#so... chess metaphors! they're a thing

[wotzka]

So Bioware has already said that we can customize our Inquisitor in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and a lot of people think this means they'll be an NPC, like Hawke in DA:I. I actually think there's a chance we can also play them.

Why do I think this? Because the playable character is called Rook, and there's this one chess play I keep thinking about:

Only move in chess where two pieces move at once, huh? Interesting 🤔

[rottenpumpkin13]

Out Of Context Things Director Lazard Has Seen On The SOLDIER Floor #2

• Genesis carrying around a mop, talking and laughing with it as if they're friends.

• Sephiroth doing a cartwheel mid-walk.

• Zack in the men's room, applying clown makeup while sobbing.

• Kunsel carrying a box of random items and yelling "STOLEN ITEMS FROM RUFUS SHINRA. GET YOUR STOLEN ITEMS FROM RUFUS SHINRA" and Sephiroth approaching him with a 20 gil.

• Sephiroth and Angeal fighting over a pineapple, trying to pull it from each other's hands.

• Angeal and Genesis crouched down behind the couch in the break room, eating a cheesecake away from Sephiroth.

• Zack playing chess with Dark Star, claiming "Damn it! How are you so good at this?" while actively losing.

• Sephiroth with half his hair stuck in the elevator, calmly sipping his coffee with a sign that says "this is my punishment" around his neck.

• Angeal and Sephiroth cooing over an exotic plant in a baby stroller.

• Angeal trying to coordinate a group photo of Sephiroth, Genesis, Zack and Cloud. There was a lot of screaming, arguing and "WHERE ARE WE FUCKING LOOKING?" from Genesis because Angeal had 4 different cameras set up.

• Genesis in a lab coat conducting a science experiment to see if Sephiroth feels threatened by said lab coat. Upon seeing Genesis, Sephiroth reflexively broke his knee.

• Sephiroth taking a nap in the middle of the hallway, complete with an eye mask, pillow and sound machine. People were stepping around him.

• Genesis and Angeal carrying a kayak towards the stairwell.

• Angeal carrying Genesis with a broken leg back from the stairwell 20 minutes later.

• Cloud narrating everything Sephiroth does. "Sephiroth is now opening the door to the training facility. Sephiroth has paused. Sephiroth is now looking at me confused, which could easily be confused for his thinking about lunch face."

• Zack, blowing on a whistle, instructing a squats class.

• Zack and Cloud, both blindfolded, walking with their arms linked. They ran into a revolving door. and caused a metaphorical traffic jam inside it that ended with claustrophobic Sephiroth breaking the glass to free himself.

• The following conversation that piqued Lazard's interested greatly:

Zack: Would you like a smoke?

Cloud: Of course.

*Zack pulls out a tin of smoked ham*

• Sephiroth, Genesis, Angeal and Zack holding a Séance in the middle of the day in the break room. They refused to say which entity they were communicating with.

• Sephiroth, Genesis, Angeal and Zack running out of the break room screaming 20 minutes later.

• During a blackout, when Genesis was seen carrying around a candelabra like it's the 1700s and reciting an old version of Loveless. Someone threw the candelabra out the 49th floor window 10 minutes later and told him to put a sock in it.

• Zack stuck in the vending machine, calmly eating the snacks while Angeal, Sephiroth and Genesis argue over how to get him out.

• Genesis running after a copy of Loveless on a string. Sephiroth is behind a corner pulling the string.

• Sephiroth and Genesis, in The Calm Down Box™ playing Uno, screaming at each other, defeating the purpose of The Calm Down Box™

• Angeal and Genesis dragging Sephiroth (unconscious) out of a meeting. When asked if he was okay, they responded with "we had him fake a fainting spell to get out of the meeting." Sephiroth (still "unconscious") responded with a thumbs up.

• Angeal in The Calm Down Box™ with a taser, harassing anyone who came near him with it.

• Zack and the other Seconds using a prop skeleton dressed as Genesis as a practice dummy.

• The same skeleton sitting in in Genesis' office while a recording of Genesis reciting Loveless plays on loop.

• A tonberry dressed as Sephiroth walking around, terrorizing the operatives.

• Genesis in The Calm Down Box™ playing the flute and sobbing.

• Angeal playing the guitar and singing a happy campfire song while Sephiroth and Genesis were on the ground, fist fighting.

• Genesis, Sephiroth and Angeal dressed as knights while Zack and Cloud manned a single horse costume. When asked what was happening, they replied with "It's the apocalypse, but due to inflation we could only afford three horsemen and one horse."

• Zack sitting in The Calm Down Box™ except he placed it stop a skateboard and was actively trying to escape while Angeal ran after him.

• Sephiroth, Genesis and Angeal riding around in a three-person bike. They crashed into a sliding glass door they didn't realize was closed.

• Sephiroth sitting in The Calm Down Box™ chugging a bottle of tequila.

• Sephiroth, Angeal, Genesis, Zack and Cloud playing twister. Utter chaos. Zack's ass in Angeal's face, Cloud has turned into a pretzel, Sephiroth and Genesis are literally tangled and stuck together.

[imbecominggayer]

How To Put Your Imagination On The Page

Thank you to @melda0m3 for asking for this on my post :3 you are an absolute dear(gender-neutral)

The topic I will be covering is "how in the world do you translate the perfect picture you have in your mind of a place or the epic one of a fight scene with words??" -melda0m3

Of course, because of the nature of this question and the nature of writing in general, this is more of a generalization since there are an infinite amount of scenes that could possibly exist!

FIRST QUESTION: Why Is This Actually So Hard?

The reason why translating your imaginary scene to the paper is hard is due to the fact that your brain naturally fills in the "gaps" of your scenery.

It's the reason why you implicitly understand everything that is happening in a dream and what settings look like despite not being able to recollect the actual physical details.

So when you take this abstract vision of scenery and try to apply it to the page, now you have to consciously examine your scenery from an observor's gaze. Since you are critically studying the imaginary scene, now your brain is forced to put actual detail into the image.

Combined with the a struggle for an apt metaphor and you will inevitably struggle to contextualize visual fog into actual physical detail.

So let's get working on fixing this issue.

Detail Is Influenced By Emotion

Let's be honest with ourselves, no one walks into a room and starts obsessively counting the number of windows, all the occupants of the room, and mentions literally every single detail in their "private" monologue.

No one, during a fight, keeps perfect track of all the punches that are happening.

Which means you shouldn't either.

Look at your imaginary place, epic fight scene, and any other fantastical viewing and say to yourself "this is a foundation. inspiration. it's not the final image or even a good image"

Utilize cinematography and learn how to encorperate that into diction and sentence structuring.

In general with some exceptions, shorter and choppier sentences invite feelings of anxiety, desperation, and a higher emotional state while longer and passive sentences invite feelings of calmness, curiousity, and a more static sense of "contentment".

Use more visual language that excites a reaction out of you. Fighting/disgusting scenes are the perfect time to use all of your "disgusting" words such as flesh, moist, sloughs, engourge, and other words

I literally looked up "disgusting words list" in order to get that list.

Detail And Emotion Influenced By Perspective

Of course, what decides what detail makes the "final cut", if you will, is your camera. Your perspective character.

For example, if your character is the type to be paranoid then the "camera" will be constantly fixing itself at everything. Violently snapping their eyes to everything as hysterical thoughts ooze out of the minute cracks between every single moment. Very intense, I would say.

This would contrast against a character who is completely zeroed in on something, someone?, with such an unrelenting gaze that their camera is permanently marked on their target.

The paranoid character would bring in a hod-podge of various incomplete details while the stubborn character couldn't even tell you if it was day or night.

Of course, the emotions that a character has associated with this scene will also bring to mind different details.

For example, in a fight, the perspective character might be someone who is swarming with desperation. In this case their thoughts are going to be centered less on the specific timing of things or what exactly is happening but instead on their emotions and possible consequences.

However, the perspective character might be someone who isn't scared at all of losing or winning. They're fighting with a more observant gaze. The kind expected of someone in a chess match. In this case their thoughts are probably directed on the timing their opponents with consistently precise questioning and observations. What is their opponent thinking? They're slowing down which means they're losing stamina. They're staring at my leg. A bold mistake.

