#so in wondering if it got targeted for the protagonists being two dads and their chinese daughter

[dollfat]

yo this cosmic horror has stephen universe in it

[parachutingkitten]

Y'all suck at dissecting Kai's character, so I guess I have to do it.

And I'm not even a Kai stan. He's a bottom tier ninja for me, which I guess means you can trust me, cuz I'm not biased, but also why am I the one doing this? I don't know about y'all, but recently on my dash, the method by which Kai fans try to make him sound good is... saying the writers hate him, ignore him, and that he isn't written well? Which... I mean there is a little bit of truth to, but like yikes guys, is this the best you got? Kai is a wonderful character with plenty of attention from the writers, a meaningful piece of the cast when put in secondary rolls, fairly consistent character writing with actual progression and valuable qualities that help the team without having to be the smart one- despite what some posts might tell you.

Let's get one thing cleared up: Ninjago isn't the best written show. By high level Hollywood standards, most the character arcs are kinda weak or too heavy handed, character consistency can be iffy, and most things serve the plot rather than the characters. There is no character you can point to and say "wow, this character is written so well! No complaints!" Nya and Jay were butchered by their weird love plot, Cole's one season doesn't actually give him an arc, Zane's been nothing but the robot numbers guy for like 10 seasons now, and Lloyd seems to be incapable of doing anything but relive the same one piece of dad angst for depth. Sorry, it's true. All the characters suck when you look at it from a large scale writing perspective. So when I say Kai is well written, I mean by ninjago kids show standards- cuz that's the scale we're working on. No, you couldn't drop Kai into a well written drama, but as far as ninjago goes... he's got a lot going for him, and by no means is he the biggest victim of poor writing.

(fair warning, wall of text below)

The title is a bit disingenuous. There are plenty of good Kai character break downs. What I am presenting here is a more positive perspective. On the whole, I will tend to give the writers the benefit of the doubt, and credit for what they do right writing is hard guys. That's what I'm doing here. I don't see much sense in getting mad the writers on behalf of Kai, or any other character. Ninjago is a simplistic ensemble show that works because of the identifiable simplicity of its main characters with some deeper layers hidden underneath if you keep watching. They've given us a damn good show with some damn enjoyable characters, so here are some criticisms I feel are a little flawed:

First, let's get the 'focus' thing out of the way. Apparently there are people saying Kai doesn't have a season yet? Which... what? I mean, I get that the pilots aren't a full season, the first two seasons, though he is the central protagonist, aren't "Kai seasons" as we've come to define ninja focus seasons, season 7, though he gets majority focus, he shares with his sister. But like... did y'all just forget about season 4? You know, the season where he had the title card, was on the box sets, got the love interest, and the majority of the A-plot? not to mention it's the best season don't @ me Like... if season 4 isn't a Kai season, I can make a damn good argument that season 3 isn't a Zane season, and I doubt anyone wants to go down that rabbit hole. I really can't wrap my head around this one. And I get that the fandom hates season 11 for some reason, but like you can't just pretend it doesn't exist. Kai has a consistent arc across 30 episodes in which he takes his powers for granted, loses them, and learns that, not only does he have value within the team without them, but that his element is intrinsically a part of him that he reclaims, bringing them back more powerful than ever, and with new respect for them. That's one of the most solid arcs in the whole series- the location is even thematically connected to his element. That's some good stuff right there! (Quick plug for season 11 if you haven't watched it in a while. Give it a rewatch, you might be pleasantly surprised)

Not to mention the writers give him fun side stuff all the time. Lots of fears of tech and water to overcome, a deep protective streak with Lloyd, becoming a chancellor, having a true potential actually relevant to the plot as a whole, blacksmith responsibilities, befriending dragons, hanging out with his dad. Not to mention actual focus stuff we haven't talked about yet, like his whole "my dad is evil" phase, and his "I might be evil" phase with him and Skylor. And on top of that, even when he doesn't have an explicit side plot, he's always just a fun and dynamic side character to make jokes or give exposition.

Now, into character stuff. Let's start with Kai's hot headed-ness. Some people say he's been loosing this quality, and I will admit, that's true! But those that claim this makes him inconsistent... I strongly disagree. In early seasons, Kai's temper would lead him to snap at his friends or make stupid decisions that set the team back (see episode 2 Zane freak out)- these are bad things. These are character flaws, yes? Now, in newer seasons, people say that he's inconsistent, cuz sometimes he'll be hot headed, and sometimes he won't. I'd say, this is exactly how being hot headed... works? It flares up without warning, and as an individual gets control of it, it'll pop up less and less often because they're channeling it into productive things - like say directing the anger towards an enemy (see season 11 end freak out). Kai has gained control of a character flaw, and though it still pops up on occasion, the fact that it's a once in a while kind of thing speaks to his growth. I have a little brother who has this exact personality, and watching him grow up, I can tell you, this is how it is. He used to snap all the time, and he still does sometimes, but much less frequently, because he's a more mature person with better control of his emotions. This is a good thing. This is overcoming personal flaws. This is progression we're seeing.

And while you're hyper focused on this one aspect of him, things like his cocky confidence haven't changed a bit. I mean, that season 3 bit between him and Pixal, and his season 11 "fire maker" streak have the exact same energy. You can not convince me otherwise.

Another adjacent quality that hasn't been dampened is Kai's impulsiveness. This can be a good quality of his, he'll get into a fight without thinking, getting the jump on the enemy. Good stuff. But, this has become such a well defined trait of Kai's that it has been used in a comedic capacity. This is what happens when a character is extremely consistent to the extent that both the audience and the characters in universe would be able to predict their actions. Kai's impulsivity used to be a more serious quality that put himself and others at risk, and was a big power move whenever he did something rash, but it's become such a staple of the show that it's now being used for comedy. That isn't Kai's impulsivity going away, that's Kai's impulsivity being recontextualized for the sake of the show. The season 9 "Who's stupid enough to jump on that thing" isn't a joke at the expense of Kai just for being dumb, it's a joke at Kai's being so predictably impulsive that everyone already knows he'll be the one to put himself in an insane amount of danger without thinking twice (you know, something stupid that might get him killed). But because in this instance, the danger is warranted, this is bravery. It's a complement to his character- it's what ends up defeating the colossus. Why are some people so bothered by this joke?

Oh right, cuz for some reason people want to peg Kai as the smart one? Look, Kai isn't stupid, none of the ninja are. All of them have smart moments (all of them have dumb ones too) and Kai can certainly handle himself, but "smart" is definitely not one of his defining characteristics- I think some people are confusing smart for his actual strength. Connected to his impulsivity, Kai has very good simplistic instincts. He sees the big picture and looks at the most surface level solution- which when the situation calls for it, that does indeed make him smart. But the same logic that led him to think "This snake has a glowing target on its head, lets hit it" also led him to think "I'm in a video game, therefore I am immortal." Are you really going to look at me and say he figured out Lloyd was the green ninja through logical deduction and a careful consideration of the facts? No. He had a gut feeling, and he trusted it. Instincts- instincts paired with his impulsive following of said instincts is what leads him to solve problems- and sometimes, that can be extremely effective. This goes for other ninja too. Jay isn't the smartest ninja- I would really only classify Zane and Nya as having intelligence define them (hence their ship name). But Jay is extremely creative and crafty. He also knows his was around mechanics, and as such, this will lead him to come up with creative tech based solutions which are smart. But, idk about you, if I had to point to another ninja as being 'dumb' it would 100% be Jay. Kai is a lot of things. He's passionate and determined and confident and persistent. He's a good improvisor, he's powerful and he's charming! These are all wonderful qualities, he doesn't also have to be the smart one. I am the worlds biggest Pixal stan, and she's a smart, sassy, powerful character, but I'm not gonna sit here and tell you she's also hilarious and adaptable and strong willed. She's a straight man to all the ninja's antics, extremely tied to her samurai x suit, and lets people push her around all the time. That doesn't mean she can't be funny, or self interested, but when she does act these ways, it stems from her other more prominent qualities. That make sense?

And while we're clearing up what Kai isn't, please stop characterizing Kai as an overly protective brother - especially romantically. The only two times he's been romantically protective to Nya are in Wu's Teas which I mean, come on and in the pilots when Jay is literally a stranger. For crying out loud, by the end of the pilot, he's smiling when Jay and Nya hug. That's not overly protective, that's just normal, any reasonable person would react this way, protective. And it's such a great stereotype break for a kids show like ninjago, having an older brother who actually trusts his younger sister to be her own independent person who can make her own decisions. I mean, I guess it's fine if you HC differently but like... idk, I don't buy it.

Now, is there still room to criticize the writers? Yes. Hell yes. But not to an extent greater than any other character. Could he have had more of a defined reaction to events of the most recent season that I won't name for the sake of spoilers? Yes. But could Zane have reacted for more than .5 seconds at being an evil war lord for apparently 60 years? Yeah. Has Kai taken a back seat in the past 4 seasons? Yeah. But so has Lloyd- and he's literally the main character of the show. Not to mention two of those seasons have gone to people who had to wait over ten seasons to get one to themselves, and one of them is a 40 minute special. Kai's doing just fine.

Anyway. Kai is great. He's a fun, stereotype breaking, impulsively driven, ball of energy and confidence who gets a good amount of screen time and some fun side plots.

One last thing to clear up: no hate to anyone. This isn't targeted at anyone specific, this post has been a long time coming, I've just seen some weird overblown claims on various platforms over the past few months and I finally sat down to write about it.

I like the Kai content we have. After all, if the writers were really that bad at writing him, then no one would like him.

Wow this was so much longer than I thought it would be. Um... if you have other long winded rants you'd like to see from me... let me know I guess?

[whats-rambled-rambled]

Long Nights - part 7

Neil x Reader

Chapter 7: Wicked game

(see chapter 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1)

summary: it’s time to come back to life, and sometimes it involves Neil dragging you to a social event

warnings: 18+, language, alcohol mention (beer is considered alcohol, right?)

author’s note: 3k words. It’s not exactly what I had in mind for that chapter, but they have a mind of their own, as always. 

Almost there.

The song for this part is Stone Sour - Wicked Game (acoustic, live)

Enjoy and let me know what you think, please? All feedback is greatly appreciated.

——————

Tag list: @cxnnienikas​ @neutron-stars-collision​ @ergunbilge​ @invertedneil​ @wanderedaway​ @i-wanna-b-yours​ @wonderwoman292​ @buckysgoldenheart​ @townmoondaltwistle @theriverbeneaththeriver​ (please let me know if you want to be added/removed from the list)

-----

It didn’t matter how many times you saw him do that, the effect the sight had on you was pretty much always the same. Filling your mind with thoughts that were quite counterproductive, one could say.

The veiny patterns covering hands and forearms. The long fingers running through the buttons. The tilted chin, extending the neck, drawing attention to that impossible jawline. The slight pout. The brows drawn together in concentration--

You smacked your tongue and shook your head

“Y’know what, those shirts of yours are so rude, but the way you wear them, the rolled-up sleeves?”

Neil looked at you through the reflection in the mirror, puzzled. “What about them?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely disrespectful,” you sighed heavily and leaned against the door frame.

Playful lights danced in the blue eyes. “Oh yeah?” he teased, giving himself a final glance-over before turning to you. “And what you’re gonna do about it?”

“Nothing,” - you shrugged, crossing your arms - “because you insist on dragging me to a social event.”

The faint resentment ringing in your last words didn’t get lost on Neil.

“So boring of me,” he said as he closed the gap between you, trying to keep a straight face. He put his hands on your waist and smirked. “But maybe after that we can come back here and continue the conversation.”

As you fixed his collar, a shade of smile hid in the corner of your mouth.

“Really wanna listen to me listing all the things that drive me mad about you, huh?” you asked smugly, gliding your fingertips along the delicate stripes of the greyish beige shirt.

Neil’s thumbs brushed over your hip bones as he hummed, “I have a feeling it might lead to a rather pleasant conclusion.”

When you let out an amused scoff, his lips captured the snarky comment that was bound to follow. He pulled you closer and lifted you up, and the next second you were sitting on the edge of a vanity cabinet, breathless from the kiss, tugging at the striped shirt.

A buzz right next to you.

You jumped, startled, and glared at the phone. “Is it too late to tell Matthias the Uber driver that we’re not going anywhere?” you asked without too much hope as you nuzzled your face to Neil’s neck, breathing in his scent, unwilling to let this moment end too quickly.

Neil chuckled and stroked your arms. “Come on, it’s gonna be fun.”

You still didn’t know where he was taking you - he’d assured you that it would be casual, and that was basically all you cared about. He knew you enough, and you trusted his judgement, after all.

“It better be,” you pouted, pulling back, but as soon as you met the bright blue eyes your heart sang in your chest. After spending all that time in the darkness, not sure if you’d ever see his face again, you caught yourself taking an extra second every now and then, just looking at him. How the light played on his features, now soft in the elaborately illuminated hotel bathroom. How his lips curled whenever he found your gaze. How utterly stunning he was.

Smiling gently, you ran your fingers through Neil’s disheveled mane, taming the blonde mess if ever so slightly.

“Let’s not keep Matthias waiting, then,” you sighed and slid off the cabinet.

-------

The afternoon was quite warm for late autumn. As you were arriving at your destination, you watched the sun shining through the scarce leaves left on the trees, adding vibrance to their colours. Too mesmerized to pay attention to the route, you recognized the place only when the car stopped. The training site. You turned to Neil in confusion, but he just wiggled his brows and proceeded to thank the driver and got out of the car. You followed him out and right through the gate of the now-empty paintball outdoor facility which served as a front for the agency’s base, hidden a bit further inside the forest.

“Picking up something on the way?” you asked, matching his pace as you strolled towards the training grounds.

Neil shook his head and smiled mysteriously. “Not really.”

“Alrighty then, keep your secrets,” you snorted, rolling your eyes. “Aren’t we a tad overdressed for a little playground fun, though?”

“A rematch?” he pondered and smirked. “Didn’t plan on that, but it’s tempting.”

Indeed. “I’m kinda out of shape, but keep those baggy trousers on and I’m game - wanna beat you fair and square again.”

Neil let out an exasperated huff. “Baggy?! They might be a bit loose but --”

You giggled at his offended expression as he got busy looking down at the target of your remark, ready to defend his fashion choice. Your laughter was enough to stop Neil in his tracks, and when he met your playful gaze, he reached out and drew you into his arms for a tight hug. After a brief moment of perplexity, you eased into his embrace, moved by the force of sudden affection.

When he pulled back, you touched his cheek. “What was that for?” you asked, searching the blue eyes, but finding nothing but joy there.

“Being cheeky.” He scrunched his nose while tapping the tip of yours. “And brilliant,” he added, and for a second you were sure there was something else he wanted to say; instead, he laid a gentle kiss on your lips. “And maybe stalling a minute longer before I’d have to share you with all these people.”

You gaped at him, about to ask what people, but Neil already grabbed your hand and led you around the corner of the building - and you heard them even before you spotted them.

“Oi, there they are!”

“Finally!”

“We’ve just considered sending a rescue party in case you got lost in the woods!”

The unexpected eruption of cheers and greetings made your fight-or-flight reflexes kick in, but as you instinctively took a step back, Neil squeezed your fingers reassuringly.  

A split-second exchange of looks.

All right?

When he saw your tiny nod, he let go of your hand, focusing on the team gathered at the makeshift chillout zone. “Not everyone has your poor sense of directions, Seb,” retorted Neil, flashing his teeth in a grin.

The young man’s protests got drowned in laughter as you approached the group together.

"Luckily not the case with our rogue here,” said Ives, elbowing his way in between other people. He shot you both a disapproving look, toned down by a smile dangling in the corner of his mouth. "Really, roofs? Didn't know you had it in you, mate."

"Me neither,” admitted Neil, going in for a clasp of hands and a brief hug. “When I saw that gap, I was sure that was it. Someone convinced me otherwise."

“The secret is to avoid looking down,” you shrugged, meeting the commander's amused gaze.

"Thanks for bringing our favourite nerd back in one piece." As Ives extended his hand, there was something serious about his expression, mixed with a sense of relief, and you realised he must have been in the response team Neil had called for help.

“My pleasure.” Beaming, you shook his hand. “Thanks for providing backup.” And scraping me off the pavement.

Neil’s gasp was almost theatrical. He smirked and nudged Ives lightly. “Aw, I’m your favourite?”

“Careful, that privilege may be revoked any minute,” grunted Ives in a weak attempt at keeping up appearances, but he couldn’t fool anyone. Now that you had a chance to observe them in the after-hours situation, the bond between the two men was clear as day, and your heart warmed up at the thought.

Waving back at Mahir, you scanned the group for other familiar faces. Wheeler, a couple of people you recognized from the HQ halls, and a bit isolated from the others - the big man himself, manning the barbecue station.

Overwhelmed by the attention you got from the team, you excused yourself and walked up to The Protagonist. You couldn’t help but smile at the confident vibe he radiated with as if he spent every weekend doing nothing but this.

“So dad of you, boss.”

He flopped a sizzling piece of meat to the other side, glancing at you humorlessly.

“How are you feeling?” he asked with polite concern.

“Grand, healed up nicely, thank you.” You circled your shoulder and grinned. “Not in a marathon condition, mind you, but that’s not exactly new.”

“That’s good, Neil was worried about you.”

Not sure if it was the lack of eye contact or something else in his presence, but you decided to stop ignoring the gut feeling.

“You don’t like me,” you said, tilting your head. A mere statement of the fact; you weren’t hurt, only curious. “It’s okay, you don’t have to, just been wondering why.”

TP sighed heavily. And when he finally met your gaze, the dark eyes were sad, only deepening your confusion.

“I’m sorry.” Then something cracked and a shiver ran down your spine, because suddenly, in front of you there was a man who’d seen a lot, suffered too much, and cared even more. The weight of it all slumped his shoulders, and for a short while, he seemed almost helpless. Taking a quick look at the hollering group, he sighed again. “It’s not your fault, it’s--“ he hesitated, searching for the right words. As he found them, there was no sign of the vulnerability from a moment earlier. “It’s a stressful business.” He sent you a crooked smile. “And I’m still mad about that watch.”

The lie was obvious. But the things you saw in his eyes made your chest clench painfully, and…did you really want to know?

Besides, that might have been a truce offering, and you weren’t bent on holding a grudge. Not with him, anyway.

“Hey, wasn’t it technically your idea?” you grinned, shrugging off the weird sense of dread.

A smile finally reached the dark irises. “I guess it was,” he admitted and patted you on the arm. “There’s some beer in the mini-fridge, could you --”

“On it.”

When the clank of bottles sealed your peace treaty, you caught Neil’s happy stare. You pointed at the beer in your hand in a question and he nodded, so you grabbed one more and joined him and the others.

That unfortunate mission must have been some sort of rite of passage in these guys’ eyes because out of the blue, you were no longer an outsider. The Cavalry accepted you with open arms as one of their own, and you couldn’t wrap your head around it. It was a nice feeling, though. Like you belonged. You saw some curious glances, but they came from a good place, and even the suspicious voice in your mind gave in under the cordial, jovial energy of the group.

Soon enough, you were joking with a young medic, having a balancing stand-off with Wheeler, or listening to crazy stories from some old operations, until everyone had enough booze in their systems that allowed them to direct some of the questions to you, as well.

