dragon instincts decide to suddenly kick in and overpower the human. Or maybe he’s just so ticked at getting bit in the neck that his childish side comes out with a vengeance.

Either way, not even half a second after the vampire bites him, Lloyd snaps out his own too-sharp teeth and bites right back, firmly chomping down on the forearm pinning him in place.

The vampire gives a muffled scream, releasing Lloyd as they stumble backward, frantically clutching their arm. Jay takes this chance to send a bright bolt of lightning after them, just barely missing as they turn and flee, skittering away down the tunnels. Any other time Jay would give chase, but he’s got a slightly more pressing concern right now, and by that he means a big fat bad concern, because his brother is currently sporting a bleeding neck and trying to hack his own lung up.

“Oh god, the vampire bit you, Lloyd, the vampire bit you,” Jay babbles frantically, dancing around Lloyd as he doubles over, coughing and spitting frantically.

“—freaking — gross—"

“But —but then you bit the vampire,” Jay pauses, eyebrows furrowing. “So does that like — negate it?”

“—need hand sanitizer in m’a mouth—"

“Or does the vampire turn into an Oni?” Jay rubs his head. “Wait, wait no — you both swap, because you bit each other, so—"

“—tastes like battery acid—"

“Either way your neck is bleeding and why didn’t you just use your powers!” Jay shrieks at him.

“I panicked, okay?!” Lloyd cries in defense, wiping his mouth as he sticks his tongue out, clearly trying to rid himself of the taste. “Ugh — gimme that garlic bread, this is awful—"

“No way,” Jay snatches his bag away. “We definitely need it now.” His eyes narrow down on the two sluggishly bleeding marks on Lloyd’s neck, that he should really be patching up, actually, but first—

“Besides, garlic could be toxic for you right now! Since you might be turning into a…a vampire.”

Lloyd turns two smoldering, angry red eyes on him, and Jay swallows. Oh FSM, he’s already turning into a vampire, his eyes are red—

Oh wait, right, Lloyd’s eyes are red anyways.

“I am not turning into a vampire!” Lloyd hisses. He winces, clapping a hand over his neck. “I probably have like, rabies or something though,” he says, half-panicked.

“I don’t think vampires have rabies,” Jay tries to assure him, finally shaking himself into action, pulling his jacket off and pressing one of the sleeves against Lloyd’s bleeding neck. Lloyd jerks away on instinct, before letting Jay examine it.

“I can’t turn into a vampire,” Lloyd says, an edge of fear in his voice. “Kai’ll kill me if I turn into a vampire.”

“That’s your main concern?” Jay exclaims, swiping blood away — the bite doesn’t look too deep, and it seems like it won’t need stitches, or anything. He suddenly pauses, considering Lloyd’s words. “Okay, I will admit you have a valid point there,” he concedes.

Lloyd nods tightly, then makes a face before spitting again.

“So gross.”

Jay watches him, then speaks up hesitantly. “I mean…you have to admit that it’s definitely a vampire now, right, haha? Like, not to say I told you so, but—”

Lloyd turns his head, ever so slowly, his eyes narrowing into slits as he does.

“I will kill you.”

“Duly noted.”

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

In a noble sacrifice of true brotherly love, Jay lets Lloyd get his weird mutant blood all over his hoodie as he uses it as a makeshift bandage.

“Rude,” Lloyd mutters, sounding wounded.

“Weird mutant blood is cool,” Jay assures him. “You Oni-dragon-hybrid, you.”

“I don’t even get any of the cool stuff, like shapeshifting or wings.”

“Yeah, that is a pretty lame tradeoff,” Jay admits. He pats his hoodie where it’s wrapped around Lloyd’s neck once more, nodding. “There. We’ll just…dump an entire bottle of sanitizer on it when we get home.”

“Can’t wait,” Lloyd sighs. His eyebrows furrow into determination. “After we catch this thing, though. It’s personal now.”

“Agreed,” Jay says. “But we definitely need a plan this time, ‘cause like, the biting thing worked, but it worst-case-scenario worked, you know? We need something a little less primitive, like, say, um…”

“Like this?”

Jay turns to Lloyd where he’s bent over one of the canal drains. He lifts the object he’s fished out, revealing a soaked but intact fishing net, likely abandoned from one of the boats.

A grin spreads across Jay’s face. “I have a plan now,” he says.

“Good,” Lloyd breathes in relief.

“You’re bait.”

Relief successfully obliterated. “Wait—"

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

Jay’s wristwatch glows a dim 3:30 in the morning by the time their vampire finally takes the bait.

Said bait is very put out at being bait, granted, and is doing a frankly awful job at it, if anyone asked him, but he supposes that’s the best he can ask out of Lloyd when he’s been denying him their garlic bread the whole night.

“Oh no,” Lloyd intones dully, kicking through the tunnel water half-heartedly. “I’ve lost my way, whatever am I going to do with all this money in my wallet.”

“Boo,” Jay hisses at him, where he’s perched atop of a broken sewer pipe. Lloyd pauses his melodramatics to glare at him.

“I’d like to see you do better.”

“Oh no, you’re a much better damsel in distress than I am,” Jay assures him.

Lloyd looks furious. “Listen—"

He might’ve finished, but then the vampire jumps him from the shadows, and they both go tumbling as Lloyd’s voice turns to a shriek.

“Don’t die!” Jay hollers as he jumps down onto the vampire, startling a shriek out of them as he desperately tries to yank them off of Lloyd. “Roll, roll, get out of teeth range!”

“I’m trying!” Lloyd yelps, twisting himself free from the vampire’s grasp. The vampire makes to grab him, but Jay is already pouncing, tossing the net out so they run smack into it and go flailing to the floor, twisting themselves further and further into the rope webbing.

“Oh, thank FSM,” Lloyd mutters into the ground, where he’s yet to move. Jay ignores him, giving a cheer of triumph as he finishes knotting off the net.

“We got it!” he gasps, stepping back and surveying their struggling captive. “We caught the vampire!” He turns to Lloyd, grinning brightly in victory.

“Everyone else is gonna eat their words.” Lloyd nods, and Jay holds his hand out, slapping it against Lloyd’s before knocking their fists together.

Who’s stupid now, Kai? he thinks triumphantly.

Striding forward, he places his hands on his hips, smirking down at the vampire where it writhes against the net they’ve caught it in. He bends over, yanking their hood down.

“No use struggling. We got you now, you malevolent creature of the ni — ight, wait.” Jay blinks rapidly, staring at their quarry. “You’re….not a vampire?”

“No, you ssstupid human.”

Oh. Oh. Jay is incredibly, massively, thoroughly disappointed to realize that the figure on the ground glaring daggers at him, is not, in fact, a vampire. Not unless vampires come in Serpentine flavors.

“A Serpentine?” Lloyd blinks rapidly, looking as colossally disappointed as Jay is. “Aw man, we both lose, then.”

“A weird Serpentine,” Jay frowns, leaning closer. “This one’s got hair. Why do you have hair?”

The Serpentine — who is a she, from the looks of it — rolls her eyes. “I’m part human,” she hisses. “Ssso I do not look like other Ssserpentine. You humansss are just ssstupid enough to think I am a vampire.”

Jay opens his mouth, then shuts it. “Ah,” he says. He then brightens, glancing at Lloyd.  “Oh hey, you have that in common, then! Lloyd’s a freaky mutant anomaly of nature, just like you.”

“Hey!” Lloyd exclaims, looking offended. “A freaky mutant anomaly?”

“I mean it in love, Lloyd.”

“Would you let me out of thissss infuriating net.”

“Uh, yeah, no can do, pal,” Jay replies to the furious Serpentine. “We aren’t letting you off the hook just ‘cause you told us what you were. You’ve been running around and biting people in the neck and stealing their wallets.”

“You bit me,” Lloyd accuses, glaring hotly at her.

“You bit me back,” the Serpentine snarls at him.

“You bit me first!”

“Guys, guys, it’s not a contest,” Jay laughs, a little nervously. “Please. Calm your mutant anomaly selves.”

Lloyd looks as if he’s going to smack him — which he probably should, all honesty, Jay’s been pushing him — but the Serpentine just frowns.

“How issss he one?” she scoffs at Lloyd. “He looksss like a normal human. Maybe with rabiesss.”

Lloyd looks incredibly offended. “Like you can talk.” He shakes his head, sighing. “I’m…part Oni. And dragon. A bit.”

The Serpentine's mouth drops open, and the color leeches from her face. “O-Oni?” She stammers. She looks at the hastily bandaged wound on her arm in alarm. “Did you poissson me?”

“Wha—no!” Lloyd exclaims. “Oni aren’t poisonous!”

He pauses. So do Jay and the Serpentine, leaving the tunnel in silence for a beat.

“I don’t….think?” He turns to Jay, eyebrows furrowed in question.

Jay shrugs. He’s not the one with a bunch of inhuman relatives. “I mean, she hasn’t gone all, y’know — grey-skinned, purple-eyed, turned-to-stone, so?”

This does nothing whatsoever to quell the look of fear on the face of— Jay frowns. “Hey, what’s your name, by the way?”

“What, ssso you can tell the copsss?” their Serpentine hisses dully.

“Well, you’re a criminal, so,” Jay shrugs. “But look at it this way — I won’t call you Elvira Vampira, Terror of the Night, the whole way back instead.”

The Serpentine rolls her eyes, but she does look mildly threatened at being called Vampira for the rest of the evening.

“My name is Sssiri,” she finally admits, looking put out.

“Siri?” Lloyd blinks. “Like the phone voice?”

The Serpentine makes a face as if he’s called her the scum of the earth instead. “I hate that ssstupid company,” she hisses. “And their ssstupid phone voicesss. I hate them.”

“That’s nice,” Jay tells her. He exhales, placing his hands on his hips. He glances at Lloyd, who looks every bit as tired.

“Time to drag her to the police?”

“Time to drag her to the police,” Lloyd sighs, sounding disappointed, if not a bit vindictive.

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

The cops are nice, at least, and the guy whose wallet got snatched thanks them profusely, so the night doesn’t end up being a total bust. Everyone looks pretty relieved that there isn’t an actual vampire running around, though, which Jay feels a little resentful at, because he’s losing a bet here.

“Hey, cheer up,” Lloyd tells him, elbowing him lightly. “At least no one ever has to know about it.”

“True,” Jay admits. He gives a sigh of melancholy, watching as the cops lead a put-out Siri into the car. He glances at Lloyd, then grins wickedly.

“Hey!” he calls quickly, waving at Siri. He slaps a hand on Lloyd’s shoulder, shaking him. “You don’t have a boyfriend, do you? Because this guy here is a hundred percent single and looking to ack—"

Jay’s idea is immediately torpedoed by Lloyd viciously throttling him in front of the entire crime unit.

“Jay what the heck!” he whisper-shrieks, sounding on the verge of an aneurism.

“I’m trying — to get you — back in the game—" Jay croaks out.

“With a neck-biting criminal?!”

“I wouldn’t be oppossssed,” Siri remarks, cocking her head as she studies Lloyd.

Lloyd goes an odd purple-scarlet color, then immediately turns on heel, marching away and looking not a little bit like his father storming off to destroy a village.

“He’ll call you!” Jay mouths at Siri, before hurrying after Lloyd. “Well, I’d call that a mild success, at least.”

“I am not calling her,” Lloyd grinds out, as he stomps down the street.

“Oh, obviously,” Jay says. He snickers. “Can you imagine Kai’s reaction, though? He’d blow five blood vessels at once.”

Lloyd remains stubbornly stoic, glaring forward. Jay winces. Oops, crossed a line. Still too sensitive. Maybe he can try again in like…a year.

“Hey, on the bright side,” Jay tries. “We can eat the rest of the garlic bread now?”

Lloyd’s pace slows. Jay holds out half of the buttery loaf they have left. Lloyd eyes him for a second, but Jay can see his resolve quickly dying. Lloyd finally snatches it, sighing.

“Tha’ is a bright side,” he says, through a mouthful.

“Garlic bread solves half y’er problems,” Jay nods through his own bite, pleased to find that it’s still good, even if cold.

They walk in silence for a minute, quietly chewing at the rest of the bread. Then Lloyd speaks up.

“Like….can you imagine being a real vampire though? And you couldn’t eat garlic bread?”

“Oh yeah, that would suck.”

“Seriously. I wonder if it’s maybe like, a lactose intolerance thing, where they can have a little bit before breaking into vampire hives or something?”

“Or maybe it’s like a peanut allergy thing, where their throats swell up and they have to use like, vampire Epipens.”

“If I was a vampire, I’d risk it either way.”

“Oh yeah, same. Totally worth it.”

“Totally.”

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

The thing people tend to overlook about Jay is that, despite how loud he can be — and yeah, he’s admitting it, he can be a big enough person to recognize that he can get a bit worked-up sometimes — anyways, despite how everyone seems to think Jay has one default mode, he is, in fact, one of the best people on the team at sneaking. It’s one of the perks of being small — he’s learned to be light enough on his feet that even Zane can’t pick him up. And everyone expects him to come in all excited and loud anyways, so Jay’s got that advantage. No one expects him to be quiet.

And it is, of course, a trait he’s dutifully passed on to his little brother, who already has experience from sneaking around Darkley’s and lurking in Serpentine tombs, so by the time the alarm is an hour away from going off, Lloyd and Jay are safely back in bed, snoring quietly with the others, who are none the wiser.

Granted, Jay’s got the worst eye-bags ever in the morning, and Lloyd’s running a record for how long he can get around without actually opening his eyes — but Cole doesn’t say anything, and Zane isn’t looking at them suspiciously, so voila! They are off the hook.

Jay supposes he has the usual array of night terrors to thank for that. Always a good cover for sleeplessness, those.

He does have to drag Lloyd to the bathroom first so they can fix his gi collar high enough to hide the rather incriminating bite marks. Jay doesn’t even want to think about explaining those, because any plausible excuses he can come up with for them are just more likely to make Kai barbecue Jay on the spot.

“Good to see you this morning,” Cole tells him pointedly, as he joins the team around the breakfast table. Jay resists the urge to shoot him a gesture, and grabs for the coffee pot instead.

“Did you sleep alright?” Kai is asking Lloyd from across him, his eyebrows furrowed in concern. Jay can’t really blame him, seeing as Lloyd keeps falling asleep in his cereal, dark circles vivid beneath his eyes.

“Jus’ tired,” Lloyd yawns. “Didn’t sleep that well."

Kai pats him lightly on the shoulder, looking sympathetic. “Take a nap or something later,” he tells him. “For my sake.”

Lloyd nods, and Jay leans back in his seat, sipping contentedly at his coffee. As he said, no one suspects a thing. All’s well that ends well.

And then Zane turns the radio on.

“—the neck-biting thief was caught early this morning by the Ninjago City Police, with the aid of two accomplices—”

Jay goes pale.

“Huh, isn’t that what you guys were talking about last night?” Nya remarks.

Jay and Lloyd look at each other, their eyes wide. In a desperate grab for survival, Jay dives for the radio, fully prepared to hit it with a lightning bolt if it means turning it off before—

“—special thanks, of course, to the green and blue ninja, looking out for us as always.”

Jay finally smacks the radio off, plunging the kitchen into silence. There is a long, ominous pause of utter dread. Kai slowly turns to look at Lloyd.

“You went after them—"

“We didn’t!” Lloyd says quickly. “That’s not what we were doing!”

“Oh yeah?” Kai says, and uh oh, that’s a scary look. “You’d better have a heck of an excuse, then.”

“We do, we have a really good excuse,” Jay defends quickly. “We were out there for something way more important.”

“Oh?” Cole says, looking close to blowing a gasket. “And what was that, exactly?”

“Well,” Jay says, looking Kai dead in the eye. “We were trying to get Lloyd a hot date.”

Then, before anyone can react, Jay grabs a sputtering Lloyd by the hand and runs.

[musingsofanunorgainizedmind]

Top 10 Things I Love About Supernatural

It’s been almost half a year since the show ended and now that the dust has settlIed, I just want to list ten reasons I love this show. Despite it’s flaws, it’s been quite the ride.

1. Team Free Will

When I first got the idea to make this list, I originally planned on doing entirely separate entries for “Sam & Dean” and “Destiel”. Except then I wanted to pay tribute to “Sastiel”. And then I wanted to do an entry for “Team Free Dads”. By that point, I was already halfway through the list and I hadn’t even moved on from the main characters. A few months ago, I made a post about why I love every single pairing in this group. Obviously, Sam and Dean are a legendary duo. Obviously, Dean and Cas have an unparalleled story. Obviously, Sam and Cas are an underrated team. As for Team Free Dads, I’ve always had a soft spot for father/mentor figure characters and and all three tackle the role in different ways. I love Jack, too. I love how everyone in this bizarro family is “broken” in some way. We’ve got the Allistair’s prized pupil, the spawn of satan, the boy with demon blood, and the angel who nearly obliterated all of heaven. But they help each other heal by being supportive and seeing the good in each other. They all love each other so deeply and when together, nothing can stand in their way. Not Michael, not Lucifer, and not God himself. They tore up the book and wrote their own story. And it was a pleasure to watch it all unfold.

2. The Suppporting Characters

To list every single supporting character I have loved and lost in this show would take way too long. I don’t know if it’s the writing or acting performances, but I love pretty much every single supporting character on this show. Even villains like Azazel or Allistair are top-notch villains. Hell, I even like characters like Metatron, Lucifer, Mary, and John! Characters like Rufus, Charlie, Crowley, Rowena, Kevin, Ellen, Jo, Bobby, Gabriel, Balthazar, Mick...how am I not supposed to love them??? All of their stories were cut so short. I’d watch a show about any of these characters. The Wayward Sisters were robbed. So many ships were gone too soon (Sam/Rowena, Dean/Jo, Cas/Meg, Etc.). So many heartbreaking deaths. I want to be best friends with all these characters. Why be a “dean-girl” or a “sam-girl” when you can be a garth-girl? A kevin-girl? A claire-girl? A bela-girl? There are so many great characters with interesting and compelling backstories and so much untapped potential. I could go on forever on this, but I digress.This show has one of the best supporting casts I have ever had the pleasure of watching.

3. The Themes

It’s no accident that I got addicted to this show at the time that I did. Namely, my Senior Year of College and 2020. Graduating college and entering the “real world” felt like it’s own sort of apocalypse. 2020 definitely exacerbated my worst tendencies. Messages like “family don’t end in blood”, “you can write your own story”, and “always keep fighting” really resonated with me. I could definitely relate to the feelings of insecurity these character’s felt and the ways they suppressed/repressed their issues instead of facing them. I could relate to the feelings of not fitting in and I could definitely relate to the loneliness. This show helped remind me that I’m not alone. That it’s okay if my values and identity don’t line up with the what I envisioned for myself. And, most importantly, that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and that I should never give up. If Dean, Sam, and Cas can keep moving forward despite their demons and despite how bad it gets, so can I. Regardless of how the story ended, these themes resonated with me and I’ll still hold them with me. A single episode can’t take that away.

4. The Fun Episodes

This show has so many legendary standalone episodes. Changing Channels. Ghostfacers. The French Mistake. Fan Fiction. Tall Tales. Bad Day at Black Rock. When this show goes for the absurd, it goes all-in. It takes the risks it needs to take, it gets completely insane, and it pulls it off. So many of these episodes could have easily been the moment that the show “jumped the shark”. Yet, time after time, the show delivered on it’s potential. I don’t know how much I can say about these episodes except that they made me laugh out loud, made me fall even harder for these characters, and that they’re the episodes I remember best. If I were to rewatch any episode, it would be one of the fun ones. This show knew how to not take itself too seriously and how to poke fun at itself. I’ve always had a soft spot for shows that can make me laugh and cry (X-Files, Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel, Doctor Who, etc.), and this show definitely nails the fun part. 

5. The Sad Episodes

Death’s Door. Hammer of the Gods. Despair. Carry On. Abandon All Hope. In My Time of Dying. Swan Song. When this show wants you to cry, it doesn’t pull the punches. It gets downright devastating. No character is safe. Literally every character you love will either be forgotten or will die. Or both. The amount of trauma Sam and Dean have to go through is insane. Both have literally been to hell and back. Both have killed countless people, including innocents. When this show decides it wants to wreck you, it’s overwhelming. I sobbed when Bobby died. I sobbed when every single member of Team Free Will died for the final time (I still can’t watch any of those scenes). I still wish Jo, Ellen, Charlie, Kevin, Mick, and Gabriel had been given more time to tell their stories. Being a hunter means a life of endless angst. Being an angel or demon doesn’t get you off the hook, either. I remember going into this show thinking it couldn’t hurt me. My favorite character type is “mentor/father figure”. But holy hell...I don’t think every single sad moment was necessarily good writing, but when it was? Damn. 