Again, the desperate character isn't focusing at all on their opponent and couldn't tell you at all about what is objectively happening. Their mind is racing across thoughts of doubt, pride, existential fear. They're wondering what's going to happen if they lose. If they win? What about their loved ones?

The observant character is entirely focused on the setting and opponent from an "objective" perspective and so their personal feelings paint the world in a rather sterile perspective.

Motivation: What Is This Scene Trying To Do?

The scenes I have illustrated of a paranoid character sporadically crawling their eyes across the place, a stubborn character hunting for something, a desperate character fighting the battle of their life, and a professional observor passively observing the fighting they're currently engaging in all serve various different necessities.

Paranoid character's perspective allows the audience to understand what the paranoid character is feeling, emotionally invests the audience, provides possible backstory for the setting if it's emotionally relevant to the character, and raises the tension for a surely delightful climax and subsequent release of that tension.

Stubborn character's perspective allows the audience to understand what the stubborn character is feeling and forces the audience to either cheer for the bloodshed or look upon with despair at the fallen character. It also kickstarts conflict.

Desperate character's scene is more affilated with conflict itself and the result of tension. It invites the audience to participate in this unrelenting fear as the desperate character's own internal narration about the stakes serve the character's motivation and the reader's emotional involvement. It's heavily effective!

Observant character's scene could serve to establish a status quo for this character of a stoic professional which could be broken later on. This is also a well-written example of "show, don't tell" as the audience can easily guess that the observant character is a professional fighter.

I'm sorry @melda0m3 if I have failed to properly cover this topic. It's incredibly hard to help someone on a case-by-case basis so all I can do is provide some general guidelines and hope this assists you in your writing journey :)

Feel free to ask for any more specific advice posts if this attempt didn't scare you off!

[comradeboyhalo]

So I went back and watched Bad's conversations with Foolish, Baghera, and Tina and the difference in how Bad talks to each of them really speaks to who each character truly is.

While Bad's conversation with Foolish is still very much a test, he talks to Foolish like an equal, someone to bounce ideas off of. Bad knows Foolish's morals lines up with his own, and he is constantly seeking justification from him. They talk in metaphors, but their shared understanding of each other makes this one of the bluntest conversations Bad's had. He doesn't really lie, because he's heavily relying on Foolish to piece things together himself. It's him who asks openly "How much can I trust you, Foolish?" and Foolish gives him a very honest, logical answer. It's perfect for Bad. He's not looking for pity or emotional support. He just wants to know who's going to get in his way. And Foolish, untrustworthy as he may be, seems to be the only one actively cheering Bad on. They sound like co-conspirators. Bad knows he and Foolish are both playing two separate games of 3D chess ("It's a fun game, it's a fun game we're playing, Bad!"), so why would he pretend like he's not?

Throughout their conversation, he's constantly moving to talk to Foolish on the same ground level, until the very last conversation about Ron. This is when Bad drops his most important piece of info, shrouded completely in metaphor. He's looking up towards Foolish; he is finally showing his hand and placing Foolish on the upper ground. And when Foolish affirms what Bad wants the most from him--that family is above all else--he then tells him they're on the same page, and walks up to be eye-level with him once more.

"When the time comes, Foolish, I'm going to need your help. We'll burn it all down, Foolish." They do not trust each other, but can understand each other's motives. And this, for now, has Bad and Foolish on the same side.

Baghera and Bad's conversation has the most clash. The "test" for Baghera was in showing her Ron, so this is a continuation. Similar to Foolish, they have a co-conspirators vibe, but it's not fun for Baghera at all. It's as if her friend showed up with a dead body, and she's horrified but scrubbing blood out anyways. They're on different wavelengths: Baghera just wants to make this right, but Bad is only thinking about his benefit. ("Badboy, now we have to make things cleaner, not dirtier.") Baghera agrees with Bad in the sense that she's willing to do anything for the eggs--but she's not willing to justify it like Bad is. And here's the issue: Bad is not justifying his torture of Ron because he's trying to escape guilt, he genuinely believes his beliefs are correct. He talks childlishly to Baghera, like a kid caught with their hand in a cookie jar. He needs her to walk him through, step by step, the issues of his morals.

It's just...not a fun conversation. It feels like the devil trying to drag Baghera down to hell alongside him. Throughout their conversation, Bad's gaze is constantly shifting. With Foolish, they made constant eye contact. But here, all of Bad's agreements with Baghera comes off shady. He's just placating her. His mind is running a thousand miles a minute while they talk, and not all of it is shared with her. "So we're on the same page?" / "No." <- It's a direct parallel to landduo's conversation. They are on the same side, yes, but they are not the same.

"We can try to walk the road we're on. Baghera. And whatever paths we need to take to reach that destination, Baghera, I'm willing to take." Bad asks if Baghera understands him, and she says she does. Baghera will remain a trusted friend, but he'll remember their differences in beliefs. They share a destination, but not a path.

Now Tina and Bad...where do we even begin. Their conversation is the most emotionally-charged. Bad matches her vulnerability. This is simultaneously the most honest he's been, as well as the most manipulative. He gives her multiple tests throughout their talk, while also rewarding her with the most information. He doesn't actually want her to help him. These are all tests to see her reaction, to gauge her motives. ("I don't actually want you to say anything to Foolish.")

Tina's motives are selfish in such a pure way. She just wants to be trusted, wants to be helpful. And that is understandable to Bad. She is the only one who gets a vocal admission of trust, and I think it's because he can see right through her. I think there's part of him that admires her. They share commonalities. They are lonely. They want to be loved. They are willing to hurt themselves for love. But Tina, in Bad's eyes, is someone who has not yet been beaten down by the island. And instead of protecting her against all this, he believes it is inevitable she will fall. So he might as well kickstart her corruption and have her join him. Once again: "I think we're on the same page," he says.

She sits, huddled, as he circles her like a hawk, before they finally end up sitting side-by-side, not quite looking at each other. Tina is not an unsuspecting mouse, in this conversation. She is willing to fall into every trap she sees laid out if it means she can be trusted. Bad talks to her gently, with the hint of a threat. His finger is on the trigger, but the gun is not pointed at her.

"Y'know whats interesting, Tina? I like that. I think you just want someone who confides in you. Someone who cares about you for you no matter what. The eggs were like that, Tina." Bad sees his own self-destructiveness in Tina. He understands her from an emotional standpoint, a stark contrast from his understanding of Foolish. Perhaps he believes that if they get the eggs back, they'll both be fixed.

tl;dr: Bad treats Foolish as an equivalent gamemaster -> he understands that he and Foolish could potentially play on the same side. Baghera is Bad's trusted friend, but disagrees with his methods -> Bad will continue to trust her, but is aware their paths will diverge. Tina and Bad are very similar emotionally -> he is willing to use her, and she is willing to be used, and that puts them at an understanding.

[sage-is-in-fact-very-tired]

[You Wish That Your Parents Got To Say Goobye, To The Kid They Adored That You Killed To Survive]

《▪︎▪︎》

Or - You were a kid once. You killed them just as you do everything.

《▪︎▪︎》

You were a kid once. Bright-eyed as you watched your mother bake, and dull as you hovered in your father's shadow.

You were a kid once. A child. Yet you sat in a war room surrounded by gods hundreds of thousands of years older than yourself. Yet you played with the chess pieces on the board like they were toys - like they weren't plans of attack; like they weren't murders planned from the start.

(You were a kid once. A child forced too young to be too perfect. A prince, in the prison of a castle. A prince, far too young to have that much weight thrust upon their shoulders.)

You were a kid once. A kid who loved their brother dearly, despite the snark you directed at him. He loved you back, despite all you did. You cared about each other.

You were a kid once. A child who'd let the mask drop when they just needed to cry; a child who'd let their mother hold and comfort them. (A child who'd melt at their mother's pet names, and a child who'd attempt to create their own for their brother.)

You were a kid once. A kid faced with the terrifying reality that you and your brother were *alone* so wholly and completely. A child faced with the realization that you now had to be the parental figure for him.

You were a kid once. One angry at the world and so willing to place the blame on your brother. You hurt him.

You were a kid once. A child again as your father stood at the door to your mother's home. He ushered you back inside, comforting your brother with quiet words while you took your current situation in. He waited until your brother had long since gone to bed to even acknowledge your presence.

You were a kid once. A child breaking down in their father's arms. (As he tells you it's not worth it; Whispers words in your ears you believe because why wouldn’t you?)