“So is Neil a decent locksmith now?”

You puffed out your cheeks in a musing grimace, but when you spotted Neil’s raised brow, you started laughing. “I’d say even more than decent. Honestly? I don’t think there’s much more that I can teach him, he needs to polish his skills in real life now.” Mocking a teary sniff, you added, “They grow up so fast!”

Nobody would know that you did so while actively ignoring a faint sting in your heart.

You refrained from meeting the attentive blue eyes, though. Just in case.

“Oh cool, then what about a little contest?” Seb clapped his hands cheerfully. “You versus Neil, we could time you, and to make it fairer we could put a blindfold on you --” as he stopped for a breath, he realized - with some help from Wheeler’s elbow to his side - the slight faux pas.

But you barely acknowledge a curse and a mumbled apology cutting through the awkward silence, too busy exchanging amused looks and stifled giggles with your student.

“Neil, would you like to explain?” you asked, schooling your features.

He bowed his head as if he was accepting a great honor. “Gladly.” Neil took a deep breath and his eyes lit up. “See, my dear friend, had you known anything about lockpicking, you’d learnt that sometimes it’s easier to do that with, for example, your eyes closed. You need to listen to what the lock has to say because it’s all about feedback--”

You watched as Neil gave a full lecture, citing your own words from what seemed to be a lifetime ago. He did it with passion and understanding of the craft you’d never dreamed to see in someone else, and yet was so familiar when it came to him. Absentmindedly, you placed a hand over your chest, as if it was enough to stop it from bursting.

You couldn’t be more proud.

Neil finished his rant and looked at you, only to be met with all the appreciation and validation in your gaze, and he beamed even wider.

“All right, damn, we can cover Neil’s eyes then,” sighed Seb, a total resignation in his voice sparking a roar of laughter from the group.

----

As much as you enjoyed the energy of the team, your social batteries were getting drained, and you needed a moment for yourself before you could carry on.

Walking right outside of the periphery of light from the garlands, you let your gaze slide across the training equipment, now barely visible in the moonless night. The leaves crumbled under your feet as you smiled at the memories. Maybe one day you would actually complete the full run? You pulled on the sleeves of your sweater, hiding your hands from the cold evening air.

“Mind if I join you?”

You glanced over your shoulder at Neil, keeping his distance, ready to give you space. With him, it was always in the details he’d picked along the way, effortlessly weaving them into everyday life. “Not at all.”

Neil perked up and joined you in the shadows, inhaling deeply.

“Funny how the scent of the forest changes with the seasons,” he mused and you grinned, turning his way.

“That’s what I call a pick-up line,” you snickered and drew a long breath. “But you’re right, it’s too easy to forget that once you become a permanent city creature.”

He chuckled and lightly rubbed his hands up and down your arms.

“Are you warm enough?” he asked softly, fixing your oversized scarf.

“Yeah.” You brushed your cheek against his fingers, longing for his touch, now that you were somewhat hidden from the prying gazes. “You?”

Neil moved closer and wound one arm around your waist, then cupped your face gently, pressed his forehead to yours, and murmured, “Now I am.”

You hummed happily and slid your hands under his open jacket, resting them at his chest, and closed your eyes. Only then realizing how tense you were, you relaxed in his embrace, savoring his closeness. A steady heartbeat under your palms. The warmth carrying undertones of Neil’s cologne. A featherlike graze of his thumb over your cheek. His nose nudging yours.

But soon enough, you had to break a stolen moment. Trying to stifle a yawn, you hid your face in his shoulder to muffle the sound.

“Oh, my poor baby,” he cooed, biting back a giggle. “That tired?”

“I’m fine,” you mumbled against him on the verge of another yawn.

“Sure you are.” He kissed your temple. “The party’s almost over anyway, judging by decreasing amount of idiotic ideas per hour. Gonna call us a cab soon, all right?”

As you nodded, Neil tightened a hug and reluctantly let you go.

“Be right back, I’ll check if there’s any coffee left,” you said, gesturing towards the tables with beverages.

As your luck would have it, there was just enough for one sip.

A sudden sneer was enough to wake you up, though.

“Hell froze over.”

Mahir walked up to the mini-fridge to grab a beer and you met his mocking stare with furrowed brows.

“Vincent must be chattering his teeth now,” you joked, unsure where the conversation was heading. “Why?”

Mahir scoffed at the remark about your old associate, but he was still studying you closely, confusing you further. “Congratulations, by the way.”

“Dude, you’re killing me today,” you sighed, wiping a hand through your face. “Thanks, but what for?”

“You and Neil?”

And when you shot him a puzzled look, he waved his bottle at the place where you stood together a moment before.

Breaking out in a cold sweat, you deadpanned, “Oh.”

Bloody hell.

“I thought you weren’t doing the whole love thing anymore.”

The pulse pounded in your ears, although not loud enough to tune out the sirens blazing in your head.

No.

It came out harder than you felt it. “I’m not.”

No, no, no, no, no.  

Mahir grimaced doubtfully. “Uh-huh.” He looked over your shoulder at the team gathered together in the distance and raised a brow. “Does he know that?”

You couldn’t force yourself to follow his gaze. The panic drained your face of all colour, and that was enough of an answer for your friend.

“I see.” Mahir shook his head, losing the enquiring manner. His features softened as he patted your arm. “Neil’s a good guy.”

Please, no.

“They always are,” you choked out bitterly.

Not again.

“You know what I mean,” insisted Mahir, searching for your eyes.

That the history was not gonna repeat itself?

...or that he didn’t deserve any of it?

“Yeah. Maybe.” You faked a smile. “Excuse me.”

Pushing past him, you went inside the building. You needed to be alone.

Oh, the irony.

Weeks of deliberately avoiding the topic. Tricking yourself into thinking that you can keep it casual. That it didn’t matter that much. That it was nothing but a self-indulgent fling.

You couldn’t breathe.

Lesson learnt, huh?

Barging into one of the restrooms, you got to a sink. Clenching your hands on the cold ceramic, you fought nausea tearing through your body.

Pathetic.

The gasp for air turned into a sob.

...and then everything went quiet.

You raised your eyes to the mirror.

Your reflection was staring back at you with determination.

It was time.

(next chapter ->)

[fullmtal]

once i’m done going through everything i really am going to write about how the mustang squad, roy specifically, really is in a lot of ways without preference or bias, the dad figure edward desperately needed and gave so much to ed and al. and yes, i will be wanting threads with all f.ma people because honestly there is such variety no wonder its a masterpiece. but yeah like...there’s a reason roy is so important? i might reblog my meta on hohenheim but like...i’m a realist so i don’t think hohenheim’s apology came in time. that doesn’t mean ed doesn’t feel things for him and even love too, albeit confused love, not at all. he’s an immensely compassionate boy underneath all that snark and steel. why else is he the one considered a heart ‘unmatched’?

but literally the person who sparked fire back in ed’s eyes was roy and ed’s own will, but ultimately roy’s tough belief and recognition of ‘oh hey you’re not okay just like me and you’re a lot like me’ hit ed hard and got him to rise up again.

 no one else did that. no elric alive or still in contact did that. roy did. and when he joined his branch and his entire career in the military worked under him with reports? i mean i talked to folks and i noted that roy literally goes out in the rain when scar targets the elrics. he’s risking his life and he has a way bigger target on his back than ed does as the ‘hero of ishval’.

so it’s just....while it isn’t very obvious, it’s way more obvious in 03? the shaking of hands, the faith, the ‘why didn’t you ask for my help first?!’ scene? it is there. and i just think roy continued the entire story rocky as they can be, to propel ed in his own way. those two are people who love very, very hard. and ed honestly doesn’t know what to do with roy’s concern and being an actual adult that hasn’t let him or his brother down besides izumi and sieg. 

so yeah, he’s a bit freaked. but roy gave him the push he needed, and frankly i headcanon post pd that ed visits him as he recuperates / gets his sight back before beelining back to resembool to see winry and granny and den, and yes, he absolutely keeps contact with all of them. 

ed needed someone like roy at his lowest point and unlike all the adults who failed before? roy didn’t. it takes ed a long, long time to process that, but it makes it one of the most subtle and most important relationships to me honestly for both characters. when roy goes blind ed isn’t impassive, he’s /freaking out/. 

so yes, i think the two fill in things for each other in a familial, obviously platonic way that others can’t. and they’re so similar, passionate, brilliant, stubborn, and honestly they love intensely. and are willing to die any time for their loved ones. 

so yeah, i think at the end of the story roy is that person ed would call at four am. not by any means gradually. but eventually. at least in my portrayal. and mustang squad? is just all these big brothers / uncles / and a motherly figure that doesn’t detract from trisha. just like izumi / teacher. 

this relationship is just really important to me. it’s just done so well, and i was happy that when roy lost his way it wasn’t just riza there, ed wasn’t there as the token protagonist, he’s proven he is compelling for being ed and beloved for being ed not a shonen protagonist. 

...... ed was there because he’ll also be damned if the person who saw dead eyes in an eleven year old gains those same eyes but with the intent of murder. he may not be hawkeye, but that’s his not so idiotic superior officer and maybe something deeper, something familial that he’s terrified to touch. and he’s willing to risk being burnt by that. 

tl;dr: roy mustang was dad all along once things kicked off and fma is all about the family you find, and the family you learn to let go, hold onto, and accept, but also move forward. because you can’t change it.

[elizabethrobertajones]

Did Bobo really create the Wayward Sisters? If so, why weren't Jack and especially Cas included in that episode? That's my biggest issue with that pilot honestly, I mean, the fact that the show abandoned Claire and Cas' bond after season 10 and gave that storyline to Salmondean. Her bond with Cas is more interesting because of their connection to the Novaks. I also think that Claire and Jack would've made a more engaging dynamic and spin off together, I think they're strong characters & actors

Hi there!

Bobo isn’t the “creator” of Wayward so much as it can even have one, as it was a very organic idea, which even involved a healthy amount of fandom input. The original campaign in season 10 was for Wayward Daughters, and the idea picked up so much steam the altered title for, I guess, a mix of copyright and thematic relevance was the Sisters one. I’d say 10x08 was the real genesis of it as something that could be really solid. Once Kim and Briana were put together the chemistry and star power they could have had together was really meteoric as far as our small SPN world was concerned. Phil Sgriccia directed 9x13 and wrote 10x08 and was more of the parent of Wayward than any specific writer in that sense. Jody and Claire were pretty much common property of the show by that point. Claire was really introduced again in relation to plotlines and questions about Cas and less to do with them really going out of their way to re-launch her. I think they’d have been much cornier about it from the start and while YA protagonist diary writing her way through the end of Wayward Sisters was cute, it’s the sort of cutesy that really has to be earned. If she STARTED that way, like maybe me and 3 friends would be stanning her and everyone else would be revolted :P

(I am a YA fantasy novel author, but I do think everyone should make room in their hearts for this level of cheese)

In any case, Bobo just threw his hat into an already crowded ring with Alex, but obviously loving the characters and having his own personal wayward child to contribute did help elevate him to the prospective showrunner seat, but also all the other writers who’d written these characters except Dabb had left at that point. If Bobo was going to shepherd them through to their new show, he’d be the legacy writer, even though he was a new baby writer in the season Donna was introduced... Attrition aside, he did genuinely write them very well, loved their stories and was great with writing Jody when he could get her, so he would also have been a good choice even if all the others were left still... 

But anyway. Season 10′s subplot for Cas was about Claire and learning some stuff about himself along the way, but she was used very much for his personal development and for Dean as well, being a mini Dean herself in a season where he had lost a lot of his sense of self. It’s a total accident of scheduling but Angel Heart (10x20) being the last episode before 10x22 is a nice touch in that regard. And while Cas tried really hard with Claire and awoke his inner Dad side so that he’d be more prepared for fatherhood next time, it was pretty insurmountable between them to have anything more than a bittersweet relationship where the best he could do was make up with her and see her somewhere safe. The fact of him looking like her actual dead father is horrendous the more you think about it and while she managed to see him for who he was instead of a horrible monster, that’s more than enough trauma to inflict on an already traumatised girl for the sake of helping Cas’s manpain and tidying up the sticky question of Jimmy and Cas’s right to the vessel. 

Angel Heart very specifically ends with TFW mailing Claire to Jody because they know she’s already good with Alex in a genuine way and can handle these sort of issues and has done it before. And also because she can be a guardian who will not constantly remind Claire that her father is dead but something is walking around wearing a perfect reconstruction of his face. Carver era did a few things here and there with bodily autonomy and the problem of angel and demon vessels, but it was also really hit and miss. They’d get random waves of feeling guilty about it but then by necessity go back to stabbing angels in their still-living vessels an episode later. Claire was a way to address at the very least that whatever Cas was being put through was only a punishment on Cas and not on Jimmy as well, which is probably why we got such sappy Heaven scenes. We NEEDED to be shown he was in Heaven and largely okay with what was going on so that the show could justify using Cas at all as a character without breaking the code of ethics they tried to make their own characters adhere to. Aside from that it also gave Cas a side plot for when he wasn’t needed in the main plot, and any emotional connection to anything that wasn’t Sam and Dean.

Anyway 10x20 caused this huge fandom high which was followed by one of the lowest lows of the fandom immediately after, and both centred on female characters (in fact, now we know, 2 lesbians even! Though I’d wonder if, The Gay Agenda aside, Bobo spite-wrote that specifically because of the roots of Wayward) and I think that galvanised the whole movement of fans and hopefully some self-reflection in the show. They DID start making an effort in season 11, which shows some of the early signs of better inclusion but also backtracking or edging nervously away from the more intense Carver era stuff. Not just because Dean didn’t have the Mark any more but in general it was like someone had opened a window and let in some fresh air... Even before Carver bailed somewhere around the midseason to go do a different show and Dabb started to step up. 

All this to say that the Wayward stuff was always about the female characters and making up for the past sins of the show. It’s even a riff on the “wayward son” line which obviously centres around male protagonists and their journey. Claire stumbled into being a part of it in the lucky way of being in the right place and time, but the journey had already started even in the season 10 momentum with earlier work and it was that which suddenly made the prospect that Jody had two young women living with her now seem like a starter for the next generation of the show as it was a mirrored format to season 1 in a way, if you took Alex and Claire as the new Sam and Dean. It was exciting but people flipped out after Angel Heart because stuff had been bubbling since season 9 and earlier in season 10, so this was just pouring more candy into an already visibly full bowl of potential tasty gems. It made a possibility seem real that hadn’t before because we already had Kim bitterly complaining that the CW refused to hear the case for a Jody spin off because she was too old. The next best thing was a Jody spin off where she was the Gandalf to some CW age appropriate characters.

(the CW is and always has been garbage)

Anyway in season 13 Jack was introduced as a Claire 2.0 but as a male character with staying power for that reason, but he was filling the space she left for Cas. He couldn’t be a father to her and neither really wanted that set up anyway. But thematically it had created the possibility of Dadstiel and the space he had in his heart for that. Since the show was in its waning years they would be looking for endgame and handing Cas an easy win with a son he could unconditionally love who would love him back unconditionally absolutely filled that gap. It was a non SamnDean thing that Cas could have for himself outside of whatever happened with them. Not sure the memo came back that he was supposed to have mORE than that but oh well it’s not real if you don’t watch it :))) But yeah Jack was always going to be linked to Cas’s endgame, he wasn’t a free-floating character such as Jody who could go where she wanted and do as she pleased. He was main story relevant from start to finish and tied inexorably to another main character’s fate. Because the show wouldn’t do that with its female characters they could be bundled into spin offs but in practical terms Jack was both never what the Wayward as envisioned by fans or writers was about, nor would he have been free to go. 

Since it would have been about centering the stories of people overlooked by the main story, Claire a case in point that she had her life ruined in season 4 and it was a footnote until season ten, and then metaphorically more the concept of having queer and non-white characters in the mix of main characters, it would have represented a future of the story where the main show was unable to tread. Probably because of the CW. Also inherent biases in the writers. Bad cocktail. Jack is both too white and too male to fit the brief to ever leave SPN, and not only that but he is so as a precise mirror to the main white male characters, being passably any one of their sons if you squint, and meant to be instantly instinctively read as such... he was one of the safest bets of representing the show as the network wanted to imagine its target demographic.

So I really don’t think that Jack has any place being in a spin off of the show unless you want more of the same. They tried to give us something different and the CW didn’t like it because it wasn’t more of the same. Ironically a Jack spin off, with or without Claire, would have more chance of being greenlit and more chance of success. But the spin off they put their heart behind was Wayward Sisters as it was. And I think it was absolutely correct that never mind leaving Jack out of it after his work was done in the lead up episode to help set the table, but honestly they could have cut all the middle scenes of Sam and Dean wandering in the woods and gained precious seconds with the girls and still had a functioning story with those guys. It was like some cowardly missive was sent that the show couldn’t actually go more than 10 minutes without showing a flesh and blood Winchester or the whole thing would spontaneously sizzle out of syndication and the money tree would wither on the spot. And in the mean time, we could have been having Banter with the girls. Or Claire and Kaia holding hands some more. The good stuff :P 

[kdtheghostwriter]

SNK #133 - There They Go

No one:

The 104th:

The plane’s engines as our heroes hurtle toward certain doom:

Levi: Okay, but really, if I could get a spare moment to skewer Zeke like a kebob that’d be pretty cool.

Not that we needed a reminder, but Captain Levi is not allowed to beef it until he has confirmation of Zeke Jaeger’s cooling form. I don’t know if Hange actually thought that killing Zeke would end the Rumbling. They’ve made observations like this before. Not that it matters. Eren soon confirms what Reiner surmised in the plane. I’ll get to that later.

 I’ll be going out of order because the B thread takes up a small amount of panels comparatively and I want to get it out of the way so to speak. Annie, the kids and Kiyomi are sailing to Hizuru, presumably with the engineers in tow. We get confirmation of something that’s been hinted at to the point of it being more meme than meta. There was a Flying Titan, and the character named after a bird is the key to seeing it once again. Funny that.

Also, the Female Titan isn’t the ‘female’ Titan. At least, that’s what I gathered. Annie remarks that her Titan form didn’t have any special trait like the others so they conducted numerous experiments. One of their findings, apparently, was that this Titan form imitates the abilities of a Titan by eating part of it. So, it’s not the Female Titan, it’s the Kirby Titan. I mean, technically all Shifters are Kirby Titans but this one is specifically.

Anyway, because he ingested Zeke’s spinal fluid, young Falco was able to get a peek into the memories of a former holder of the Beast Titan. That holder was flying and Falco surmises he can, too. Annie not incorrectly points out that they’re on a literal boat that would surely capsize if he transformed. Kiyomi, feeling guilty for helping to arrange the initial meeting between the Jaeger Bros, says that she doesn’t care if the ship sinks. That’s all well and good but uh…hello? There’s mad people on this boat that probably don’t like the idea of sinking.

Anyway. Back to PATHS.

Okay I jumped the gun a bit. First some exposition by Reiner cleverly disguised as introspection. It’s a little of both, to be fair, but Reiner here is a vehicle for setting the table for our protagonists. Armin and more specifically Mikasa have a serious choice to make. Eren or the world. Reiner all but tells Armin that he’ll have to nuke Eren with his Colossal transformation. What’s more is that Armin agrees. Mikasa does not but it’s quickly revealed that she may not have another choice.