6. The Biblical Themes

I’m not a relgious person. But, despite this show being steeped in Christian mythology, it really touched on my feelings about the Old Testament in a profound way. Well, really just Ben Edlund and Robbie Thompson did. I’ve never seen a show really hit the overall feel of the bible the way this show does. The idea of Angels as mystical and terrifying creatures. The idea of God as a flawed father figure with a penchant for wrath. The sheer epicness of the biblical stories. The idea of family members constantly being turned on each other. Cain and Abel. Jacob and Essau. Moses and Ramses. Moses and Aaron. Abraham and Isaac. The bible is full of stories of family drama. This show doesn’t always give angels and demons weight. Sometimes it’s silly and stupid and cheesy. But when it hits right? It’s epic. This is more of a personal thing I love about the show, but definitely a plus!

7. The Music

The early seasons music is so good. I really miss the classic rock of the golden era of the show. I mean, there are still some great musical moments later on, but damn. I loved hearing songs I recognized and I loved learning new songs. I loved when the song and the scene hit perfectly in time (Death’s intro. Cas’s return in Season 13.). Also Supernatural wouldn’t be Supernatural without the ‘Carry On My Wayward Son’ song at the end of every season. Even at the end of a season I didn’t love, that recap would always get me pumped. Also Chuck singing Fare Thee Well? Dean and Lee singing together? Fan Fiction? All great. 

8. The Cast & Crew

I never care about the actors or actresses in a show. I definitely don’t bother with the names of specific writers and directors or their styles of writing/directing. They’re just random people who happen to write for or play these characters I love. They’re not actually the characters. But these guys? Well, for one, I’m pretty sure half this cast actually is their character. At least to some degree. They’re also just...really cool people? Who are all friends? They make a point to do community service, to interact with fans, and to promote positive ideas. Jared’s Always Keep Fighting campaign. Misha and GISH. The fact that they all participate in fundraising opportunities and encourage fan engagement. Do they all have issues? Definitely. Have they said stupid things? Yes. But the good far outweighs the bad. They’re an entertaining bunch whether onscreen or not and I hope they all do well in whatever their future endeavors may be.  

9. The Fandom

I joined this fandom late. To be honest, I thought this fandom was obnoxious before I found myself a part of it. Now that I’ve been in the trenches? It’s got it’s ups and downs like any fandom. There are some parts that are more toxic than others. A lot of people yelling that their opinion is the only opinion. But overall? The good outweighs the bad. And the good? The good is great. Some fanfictions I’ve read are better than actual books I’ve read and just as moving. The fanart? Incredible. I love reading all the metas about random aspects of the show I never would have noticed. I love the music videos and I love the analytical videos. In real life, I’ve made many friends through our mutual love of this show. Hell, even getting sucked into GISH once or twice has given me some solid memories and brought me closer to friends. I wish all fandoms were this much like family. I’m so glad I got to be a part of this fandom and I can’t wait to continue being a fan. After all, nothing ever stays dead in Supernatural.

10. The Chaos & Insanity

Season 16 has been a time. First, Destiel went canon. Then suddenly Sherlock was having a 5th season, Putin was retiring, and Georgia was going blue. Destiel going “canon” and Joe Biden winning the presidency will always be correlated in my mind now. Things in the fandom went from quiet to blaringly loud real fast. Carry On happened. The fandom went into a civil war. I can’t even remember half of what happened in Season 16, but it’s been a wild ride. There’s been ups (my personal favorite being the french dub and the Saileen wedding). There’s been downs (Jared’s controversial statements and the original scripts being leaked). At one point Misha Collins had sex with Bill Clinton???? It’s been a wild time. It’s honestly gotten me through the end of this pandemic. At least it’s entertaining. I would say that at least all the craziness is over, but is it ever really over? Every time I say that something else completely insane happens. But it’s been fun. I’m glad I started watching this show despite my reservations and here’s to whatever happens next. 

[shitty-reviews-by-me]

“Avatar: The Last Airbender” is one of the best shows I’ve seen

This is your spoiler warning.

Note: I started writing this forever ago when I actually finished the show, but my procrastination is deadly, so I only got through the paragraph on Zuko before waiting like a month to pick it up again. 

Note 2.0: I know that there are comics that continue the series where it left off, but I haven’t read any of them. All of this will be based soley off of atla.

I started watching “Avatar: The Last Airbender” for two reasons. One, I remember seeing parts of episodes here and there as a small child, and I found what I saw intriguing; and two, my boyfriend just really, really loves it. When it showed up in the Netflix Spotlight I knew I was going to watch it, but it ended up taking longer for me to get to it than I originally expected. I procrastinate doing things I want to do just as much as things I don’t, but that’s another story.

I’m going to keep the actual review short. The show has been finished since 2008 and there is probably not much that I can say that hasn’t already been said. Besides that, I mostly just want to talk about my opinions because I have a lot of them.

“Avatar: The Last Airbender” is great on all accounts. All of the characters were interesting and complex. The plot was extremely complex, but easy to understand by anyone, no matter their age. In fact, when I made my grandma watch the first episode, it seemed like she kind of enjoyed it. Of course it is also possible she said that to be nice and was really thinking “what the fuck” the entire time. I haven’t found a single person say they don’t like “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” but maybe I’m not looking hard enough. Honestly I don’t know what else to say, I’m sorry, I just really want to talk about my opinions.

Let’s Talk About Zuko (because I love him)

I mean just look at him. How could he not be your favorite. Zuko is probably the best developed character in atla, and I’ll be honest, I never saw him as a “bad guy.” I mean, he was certainly a villian, but he wasn’t a bad person. In the first few episodes, Zuko is already painted as a sympathetic villian. We learn that as a young teenager his father banished him, sending him into a search for the Avatar. A search that was seemingly destined to fail. It is important to remember that Zuko was a CHILD. His family turned on him and all he wanted was join them again. Zuko’s actions were overall understandable.

Now Let’s Talk About Azula (she deserves better)

Azula doesn’t get as much sympathy as Zuko for obvious reasons. When the show ends her fate isn’t as clear as all the other characters. We get to see Ozai rotting in a cell, but Azula’s last scene is her having a complete mental breakdown after Katara managed to best her in combat. I’m sure the comics cover what happens next for her, but again I haven’t read them.

I’ve seen tons of people calling Azula a psycho, and an irredeemable monster, but I wholeheartedly disagree. Like Zuko she is just a child. She is only fourteen years old when the events of atla take place, and is the product of manipulation and abuse from both of her parents. She deserves a redemtion arc. There are videos and posts that will explain Azula’s psyche better than I ever will be able to, but I’m gonna try anyway.

I would like to make it clear that I do not believe Ozai deserves redemption. He was a grown ass adult who abused and manipulated everyone around him. While Azula also abused and manipulated the people around her, she did so as a child, following her father’s example. In addition to that, we know that Ursa’s belief that Azula was a monster hurt her. Ursa never showed that she believed Azula could be a better person, and therefore why would Azula be choose to be kind and good when her father rewarded the abusive tendencies she developed? One of the big differences between Zuko and Azula’s upbringing is that their mother believed in Zuko. She believed he could do good in the world but failed to show Azula the kindness she showed Zuko.

The cycle of abuse is very real. Pretending that Azula is just some psycho, and not a child following the pattern of behavior she saw growing up is immature. There is no question that she regularly did horrible things, and I don’t even think that her friends, Ty Lee and Mai, or Zuko should forgive her if they don’t want to, but she does deserve a fresh start. Let’s be real, Azula would need a lot of therapy to even get to a place where she could potentially be redeemed or forgiven.

In summary, people need to stop writing Azula off as an irredeemable psycho.

Kataang: Thanks I Hate It (just hear me out, okay)

Kataang vs. Zutara is such a huge debate, and trust me, I’ll get into Zutara, but right now I want to talk about why I don’t like Kataang in a list format.

Their Age Difference-- I think sometimes adults writing teen/preteen characters completely forget what it’s like to actually be those ages. Aang is twelve (I get that he’s technically one hundred and twelve) and Katara is fourteen. While two years really isn’t a big age difference, especially as people get older, it is a little weird when the the people are twelve and fourteen. When I’ve brought up this age difference to people I’ve always heard the argument that Aang is mature for his age and that’s why it works. That is a faulty for a number of reasons. First of all, the claim that someone is mature for their age is used to justify inappropriate relationships by pedophiles all the time. Secondly, it could be argued that Katara is mature for her age as well, so there is no way their maturity is equal. My final point, there’s a good chance Aang hasn’t even gone through puberty yet while Katara is definitely well on her way on that front. Maybe that sounds weird, but males start puberty between the Ages of nine and fourteen, which means there Aang is at a pretty average age to START puberty. Females start puberty between the ages of eight and thirteen which means she’s well on her way. Like I said, puberty sounds like a weird thing to bring up, but a lot of maturity come from going throught puberty.

They Made Such Good Friends-- Aang and Katara had such a good friendship throughout the show. It could have been a great example of a platonic friendship between a straight cis guy and a straight cis girl. Instead we got the male and female lead end up together, just like they do in everything else.

No Evidence of Reciprocated Feeling-- While obviously Katara must like Aang because otherwise she wouldn’t have kissed him, I don’t think there was very much evidence leading up to that moment that Katara had any sort of romantic feelings towards Aang. Throughout the series she says she only sees him as a good friend, almost as a brother. I will admit, there were hints here and there. In the episode The Fortuneteller, Katara is told she’ll marry a powerful bender, and in the end of the episode she realizes that Aang is an extremely powerful bender. In the secret tunnel her and Aang kiss/almost kiss (I can’t remember exactly), and in that moment it seems like maybe she could have feelings for him. Other than various small moments there isn’t a lot of evidence that she liked him. I think the evolution of Katara’s feelings should have gotten more attention because the kiss at the end felt a bit like it was out of nowhere.

It’s A Missed Opportunity-- There are so many cases in real life of cis men thinking their entitled to a romantic relationship with a woman because they’re friends, or she was kind to him once. Because of the young intended audience for the show, it could have been great to show little kids that it’s okay if romantic feelings towards someone aren’t reciprocated, and that it doesn’t have to ruin a friendship. Also that no body is really at fault when that kind of thing happens. It would have been a good lesson but obviously it didn’t go that way.

I haven’s seen it, but I know that in Legend of Korra you find out that Aang and Katara ended up getting married and having children. I think that still could have happened if they ended atla as friends. It could have been them developing feelings for eachother as young adults.

This ship has potential but I wish they did it differently in canon.

Zutara Isn’t Ideal Either

Honestly my biggest problem with this ship is the fact that many of the people who ship it don’t take into accout the fact that they both (particularly Katara) have trauma because of the other person. Zuko spent months hunting down and intimidating the gaang. Like I said he’s redeemed himself but that shouldn’t just brush the terrible things he did under the rug. Katara threatens Zuko’s life when he first joins the gaang, and I can’t blame her for that. She doesn’t know whether or not he’s really changed.

Like Kataang this ship has potential, but it shouldn’t be romantasized beyond the limits of what is possible.

In Summary

(wish i could give credit to whoever drew this but i don’t know who it was)

I could write a book on all of the opinion I have about this spectacular series. However, I’m exhaused and want to go to sleep. I will not be proofreading this, sorry.

Legend of Korra was just put on netflix and I’m sure that once I watch it I’ll have a million more things to say.

I don’t know how to end this, so uh... Peace?

[loulougoingsolo]

“Is it alive?”

I am a huge fan of True blood. I also have some degree of face blindness (as in sometimes, in some situations, I can’t recognize my own parents, or I mistake a stranger for a family member). I obviously know who Joe Manganiello is, and yet, when I first saw his face on today’s GMM, I thought to myself, oh, another celebrity guest I’ve never heard of. Until I heard his voice, and saw his name on the screen. Is it a bad excuse for not recognizing him, that I've mostly only seen him without his shirt on (and with a beard)? Once I saw past the hoodie and shaved face, I was a little starstruck. (I mean, even though I just recently wrote a rant about how all famous werewolves are male and it makes no sense, I have absolutely nothing against Alcide. He carried his canine heritage, and his fur, with honor.)

Talking about fur, is it just me or has Link appeared to be particularly fluffy in the head region recently? Is he growing his hair out, too? Rhett’s hair surely seems like it has lost the battle against gravity today, but maybe it’s just because for once, they have a guest who is almost as tall as he is...

Also, are they having some kind of “wear your bff’s clothes” week at Mythical? I could swear Link has worn that blue and pink shirt before, and the rust coloured shirt Link is wearing today looks more like something Rhett would wear (if my memory serves me, please correct me - but if I’m wrong, they definately should wear these shirts the other way around, too).

Today’s episode is the second edition of the amazing game of What’s on My Mask?, and just like the previous time, the true star of this game is the Mythical art team. Yes, the masks are weird, but they are also pretty cool and awesome.

Well, I can’t honestly call Larry the Cable Guy mask cool. I was quite surprised by how long it took Rhett to figure his mask out, but his thought process was a delight to watch. And Joe carefully explaining him that the mask is not something like in the Silence of the Lambs was hilarious. “Put the lotion in the basket.” I wonder if Link has seen that movie? At least he seems to get the reference.

It took a while, but Rhett finally managed to get from the Sausage man (through Kevin Bacon - Bill Worker - did he actually guess Mall cop? and the Cable Pasta Guy) to Larry the Cable Guy. I think even Link’s Walmart method might have gotten there faster. Let’s go to round 2.

Joe’s mask is like something from a steam punk nightmare. Very cool, but also pretty scary. Not only because I hate vacuum noises and they absolutely freak me out, but somehow not seeing his eyes through the mask makes this worse. I do wish they’d tilted the camera just a tad more, because the awesome mohawk of vacuum parts is barely visible.

Of course, Link managed to confuse Joe completely with his hints. I mean, yeah, technically you probably use a vacuum to clean your books, but that is a far stretch (I should probably vacuum my bookshelves at some point soon). For once, Rhett was doing the right thing trying to steer Joe’s thoughts away from anything Link said, and since he is starting to look a bit angelic with his long locks, Joe saying it feels like having the angel and the devil on his shoulders is pretty accurate. But how very L.A. is it that after Rhett says this is something you’d take into any room, Joe’s first guess is a bong, and not, say, a vacuum cleaner? Was this the first time in GMM history that Link actually used the word bong?

Once the cleaning appliances were out of the way, it was Link’s turn to guess.

The doll head mask Link wore in the earlier version of this game is iconic, but so is the ant farm mask. I’ve never had an ant farm, but if I’m not completely mistaken, it must have taken a while to get the system running, with all the tunnels and everything. And, there are trees and houses above the whole thing! I was dying watching Rhett and Joe follow the ants slowly creeping toward Link’s hair, while Link was perfectly oblivious to what he was wearing. I wish we’d been able to see his expression when they talked about the potential danger involved. His shoulders look worried.

“Is it alive?”  “Yes.” “Is it contained?”  “No.”

A few questions later:

“Are they gonna remember me?”

This sweet little man is worried about possibly traumatizing the poor things on his head. He is handling the situation surprisingly well, and somehow, he doesn’t panic quite as much as with the orbee in his ear as with an ant. The mask does get a little foggy, though.

In GMMore, the guys try to guess which Dungeons and Dragons creatures are real and which are not. I’ve never played DnD, probably mostly because I live in the middle of nowhere and there can only be so many geeks in one little town. I’d actually love dressing up in a costume for a game night, but the sad truth is, I have trouble finding anyone willing to even play Scrabble with me. I’d like to try DnD though, so far everything I know about the game is based on Stranger Things and iZombie, and now, GMM. Who would have known that the game has actual embassadors, and that Joe Manganiello is one of them?

Oh, and here’s a little tid bit of information regarding the word fartlek - which the guys try to define for the wheel ending. It’s originally Swedish, and means speed play (not the drug, but actual rate at which you are going kinda speed). Fart means speed, and lek means play. I do prefer the definition the guys came up with, though. It reminds me of a similar measure for distance used in Finnish Lappland, poronkusema, which means the distance between the times a reindeer needs to take a break to pee (they can’t run and pee at the same time). Apparently, this distance can be up to 7.5 kilometres.  And this concludes the informative part of this post.

I do wish people still played more games without electronic devices. A game like Dungeons and Dragons leaves so much more room for imagination than a pre-directed video game, and the artwork shown for the real creatures is amazing. My problem with video games has always been that things get too intense - which is why I usually just make crossword puzzles instead. I wonder if my poor heart could take the excitement of DnD?

What a fun episode this was! I’m always impressed at how comfortable the guests seem to be on GMM. When you compare GMM to any regular talk show, they do so much more background research to make sure they have something that fits what the guest is interested in, and it shows. When the guests are having fun, it makes it so much more interesting to watch. I do hope Link gets to visit Joe’s house one day for a game night.

[maychorian]

Could I request 6 and 24 with Tim and Damian (or Jason).

I’ve already written 6 with Tim and Jason (and there’s another prompt in my inbox for 6, too; you guys really liked that one). So here’s Tim and Damian in a nebulous period where Damian is still being a total jerk to Tim on a regular basis but they do actually care about each other.

24. “I need to get out of here. I can’t breathe.”

Drake had been missing for three days. When he missed checking in the first day, no one thought much of it. Drake often got caught up in his work post-patrol and fell asleep before making a report, verbally or electronically. He would catch up the next day, sometimes with an apology, sometimes without. Father and Pennyworth scolded him, but that didn’t stop it from happening again.

When he didn’t check in the second evening, though, and hadn’t sent any reports about the first night either, an alarm was raised. Father contacted Wayne Enterprises and found that he hadn’t been at work, either. Oracle began searching all of the video feeds and reaching out to their network of contacts. Father’s teeth gritted, his eyes narrowed, and every movement was sharp and focused. Damian was sure that Drake would not remain missing for long.

On the third day, Grayson came back from Bludhaven to help with the search. The Birds of Prey dropped the case they’d been working on to assist. Even Red Hood was called upon, and even worse, he responded.

Damian wasn’t worried, though. Of course not. Drake was too annoying to die. He’d probably just fallen asleep in a subway tunnel or something, and his persistent exhaustion was such that he had yet to wake up. Yes, that was a reasonable explanation.

But when Oracle came through with a lead, Damian moved in with everyone else. It was a warehouse, abandoned since the quake years ago, with known ties to Two-Face and his gang, though as far as anyone knew it was not currently in use. Drake had made a note on his personal computer about checking old known villain hideouts for boobytraps and caches, and it had taken this long for Oracle to break his encryption. The area was so out of the way and abandoned that there weren’t any working video feeds.

Nightwing and Batman took the front entrance, Red Hood went in the skylight, and Robin found a back entrance with a single guard. He reported the presence of the guard, hissing through his teeth, because it was proof that the warehouse was not currently abandoned after all. Batman acknowledged the report, and then the others closed in. In moments, Robin could hear fighting over the comm.

He took out the back guard with a batarang and secured his wrists, then picked the lock and slipped inside. He heard the fighting more clearly now, echoing through the dusty halls and rusted vents. Only a few lightbulbs were lit in the back hallways he traveled through. He stuck to the shadows, his head swiveling back and forth as he watched for enemies.

It didn’t take him long to find another guarded door, this one with two men. They were tense, guns out and down by their sides, but their attention was aimed away from Robin. The sounds of Batman, Nightwing, and Red Hood fighting whoever else was in the warehouse was acting as a good distraction.

Robin swung up to the pipes on the ceiling with careful stealth, carried himself a few feet closer hand-over-hand, then dropped on them from above. A couple of kicks disabled their gun-carrying hands, causing the guns to skitter off into the shadows, and blows to the temple took the guards down the rest of the way. They tried to fight him, but their blows were uncoordinated, and they never landed a hit on him.

Robin secured these guards, too, with zip ties around their wrists and knees, then turned toward the door. He didn’t know what they were guarding, but he could tell it was important. It could be Drake, could be goods or valuables, even Two-Face himself. The door was both locked and barred, thick metal with no window or any other features. He removed the bar and made short work of the padlock and chain with his lockpicks once again, then stepped inside.

“Red Robin? Are you here?”

The room was dark, and his feet shuffled through a layer of dirt and dust on the floor. There was a dank smell, unpleasant and pervasive. Mildew, rot, broken wood, concrete dust…vomit.

Now that the sounds of fighting were muffled, or perhaps coming to an end, Robin could hear breathing in the room with him. It was harsh and low, but Robin was about eighty percent sure that he recognized it.

He couldn’t help but gloat. “I knew I’d be the first to find you, Red Robin. What’s wrong, couldn’t rescue yourself? I thought even you would be able to overcome such pathetic thugs, but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that your skills would not be up to the challenge.”

Drake coughed, the sound broken and choked. “Da—Robin, please…. Shut up.”

The words were barely audible, as if forced out through a stranglehold. Damian frowned. He looked around for a lightswitch or pull string, but when he found a switch, nothing happened. He flipped his lenses to night vision instead.