(You don't break down in his arms ever again; too scared of the words he'll say, and the weakness he'll imply.)

You were a kid once. A kid bareing their teeth at their brother; anger seeping into your words every time you have to talk to him.

You were a kid once.

The second your father leaves you don't think you are one anymore.

Maybe you are.

Maybe you weren't ever one. Maybe that blade held metaphorically to your neck forced you to grow up far too quickly - never truly letting you be a child.

Who knows, really.

All you know now is if you were a kid, they're long dead now.

They're long dead - falling and falling and falling, cliff faces always staring them back as they did so. The cliff faces turned and shifted right before you'd hit the ground, your vision going black.

They're long dead, because a child running from the law grows up and *very* quickly isn't a child anymore.

They're long dead, because they never existed in the first place.

They're long, long dead. Shoved into the deepest corner of your mind as the resets repeat over and over and over again. Killed because you don't remember them - and you never will.

Maybe, to some extent, *you* killed them. A means of survival because if you didn't, someone else would've killed them for you. (Knowing how your life went through vague feelings gives you the implication it probably would've been your father - but maybe he's the reason you killed them in the first place.)

They're long, long dead - and no one got to say goodbye to them. Not truly. Not properly.

(Maybe you wanted to say goodbye to them. Crouch in front of them and pull them into a hug as they drifted off into a sleep they'd never wake up from.)

(Maybe things would've gone better if you could've said goodbye.

.

.

(Maybe things would've gone better if your mother got to say goodbye.)

《▪︎▪︎》

[wolven91]

thinking about a watchmaker in your universe. someone who's job was to repair small, extremely intricate devices that are redundant in space. i mean, why would you spend so much time and effort finding and fixing a watch when an ai can do it without having to be wound every couple weeks and fixed every couple months? even if you do want a watch you can just get a digital one that has more functions and is more durable at a fraction of the price and effort.

so they change jobs. maybe to a more useful one that still uses their skills in manipulating small, intricate parts. maybe repairing and replacing the small chips and processors in those very same electronics that replaced those mechanical watches they love so much.

their job pays very well, and eventually they save up quite a bit of money. they're constantly checking all sorts of places, both legal and illegal, for anything from earth. when suddenly they find it. a collection of old and "new" earth watches. most of them are broken or damaged, but with a reference now they can start making new parts. they start selling the refurbished watches to earth collectors, and they eventually make enough to start their own small business making brand new designs. it doesn't make a ton of money, but they can finally return to the thing they love, making and fixing watches.

Time Flys

Edward sighed quietly as he sat on the raised balcony, overlooking the promenade. The general buzz of the hustle and bustle was too far below him to be of bother to the human. 

It was a nice view, the end of the street opened up into the park area where rolling hills and artificial waterfalls gave an idealist appearance. Glancing up, he could see the edge of the Mar'Tor's Vow nebula slowly moving over head through the great glass dome.

The old man ached for home and sighed again.

He was getting on in his years now and he was struck with a wave of nostalgia. How he wished he could see Orion's belt from the place he remembered it from. He didn't want to *go* see Orion's Belt, he wanted to see it as he remembered it. Clear as a bell, the three bright dots that sat in the centre of a familiar constellation. His chest hurt from the memory.

"Hey Old Dog." Rumbled a firm voice from behind him, causing his heart to jump just a little. Quiet little blighter.

"Morning Young Pup." Edward growled back with a smirk on his face. The human leaned back in his chair and let his head roll to the side as the canid stalked around the seat to plonk herself down on the chair to his side.

"You're early for your ass wuppin'?" Edward teased, referencing how Snarlp had yet to beat him at Chess since he had taught her the rules. The canid solider wasn't dumb, she had even taught him a few things about bold tactics and how it was indeed possible to punch through a strong defence to put a king on the backfoot, but the canid had yet to figure out subtle tactics.

"I *will* beat you old timer. You've been winning by the fur on your nose these last few games... But... No, that can wait. I got something you might like." The youthful creature grumbled back, her firm tone like gravel in a blender. She wasn't aggressive with Edwards, well she was, but not physically. She was challenging him for his 'place' in the friendship between the two of them. Just as Edward liked it.

Honestly, it was just good fun for him, definitely kept his mind sharp. It felt like he was a captain of a pirate ship; the moment he let his guard down one of his 'salty dogs' would bloodily tear control of his ship from him; it was life and death that he kept his wits. Edwards sighed and smiled, all metaphorically of cause. Snarlp would see her arm torn off before she laid a single claw on the human, Edward knew this.

"You know I'm not interested in that VR nonsense. It was fad before and it's a fad now." He dismissed, more alarmed that Snarlp could be back on the track of trying to have Edward 'try new things'. Edward was happy in his rut. He didn't *like* the new things.

As a human, Edward was old fashioned. Back home, he'd been a watch maker. He could recall off the top of his head how to pull apart and putback together any number of models of watch. At night, to get to sleep, he would mentally repair or build watches for himself.

But alas, amongst the stars, there was no need or desire for mechanical watches. The aliens all wanted digital, with bells and whistles that no clockwork watch could match. Not to mention that Edward couldn't get the printer to work the way he wanted. He needed a scan of some kind. Snarlp had been the one to explain it to him which had broken his heart somewhat. Still, she'd meant well, and it just solidified that his generation, the first off planet, were the last humans that remembered Earth as it was. They were dying out.

"It's not 'Virtual Reality' Old Dog, it's Simulated Environments, and *no*, I'm not showing you something new. I know it'll have your heart attack you or something." The canid growled as she picked up the pitcher of water that sat on the table between them, causing the ice and strange purple fruit that floated in it to 'clink' against the glass. Edward watched her as she sniffed at it, sneered, then downed a large gulpful, straight from the pitcher. There goes having another glass of that any time soon.

Well... He'd need to go get another one anyway.

"It better be nearby. It's forty-two steps to the toilet and that's a 'tactical' decision for me these days. I ain't going on an adventure." Edward warned. The walking stick next to his chair alleviated the pains in his hips, but it still hurt something rotten. He had sworn the canid to secrecy once she had figured out that he was in agony when he walked. Edward wasn't about to let no scientist near him again. He'd let them sire countless bastards from his genetics once already and he wasn't about to let them do it a second time.

Poor things didn't even know he was their father.

"Good thing I brought it here then, isn't it?" Snarlp replied, bouncing up and out of the chair with the energy of a creature that had yet to wake up four times in one night.

"But you couldn't bring it out here?" Edward questioned, tilting his head, and narrowing his eyes.

"By the *moons* do you want your surprise or not?!" Snarlp snapped. Putting her hands on her hips and leaning forward with a glare. Despite being decades younger than him, the aura she had was of Edward's disapproving mother. The tone still made his blood run cold.

"Ugh, fine. You're getting me one of those 'bear wraps' if this isn't worth it." Edwards grumbled as he leant forward and snatched up his stick in a huff. Snarlp stepped forward and ignored the slap across her hands from Edwards as he tried to bat her away. She persisted in helping and he was grateful. Her strength was mighty, pulling him up as if he were no more than a small bag of spuds, yet she was gentle enough that not even her razor-sharp claws broke the man's thin paper-like skin.

"Firstly, it's worth it. Secondly, you *know* you're not allowed the ursidain food anymore. It'll... it's not good for you." Snarlp retorted as Edward found his feet and began to shuffle towards the building, warming up his limbs again so he could move with purpose. They both ignored the genuine tone of fear in her words.

"Bah. You sound like that fool of a guardian." He dismissed, referencing the diminutive taurian the government had assigned him. Edward had no time for that wet blanket. Everything was sniffles and 'eh hem' before the little bull spoke. It drove Edward up the wall.

"Yeah well, they've basically made me your guardian now." Snarlp admitted, much to Edwards shock, but secret elation.

"Now I *know* they want me to keel over. You might win a game then as well." He jabbed, grinning as they got to the door into the apartment.

"I could just throw you over that balcony you know?"Snarlp suggested, briefly thrusting a thumb back the way they came. Edward just chuckled while Snarlp grinned a mouth full of sharp teeth.

The pair entered Edward's apartment and in the centre was his dining table. A huge monstrosity, but necessary in the event an ursidain came to dinner. On top of the giant table however was something new. A massive metal crate. It looked like a chest, oblong in shape with a hinged lid. The red light over the lock on one side showed that it was currently sealed.