The line has, metaphysically, been drawn in the sand. No more words! I guess Eren got the memo of how little story is left. He even answered Armin’s question of why he didn’t turn off their Titan powers. All of them are free: he is free to destroy the world and they are free to stop him. The only way to stop him is to kill him. We suspected this but shout-outs to Eren for removing all doubt. Now it really is Eren or the world for Armin and Mikasa. Granted, we did see a flicker of the old Eren before the influence of the Founder took command, there’s no turning back to Eren now; it’s his own skin in the game. I’ve noted this before but the fact that he’s got no body inside the Titan head and this massive exoskeleton is jutting from his vertebrae says to me that this is his final act either way. Remember that Gabi decapitated him with an anti-armor round. If he wanted a new body, he could have just made one but no, it was this monstrosity that flew out of his evacuated neck.

I do wonder about Founder Ymir after this is over. Will she finally get her rest? She’s no longer bound by royal blood. Technically, she never was to begin with, only her obligation. Eren removed that obligation. He is now her vessel. Targeting Zeke is not a bad theory but he ultimately was not the one to give the order.

No, wait! I take that back because if you’ll remember he did give the order and Ymir ignored him. Eren is the one who started the Rumbling. Killing Zeke would do nothing except make Levi and his fans very happy. I think Reiner is on the right track saying Eren wants them to stop him but I’ll amend it a bit and say that he believes they can stop him. The two outcomes for Eren here are: he accomplishes his goal or is freed from his suffering. I don’t think it matters much to him which it is. Perhaps the biggest reason why the Alliance can still use their powers in the first place.

Oh, and Annie’s dad is still alive. I figured he was. With a few exceptions, Isayama usually doesn’t have dramatic deaths occur offscreen. Reiner’s mom has escaped along with them and dozens of other Eldians displaced by Eren’s apocalypse. They’re on a train, speeding up a plateau toward a hangar of spare airships. I say spare because most of them have taken off. They’re going on a bombing run with The Usurper and his front line in their sights.

It’s difficult to say how effective this will be. It won’t work, obviously, because none of our protagonists are in those airships but we will get some nice double spreads of wonton environmental destruction as tons and tons of explosives are dropped on tons and tons of monster. It’ll be a spectacle at least.

I will say as a minor critique that having Reiner wax poetic yet again on how he and Eren are the same and his squad and the 104th were the same is a bit redundant. I feel like we got that loud and clear on the night of the raid. It felt like sitting in IT: Chapter 2 when we were building up to killing the evil clown [slash] eldritch horror from space but we stopped right before the climactic battle to go through the Spook House again. It was much more egregious in the movie because the movie was over two hours. At least here I can read at my own pace but those panels felt superfluous.

I honestly have no idea how this ends. I know how it could end. For the first time in years, though, I’m not sure which direction we take. There are multiple different outcomes and at this moment it seems we are in a race to find the path that’s least depressing. The situation seems overtly bleak and barring some PATHS-fueled Deus Ex I don’t see that changing soon. The Alliance is flying to Eren. Falco will soon be flying to Eren. Armed warships are flying to Eren. Multiple combustible elements are converging on one spot. All according to keikaku.

Stray Thoughts

- Annie misses Armin and it makes sense when you recall that he talked to her almost every day for four years. They’re practically dating already. I hope she sees her dad again, but I also hope she and Armin get a chance to live quietly together in a place that hasn’t been flattened.

- Falco continues to be the goodest sweet boy. Annie was comically abrasive in return but that wasn’t unexpected either.

- Reiner was seconds away from telling Mikasa that she has to kill Eren, and I guess he must have sensed it, as he interrupted to tell them himself and remove all doubt. He doesn’t want her backing down from this and she won’t.

- Levi is in a near catatonic state. Being transported to the PATHS dimension doesn’t even phase him. Everyone else is heaving deep breaths and he barely registers being back. It joked earlier but I do hope he sees his mission through. It’s tough to see him this defeated.

[rheic-arts]

Just something I've been thinking about - hell knows I don't actually talk here much but tumblr is a wonderful place to spitball - is, like, Disney villains? How everyone waxes nostalgic for the queer-coded gems of the 90s renaissance and dismisses the modern twist villains? I have a theory.

First I reccomend checking out other posts and videos explaining the origins of the Hayes code and how only villains could be queer coded etc etc and that 'no rep is worse than bad rep' explains a tiny part of it. Those posts are way better written than mine and I'm tired.

Second is that villains just objectively get better songs and all are welcome to fight me on this but villain songs just slap so much harder.

But my theory comes in two parts. 1 - the old Disney villains were FUN, whereas new ones are SERIOUS. and 2 - campy, extravagant, loud and dangerous villains are a unique brand of queer *power fantasy*.

OK. Seriously. Old Disney villains were murderers, theives, backstabbers, tricksters and they fucking revelled in it. There was NO mistaking any second of screen time that these guys were having a blast being themselves - and as such anyone watching is going to be caught up in it! We're going to be entertained! Which is the point! Of a film! Arguably watching Ursula pull out ariels voice or Maleficent casting lightning from her tower was WAY more entertaining than the romantic tension between two leads we damn well know will snog at the end.

Modern villains like Bellwether and Callaghan spend most of their time onscreen pretending to be nice. They're still fulfilling their roles as antagonists, but now they're boring to watch because they're actively trying to come across as ordinary. Until their reveals - in which they show themselves (esp in Bellwethers case) as bad people. Which is less entertaining than a splash of real world depressing - like. Damn sheep lady if I wanted to watch lying rasicts get into power underhandedly I'd turn on the news.

Old Disney villains were escapism - camp, loud, entertaining escapism that let you live in a world where people can legitimately drop bangers out of thin air while monolouging about their planned regicide (be prepared) and it was the regicide that made you the villain, not the camp performance.

On to point 2 tho -

As a smol baby bi at the tender age of seven watched Jafar slay his eyeliner routine while manipulating the sultan, saw Ursula become a hundred feet tall with a deep booming voice and the power of all the seas, saw maleficent become a full on dragon and hook nearly stab a child onscreen - you know what that tiny child wanted more than anything? Especially given in mind she was seven and would have no concept of queerness for nearly a decade?

What that tiny child, who was connecting so much harder to the villains than the protagonists, wanted, was that kind of power.

Bear in mind im whiter than a snowflake so these films were absolutely targeting my demographic, but for ages I hated being asked if I wanted to be a princess. Like, no?! I wanted to be kick ass! I wanted people to notice me, respect me, be in awe at what I could do! Be Afraid Of Me!

(it is worth noting that I am extremely competitive and had just started karate. The thrill of paid for violence is intoxicating, but we're deviating from the point here.)

As I've grown older that wish for respect has mutated into an altogether healthier drive to do well at work and to generally be a good person. That wish for fear has made me killer at Halloween decorations and costumes.

But now that I'm 25, quite comfortably bi and experimenting with Agender pronouns, what brings me back to the old villains is that despite being drawn in the era where being LGBTQA+ on TV got you dead they were unabashedly themselves.

Look I barely have to code switch or pass for straight and have grown accustomed to my queerness in a wonderful age of acceptance, and I STILL find that kind of cackling-shrieking-delight a BALM for my soul. That kind of self acceptance, self CONFIDENCE, to be outwardly proudly different to the point of revulsion to the masses is such a power fantasy I can't even describe.

I can't imagine someone not becoming sick of hiding and hurting, sick of living a lie out of complete necessity, and not wanting that desperate karmic release of paying back that pain tenfold with no consequences. Damn right you should be scared of me! I'm everything you hate and I hate you right fucking back! The fantasy of dropping your moral compass into the dirt so you can finally feel good about your existence keeps me warm at night, and I'm the child who cried when my dad accidentally stole a CD because I couldn't bear the thought of getting in trouble.

Who doesn't look at 1959's sleeping beauty and just gaze in awe of how much Maleficent fills the frame and commands attention, respect, even as she inspires fear?

You're an absolute liar if quick witted, fast talking, God of inevitable death Hades didn't make you laugh in the way sassy gay besties do even as he tried to kill a baby. We're all going to die, might as well be as ourselves, right?

I've lost where I'm going with this. Just. I feel like new generations are seeing queer coded villains as 'being gay is bad' which was legit the intent in the 40's! While getting the most rep media wise in living history. It's like this unspoken ability to relate to the vibes in media while not condoning the villains actions (because its fiction. There's no need to condemn or not, because its a story and we had absolutely NO power to change the Disney megatitan trajectory, so we took what we could and ran with it) is slowly getting lost to takes so fucking flat that you could bowl some skittles across continents and not get a bump.

Idk, power fantasies about capes, eyeliner and having horns while committing crimes is very very cool. I'm going to go watch pirates of the carribean and look at the clothes I desperately want but will be forever too scared to buy. Cheers.

[wordsbynathan]

Character Profile: Neil Grant [The Psych Quartet]

Protagonist • 18 • Libra • INFJ • Fire {disaster gay//literal flaming homosexual//nature photographer//amnesiac with a desire for Justice™//often angery//mommy issues//impulsive as h*ck} [Character Tag]

Neil is a driven and compassionate person, stripped of his identity and seeking answers. His life has been split into Before and Now, which leaves him reeling, detached. He can be overly sensitive and a bit insecure, but he makes up for it in his desire to do what is right and to see the underlying beauty in the world. Though he can't remember anything about his past, he often finds himself viewing his surroundings with a photographer's eye, and he finds himself particularly drawn to the flora in the rooftop garden of Harmonium. Neil possesses a natural charm that comes through despite his capriciousness, and in his quest to uncover the truth, he finds himself drawing unwanted attention that could endanger his life in this new world.

So. Where to start with my literal biological child, Neil Grant, love of my life...

Neil’s got it rough. He wakes up in a cluttered office that reeks of coffee and some preppy French professor-looking guy tells him that his mom is dead and he’s also a superhuman. He’s had better days okay?

At first, he really struggles to adapt to this situation. After witnessing some senseless violence in the middle of his orientation, Neil is basically forced to accept the reality of his situation. It also helps that his roommate is super hot. So he says “frick it” and sticks around, because he’s got nowhere else to go (his dad is the major suck and hates superhumans; one of his mother’s final commands is that Neil be kept from his dad after his powers manifest).

The thing is, because his identity is basically erased, he’s looking at the world through a fairly unbiased lens. He sees things for what they are, and he starts to realize that there’s something sinister going on behind the scenes at Harmonium. Through some snooping and bits and pieces of word of mouth, Neil starts to put together a theory that people like him are being targeted by the weaker but larger population at Harmonium, and someone close to him could potentially be at the helm of that movement.

Neil emits a single laugh, a sound closer to choking, and then he’s laughing, really laughing, doubled over and holding onto his own knees for fear of his body shaking apart, and once he’s able to stop and take a breath and wipe a tear away from his cheek, he says “That’s fucking hilarious,” because people don’t say things like that, and people shouldn’t say things like that to fragile boys who don’t know where their lives have gone.

Enough about the plot though, let’s talk about Neil as a character. In his past life, his Before, he was a nature photographer and a total nerd (and therefore can recite any plant’s Latin name should you need him to). He’s typically pretty soft n cute, but when you get him going his temper can really boil over--one of the downsides of being a Fire Psych.

He can be like a dog with a bone when he has a theory, to the point of pissing off everyone around him. The thing is......he’s usually right?!?!? LMAO!??!!? But he’s not the type to drop “I told you so”s even when this is the case.

Neil tends to be impulsive; he likes to keep people on their toes, and sometimes he surprises even himself when he makes these split-second decisions. Not particularly interested in preserving the preexisting social order, Neil falls in with a small group of fellow queer students who guide him through the start of his schooling. He also breaks a few hearts along the way, but it’s only out of self-preservation.

One thing about Neil: he’s a very naturally gifted Psych. His mother is infamous in the Psych community for being one of the most powerful Elite agents in years, and right from the start, Neil has the student body of Harmonium wondering if he’s going to move in and fill her recently empty shoes. He very quickly grows into his abilities, though he has qualms about using them and their potential for destruction.

Neil draws his hands to either side of his body and holds on to the tips of each flame, allowing them to expand outward into twin ropes. He cracks them against the pavement, which launches a flurry of sparks above him. With another intentional breath, he freezes the sparks into a glittering dome, each minute star whirling in place.

Neil two major physical idiosyncrasies: the first is that whenever he feels anxious, he can’t help but chew the heck out of his bottom lip. Shit’s always chapped and gross but there are at least two (2) boys who wanna kiss him anyway??? The other is his hair; like his mother, he was born with odd gray-blond locks, the color of ash, like someone took golden hair and turned the saturation all the way down. Neil’s 5′8″, a textbook twink, and a big fan of comfy clothes and anything pastel.

Aside from being a complete conspiracy theorist (#TeamMyMomIsn’tReallyDead!!!), Neil is fairly easygoing and is really just searching for some purpose in this chaotic world he’s been thrown into. In the first book of this series, we see him come to terms with who he is. The rest of the series follows Neil and explores the conflict as he accepts what he must do.

[Tag list below! Feel free to ask to be added/removed :)]

@infinitely-empty-pages @dustylovelyrun @oddsandinks

[prorevenge]

Wonder Twin Powers Activate

Our teacher was almost sixty, dressed in bright colors(usually pink) and would speak like she was a politician in EVERY past life. This woman was HORRIBLE but I wasn't fully aware of how at first. I know that she could be curt and liked making jokes that seemed kind of rude but at the time, I just thought it was adult humor. At this point, I had few friends but people left alone because I was considered too crazy to mess with but this teacher treated me like I was adorable, also assumed it was because she was an old lady. Bro had chosen to sit next to me, which he usually tried knowing I could answer any questions if he struggled. I had finished the paperwork early and Matt was still working on it. I told him to let me know if he needed anything as I started reading a book. I usually zone out when I read so I fell asleep on accident and my brother didn't want to wake me up so he asked the teacher. A. Single. Question. She, instead of helping an answering the question, started berating him, talking down to him. He said nevermind but she didn't like that one bit as her voice got LOUDER. He kept trying to say nevermind until I was woken up by the teacher as she LOUDLY announced to the class how worthless my brother was and what an idiot he was and anything she could say until it finally registered what was happening and I stood up with an "Excuse me?" The class goes dead quiet as the teacher says "Sit down, honey" and continues to say things, now saying my brother was obviously cheating off my homework at home and how he planned to ride my coattails to pass school. My brother is really sensitive but I have never seen him cry in public because if he doesn't value your opinion, then who cares but this woman was shredding him to me and in front of his friends who DIDN'T KNOW he had a learning disability. I let loose, insulting her beyond measure even climbing over my desk to get in her face, the teacher actually being MY height. I wasn't going to attack an adult but man, I considered it and she KNEW it. She tried to hold her confidence, saying I should take my seat or she'd fail me and give me attention and I dared her to. I told my bro to get up and that we were going to the office, the teacher demanding we take our seats and actually grabbed him. I pushed her and told her and said I knew we'd be sent to the principal's anyway. On our way and waiting in the office, Bro confesses to me that she, even though he told her on the first day had been harassing him NONSTOP and the help I was giving him at home was basically the only education he was getting on the subject and the reason he didn't say anything before because he didn't want me to stop thinking he was cool. I became LIVID.

By this point, when the secretary saw me coming she KNEW I had done something. Surprisingly enough, admin was on good terms with my family because of the bullying issues that I had previously reported and gotten into fights over and it actually ended with my dad and the principal at the time becoming friends- his name Mr. Green and he went to became superintendent so whenever I was in the office, he was called as well to meet with the principal and my parents.

I relayed all of the info to the adults, Bro being pretty much too traumatized to respond. The principal tried to defend her stating Bro was overly sensitive but Mr. Green was NOT having it. They called her in and without letting anyone get a word in, she went on a tirade stating I had attacked her and she wanted the "demon twins" out of her class because we're nothing but trouble. This raised flags with the principal now because she had apparently BRAGGED to other staff about how she basically didn't have to teach me and I didn't bother her at all. They began filing kids in who witnessed everything, the bruise on Bro's arm now turning purple and skin slightly cut from where her manicure dug into him. Safe to say I didn't see her after that but I always felt like that wasn't good enough but my mom had mental health issues and my dad didn't want to stress her out.

Oh. But its not over, my vengeful ladies and gentlemen. I got a surprise I NEVER thought possible, time for revenge.

Fast forward a few years, my mom's mental health is getting unreasonable for a house of children and my siblings are split to live with grandparents. Me and oldest Sis go to live with my mom's mom in the next state over and Bro decided to stay with Grandma in state because of his friends.

I decided to go to a public school, not wanting to enjoy a repeat of bullies that were bailed out by their entitled parents. I decided I was going to read and talk to no one to avoid fights but that actually got me a lot of friends, including our football team's HULK, a 6'3" linebacker who bonded with me over our shared love of books and even came over to help my arthritic grandmother with anything at the drop of a hat.

One day, we had a substitute teacher that everyone did not like who seemed vaguely familiar to me in a haunted sort of way but it had nothing to do with Lord of the Rings or comics so I couldn't care less. I was only in this class because I had caught pneumonia the year before and I have a serious immune deficiency AND my dad passed away so I was out of school over the allotted absence time and had to repeat two classes(still only had four classes my senior year so I nailed it). The sub was hanging around more and more when it finally hit me.

IT WAS MY MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHER.

Apparently, she had gotten remarried and went to Japan on a teaching program which she bragged about constantly when she tried to connect to me while I was reading manga in her class. I didn't know if she had recognized me at first but it was clear by the way she was singling me out after a bit she had. I was going to ignore it thinking she was only a sub when we got news that our prev. teacher was going to be gone for a while because she was having complications with her pregnancy and this teacher was now our permanent teacher for the rest of the year.

The class hated her, half of which deciding not to do work out of blatant protest.

Not me. I finished everything at the start of class, ASAP so I could go about ignoring her- something she HATED but tried to turn in her favor often. She would even try to give me book recommendations, bash something she saw me reading or even give out spoilers.

It was only after one classmate who turned around and said "this class is stupid, I don't want to be here" and I responded with "You do know if you DO the work you WON'T have to be here AGAIN NEXT YEAR?" and she used it as an opportunity to attack that it hit me. Time for some revenge.

I spoke to the guy after class, apologizing for snapping which he understood and then asked if he wanted tutoring and to help with revenge as I explained why. Apparently, this teacher had been going after him in class like my Bro too. SHE DIDN'T LEARN.

I continued to pay her no attention in class but also took the time to offer my fellow students assistance, which she hated, telling me to get back in my seat or to not talk to the other students because if they didn't understand it when she said it, they probably wouldn't understand the material at all. One of the male student's friends in the class had been let in on the plan and had left their phone on to record anything in class of her going after students.

At this school, each year had their own Assistant Principal and I learned what day the AP for this year(technically I was a junior so sophomore), a cool dude was coming in to observe class with other admins. JUDGEMENT DAY. The lesson the teacher was going through was Protagonist VS. Antagonist. How fitting.

She was going over the nursery rhyme, Little Miss Muffet. I finished the worksheet almost right away and I glanced at the stunned looks on one of the admin's faces who saw me write quickly and open a book and the AP actually snickered and leaned over to say "She does that a lot."