Drake was sitting in the corner of the room, propped against both walls. His hands and feet were both bound with thick chains, and he was badly beaten, his suit torn in places, head drooping. More worrying, now that Damian was paying attention, was the way he was breathing. It sounded like something was wrong with his lungs.

Damian closed his lips and moved forward. He had to maneuver around several broken crates and a puddle of sickness on the floor, his nose wrinkling up. He knelt by Drake’s side, ignoring his start of surprise at the sudden closeness, and started working on removing the restraints from his arms.

“Report on your condition,” Robin said grimly.

Red Robin sighed, but it cut off in the middle, interrupted by a coughing fit. He leaned away from Robin, trying to muffle himself on his shoulder and not spray him with germs. His body seemed to spasm in the throes of it, and Robin had to back off until it stopped, unable to work on the cuffs while it continued.

Drake finally finished coughing and slumped against the wall with something close to a sob. “I need to get out of here. I can’t breathe.”

“I’m working on it,” Damian said, turning back to the cuffs. His voice was surprisingly gentle to his own ears. “Are you sick?”

Stupid question. The answer was obviously yes.

Drake laughed almost soundlessly, trying not to let his chest move. He held his hands as still as he could for Damian to work on. “It was…was just a minor head cold three days ago. Prob'ly pneumonia now.”

“You should have stayed in if you had a cold, you idiot. The rest of us can take care of Gotham without you.”

“Probably. I honestly thought this place was abandoned, though. It was just gonna…just gonna be a routine check. You know Joker left behind…an armed nuke in one of his old hideouts?” He had to keep pausing for breath.

Damian frowned and worked harder. For some reason this lock was much more tricky than the two doors he had just picked. Maybe because his hands were trembling. Or maybe that was Drake. “Stop talking. You’ll make your lungs worse.”

“Don’t think that’s…possible.”

But Drake fell silent, letting him work. The lock finally opened with a muffled clink, and Damian pulled the chains away, unwrapping them from his brother’s arms. Drake flexed his hands, trying to encourage circulation.

Damian turned to the chains on his feet. The sounds in the rest of the warehouse had ceased, so he activated his comm now that he wouldn’t distract the others in a crucial moment. “Batman, Nightwing, I’ve found Red Robin. Requesting transport. I don’t think he should walk, and I can’t carry him on my own.”

“I can walk,” Drake protested.

Batman was already answering, his voice sharp with worry. “Is he injured?”

“Ill. Possibly pneumonia. His respiration is labored and uneven.”

“On our way.”

Damian finished the other lock and pulled those chains away, too. Drake’s trembling seemed even more pronounced, perhaps a reaction to finally being rescued after days of lonely vigilance, enduring both mistreatment from enemies and the betrayal of his own body. As soon as he was free, he tried to push himself to his feet, shoving along the wall. As Damian expected, though, his knees buckled almost immediately.

Damian shoved in closer with a growl and got his shoulder under Drake’s armpit, pulling his hand around his neck. “Lean on me. We can at least get out in the hall. Then we’re waiting for assistance, do you hear me?”

“Yeah, okay,” Drake said faintly. He leaned on Damian and let him lead the way, weaving around the crates, the puddle of vomit.

In the hallway, Drake did not object to being lowered down to sit against the wall. His eyes were dilated in the dim light, mouth open as he panted. When Damian switched his lenses to normal mode, he could see how pale and clammy his skin was, translucent where it wasn’t bruised.

His breathing did seem slightly easier, though, away from the awful smell of that tight little room. Damian considered, then chose to sit next to him against the wall while they waited. Drake shivered, then leaned against him, just a little. “Thanks,” he whispered.

“You’re welcome,” Damian said stiffly. He did not point out, again, how pathetic Drake was to have needed rescue, and how stupid he was not to have taken care of himself, for allowing his illness to progress to this point. It was as close as he could get to being kind and comforting.

If he was Grayson, he would say something else. “You’ll be okay,” maybe. Or, “I will always come for you, of course.” He’d call Drake by a pet name and make him feel comfortable and safe and loved.

But all he could do was sit there. He could be strong as Drake leaned against him and not lean away.

“Father’s coming,” he said, and Drake nodded limply on his shoulder.

It could have been worse.

[shy-magpie]

RQG 148

In which a birthday is begun, and a room is searched. Live Blog under the cut

Happy birthday, Lydia! Azu would be the sweetest and most dangerous Ben has a lot of room to talk after his drowny season 1 Alex pretends but he was so happy to see them beat it. Skip past the blobs which were creepy more than dangerous. I love that "I don't even respect your craft" is the most devastating insult imaginable. Poor Azu! I don't think Helen quite clicked before that Alex's favors are always double edged. Okay thats where the title comes from. Oh story time with Alex is sad! Cel loots it. Alex preemptively blames Hamid for it not dropping any good loot then reveals the brain is intact. Zolf, as the practical one I am trusting you to interrogate the brain. Post fight check-ins begin, as Cel prepares to echo Grizzop with the last brain orb full of plot. Skraak is tugging on Azu's armor and holding out the health potion. Zolf heals everyone for 17HP Hamid finally stops being invisible I preferred the few seconds I thought Helen said she healed Cel and Zolf 46HP not 4D6. Helen rolls well for once. Azu is out of Lay on Hands. Its gone a bit meta. They leveled! Bryn snarks a little but I can't make out the line, something about level 10 but loving how Ben immediately offers his protection. Alex jokes about killing Zolf, Helen growls no as Ben yells yes and explains why. Bryn is trying to leverage how badly we want the wings into protection for himself and Hamid. So conflicted: I want Wings of Joy but any route to level 11 in a short amount of time is riddled with 147 levels of danger or more. New spells etc won't take until they sleep. Feel free to describe those at any time! Oh new Mercy for Azu! Hamid investigates the part of the organ the mech tore itself out of. Okay it was designed to do that, makes sense. "Biggest IPod dock imaginable". Hamid investigates the  liquid tubes, it doesn't read as Mr Ceiling. Cel is rolling the brorb(brain orb) to interrogate it. Hamid and Zolf compare it to Mr Ceiling. They roll Perception and Ben gets a nat 20+9. Half of the brain is riddled with Blue Veins. Everyone gasps & goes "ew!". Zolf is not happy about being around anything with Blue Veins. Cel considers how to interrogate it. Hamid mentions the papers he stuffed in his bag. We get more details from Alex: a mix of languages most familiar bits in the most familiar languages, mostly English. Zolf asks if Hamid still has the notebook as Hamid relays this info. My heart hurts at his off hand reference to Liliana; Zolf wasn't there, no one who was there except for Hamid is around! Even Liliana disappeared into Mars custody. Now the poor guy is going to have to decide how much context to give Zolf about being on a first name basis with someone who worked on the simulacrum. Zolf wants to compare the origami with the squid ink to the paperwork. Azu is just going to sit on the floor. Zolf has a rank in linguistics and he can tell the handwriting was the same if deteriorating. Cel can tell its the same ink. Zolf hands Cel the bits in Japanese. Cel gets a 27 to read a letter from the notebook between Yoshida Shoin and Francois Henri talking fluidics and jargon that points towards the simulacrum. Hamid is hanging on every word. Zolf is following. Azu is checked out. Zolf is not appreciating going mentally back to Paris.   I can't follow what Hamid found from his arcana. ~Break~ Hamid mentions the similarity between the simulacrum's circulatory system and the veins. Azu and Zolf race for the knowledge healing roll. Alex is now third person stressed trying to herd these cats. Azu has 13 in heal. Which is 2 more than Zolf. They tease Ben, but I think it was a set up for Helen to celebrate being better than him. He responds by pointing out his class means he is better at healing. Its about as subtle as when my brother gave me every handicap available in our games then pretended to be surprised I won when I was a kid. Alex throws him a bone and points out his amazing healing of Sasha. Azu gets 29 in the heal check. The simulacrum has absurdly more veins than a person. Left hemisphere is veiny; damage between the hemispheres; blue came from outside in not inside out. Zolf is out on a limb but it may just support his weight. Squid tie in Cel is now officially under my protection. I admired them but no one should be stuck thinking everyone has "shut up, shut up, shut up" as a mental sound track. Officially adding anxiety to ADHD in my Neurodivergent!Cel head canons. Cel points to it as being the veins talking to Shoin. Ben gets free info. This doesn't match the usual progression. Zolf proposes they take it back for Cel to build a way to talk to, then interrogate at leisure. He explicitly says he wants to go before the metal squid attacks. Hamid wants to know what else is controlled by the console. Hamid and Cel talk about the "pipe organ" so the others know about it in character. Cel invented the 3D printer. Of course they did. Part of the chemicals go under the base. Zolf wants to follow it as Alex makes an ominous noise. One of the chairs has turned into a slide, Skraak was demonstrating thank god. Everyone thanks Skraak. Azu offers to investigate the body that was in the room and Alex points out it exploded. Helen starts to take it as a "no" until he clarifies she will just have to check out the larger bits separately. Bryn remains a mood, as with Currie, he has so many questions its hard to prioritize. Give us the lore! Cel explains the set up. Brain in orb plugs into the mech which plugs into the dock from which he controlled everything. Hamid sounds frantic. He wants to know how Shoin gave the orders and is concerned about the Kobolds. (way to break my heart: he killed 20 but clearly cares about them. He'll have to reconcile the two soon) When Zolf isn't listening he points out they could order them to quit drugging the Kobolds and lay down their weapons. Kobolds are important Zolf! Zolf tells him to look into that while he and Azu look at the corpse. Bets on him being the one to find a bit that indicates its cult? The corpse is riddled with Blue Veins; Zolf orders Azu away from it immediately and sounds the kind of mad that means someone is terrified. He uses small words to spell out how badly he wants out of the room, good growth Zolf. Hamid prioritizes what they need to look into first. Cel asks Hamid to send lights down the chute under the table so they can investigate. Skraak doesn't like this plan and disappears under the table. Cel drops everything to check in with him. Skraak starts breaking things under the table. Hamid can see Cel & Azu are on it and focuses on persuading Zolf they need to work out the controls; since obviously he isn't going to get the promised time while they investigate the corpse. Cel investigates the mech dock. Bryn makes a formal case for being allowed to assist based on Hamid's time studying Mr Ceiling's controls. Alex concedes the point. We all love Cel. Cel could jury rig a connection to the speaker parts. Hamid works to persuade Cel not to hook their brain to anything. Azu looks for Skraak. Skraak is "happy as Larry" breaking the thing. They work out Skraak and Azu don't have any languages in common. When Azu knocks on the table to get his attention he knocks the rhythm back, they go repeat this a couple times building a little tune and I feel my lower lip going like when I'm watching puppy videos. Azu backs off since Skraak is okay. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Cel asks Skraak if he is available for a paid internship. Zolf wants to know what Skraak is doing. Hamid relays but its really not clear what Skraak means. Oh until he gets "an iris mechanism in the middle of the table" to open letting out a platform then the rest of the table sinks out of the way making stairs. Even Zolf compliments Skraak on that. Hamid makes a pitch to finish looting the place Kitchen was "prepper stocked" then left to rot. Zolf is a proper leader, has noted how long its been since they ate, and tosses anything still edible in his bag of holding. Azu finds the bed room gives few clues since the place is sealed off from dust etc. There is a Harrison Campbell novel with a bookmark 3/4s of the way through. Azu takes the book and shows Zolf who recognizes the cover even though it's in Japanese. In The Eye Of Your Love, its a rarer printing of an early work. Its an adventure rather than a romance. Hamid checks the study and finds: -Alex hyping them up -more paperwork on the "pipe organ" and complex -they are atop a geothermic vent, the complex extends significantly underground, and I don't like the sound of "live stock storage". -A natural tunnel system, maps show connections to the complex. -THE DIARY! I THOUGHT IF THEY GOT THE BRAIN WE WOULDN'T GET A DIARY! ALEX IS THE BEST! The brain could lie and is all weird now. A diary might not be trust worthy but can't pull the same nonsense as a living person. Hamid shows it to Cel since he can't read Japanese. "oh my gosh I always wondered if he was into me". Helen does not approve when Ben explains how Lay On Hands powers Positive Energy. "you are preaching to the choir Helen, you are preaching to choir".

[saint-patrice]

Tbh I would like to have the 34 *other* Bergy pics on your shortlist, complete with commentary lolol. And then (if you’re still waiting that is) any other Marchy pics with commentary? xD xD

oh my godddd you are my favourite person anon - ask and ye shall receive 😎 i should maybe warn that while this doesn’t have actual nsfw content you probably wouldn’t want to read this to your kids as a bedtime story. anyway, here we go: 

this was very close to making the original list. i like the soft lighting and the kind of floofy hair, yet he still looks like he could absolutely fuck me up (both like in a fight and various other ways). this photo gets me thinking some thoughts ™ if i am being honest

a literal saint and god amongst men right here. his brown eyes are so soft and his little smile puts me at ease. this is a man who would treat me right (fact). this photo is also from quite deep into the playoffs so the beard is going a little wild, and whilst i’m glad it isn’t like this all of the time, i very much appreciate it when it’s around.

O CAP’N MY CAP’N (sorry zee). nah for real this exudes some real sexy alternate energy. if i were on the opposing team and i saw this formidable man just skating around looking like that i think i’d just go back down the tunnel and hide in the locker room. this man will fucking kneecap you for the sake of a goal if that’s what it takes. and then i remember that it’s patrice and he’s the nicest man alive and he would literally never, but that’s still the energy this image has. and i ain’t saying i don’t like it.

okay this is just cute. they look like 2 dads who aren’t entirely sure how to take a selfie but are willing to try. the outfits lend this a slightly chaotic energy - i can’t commend zee’s colour combo if i’m honest, and when juxtaposed with the plaid shirt it kind of hurts my head. but it adds to the dad energy so i still love it. also this is from chara’s ig and the caption is super sweet.

DADS WITH THEIR KIDS ALWAYS GETS ME. i don’t even want kids, nor do i particularly like them, but seeing a man with his child is the cutest thing in the world and this, predictably, is no exception. patrice’s son 100% has his eyes which is really cute. speaking of patrice’s eyes, he may be smiling here but if you look into his eyes all you will see is fear - that child does not appear too bothered about remaining upright on the ice, and i suspect thay bergy is concerned about this. it would be criminal for me to not comment on the jeans. bergy has some exceptional thighs as these jeans do an excellent job of highlighting that.

this is Hot, and i’m not accepting criticism on that opinion. the crisp white shirt w no jacket or tie, and the top buttons undone???? i need a lie down. the hands are also making a nice appearance which i can always appreciate. basically what i’m saying is that i’m jealous of that snake this is an excellent photo and i owe the bruins instagram person a drink for posting it.

do you remember when i said bergy had marvellous thighs? well take a fucking sip babes - they’re like tree trunks carved out of carrara marble. if i have to die i want it to be because they crushed my skull. this is also one of the clearest photos i’ve seen of his tattoo, so it has that going for it too ( sidenote if anyone has an image with literally a pixel of his tattoo pls send it my way, i’m getting desperate at this point). i also think men in jewellery is a good look so i’m digging his beaded bracelets and silver chain. fantastic picture all round.

yeah okay there’s no escaping that the main reason this one made the list is 🍑. it’s exquisite. those pants also do a great job on the thighs too. the hair, socked feet (no i dont have a fetish i just think ppl in their socks with no shoes is kind of funny), and hands get an honourable mention

is this the only picture that has ever mattered? i’d believe it. patrice just lovingly gazing down at his son giving his hockey husband a handshake? you just can’t beat it. i have also been emotionally ruined by that tiny #37 jersey oh my

in the interest of being polite, i will describe this look as rugged. he has probably objectively looked better but i just like this photo and awful lot.

i don’t think i can give any commentary on this without saying something genuinely not suitable for public eyes. the 2 things i will say are: the only thing keeping me going completely feral horny looking at this is those pants,, if they were black or navy i’d be dead; and patrice i am begging you to do up a few more buttons on your shirt or remove it completely or i’m not going to live much longer.

oh man i just love this??? i can’t even explain why. the lack of much beard and the expression in his eyes just makes him look massively soft - i would give him a kiss on the nose and a cuddle in this photo

(gif via @gaudreau) i am slightly loathe to admit this bc it sounds weird but cuts and bruises can sometimes be a real look so this checks that box for me. his smile when he talks truly is one of the finer things in life too. also the lil shrug. i love you mr pikachu

a** fantastic **angle. this is just prime beautiful bergy.  excellent level of beard imo, the lighting shows off his v nice bone structure, and the nose is looking fab as always. weird observation of the day is that his neck looks nice in this

i mean obviously this had to go in - lord knows it’s fucking iconic. i have so many questions about how this situation came to be (aside from the fact that alcohol was involved. did brad initiate it? or patrice? why are they spinning? what the fuck? how the fuck? why was i not invited?) but anyway, this photo increased my thirst for a shirtless bergy photo at least two-hundredfold. at this point it’s a need not a want. i don’t think i can continue to comment on this without straying into nsfw territory so we’ll leave it at that. oh the things i would do

classic humble patrice making an appearance here, reminding us that he is not only the most handsome bastard to ever walk planet earth, but he’s a great guy too. just can’t hate him. and boy is he handsome in this gif. excellent stubble (im really invested in his facial hair if you hadn’t noticed), and the smile that could melt even my cold heart on display here. also bonus points for the previously mentioned thing about cuts/bruises. (sorry). i love this one 

in contrast to some of the prior ones, this picture is so cute that i can make nothing but pg comments about it. this is exactly the same face we all make when someone points a camera at us and says “cheese!” and i love that. the man looks good in white. good, wholesome content right here.

(gif via @weekendatbergysblog) okay the baby is cute but the fucking headband is what gets me in this. i’m able to make no further comment because this short circuits my brain.

(gif via @davidpastrnut)when i first saw this gif i had to go find the source video because i didn’t believe he actually said that but i’m here to tell you: he did. i love these hockey husbands so much. also i saw this tagged as “# hot waiter” one time and i still haven’t got over how accurate that is. someone more talented than me, i’m begging you for that fucking au 

(gif via @gaudreau) can patrice please stop looking up ??? it’s unfair that someone can look so good just looking in a direction what the fucK. he’s so stunning.

i love this one. brad pulling his hoodie down like that looks like he’s... soliciting and honestly who could blame him. bergy looks very cute, if a bit edgy in the all black. the hand is a treat in this one hooooooooooooooooo yes

this one show’s off patrice’s dark features very well. it’s amazing how he has such dark hair, dark eyes, big dark eyebrows, and dark facial hair, yet it doesn’t overcrowd or shadow his face ( except occasionally in awful lighting) ??? does anyone actually know how that works?? he’s looking very pensive here, and that hoodie looks oh-so-cosy. absolutely would cuddle.

**how cute is this y’all. **in case you thought you were just missing something, no, patrice is not sitting on a chair. he’s just maintaining that deep squat like a champ. maybe that’s the secret to his sublime thighs... the navy/deep red is an excellent look on him, and we get a rare glimpse of bergy with his wedding ring, which i find to be oddly cute. bonus points for him being beside a very cute kid too :)

(gif via @jakedebrask) this, i, ummmmm. i- uhh. just. um. yeah. so like. uhhhh... swiftly moving on

(gif via @davidpastrnut) this motherfucker and his handsome fucking face even looks good in that god-awful wooly patriots hat. honestly it looks like he’s about to go out and have a snowball fight (presumably with brad). decidedly rather domestic and i love it

(gif via @davidpastrnut) intense media patrice is intense. this is such a classic bergy face though, i love it. every time some media person asks him some big long question he puts on this exact very-invested-and-slightly-concerned face, its iconic. looking cosy in a hoodie once again. stop it. 

nice polo, dude

(gif via @davidpastrnut) that tshirt looks like its fighting for its life to contain those biceps. a dark, brooding patrice that has some sort of slow burn au stirring deep in my mind. from other angles in this interview the tattoo is fairly visible also.

this has such a strong energy it almost knocked me off my feet. again, i can see this being some sort of business or maybe criminal masterminds au. but fuck me, does that man looking something beautiful in a suit. the one hand in the pocket is quite frankly BDE too. i’m glad i’m not into dadkes or esle i think this whole picture would be too much for me.

he is literally the kind of man you’d want to bring home to your parents. i’m glad he seems to have cashed in on the navy/deep red combo because it really does suit him. he looks so fucking dapper here i may be very much in love

another excellent on-ice shot of him, albeit his slightly concerned expression. the beard is looking fucking crisp here hello sir. not much else to say on this, just a handsome, handsome boy.