"I knew it. You don't see old folk around here because you liquidise them!" Edward hollered, trying to pull his arm from the canid's grip while staring at the box that could hold him within with ease. He didn't actually believe that, but had joked with Snarlp that, that was what they did with people who got too old and just mixed them into the food.

"Will you shut it; you stale fart! *You* don't see old people because *they* are smart and move to paradise worlds! Nobody would want you but me anyway! Now, sit down and let me open this thing!" Snarlp ordered, easily handling his little outburst and guided him to the head of the table. To be fair to the young canid, she had always had him sit in a chair of importance or priority.

He settled and eyed the box, unsure what she was about to spring on him. Snarlp ignored Edward for the moment and placed her thumb against the biometrics. The man paid attention to what was on the side of the crate, a stencilled version of the Galactic Community Administration office emblem. This crate was their property, something they loathed to give up. Edward eyed it wearily.

"I saw this going very differently, do you know how hard it was to convince them to give me this? I expected you to be like a pup getting into their first bit of trouble."

"Can you blame me? You've stuck me into firefights before!"

"In a simulated environment! You were perfectly safe."

"I got shot!"

"You should have kept your head down instead of shouting at me, not my fault a separatist sniper got you."

The lock clicked, silencing them both and the crate hissed as the lid popped open a fraction. Hermetically sealed? Whatever was inside had been sat in stasis. Snarlp lifted the lid and carefully made sure it didn't damage the table once it was fully open. From Edward's position, he couldn't see what was inside, but Snarlp reached in and gently, so gently that Edward had never seen her move with such care, plucked an item from within.

At first, the old man didn't know what he was looking at, so cradled as it was in her palms as she brought it to Edward. But as she carefully placed it on the polished table in front of him, he was struck with understanding.

The man's heartbeat in his chest at a pace not felt since he was 'shot'.

It was a small, cheap, watch.

With shaking hands, he picked it up and turned it over, to inspect the clock face. The second hand ticked by the battery life saved thanks to the stasis. According to the hands, it was 10:32.

While he was merely staring at the device, shocked to his core for seeing such an old artifact of Earth, a second one was placed in front of him by Snarlp, who merely reached for a third out of the box.

Edward stood sharply, sending the chair toppling off the raised platform that meant Edward could sit at the table at the same height as any guest. Snarlp's head whipped round but froze, her hand inches above the crate, holding a digital watch. It showed 12:32 AM.

"How many..." Edward began, unable to ask.

"Loads. It's what intake collected from whoever was rescued." The canid replied softly, aware of the significance.

"What?"

"When you humans were rescued, there wasn't really a plan. Intake was messy. Some counters collected personal items, some didn't. This box is full of those timekeepers you were on about." She explained, plucking two more from the box. It was full to the brim with watches. Just watches.

"H-how... I thought they'd all be...?"

"Sold? Yeah, most human stuff was. But this crate was labelled wrong. They think it was because whoever labelled it was going to sell it on, but chances were they were arrested before they got a chance." The canid knocked a knuckle against the foreign text on the side, next to the stencil. "Storage folk saw the label, did their job correctly and bam. A veritable Lithium Mine left to gather dust."

"I take it we can't keep these." Edward asked, turning over the first watch in his hands. Cheap, but now priceless. It did its job nearly forty years later, ticking away.

"We can't no." Snarlp agreed, and Edward's heart fell. "You can though." She finished, deliberately taking a second to complete her sentence. Edward snapped his head back up at the now grinning canid.

"You're a cruel bitch! What are you saying?!"

"These are yours now. Government can't sell them and returning human artifacts to a human is a easy win in the PR department."

Edward had to brush his sleeve against the corners of his eyes whilst sniffing, but the canid didn't jab him for his display.

"Saying they're yours... You could... scan one?" Snarlp suggested. "I can think of more than a few people on this station alone that would want a mechanical watch. You could teach me to repair them too... You said you would..."

Edward sighed and smiled, he felt like he had a purpose again.

"They're not anything fancy... you can't get VR from them like your consoles."

"Oh my *moons*!! It's not 'VR' and you can't get SE from *just* a console!"

[greenerteacups]

Hi, hi! I never shut up in my fic comments, so I’m going to practice restraint here and quietly scream that I find everything about Lionheart delightful. It’s such a smart, witty, honest, beautiful, and deeply romantic story that honors a character arc for Draco that scratches so many itches in my brain. Every time I read it, I feel spoiled. 

I have SO MANY questions and general exclamations, but I’ll stick to one. I always love reading your thoughts, but there is zero, null, zip pressure to respond in any way. Just think of this ask as an energetic virtual wave. 

So, if your Narcissa and Molly were forced to name each other’s biggest flaw, what would they say? (I ask this knowing that what whatever they said wouldn’t necessarily be true, of course.) I’m endlessly fascinated by their parenting, but also the lives they lead beyond it. Molly and the Order. Narcissa and the pureblood circles she’s navigated her whole life. They both so obviously love their children, but I can’t ever decide if Molly’s dislike for Narcissa (I mean, I’m assuming she dislikes her) would include a stiffly admitted “you’ve raised a good son,” or if she’d say “Draco became good in spite of you.” 

<3 Tig

TIG!! Hello! I read your comments religiously, and by that I mean with the totemic reverence properly afforded to King St. Stephen of Hungary's right forearm. I hoard them in my inbox like Smaug's jewels and kick my feet like a schoolgirl over them. Or like a very schoolgirlish mixed metaphor of a dragon, that is. The longer, the more dragonly schoolgirling. To wit, I have been grinning at this stupidly for like, five whole minutes.

What would Narcissa and Molly say about each other? I wonder, I wonder. They're quite alike in being protective and (in their way) nurturing mothers. They both take pains to keep their children out of the war effort, albeit somewhat unsuccessfully. They're also very prideful, domineering, and intent on getting their own way. I think Draco acclimates to Molly's parenting style when he's around the Weasleys in part because it's so similar to his own home: you have a present and visibly dominant mother figure, who gives most of the orders, and then an auxiliary (or, in Lucius's case, absent) father figure whose name is usually invoked only to give force to the mother's commands. They also had children around the same time, though Molly was a mother years before Narcissa was, and so probably thinks of Narcissa as quite young. I expect there would be an element of mutual condescension, if not outright scorn. Both of them believe very strongly that their ideas are The Right Things, and if you disagree with them, it doesn't matter what your reasons are, you are simply Wrong. They have equally inflexible moral compasses that happen to be oriented around radically different poles.

They are also both — and I don't think it's a spoiler to say this, because everything I'm about to say is stated in the text — extremely competent fighters. Narcissa never fought in the first Wizarding War, but she's still an accomplished duelist, and formidable enough to have the respect of both Severus Snape and Albus Dumbledore. She's an expert Occlumens, practiced Legilimens, and her husband was the Dark Lord's right hand. Molly Weasley, on the other hand, is one of the only people alive to have beaten Alastor Moody in a duel, and one of the few people in the Order who seems to feel comfortable giving shit back to him at Grimmauld Place. It's worth noting, too, that Molly is fairly bellicose as a person — she has a snap-your-fingers temper — and among her seven children, you have (canonically speaking):

a curse-breaker (one of the hardest/most demanding intellectual jobs in the wizarding world),

a dragon-tamer (holy fuck),

a Head Boy with more N.E.W.T.s than Hermione canonically has, who got a high-ranking aide position in Wizard Parliament straight out of high school,

two crackpot inventors who start a business selling bioweapons at age 17,

a chess prodigy who beats a 50-something master at age 11; hijacks a flying manual car, teaches himself to drive it, flies the fucking thing from Devon to Surrey, and kidnaps his best friend; subsequently flies it again from LONDON to HIGHLAND SCOTLAND; uses said car to bulldoze a horde of giant spiders; threatens a serial killer to his face, while nursing a broken leg; breaks into the wizarding version of MI6; blows it up; ensuingly helps prosecute a war effort to prevent a fascist takeover of Britain; and:

Ginny Weasley.

And on the other hand, you have Narcissa (in Lionheart), whose children, though few in number, consist of:

Draco Malfoy (prodigious, annoying, thus far remarkably hard to kill).