The teacher was talking about what was on the projector and realized quickly that the admins were not happy because half the class was not listening or paying attention. She then went to her usual target, me who she had seated front row; it was the closest seat to both her projector and desk so yeah, I knew she was singling me out.

Teacher: "You're reading in my class while I'm trying to teach, sweetie."

Me: "Yeah, I'm done with work."

Teacher: "Yes, but I'm still in the middle of the lesson." Me: "...Okay? Go ahead." Teacher: "I'd like you to pay attention." Me: "Why? I'm already done."

Teacher: "Yes, but the rest of the class isn't." Me: "Then what are you waiting for? I'm done, I'm not going to sit here doing nothing." Teacher: *flustered but grabs my worksheet* "Alright then, let's see your work." *looks it over before getting this huge grin on her face* "You put that the spider is the protagonist but that's wrong, Little Miss Muffet is the protagonist."

She then geared up to start a speech about the importance of listening to her when I said-

"Actually, I don't think she is. I wrote why if you'd read past the first sentence."

Teacher: "No, that's wrong." Me: "I don't think it is. The story goes "Little Miss Muffet, sat on a tuffet, eating her curds and whey; along came a spider who sat down beside her, and frightened Miss Muffet away." Based on that, all it says the spider definitively did was sit next to her, it didn't say he shouted "boo!" or attacked her. She could have just went "Ah! Spider!" and ran for it. Sounds more like she made a snap judgement based on appearance."

The class is speechless.

Teacher: *composing herself* "Well, it's still wrong. For this lesson, it's wrong."

Me: "Is it though?" I can see her jaw clenching, pissed. "The questions on these worksheets say to write who you THINK is the protagonist and antagonist and explain why. So technically, its a matter of perspective and the only way to get it wrong is to not meet the paragraph requirement."

The class echoes with "OOOOOOH's and some snickering.

Teacher: "Oh, if you think you're smart enough. Why don't YOU teach the class?"

I was initially going to turn her down, only making my point for her to LEAVE ME ALONE when my classmates started volunteering me. The male student even saying "I'm going to have to ask her to explain it all again later anyways and you get mad when she tries to help us so let her teach us."

I was glad the class rallied behind me but NO. I was not prepped for it. I improv'd on the white board, turning off the projection and even using comic book examples to explain the differences until the AP chuckled and called the joke(they're not actually supposed to say anything during observation), asking me to take a seat. The teacher was angry and continued to single me out until the end of class when she asked me to stay after to speak with her. The male student lingered in the doorway with his friend to stop the AP just outside, out of view stating they wanted to talk to him. They stopped him just in time for him to hear the teacher SHRIEK at me, accusing me of ruining her life and trying to ruin it AGAIN while slinging all sorts of insults at me.

The AP stormed in and she turned paper white. The other students followed saying they wanted to show him the recordings we took of her insulting kids in class and how the only reason kids were working now was because I spoke to them because the teacher would stop the ENTIRE class and make us do nothing for full periods saying we'd be too stupid to understand the lesson so why teach if we weren't going to respect her anyway. From there we went to the office and listed how she had been attacking other students and I told her how she taught at my middle school. He told me I could go back to class as he discussed it with the other APs and our Principal and I passed the teacher in the hallway and said "By the way, my brother says hi."

I went home, called him up and told him about it and he just sat there chuckling and going "Oh my god" repeatedly for about twenty minutes.

She was still there the next day but she did not say a WORD to me for the rest of the semester and the next semester, we were all put into different classes, learning that they allowed her to finish the semester on the promise to leave me alone but that she would NOT be coming back.

I managed to get the same teacher fired. TWICE.

And guess what? I write books now so, how's that for a twist?

(source) story by (/u/awkwardbirdnoise)

[geekgemsspooksandtoons]

Be warned while this isn’t anything serious or....something strangely soft. This is something I don’t really write about. While I wonder about the canon of this story. It was another short one I wrote. Basically featuring Elizabeth and a character named Archie. Be warned of spoilers possibly for the series like the last few posts.

It’s been 5 hours.....5 hours since what happened. They were in Tenenbaum’s safehouse. Elizabeth had locked herself in and she was in there for nearly 4 hours. Tenenbaum said it was maybe best to leave her alone. She tried comforting her and she tried, others did as well. But she still put herself in the room. 

He waited for her, Archie didn’t wanna disturb her. Including he tried to comfort her as well. But he wondered if it was only the revelation that was hurting her. It may of been other things. Because as of now. This was almost like she was putting herself back into her tower on purpose. Not wanting to escape and live. He wanted to help the best he can. 

As he approached the door, two Little Sisters were at the door. With one trying to look through the door hole. 

“Hello mister” The one peeping through the hole turned her head as her friend tapped her shoulder. “We just wanted to check on the lady if she was okay”. He explained to her.

“That’s absolutely fine. There’s nothing wrong with that.....how is she doing?” he asked the Little Sister considering she was looking through the door hole.

“She’s just laying in bed. Not moving. What is she sad about? Maybe we can make her feel better” the Little Sister told him. She wanted to help more.

“She’s sad about....something about her dad. Something she thought wasn’t possible. I think it’s best if I don’t tell you” Archie told the young sister.

“Okay mister” the Little Sister sadly accepted that. After what Archie heard. He didn’t wanna tell of what happened to these girls. What Elizabeth experienced. He didn’t want these girls to doubt they might ever be loved by a parent after this event. He thought it was the best to not tell them until they’re older. They’ve been through enough. 

“I’m gonna try to speak to her. Maybe you can see if Mama Tenenbaum needs help” he told the girls.

“Bye mister” they both told him as he walked away. Then the one who was mainly speaking said something. “I hope she feels better if you speak to her” she said before leaving. It was kind of weird calling Brigid, “Mama Tenenbaum”. He kept calling her Tenenbaum, Dr. Tenenbaum, or Brigid. She didn’t mind anyway. Mainly because he wanted to show her respect. But these girls even after what happened to them, called her mama still. She tried helping them as much as she can after what she need. 

Archie didn’t trust Tenenbaum at first after hearing she was the one who did that to those girls. But seeing her try her hardest to be a better person after all that. She was believing her. Including showing to Archie, maybe Rapture didn’t change everyone for the worse. It was just nice to see that after seeing a city that torn itself apart, that someone still valued these girls as kids.

After all that he decided to speak.

“Elizabeth....it’s me Archie.....I just wanted to check on you. If you want to talk then I’m here. But I want to see you in person......I know today has been one of the hardest days in your life...but I want you to know a lot of people are wanting to make sure you're okay. So if you want to. Is it okay if you can open the door please? I just wanna make sure you know I’m here” he said. After that he simply sat in front of the door. Just in case if she were to take her time. He didn’t wanna rush her. He was there for a minute. Until he heard a lock opened. He stood up and then slowly opened the door to see inside. 

He saw the woman get back into a bed. She was laying there for a long time. He then heard some sniffing. Elizabeth had been in there for a long time. She knew she had comfort from people who seemed to care about her. But what she learned hurt her so much.

Throughout her whole life, Elizabeth was in a way an orphan herself. She was isolated and stuck in a tower for nearly her whole life.. She never had a parent. Hearing so many wonderful things about Archie’s father got her thinking. 

Andrew Ryan never really cared for her. She was just an assist to possibly be used later. He only said she was his daughter because he got her at an early age. She thought she could change him. Thinking maybe he didn’t want her living in Rapture because of what it was becoming. As in a way to protect her. Until he revealed she never was his daughter.

It got worse after that soldier named Derek revealed to them it was this Dewitt man who was chasing them. She thought he didn’t know, that maybe if she could talk to him, things may change. That he would have a better outlook on life if he found out this woman he was chasing was her daughter. Derek said he found out recently by Andrew Ryan and Tenenbaum.

It hit her hard. Hearing the man who was actually your father. Know who you are exactly, but didn’t really care. That he gave you up on purpose, that he blamed you for causing the death of his girlfriend. Hearing your own father call you a mistake and that he blames you for how his life ended up. Despite he could of changed for the better, it was his choice. But he thought differently. That was worse than Andrew admitting he was never her father. 

Archie just stood there staring at her for a minute. He then walked slowly to the side where she was laying. He saw her face, it looked as if she was mentally destroyed. There were tears there. Her eyes were red. Today was probably the worse day of her life. Because just imagine your own father thought you were a mistake. Including blame you for what happened to his girlfriend. 

“Hey” she said to him as he got there. She slowly tried to get up from the bed. She then just sat there.

“Hey. Do you want to talk? Or do you wanna just stay here for a while? I’m sorry I’m just worried about you” Archie asked her. 

“I’m good right now” Elizabeth told him. 

Could you just imagine the impact of what this young woman has seen? This was a girl who had been isolated for so long. Just being observed because of what you could do. Now she was out, finally met someone real like Archie. But finding out your in the middle of a civil war in a city that is being torn apart. Being viewed as what some folks have called her, “The Goddess Of Rapture” despite it’s non religious views. Seeing people kill each other, children being used and targeted because of what’s inside them. Just imagine if she never left? If Archie wasn’t the one to get her out there?. Which is something both him and Elizbeth don’t wanna think about.

She never thought about Hell...but right now Rapture seemed like it was looking like it. Unforgiving, horrifying, and something no one should have to witness. The only things that were keeping her sane and hopeful were Archie himself and whoever helped them. 

In a way she looked at Archie despite finding out how young he was. He was like a superhero to her. That knight in shining armor who just wanted to help people in stories she read. A protagonist who wanted to change things for the better. That there was hope above the surface. 

But Archie was thinking some things as well. He was near her age. This young man didn’t knew Rapture existed. He thought what would happen if he escaped and told his superiors? How would his government and the world react to Elizabeth? They would probably never let her go to Paris. Almost everyone might see her as an assist for power. Calling her a freak. Never letting her live a normal life like she wanted. That’s something that lingered in his mind as he was with her. He wanted to tell the world of what happened here. Thinking Rapture was a mistake, that maybe almost everyone wasn’t a good person. What happened to those Little Sisters he met. 

It wasn’t until he met others especially Elizabeth.  There was this innocence. In a way he reminded was of himself. He had been through some things in childhood. This girl was in her tower for nearly her whole life. All she saw was the ocean, read countless books, and other things. He wanted her to have something better. That was maybe because of these strong feelings for her he developed. It could be a puppy dog crush or so.

But just imagine after what you witnessed in Rapture. Thinking it was all bleak. Until certain things happened. Meeting a person who just wanted to go to Paris....there was this purity, this hope that there was something kinder in Rapture. Something tender, and considering that he himself was tender. He wanted to make sure that tenderness wasn’t taken away. What made it so harder of how he wasn’t more experienced. He was trained though. But everything just hit him in the face of what he has seen. How it’s never going to leave his mind even when he leaves.

They were just there for two minutes. Then it hit her.

“Can we dance?” She asked him. He was surprised. 

“....I guess so”. He then looked around the room. Seeing some sort of music player. He looked through it and tried to put on something. He was able to find something. Some sort of relaxing Jazz music. He didn’t wanna turn it up too loud. It was up at a nice volume where every didn’t hear it unless they wanted to get closer.

Elizabeth stood up and came forward to Archie. She grabbed his hands slowly. He then kind of blushed red a bit. 

“It’s okay” She told him, finally smiling. Because she noticed that flustered face of his. 

“Okay again I don’t really dance” He said trying to explain himself. There was only one other time she asked him to dance. She was more cheerful. He was nervous that time as well yet he did danced with her. The young man hardly danced. He thought he might be bad. Including he didn’t wanna embarrass himself in front of her.

“Hey that’s fine. Just I want you to be comfortable. It’s not gonna be like last time. It’s slower”. She told him. Elizabeth saw he was nervous. They slowly moved and held hands. They were just swaying. As they danced, he seemed finally calm. It was strangely cute to her seeing this man who she heard was the top of his class in training. When she saw him and how he was. It seemed like he had everything under control. But the moment she asks him to dance he just stops. He seemed like a nervous kid who never danced. 

But it’s also possible he never danced with women much. Despite everything, he was so soft, he tried to comfort her as much as possible. Especially when he was forced to kill some men who tried taking her. Trying to explain to her the situation. He didn’t wanna ignore her feelings, he didn’t wanna excuse anything. The man just wanted to tell her, “Everything is gonna be okay”. Because he genuinely wanted to make sure she felt okay. He was patient with her. Yet she didn’t wanna waste his time. Including what surprised her was how soft he was with those Little Sisters. How he seemed so gentle with them.

They just danced for a while. It was about five minutes. Then Elizabeth slowly put herself against Archie’s chest. She put her arms behind his back. He was surprised by this but didn’t wanna push her away. After that he slowly put his hands on her back. 

A minute passed after that. It was so peaceful. The music was still going. Everything was so calm. Then Elizabeth finally said something.

“This is probably the best thing that’s happened all day”. she said with a smile. Including having some tears down her face. But they were more like tears of joy. She had her head on his right shoulder. 

“Yeah it probably is” Archie told her. They danced slowly and just closed their eyes. As if nothing else was happening. That it was all peaceful. 

The door wasn’t closed all the way. Unknown to them, Tenenbaum just watched, smiling gently at what she was seeing. What she was witnessing was kind of beautiful. After everything that had happened. It’s like their was beauty in Rapture again. She was worried of her Archie was, but seeing him in action and who he was. After he saved a couple of her little ones and how he was treating the situation, especially with Elizabeth. It was just wonderful and warm to see. After that she left and left the two with what they were doing.

[wheremytwinwatches]

[Where My Twin Watches]: Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood Episode 31

Last time: Roy gave Riza his number, war was hell, and there could only be one Doc. Onwards!

Envy is not happy to change jobs from Doc Marcoh’s waiter to Scar’s maid, cleaning up his latest mess of brain matter. And so much for the guard dog. Or dogs? There’s an empty collar… Riza’s seeing Ed out after tea, when Ed worries about her new job as a hostage she waves it off as a better chance to kill him in his sleep. That’s one way to look at it, I suppose. One message to pass on about Scar being back, and thanks for talking about Ishval, and Ed’s off. Quick, go save your brother from his new admirer! Episode 31 - “The 520 Cens Promise“ Cens? Is that like an Amestris version of a penny, or what? Ed catches up with Al at a clock-fountain, you can tell how much hearing about Ishval got to him when he calls himself “practically a kid”. And it definitely casts a light on Roy’s drive to become the Fuhrer, if it’s really just setting himself up for Mob Justice. Speaking of the future, they talk about their plans after they regain their bodies. Food for Al, of course, he should still be carrying around that “Stuff to Eat” book. Ed claims that he’s been so busy just trying to get his limbs back he hasn’t thought about what comes next. Maybe some courtesy calls NO NO NO NO Leto-damn it, boys! “Let Granny and Teacher know we’re all right”? “They’ve both helped us out so much”? “They’ll be smiling when they see us”?!?! Stop it, you’re signing their death warrants! Oh my Leto stop with the optimism, you are painting great big targets on yourselves for the Irony Gods. Moving on, moving on! Ed talks about his plan to get around Uncle’s Anti-Alchemy Field with Alkahestry, I’m a little concerned about that seeing as Uncle changed his method to counter Scar’s mixed style, but it’s still a starting point. Time to get lessons from a little girl! A little girl who has skipped town, apparently! Doc says she left his house/hospital that morning. Wow, I get that you’re upset Ed, but there’s no need to just hang up on the Doc like that. And people wonder why he’s snippy all the time. Now, how to track down the little princess? It’s not like she has a unique identifier like a foreign animal companion OH WAIT Elsewhere in Central, Havoc gets visited by Breda and a gift of dumbbells, a farewell gift before he gets shipped off to the West. Fuery and Falman catch up as well as the latter goes to drop off a chess board, Falman griping about the cold of the north. I feel ya buddy. Up in Roy’s office Riza stops by as well, to get a few things she forgot but also to tell him about Scar being back and tell him to take care of himself. Then it’s just Roy, on his own in a big empty room. No pawn (what, just because Fuery’s short he gets the pawn?), no bishop (always serious Falman), no rook (stocky Breda), no knight (poor Havoc), and no queen (CAN’T STOP THE SHIP). But don’t count out the wannabe-king just yet! He’s still in play. And so is the Conspiracy, hidden message in the king! Go Falman!

Hey, Ed? You might wanna work on your drawing skills, or at least don’t inflict your own Angry Gremlin art style on a poor panda. At least Al’s there to show people what it actually looks like, but the day goes by and they haven’t gotten anything. Suddenly the Colonel drives by and offers them a ride, as well as any leads on May he finds. Anyways, about that- Leto, watch where you’re driving man! Anyways, about that money that Ed borrowed to panic-call Winry? [Ed]: “You remembered?! C’mon, how much did I borrow, 500 cens?” [Irate!Roy]: “It was 520 cens!” Titledrop! Ha, nice. “I’ll pay you back when you become Fuhrer.” Now he has even more reason to wait why is the music menacing? Seriously, Roy? You’re asking how Ed learned of your ambition to become Fuhrer? It’s not like you’ve kept it a secret. A bit of snarking about paying back pocket change after each time Roy improves the country, seriously though the music is making what I would normally be chuckling at depressing as heck. Stop it. Alright, back to their ro- Person in the room, look out! Wait, who. Oh jeez, it’s Ling’s other bodyguard, uh… *rifles through past posts*. Fu, right! Last we saw he was escorting Ross to Xing. Yeah, so while you were gone a couple of things happened… Really, Roy? One day without your Conspiracy, and you go drinking. I am- [Roy]: “Hey.” [Bar full of ladies]: *turns* [Who dis?]: “It’s Roy! Well I’ll be damned. Long time!” What. Who are you and why are you hugging Roy. What is going on. Riza, Riza I need you to get over here now. Uh anyway, we have a new character in the owner of this ‘establishment’, Madame Christmas. *Sigh* Come on Roy, I know that you and Riza aren’t official, but you just called her your queen! Show some- Oh. OH! The epic plotting music has started up, Roy’s passed a note to the Madame asking for something special. Secret informant group, go! One that has a direct line to General Grumman, no less!

Mid-episode pictures of Roy scowling at his King, and That Ass Kimblee strutting around in his white suit from the intro. Uh oh. Fu is not happy with the bodyguard he left to watch his liege. Lost her arm, Ling got Goth’d, and now moping in a dingy basement. Look dude, with all the foes WHOA nope! No hitting the lady! I get that you’re upset, but she did the best she could! Then it finally sinks in that Lan Fan lost her arm. Wait, what? [Lan Fan]: “Please forgive me, Grandfather.” He’s your grandpa? I thought it was just a teacher/student job, but they’re family? Ouch. Still very upset with you for hitting your granddaughter, dude, not letting you off the hook. But yikes, this has got to cut deep. You leave for half a season, and come back to this. Alright, time for a roadtrip! Lan Fan needs to meet up with Winry in Rush Valley to get her new arm. Or not? Come on gramps, this it not the time for foolish national pride, you can’t just- Oh. Ok yeah, the Goths have seen Lan Fan’s face now and have already threatened harm to Winry unless Ed toes the line. If she patches up one of their foes? It sucks, but they have to find another way. Fu thanks Doc for saving Lan Fan’s life, and I’m sorry this is a touching scene and all but I can’t get over the magically floating cigarette whenever Doc talks. Sweet scene of him blustering and trying to act grumpy and all, but really. That cigarette. Later, ninjas. Gather your strength, save your young lord, and give that old fart back in Xing immortality (again, ruining any chance of Ling advancing, but whatever). Greed? You just take care of Ling’s body until we can kick you out. The Doc’s resting on his couch, now that he can actually use it, thinking about… um. Thinking about a basement operating table with corpses strewn around the room. Um. Whatever THAT was, it’s compared to May and Lan Fan thanking him for his treatment, which he scoffs at. Yikes. His grumpy attitude and self-dismissal make a lot more sense now. Knock at the door, Doc goes to answer- “Uh, g-good evening Dad. Good to see you.” “It’s been awhile, how are you?” This is his family? His ex and son who were in the area and decided to stop by? And for the son to say he plans to become a doctor? To the tune of tinkly music? Yeah, no. I call bullshit. This is some Goth nonsense right here, I’d say a trick of Envy except there are two people so I don’t know how. But no way this is happening, especially after the giant middle finger to the Irony Gods earlier in the episode. Bracing for awfulness! Dude is crying as he gets some cups for coffee, asking God for a break. Just asking to enjoy some time with his family.