(gif via @jeffsamardzija) another one that gives me Thoughts. he’s literally so beautiful. hair is cut a little shorter than usual on the sides and on anyone else it would scream fuckboy but i’m kind of digging it on bergy, at least on this one occasion. if i say anything else we’ll go down the rabbit hole

oof this is_ intense. _bergy aside, this is just an incredible shot tbh. rare that we get to see mr perfect not completely level-headed and playing it cool so it feels like a treat when we do. lowkey hot ngl

last but very certainly not least, mr patrice bergeron, four-time bergeron award winner, holding the award itself. this photo honestly just makes my heart swell a little with pride - it’s what he deserves!!!! just absolutely dapper in a beautiful suit as always, and a smile that could topple a nation to round it all off.

thank you so much for this anon!!! it was rather self-indulgent but i hope you like it :) also i will absolutely do another one with marchy, although my nails have been dry for about 2 hours now so i’ll probably do it tomorrow or friday, but it’s on its way :)

[aceofaces-mod]

Progress Report #52

It's been awhile posting something like this in a while. So, while I am on vacation and taking on a job (so I get some cash to upgrade my laptop), I worked on a few things on the game. It's not much, due to work (although, it winded it down this week I'm writing this) but I was able to do some improvements (including finally moving to .NET Core).

Northbridge Boost and .NET Blues

After Preview 7 of .NET Core 3 was released, I started moving Northbridge over to this version. This was a technical necessity since .NET Core had a vastly improved Just-In-Time compiler (the JIT Compiler is used when it's necessary to use code) and the option to ship a copy of the framework, to make it easier for me to adopt features new to it. Alongside this, Preview 6 added even more features that I'd like to implement. The two features I refer to are Ready2Run images and Trimming. This is gonna get technical, so I'll try to make this short and sweet:

Ready2Run is, essentially, creating an image of native code and embed it to the binaries. It's like NGEN, but it's done by me ahead of time. This is great since I don't need to smash my head, figuring out how to use NGEN in cases where I couldn't automate this. So, everyone can enjoy better performance.

Trimming is... well… removing libraries from the local copy of Core to save space. Since Core itself is about 100MB, saving some space from it, is nice. Sadly, there's an issue where I can't use both in Northbridge because it causes crashes. But looking at the WPF GitHub repo (yes, Windows Presentation Foundation is open-source now), they are working on it, updating the toolset as well, so there is a light in the tunnel there.

After about an hour of work, the transition went smoothly, which is rather good. Aside from waiting the WPF library being finalized (maybe in August or September), I am going to start shipping builds once I polish up the game as well. I am aware that Core 3 is still in preview, but they gave the go-live status, so as long as there aren't any issues, it's A-OK. Although I wonder if I should still use the installer project since it's no longer necessary to check if .NET Framework 4.6.2 is installed and then install it. If you have some time, please take part in the survey here. It would help me decide if I should bother making the game's installer.

Oh, and as a bonus, I posted a video that shows how I migrated to .NET Core 3. If you are interested, you can see it here:

Tune-ups and new content

Of course, the game also got some changes under the hood. For one, shop discounts are now active. The idea here is this: You take on guild missions and you receive hunter or bounty coins. You use those coins in exchange of upgrading both the hunter and the bounty licensee. Both of them provide bonuses to you, should you partake and complete them. For this one, I'll focus on the hunter license. Upgrading the hunter license will give you discounts to items, weapons, and armor. The higher the license's rank, the better the discount. It's a rather nice way of saving up for better weapons and/or getting more items.

Now, obviously, I need to add more missions to make it worthwhile for you. And I am working on it as we speak. I have some ideas for missions for you to take on, and they'll come in in an upcoming Beta Build. And some tweaks to the combat system, but I'll talk about them at a later post.

[superemeralds]

Lost and Found: Lyrical Character Analysis for Shadow the Hedgehog

it’s all under the cut; it’s also really long...... 

can’t really make a TLDR for it since it’s kinda chaotic and you need the context sajfhsakj just know that shadow is a super deep character and fuck anyone that makes him The Token Edgy Boy,,

if you have anything to add, feel free to do so. If you think I missed a song, tell me! (i spent over 10 hours on this, i fell asleep at one point too sjafhaskj)

song index (each song has a link to a youtube video up here, and also in the analysis of the specified song):

throw it all away

supporting me

waking up

almost dead

broken

chosen one

all hail shadow

i am all of me

never turn back

who i am

1) Throw it all away

Shadow’s theme in SA2, the first theme he ever had.

This show’s Shadow in his state immediately after the ARK raid where he still has *all* of his memories. He is blinded by rage over the events and emotionally confused. His sorrow manifested in a tunnel vision that could only see the revenge that Gerald had planned for him to carry out.

Everybody tries to be straight But things are still unchanged It's useless to resist Their effort will be wasted

obviously this means shadow is gay thanks for reading my analysis.

By “straight” the singer probably means upright, proper and just.

This makes a lot of sense considering Shadow’s world view in that moment. Humans are all the same: They pretend to mean well and fight for the right thing/justice; but in the end their true selfish nature will arise, they just can’t resist being evil. No matter how many people speak of change, he’s seen what they really are. Every effort of people to be good is wasted because they just do bad things anyways. Mostly seen as that even after those 50 years that Shadow was asleep, humans have not changed at all. They are still fighting and at war with themselves (in different ways/forms than back then) and discriminative. And most of all are they trashing the planet that Maria wanted to protect so dearly. (the efforts are also wasted because Shadow wants to kill them all with a big laser)

The trauma of the in a later game implied abuse, aswell as the brutal loss of Maria shaped Shadow to have a very black and white view of the world that led him to believe that people couldn’t redeem themselves. (the same actually goes for the GUN Commander, but that’s for another post.)

Head straight for your goal by any means There is a door that you've never opened There is a window with the view you have never seen Get there, no matter how long it takes

This verse is interesting as it suddenly changes the perspective. This is not how Shadow sees himself, but how an observer would describe him.

Shadow is a person that does whatever he needs to achieve his goal and in this game it is even more prominent because of his tunnel vision and the fact he acts a lot on emotion. (rage, sadness, confusion, guilt)

The door and the window are symbolic to the opportunities that Shadow has to make a difference and be the change he wants to see so badly, aswell as a reference to his tunnel vision and an urge for him to open his eyes to what he is doing and that there is more to the world than what he believe it to be at that time, mostly considering that Shadow never got a chance to actually see much of the real world, since he was born and raised in an artificial and military environment in space; and after that he was immediately put to sleep and imprisoned. And after THAT he was too fixated on destroying the world to actually pay attention to his surroundings.

It almost sounds like this is Shadow’s voice of reason speaking to him. It is gentle and patient (Either literally Maria or Shadow’s suppressed memories of her)

Oh dark the darkness that dozes in the dusk Throw it all away! No-one can break you, nobody can tear you You live an endless life forever

Dusk is the colors at sunset. (I googled it to be sure.) so that might be symbolic for the light fading from his sight, darkness and negativity creeping up on his bright and colorful old self.

Shadow realizes his mistake late in the game and he is reminded of Maria’s wish. he throws the darkness away. (he also “throws his rings away” in the final phase of the fight against the finalhazard…)

He has put this mask on himself, created this persona of himself that is unfazeable, unbreakable. This is him speaking to himself, telling himself he should not let anything stop him in his plans, that he is the strongest and true ultimate life form.

He knows that he is doomed/cursed with his immortality. Exactly this is why he’s ready to “throw it all away” and ultimately sacrifice himself in the end.

Oh dark the darkness that dozes in the dusk Throw it all away! You see a light wherever you go You have to face it again and again (and again and again)

The memories of Maria haunt him, but even if they do make him suffer, at the same time they are only his last and only reason to live and to move forward. She is his light, and he has to face the truth about her fate over and over and over again every time he has those flashbacks.

The way he has to face them is not a haunt though, it is a reminder. His subconcious wants him to remember his true purpose, but his stubbornness makes it really really hard to see the truth.

Alternatively he also encounters Sonic who is trying to stop him from destroying the planet at numerous places. Sonic is also a light in shadow’s world, a very harsh one that literally tries to beat sense into him.

Now, wake up, up, up, up…

He has to wake up and snap out of it and save the world.

This song is easily a dialogue between Shadows true self and the version of him that is blinded by rage. He argues with himself about if he is doing the right thing and urges himself to snap out of his anger induced trance.

2) Supporting Me

Arguably not directly one of his theme songs but there are important hint to Shadow’s character development within SA2.

Remember how Shadow was very selfish in his wish to destroy the planet? Well get a load of this then:

I'm gonna be desperate

He’s outright desperate to right his wrongdoings. He did not believe in redemption before, but now he’s not so sure himself. He doesn’t know or care if he will be redeemed, but he’s desperate to do what he was to do to make it right again. (By fighting his brother and winning Sonic and Knuckles some time to stop the ARK from crashing to the earth)

Never lose, hurry Never lose, hurry

Shadow can’t lose, not ever, and most of all not now. He has to beat the Biolizard at all costs and he has to do it fast as time is running out.

I believe in my future, farewell to the shadow It was my place to live, but now I need your hand Lead me out with your light I have breathed in the disgusting air of darkness But I never lose out to the pressure

Shadow stopped looking back to the past, all that matters is the present and the future of this planet. He bids farewell to

1) the shadow that was clouding his view

2) the Shadow (himself) of the past.

He insisted that he was the real and Sonic was a Fake, he told him to die and that he didn’t have the right to be alive since it would be a mockery to his existence. He regrets his words and acknowledges that implying that he was the only one who had the right to live was wrong. He needs Sonic’s help now. Sonic is his light (as mentioned in the song before) that can lead him out of his darkness. The disgusting air of darkness he’s been breathing for too long. (This verse also refers to how the Biolizard is Shadow’s prototype and how Shadow was the one who was allowed to “live a life” while the Biolizard was artificially programmed (however they did that) and made a consciousless slave to Gerald’s plan.)

But no matter what happens, Shadow is able to stay cool and not give in to his emotions in the sense of his mission. He has to keep fighting without any disturbances or distractions. He can’t afford failure. Pressure (mainly the pressure of time in this context) is nothing.

(The instrumental in this part has a distorted part of live and learn in it!) Everything's just like an illusion I'll be losing you before long

I never lose my confidence

Everything being an illusion is a reference to how fast everything is going for Shadow, how confused and unsure he is of his actions and the future of the planet. It’s too much to take in, but at the same time he (as mentioned before) can’t afford the confusion. He’s quick to adapt and accept this fate, but he can’t help feeling like the last few hours have been too wild of a ride.

He’s ready to sacrifice his life to save the world though, and the You he’s referring to… well.

I know you were supporting me Supporting me Supporting me I'll be losing you before long

Who’s supporting him? Sonic. Sonic is supporting him. Shadow already know’s he’s going to sacrifice himself to save the planet. He’s known from the very moment he was reminded of his purpose.

He doesn’t believe in redemption. He knows that he did something villainous, and he doesn’t deserve to be saved and supported by Sonic (the Hero). He’s okay with it. It’s okay. He lived and learned. He doesn’t want to live out his curse of immortality anyways.

3) Waking Up

Covering the ShTH songs is a challenge, but I’ll do my best to make sense.

This is the true neutral theme of Shadow. well… “true”. I’d call it more of a… this is the theme for a Shadow that was not told any new information throughout his quest and the only thing he was told by Eggman was a lie. (him being an android that is. it’s a lie. Eggman confirms it later in the game.)

Jet sounds a distant roar behind you As you try to clear your head You start to look and answers find you Your inner purpose lies ahead

This isn’t about Jet The Hawk btw.

Due to the Alien Invasion that’s going on right now, the military (GUN) is out and about having war with them. It’s loud and irritating and it’s distracting Shadow from his true mission: Remembering his past, his identity. Finding out who he is. Finding answers. He finds them, but many are not what he actually wanted to know. He gets more answers than he asked for and he has to sort them out and find the truth behind them. The true ending: his inner purpose that’s always been there right from the start.

One step to calm the storm inside you Unlock the secrets in your head Not another day, no more confusion No more living like you're dead

His mind is in turmult, he’s confused and scared, but determined to find the truth. One step forward towards that truth can clear his head and help him focus. He’s tired of being manipulated and confused, he wants to know who he is and why he exists! He feels fake and unreal and its suffocating. He will remember at all costs.

It seems it's just out of sight The ones with answers always get their way And I think they should know That I'm coming for them Now

He’s so close to the truth it seems, because everyone keeps telling him they know who he is, and they are willing to tell him if he does them a favour. He plays along for a while but ultimately he sees through the manipulation and opposes them. Eggman, GUN, Black doom…. He will combat their manipulation by using it to his advantage. He just wants to know who he is…

Waking up, breaking out *This is what it's like to be free Rip it up, tear it down *This is what it means to be free Waking up, breaking out *This is what it's like to be free Rip it up, tear it down *This is what it means to be free

(lyrics with * are in omegas voice as this is the ending song for shadow being told he is an android and he and omega join forces to kill eggman)

waking up and breaking out is meant symbolic aswell as literal… being aware of the abuse you’re going through and breaking out of it…. it’s freeing. You feel free.

And, technically, you *are* free, too. But Shadow and Omega… they feel like this isn’t enough.

In order to be really free, they have to destroy the source of their suffering. This is their meaning of being free. Once whatever is emotionally holding them back is destroyed, it can’t bother you anymore.

This is the path they had been manipulated into. ( I’ll explain how everything goes together when I get to I am All Of Me)

4) Almost dead

This is the pure dark (and normal dark) ending theme for Shadow.

No more gods No more graves Are you friend or fiend? No more life No more death Somewhere in between

This is the path there he got too many answers, too much information, things out of context left and right that got to his head.

he says, I quote, “I was created to bring order and justice to the humans… With the power of these emeralds I’m going to destroy this danm planet!”

He’s tired of being told what to do, tired of being “meant” to save and protect creatures that are not worth it, sick of catering to black dooms plans. He’s sick of *everyone* what better way to end it than to just kill everyone?

It doesn’t even matter anymore that innocent people will go down with him. Existence is cursed and there’s nothing anyone can do about it anymore.

Heaven can't save us Hell is a joke No place left to go What you see You cannot believe But when we rise, you'll know

This is  a reference to the other ending. The ending where shadow is convinced by black doom to be evil. Where he works for black doom. He will help the black arms rise. Humans are worthless and deserve to be ruled over by the dark arms.

Well we're almost dead Almost dead Almost dead to the world Almost dead Almost dead Almost dead to the world

The world is almost dead, since it’s doomed now, but he and the aliens are both not seen as living being either.

5) Broken

This is an unused track that was not included in the final game, I’ll talk more about this later and what ending this would probably be for. (edit: i’ll explain why it’s unused and everything in the next song that replaces this one)

Don't wanna feel like Don't wanna think like Don't wanna live like Like someone else Wanna feel like Just wanna think like Just wanna be like Everyone else

Shadow just wants to be normal like everyone else, he hates his destiny as chosen one (pun intended)

The below verse is a cont of that thought.

Don't wanna sing like Don't wanna dream like Don't wanna act like Like someone else Wanna feel life Just wanna live life Just wanna live life As someone else

Here its like. He isnt even sure if he can relate to pleople in the most TRIVIAL THINGS ... He feels alien to other ppl bc... He literally is an alien.

And he really wished he wasnt. That his past wast so tragic. That all this hadn't happened. That he wasnt made in the first place.

Couldn't walk away from something broken Tried to find a way to make it good again Only you can make a difference, darling But always...

And he refers to himself as broken, bc thats what he is. Just. A scrap heap of memories and misery And he tries so hard to be good but he feels like he cant do it And hes trying hard for Maria, trying hard for Sonic, trying hard for Rouge. Their love is his reason to live, they give him the power to keep going. But always..... Everyone dies and leaves him behind alone again. As is his fate as immortal life form.

6) Chosen one

The Neutral Hero ending.

He mainly learns about the things on ARK and his origin, how he was made.

I can't remember Anything at all I've been turning it all around I'm sorry So sorry Is this what I have become

Shadow says “I’m a research experiment gone deadly wrong, I should’ve never been created.”

He feels guilty that he can’t remember all the horrible things that happened, the horrible thing he did in SA2. All the people he hurt when he was looking for answers. And also guilty for the alien invasion.

He’s guilty for his existence.

Wish I may Wish I might be someone else tonight Sometimes I wish I was never born at all And I'll try to save the world Cause in the end I know I'm the chosen one I'm the chosen one

He can wish all he wants to reverse his past, no be someone else, to wish he was never born. He will do his best to save the world, to right his wrongdoings. To somehow redeem himself and take the weight of his guilt off his shoulders. It all depends on him, because that’s what he was made for. It’s his purpose, his fate.

I can't remember What I used to be Something's turning me upside down You made me I love you But I can't change things I've done (I'm the chosen one)

He can’t remember his past self anymore, he has no idea how and what his childhood was like.

All he knows is that he was close to Maria, that he loved her and that her death was horrible and in vain. All he can remember is her death and her smile.

He doesn’t remember how Sonic had helped him in SA2, but he has new recent memories of Sonic’s support. I assume strongly that Sonic did tell Shadow about their team-up on ARK. He’s literally turning his world upside down.

Sonic helped Shadow realize the truth, he supported him a LOT throughout the game. Emotionally and physically.

After all they’ve been through....

He loves him.

Shadow loves Sonic.

And after all this, even when he appreciates him and is grateful for his continuous support….

Just like on ARK in SA2, he feels like he doesn’t deserve redemption. He doesn’t deserve Sonic’s love.

(disclaimer: love doesn’t have to be romantic. see it however you want lmao)

Broken and Chosen One are connected, you can easily see the parallels.

I think that Broken was meant to be the neutral hero theme, but when that was canceled they put Chosen One in its place.

EDIT: the description of the video i linked does confirm this actually. broken was not written FOR the game, rather Jun thought it was so good and fitting that he’d like to have included it in the game, but was unable to get permission,,,, this is why chosen one sounds so much like broken, because it’s MEANT to kinda mimic it in mood and style.

And I think those two songs are VERY underrated. They show Shadow’s more emotional side that people tend to ignore completely.

7) All Hail Shadow

Okay I’ll be upfront. This is Shadow’s theme since 2006.

And I hate it. It is a very “biased” theme for Shadow that only shows one side of him. I’ll explain.

Suffer long and it will set you free! Only through trial do we find the strength we need It's never over, just another day Of hope and tragedies, and everything that comes our way

This song is all about how edgy Shadow is. It tells of how suffering builds character (bad trope)

What i like about this verse is that it addresses that hope and tragedy go hand in hand, that there's good and bad in a balance in life.

Determination of the strong, Found the meaning that you've searched for so long!

Shadow found the seeming meaning of his life. His promise to Maria, and Sonic.

Somewhere in chaos we all find ourselves This destruction is the only tale we tell White is black and black is white, Right is wrong, wrong is right!

Nothing ever fills this hole inside your heart

more edgy stuff………. i really cant tell you what the fuck this is supposed to mean  other than “shadow is an edgy anti hero” and im like. we get it. but where’s the lore? the context? the character?

the black and white thing kinda symbolizes the manipulation he went through to find out the truth. How he can’t trust what anyone says and how he has to rely on his own judgement.

the hole in his heart obviously being his missing memories that can’t magically return, even if he tried hard and was fed tonns of information.

All Hail Shadow! Heroes rise again! Obliterating everything that's not your friend! Nothing can stop you now, No ghost to bring you down! There's nothing left to lose, You win!

In this ending Shadow learned just the right facts about his past to boost his confidence.

And like im glad about that its good for him

And in this context it’s valid to call shadow a hero, because in this ending he IS a pure hero. (he and sonic kill all the dark arms together)

and this is a good song i love it

But not as his main theme. This is not Canon Shadow. This is Pure Hero Shadow.

Hear me out guys. ShTH is all about manipulation. You as player get to manipulate Shadow into taking a certain path. It’s about exploring how a person’s personality can change depending on what information they learn and what people they meet and  what things happen to them.

Which is why Shadow is an entirely different person in all of those endings.

Yes, all of those are still Shadow, but they are alternative versions of him that do not belong in the canon timeline. The canon timeline is the True Ending that I will explain below.

( also i hate people using this player manipulation as excuse to say “but shadow used guns in his game! its canon! he’s edgy! he uses guns!” like no thats not how it works thats ONE PATH he could go. You chose it but it’s not the one HE chose. in the true ending he uses his chaos powers exclusively.)

8) I am… All of Me

This is the theme of the fight against Devil Doom. This is not the conclusion yet, but it is the immediate reaction to learning the final and absolute truth about himself and his past.

I see no, hear no evil, Black writing on the wall, Unleashed a million faces, And one by one they fall,

I learned that the first line is a saying but I can’t really say much to it and ive been analyzing all those songs for 7 hours in a row now please help with that part.

Black-hearted evil, Brave-hearted hero, I am all, I am all I am, I... I... I am

Against popular belief this doesn’t mean that he is both evil and a hero, it means that he is neither. This emphasises that he is himself and nothing else.

Here we go buddy, Here we go buddy, Here we go, Here we go buddy, Here we go

here we go buddy, you will die now.