So regardless of your stance on the nature/nurture debate, you have to believe there's some fairly intense parenting happening on either side of the equation.

In my fic, they also both hold similar roles in the present: involved in the war effort, but not in the same way some of their colleagues are, either by choice (Molly being the de facto quartermaster for the Order safehouse, and hence the Order) or by necessity (Narcissa being unable to come out publicly on either side of the conflict without putting herself, and Draco, in danger). Those positions of "neutrality," which for both of them is really just a cover for their work as covert operatives, is made possible by the fact that they are mothers. No one would suspect the impoverished housewife Molly Weasley of running a guerrilla military out of her kitchen; likewise, few would suspect reclusive, tragic pureblood widow Narcissa Malfoy of being the pet huntress of Albus Dumbledore. Which is part of what makes them so effective. There's also something in the fact that they're both very feminine, both in their position and how they hold themselves, but they embody different aspects of femininity — specifically, the elements of femininity that are useful to their cover. Molly leans heavily into her role as the blustering, bossy, overworked mother, to the point that most of her children don't see her as anything else. Narcissa, on the other hand, leans into the "Mater dolorosa" angle, presenting herself as this demure, ladylike mistress-of-the-house, which is helped by the fact that her husband's death gives her an excuse not to go out often. The perception that she's a frail widow crippled by grief — which is anything but the truth, as becomes clear pretty much by her first appearances of Lionheart — means that people in her pureblood circles don't make the same demands of her that they would of Lucius, and she absolutely exploits that to her advantage. They're both Gen X women who grew up during (if not slightly before) the second-wave feminist movement; their relationships with sex and social position flow from that. They don't break molds; they flip them to their advantage.

Anyway, I've totally neglected your question. To wit: Narcissa would say that Molly's greatest flaw is her inability to conceive of an ideal more important than happiness. Molly would say that Narcissa's is cowardice.

[friends-to-lovers-tournament]

Friends to Lovers Tournament: Round 3, Side B, Match 8

propaganda under the cut!

Percabeth:

Submission 1

they are the cutest thing ever with 5 books of slow burn

Submission 2

HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE THEM?? THEY ARE THE BEST OTP! THEY START OFF WITH UNCERTAINTIES BUT ANNABETH CHOOSES TO BE HIS FRIEND, HER FIRST INDEPENDENT STEP TO NOT CONSIDER THE OLYMPIAN'S WISHES WHEN MAKING CHOICES. SHE IGNORED HER MOM'S OPINION GUYS, THAT IS BIG! AND HE DOESNT REALLY HAVE FRIENDS UNTIL THE SUMMER HE TURNS 13 AND SHE IS ONE OF THEM. SHE AND HIM ARE ALWAYS BY EACHOTHER'S SIDES (METAPHORICALLY AT LEAST). THEY WORK TOGETHER ON QUESTS SOO WELL BECAUSE THEY KNOW EACH OTHER THAT WELL. AND SHE KISSED THEM DURING THE LABYRINTH QUEST AND HE KINDA IGNORED IT FOR LIKE A YEAR. AND SHE WAS HIS ANCHOR TO THE MORTAL WORLD. AND HE TOLD HER ABOUT HIS ACHILLES HEEL. AND SHE BACKS HIM UP ALL THE TIME. AND IT WAS THE GREATEST UNDERWATER KISS OF ALL TIME. AND WHEN HE WENT MISSING SHE DID NOT SLEEP. AND SHE WAS ALL HE REMEMBERED WHEN HERA TRIED HER SHENANIGANS. AND THEY FELL TOGETHER. AND THEY ARE EACH OTHERS BEST FRIENDS (sorry grover, but you get it) AND I LOVE THEM TOGETHER SO MUCH. THEY EMAILED EACH OTHER AT 13 BECAUSE CELL PHONES WERE A BIG N O! AND HE KEPT A PICTURE OF HER IN HIS BINDER. AND SHE WANTS TO BUILD SOMETHING PERMANENT WITH HIM.

Kirk/Spock:

Submission 1

They're the ogs. They're in every tumblr ship poll. They spend five years making love eyes at each other, have a massive messy breakup, get back together after 2.8 years and get married. They're idiots and I love them. They invented every trope. I've written so much propaganda for these guys I've lost all ability to be coherent. Just trust me on this and put them in, they'll get far

Submission 2

They are so gentle and teasing with each other. They work side by side and then when their shifts are over they still hang out together and play chess and such. They respect the hell out of one another and trust each other completely. They're literal soul mates. T'hy'la forever :) <3

[sh0rt-insomniac]

obc chess game breakdown (?)

well, welcome to the breakdown of the falsettos obc chess game that absolutely no one asked for but i think i'm onto something !!

ALSO, i know nothing about chess so if nothing makes sense that's why :-)

SO !! a little fact that is far from my interpretation is that chess is used for many things in the musical like a metaphor for love, another metaphor but for Marvin and Whizzer's relationship, normal chess, and so on but for now i'll be focusing mostly on it being normal chess and a bit on Marvin and Whizzer's relationship so bare with me because this is going to be chaotic

even though it's technically the same musical, the obc and the 2016 revival are two completely different things, and a very good way to compare them is the chess game

(and in case anyone actually reads this, none of this means that one version is better than the other, i just want to point out the differences because i have free will and too much free time, i adore both versions, this is just me infodumping)

first, the revival

for the 2016 version, (specifically for the chess game) they lean a bit more on the looks of it, sort of trying to match the same minimalistic vibe that the cube gives (shoutout to the Rockwell Group because i adore their stage design but moving on...)

for instance, they simplify the actual game to more of a choreography:

Whizzer begins with the white, holding the king but not actually moving anything, and after Marvin insists he moves the pawn in h2 to h4

Marvin mirrors his move with his own pawn, moving h7 to h5

after that, Whizzer takes the queen and leaves it in the middle of the board, not really playing anymore, and after that they just move everything around, Whizzer takes Marvin's king and the "game" is over

OH but for the obc... that's when stuff gets a bit more interesting, because they're actually playing

this time Marvin begins with the white pieces and by the time they begin to sing he already moved the pawn in e2 to e4

Whizzer responds by tidying his side of the board for a little while, before being pressured by Marvin to move, so he moves the horse from b8 to c6 

Whizzer doesn't seem to pleased with his move, so they re-start

he flips the board so now he has the white pieces and it's his turn to begin

Marvin tells him exactly what to do, and he moves the same pawn Marvin moved as HIS first move

Marvin responds by moving the pawn directly in front of that one (e7 to e5)

the next move is Marvin telling Whizzer to move the bishop on f1 to c4

after that they just move random pieces and whizzer "wins"

so, i was thinking, and the 3 moves they actually make can be found in a very basic strategy called "scholar's mate", being, according to google, one of the first checkmates people learn when playing chess

so, why do I think this justifies my rant?

well, for many things, but for my and everyone else's sake i'll just say 2 of them

1. the fact that Marvin was using this strategy and recycled it for Whizzer when they changed the board, for me, represents that part of Marvin that swears he's smarter than he actually is-

-because if he was as smart as he thinks, why would he be using such a basic strategy? and why was he instructing Whizzer... to win?

because the way he is directing the game would mean that, eventually, Whizzer would win even if they hadn't given up

but also, the fact that Marvin kept directing the white pieces like he would win by doing that makes sense

the obc makes a clear comparison with marvin and the white pieces (specially the king) more than once

Marvin is all about control, power, being "the man" in his relationships, that's represented with the white pieces, with him making his first move before the song has even started

so when Whizzer flips the board, takes control, doesn't allow himself to be controlled by Marvin, he doesn't know what to do

he keeps playing like he normally would, keeps controlling, not realizing that this will end better for Whizzer than him

but that said, moving on to thing 2

2. their relationship during the first act was always destined to fail, and the way i see it, it's marvin's fault 

we already established that Whizzer would win anyway, either because Marvin (initially) agreed to let him win or because of the strategy they were following, so that said, Marvin would've been pissed anyway

if he controls Whizzer but it turns out better for him then it's Whizzer's fault, but if Whizzer decides to take action and not let himself be controlled by Marvin, then it's also Whizzer's fault

it was destined to end they way it did, it doesn't matter what Whizzer did, Marvin would've never been happy, and if Marvin isn’t happy, no one else can be

SO WE REACHED THE END !!

thank you to anyone who read this absolute shitshow

i had this idea because i’m doing a project about this so it’s been floating around my brain for a little while

damn that was long

[queerholmcs]

okay. you know the drill. i do need to elaborate on some of these, moreso than is allowed within the character limit of the polls; see the read more at the bottom of the post. yes it gets a bit long, i'm sorry, i'm not normal about this show, we've established this.

stop making me watch this. this is indecent. this is not suitable for public television. please get a room.

they all know sherlock and they know that he's insane. where they go wrong is in assuming that john must then be the sane one of the pair of them. (save mycroft; see number five.)