Next day in Central, looks like a cell with OH FOR LETO’S SAKE NO. How does Kimblee have that Stone? Wow, really officers? You gave this Blood Knight the most powerful MacGuffin in your setting, and after he did your dirty work you expected him to just hand it over and file a report on the power he once wielded? How have you survived this long? So it seems Kimblee got arrested for their murders, but no one else knew he swallowed the stone so he’s had it since. But if that’s true, why the heck has he just been sitting around in a cell all these years, not even escaping when Mr. Freeze tried to recruit him? He’s being released? Wrath, what are you up to? I can only assume that you knew he at least had a Stone because the Goths spearheaded the whole process, so why keep Kimblee locked up all this time only to release him now? How does this help you? Could be a distraction for the Protagonists, I suppose. Oh! I see it now, it’s for Scar! Throw the murderer of his people and family at him so he stays away from you. Kimblee’s walked out by a grumpy Warden who might as well be talking about his retirement party in three days. Death flags everywhere for this fool. Kimblee’s outside at an open gate, turns around to shake the man’s hand- and Transmute a bomb to his wrist. Leto, that’s- a baby chick? Wow, ok. Strapping a fake bomb to the man, just to see his freakout? You’re an ass. So now that the jerk’s free, he gets waved into a car by a MP who yup is Envy in disguise, here to give Kimblee a job. Marcoh’s gone. Or maybe not? Oh yeah, that missing guard chimera. If Marcoh could transmute living tissue to make a fake body, ala the Ross Deception, then he could have escaped with Scar. So the job’s to kill Scar and retrieve Marcoh, and then wipe a- A town?! Holy Leto, they’re gonna target Resembool! Scar, kill this ass! Ugh, and then in addition to his hidden Stone Kimblee gets a fresh one from Father, made from the assistants of Marcoh that first time. Makes sense in a jerk way, I guess. If you have to kill off the witnesses, why not grab those souls they aren’t using any more? Scar and Marcoh are hiding out in an alley, Scar explaining that Marcoh’s more useful alive to provide info on Kimblee and info about his brother’s research. Right, there’s that whole thing about Amestris’ alchemy being strange, and not just in that it’s different from alkahestry. Oh, and May’s caught up! She’s curious about their new companion, Scar’s quick to shut that idea down. He’s just the guy who made the Philosopher’s Stones-

Bleh. May hears “immortality” and jumps on it, she’s tugging on Marcoh’s sleeve and begging him to teach her how to make a Stone. Little one, stop. You have no idea what the true cost of a Philosopher’s Stone is. You can’t- Ah. I can see Scar’s logic here: better to remove the temptation now. I guess Marcoh is… still alive after that HoD? Oh yeah, the doctor is kinda recognizable, needs a new face. But wow dude, dick move to just grab him without any warning. Now, time to go and get his brother’s notes… In the north. Looks like everyone’s going to Drachma! Time to break out the winter outfits!

[arkus-rhapsode]

My Hero Academia Chapter 223 Review

Well, I’m back! Yeah, if you wanna know why I took a break it was because whenever there is a villain centrist chapter it is usually pretty good. But it seems I underestimated Horikoshi and this isn’t a mere chapter. No, this is basically like the pro hero arc and that it will focus on the villains as protagonists for a little while.

So without furthur ado, let us begin.

We open on the current time with Shigaraki fighting against Gigantomechia. And as expected, they aren’t doing so good. We get some narration from Spinner on it.

We also see that just a flex from Gigantomechia’s arm causes a burst of power.

Though that seems to just be a portion of his abilities. As it seems this guy can fight for more than 48 hours before needing rest and recharge. And even in his sleep he’ll be able to attack you. He also grows larger in battle, though no word if it has like reset after awhile. With what the doctor said about Gigantomechia, I’m wondering how much of this is a quirk or just strange physiology.

We see that Shigaraki is the main target and the others can tag in and out.

I kinda love this moment as we learn that the doctor gave them some money and Toga went and bought a new coat with it. I don’t love it because the joke, I love it more in the context of Horikoshi being like “I need an excuse to draw Toga in something cute.” Even though her primary clothing was sweater.

Its not a nitpick, so much as it, just one of those moments that makes you laugh when you think about it. Though, Spinner brings up this important point that Toga had joined for Stain and there is almost nothing about Stain left. Accentuating that point is Spinner not wearing his stain costume (Yet). And remembering the highway chapter, Spinner is the most introspective and one holding Stain to the highest belief.

And here is where we really see the point of this mini arc and that’s basically the parallel of Izuku’s journey. When Shigaraki takes a break from fighting and we see him all battered and bruised,he’s equated to a young boy chasing his dreams. And considering the reckless self destruction Izuku subjected himself to, we see Shigaraki doing the same. While his wounds aren’t self inflicted, he is still throwing himself at something that, in pure power, he is outclassed and will get hurt.

And yet he’s not stopping. Shigaraki’s dream matters more to him than by his physical health.

We get a funny as hell scene with Twice and Compress when Twice gets called by Giran. However, on the other line is the CEO that was torturing Giran. He tells them to check the news.

We see that severed fingers have been placed around Japan in places where the League of Villains have operated. I also would like to take this moment and acknowledge the All Might Statue in Kamino. That’s a really nice touch.

We see the CEO and I’m skipping ahead and we find out his real name is Rikiya Yotsubashi (I’m wondering if he goes by that name or if he uses an alias as Destro’s last name was Yotsubashi and it would be telling if you shared a name with a guy who was the leader of a people’s army.). His villain name is Redestro. Which is kinda lame. Maybe its suppose to be like “Reborn Destro,” but the extra ‘Re-’ just makes it sound a bit goofy. Maybe if it was like Destro the second or something. Wait where was I?

Oh yeah, we see Redestro with the hostage Giran and he explains his view point. Tearing down society and rebuilding it in a way that allows people to utilize the full power of their abilities. This really sounds like he wants to be Armstrong from Metal Gear and make this sense of “true freedom.”

Shigaraki tries to brush them off, seeing it as just another Overhaul. But unlike Overhaul they don’t really have anything like the quirk bullets that will make it worth teaming up with.

But they find out that Giran was tortured, those fingers at the sites of their crimes are Giran’s, and he tried to erase his client data and wouldn’t give up the villains after everything. However, the liberation army was able to restore the data thanks to the help of a member of the liberation army is an IT guy. Speaking of we get our intro to all the heads of the liberation army.

Yeah this is bad. I’ll talk about this later, but these guys are far different from Overhaul. Not just in power and motive, but scale. Also lets look at each member individually (Mainly cause I want to get a bit of snark in).

Tomoyasu is the head of an IT company called Feel Good Inc. Which I really hope is a Gorillaz reference.

Hanabata is a politician, though that would make sense. If they’re trying to regain control of society, best have someone in a position who can affect laws. Also his party is called Heart Seeker, and I really hope that doesn’t allude to the idea that because he’s hot, people voted for him.

Kizuki is the head of the publishing company printing the Destro books. Also, I knew about Shueshia being the company that published Jump beforehand so this parody got me when I first read it. Also, with the fact she’s selling the books and that an arc ago we had Hawks saying he wasn’t happy with the idea of someone profiting from it. So did Hawks ever interview Kizuki? Hori get on the canon version of that and fanfic writers get on the smutty version of that.

And while Redestro is obvious, I will at least take this moment to say, I like his design. While Overhaul had that cool aesthetic with the plague doctor mask, Redestro looks like a middle-aged business man. He’s not drawn as some super hot, Light Yagami looking guy. He look normal and a bit unattractive. Its unique I feel. Usually that kind of character design is the one assisting their Bishounen bosses.

We see that Redestro has satellite cameras on them and that he could sick the heroes on them. But we get a bit more insight into him. The one who must lead the way is Destro and it seems the League after they forced All Might into retirement are the face of evil to the world. As such, Redestro must destroy Shigaraki himself.

While this seems lik one of those cliche “I’ll do it myself moments.” I actually think from the way he speaks, Redestro really does have his dad’s philosophy ingrained in him and he wants to show of the extent to which it grants. Also he probably has like a trap set.

Our chapter ends pretty well actually and I’m hyped.

Post Chapter Follow Up: There is really no negatives in this chapter aside from not much action and maybe one of two pages that feels like filler. But as a whole, its good.

The biggest strength of the chapter is Shigaraki’s journey. Again, as spelled out last week, the whole point of this is that Shigaraki must surpass all for one. Just as Izuku must surpass All Might. As Izuku grows stronger, so to must Shigaraki grow as a villain. He betrayed and outplayed the Yakuza, but he did it with the help of the heroes targeting Chisaki. But now, now he has a beast that won’t recognize him and another beast declaring war on him.

It doees sem like this arc will end with Shigaraki earning Gigantomechia’s respect by beating Redestro. But I’m very curious to see how that goes. As we see, Redestro is a far different villain from Overhaul. Overhaul was calculating and strategic, but he was just as underground as Shigaraki. He had men and disposable equipment, but he was still pretty small. Just a piece in a growing underworld.

But Redestro is actually far larger. Not only does he have more money, but more influence on the public as saw with his choice to go into support tools. He however waits in the shadows a lot more. Which you would have to do as a public figure.

Also we see how much more different than Redestro is in his goal. Like Shigaraki and Overhaul, he wants to change society, but he’s actually far closer to Shigaraki than Overhaul a Overhaul wanted to control societ. He was trying to refit the concept of the Yakuza into the modern age and make a way where he controls both crime and society. Basically making him the “Overlord” or “Godfather.” But Shigaraki and Redestro want to destroy current society. They likely wanna lead it, but they are going to literally change the fundamental structure and replace it with a new one. Shigaraki is just being more open about it.

So yeah, this’ll be Shgaraki’s moment. If I had to predict, if he beats Redestro, it’s likely that he’ll take all of his Liberation army and his support tool manufacturing centers. So this is Shigaraki looking to profit big time off of this.

Also, I love all the small touches in this chapter. From background detail to dialogue, there are the little bits of visual storytelling that I love.

Final Verdict: 9/10

Good buildup

Great characterization

Really makes you think about the complexities of the villains in this world

[badlydrawndrawnings]

atwq book two thoughts

i know from a search online there’s a supplementary book (kind of?) published between the second and third book, and i saw the news netflix is like, probably developing an atwq series? i love reading supplementary material, but i currently have no way of reading it, and netflix for all i know, could adapt it and i can be ‘uh....what the hell is this?’. so i’m gonna take a break from reading the atwq series (idk how long) to figure out what i’m going to do. like, i may jump into the third book and save the supplementary book for last to make myself feel better about the possible bittersweet ending this series is gonna have. 

as a kid i did not take lemony’s warning into consideration, so the me now knows better and realistically readjust ending expectations. good thing too, considering this book reveal a lot more than i thought. i guess it’s a given due to the fact it’s a four-book series and not thirteen-book series like asoue.

more of the review under the cut. i also have some asoue rambling opinions -one is which related to some atwq/tua things in regards to lemony and his family, and some thoughts on the possible netflix!atwq series.

so before going to the plot, i want to talk about kit and lemony’s last conversation for the time being. actually, i want to talk about the snicket family in general. 

teen!kit took what is probably the biggest risk for their plan to steal...whatever they wanted to steal from vfd (so it’s important enough for kit to deciding to continue the job solo but not important enough for lemony deciding to not send in a replacement despite probably the one who came with the idea; will talk about that when i get to lemony). it’s a big risk on kit’s end, and it hurts lemony is more than willing cut short the conversation. i don’t blame him for it, not really. there’s the matter of people overhearing and hiding it from their chaperones.

but teen!kit getting caught by the police makes me think of the end with kit thinking both of her brothers are dead. obviously teen!kit will have her breaking out of their custody and meet lemony and jacques again because clearly she’s not in prison by asoue (unless she actually served time, but i doubt it; adult!kit broke taxi laws and safety and got away with it) or something akin to it. now, kit in some parts of tua knew lemony was alive. she did recommended the asoue books after all. but when was the last time they talk to each other? i presumed lemony was on the run for the last 15 years since olaf pinning lemony for crimes sort of corresponded with beatrice and bertrand getting married. in their what turn out to be their last conversation (probably right before it all went to crap for lemony or before lemony’s mistaken death), did lemony cut the conversation short? or was it kit who cut the conversation short?

like maybe kit could be comparing lemony’s situation to her and thought it would end the same way, only for her to proven wrong in the worse possible way.

while kit is the important snicket that is the protagonist of her own story told in the illustrations (adult!kit confirm to have worsen eyesight as an adult), it’s nice to see jacques get a name drop. i suspect he has no clue what his younger siblings are planning or does knows, but is too far away, even father than lemony and his resident in strain’d-by-the-sea (sbts) to help out (i’m thinking the latter like the way lemony wants kit to send his regards makes me think jacques has some idea the younger siblings are planning). with the last snicket sibling out of way, i need to talk about their family.

i think i should have mention this in my review of the first atwq book, but it’s more noticeable here. lemony seems to have some memories (the hike is what i want to talk about that’s the flag that made me go ‘uhhh’ out loud and got some glances; also my headcanon about e snicket enjoying camping and nature feels more sensible now) of his parents. but in tua, lemony most likely/confirm to be taken as a baby and still crawling. with lemony’s comment about his mother and father on the day he and his siblings got taken in the tua, i assumed that at least all three or one of the siblings were able to meet up with their parents again as teenagers/young adults before their death and told their grief on that day. 

yet in this book and the last book to some minor degree, lemony talks about his parents as if he reunited with them before atwq series started. i’m not going to lie, and i should have brought it up in my last review, but i went ‘wtf’ at the first chapter of the first book i almost bought the fake parents act and the fact s. theodora markson figured it out made me go ‘oh thank good so lemony haven’t reunited with his parents yet” (s. theodora markson looking past the act means she is more competent than she looks, so i’m wondering why she’s...that with the main case she’s working on). i also made a note in my last review kid!lemony uses his imagination for familiar comfort and joy from out of his loneliness, so i’m wondering that’s the case here. i think while mentions of his parents is lemony thinking of what he wants to think, the ones with more details are ‘real’, in a sense jacques and kit told lemony. like the hike.

jacques and kit could actually remember that day and told lemony because they remember most of the events even if some parts are fuzzy. i say this because i was five and ran into traffic and almost got ran over. the memory of the incident itself is fuzzy, but i remember most of it to where i know it really did happen.

with some sad feelings of the snicket family situation out of the way, i get to talk about the atwq characters. i only know jake hix and cleo knight for one book, but i love them and i hope they become high school sweethearts (like they exist and those who are devoted to one another have great happiness with one another).

jake is honestly that meme of that guy going ‘i’ll feed you all’. i don’t want to call jake team (food) mom yet because i have a semi-bad experience of another fandom with a male character who cooks and is call ‘team mom’ due to the early parts of the fandom going out of control with it (it chilled down now hence ‘semi-bad experience’). but seriously, jake is going to care for the kids and he’s gonna feed them all and no one can stop him. no one will also stop him when he learns cleo isn’t actually okay and got kidnapped (he’s so devoted to her and her goal this is why i say i hope they become high school sweethearts) to where he was willing to crash her car in the clinic but didn’t because the car is like, non-destructible. i thought with his character description he would have like, bangs. the illustration shows that’s not the case. his bowtie is very dapper.

cleo really only showed up close to the ending so i kind don’t have a good grip of of her character like jake. but my goodness, i love her illustration (the full one that has her looking menacingly not the poster of her face). cleo’s outfit screams rich kid vibe (granted she is one) + late 1970s clothing with the future flair (cleo being ‘modern’ as she can be is helping my headcanon the vibe of the asoue world is like, slowly rebuilding and getting dominated by the world in first 20th century due to rose tinted glasses). the black and white motif her family has going on screams ‘in theory, we could order a hit man but we choose not to’ and that’s because they decided to drain the sea instead. that’s how rich they are. anyway, i doubt cleo wants to kill a person. she has to create a formula and save sbts. i don’t want to call her team (chemistry) dad just yet, because i don’t have a good grip f her character. but i like how she help moxie with her injury, and how goal driven she is to save her town from her family’s mistake.

since cleo and ellington were able to make their plan work to a degree, ellington is probably older than lemony and not just taller than him (i know 12-13 years old can look older than their real age, but people i know those age when i was in middle school only got mistaken as a freshman). also, the kid friendly noir vibes are now getting stronger. ellington just pretended to be someone else and like, it’s raising the red flags in my mind and i’m the eye emoji now i am on my guard i may be under attack. however, i still have my heart on my sleeve for her and have hopes of her reuniting with her father, who I now really think he’s a good dad and was specifically targeted (like cleo) due to being a naturalist.

it helps hangfire really shows how terrible he is. he tried to pretend to be her father! i know his voice mimicry is basically akin to juni cortez’s mimicry, but this is just cruel had ellington been there.

whatever hangfire’s group is doing, i’m not seeing how this relates with the BB statue and the people he kidnapped. we got a chemist who does things with tubes and bunsen burners and dangerous chemicals that makes one wear goggles, and a man who likes the natural environment. the tadpoles that bites are confusing me more though. why would someone create tadpoles that bites? still, with more detail of what hangfire is part of and with parts of his plan known at last, the plot is picking up speed. i’m scared, intrigued, and excited to read what will happen next, especially since hangfire is like, now going to be active in his own plan + group. they’re clearly not giving a damn about human life given their name of the inhumane society. whatever they’re planning and with the people they kidnapped so far, it has to do with the BB creature itself. is this going into the supernatural realm? is this connected to possibly the great unknown? am i overthinking connections?

i don’t have too much to say for most of the other secondary characters. i hope qwerty deals with his moth problems (so if moth balls stop moths from eating clothing, can they work in libraries? can qwerty even afford some non killing month repellent with his sub-librarian salary?), pip and squeak need to stop working and go be kids (their dad must be close to death if he’s that sick and they have to work), and prosper lost can tone down the watching. also, i think the mitchum parents don’t really love each other or not as much as before and need a divorce or couple counseling (their bickering is making me concern), and stew...still can’t find any pity or anything to find him a character i love to hate.