Go ahead and try to see through me, Do it if you dare, One step forward, two steps back, I'm here (One step forward, two steps back) Do it... Do it... Do it... DO IT…

Shadow is his own person and he’s determined, more than ever. He feel confident in himself and his power, confident in his destiny and his purpose.

If anyone dares to oppose him…. He will take one step towards them, they back two steps backwards in fear of him.

Can you see all of me? Walk into my mystery, Step inside and hold on for dear life, Do you remember me? Capture you and set you free I am all, I am all of me (I am all, I am of me) I am... I am, I'm all of me, I am... I am, I'm all of me, I am... I am, I'm all of me,

Shadow wonders of other people’s perception of him, of pepole that remember him from before he lost his memory; and he wants them to know that they don’t know this new shadow yet. That they have to get to know him again

The capture part references more like… captivating… Because of his mystery and the urge to find out who he is.

Again. He is all the things that make him himself, but ultimately he’s just Shadow the hedgehog. He is who he is.

I see and feel the evil, My hands will crush them all, You think you have the answer, I laugh and watch you fall,

Reference to the first verse; he used to not see those things, but now he does and he’s confident to be in the right. Confident in what he does and what he believes in. People can pretend to know who he is, but that is merely laughable.

I am... I am everyone, everywhere, anyhow, any way, any will, any day... I am... I am everyone, everywhere, anyhow, any way, any will, any day... I am! I am! I am! I am! I am! I am!

Shadow is himself and nothing in the world can change that. Nothing will bend his will, change his mind… Nothing will manipulate him ever again. He is the one and only ultimate life form and no one can take this away from him.

9) Never Turn Back

This is the real and true Theme of Shadow that plays in the real and final credits after the true ending/final story when you complete the game 100%.

It begins with a piano of the refrain from i am all of me!!!!!!!

It's been a long, rough road And I'm finally here I move an inch forword, Feels like a year

The path he walked to get where he is now, after the black arms, after finally uncovering the secrets to his past…. every time he got new information he was even more confused than before. To him, and the player, it felt like years to get to this point. It was tideous, and who knows if it was worth it?

Everything you feel, It's so unreal Is it true? Is it true?

He doesn’t remember *anything* so are his emotions towards his past justified? Is his grief over Maria, his anger towards the humans and himself… Is it all real? Is it just lies? Is he just pretending to feel to make himself feel real, because if he didn’t react so emotional towards learning those things…. what else would he have? This is a direct reference to SA2 and his quote “Even if my memories are not real, it’s still me, Shadow, and I will fulfill my promise to Maria. That is all that matters to me now.”

Back then the memories were all he had. Everyone he knew and loved (arguably only two people) were dead and long gone. So if he didn’t act on them….. what else would there be to his life and him? He didn’t have any other choice if he wanted to stay sane/stable. Even now that he doesn’t remember, he has this information about his past. And no matter if it rurns out to be true or not, doesn’t matter, because it’s all he has to go by to shape himself and if he doesn’t react emotional to those lies, he mgiht aswell be a lie himself. (His identity crisis was an enourmus mental strain on him that developed into a physical pain aswell, as he very clearly showed to suffer from frequent non contextual flashbacks and accompaning headaches.)

I take one step forward Two steps back I have a hundred-thousand pounds Sitting on my back

A reference to I am all of me! He is fearsome and powerful. Very fearsome and powerful.

He’s done many things using this power that made him guilty. Alone his existence guilts him, as people are scared of him just for *him*. He never asked to be made, to be the only hope to save the world, to live up to all those very unread expectations laid on him as The Ultimate Life Form.

The burden of his destiny is heavy, oh so heavy.

Up, down All around Don't know quite what to do To get through

(time speed highway reference) 

He’s confused and his mind is all over the place, he doesn’t know what to do now. He doesn’t yet quite know how to cope with his new found emotions, with his fate, with his existence alone.

Well I'm on my way On my way On my way On my way

Oh boi here he comes!

Here I am (Here I am) Made it to The end of you

Never had a chance when I'm around (No, No) No No No No

Here he is!!!!!!! jokes aside this symbolizes his coming out

double jokes aside

it symbolizes that he’s taken his time to collect himself, his long path of finding himself and building his personality with the scrap pieces of memories he collected. He’s now at the end of the road. He’s at the end of “you”. who is you?

Considering he never had a chance to “get to the end of them” before (and also im biased) I suspect it to be Sonic. He has gotten to a place to be equals with Sonic again, to see eye to eye. To have a close bond with him. The many “no”s emphasis how long it took for him to be able to face him. While he was still unsure of himself he wouldn’t dare to actively build a bond with him, to try and be equals. (he did try to ignore/shove him aside throughout the whole game, but sonic kept coming back/tagging along)

Well now I'll never turn back (Never turn back) I'll never turn that way No matter how life tries to face me, I turn the other way

Shadow, as quoted, “Left his past behind him”. This means he moved on from his memories, from all the things that happened over 50 years ago. Moved on from his destiny. (Hint/foreshadowing to 06 where he emphasises very strongly that “he determines his own destiny.”)

No matter what happens, he swears to himself to never look back at the past anymore. That he will concentrate on the present, aswell as the future.

This is a very very important step to stabilize his mental health and get over his PTSD

Now and then (Now and then) My head starts to spin (Starts to spin) I'll never turn back....again!

Direct reference to how clinging to the past had made him to fatal mistakes (almost destroying the entire fucking planet, and also actually go through with blowing up the moon)

And he will still get flashbacks sometimes, he will have breakdowns and he will have episodes…. But he decides that they can’t and won’t define him. He will stand above them and be himself with his own power.

From this moment on (Moment on) I am moving on (Moving on) And I'll never turn back!

Literally everything I mentioned above. He’s moving on from his past and all the expectatoins others laid on him and he’s becoming his own person, that lives for his own sake. (well he still lives for Maria and sonic but like. It’s less extreme than before)

I guess I'm doing alright And I'm on my way Facing every moment Day by day

I’m so glad shadow the hedgehog is doing fine guys. He’s living in the present and he’s got his eyes on the prize.

Take a chance, slip on by Got no time to answer why Head straight Head straight

head gay

No time to waste it’s time to be of use to the world. All he got left to him is doing what’s right. He often doesn’t fully know why he does certain things or why he has a certain opinion on things, because he doesn’t remember where that thought camefrom, but he doesn’t want to spiral into a breakdown. He accepts it and moves on. Forward. Gotta look ahead and not backwards.

What will I become if I don't look back? Give myself a reason, for this and that

Exactly what I mentioned above. He isn’t entirely sure, and he’s tempted by the past. But right now he thinks it’s best to not dwell on it, to not know more than he does right now, because it could easily make himself slip up and have another identity crisis, which is counter productive to his mental health since he worked hard to establish his current personality. He’s still a little unstable so he best wait until he has settled and established emotional comfort (in team dark and sonic).

I can learn No U-turn I will stay right here Where I'm at Where I'm at

He knows he can still learn from the past, but he also knows that he has to stay in the present and not go too much in depth about it.

That’s who he is now, and it’s who he’ll stay.

And I think this theme, even if less catchy and less edgy, is perfect for him. It describes him perfectly (which was like. intentional. bc it IS his final theme lmao.)

I’m forever salty…………

okay but here comes the final blow!!!!!

10) Who I am

An unused song that got taken out of the game because Magna-fi liked the song too much to give away copyrights…..

it is an alternative to “I am… all of me” and was originally planned to be the fucking MAIN THEME OF THE ENTIRE GAME!!!!!!!!!! (i am all of me is a nice theme for the game, more catchy i guess? works better with the cgi? lemme actually try playing the cgi cutscene with who i am playing over it.. I’ll be real it was not made for this Clip but at some places it fit incredibly well? also the timing was often actually pmuch on point with the scene change? hm. also the video ended on “this is what you made me and you’re not ever gonna change me”)

I mainly think because Magna-fi also performed all hail shadow, but later there was a crush 40 version (which was also used instead of the magna-fi version in later games, that it’s plausible it was meant to be the main theme. Like even the instrumental from the magna-fi version was entirely ignored after shth)

I don’t know the reasons for *that* (maybe because they disbanded in 2007???)

Anyways here’s song….. it’s so fucking important to me and hooooly shit….

You never really understood me You always put me down Like a dog that's beaten over and over One day I'm gonna take you down

This is Shadow’s lanment at GUN. It implies he’s gone through abuse on the ARK, aswell as down on earth. It emphasizes that GUN sees him as nothing more but an animal, not a sentient person.

This is also a cry for war at Black Doom because he obviously doesn’t understand Shadow and only demands from him to work for his goal, calling him a traitor and failure whenever he doesn’t do exactly what he should or when he questoins his orders.

This is who I am Not a shadow of who I want to be Try to understand That this is what you made me And you're not ever gonna change me

Shadow found himself and he now has established his own sense of self (and self-worth!)

He’s addressing everyone that had shaped his personality throughout the game here, they made him who he is now, and if they don’t like if then to hell with them because this is him and he ain’t gonna change. He’s done being a shadow of his past self, he is *him*.

You underestimate my sorrow How the wreckage of my life I tried so many times to tell you The silence down in both of us (No excuses)

This one is specifically addressing Eggman (and the other people that knew him from before his memory loss to a certain degree). Eggman underestimated his immense emotions, his sorrow, the misery he was in, the extreme guilt he felt about *everything* when he told him that he was just a “copy” of the Real Shadow.

But no matter who, Shadow tells everyone he just wants to know who he *really* is. He needs support to uncover the truth, not people who don’t listen to what he has to say and then remain silent in order to not say the wrong thing.

The no excuses goes for exactly those people who are “heroes”. They don’t get a pass for being heroes, they have to respect his emotional needs.

You have made me You can't change me You don't know me This is who I am

Everyone shaped him in different ways, everyone’s independent input made him who he is.

And no one can take that influence back, he can’t be changed.

And no one knows what goes on inside his head. How he processed the information is HIS OWN BUSINESS. What info he recieved… That’s his business. Only he knows. Other people aren’t able to understand him and even if they knew all the things he was told, this still doesn’t mean they know who he is.

Even the people that knew him before his memory loss…. They might think they know him, but they really don’t. How would they. He doesn’t even know himself.

Alright! That’s it!

Again, if I forgot a song please tell me I’ll add it to the post and analyze it (give me like a day or two tho im super exhausted now)

I hope you can understand where I’m coming from with my thoughts and if you have anything to add go right ahead! If you have contradicting interpretations, please tell me! (if you just want to complain that shadow is not gay then fuck off tho its clearly there. this gaylien hedgehog aint got no eyes for women.)

also again:  Disclaimer: Shadow’s love for Sonic doesn't have to be romantic, but it is indisputable that he has a very special and close relationship with him.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

EDIT: continue here

additions! more SA2 songs and the team dark theme from heroes

funny how I talk most about the songs with the least lyrics

Rhythm and Balance

The Supernatural

For True Story

This Machine

[ryouverua]

A Certain Lab, Reprised

lab get lab get lab get lab get LAB GET

Everything around us is either exploding or on fire so Sweetcheeks and I are going to retreat to our space safe, investigating

am I talking about the school exploding or tumblr

we just don’t know

Speak of the devil!

“I AM HERE!!!”

“K1-B0 THeRE WAS AN OPEN WINDOW OH MY GOD, THERE’S GLASS EVERYWHERE, OH NO -”

“OH YEAH!”

Didn’t really wait at all tbh 8′D

Actually all jokes aside Sweetcheeks is right, it was hella cool - and also thank god he was in the hallway and far away from the window! K1-b0 keeps asking if Shuichi is okay but is being incredibly reckless at the same time - what if Shuichi had been showered with that glass? He wouldn’t come out of that unscathed. Was that just K1-b0 taking more of his uncorked anger out on the school?

... Hm, though I guess calling it ‘anger’ isn’t quite right. Or, at least, K1-b0’s fluctuating between ‘anger’ and sort of... more... ‘grim determination’.

Yeah, he didn’t even flinch at being complimented. He’s got serious tunnel vision right now.

Damn.

LMAO SHUICHI’S SCREEN -

There’s only one other place I can think of that qualifies...

DON’T YOU DARE SHUICHI WE FINALLY GOT HERE AND I HAVE QUESTIONS

Oh thank god I want to satisfy my curiosity about the library as much as you do but RANTARO’S TALENT FIRST

Again - damn, K1-b0.

Whoa -

..... This has a very YGO Season 0 vibe. Sorry, that’s a weird comment. Maybe the better way to describe it is that the words ‘punishment game’ immediately come to mind? Some sorta wheel/puzzle thing in the back, cards hanging from the ceiling, some sort of... table...? Kinda reminds me of a poker table, though there’s no center to it... Maybe he... really did specialize in death games...?

Actually, if Celeste had an Ultimate Lab, I feel like it would have a similar aesthetic ~

IT’S HIS SOUL ROOM WE’RE IN RANTARO’S SOUL ROOM

“Yeah so I never shared with you all, but part of the Ultimate Detective status includes the ability to shoot spirit energy from your finger like a gun -”

I don’t think that’s completely wrong but I feel like the actual talent name is going to be x100 times more ominous. 8′D

MAN end-game Himiko is so different than early-game Himiko! Nice to have you onboard - wait, I just realized we’ve got a magician sidekick helping us in an investigation. Is this the right time to make an Ace Attorney reference, or -

Okay, huh. There’s actually way less to click on than I thought there would be. WHAT IS WITH THE MOST CRYPTIC PEOPLE HAVING THE LEAST INTERACTIVE ROOMS, COME ON DRV3 -

Okay, that laptop first:

Empty laptop.... okay, let’s set that aside for now.

Here’s the real question - what came first? The K1-b0 we knew for the first five chapters or this K1-b0? Which one should we consider to be the ‘true’ K1-b0? I think the game is implying that this is the real K1-b0, and the one who we knew up until now was a ‘controlled’ version of him - but at the same time, if the antenna was built in with him, could it be considered part of the original design and therefore part-and-parcel of K1-b0?

omfg I just realized the implications of a white-haired boy hearing a voice (that he literally calls ‘voice’) in his head who may or may not be controlling him behind the scenes be still my heart you’re getting distracted

WHELP THERE’S REALLY ONLY ONE OTHER THING TO CLICK HERE SO -

Like a safe?

......... Omfg it says ‘B’ and ‘A’ on them and it has pictograms on them. Is... this going where I think this is going...

Okay Himiko is being our in-game tutorial and noting that the zodiac is on one side and astrological signs are on the other but honestly I’m fine to skip all past it tbh because there it is, there’s our fucking ‘horse a’ and ‘twin b’ is gemini, Kokichi himself was a gemini, this was where we were going with those hints??? Rantaro’s lab?! idk I just don’t find puzzles like this hard I kinda thrive off of symbolism and mythology in general 8′D

Wait.... doesn’t that mean Kokichi couldn’t have been the one to leave those messages behind?!

Okay this was pretty cute so I left this in ~ but straight up two minutes later it was just a string of KACHUNK KACHUNK KACHUNK until I got it open immediately -

.... the symbols are weirdly cute though, hehe ~

Don’t worry Sweetcheeks, the only life-threatening time-waster we’ll spend all of our time on is fluff text!

Aaaaaaand done. Thanks Kokichi!

MAN I LOVE THESE TWO SPRITES TOGETHER FOR SOME REASON

Ah, so they’re talking about the stone with ‘horse a’ written on it - which... does make me curious, honestly. I think the existence of this safe pretty much confirms that he didn’t write the original message... right?

When did the letters start appearing aside from ‘horse a’? Chapter 3? Was that around the time he concocted that particular plan, then?

H-Hey now, he’s also the reason we found the second clue. 8′D I mean, it wouldn’t have been terrible to go through 12 different combinations with ‘horse a’ determined, but it wouldn’t have been ideal.

i bet you can buy that, that is literally perfect DR merch

IT’S

THE VIDEO

THE VIDEO!!!!

yeah I’m totally going to pull up my old post to see what matches and what doesn’t

“Oh god I forgot how absolutely stunning he was.”

OH I thought that was an abstract red background, silly me - 8′D well, that was probably the point. It might give away the game if we saw something more concrete behind him way back in... what, Chapter 4?

Anyway, more importantly, Rantaro shouldn’t have had access to this place... except he clearly did. So... he... must have been here before. And he knew more about the killing game, or seemed to intuitively know more, than anyone else. He... must have done this before. Except he had made it all the way here last time??? So there is a loop of some sort? Though it can’t be an outright time loop because otherwise there would be no need to record a video (unless like I considered it’s a ‘simulated’ time loop, aka VR-style like last game)...

This makes me wonder how we saw the video the first time. Was it just another flashback/tease like the meteorites were, before we saw the flashback lights?

I mean, I guess it’s kinda hard for recording!Rantaro to prove, but we’ll have to take him at his word here I suppose. 8′D

OH

OKAY

WE’RE JUST GOING STRAIGHT INTO IT THEN

are you telling me you were the protagonist in the last killing game

DIDN’T YOU HAVE LIKE, TWO AHOGES TOO

Man, what an asshole move??? Like, okay, Monokuma’s creating the puzzle of the safe which would unlock this video. Fine. But almost half of the class would have to be dead in order for him to get to it! There’s no way for him to even start the puzzle at this point, because he wouldn’t know it existed! What a huge handicap!

......... Something.... he had.... since the beginning............. Hm. I’m drawing a blank. I don’t remember anything in particular that stands out....

My dead boy, that is an understatement.

AHAHAHA ABOUT THAT....

Now this makes me wonder if he is the only one repeating it or if anyone else is? Well, maybe the mastermind - but like, maybe everyone is repeating it, but only those who ‘won’ were able to have better memories, or were just able to retain the memories of the last game better than the others?

Or, hell, if I want to go along with my previous theory about downloading the memories of students, maybe... Rantaro can remember more about his real self? Or something? But everyone else can’t?

And if he’s really someone who won the previous one (along with one other person, I suppose), then he knows that for a fact.

???!?! Aaaah this part got cut off last time too - so it was actually cut off in the video, and not just in our flashback?!

“You’re also dead, which may make things a little bit more difficult, but I still believe in you!”

That at least I expected -

WHAT

OH GOD THERE ARE SO MANY LAYERS TO THIS

like the dramatic irony I’m sure the fandom has done to death, for example

What about the second person??? Is there a second Ultimate Survivor???? I guess there can’t be since everyone else knows their talents but -

wait, if you’re the Ultimate Survivor because you won a killing game, who were you in the last game????

Does this really give him an advantage though??? I guess the information would have been nice but I mean, it obviously didn’t do him much good because he got taken out so quickly!

Man this makes me wonder if Kokichi had any inkling of this...

jsyk since I have the screenshots side to side, his expression is different in this video compared to the last one

~ fun facts ~

Yeah, see, the ‘he wanted’ part is throwing me off. He participated, sure, and he didn’t say he wanted the original one, but he came back for round two and said he wanted it.... but why???? That implies there’s a purpose to it, and he was okay to gamble his own life - but also, as a person without his memories of this, he wanted to stop the game. If the chip he bet is his own life, the reward must be huge, right? He won these supposed perks for this game, but what did he win for his life outside the game? .... Assuming there is anything outside the game? Is there anything for him outside the game?

HIMIKO DON’T BE RUDE

Yeah, she didn’t know the identity of her target. 8′\ Also I’d be sad if it was Kaede in the end. Second also! I know that she ended up being the first chapter killer and I’m one of the people got taken by surprise by that, but we were in her head for that whole chapter! Her motive made sense - but for her to end up being the mastermind now? That wouldn’t make sense, based on what we know of her, memory shenanigans aside!

That would require the mastermind to have knowledge of Shuichi and Kaede’s plan then, right? So they would have had to draw Rantaro to the library somehow, so he would get caught in Kaede’s trap...

It... should be one of a kind, considering the circumstances...

Yeah I’m still wracking my brain and not coming up with anything there. Could it have to do with his necklace? It did make me think of that ‘soldier tag’ present, about remembering someone who they lost. That would be an incredibly appropriate, if not cruel, ‘survivor’s perk’ present for someone who survived a killing game.

Man are we going to get a new flashback for every place we investigate???

OH SHIT IT’S BACK

FLASHBACK LIGHT!!!

you can pry the flashback light animation from my cold dead hands

?!?!?!

Immediate thoughts - generic students. But, are they? Is there any chance that they look generic on the face of it, but are actually representative of people in the class? I don’t see anything that could be an immediate match (Korekiyo = masked guy, Kokichi = small guy with similarly shaped hair/short stature/face, Kaito = tall guy, maybe), and they seem to have different VAs - hell, is that Jounouchi (or for the proper DR character, Munakata)’s seiyuu?

...... or the guy with the sick mask could just be sick lmao

Ah, so this is from when the virus began to ravage the population...

That seems like an understatement 8′D But at least we know for sure when in the timeline this takes place! Shuichi doesn’t seem to know they’re going to be the only survivors yet, but they’ve already been presumably screened for the Gopher Project which means it is well under way.