'here, use mine' as the obvious opener. but then we also get the bit where john returns to baker street and sherlock's like 'oh haha yeah i called you across town to ask you to send a text' and john gives him the most exasperated, reluctant look before giving sherlock his phone (heart). because at this point, there is no other option. (i won't say more. essays have already been written on the matter.)

the way a point is made to demonstrate sherlock's deliberate ignorance of molly's attempts at flirting. and john's painfully awkward attempts to hit on mycroft's PA. contrasted with their every moment on screen together. 'we can't giggle, it's a crime scene!' SHUT UP.

where do i start with this one. (mycroft is my favourite. i'm not sorry.) he puts so much effort into this stupid little trick and john completely holds his own against him. he's also the only one to see that john is also not sane and that as much as sherlock is going to be some sort of influence on john, john is going to do the same to sherlock. 'might we expect a happy announcement by the end of the week?' → 'i can see from your left hand that's not going to happen' → 'time to choose a side.' hello??????? thank goodness mark gatiss mycroft holmes is here to spell things out for us.

it all starts when john says 'i looked you up on the internet last night' (weird move, it has to be said) and then doesn't immediately praise sherlock's blog. but then he also doesn't tell sherlock to piss off for deducing him and airing his family secrets like that? and from that point on, every remotely clever thing sherlock says, he looks to john for his response. ('do you know you do that out loud?' 'sorry, i'll shut up.' 'no, it's... fine.') i maintain that he only points out anderson and donovan's little affair to show off for john.

look. do i even have to say anything here. we establish that everyone sherlock interacts with thinks he's gay. we establish that john and sherlock are both unattached and that girlfriends definitely aren't sherlock's area and that it's fine to have a boyfriend, by the way, john thinks this is fine, just if you wondered, he's also unattached and it's fine if girls aren't your cup of tea and have we mentioned they're both unattached? and they have what is about the most intimate eye contact ever for far too long while doing so.

chance or chess? play the game. engage with the story. read between the lines. is it a bluff? or a double bluff? or a triple bluff? play the game. (mention the game one more time. i dare you. shut up.)

this is in both the physical and the metaphorical sense. they have no concept of personal space, either of them, and it is a bit awkward for everyone else in the room who's forced to watch them make bedroom eyes at each other. on the metaphorical side—john is the first to say 'actually, it's not obvious, so get on with it and share your thoughts with the class, would you?' and '...bit not good, yeah. maybe be slightly more sensitive to people's emotions, there.' and 'you're so full of it. you absolutely do guess, admit it, i can tell when you're lying.' lestrade watches them interact for all of ten minutes and then declares that, though he's known sherlock for five years, he still doesn't know sherlock nearly as well as john does.

who is he? well, he's with sherlock. it's sherlock holmes and doctor watson. they're a set. (do not separate!) they go together, they are defined by each other, they balance each other far too perfectly to ever be removed again. welcome to The Dynamic. you'll never know peace again. (or is that just me?)

[bumblingbabooshka]

(anon from before) ok that is genuinely so hilarious to me but what I meant was what do you think of it as a meditation tool/nugget of Tuvok and Vulcan lore? It reminds me a lot of your fic about Vulcan bonds being like a house. (<- a horrible summary of your beautiful fic I do apologize but I hope you know what I mean) in that the final form/shape is ever changing depending on a persons mental state. The imagery of the (silly little) structure that Tuvok was building in that episode toppling over with him saying “I am in control” and because he was mentally unwell (with the telepathic std lmao) gives me like,,,, “the structure of your home/the metaphorical rug being pulled out from under you after u got transported 70,000 light years away from your bondmate and entire world and network of bonds” vibes.

Side note I think that it has great potential as a physical representation of a failing Vulcan marriage/betrothal in a hypothetical SNW T’pring/Spock episode. <- if I had my way in the SNW writers room, all hell would break loose lmao

Is there a real connection? Am I just fangirling over your fics? We shall never know (one of those is certainly the case)

Original Ask: Thoughts on the Keethera? (Tuvok’s block puzzle thing from s3 ep2) <- At the time I had no thoughts as I didn't understand what anon was asking. The Keethera is very interesting. I've said this before but it's interesting and indicative of his character that the two games/meditation exercises we see Tuvok partaking in are the Keethera and Kal-Toh, both of which do not have a hard and fast ideal or win-state and are meant to show the person or people building them something about themselves. It's very much unlike chess, which is Spock's game of choice. The Keethera is more a diagnostic tool and Kal-Toh speaks to the core of Vulcan emotional control - that is, the ability to find harmony where there is seemingly only random chaos. Tuvok's not doing well mentally. I don't think Tuvok's been doing well mentally since vanishing into the delta quadrant, much like everyone else, however unlike everyone else he doesn't seem to have any sort of....safety net? Anyone to confide in? Nor does he seem to WANT to or know how to confide in others - how to be open about his pain or need for help.

I like this interaction in which instead of having to say that he's struggling, Kes can simply look at the Keethera and see that he is. Tuvok's inability to effectively share his pain with others makes sense - they're all aliens to him and he isn't close with any of the Vulcans on the crew. He's also a person who prides himself on being solitary and strong and Vulcan. As seen in 'Alter Ego' he intentionally cultivates an air of being utterly separate from others even when ostensibly participating in a group activity and is shown several times in the series to think himself above others. [Ex: Neelix, Chakotay, B'Elanna, Humans in general] However, the image he has of himself makes reaching out for help incredibly difficult. He has cultivated an image in which he is utterly unlike the others, in which he is better, less prone to being hurt, and because he stakes his pride on this image he now cannot ask for help without it going against his image and damaging the reputation he enjoys holding. I think this is a relatable problem. Personally, when I was a teenager, I had cultivated an image of being a jokester and bubbly person which I struggled valiantly to maintain even when I was going through severe bouts of depression. The idea of myself as someone who was a jokester and happy all the time was very important to me and losing that felt like it would be 'giving in' to my depression and losing my identity when in reality my refusal to actually address my depression was causing my depression to worsen. In Tuvok's case, his identity pre-delta quad is perhaps the only thing he has left of his old life. It's stated and implied multiple times by the narrative that Tuvok is lonely and misses his family and that that loneliness is beginning to cause him to act in ways he normally wouldn't (Compare him to Marayna in 'Alter Ego'). The fact that he misses his family and is lonely is also relevant due to the fact that family ties are INCREDIBLY important in Vulcan culture. Tuvok's family is obviously very close but more relevant to this, family ties are stated across several episodes to be crucial in dealing with trauma or mental stress. Personal information seems to be [across multiple series] very private to Vulcans. Personal information is sensitive and intimate and not something you share with just anyone. To me it's natural to assume that this is also a contributing factor in Tuvok's resistance towards reaching out for help. He feels it's something private that he should only share with other Vulcans who are close to him or a healer - but no such person exists on Voyager and his closest friend is the captain, whom he doesn't want to 'burden' with his problems when he can handle them alone [or so he thinks] and so he endures and endures and endures in silence. The Keethera showcases Tuvok's mental state not only in its structure but in Tuvok's persistent mantra that he is fine despite the clear signs to the contrary. "I am in control," he says, as the Keethera falls apart. It is also telling that Tuvok has no separate course of action. After the Keethera crumbles and Kes leaves, Tuvok just starts building the Keethera again. It's a meditational aid and helps focus the mind but something strikes me as incomplete or wishful about him continually building it, alone, and only to watch it crumble. What else can he do but continually punch the numbers and watch as he's told over and over again that he's not okay?