in regards to moxie, she is honestly the best friend lemony needs. she’s sticking her life to helping lemony with his case and while having opinions at the end of the day she just wants to help her friend in need. she puts up with so much give her an award like she got ditched at the library and stay to give lemony a piece of her mind before going all ‘okay so what we gonna do next’. she also gave him a dumb haircut. that is best friend material and i want their friendship to go into their adult years (yes i still think she’s the kind editor).

also, LEMONY CANONICALLY HAD A BOWL CUT HAIRSTYLE. he now has reasons to wear a hat and hide his face for the time being.

i said most things in regard to lemony in the snicket family situations paragraphs at the beginning of this post, so talking about kid!lemony as a solo character is not going as wordy. in this book kid!lemony could have died several times, one time by hangfire’s hand! he’s a kid, and this is really something a 17 or 18 should be in (even then i don’t want a 17 and 18 year old, or anyone of any age, be in his situation). he’s risking so much of his life for sbts and the people living there, all without knowing his sister is also in trouble as well until the final chapter. with lemony learning what happen to kit, i can’t help but wonder his worry for family will affect his actions in the next two books. though now i am question is actions pre-atwq like lemony almost got thrown out of vfd?? shoot lemony, i didn’t think he like vfd a lot as an adult ‘active’ member of vfd  but he was still loyal, but this is new. i also don’t want to say he’s staging a coup but he and a whole other sbg members -kit is obvious- are clearly doing something that’s totally a coup? was being frames for crimes he didn’t commit, living on the run, and losing everything (fiancee, friends, and family) broke adult!lemony so much it made him  ‘passive’ (i don’t think it’s the right word but it’s the one i can think of now)?

my feelings on s. theodora markson are the same as before, but i think she may be smarter than she looks given a re-think of the last book. her current behavior makes me think she is ‘warming’ up to lemony, even in the last book. she took him off probation was being ‘nice’ and when teasing lemony about his not-crush on ellington (i legit don’t know if lemony has a crush on her or is really wanting to help her out). that’s something an adult does to a child who may or may not have a crush on someone. theodora still treats lemony like she did in the previous book, no doubt due to vfd rules and her upbringing in vfd. 

i only have read two books of atwq, so i probably don’t carry too much weight on my two cents of a netflix adaptation. but i am thinking of the changes netflix asoue made with hector and kit, and vfd as a freaking whole. hector is not part of vfd the organization anymore, but he can be replaced with larry-your-waiter (just got to rewrite the balloon stuff with something else). kit is giving me a headache because i still can’t figure out if she was retcon into the youngest snicket in netflix show, and excluding that netflix!kit’s change of personality/character makes me think netflix!kit would not have gotten caught and like, kit needs to get caught it’s important for her off screen story and kid!lemony story as a side thing. because it’s the books, vfd is still the ‘old. old as balls’ conspiracy secret organization, while netflix is the ‘hey let’s make our (book) club be something more to change the world’ secret agent organization made by ishmael. well, netflix good luck with the hole you dug that is possibly kit and vfd.

it’s now round two of asoue character cameos (kit doesn’t count she’s a protagonist of her own off-screen story), and widdershins is a surprise. before i get into his atwq cameo and my opinion of the character, i want to copy-paste something from my first atwq review: asoue was one of my first fandom i entered via me me and my sister. no one else read the books or weren’t fans of them, so we turn to each other to talk about them. i began lurking pre-atwq books, but gave up after several months due to being in more active fandoms and i had bad timing to join when it was basically dead, and i outgrew the target demographic when atwq came out and i had no chance to read the books. i only made the decision to re-lurk (sparingly i am still in more active fandoms) and make and share content in 2016 (and i’m too used to lurking for this fandom. i can reblog for fandoms, just not for this fandom and i’m trying to overcome whatever is making me not do it).

so, i’m a fandom hermit living in the woods away from fandom society and i suddenly decided to enter fandom society, and all of my opinions are free of influences and other fan opinions (sans my sister but we talk more about the plot and story than characters). my opinion of widdershins is a dislike-neutral-*thinking emoji*. i dislike him, but i don’t hate him. and if i have to make a tier list of all the important and semi-important  asoue characters from favorite to hated, widdershins would actually be lump in the middle with the other true-neutral characters i have.

disliking widdershins should be obvious. with a most likely vfd upbringing, he probably thinks his actions are acceptable and the norm but they blur a lot with his parenting to where his actions are just plain awful. the big one is him throwing fernald under the bus or allowing jacques to throw fernald under the bus when it came to the anwhistle aquatic fire (i’m not sure what happen here). don’t get me started with the talk of arranged marriages and willingness to send fiona and the baudelaires -which is basically two teens, a teen i call a kid, and a baby- into a life or death place (and sunny almost died) and left without instructions and maybe no note (with the reveal of violet’s fifteenth date i wonder if widdershins and phil were putting up decorations and when they had to leave, widdershins went ‘the balloons will do’ because they spell out vfd and somehow thought he was killing two birds with one stone; it’s still bad as no note).

the whole *thinking emoji* came from the happy family photo. it got me asking ‘what the heck is up with this guy’ and a fascination on trying to figure out how he ticks. with re-reads, i got the impression widdershins was a normal and calm person/vfd member as can be. fernald clearly liked widdershins before the anwhistle aquatic fire. widdershins being fernald and fiona’s stepfather is proof mrs. widdershins loved him -flaws and all- and accept his proposal in spite of the age gap that went over my head as a kid. the way he speaks of josephine, kit, and jacques means he has friends who like him. i sort of came to the idea his level of jerkass and awfulness gradually build up over time post anwhistle aquatic fire (being its worst by tgg), and i took his off-screen actions in the end based off the photo and my impressions of pre-fire widdershins that widdershins realized what he become -probably when he got the news fernald and fiona double cross olaf- and clean up his act to be with them again, even if it kills him. 

so i’m kind of please teen!widdershins (that tiny as hell illustration makes me think he’s a teen okay) is calm and normal? he’s not screaming ‘aye’ every other sentence. he’s more considerate to others. he’s nice as he can be to kid!lemony when breaking the news teen!kit got caught (widdershins breaking the news makes me think kit and him are friends). he even complimented kid!lemony for the not coup kid!lemony is planning (he’s probably going along with the not coup he’s clearly not stopping it; and i want to say their friendship ended when widdershins believed a certain daily punctilio story and showed it everyone- including beatrice- which lead to widdershins forgetting lemony’s name, yet lemony was part of the crew of two after jacques, so something else must have been the cause?). teen!widdershins has his philosophy of not hesitating, but it’s not consuming his life. from what i read, teen!widdershins is someone (kid and teen) fernald would and probably did got along with: it’s the older big brother (figure) who has cool stories to tell while also being sensible with kind words and advice when the younger sibling feels down and needs help and probably let said sibling do whatever they want. it perfectly lines up with my messed up widdershins-caliban theory headcanon holy ****

with the cameo now in mind, i can’t help but wonder if teen!widdershins would hesitate -or not hesitate- to punch his adult self for becoming radically different. 

[manifestoonmoralmanlove]

Blameless? Shameless? More like Shiftless: Wrap-up

I grumbled and fumbled through the first book in the series Soulless or Brainless. I fumed and gloomed through the second book Changeless or Gormless.

Now we’re onto the last book of the (initial) trilogy Blameless or...how I originally wanted to riff it...

But, I do not have riffs for you for this book.  Why?  I thought this series would end because I would run out of energy for it.  That’s not what happened...the true reason, is that this book is BY FAR the best out of the three, and that because of that most of my riffs aren’t very funny.  Despite that, I would not classify this book as GOOD by my standards. I think it’s barely mediocre and fixed a lot of problems the other books had.  So I feel as if I have to concede a bit here.

Instead of riffs, you’ll be getting a summary and my review so I feel as if I can tie this off with a nice little bow.

Summary:

Obvious spoilers ahead.

The world is steampunk supernatural Victorian England.  Vampires and Werewolves are real things, and there are also soulless.  Soulless are another set of supernaturals that can negate the powers of vampires and werewolves with touch.  Alexia is a soulless, and is married to an important werewolf Maccon.  Alexia becomes pregnant by Maccon, however werewolves are not supposed to be able to have children.  So Maccon is convinced she cheated and abandons her.

Alexia goes back to live with her family.  She discovers her one vampire friend has split town without warning, and that every other vampire is out to kill her for this pregnancy.  However she wants to prove that the child is Maccon, so she decides to go to Italy with her friends.  Italy is a country that’s run by religious zealots out to murder every single supernatural person and DESPITE THE OBVIOUS benefits a soulless could provide that organization they treat soulless people shitty too.  However, they suspect that with all the research they’ve done, they will have some information which can prove Alexia right. So Alexia travels to Italy with her dead dad’s stoic bodyguard Floote, and with a woman who has a crush on her named LeFoux.

Meanwhile her husband Maccon is being shitfaced and angsting a bunch about this.  His 2nd in command Lyall is taking care of all his duties.  Eventually Maccon sobers up and publishes a public apology for Alexia and claims that the baby is in fact his.  Also on this end it is discovered that Alexia’s vampire friend Akeldama had his boyfriend kidnapped.  So Maccon and Lyall manage to rescue the boyfriend, murdering the head vampire and being forced to change the boyfriend into a werewolf to save his life.

On the trip to Italy they battle a bunch of vampires and meet some allies.  When they get to Italy they’re captured by the religious Zealots known as the Templars.  When the Templars find out she’s with child they lock her in the dungeon.  However with the help of her friends and Maccon they rescue her.  Maccon and Alexia make up and happy end.

My review:

The story in itself…is simply not good.  I could list you plot holes by the dozen by neither of us has the patience for that I’m sure.  I think the sticking point for me is that their whole mission feels pretty pointless. They go through all this hassle getting to Italy (which honestly seemed like a super bad idea) while also being attacked by vampires the entire time and for what?  To find out that yes she could get pregnant from a werewolf?

….Don’t we already know that since she’s uhh pregnant from a werewolf?

The lore of this book is super bad.  All the major plot points hinge on nobody understanding anything about a rare but super fascinating and important race of people.  It feels as if the author doesn’t really care about her own lore, and makes everybody in her fictional world the same. Also it’s kinda hard for me to believe, that even if female soulless are super rare that literally in this world’s whole history a female soulless has become pregnant by a supernatural person twice.  TWICE! IN IT’S ENTIRE HISTORY! SEEMS LEGIT!

But there is a reason this is the best out of the three I swear!

I think the story starts off really strong with believable and easy-to-understand exposition that draws you in.  I legit read the first chapter of this book and was like, “WHAT THE FUCK, WE’RE A GOOD SERIES NOW!?!??!”

I think a large part of what makes it better for me is that they finally treat this series like an action/adventure.  There are lot of vampire battles, fighting weird technology, and dramatic escapes using wild steampunk vehicles.  We also have Maccon fighting werewolves and vampires, and dramatically saving a person from a glass bubble from the bottom of a river.

The steampunk technology used here is just straight up really lame and forced but I think that’s easily forgiven in a silly action adventure novel.

I think the POINT of books of this nature. Is the fun action!  We also pace this all together well.  We have suspense, breaks from the action, and it’s not all the same pow pow fight scene by a long shot.  I will say there isn’t a lot of suspense that she won’t be able to make it out alive. Nobody dies or even sustains any kind of serious injury.  The protagonists seem to fight as if they’re invincible, but oddly enough LeFoux spends a lot of the later scenes almost instantly getting knocked unconscious. Which I suppose is fine to up the ante of the tension but she’s the only one who gets that treatment and she gets it a lot…which is kind weird.  

Speaking of LeFoux, I was really bummed about her and Alexia’s relationship in this book.  One of the few enjoyable things about the last book was the lesbian flirting and the unresolved sexual tension between LeFoux and Alexia.  Sure Alexia didn’t know lesbians were a THING but it was quite clear that Alexia was attracted to LeFoux.  In this book LeFoux continues to flirt with Alexia but Alexia treats it like a droll annoyance.  Quite frankly it doesn’t make any sense if you’ve read the last book.  Alexia is at her lowest point in her relationship to her shitty husband, there is mutual attraction, LeFoux treats her nicely and is very willing, they’re off on an exciting and at points romantic tour of France, Alexia is on the cusp of a huge life change without her family or her husband’s support, and LeFoux is raising a child too.  I get that Maccon/Alexia has got to be OTP and that you don’t want her to look like she would actually cheat since, cause she’s gotta be morally better than the negative reputation she’s getting in the press. Yet at no point is a relationship with LeFoux treated as even a temptation for her. There isn’t even like a sub plot where Alexia worries about hurting LeFoux’s feelings or clearly explains that they can’t be together.  LeFoux has no reaction when Alexia reconciles with her husband.  It’s not treated as fucking anything more than comedic swatting down of lesbian advances.  So honestly? That kinda made me angry.  Now Alexia did sexually assault LeFoux last book and totally doesn’t deserve her but to treat her now as they wacky queer who hits on your Mary-Sue so you remember your Mary-Sue is hot is utterly aggravating. 

The story still has the major problem of being such a no bummers train that she won’t dare give LeFoux and Alexia a messy relationship.  It could have been so much more compelling ugh!  A part of me wonders if the author originally intended for the two to get together this novel since there was all that previous build up and the set up here makes it ideal.  Yet an editor said BIG NO to it, because apparently a hero cheating in a book is considered one of the most toxic of novel poisons.  OH WELL!

But a female/female relationship that is way better in this book?  That would be the friendship between Ivy and Alexia.   In the last book, Ivy was the stupid comic relief with romantic troubles.  Alexia spent the last book just being a condescending asshole to her.  Ivy never treated Alexia’s bullshit romantic troubles with anything other than support and respect but did not get the same in return.  They did not seem like friends.  Ivy was there to make Alexia look better and for a cheap laugh at Ivy’s expense even though she does nothing wrong. That was garbage.  In this book however Ivy trusts Alexia that she didn’t cheat, gives her all her love and support, gives her tea for her trip, and competently runs LeFoux’s hat shop while they’re both away.  In exchange Alexia appreciates what Ivy is doing and treats her like a smart person capable of doing difficult tasks.

I said it before and I’ll say it again.  Ivy is MVP of this series and you CAN’T CHANGE MY MIND!

But while we’re talking about relationships the crux of this series is Alexia and Maccon. I wonder if this is my favorite book of the series because they barely interact in person. The one time at the end where they reconcile was unbearable. Basically the just barely escape the dungeon and the entire crew is standing just outside it.  Alexia goes on a tirade about how much she hates Maccon but she’s very obviously pretending to be mad at him, and it’s the most pathetic scene in the series.  It was rushed and painfully awkward.  We just immediately forget about any possible danger and the other people there so Alexia can pointlessly pout while we all pretend its agency. (It’s not.) We also than very quickly transition them to a RANDOM barn so they can have sex, which is fade to black anyway.

I can’t help but view their reconciliation as a desperate woman who’s been through a lot, wants so badly for things to be less chaotic and familiar again that she capitulates to a shit boy garbage man.  She has many, many, many reasons to be properly mad at him. She is shunned by her family, loses her job, becomes a social outcast who can’t walk down the street without being harassed, and is the target of open and constant vampire hostility.  But he publishes a public apology and now they’re even.  The public apology is talked about as ~humiliating~ but he loses nothing for it. The series tries to sell us that they’re equals in this relationship cause they sass each other.  They are not equals in this relationship.  The series never seems to acknowledge that Alexia does like 90% of the work and gets way more shit than Maccon could ever dream of. Not that the series has to have a political message, it just seems so doped up by our shit heterosexual culture that it has no self-awareness.  I dislike Alexia for being a bad person, but Maccon is a worse person who doesn’t do anything good and lives a charmed life while his wife suffers quicker and more severely.  And what do we get out of it?  Dialog that can be boiled down to…

“Let’s have sex”

“No you’re a gross terrible very bad man!”

“Oh okay, I’ll go over here to contribute nothing and whine a lot.”

“I MEAN MAYBE IT WON’T BE SO BAD TO HAVE SEX WITH YOU???????????”

“…Is that a yes?”

“YOU VERY BAD MAN WHO IS GROSS AND TERRIBLE! I WILL NEVER HAVE SEX WITH YOU.............................................................

.............................................................….unless?”

I hate it very much.

So let’s talk other characters:

Floote is boring and pointless.

Tunstell shows up briefly to be comedic relief and really bad comedic relief at that.  He shows up in LeFoux’s lab and opens with him being very afraid of her wacky technology but then immediately starts sticking his fingers in dangerous stuff. Way to contradict your character in under a paragraph.

The way Channing was established last book, while making him look like a shitbird, gave him personality. In this book he’s there as a protective prop to make Maccon look marginally better. None of his personality comes out at all, and despite the last book showing him as a romantic rival there is 0 of that in this book.  I don’t think he has more than 3 lines of dialog.

LeFoux’s one friend was also pointless and personality-less to the point I can’t even be bother to look up his name.  He existed so they could dramatically borrow his flying contraption.

The villains of this series are two-fold:

We have the Templars who are religious zealots who want to kill all supernaturals and are disgusted by Alexia’s kind despite how useful she could be.  They were not good villains because they are utterly pathetic. They let Alexia and her friends have the run of the place.  While they can go outside the compound, once captured, they’re followed to make sure they return.  However, the author did not do an adequate job making that atmosphere…even stressful. The pack of them should be frightened by this.  They should be treading on eggshells because one wrong move and it’s an inquisition for them!  …No they zip around enjoying pesto and don’t seem to have a care in the world.

Even when the fight is brought to them?  They spend their whole lives training to kill supernaturals but when they get a chance to do so to protect Alexia they’re not very good at it.  3 podunk humans managed to evade capture by the entire vampire community as they trotted through Europe but zealots trained from birth to stake vampires fall left and right when they’re attacked by them?

OH YEAH, REALLY FEELING LIKE THEY’RE A LEGIT THREAT! THANKS FOR THAT!

Oh but don’t worry we have another villain to help balance things out!

We have Langs-Dorf or whatever the fuck his name is.  He is a heartless dude who researches soulless.  He basically wants to use her for experiments so he later teams up with the Templars and spills the beans that’s she’s preggorz.  

He, like the Templars, are flaccid shit tier babies.  He’s the archetypal sniveling scientist, who can’t even outwit them.  He honestly doesn’t even really get much screen-time. I am not exaggerating when I say they dedicate more time to describing what his irritating dog gets up to than what he does.  They did that for comedic purposes, sure okay whatever.  But it’s not funny and the ankle attacking just highlights how harmless he is as well.

So Alexia’s pregnancy?  

I mean, they do try to give her a character arc on how she feels about carrying a child.  It starts with her calling it an inconvenience and just assuming she’ll miscarry eventually.  Yet later is like, “Well I guess it’s okay if it lives.”  I’m glad they tried but they didn’t do a good job. Little time is dedicated to her personal feelings on the matter and her steps in pregnancy acceptance feel disjointed. It felt very much like,

Chapter 1:

This sucks.

Chapter 10:

Well I’m not morning sick today.

Chatper 20: I guess it’s okay.