Calm down Sigma Klim -

Shuichi hasn’t told them he swings both ways, huh.

OH GOD RIGHT IN THE KAITO

DO YOU GET IT YET SHUICHI, YOU ARE THEIR HOPE

Don’t mind me, just wanted to make sure Shuichi didn’t miss the cryptic message left for him in these memories -

Not only that, but these aren’t memories meant to act as a reward for completing a stage like the other ones or even one they found - this was literally forced on them. It’s supposed to be Monokuma’s weapon against them. So... similar to the motive from the last trial, it’s trying to make them take action...?

And it’s clearly working!

... Maybe it isn’t the necklace then. I mean, he was wearing it when he died right??? And his body is gone...

Oh man unless just like everyone else there were copies of it along with the rest of it in his room - except there are 15, one for all the participants for the last game or something -

It might be 50/50 right now??? There’s something screwy going on, I just don’t know what.

[canadiankazz]

The Ninth Time - An L.A. by Night Fanfic

This was written directly in response to Season 2 Episode 2 “Eye for an Eye.” I decided the events at the Grove also happened in my "Feeds From" Alternative Universe, wherein Jasper has been feeding from Annabelle for some time now and they have developed a Blood Bond. Assume that the Grove Incident more or less how it did in the game, but with a different ending to suit my needs and the needs of my loyal readers and new readers alike.

SPOILERS for the end of Campaign 1, the one-shots, and up to an including Episode 2 of Season 2. This was written before the author saw Episode 5 of Season 2. It’s obviously worth reading the rest of the "Feeds From" series before this part. 

The Entire ‘Feeds From’ Master List Can be Found Here

I lay no claim to owning any of the characters involved.

I felt like we came teasingly close to something like the beginning of this fic series of mine happening at the end of "Eye for an Eye." Though Jasper told Annabelle "no" in the episode, in this AU, things would have gone a little differently.

Thank you to everyone who had enjoyed this series. Thank you always to @cravatfiend and @gokaiyellow for their love and support.

Also posted to the author’s Ao3.

First Posted Feb. 26, 2019.

The Ninth Time

It had been a hell of a night. Jasper was still reeling from everything. X, ghosts, Tremere, the Grove, Marcos, fire, decapitation...

He wasn't sure which was worse, the physical pain from his injuries, or his Beast gnashing and clawing at his insides in silent rage. He had over taxed his body tonight, and was going to be paying for it for several nights to come. It was worth it, he told himself. The Tremere were safe. Annabelle was safe. It was worth it. It was worth it.

Annabelle had offered to help him when he told her he was leaving the club's basement to go home to do what he could to fix himself. He had eyed the others in the room. His and Annabelle's relationship had been successfully kept secret from the rest of the coterie and the world at large so far. He knew she was worried about him. He didn't need a Blood Bond to tell him that. At the same time, however, he didn't want to risk anyone finding out, so he had told her no, there was nothing he would have her do.

And so he left without her, and made his way home via the sewers.

Jasper's phone rang. It was Baron Abrams' number. Jasper snarled to himself, preparing for an uncomfortable discussion. Abrams was very likely aware of what had happened at the Grove by now. Jasper answered it, holding the phone up to his non-burned side. “Hello?”

The connection was a little choppy. Phone signal was sometimes difficult in the sewers and tunnels. “Jasper? I can barely hear you. Where are you?” Issac Abrams asked.

“My apologies. I am underground at the moment, sir.”

“Ah. I am aware of what happened at the Grove. Victor called me. Also... I have seen the web video he posted.”

Jasper growled. Damn Victor and his stupid live stream. “Things did, unfortunately, get a little out of control.”

“... Are you alright? You sound rough.”

“I was injured in the events. I'll be fine.” He sure as hell didn't look or feel fine, but he wasn't telling the Baron about that.

“Well, I'm glad you'll live. I'm not calling to shout at you about that. I'm going to pay Victor a visit tomorrow night.”

Jasper grinned. He hoped he would be there for that.

“No, I'm calling about the individual I sent to you,” Abrams said.

Jasper had also been expecting something like this. The Ivory Tower were moving in and he had a prisoner who belonged to them in the cage in his sanctum. In particular, he had Chaz Price as his prisoner. He had only been there for a few months, but it had been a very busy few months. It had brought Jasper a lot of sadistic joy having Chaz to torment, but it had meant that Annabelle was unable to visit him at his sanctum. She didn't know about Chaz, and Nelli certainly didn't know either.

“Yes?”

“Vanovar has negotiated for a prisoner swap. He tried to go back on it, but I'm holding him to it. Mr. Price is going to be removed from your safekeeping.”

“Who of ours did they have prisoner?”

“That is not something I can divulge with you, Jasper. Can you have Mr. Price prepared for transport in the next hour?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I will send a team to pick him up in one hour. We will talk more later about what happened at the Grove tomorrow night. I'm not at all happy, Jasper.”

“Nor should you be,” Jasper agreed.

Abrams hung up. Jasper put his phone away.

Well, this did change things. Part of him was a little disappointed to lose Chaz, but a more overwhelming part of him was glad. Soon Annabelle could visit him at home again. It meant he had to get a move on through. He couldn't stop and rest yet, as badly as his body and soul was crying out for it.

Jasper was in an awful lot of pain. He had been shot, and he knew he had torn, bruised or otherwise pulled almost every muscle and tendon in his arms and shoulders. As bad as that was, however, it paled in comparison to the pain of the burn Kyoko the Tremere had accidentally given him. His skin on the left side of his face was black and scorched, from nose to ear and scalp down his neck almost to his shoulder. It had missed his eye by millimetres. Every facial expression hurt. He wasn't angry at Kyoko, but only because she had been overly apologetic about it and he had made a promise to Eva to make sure the Wyrd Sisters came to no harm. Jasper was beyond exhausted, but he had to push himself, just a little more. Then he could rest, and be ready for whatever chaos would happen due to his actions at the Grove that night.

As soon as Jasper got into his sanctum, he made a bee line for his cage. Chaz was sitting with his back against the bars. He glanced at Jasper when he came in and did a double-take. “Good Lord!”

“Hi, Chaz.” Jasper grinned and growled. “I have good news.”

Chaz got to his feet, eyeing Jasper. “Well, seeing as it appears you've come face-to-face with one of the banes, I would consider that good news already! It's only disappointing they didn't finish the job properly,” he sneered.

“Ha,” Jasper said dryly. “Yes. There was an unfortunate accident tonight, but that's not the good news.”

Chaz arched a perfect Toreador eyebrow at him. “Then what, pray tell, is the good news?”

Jasper grabbed at him. He had enough energy left to catch him, though he tore Chaz's shirt again as he struggled to escape. Jasper didn't care. He bit down hard into Chaz's arm, ignoring the hiss of pain and protest. He drained enough to weaken his prisoner and stifle his own Beast for the time being. Then he grabbed the stake he kept close by and, while Chaz was still recovering, plunged it into his chest. Chaz's face became frozen in a sneer of rage and pain. Jasper unlocked the cell and painfully dragged his body out. He secured a black pillow case over Chaz's head for good measure and tied his arms behind his back with zip ties. He was not at all delicate in dragging Chaz up the tunnels that lead out to his front door and was quite happy to turn it over to Abrams' men when they arrived. Jasper returned to his now quiet sanctum and smiled. Already, things felt more peaceful.

He texted Annabelle in their private chat. “I know what I said before, but I was just covering because of the others in the room. Can you come over?”

It took her a little while to reply. “To your place? What about your GUEST?”

Jasper smirked at her capitalisation. “The guest has been removed. Abrams has taken him away.”

“Good,” she replied. “I'd love to come over, but I can't leave. There's a massive crowd outside because of the live stream.”

Jasper snarled to himself. He didn't want to have to go all the way back to the club to get her, but she didn't know the tunnels like he did. “I'll come back and get you. We'll go the back way,” he texted.

“Through the... thing?”

“No. We'll skirt the edge of it.”

“Okay. I'll make an excuse to Victor. See you in a bit.”

Just before he put his phone away, he noticed a single heart emoji she had sent him.

Walking all the way back to Club Maharajah seemed to take forever. He tried to heal as he went. He knew that the burn would take a long time to go away, but he could at least do something about the ache in his arms. He felt incredibly weary and brain dead. He just wanted to lie down and let everything stop for a little while. Soon, soon he could, and even better, soon Annabelle would be by his side again.

He texted Annabelle when he got to the secret door that led to Victor's basement and waited for Annabelle to appear. He had a few minutes to wait, but eventually, Annabelle crept out and joined him in the tunnels. She looked at him with a mixture of sadness, relief and fear, taking in his burns once again. “Oh, Jasper...” she sighed. She put her arms around him and hugged him gently.

“I'll be alright,” he assured her softly as they pulled away from their hug. He sounded exhausted. “I want to go home though.”

“Yeah, yeah. Let's get you home,” she agreed.

He started back down the tunnels with her. Annabelle held his hand as they walked. Neither of them noticed the rat hiding in the shadows of the tunnel, watching them carefully. It followed them down the passage, making sure to keep far enough away to remain unnoticed, but close enough to see and hear them.

“So... what the hell happened in that stairwell?” Annabelle demanded after a minute.

Jasper sighed. “Well... the Wyrd Sisters were stopped half way down by police, who were shooting at them. I jumped down the stairs to protect them and I knocked out the cops. Little did I know that the Tremere were preparing a spell, and it hit me instead of the cops.”

Annabelle's eyes went very wide. “You mean they cast fireball?!”

“Yup. And it hit me right in the face.”

“Oh, my God... did you know they could do that?”

“Nope.”

“Did you kill the police?”

“I don’t know. I tried not to.”

“And what happened then?”

“I Frenzied. I ran. I panicked... I'm lucky I stopped before I ran out into the parking lot.”

Annabelle squeezed his hand. “I felt like you were in trouble. I was so afraid when I saw that Sheriff guy outside the door... I just ran at him. I tried to stake him.”

“Yeah. I saw the stake. It was a good thought Annabelle, but your aim was a little off.” He was so proud of her. “You are so strong.”

“And then you jumped out and...”

“...and I cut his head off. Yeah.”

“The look on his face was priceless! He never saw you coming.” Annabelle let out a little sigh, trying not to smell the sewage as they passed. “We're going to be in big trouble for that, aren't we?” It wasn't really a question. Annabelle knew enough about the political climate to know that there would be major consequences.

Jasper shrugged with a little wince. “I'll be in trouble. You'll be fine.”

“I won't let them hurt you,” she vowed.

“I don't know if you could stop them if they really tired, but... I appreciate it, Annabelle.”

They continued walking. He could tell that Annabelle was upset. She was also still a little hurt from being thrown into a smart car, but she was far better off than he was.

“I'm glad that your prisoner is gone,” she said softly as they got to the door to his sanctum.

“I am too,” he confessed as he pulled the door open.

The interior of his sanctum had changed little since Annabelle was last there. Jasper heaved the door closed behind her with a sigh. The rat, who had followed them all the way there unnoticed, paused to scratch itself, then it scampered off towards Griffith College.

Inside the sanctum, Annabelle was checking her phone. She groaned. “Damn it, Victor...”

“What?”

“Everyone I know is messaging me about the live stream and the Baby B thing,” Annabelle mumbled as she scrolled her phone. “Shit... people I haven't seen in forever... some people I've been trying to avoid...” She sighed and turned her phone off. “I'm not dealing with any of that right now. I'm here for you.”

“I have something to show you,” Jasper said.

“Yeah?”

He led her through to his bedroom and she smiled when she saw what he had done in there. His tiny single bed was gone. In its place was something closer to a queen size. He also had an end table in there now, near the bed. Both looked cheap and simple, but Annabelle was glad all the same. “Aww, Jasper! You got a real bed!”

“I did, yes, in the hopes you'd eventually be able to come back down here.” He went over to it and sat down with a pained, but relieved sigh.

“It's good.” Annabelle sat next to him and frowned at his burns again. “Will you let me help you now?”

“There's really not a lot you can do.”

“I want to try though.” He looked like he was going to protest and she cut him off. “You're really not in any position to say no, Jasper,” she snapped.

He snarled a little to himself. It was already harder for him to say no to her lately because of their Bond, but when she used that stern tone of voice he found it next to impossible. “Alright.”

“Okay. Thank you.” She softened her voice. “First things first... hoodie off, please.”

He growled.

“Jasper...” she scolded. “Don't make that face at me.”

Reluctantly, he lowered his hood and started to gingerly remove the hoodie. There was burn damage to it as well, and he hissed in pain when the fabric pulled away from where it had stuck to his burned flesh. Annabelle bit her lip as the extent of the damage was released. The skin around the edge of the burn was black, curled and flaking. The flesh visible inside was red and sore. It was bad enough to make Annabelle ignore the fact that Jasper was now sitting there, temporarily naked from the waist up. “Jesus...” she breathed. “That looks bad.”

“It feels worse.”

“Can you take painkillers? Would painkillers even work?”

“No. Can't take any pills, and even if they did work, I don't have any medicines here anyway.”

“So... you just have to deal with the pain?” Annabelle sounded heart broken.

“Yeah.”

Annabelle's lower lip trembled. He could feel her sadness towards him.

“C-can I at least dress the wound?” she offered. “Would that help?”

“No... I think we should leave it. I don't have to worry about infection. I will heal, Annabelle,” he tried to reassure her. He took her hand. “It might take me a few nights, but soon I'll be good as new. Well... new-ish. All I need is blood and time. Thank you though. I know you're trying to help. I'm glad you're here.”

“I can give you blood,” Annabelle said.

“What about your injuries?”

“I'm fine. Just a bruise.” She couldn't help but smile a little. “The car got it worse than me.”

“He could have killed you,” he said softly. “I was incredibly lucky to be able to stop him.”

“I know,” Annabelle said. “When I saw him walking around after you pushed him off the roof, I knew that... attacking him was stupid, but... he was going to...” Her voice broke with emotion as she fought back a few tears. The whole situation had been very intense and now that the adrenaline from it had well and truly faded, other emotions forced their way in.

“You did good, Annabelle,” he assured her. He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb.

She wiped away a blood tear. “I just... I don't want to lose you.”

“I don't want to lose you either. But I'm still here, mostly. You're still here. Everyone we care about or were trying to protect are still here. We've survived to fight another night.”

Annabelle nodded. She went to hug him and suddenly remembered that he was shirtless. She hesitated, looking at his torso. He was pale as death, and in the dim light of the bedroom, his skin looked almost grey. Her eyes were drawn to the black veins that crossed his skin. They made him look like he had some kind if disease from a fantasy novel.

Jasper noticed her hesitation. “I'm going to get another hoodie. I'll be right back.” He got up with a small grimace and headed to his closet. He retrieved one from the tiny hidden room behind a bookcase he kept them in and slipped it on. He hated being exposed. He accepted that he could not change what he looked like, but that didn't mean he had to look at himself. There were very deliberately no mirrors in his sanctum. Jasper left his hood down for now, to avoid having the fabric stick to the burn again. He returned to his bedroom. Annabelle was waiting.

“It's stupid that you don't keep your clothes in your bedroom,” she told him. “If you can get a better bed, you can get a dresser.”

He smirked. “Noted.” He reclined back on his new bed, making sure to keep Annabelle on his non-burned side. He allowed himself a groan and growl of pain. Annabelle leaned against him carefully. He could feel her relaxing gradually.

“I still would like to feed you, if you'd let me,” she mumbled.

“I'm okay.”

Annabelle looked doubtful. “You don't look okay. You look like you're in pain, and if my blood will help with that, then I want to give it to you.”

Jasper was truly too exhausted to argue. He also was in a lot of pain. He wanted to itch at his face and couldn't, so he made a fist instead. He watched as Annabelle pulled one arm out of the sleeve of her jacket, wincing slightly as she did so, and offered him her wrist. He looked from her wrist to her face and back again, still reluctant.

“Please?” Annabelle said. “Just a little bit. Then I'll feel I've helped and I'll stop bothering you about it. You started a war to save my life. It's the least I can do.”

Jasper sighed and gave in. “Alright.” He sat up a little in bed and took Annabelle's hand and arm gently in his hands. He considered her smooth skin for a moment, then bit down gently on her wrist. He was mindful not to damage her tendons. Annabelle gasped and flinched, but forced herself to hold still. It had been a very long time since he had fed on her like this – from the wrist and without her activating Blush of Life first. Her Vitae lacked the potent warmth that he had tasted in her then, but it was still rich and nourishing. He heard Annabelle moan softly through closed lips as the pleasure of the Kiss kicked in. This wasn't an orgasmic bite, but it wasn't intended to be. He spent a few seconds licking gently as her skin as the blood seeped out. He could taste her affection for him as well as her anxieties. She wanted to protect him just as much as he wanted to protect her.

Before long, he licked her wound closed. He hadn't taken much from her as all this time, but she seemed satisfied with his effort all the same.

“Thank you,” he mumbled as he let her arm go.

She surprised him by placing a gentle kiss on the non-burned side of his head, just above his ear and temple. He felt her soft lips and the brush of her hair on his skin. Jasper blinked, but when he glanced at her, she had put her arm back inside her sleeve and snuggled down, hugging him gently around his ribs, as if she hadn't kissed him at all. He knew he hadn't imagined it, but decided he wouldn’t say anything about it if she didn't. She looked nearly as tired as he felt. He relaxed down next to her, resting burned-side up.

“The new bed is good.” Annabelle concluded, sounding sleepy.

“I'm glad you approve. And... until Abrams makes me babysit some other Ivory Tower asshole, you are welcome here any time. Just give me a heads up in case I'm not home.”

“Thank you.”

Annabelle snuggled herself closer, tucking herself gently under his chin. She was very mindful of his burns, careful not to touch them at all. He put a protective arm around her back.

When dawn broke over the city and the morning news reported on the Incident at the Grove, Jasper and Annabelle missed it. They were snug safely in his haven, sleeping the sleep of the dead.

[marypsue]

Imbalance, 10 / ?

Well, tumblr disappeared my original post, so let’s try this one again. 

Previous chapters can be found on AO3 under MaryPSue!

…

Liliana can't breathe.

She feels pretty stupid about it, actually. She knew there was probably some kind of evil wossname from beyond their plane of existence on the loose, using the circle she herself had broken to get in and eat the universe. She smelled smoke as soon as she set foot in Storm's apartment - hell, she'd taken the batteries out of his smoke detector when it had started going off - but saw no sign of candles or incense or anything that might be causing it. And now she's choking to death on evil smoke from somewhere beyond her plane of existence. Who could possibly have seen this coming.

Well, serves her right. She just hopes the others don't find out how she got killed, she'll die of embarrassment.

"It's all right," Storm says, somewhere in the whispering haze, his voice friendly and comforting, smooth and even and easy to listen to. For the first time, Liliana understands why other people waste their time watching Storm play video games. "You never really had a chance. None of us did."

"Don't...patronise me...you little asshole," Liliana coughs out. She knows as soon as she does that she's made her fatal mistake. Should have saved her breath instead of trying to be a smartass one last time. Her lungs burn, her throat is on fire, her vision blurry either from the tears stinging her eyes or the clouds of billowing, soft grey smoke tracing hypnotic swirls through the air. Her knees, then her shoulder, smart as she hits the ground, but even that's muted, muffled somehow by the smoke.

"It's useless trying," Storm says, sympathetically. "I understand now. No matter how hard you fight, no matter how many battles you win, there's always something bigger and worse waiting in the wings. You can fight and fight your whole life, and any ground you might gain will just be taken back after your death. It means nothing." His smile is bitter and aching. "All you're doing is wearing yourself out, trying to fight the inevitable. You can rest. It'll all be over soon."

Liliana sucks in one final breath, preparing to curse Storm out, but all she gets is a lungful of bitter smoke. Distantly, she thinks she hears Storm say something about endings or silence or some edgelord crap, but it's impossible to make out over the rising whispers. The edges of her vision are darkening, tunneling away into pinpricks of grey as the smoke steals her oxygen. Her last, fleeting thought is to hope somebody will figure out something happened to her and check up on Mavis and Mookie before they both get so hungry they try to eat each other.

And then there is light.

...

The Plane of Thought is home to all kinds of fantastic inventions. Its inhabitants have shaped metal and lightning around ideas that, on other planes, would have been accomplished with advanced spellwork.

And they've managed to come up with things that the other planes would never dream of. Stones of Farspeech are a complicated enchantment capable of incredible communication across continents. But no one, yet, has thought to connect them all together so that the same messages can reach everyone, all over the world, at nearly the speed of light. And no one, yet, has engineered a twenty-four-hour news cycle to make sure those messages get hammered, repeatedly, into every mind around the world. Over, and over, and over again.

"...new report indicates that, without dramatic policy and industry changes, global temperatures will rise enough to render the Earth uninhabitable within the next thirty years..."