Tuvok's conversation with Kes at the end of 'Warlord' is something I love. I think it's very good advice on dealing with trauma that he struggles to follow himself. We never see the completed Keethera at the end of 'Flashback' - there is no assurance that his mind is completely healed from the trauma he's endured. [Even if the memory was not strictly 'real', his reactions to it were and thus we can say he DID have a repressed traumatic memory] Instead we see him talking with Janeway, with a friend, and we perhaps know that even if it isn't - he's not alone.

[nono-uwu]

Ons chapter 135 thoughts!!

Spoilers duh (also very long post. Lmk if I should add the read more cut)

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- KAGAMI I DIDN'T KNOW YOU HAD IT IN YOU TO GIVE CHESS AND HORN MORE SCREENTIME BUT THANK YOU ANYWAYS

- I am so glad that the whole digestion thing is more symbolical bc... that inital wording really threw me off lmao

- on that note, the immagery of the dead trees with the bodies sticking out of 'em... very creepy and on point, I think it's neat

- they actually adressed Crowley forgetting them! Wowzers (side note she looks hella adorable. My little skrunkly)

- ouugh the dynamic... where was it earlier? It seems so much more casual than during the Nagoya arc (probably just wishful thinking on my part lmao)... idc how give us more of this

- "you two were my first servants", LORE CRUMBS! I guess.

- wait so, they're still becoming demons? But isn't that a form of reincarnation, the thing Ferid is specifically trying to stop? But he's also devouring them... to absorb their power I guess? Since later on Ferid mentions now being more powerful after devouring Crowley (I'll get to that asspull later)

- Also Horn looks a teensy bit weird with the new artstyle but she's still super pretty 🫶 be my wife pls

- So, 16 year old Ferid is inside himself as his 'true self'? I assume that because he got the idea to stop reincarnation when he was 16 and hasn't changed his mind since (never let 16 year olds make big decisions in this world, it only leads to disaster)

- the skrunkle part 2. Also I doubt being digested like that feels good in any way. And with how slow it's supposed to be, yikes.

- I have a theory (aka major amounts of copium): Yuu will bust in and save Crowley because of 'fAmiLy' and also save Chess and Horn since they're family by association

- No one can reach Ferid, eh? And then Corwley's voice reaches him. Kagami and his queerbaiting amirite

- However Ferid then snags Crowley and ig he's on the priority list of getting devoured. Probably bc he's the strongest vampire Ferid has eaten. Cannibalism as a metaphor for love and devotion or whatever, except it's very literal and I doubt there's any love beyond 'u and interesting critter dude' from both sides

- Ok here's my major nitpick with this chapter: KAGAMI STOP BREAKING AND BENDING YOUR OWN FUCKING WORLDBUILDING AND POWER SYTEMS. Until now it was established that a vampires strenght is dependant on 1. their rank (as in who's blood turned them) and 2. their age. But now appearantly Ferid can eat vampires and absorb their strenght? If this was some universal but very difficult thing for any vampire to do, then I wouldn't be this salty. Also one of my favourite things about Ferid as an antagonist was, that power-wise he was on the weaker side. Despite being 'weak' he was still a major threat. He made up for his lack in actual fighting power with smarts and immaculate planning. But now he's another uber-strong genius. C'mon we already had Shikama and Rigr for that department. Bleh.

- now for the Yuu / Rigr and co confrontation, it's fiiiiine. I guess. At least Shikama is still somewhat of a formidable threat. Not to the major characters obviously but yk, it's something.

- rip Basteya. You showed up, slayed for a little and died.

- Kirsten still looks fugly as hell lmao

- so do Ulrich and Roger

- So, who will be faster: Shinoa in absorbing Shikama or Yuu in saving him? My bet is on Yuu purley bc he's supposed to be the main character but ig we'll see next chapter

- KRUL!!! AND THE BAT THING I FORGOT IT'S NAME

- sadly no Ferid / Krul brawl this chapter but yk what makes me excited for next chapter

- my guess is that now Krul is Ferids next target to be chomped. Hopefully she will beat his ass. Like when she first appeared. Ahhh the good old times

- 'A big fan of yours... M'lady Queen' lmao. What's next Ferid, will you put on a Fedora? Bro that last panel ain't it. Fuckin Sebastian of black butler wannabe 💀

[onwhatcaptain]

As much as I think Spock is doing the wrong thing by betraying T'Pring, I feel bad for him because it's so clear he and Chapel aren't on the same wavelength and never will be. The Lower Decks episode strongly suggests that Spock cannot be who he really is right now and he has no idea WHO he is (the framing drives this home). They're just not a good fit for each other, and their chess game was a great metaphor for the danger that relationship is in, as well as an indicator of where Spock is going in life, towards relationships with others.

I'm glad he eventually has Jim. They were written as two halves of a whole and it makes so much sense that they complete one another. They seem to be a better fit in every meaningful way. I'm genuinely curious how the SNW writers will make this situationship explode irreparably to show us how we get to TOS.

[punkforkos]

Hello!!! :D 🌈✍️ and 💪 for the ask meme for the OC of your choice :D

Hi!!! Thank you for the emojis!! :D

🌈 - color symbolism

✍️ - name meaning and symbolism

💪- abilities and powers symbolism/metaphor(how are your character's abilities a reflection of them as a person? Etc)

I'll do these for a couple different ocs that immediately jump into my mind-- Dante (they/he), Cain (he/him), and Solaire (he/him)!

🌈COLOR SYMBOLISM🌈

>> Cain: Yellow is a color I use a lot for him when playing with themes of growth and healing, namely because sunlight is a HUGE motif for him. The warmth and comfort of the sun, light being something needed for plants to grow and thrive...

Yellow is bright, it's warm, and it's something he can find in the people he loves! His best friend's yellow eyes, his boyfriend's golden hair. It's a color signifying his friendship and his love!!

Conversely, I use a lot of oranges when playing with his themes of grief, guilt, and trauma. He sees fire in his nightmares, it's a color that will never leave him, it made him who he is. It signifies the destruction of his old life and a rebirth into the person he is now. Orange is a color for anger, passion, confusion, and trepidation.

✍️ NAME SYMBOLISM✍️

✍️ Cain Rook: Cain Rook was a fake name that he assumed when he fully committed himself to the life of a career thief. C.Rook... crook.

His real name is Daniel Bishop though! So much of his name is just biblical references... which is intentional, given his childhood religious trauma. Daniel means "God is my Judge", Cain is a biblical figure who killed his brother out of jealousy. A rook is a chess piece that looks like a tower, but a rook is also a thief... a bishop is both a chess piece and a clergyman. Daniel was a faithful son who believed in God for the sake of his mother, but Cain is a scorned man who wishes he could take back his innocence.

Cain replacing the person Daniel was is deeply symbolic, Cain almost feels like he killed that kid when he looks through the warped glass of his survivor's guilt. It feels wrong for him to move on, he feels like a crook (and he is a crook!! he's an actual thief). He's trying to find anyway he can to rationalize what happened and why he feels the way he does... but it hurts! So he tries to create distance instead. ------------------

✍️ Dante Inferno: Meta-wise, this name references Dante's Inferno! I heavily associate Dante with the 9th and final layer of Hell from the poem-- Treachery. His greatest sin and the coldest, deepest layer of Hell. I thought it was fitting, given that they're a drow from the Underdark, who became a pirate that uses a submarine as their main vessel... who betrays their own people by selling them out to The Spider Queen for their own gain.

And yet, Dante is caught up in their own kind of purgatory. They have dug themself so deep that they can no longer find their way back up towards the light. They are deeply unfulfilled and unhappy by what they're doing but they continue it because it's all they know now!! It's the only thing that's working for them. Until it doesn't.

💪ABILITIES/POWERS SYMBOLISM💪

>> >Solaire is absolutely my #1 oc for this particular question. His story is deeply entwined with his abilities/powers!!

TLDR: Solaire is a phoenix fire sorcerer... who gained his powers when his mother ingested a phoenix feather elixir while pregnant with him. She had fallen ill and needed this elixir to live and save both her and her child. However, Solaire was born sickly... and were it not for the residual phoenix essence that he'd absorbed, he would be dead!!

While this phoenix essence allowed him to continue living and had also gave him incredible fire powers... these incredible powers also consumed his life. His father only attempted to nurture these abilities within him, which isolated him from the rest of his family.