I get we can’t talk about her wanting an abortion cause EVERYTHING IS GOOD TIMES but this no-bummers train cruising straight into never-frown-town we’re on here really stamps down her ability to have a MEANINGFUL arc not just on her role of her impending motherhood but like recognizing it’s going to be whole different human being.  ISN’T HER PREGNANCY SUPPOSED TO BE THE CORNERSTONE OF THIS WHOLE BOOK?!  Like at least 50 shades had Ana recognize her pregnancy as ANOTHER POTENTIAL PERSON and that she wanted to protect it even after her shitty husband lost his mind over it.

But I mean…for Alexia it’s at least in character cause she doesn’t give a shit about anything besides herself.  Alexia has not won me over as a relatable protagonist I want to root for.  She’s self-obsessed, and dumb.  Yet the whole world clamors about how great she is. She never has consequences tied to her negative choices or personality traits. She never gets in trouble for going into dangerous situations without planning.  Nor does she get in trouble for her lack of empathy, or belligerence. What she does get in trouble for is being born a soulless woman.  It feeds her smug martyr complex and overall is pretty fucking annoying.

TL;DR

Plot and characters? Bad

But this time the story has action, suspense, good pacing, and Ivy never did anything wrong. Good!

[stompsite]

Can Violence Be Okay?

As some of you know, I’m basically gonna die real soon unless I can get heart surgery, but that’s expensive. I make money by writing essays about games. If you like my work, please share it around, because personally, I’d like to keep on living. If you wanna support me, I’ve got patreon, ko-fi, and a critically acclaimed game out. I’m also looking for work as a designer or writer, so if you know of anything, let me know, please? I’ve worked on well over a dozen AAA and indie games doing everything from emergency script rewrites to helping devs improve their investment loops. I’ve put a lot of time into the 29 years of my life so far, and I’d like it to pay off, lol. But seriously, my mortality is distressing, so if you know how I can get my heart fixed and put a roof over my head, I want to hear from you! 

Dishonored 2 is one of my favorite games. I’ve written about it at length before. I’ve talked about some of my problems with the game (doing the right thing in D2 feels like an easy choice compared to D1), but I mean, man, I still love it. When it first dropped, though? Man. I had A Problem with it.

Dishonored 2 was so good until I got to the end and got an ending that didn’t match up with my feeling of where I was at when playing the game. There I was, being the best Corvo I could be, running around trying to save my daughter Emily, realizing how bad things had got in Karnaca while I’d been away, and wanting to do my best to keep everyone safe and improve the empire.

At the end, the game told me that Corvo ruled the islands with an iron fist. What had happened? Why was it doing this to me? I didn’t ghost every level, but I certainly approached things non-lethally where I could.

Turns out that the game doesn’t like it when you kill monsters.

I mean, sure, if you kill, like, a rat, the game doesn’t seem to care, but if you kill a witch, the game gets mad. Apparently, the game considers witches to be people. I did not--I felt the game had led me to believe that witches weren’t actually people. So when I made the choice to kill them, the game saw it as Corvo choosing the path of violence… but that’s not the decision I made.

Let’s rewind a bit.

One of my favorite story archetypes is about people without power who, through cleverness, ingenuity, and grit, overcome those with power. It’s not just about being an underdog, it’s about being underestimated, devalued, even downright abused. It’s about the defiance that comes with that, and overcoming the expectations someone has.

I don’t know exactly why, but I’ve always liked these kinds of stories. It frustrated me to watch my wealthier peers pick on the poorer ones. It insulted me when I was essentially told “wow, it’s remarkable that you’re so intelligent for someone so poor” after I won a scholarship. I had to protect two disabled students from one of the richer students in school because he wanted something they had and they didn’t want to give it to him. I have watched people with power hurt and abuse those without. Heck, I’ve been at the mercy of people more powerful than me before. I don’t like that. When I can tell someone’s struggling with the power dynamics of a group, I do my best to help them feel more comfortable in that space.

One thing I liked about the first Dishonored game is that the Empress, Jessamine, is portrayed as a good person who wanted to do right by her people, but she was actively sabotaged, and eventually murdered, by the nobles whose power she threatened. That kind of story is alluring to me; getting justice for Jessamine and delivering Dunwall from the powerful, punching up like that… that’s awesome as heck.

It was kinda weird when Dishonored 2 shows up and indicates that maybe Dunwall didn’t actually improve that much after the nobility was killed off/not killed off (I was mostly nonlethal the first time). D2 never really confronts this head on, at least that I can recall. Instead, it feels like two different stories. There’s the personal story of “someone hurt your family and took your home and you should take it back,” and then there’s the idea of “you’re fighting for justice for people who are downtrodden by the people who took your home.”

These are both great, but after the fact, it did seem kinda strange that Corvo, literally the dad of the Emperor, as upper-class as you can get, is playing the part of the underdog (or Emily herself, who I haven’t played because I wanted to hear Stephen Russell’s voice again). Like, there’s this implication that he and Emily haven’t really fixed anything at all and maybe kinda betrayed Jessamine’s legacy with that? I dunno. It’s really the only criticism I have of Dishonored 2 anymore, and I mean, the game’s still a 10/10 for me. It’s one of the only games that can grab hold of my attention and actually distract me from the pain I’m in.

Arkane has done such an amazing job with their games; I get to be someone else for a while. I can block out the health problems for a while and just fall into another space and experience relief from my awful life. I will never be able to thank everyone there for making such pure and wonderful games.

So Dishonored 2 has this kinda odd relationship with privilege and power and how it contextualizes its protagonists, but then along came Death of the Outsider, which solved this problem by letting you play as Billie Lurk, who, for my money, is the best protagonist in Dishonored history. I love playing as Billie. I love that she’s not an upper class person, just a normal person with cool tools and powers.

Anywho, back to the violence.

So, one thing I love about Arkane games is that they have amazing gamefeel. It’s like saying a drink is smooth, right? Like, it just feels right. I’ve never played an Arkane game that felt bad (maybe Arx Fatalis does, but I’ve never played it!), and I feel like, with every successive release, they only get better at making great gamefeel. Buuuuuuttt… it feels like since Dishonored, every Arkane game is a test. You can’t just do what feels good; you’re taking a test.

When the witches came along, I’m not gonna lie, it felt good to let loose. They’re just as powerful as I am, so it’s not like it’s an uneven playing field.

But… that wasn’t my first reaction. I’d encountered the witches before in The Knife of Dunwall and The Witches of Brigmore, and they’re portrayed in those games as unequivocally bad. Still, for Dishonored 2, I was trying to play stealthy and nonlethally, so I decided to knock them out at first. When I found out I could take their powers in one mission, I decided to try that, and then figured that when Corvo stopped Delilah, he’d probably arrest them or something.

Then, an unfortunate bug occurred (kudos to Arkane for fixing it really quickly! I think they had it solved in a couple days or something amazing like that) where some of the witches were dying when I was trying to render them unconscious. I couldn’t get the nonlethal option to work.

But I wasn’t that concerned, because I felt the witches needed to be killed.

Why?

Because they’re horrible, and I think they seem closer to Vampires--supernatural monsters--than people. 

I mean, listen to their dialogue. Look at what they do to the people they kill. They even backstab each other--one of their idle dialogues is about stealing from another. Another is about brushing her sister’s hair so she can gain trust and then stab her sister in the throat. The witches are hostile too--it’s not possible to approach them peacefully. They react to you like you’ve just invaded their vampiric crypt.

The mechanics don’t really leave room for interacting with them sympathetically; there’s no chance to talk to them, work with them, or anything. You can knock them unconscious, but it feels weird, even unconscionable to do that to people who are talking about stabbing each other in the throat.

I’m okay with knocking someone out when the heart says something like “He wasn't always like this. One of his works still hangs in a museum,” or “If he looks sad, it is because he mourns the child he lost,” but I had to look up a list of the heart’s lines about the witches because I couldn’t think of a time when the heart ever said anything good about a single one of the witches.

So, they have magical powers, want to do nothing but kill us, and they’re even happy to kill each other too. Read some of the notes--it’s indicated that they’re sadists. They take delight in killing anyone and everyone. The environmental storytelling seems to indicate the same thing; nothing good comes of a witch’s presence.

When I first did my quick gut-reaction post about Dishonored 2, I fumbled to articulate why Delilah bugged me. I felt like the game tried to excuse her at every turn. She had a bad life. She was a bastard child and treated poorly. Given my propensity for liking underdogs who were underestimated and mistreated, you might think I’d like her too. But I saw what she did. I saw what she’d chosen to become.

Many of the witches are contextualized in this way. I think the actual target of the museum mission--sorry, I’ve forgotten her name, it was 18 months ago--has this whole long backstory about being a rich lady who was going to get married off to a man she didn’t love who was kind of a shitty person anyways.

In reading all of the lines in the game that the heart has for witches, most of them are about enjoying drinking blood, murdering families, and abusing children. One woman struggles to remember the person she was before, but that reminds me more of a vampire’s thrall than anything else, and the game never does anything with that. No “please, I don’t want to do this,” or anything.

They became witches, and are now visiting a far greater violence upon the Empire. As one of my friends pointed out--and I’m inclined to agree--the Empire kind of deserves it, at least in Dishonored 2. It’s not a good society. I mean, it’s weirdly forward thinking in some ways, right? Like literally all of the romantic fiction I’ve encountered in the universe is LGBT stuff. But then in other ways it’s a mirror of the 19th Century British Empire, abusing people and nature in equal measure. Like I said, Jessamine seemed to be trying to fix those things, but she died, and Dishonored 2 indicates that Emily shirked her responsibilities to be a better Empress.

But.

I mean.

Literally all of the heart dialogue we have for them paints them as bad people. The nicest person we have is one who despairs because it’s easier to hurt people with each passing month.

One of my friends has argued that these were all women who were mistreated or whatever, but the heart doesn’t tell us about that. It isn’t saying “her husband used to beat her, so she relishes the power she has” or anything. None of these lines speak to a culture of misogynistic violence. Instead, we have a woman who “spent a month killing those who had slighted her.”

Slighted.

Not abused, beat, hurt. Slighted.

There is, as far as I’ve seen, precisely one person who was a victim: “Beaten and abused, she was barely sane when she heard the coven's call. Now she does the same to others, wielding her power like a barbed whip.”

I’ve been abused. It’s not something I like to talk about at length, but I was molested by an adult male (thankfully not my parents!) at the age of 11. I was abused by an ex who wanted to destroy me the way her mother had destroyed her, and those actions included gaslighting, emotional blackmail, and a ton of other things I don’t really want to talk about. I’ve been physically and emotionally abused for my genetic shortcomings.

I learned, a very long time ago, that almost all abuse comes from people who were abused. I’ve met people who are very angry, and I’ve heard people say “ah, well, it’s okay for them to lash out, because they were abused, so it’s only natural.” Heck, I’ve been one of the people who lashed out. It was only an emotional outburst, but it remains one of the worst things I’ve ever done. I will never stop regretting it.

I understand wanting justice. I understand wanting someone to hurt for what they did to you. I still have nightmares I don’t talk about. I’ve sat with friends who’ve had it so much worse than me and done everything in my power to give them what comfort I can.

But the witches are different. They chose power. And they chose vengeance. Should we justify that? Would I be justified if I started murdering everyone who looked or seemed like the people who had wronged me? Does anything excuse the murder of a bunch of academics in a Karnacan museum? The witches speak with sadistic dialogue. One of the notes left behind by someone trying to hide in the game’s final level makes it abundantly clear that their behaviors are monstrous.

So. Uh.

Look at Gary Oldman’s Dracula.

Dracula’s whole thing is actually super sad, right? Like, the love of his life died while he was out fighting bad dudes. She was tricked into committing suicide, so he renounces God and gets cursed into becoming a monster. His origins are tragic. It’s unfair what happened to him. But I mean, he still murders people and stuff. Dude’s gotta get stabbed in the heart. Sure, it’s cool that his wife got reincarnated as Mina Harker and all, but his whole kidnapping her and trying to turn her into one of his thralls is still bad.

The reason that killing Dracula is good is because Dracula has power and he is a monster. These witches have power and they are monsters. They hurt people--not just the ones who deserve it, but the ones who don’t. In the Brigmore witches, it sure as heck appears to be that they’re preying on the poor. It’s not like they’re out there fighting a revolutionary war against the nobility, and that their magical powers tip the scale. No, they’re killing everyone, even like… public works dudes. It’s an indiscriminate process. They’re killing people they don’t even know.

What makes them not monsters? They have power, and they use that power with cruelty. Dishonored’s world is not a good one to live in, but there is nothing the heart has for us that says that these women were victims. In many cases, they were perpetrators before they got their powers.

Corvo may be kind of a shitty ruler, by seeing a ton of problems during the time of Dishonored 1 and not addressing them leading up to Dishonored 2, but he’s one of the only people who can actually fight a witch; I think the only people actually capable of fighting them are the creepy religious zealots who enjoy torturing people for fun (why didn’t Corvo shut that down?).

So I was thinking about all of this when I killed the witches. They weren’t human anymore. They were indiscriminately murdering anyone who stopped them. Their leader, Delilah, had been portrayed in two stories already as a monster, and while her backstory was tragic, she took that tragedy and used it to excuse being a murderous monster, who ruined the lives of everyone she met, regardless of who they were.

I would have had a much harder time squaring off against a witch who was using her powers to put a stop to her abuser. Like, I, personally, would probably not hunt down the man who hurt me as a kid and put a sledgehammer through his brains, but I mean, in a game, if a witch went to murder a man who molested her, I definitely would be treating her like a person.

These witches, I felt, after listening to them talk, listening to the heart, and watching them act so casually around the bodies of the people they murdered, weren’t out for justice. They weren’t trying to fight back against an oppressive and cruel society. They were monsters. When a witch is wandering around talking about going for a swim later or wondering how the new girl’s doing, it might seem fine, but to be so casual as she walks past a pile of bodies… that’s monstrous. Murder is not a casual act.

Corvo (or Emily, if you played as her) is the only person who can stop the witches, even if you reject the Outsider’s gifts and play without any powers at all. They outclass everyone else, and they kill for the thrill. Someone has to stop them. It’s urgent.

A friend of mine got really upset with me for killing the witches. He said that these were women who’d been mistreated and society deserved to burn. But I mean… if you’re a random guy in a library, are you gonna be able to stop a squad of guards who throw innocent people in prison, kill people’s dogs for meat to sell, or murder innocent people? What about a groundskeeper? What can he do?

The game does not, as far as I can tell, back up the assertion that the witches were victims given power. There is no justice--they’re psychopaths who tortured children and animals, who murdered families, who relish in the carnage. The few women seen as good are losing those memories. Their existence as witches is a tragic one at best, and they’re so reminiscent of horror characters who lose themselves through possession or vampirism that I don’t know how to justify refusing to stop them.

A cop once told me about how he fought a man on PCP. The man had beaten his partner unconscious and was trying to choke him to death. Apparently this huge guy didn’t even feel their tazers and they weren’t supposed to shoot him. This cop ended up in a knock-down, drag out brawl with a man who wasn’t feeling any pain. He ended up bashing a pyrex bowl over the guy’s head so hard it shattered before backup arrived. He told me “if I could have shot him, I think I would have.”

To me, this brings up the question: is it possible to be violent in a game for a constructive purpose? There’s that old quote, misattributed to Orwell, that says something like “we sleep soundly in our beds at night because there are men who visit violence upon those who would do us harm.”

I must admit, I’d love future Dishonored games that involved dismantling the monarchy and trying to find a better, fairer government. I’d love to visit Pandyssia and dismantle traditional colonialist tropes. I’d like to grapple with questions about the ethics of violence, because that’s a subject that interests me on a personal level.

But I must admit, I was surprised when Dishonored 2 did everything to portray its witches as these inhuman, incredibly powerful beings, and then punished me for trying to protect the weak from their unbridled power. To me, my actions were heroic, because I was fighting a corrupted and almost unstoppable power in order protect the innocent. This is a game that let me save Aramis Stilton, a man who had fought for workers rights and was destroyed by the Duke for it.

(as an aside, I love Stilton; he grew up poor and earned his wealth honestly. He earned everything he had, so of course the nobility didn’t think he deserved it, because rich people think the only honest way to have money is to receive it from one’s parents. He never forgot where he came from and tried to do right by his workers, so the nobility destroyed him for it. Restoring his mind through time shenanigans is one of the most… most right things I have ever done in a game. I felt fortunate to be given that option)

I think, if the witches were human, if they were victims who deserved better, then the game should have supported that through its mechanics and narrative. But the heart--which, last I knew, told the truth--told me that they were monsters, and those that weren’t had lost their humanity and were on their way to becoming monsters.

I would love other ways to solve problems. When the heart tells me that this man beats his son so hard his bruises last a month, I want to put a stop to it. But what can I do? My only verbs are “knock out” or “murder.” Should I knock out a monster that rejoices in slaughter? Or should I put it down so that it won’t kill again?

Dishonored 2 is one of my favorite games of all time, but I felt that the ending only considered whether I had performed violence, not whether that violence needed to be performed. In my own life, I went through hell and chose not to come out of it a monster. I don’t know how to justify these women performing child abuse, animal abuse, and murder. Like vampires, they are monsters. No matter how tragic their origins, they prey on the weak and defenseless. I don’t like violence, but I think maybe there are times when it’s an unfortunate requirement. They might have been powerless at one point, but in the game, their actions showed they did nothing but punch down. Personally, I think we should punch up or not at all.

[huntertales]

Part One: It’s Bad Writing, But the Kids Love it. (Live Free or Twihard S06E05)

Episode Summary: Sam, Dean and the reader investigate a rash of disappearances involving teenage girls, which they soon discover the girls are being lured by a nest of vampires. During the hunt, Dean is turned into a vampire and is faced with deathly consequences if he can’t resist his temptation to feed his thirst for human blood. In his final hours, fiction becomes reality when Dean and the reader share a moment that feels straight of a vampire paperback. Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader Word Count: 4,842.

Previous Part | Supernatural Rewrite Masterlist

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There was nothing like a bunch of missing teenage girls to keep you and the Winchester brothers busy. It'd been a bit of a slow spell for all things evil and wicked since wrapping up your last hunt. It started off with three officers dropping dead of mysterious causes, only to uncover an angel, Balthazar, was selling parts of his Father's toys to minors so a child could seek vengeance on his brother. It was also the last time you saw Cas in almost over a year. He left without saying goodbye. And you were just fine with that. If he wanted to spend time with his siblings and fight like a bunch of brats, so be it. You had a world full of monsters that needed to be hunted down and a half dozen missing girls to be found before the worst could happen.

You walked with Sam down the quiet town street with all the missing people flyers you had gotten from the local police station. You looked up away from the smiling face of the most recent teenager to see the Impala come into view and Dean sitting on the hood, finishing his call that he said was important. If you had to take a wild guess, from the smile on his face, he was probably talking to Lisa. Normally the mention of the woman's name would make an ache slowly start to sit in your chest. But, after some time, you were starting to feel happy for Dean. He was getting everything he wanted. From the normal life to a supportive girlfriend, along with Ben, who he had viewed like a son. It was everything you could never give him. 