"...despite widespread protest, the unpopular piece of legislation was passed on Friday. Legal challenges are expected..."

"... natural disasters compounded by extreme weather..."

"...allegations of sexual misconduct dating back to the early nineteen-seventies..."

"...will walk free..."

"...unable to afford the necessities of life..."

"...human rights violations..."

"...hate crime rising..."

"...unexpected cancellation of hit series Ray Donovan..."

"...corruption..."

"...collapse..."

"...devastation..."

"...despair..."

...

"Yes," the man at the door deadpans. "This is a bad time."

"Oh," Rowan says. "Sucks to suck, huh?"

"Yeah," the man at the door says, and shuts it in Rowan's face.

Rowan stares at the door. The door does not stare back at Rowan, because it's an inanimate object. That should mean it can't laugh at him, either, and yet, somehow, that's exactly what it seems to be doing.

From somewhere behind the impossibly smug door, Rowan can hear another voice - familiar, but in the way the voice of a teacher you had in elementary school is familiar - complain, "What'd you do that for?"

"He can come back with a warrant," the guy who opened the door snaps, and then the conversation veers into Spanish that's a little more advanced than what Rowan vaguely remembers from eighth grade.

Rowan stands on the doorstep for another moment or two, feeling the hot flush of embarrassment creeping up the back of his neck. The door does not reopen.

"Okay," Rowan mutters to himself, turning away from the door. He does not add, "Now what?". He's uncomfortably aware that no one else is going to answer that question for him. "Well, shit."

He starts down the walk, vaguely considering whether Liliana will be upset if he shows up early to pick her up. He doesn't like to admit it, but something about that Storm guy she hangs around with makes him indefinably but distinctly uncomfortable. Nothing personal, just...Rowan gets the strong impression that the guy's watched The Craft one time more than is strictly healthy.

Maybe Indigo's home. Maybe all that reading she - or he, or maybe they, Rowan hasn't checked in yet today - did on the D&D planar system will give him some clue. Rowan's still not sure if Gary Gygax was just plugged in to some fundamental truth of the universe, or if something about the Story and Song somehow made D&D-like shit real, but the end result is the same. Rowan's extensive knowledge of the Wiccan and neopagan traditions is less useful, practically, than some nerd with a 5e Monster Manual.

He has to admit, it does sting a little.

He's halfway down the walk when the door behind him swings open and a voice - familiar, but in the way that a celebrity's voice is familiar - calls, "Hey, do you really know anything about magic?"

Rowan turns. Joaquin Terrero waves one red-sparking hand at him.

“Sorry about that,” he says, looking at his own hand. “I can’t, uh, make it stop.”

"Well, shit," Rowan says.

...

"Hey, Griffin. Question."

"Shoot."

"Are we...are we going to get to...fight something, at some point?"

...

The alarm on Marial's implant cuts out abruptly as she and Dead Guy Gary reach the third floor.

Gary gives her a hopeful look, but Marial shakes her head. "It'll keep going off. Every four hours." She's exhausted, and her left arm is starting to ache, her fingers numb and tingly. She keeps jumping at little noises, thinking it's either Barry or one of Gary's zombies, and she's shaking so badly that it takes her three tries to turn the handle on the door out of the stairwell. This is really too much excitement for one lifetime.

...

"Yes, you are. In fact, you're going to get to fight something very, very soon."

...

Lup gives her scythe a sweeping stroke through the air. There's a noise like paper tearing, and a burst of stinging grey smoke billows out of the hole she's cut into the Astral Plane. It disperses quickly, but leaves a bitter smell lingering in its wake.

"Well, that's probably not a great sign," Lup mutters, under her breath, and then ducks through the opening in the air.

Taako turns to Magnus, but Magnus isn't there. Taako just sees the soles of his boots following Lup through the hole in the air. His voice drifts back through the planes. "Taako! Are you coming?"

"Let me just - let me ask you something. What part of 'Taako's good out here' keeps giving you all so much trouble?"

Magnus doesn't answer, just leans back through the hole in the air, grabs Taako by the collar, and yanks him through.

The hole in the air closes seamlessly behind them.

...

"Okay, but Griffin, how soon is 'very, very soon'?"

...

"What is all this commotion?" someone asks, pleasantly, as Marial slips out of the stairwell. "I thought we dealt with the fire alarm. I've lost two appointments already."

Marial mutters a curse under her breath. She’d really hoped the alarms would have cleared everybody out, but the professionally-(if garishly-)dressed woman with her dark hair in a sleek coil at the back of her neck leaning against the reception desk is standing between her and the cardiac clinic. And doesn't look like she's about to evacuate anytime soon.

On the other hand, Marial's a patient here, and she has a legitimate medical concern. And whoever this is doesn't seem like she wants to stop doing her job and leave until she can personally see flames licking out of the walls around her. Maybe Marial can use this to her advantage.

She takes a step forward, already working up a sheepish smile and a story about a mispulled fire alarm, and the woman standing by the reception desk turns to meet her eyes.

Marial stops in her tracks.

There's nothing immediately and obviously wrong with this picture, which makes it worse. Marial finds herself searching the woman's expression of detached, professional curiosity as it fades into concern, her carefully-applied makeup and enormous eighties Jem and the Holograms earrings, the hall around the reception desk, the friendly but confused smile from the guy behind it, for something to explain the sudden wave of sickening dread that crashes over her. Marial ends up studying the helpful sign listing directions to the different departments so that she doesn't have to meet the woman's kind grey eyes. She's never noticed before that psych and cardiac are on the same floor.

"Can I help you?" the woman asks, and the hall seems to bounce it back to Marial strangely, giving it a mocking, sarcastic tone.

"I - I don't think you can, actually," Marial stammers. She can feel the way Dead Guy Gary's gone tense beside her, prickling like a wall of static shock. She wants to ask him if he can tell what's got his back up, but something tells her that talking to thin air in front of this woman would be a bad idea. "I need the cardiac device clinic."

The woman smiles, broadly, stepping away from the reception desk and towards Marial. Marial takes another step backwards.

"I think what you need is a little dose of perspective," the woman says, still smiling, still friendly. That strange mocking echo in her voice seems to be growing stronger, picking up harmonics from somewhere. Marial takes a third step backwards and finds herself backed up against the stairwell door.

...

"Well, uh, right about - right about now, actually."

...

The Astral Plane is spooky.

Well, okay, so a place where dead people go to their eternal rest is always gonna be spooky, but the Astral Plane is spookier than necessary. The last time Magnus saw this place, it was through an enormous gemstone mirror, but it had seemed...peaceful. With the whispering ocean of souls, even a little bit...tropical? Of course, your umbrella and swim trunks would have to be black, but - yeah, he could imagine taking a beach vacation there. A very, very creepy beach vacation.

But this time, as he follows Lup across the dark, formless ground and waits as she chooses where to slice open another portal, Magnus can't imagine the pina colada that would make this palatable. It's just so quiet. The shifting sea seems to be still for once, and he doesn't think it's his imagination that the ethereal blue light it casts is getting dimmer and dimmer. If Magnus squints, he thinks he can make out a faint grey haze casting a pall over it and soaking up its light. He's willing to bet actual human currency that, up close, it smells strongly of smoke.

"Hey, uh, Lulu?" Taako asks, and though his voice is deliberately nonchalant, Magnus can hear the tightness in it. "You done something new with the place? Really working the, the old, 'abandon hope all ye who enter here' vibe."

There's a little frown creasing the space between Lup's eyebrows as she glances distractedly back at them.

"Look, I've been a reaper for less time than you've been dating one," she says. "But no. I don't think any of this is right."

Magnus rests a hand on the head of his axe as he looks around, just in case.

There's another burst of smoke that leaves them all coughing when Lup opens the portal to the Plane of Thought. It still dissipates quickly, but the smell seems to linger longer this time.

They're in a wide, airy, square hall, its walls painted a pale yellow, a huge plate-glass window overtop of a desk just beside them. There are printed signs labeling everything and offering directions down the hall, and all put together, it reminds Magnus of the Halls of Healing back in Neverwinter.

"This better not take too long," Taako complains. "I have an, uh, a guest appearance on, uh, uh, uh, Beat Bobby Mindflayer booked for tonight -"

"It's gonna have to wait," Lup says, warningly.

Magnus follows her line of sight.

The three people standing by the heavy metal door don't seem to have noticed them yet. As Magnus watches, though, the figure to the left - the skeletal figure, flickering in and out of visibility and crackling with red lightning - slowly, slowly turns, and stares directly at him. He's unmistakably a lich, but instead of the red robes Magnus is used to, or even the traditional necromancer's black, he seems to be wearing an extremely ugly neon tracksuit.

The woman standing beside him, in the day-glo suit and enormous earrings, also turns in their direction, and Magnus stumbles backwards. She's got to be the female lich Lup had mentioned, the one who still had her body. There's just something about her eyes -

The girl standing between the two neon horrors half-turns, her breath catching in her throat, her eyes wide and frightened. That's all Magnus needs to see. He pulls his axe free, and, ignoring Lup's shout of "Magnus, wait -", rushes in.

The frightened girl, the one Magnus had pegged as a helpless captive, throws up both hands. And then she throws a fireball the size of a basketball down the hallway at Magnus' head.

...

"I'm gonna need you boys to roll initiative."

[mentalcurls]

2. Sei uno str***o

I’m back with my thoughts of episode 2 of the first season of Skam Italia. This was much quicker than analyzing episode 1, but there’s still a lot of stuff I hadn’t caught or thought much about the first time I watched the season, like pre-Luchino interactions between the boys, sexy times and the earliest mentions of Marti’s mom. Bechdel test results at the end. Warning for gratuitous use of italics.

I’m still not over Skam Italia doing that video of Gio and the chat between him and Eva, referencing and overturning Skam og’s “No Norwegian boy would go down on a girl”, that shit was savage, bless LudoBesse

Oh, the song that plays while Gio and Eva are getting to the cabin! “It’s gonna be you / And me / It’s gonna be everything you’ve ever dreamed” is 100% referring to Eva, to her wanting to be with Gio, in peace, for a while, to her anticipation and plans for this trip

seeing the cabin again, though. I mean, intellectually I know this is the first time it’s ever seen on screen, this was the first time I saw it as well cause I watched all of S1 that weekend after 3.5 Ammucchiate, but now the magical triad of “Sto a Bracciano”, “Due ore” and “Patatine e marmellata” colors my experience of it so much, I almost teared up when Gio and Eva got inside

I had kind of forgotten how much they actually show of Gio and Eva having sex, I get why people drew the comparison after the Nicotino sex scenes, BUT “DUE ORE” AND “TU NON SEI DI MILANO” ARE PERFECT ANYWAYS

still not over the absence of any fic in which Gio gets to properly show off his oral skills (with Eva or anyone else) 

Marti moaning and complaining about how he’s scarred and traumatized after he walks in on Eva and Gio kills me; tbh his problem is mostly that he saw a bit too much of Eva (not a lot I think, because that sheet was pretty strategically placed) and not enough of Gio

I can’t focus on Eva when there are proto-Contrabbandieri interactions going on, I just cannot

ok, so, Marti. He says his mom “freaked out” because she decided to do housework and that he had to run. So, like. Given that he uses that same wording “sbroccare” that he’ll use in later episodes to talk about his mother’s mental illness, what’s happening here? Because while I see how a person would “freak out” about cleaning (like if they suddenly started obsessing over everything being dirty), I think from what we’ve seen of Mrs Rametta that’s not likely and she probably simply tried to do the spring cleaning. So is that what Marti considers a “freak out”? Does he put spring cleaning on the same level of what I’ve always assumed were, like, panic attacks? And then of course there’s the fact that we have a boy who runs like a bat out of hell as soon as household chores are mentioned. Now. We know in a few months Marti is going to pray for his mom to want to do the chores 💔

“C’mon Eva why are you being like this?” are you really asking Gio?

Marti is at peak 🐍🐍 here: he hijacks Eva’s time with Giovanni, stops them from having sex and keeps Gio busy with a thirteen-hour-long game of Risk Eva doesn’t take part in at all. And Gio lets him! He doesn’t even appear to stay mad about not being able to have sex for more than those two minutes when he hits Marti with his sleeping bag, is he even a teenage boy

that build up to Elia’s appearance, with the creepy music, gets to me every time and Gio going for the fireplace log lifter kills me

Elia Santini is a living meme from his very first line (“Ammazza che accoglienza”)

I mean that chuckle + “Che, davero?” combo is ICONIC

Eva’s unimpressed face at Gio is also iconic. 

“C’mon, what could I do, he asked if he could come, should I have said no?” ahem, OBVIOUSLY YES, since you promised your girlfriend it’d be the two of you (honestly, Gio, how did you expect to have sex, with your best friends in the room next to yours, only separated by a door??)

Notice that Eva walks away (only a few paces), fully expecting him to follow her and try to placate her more, so she can properly scream at him, except he doesn’t, he goes inside with the guys

so we get to the beach scene and what I can’t help but wonder is how long the two schemers, Gio and Elia, spent coming up with a suitable excuse to feed Eva for going back to Rome, something she wouldn’t question… and she actually questions it anyways for a minute

and God, the suspicious look Eva gives them as they walk away

in this proto-Contrabbandieri dynamic, I can’t help but notice that Martino fills that Luchino-ish role, obviously he’s not treated the same because he’s much more likely to have a sharp comeback to mocking and he’s not as naive as Luca, but he’s the one that gets left behind while the trouble duo goes to get the weed; and I think that if a Bastardata-like situation was to happen in S1 Marti would be the “victim”

and of course this episode has this big gaslighting incident, where Gio tells Eva he’s going back to Rome for his brother, Martino covers for him pretending he knows nothing (and encouraging Eva to drink and forget 😑) and when Gio comes back they all act like it’s fine, like it’s normal that he was gone most of the day and the whole night and like she’s totally overreacting when she’s mad

ok, but Marti is really really invested in Gio’s sex life, this boy is gone, desperately looking for any and all scraps. I think I’ve seen fic do the “Marti never wanked over Gio, he couldn’t have faced him afterwards” thing and while that’s valid, I think that he actually fantasized a lot about him, basing himself on the sexcapades Gio has told him about, like Villa Sciarra, because this boy has shown he’s thirsty af from day one, first telling Eva “c’mon, zozzoni, let me see” on Skype and then in this episode asking Eva outright what Gio’s like in bed

I can’t even describe Marti’s face during the conversation, first he fakes nonchalance, then he goes for a nice-guy-encouraging-reassuring smile, then he smirks and wiggles his eyebrows, then he’s smug, when Eva seems to be mustering up the courage to speak again he’s kind of hopeful, then smug again, then he softens when he starts cuddling Eva, but in the last shot from that clip he’s looking in the distance, he stops smiling and has a slightly disappointed expression

that conversation with Eva, God. Aside from any and all speculation of Marti’s motives, she is obviously embarrassed and uncomfortable, yet Marti keeps pressing; she clearly states she asked Gio not to talk about their sex life (not too in depth at least), yet Martino confirms he’s ignored her request and quotes some notable examples that prove his knowledge, which embarasses her further, to the point she stops the conversation; finally, Marti justifies Gio and himself by saying “You know, we’re like this.” like that excuses anything (or means anything, really)

those shots of the lake in the early morning and of the trees *insert Poetic cinema meme here*

Gio has the gall to come in like nothing’s happened and announce he’s brought back brioches, then to shake his head and sigh when Eva storms off, like dude? You left her alone with your best friend for a whole day and a whole night, no answers to her calls and texts, she woke up hungover on the couch and in the arms of a boy who’s not you and you’re surprised and exasperated by her being mad at you?? Honestly, Gio, you might be il mago dell’amore cause you’re half decent at matchmaking but you’re shit at doing relationships, at keeping them healthy and working

at least Eva finally gets him to follow her where they can talk alone, she finally gets him to choose her over his friends for a few minutes

Eva’s paranoid and controlling behaviour is not healthy for her or for Gio or anyone else, really, but I get where she comes from. Her relationship began with cheating, her boyfriend is currently hiding something, so trust is not something that comes easy here. Still, asking to read your boyfriend’s messages to someone else is not something conducive to a better relationship.

“You-you change when you’re around them.” hello “7 things” by Miley Cyrus!

And here we go again: “Eva, do you really think I’m hiding something from you? Eva, I’m not hiding anything from you, okay?” and he kisses her, trying to placate and distract her with physical affection 

poor Eva walking to a place that is as isolated as she feels

I mean, this trip must have been devastating for her, she’s been anticipating it for weeks, it should be her occasion to be with Gio, to strengthen the one relationship in her life that’s going well, to placate her fears and to forget all the stuff that’s going to shit in her life for a few days; instead Gio’s friends gatecrash the trip, Gio spends half of the time going back and forth from Rome, she gets stuck with Marti who’s a good guy, but inappropriate, she finds out her boyfriend discloses info about their intimacy without her consent, and there’s the whole Laura thing. The only pinprick of light at the end of the tunnel is that kind-of-weird, a bit too touchy-feely girl from the Easter party befriending her on Facebook, how sad is her life?

Bechdel test: this episode doesn’t pass the test. There’s a brief conversation between Eva and her mom at the beginning, but her dad intervenes, plus Eva’s mom is still unnamed so the conversation doesn’t count for the test.

This post is part of my complete series of meta about Skam Italia season 1.  If you’d like to read more of my thoughts about the other episodes, you can find the mastepost linked in the top bar on my blog under SKAMIT: EVA. Cheers!

[catshapecuck]

“I could start smelling you”

So do y'all know that part in the dark vs anti bloopers where they’re looking at each other and then start laughing and Jack jokingly says “I could start smelling you” well I’m awful and decided to right a short one shot based around it sorry anyways so this one shot is all basically in Jack’s pov unless stated otherwise there’s no septiplier it’s mostly just anti being a dick it didn’t turn out exactly how I wanted but anywho enjoy I guess (if you want a version without zalgo just comment and I’ll post it)

[]

“So it’s decided then. The Jackscepticeye will be spending the weekend at my house. Wow, I think I might just faint.” Mark says while fanning himself exaggeratedly.

I roll my eyes. “Shut up, Mark. Or should I say Markiplier?” I raise my eyebrow at him, teasing.

He chuckles. “Alright, alright. I gotta go give Chica a walk. I’ll see you friday?”

“Mhm. I’ll text you the flight times. Bye!” I smile.

Mark waves with a bye before ending the call.

I sat back with a sigh. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d gotten to sit down and have a good chat, nevermind see each other in person.

I hear a giggle beside my ear. “Lo̸o̢k̛s͟ ̵li͘k̡e͝ ̶y̛ou ͘a͝nd yo͏ur p҉r̨inc̨e͝ ͟wi͠ll͜ fina̡lly͡ ͠b̶e̸ r̴e̕u̢nìte͜d̶ ͘aft͜er͝ s̴o ̶lon͏g.̕ ̢A̷h̀,͜ yơun̢g ͡love,͞ ͏h͢ow̕ ̧p̀r͞ec̵io͟us̨.͜.͝.͏” I roll my eyes.

“Knock it off, Anti. For the last time, we’re just friends.” I didn’t even turn to look to the side, already knowing he’d be right there floating in the air, a smirk plastered on his face.

“T͢h҉a̕t’s ̧ẃh́at t͢h҉e̶y ̛all say, ̵Jack̶ie..̶.” I sigh again. God, it’s like talking to a brick wall.

“I don’t have time for this right now. I need to start preparing back up videos and getting my shit together; go and play games or somethin’.”

“H̀mp̧h͢,͞ ͡you̧'͜ré n̶o͟ f͝un̕..̛.”

I shiver as he enters back into my body, most likely going back into the mindscape to sleep.

Not only was it gonna be hard enough to film enough videos for 3 days whilst getting ready to go spend the weekend at Mark’s but Anti isn’t gonna make it any better. Mark knows about Anti and I know about Dark but the two haven’t met and neither have we. And Anti being Anti well… You just never know what he’ll do.

This is gonna be a long week…

_

Mark’s POV

I wave and press end call.

“So I take it Sean will be spending the weekend with us.” I jump and turn my chair around to look at Dark who stands on my left in his usual stance, hands behind his back.

“Jesus, Dark. You can’t just sneak up on me like that.”

“My apologies; so is that a yes or no?”

“Yes, Sean is coming over for the weekend.”

“Ah, I assume Anti will be coming as well. I can finally see what I’m up against.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re not "up against” anything Dark. In fact, you need to be on your best behavior.“ He glowers and says nothing before dissolving back into the shadows. I sigh.