If anything good came out of Dean going to Lisa, you gotten your best friend back. You got to ride in Baby again with the older Winchester behind the wheel and his brother sitting in the passenger's seat, you hogging up all of the backseat as your own. That's what you'd been missing for the past year since coming back from the cage. Your real family and the Impala. What else did you need to be happy? Right now it was to hit the road and hunt some monsters. You shuffled all the papers together in a neat pile and approached Dean, a smile on your own stretched across your lips when he noticed that you and his brother were back. He quickly ended the call and shut the phone, you raised your brow in curiously to see what he was trying what was making his calm demeanor break from the smile that wanted to light up his face. "What are you so stoked about?" You teased the older Winchester as you gave him a wink from what you proposed. Dean pretended to be confused, mumbling something about how it was nothing. "You look like an unsupervised kid in a candy store. Got a hot date with Lisa? If so, Sam and I can take this. We'll meet up afterwards." "No, no. We got a case. I wanna work." Dean answered you a little too quickly, making you let out a chuckle. "What do you got?" You handed over the pile of flyers to Dean's awaiting hands so he could skim through the missing faces that all had the exact type of looks. Pretty, petite and young. "Six girls in seven days," You explained the pattern that caught your attention as he examined everything with a close eye. "Which is more disappearances than this city has seen in over a year—all about the same age." "And cute." Dean added. You scoffed and rolled your eyes, knowing he was going to say something like that. "Hey, ice cream comes in lots of flavors, sweetheart." "Yeah. And you've had about every single one on this planet. We've got half dozen girls who look almost exactly the same, late teens. Sounds like we got a pattern going here." You suspected. "Sam and I couldn't find anything they have in common. But I'm sure there is." "Well, six directions to go." Dean said, going through the papers to find all of the girls had been picked in different spots. "Hey, Sammy. Pick a number between one and six." "How about number seven." Sam suggested. "Another call came in today." Lucky number seven, you thought to yourself. You and the boys decided to start with the most recent missing girl to see if you could figure who was causing all these suspicious disappearances. And put a stop to it before someone else became a victim. + + + You and the boys made it into town a few hours later and decided to first stop at the house of Kristen, the most recent girl to have vanished. Her father was the one who greeted and welcomed the three of you inside after flashing your fake badges and saying you were FBI. You could see his daughter's disappearance was taking a personal toll on him from the lack of answers or leads the police could give him. She wasn't the type to runaway. A good girl who just vanished into thin air, no explanation to ease her father's anxiety-ridden mind. "Kristen's a good kid. A little naive, sure..." He trailed off for a second when he tried painting a picture of his daughter for the three of you to understand. You gave him a warm smile when you noticed his gaze went to your direction. "You try to be a good parent. Girls are hard." "That, they are." You agreed as you let out a quiet chuckle, showing him a bit of empathy for being a single dad. "We want to find your daughter much as you do. And in order to do that, would you mind if we took a look around her room? Just to get to know her a bit better. See if there's something the police might not have thought of to look at." Kristen's father fell silent for a moment. He looked over his shoulder and to the staircase that laid behind him. He let out a quiet sigh and turned his gaze back to the three of you to answer your request. "Last door on the left." You gave him another smile as you mumbled a thank you underneath your breath before you passed by him, following behind the brothers when they began making their way to the staircase after being granted permission. You made it halfway up before the three of you stopped, a little bit baffled at what Kristen's father had said. "What do you think he was talking about?" Dean wondered, you shrugged your shoulders. Kids were different with every generation that came by. Who knows what they did to get in trouble these days. "Drugs?" Sam guessed. All of you exchanged a glance before heading up to the top of the staircase and down the hall to the last door on the left, like Kristen's father said. Dean opened up the door and flicked on the light, half expecting to be blinded by shades of pink and all sorts of frilly things that teenage girls liked. But he stumbled upon a bedroom decor that made him feel taken aback. And even a little bit offended.   You let out a whistle when you stumbled upon the holy grail of everything goth and supernatural a girl Kristian’s age would have. The walls were painted a blood red and covered in posters—not of the latest bands and Hollywood heartthrobs—but the cast of those God awful vampire and werewolves movies you kept seeing everywhere. The entire place was covered in gothic and what might appear in a creature of the night’s bedroom. You looked over to the bed to see there was the same black and crimson red color scheme. Along with a few throw pillows that were of the character’s faces. You expected to see a copy of Dracula or Anner Rice around, but there was nothing but the modern telling of vampires that sparkled in the sun and was a complete dick to the female protagonist you were supposed to root for. It was complete and utter trash. But you’d be lying if you said you had picked up a copy out of pure curiosity.

Your eyes wandered to a poster across the room that was pinned in place. A young woman was standing between two men, who looked like they were attempting to appear frightened, stood between two men that were attempting to be broody and mysterious. To you, they looked like a bunch of actors failing miserably at their job to portray a certain emotion. But they must have been raking in millions by targeting a demographic that was the most dedicated of all them all, teenage girls. And it seemed It seemed Kristen was a mighty big fan of "My Summer Blood." You looked away from the poster and to Dean, who looked horrified at what he was surrounded with and couldn’t look away. “Oh, it is so much worse.” The older Winchester muttered, knowing he’d stumbled upon something that made him uncomfortable. Sam let out a scoff, taking a guess that Kristen wasn’t addicted to drugs, but vampires. “No, these aren’t vampires, man. These…” You shut the door behind you to give the three of you some privacy. Only you were greeted by the sight of a cardboard cutout of a pretty boy vampire. “These are douchebags.”

Lately the biggest trends among the younger crowd was supernatural monsters. But they weren't depicted in ways you remembered growing up where vampires were bloodsucking monsters and werewolves would rip your heart out. Nowadays they were being written as the love interest for pale, awkward girls and werewolves were your best friend that was secretly in love with you. You rolled your eyes from how very real and dangerous these creatures were. It's crappy writing, but the kids loved it. And the author was sure ranking in the money.

Sam looked around the room to find out where Kristen’s laptop would be hiding. He took a wild guess and headed for the unmade bed, throwing around her sheets to discover it was exactly where he suspected. You looked over your shoulder to see the girl’s laptop was red, big shocker, with stickers of bats and anything spooky. Sam headed for the desk and decided to see what he could discover about your missing girl. He hit the power on button, expecting to see the lock screen. The three of you were taken back from the female screams that came out of nowhere when Sam pulled up the home screen. Kristen’s background was of a vampire trying to make an intense face. You found yourself rolling your eyes in annoyance.

“That’s just,” Sam flinched at the face staring back at him. "Uncomfortable."

“What’s he so bummed about?” Dean muttered.

Sam decided to get started sneaking around the laptop and decided to go for the internet. Right away he found himself locked out, the computer demanded a password. What would a teenage girl use as her password? You crossed your arms over your chest and tried to think of a few possible theories. Dean averted his gaze away from the screen when he noticed a paperback sitting at the edge of the desk. He took a quick glance without much thought, but when he saw “My Summer Blood”, he immediately picked up the copy to take a look at it for himself. The man scoffed at seeing a teenage girl sleeping peacefully in bed, not realizing there was a boy lurking in the corner of her bedroom, watching her in her most vulnerable state.

"Look at this." Dean picked up the book off the bed and showed you, making you break your concentration away from the screen to see what was getting him so riled up. You looked up and saw his expression, causing you to let out a quiet laugh from how he was taking all of this in.  "He's watching her sleep. How is that not rapey?”

“I gotta concentrate, guys.” Sam said, hoping the both of you would stay quiet. Sam decided to see if Kristen was into the classic as he typed in Dracula. The computer rejected the try and let out a scream, making him think of another password.

“You can't believe there's a copy of 'Dracula' or '‘Salem's Lot' just lying around." You said, trying to be a little bit helpful to the younger Winchester. Sam looked up at you and gave you a look to keep quiet. "What? Try something a teenage girl would use."

Dean decided to see what this was all about by cracking open the book where Kristen had marked it, she made it halfway through before stopping. He skimmed the pages before he stumbled upon the scene the girl had stopped at. He scoffed at what kind of garbage he was reading. "'He could hear the blood rushing inside her, almost tasting it. He tried desperately to control himself. Romero knew their love was impossible.' Romero? Really?”

“Dean,” Sam looked over his shoulder from the lack of silence he was getting. “Shut up.”

"Come on, it's not that bad." You defended the author as you plucked the book out of Dean’s grip to skim the pages yourself before flipping through a few pages. "It's a national bestseller for a reason."

“Oh, God. Don’t tell me you read it.” Dean said. You shrugged your shoulders and held onto the book for safekeeping, curiosity making you steal the copy to read it in your freetime. "And here I thought you looked down at this kind of garbage.”

"Oh, please. I'll read anything I can get my hands on. I may have read a few pages while I was killing some time in a bookstore. Wanted to see what all the hype was about." You said. "Oh, Sammy. Try 'Lautner.' That may work."

Sam took your advice and typed in the password. Before he hit enter, he wondered how you had come up with the name off the top of your head. “Wait, he’s a werewolf.” Sam said. “How do you even know who that is?”

“Are you kidding me? That kid’s everywhere. It’s a freaking nightmare. And it’s gotta be him. Or the other one.” You mumbled. You looked over to see that Dean grabbed one of the pillows from the bed and grimaced at the sight of the familiar broody vampire staring back at him. A scream came from the laptop when it rejected your suggestion. “Try. Pattinson. That’s got to be it.”

Sam took your final suggestion and put it into the computer, expecting the laptop to give him that obnoxious scream again. Instead his hands jumped from the keyboard as a smile grew on the ends of his lips when he was finally granted access.

“That’s it. We’re in. Ha.” Sam clicked a few different links around what appeared to be a social media website and pulled up her inbox to see she had been active with a boy named Robert. You and Dean headed over to see what he found. “Well, her inbox is full from some guy claiming to be a vampire.”

“A real vampire?” You asked, all thought you doubt it was nothing more than a peophile trying to get creative in lurking out his victims.

“Well, ‘I can only meet you at night. I don’t trust myself with you. The call of your blood is too strong.’” Sam read off a few of the messages the boy had left for Kristen. You let out a scoff from how terrible it sounded, like it came straight out of the book. “Vampire fishing for victims?”

“Probably just a human mouth-breather, right?” Dean presumed.

“On the other hand—talk about easy prey.” Sam said, finding himself becoming a bit cynical when he began thinking about the platform monsters had nowadays to lurk out their victims. And there was a special group of impressionable teens that thought having someone suck their blood was what romance was all about. “I mean, these chicks are just throwing themselves at you. All you gotta do is...I dunno. Write bad poetry.”

"And they say chivalry is dead." You mumbled. You let out a quiet sigh from how an innocent girl might have put herself in trouble because she was so obsessed with a piece of literature and its fictional world, she couldn’t differentiate between reality and fiction. Sam pulled up one of the most recent messages and skimmed it, seeming to have discovered your next possible lead.

“Wow. This guy wanted to meet her at a place called The Black Rose.” Sam said. Dean rolled his eyes from how stupid the club had sounded. “Just reporting the news.”

“It’s probably just your standard-issue perv, right?” Dean wondered, all clues seeming to have pointed in that direction. You shrugged your shoulders as Sam shut the laptop. Whoever was in charge of kidnapping these girls, you knew for sure they were going to end up with their head chopped right off. It’d be one less monster on the street you had to deal with.

+ + +

It seemed you standard pervert might not have been the reason for all the missing girls. The next night during your second stay in town a van carrying blood donations was jumped. As if that wasn’t suspicious enough, the driver was attacked, his throat ripped out and drained of all his blood. If these vampires were luring out females, why did they need extra blood? You and the boys waited until late at night to scope out the Black Rose to see if you could find a vampire trying to lurk out its next prey. Most vampires acted like normal people, but this bar scene was one you weren't quite used to. Everyone in here was dressed in black and leather. You missed the dress code on this one, for sure.

“Well, you wanted emo chicks. I think we hit ground zero.” Dean said. The ambiance sure was the perfect spot for an underage girl to find her broody vampire that couldn’t control himself around her. You tapped your fingers against the bartop and waited patiently for the drinks you ordered a few minutes ago to arrive. The sounds of squeaky leather made you look up to see the waitress, who was wearing a little black dress, made entirely out of glossy leather, put down your drinks and ignored Dean when he said thank you to tend to her other customers. “Hey, Y/N. You think she wears all that rubber to the beach?”

"Oh God," You let out a quiet laugh from the thought as you brought the beer bottle to your lips to take a drink. "Imagine trying to get the sand out of that dress. And the tan lines.”

Dean looked down at his own drink for a moment before realizing how long it’d been since the three of you had done something like this. Sitting back, even if you were on a hunt, enjoying something so simple as a drink. “When was the last time we had a beer together, anyway?”

“There.” Sam changed the conversation when he found the couple that he’d been staring at start to act a little suspicious. You looked across the bar to see a young, brunette girl who looked quite similar to the rest talking to a boy who was getting awfully closer to her. You narrowed your eyes ever so slightly, watching the both of them ever so closely. “What do you think? He’s hitting on her hard enough. Real?”

“I don’t know. It’s hard to tell.” Dean admitted. His gaze was distracted when he saw yet another girl just a few feet from the couple. The other girl was laughing and talking to two men, making you wonder who was the predator here. “And we got multiple choices.”

“Okay. We take one. Shouldn’t be too hard.” You said, shrugging your shoulders. But you could soon cross one off the list when the boy talking to the girl turned away when another boy approached the bar and lightly tapped him on the shoulder to grab his attention. Your brow raised in a bit of surprise to see both of the men share a kiss, making you realize he sure wasn't the one you were looking for.  “Make that two of them. Better for us, anyway.”  

Sam looked to the first couple when he noticed the boy was making his move on the girl. He gave her a sly smirk and grabbed her hand, pulling her to the back. “One’s on the move.”

“All right. You and Y/N go with Efron.” Dean said, noticing the other guy you’d been observing was starting to make his way for the other side of the bar. “I got Bieber.”

You warned the Older Winchester to be safe as you slipped off the stool, parting ways with him as you followed behind the guy when you noticed he was going to the lower level of the bar. You looked over your shoulder in the crowd of people expecting Sam to be not that far behind, but you were alone. You looked back in front of you and quickly caught the guy making a turn to a room that wasn't the bathroom. You kept on trailing him until you found yourself in a more secluded part of the bar. Swallowing slightly, you pressed a hand against your jacket, feeling the machete close to you. Just in case things went south side. Inhaling a deep breath, you quietly pushed open the door and stepped inside, wondering if there was someone hiding around here. You noticed right away of the hanging light and how it was rocking back and forth, like someone turned it on and run for cover. Just the feeling of this place made you feel off. But you weren’t going to let some goth vampire scare you. Without any sort of backup, you stepped into the room, wondering if you could find the guy hiding anywhere. You didn’t hear the door slowly shut behind you as a dark shadow loomed in the corner, watching as you tried looking for him.

The vampire retracted his set of fangs as he started to approached closer to you, getting ready to take you by surprise. You felt someone’s fingers touch your shoulder, and before you could read for your weapon, he managed to catch you by surprise and push your backside to the metal shelves. You winced in slight pain, but before the vampire could make you his next victim, your hand slipped in your jacket in a final attempt to grab your machete. Someone beat you to it before you could save yourself. Suddenly you felt a splatter of blood cover your face and your upper body, catching you off guard.

Slowly, you opened your eyes to see that Sam was standing in front of you, the vampire’s dead body lying at your feet and his machete just a few inches from your face. If you had been any closer, if his aim had been off, you would have been his next victim.

"What the hell, Sam?" You hissed at him, quickly wiping away the blood off your face as he pulled his weapon away. You expected some sort of apology from him from the close call, or even vanishing, but he stood there with a calm look on his face. You could feel an uneasy feeling settled in you from the way he was acting. "Where'd you go?"

“I was around.” Sam said, shrugging his shoulders. You didn’t feel any better from his answer, and he could tell from how you furrowed your brow at him. “I’m here. Aren’t I?”

Yeah. Right when the vampire was getting ready to kill you. When he was so focused on you, he would have never suspected Sam to come out of nowhere. It was almost like Sam was using you as bait, luring the victim until he got exactly where he wanted and went in for the kill. Sam wouldn’t have done something like that to put you in danger. But lately, the old Sam was gone. You should have gotten used to his almost hollow personality. Yet, it only made you feel more on edge around him whenever you were hunting with him.

You looked down at your clothes to see that you were covered in the vampire’s blood from your head to your waist. You let out a frustrated sigh, knowing well enough you couldn’t walk out the front door without causing a few awkward stares. And you were surrounded by people who wore skin tight leather for an outfit and had piercings in all the wrong places. They knew something would be up once they caught sight of the blood splatter.

“Ugh, this is disgusting.” You muttered underneath your breath. Suddenly you were thankful that the motel the boys were staying at was all booked up, except for a double they shared. There was no way you were sharing a bed or crashing in the Impala. You had found another across town, just a few minutes from the bar. There was enough alleys to keep yourself hidden and make it back without causing suspicion. “Find Dean. See if he’s okay. I’m gonna head back to my room to take a shower.”

“Sure you don’t want some help with that?” Sam’s question made you stop dead in your tracks. You looked over your shoulder to give him a glare from the remark that was now paired with a smirk, knowing you set yourself up for that one. You weren’t the least bit amused from his sly comment. He didn’t seem bothered by your looks. “Make sure you don’t get caught.”

You mocked his warning as you waved your arm at him, throwing his concern as nothing more than sarcasm for him to have the last word. Sam watched as you headed out the back door and disappeared from sight. He knew if one vampire was around, another had to be here for sure.

The younger Winchester tucked the machete away for safekeeping and headed back upstairs to the bar area to see if his brother around. But all he saw was a sea of freaks. He decided to head to the back alley where Dean had saw the couple going. Sam found his way to the quiet alley and began observing the sight, making sure there weren’t any monsters that would take him by surprise. As he pulled out his machete, Sam stumbled upon a sight that would have made him panic any other day. When he had the ability to feel emotions.

Sam found himself stopping dead in his tracks and loosed his grip around the machete when he spotted his big brother pinned against a dumpster. He didn’t flinch, he didn’t try to stop it. Sam watched as the vampire holding his brother by the throat bite into his wrist to break the skin and get some blood. To change his brother into something they killed. Dean was rendered helpless. It was like watching someone taking a magnifying glass and putting it over an ant hill a sunny afternoon. Sam was fascinated at seeing his brother in such a fragile state. He had the power to save the man, but he chose not to.

Sam continued on watching. The vampire smeared the blood over Dean’s lips, just enough for the man to involuntary swallow ingest the slightest amount to turn him. Sam could feel his mouth twitch into just a little smirk. When he knew for sure his brother had got some of the blood in him, that’s when he took action.

He knew he could have easily taken down the vampire with a few simple swings, but Sam had a feeling the monster would come in handy later on. Sam had spent an entire year perfecting his mask of emotion. He charged forward and caught the vampire's attention, making Dean fall to the ground, leaving the two of them to fight. Sam made a few slashes with the machete, but the vampire easily blocked them, making him believe that the younger Winchester was a hunter with little skill. The vampire backed away, laughing to himself at his victory as he sarcastically waved before making his great escape by running away and climbing up the wall, disappearing from sight. .

Sam turned his gaze away from the top of the building and to his brother, who was lying on the ground. Blood was smeared all over his mouth as he panted, the beating he took earlier took a toll on him. And it’d only be a matter of time until he would start turning. Sam tried his hardest to look shocked and concerned at what happened to his brother. All while knowing he could have done something to stop it, but didn’t. And he didn’t feel an ounce of guilt for what he’d done.

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