_

"Ąh̛, t͜he ͏s̕w͞e̴ȩt̵ ̴smell ̵o͠f̵ di̶ab̶etes͏ ̛and͢ ͠d͟emoc͝racy͢.͟.̸.̷ ̛J͟u͏s̢t ̧h́o҉w̕ ͟I͡ ̸ṕi̵çtured͏ ̴it."͟ Anti says as soon as we get out of the little tunnel connected to the airplane. He’d come out as soon as I’d gotten off the airplane. I guess he’d gotten bored of just annoying me in my head so instead decided to annoy me in person. No one could see him except me obviously and it was hard to berate him without looking insane. He kept glitching ahead of me as we made our way to get my luggage but had now settled down to float beside me.

"I ͝çan'̛t wa̶i̕t҉ ́t͞o ͝f͜in͝a͏lly̷ s̴ee͘ M͠arki͞m̢oo͠ in p̷ers͏on. I҉ ̸w̨ond͘er h̛ow ̀t҉áll͝ ͝he҉ is̶…̵"̨ Anti had been talking about Mark the entire flight and wouldn’t shut up to even let me take a nap.

We get to the luggage conveyer belt thing and wait for it to start coming out. Anti walks back and forth in the middle of it, hands behind his back.

"You sound like you’re more excited to see him then I am.” I say under my breath.

“W͞èll͢ ýou͠'͞re͢ ͢co͜n̢st͡a͢n͞t͟l͟y t̀a͏lk҉i͞ng to͡ ͟him ̷a͠n͡d̢ yoų ̧k̢eep̛ ̀re͝f̨u̧sin͟g t̛o s̵how҉ ̶me͟ ̶hiś ̨I͟P͘ ̕ad̨d̀rȩs̕ş ͝so tha͢t͢ ̴I ça̕n ͞go͜ ̴s̴e̛e͠ ̸h҉i͟m ́so͜ ͜th͢e̡ m̵yster҉y͝ is ̵kill̕in͟g mȩ.̧”

I wish.

“Well now you can finally see him. You do know you’ll also be seeing Dark too right?”

He shrugs. “́Ȩh͝,͢ I c̵óu̧ld reálly ̶do̢ ẃit̢ho͜ut ̸him̛ ̶b͟ut hey͞ wha͝t ̷c͝a͞n ̡you͞ ḑo?̕"̵

I grab my luggage from the conveyer belt and Anti appears beside me, well, behind me on my suitcase as I start walking.

"́So lover ̀b͝oy ͝i̧s͡ ̢picking ̢you ̧u̡p?"̷Anti says with a teasing tone. I roll my eyes.

"Yeah, why?”

“̛O͝h̴ y̵'̡know, th̕e͝y ̀s͞ąy͜ 9 ̀o҉u̧t ̕of҉ ̕1͘0 p̨e͏opl͡e͡ ͠d̵ie͘ ̧f̨r͠om̷ ͝di̵str͘ác̸t̨ed͝ d͡ri̢v͞įng͏.͏.͞.̴”

“Anti…”

“͘A͜n̨d͠ I͘'d̶ ͟be͏ ̷p͞r̨e͝t̛ty dįst͜r̸ac̨te͠d ͘myşel͠f wit͘h͞ a̴ļl t̵hat ͟he͜a͞t ́g͢o̸iǹ'͏ on͜…͏”

“Anti, don’t you dare…”

“́He̸y, I'm̢ ̡j̴u͡st̢ ͟şa̵y̨in̡’ ͏tha̵t͏ ͞m̢áyb͞e yo͜u sh̢o͘uld ͘p̶ųl̸l̸ ov͘er b͞e̢f͘ore҉ you͜ ̨d̴e͡çide t̀o ̡pu̸ļl ̡oùt́ if̡ y͝a̵ ͘kn͝o̢ẃ ͠w͝hat I͞ m͡eaǹ..̛."͜

"Anti!” I shout, stopping in the middle of the airport, people sending me glances of what is probably what-the-fuck-is-wrong-with-that-guy as Anti giggles and then bursts out laughing, retreating back into my mindscape.

“Hehe… Sorry?”

_

“Welcome to my humble abode,” Mark says bowing dramaticallyat the side of the door. I laugh and walk inside, my suitcase trailing behind me. He shuts the door then leads me to his guest room where I put all my stuff.

“I’ll get dinner started if you want to settle in or something.”

I smile. “I rather harass you while you cook instead.”

He laughs and we head to the kitchen where I sit at his breakfast bar while he goes from cabinet to cabinet pulling out various ingredients and pans.

“So what’re ya making?” I say.

“It’s a surprise.” Mark stops for a second to wink at me and I laugh.

“Speaking of surprises-”

“Mark, where is my book? I know you moved it, don’t even try to lie.” I turn my head to the side to see who I assume is Dark coming from the hallway into the living room.

The whole place is pretty open so the kitchen, living room, and dining room are all together in one area and then there’s a hallway that leads to my room.

“Oh, I hadn’t realized you were here yet. Hello, I am Dark. You must be Sean.” He says as I hop off my stool to cautiously walk towards him. He keeps his hands behind his back but gives a small bow.

“Yeah, that’s me…” Wow͞, y͟ou h̵a̡v͏e̢ s̴u͡c̷h a wa͡y w͡i͏t̀h̀ wor͢d͢s͝.͡

“Shut up…” I whisper. Dark looks at me quizzically. “Anti,” I say, pointing at my head.

Mark comes around to join us in the living room and stands next to Dark.

“Ah, will he be joining us this evening?” Dark says.

“Um, I don’t know… He’s kind of…” W̷h̸at d̨o͞ ya̛ ́ḿe̛a̸n you ̀d͞on̨'͞t̕ kno̸w?͜!́ S҉o͏ He̶ ̧c͞an͞ ̀c͡óm͜e͏ ͡ou͠t̕ ͝but ̢I̧ ͜can̕'t̸!͏ ̸

“God, you can come out just stop yelling…” I say, rubbing my temples. As soon as I say it, the tv turns on to static, the coffee maker sounds like it’s dying, and the lights start to blink. Mark looks a bit worried as this all starts while Dark just looks around not betraying what he thinks.

“Jesus, you’re dramatic…”

_

Mark’s POV

Glitchy giggling is heard all around as what looks like green smoke starts to come out of Sean’s chest like a stereotypical ghost. He shivers as soon as it stops and starts to form into what looks like a human.

The smoke becomes clearer and what’s left standing is an exact copy to Sean but with ripped black jeans, a black shirt, gauges, and huge cut across his throat, blood oozing out of it.

He opens his eyes and I almost jump as his eyes are fully black but soon clear to Sean’s regular blues.

“O͜h̀, h̕o̕w ex̴cit̕i͠ng!̛"He giggles and starts to step towards me. "Mar͞ki̵m͡oo in͝ ͜th̴e̵ ̴fl̀e͟s͝h̵ an͘ḑ ̴his͜ ͝emo͡ ͠siḑek̡i̡çk̀…͡ ͡I͞'͝d t̷h҉ǫug͜ht you ͠w͝o͡u͢l͠d̴ be tal͢l͞eŗ.̸” His whole body glitches and then he’s behind me. He keeps going around me, glitching here and there… smelling me?

“Are you smelling me?” I ask but look towards Sean who is still rubbing his head.

“Yeah, he does that whenever he meets anyone. He’s like a damn dog…” He basically whispers the last part.

He finally stops glitching everywhere but is now in front of Dark. Oh god…

“Ah ͜an͝d͏ ̢Pa͟nic̕!At t́h͡e͘ D̷i̡sco h͜im͠sȩl̀f.̡..̵”

“I have a name.” Dark says, clearly irritated.

“̛Óh͜, I͘’m s͡orry͟ ͘Dar̛ki͘po̡o, ͠yǫu ̀k̸n̡ow̵ w͘ha͠t'͏s̶ r̶ea̢ļly̵ fu̵ņny̛?̴ U̧m ̕yeah͡,͘ ̷I̧ ̷do͟ń'̸t ̴ca͏r͠e.̨"̡

Dark seems to grow angrier and I can already tell…

This is gonna be a long weekend.

[shark-myths]

Church: Video Meta

This morning it is my great privilege to present a true piece of Peterick scholarship: an intensive examination of the Church video by my dear @leyley09!

I came into the FOB tumblr fandom (as opposed to all those ‘normal’ people out in the world) via two screen-based fandoms - Sherlock and Supernatural - so I am used to overanalyzing camera angles, immediate cuts, and music layered over images. And with a song and a video like Church, it’s impossible not to put some of that to use.

It’s important to remember with any kind of film media that someone has chosen what we are seeing. No one does anything in a single take. Multiple versions of every shot were filmed, and someone specifically selected the ones we get to see because those shots do the best job of telling the story that person wants us to ‘hear’.

For most films or tv shows, that’s generally the director, possibly with some writers or producers thrown in depending on the project. We at The Peterick Institute would like to point out that rumor has it Pete exerts a lot of creative control over the music videos. I’m going to go with “someone” and let you all jump to your preferred conclusions.

continued below the cut!

  We open with one of our protagonists approaching a building before running into Pete. On a surface plot level, there is no purpose for Pete in this scene. The first few seconds were enough to establish that this guy is someone we’re supposed to be watching. So what is the point of having him run into Pete and drop his phone?

Since you’re reading this post on this blog, let’s assume there’s a deeper explanation, shall we?

It could be that the protagonist is a representation of Pete. They are dressed in similar colors. This guy is approaching a building that Pete appears to be leaving. He could be representing a younger version of Pete, one who is on his way into the phase of life that “current” Pete is exiting.

But what about the phone?

The dropping of the phone could represent the temporary loss of communication, which we all know was pretty much the hiatus.

Let’s move on to the building. First point - that is not a church. I've spent way too much of my life in "church", and churches don't have walls like this:

You know what does? Mausoleums (which was nicely confirmed in the behind the scenes video)

There is a major difference between a church and a mausoleum. You go to church to worship. You go to a mausoleum to lay someone to rest. (“you only get what you grieve” … )

(And sure, maybe they just picked it because of the cool stained glass, but how disappointing would that be?)

Let’s go back to that initial image for a second:

That’s right, humans of all sorts, that’s Patrick Stump looking like a Byzantine icon.

Ex: One of my favorite icons from the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. (Patrick’s just got a bigger halo.)

In addition to reinforcing the idea of “holiness” - in western/Christian iconography, only the most holy (“you’re holy to me”) are given a halo - a big, bright circle also does an excellent job of drawing your attention to whatever is inside it. It’s like a bright white bullseye.

Patrick is not the only one who gets caught dead-center in this halo. Less than a minute into the video, so does Pete:

What else is happening at this precise point? Patrick is singing "swallow it for me".

Let me repeat an idea from earlier: someone decided that this ^^ is the mental image you should pull up every time Patrick sings "swallow it for me". (I’ll wait while you process that.)

While Patrick is singing the first verse and Pete’s being holy for swallowing (look, they said it, not me), we meet our other protagonist. Together, these two make up a pair of doomed lovers (the second pair of doomed lovers we’ve seen represented in music videos for this album alone). They appear to be of different ethnicities, which is still frowned upon by some (ignorant) people. So, perhaps they are symbolic of other "non-traditional" relationships?

We cut immediately from their affectionate reunion to this:

To run with our subtext, we’ve cut from Guy-representing-Pete kissing his girlfriend to Patrick in a halo singing “trust me that’s what I will be”.

“Oh the things that you do in the name of what you love” layers directly overtop our doomed lovers being spotted by someone spying from an upper level, someone who is not pleased to see them together. It’s clear they’re taking a risk being together in public, but people do a lot of things (make a lot of risky choices) when they’re “in love”.

Cut immediately to this:

For our surface level plot, Patrick in a coffin singing “you were doomed but just enough” is pretty obvious foreshadowing - this couple is doomed because someone is going to die. But why not throw a few extra layers of subtext on that, just because we can.

First, I want to introduce another layer of sub-plot. Remember Pete, from earlier? Leaving a mausoleum (a place you go to lay someone to rest, to grieve) for no apparent reason? Can it be a coincidence that Patrick is the *only* one we see in a coffin?

This Patrick here, this is not the current “version” of Patrick. This is not 2018 Patrick’s aesthetic. In addition to the suit jacket and the fedora, he has obviously had makeup applied. While this does also emphasize the idea that he’s supposed to be dead, it also harkens back to a time when Patrick had more pronounced cheekbones. (This is by no means a negative observation; people change over time in all sorts of ways, and THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT.) There has been some debate among the three of us contributing to this meta about what period this is supposed to represent, but personally, I don’t know that the specific time period matters. I think what’s important here is that a past version of Patrick has been laid to rest. WE WILL COME BACK TO THIS.

In addition to the foreshadowing for our doomed lovers, if that particular line is supposed to throw back to anything besides "I'm half doomed and you're semi-sweet", I don't know what it is.

Let’s move on to The-Guy-In-Charge.

We at The Peterick Institute refuse to think it is anything less than intentional that this guy appears in a similar outfit to that worn by “God” in the Youngblood Chronicles. Someone with a lot of power who walks into a “church” to punish people for a forbidden behavior? That’s a pretty common viewpoint. He’s also making a “prayer” gesture with his hands post-phone call. But it’s not exactly like “God”, is it? It’s just the outer layers that are the snappy white suit. Underneath, he’s wearing a dark shirt. To me, that reads as someone who just thinks they’re god - someone who thinks they’re that important, thinks they rule over your whole world… someone like a record label executive who might think they get to decide who you can and can’t be romantically involved with in public, perhaps?

Plus the ‘villain in a white suit’ trope is very common to Pete’s favorite pop culture time period. And when has Pete ever been able to resist a pop culture reference?

FUN FACT INTERRUPTION:

If you pause just right, you can get Pete making this face at the same time Patrick’s singing “I’d get on my knees”, which isn’t related to anything really, it just makes me giggle.

Next, our “villains” enter directly out of a bright light - bit like the “light at the end of the tunnel”, yes? This really just reinforces the idea that this is some kind of “divine justice”....or at least justice that thinks it is divine.

Our star-crossed lovers attempt to escape. They clearly know that this was a possibility. They knew being together was dangerous. They must have thought they were safe in this crowd because they weren't being the slightest bit discreet, but they weren't.

It’s fairly easy to see that, while they’re trying to hide in a back room, our lady protagonist takes off a necklace and puts it on her boyfriend. But it happens very fast, and it’s difficult to see what’s on the chain. It took me several viewings and a lot of frame-by-frame skipping to figure it out -- it’s a ring. (Seriously, just when I think this video can’t get any more painful.) She pulls it out from underneath her choker, so it’s something she was hiding.

These two aren’t just hiding a relationship, they’re hiding the nature of that relationship, the seriousness of it. So why reveal it now? And even better question, why follow the ring with a shot of Patrick in the coffin?

You've got to have a lot of nerve to drag someone out into a group of people, into a well-lit public setting, AND THEN KILL THEM. These guys had the perfect opportunity to stab our protagonist in the back room, and Guy-In-Charge chose to drag him out of there, shove him into the crowd (getting everyone's attention), and then stab him. That's a helluva statement. That isn’t a small statement for a small audience ("I don't want you to be with this particular guy"); that’s a big statement for a public audience (“this is what happens to people who don’t follow the rules”). This is someone being made an example in order to scare other people.

When our hero gets stabbed....he doesn't bleed right. That's not what fake Hollywood blood looks like; that's not what actual human blood looks like. I’ve seen some suggestions that it’s glitter. It is sparkly. But frankly, even if there’s glitter in it, the color/consistency looks a lot like the shitty grape juice I've spent most of my life drinking for Communion. (**After seeing the BTS video, there’s definitely a liquid involved.) WE WILL COME BACK TO THIS MOMENTARILY.

The last thing you see in this video is Patrick-in-the-coffin. Not the woman who's just seen her boyfriend murdered, not the two of them together in some kind of Romeo-and-Juliet style final embrace. No, the last thing you see is what appears to be a younger version of Patrick laid out like a wake. That's the impression they have chosen to leave us with, the one image they want to linger on our minds along with the final line of the song, “I’d get on my knees, yeah”.

So we’ve seen one layer of story - a pair of lovers torn apart against their will, a couple who are willing to risk everything to be together, a relationship that ends in conflict due to outside forces. If you’re familiar with shark-myths’ Tryst Theory, this could not fall any more in line. (If you’re not, um, this is basically it without the details.)

And underneath this surface layer, we have a past version of Patrick being laid to rest with only one visible mourner:

And the thing that we are supposed to associate most with this “dead” Patrick?

 “I’d get on my knees”

He sings some part of that line four times from the coffin, five times if you want to count the final “yeah” after the last actual lyric.

(If you’re curious about the other things coffin!Patrick says, it’s “you were doomed but just enough” 2x and “confess my love”, so feel free to read into that however you’d like.)

Now that we’ve done our scene-by-scene breakdown, what are some other themes we’re seeing in this story?

First, I promised to address this:

Pete singing along is not a new phenomena, for sure, but singing along to a line like “confess my love” is….interesting, to put it mildly. It puts us at The Peterick Institute in mind of this quote from Patrick: “I don’t think Pete thinks of himself as a bass player. I think he thinks of himself as a singer. He sings through me.” What a lovely demonstration of Pete using Patrick’s voice to express himself.

Next, I want to touch briefly on how little we see Joe and Andy in this video. While that used to be (unfortunately) more common, more recent videos have been better about giving screentime to these guys. This was one of the first things I noticed watching this video the first time through. You're nearly halfway through the video before Joe or Andy get their first close up or solo shot, and neither of them gets centered on that halo like Pete and Patrick do. Andy gets closest, but it looks more like an accident, just because the drums are set up in front of it. It’s not the nicely centered in the frame kind of shot that both Patrick and Pete have. In addition, neither of them play any part in the coffin!Patrick subplot whatsoever, which also reduces their screen time.

This is interesting mostly as it relates to Pete. Patrick is the one signing; by default, he becomes the center of attention. One would expect the majority of the “concert” screen time to go to him. Additional “concert” screen time should be split fairly equally between the rest of the band. It is not.

You have two options for why that is. 1) The people-making-decisions are idiots and assumed that everyone would rather look at Pete than any of the other guys, or 2) it's intentional. What's the point of making the people you see most in the video besides our doomed lovers Patrick and Pete? Gee, I wonder.

 Communion --

I mentioned Communion earlier while discussing the not-blood we see when our protagonist is stabbed. I think that’s a very relevant point. For one thing, it’s one of the main rituals associated with “church”. For many believers, that ritual confers a degree of holiness upon you when you participate in it. You’re supposed to confess and repent of your sins before you take Communion; for at least that brief moment, you’re as holy as you’re going to be. (At least in the tradition I’m familiar with.)  

In addition, Communion is a fairly common part of a lot of funeral services, which is also very appropriate for our setting and subplots here.

And it’s not the first time this has come up:

In case you’re wondering why I chose only these two images, it’s because there aren’t matching images for Joe and Andy. You get a shot that is probably supposed to imply that they participated, but you never actually see them do it. (And shhh, don’t tell me that it’s probably for the same reasons you don’t see Andy eating/drinking/doing drugs in Young Volcanoes, shhhh.)

In my experience, two people dressed in white up in front of God taking Communion…...are getting married. (My dad wore a white tux in my parents’ wedding, so...)

 Death/Rebirth --

This is not an idea that is new to this album. A quick glance back at SRAR and the Youngblood Chronicles is plenty of evidence of that. We’re connecting it directly to the images of a past!Patrick though. The fact that Patrick is made to look so different in the coffin than he does in the “performance” shots is a huge visual clue.  As I mentioned earlier, I personally don’t think it matters which period of time this past!Patrick represents for each of us. What matters for the metaphor is that a past version of Patrick is dead/gone/doesn’t exist any more. As someone who was overly-churched, it reminded me a little of the idea that Christians are (IDEALLY) supposed to "die to the world" -- leave ideas/behaviors that aren't church-compliant behind them, in the past, as they are "reborn" into a sparkly new-and-improved version of themselves.

We’ve seen Patrick do this before in the Save Rock & Roll video, where he rejects the [brainwashed] version of himself and ends up in heaven, in a new-and-improved (AND WHOLE) version of himself.

To me, the depiction of a past version of Patrick - AND ONLY PATRICK - as being dead is big, huge jumping-up-and-down-with-pom-poms metaphor that the version of Patrick we’re being shown in the coffin doesn’t exist anymore.

As we at The Institute debated this issue, I received the following message from @shark-myths:

“The idea of possibilities dying out and ending *in order for them to be rejuvenated* is so key here. Like, they were doomed from the start and have always been each other's certain doom, and they destroyed each other and the band, and then impossibly and against all odds they ROSE AGAIN TOGETHER. Now there are no limits.

if you believe in peterick no end is final and no death is real.”

I read that email, minimized my browser, and looked right at this on my wallpaper slideshow:

“No end is final” indeed

To borrow one of my favorite pop culture quotes:  "And what do we say about coincidence?" "The universe is rarely so lazy."  

  Thank you Leyna!!! Your contribution to scholarship will live on forever. Just like Peterick. 💜💜💜