Unfortunately, he was neglected for most of his life, though he doesn't see it that way. As a result, he grew up as quite a unique blend... being entitled, vain, and arrogant... but also profoundly lonely, angry, and confused. Yearning for any kind of connection, but unable to figure out how to earn it, without digging his claws into someone else and holding them close. Personality-wise, he is a Nightmare. ------

>>> Solaire does not know a life without his powers. His power symbolizes strength, control, beauty, and radiance. Destruction and pain. His fire burns OTHERS but not himself... right? He was brought up thinking that these are the best parts of him. These powers are his worth and without them, he is nothing special. He is weak and fragile without them.

It's an incredibly toxic mindset, given that he's chronically ill and his illness is directly connected to his powers,,!! Whenever he overuses his abilities or strains himself too much in any way, he becomes extremely sick and fatigued, on top of having regular flare-ups. It's built up a lot of self-loathing inside of him!! ------

>>> Ah but to tie it all back into symbolism... everything relates back to the phoenix and to fire. Fire can be beautiful and warming, something that can help life prosper, but it can also be extremely devastating and destructive. Solaire didn't know how to use his fire in any positive way and it ended up hurting him and everyone else around him more than anything. But because of that phoenix essence, he will always bounce back. It's a nasty cycle. Hurt, heal, hurt, heal, and hurt some more. ----------------

I have so many thoughts about this particular subject but I'm getting extremely rambly about it and not wording it as cohesively as I'd like!! So I'll wrap it up here for now.

If you want to read more about his powers (and his illness) and how they actually work, might I direct you to his Toyhouse? <333

[fahye]

Just finished A Power Unbound and I just have to tell you that all the references to CARD PLAYING and wagering for everything one owns sent me. I had to duck out for a moment every time!!

I loved this series so much and I was SO happy to have an entire book softening Jack's prickles because he was absolutely my favourite arsehole from the very beginning.

Thank you.

thank YOU!

I'm an enormous sucker for games of any kind in romance, both as something for people to do with their hands when they're having fraught discussions and as Obnoxiously Obvious Metaphor. maud and jack playing chess was one of my personal favourite things in book 2, and I could have written a whole book of jack & alan playing cards in a meaningful way. (it would have been very boring to everyone but me.)

[smaller-comfort]

In conclusion:

On the one hand, I do have a lot to say about this story. On the other, it's been a weird few weeks and I probably need to take a break from the internet for a while, in general. (Am I going to? Probably not.)

All things considered, my notes are a lot less hysterical than I was expecting. Here we go!

The expanding text was a last minute addition, but I'm glad people had fun with it. I certainly had fun with it. The "Pause" at the top of chapter 6 probably makes me laugh the most, but the ones in chapters 3 and 4 were what made me stick the cuts in there to begin with.

I really wasn't expecting to actually finish and/or post this one any time soon (or ever???) but, like I said- a weird few weeks. I don't usually hyperfocus on a single project like this, and lately my brain feels like it's going to implode. Anyway!

Who is the second person narrator in the expanding text? I leave that as an exercise for the reader.

Death of the author and all that, but here's some of the background stuff that probably ought to be in the story but isn't:

It's really only a few months between Dreaming Still and Save Scumming; Aephorul wasn't actually lying about the spell being a rush job, and Resh'an absolutely did not do his due diligence before he opened that vial.

They're idiots! That's it, that's the real theme; they make each other stupid, and they mirror each other's poor decision making constantly.

(I'm not trying to be like...a subtle writer. I have these themes and ideas nailed to a two-by-four. I am going to beat someone to death with them. At least, that's how it feels to me, but I realize that may not necessarily translate as well as I think it does.)

After not speaking to each other for a thousand years and then getting thrown back together- however briefly- during the events of the game and Loser Takes All, they're both desperate for any excuse to see each other again. They just have to make things complicated for themselves.

Aephorul really could have just sent a letter, like "hey wanna grab coffee somewhere neutral sometime and ~not argue~ for a little while less-than-three winky face winky face?" (He dictates.) And Resh'an would've replied back, "I don't drink coffee anymore" along with a location and time. (He does still drink coffee; Aephorul swings by Sea of Starbucks and gets him his favorite latte.)

Resh'an intended the time loop to be insurance, in case something did go wrong. Whoops. He can't help it, but he's really only playing twelve dimensional chess with himself. Aephorul, meanwhile, is playing poker. I could torture this metaphor a little more, if you want.

Pure, organic, unfounded headcanon territory! Aephorul can't manipulate time the way Resh'an can- but he does know more about time magic and alchemy than anyone else in the universe except Resh'an. When he's paying attention, he's able to see what Resh'an is doing, and he's on hyper alert after his embarrassing lapse in Dreaming Still.

He doesn't have a clear sense of the events of those other loops, but he does get a pretty clear idea of the emotions he's experiencing. Anger tends to compound itself.

Hokay so. In the game, Resh'an splits himself into 3 "clones" during Garl's borrowed time. Those aren't empty puppets; my theory is he made a time loop, iterated himself, and then reintegrated those loops into the main timeline. That's sort of what happened here. The time loops are separate and concurrent, so my cutesy framing device is slightly misleading; technically no one is going back to restart the loop.

Okay, technically some of them do. There were probably more iterations than just the three in the story. They're not really important, except one of them is going to be a standalone story at some point (no happy ending).

It's not linear. Don't worry about it.

There are some fucked up implications here! This is not Resh'an's first rodeo/orgy/extremely ill-advised gangbang. It's also not the first time Aephorul has sexually assaulted him. It might be the first time those things happen in conjunction with each other, but Resh'an is being fairly literal when he says none of this is new to him.

Does this even rate in the top 10 of horrific things Aephorul has done to Resh'an? It might be like...8th or 9th place. Definitely not in the top 5, in Resh'an's opinion. (He and Aephorul have very different opinions about this.)

The fact that he and Resh'an now have wildly different ideas of what constitutes "fun" is also difficult for him. He'll get there eventually. Maybe.

Aephorul really wants to pretend things between them haven't changed; before they began fighting, they would've gotten up to all kinds of weird and horrifying shit with each other, because it was fun and they were bored. (What's the point of being immortal if you can't use it to spend a few centuries inventing bizarre recreational drugs and weird sex acts? No point at all.) He's not used to asking for permission when he could always just take it for granted that Resh'an would ultimately enjoy whatever he had planned. The fact that Resh'an no longer appreciates his fun little surprises is difficult for him to deal with.

One thing I really hope comes through is the way Aephorul's actions are him being extremely reactive to Resh'an's level of vulnerability. He can be gentle when Resh'an is willing to show that he's in pain. If Resh'an had begged him not to go through with it, chapter 3 wouldn't have happened; if chapter 3 didn't happen, then chapter 4 couldn't happen. It takes Resh'an being completely broken for Aephorul to be willing to show his face. Even then, he can't help responding to Resh'an's initial anger like a complete fucking asshole, before his 'wait, shit, I fucked up' instincts kick in.

It doesn't matter in any meaningful sense- what Aephorul does is inexcusable on every level- but he does erase the memories of everyone who participated in the gang rape, and most of the audience was illusionary. There's a few plot hooks in there that I may or may not pick up in a future story.

But really, I'm done with plot for a while. I think most of what's going to follow this will just be more snarsty porn. Enthusiastically consensual snarsty porn, but snarsty porn all the same.

(Since I'm apparently not done experiencing the mortifying ordeal of being known, I do intend to finish the oviposition story. Someday. Probably.)

I feel like I can summarize a lot of their relationship at this point like this:

Resh'an, face completely neutral and voice pleasant: Say one more word and I am going to mcfucking lose it.

Aephorul: one more word

Resh'an: *mcfucking loses it*

Aephorul: *shocked Pikachu face*

I listened to Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) by Florence and the Machine so many times while editing this that I think I'm now stuck with that as my Resh'an song. Embarrassing.

(Aephorul's song is, unfortunately, still Where's the Girl from The Scarlet Pimpernel.) ("We were cut from the same surly star" come on, how can I not.) (...okay also Bad Touch by The Bloodhound Gang.)

Resh'an literally broke the space-time continuum because he couldn't bring himself to kill Aephorul. This story was, in part, me wanting to work through why. I have apparently decided that it's because they're in a horrifically toxic codependent relationship that most likely will end with them destroying the universe and each other.

...okay, and honestly, when I wrote the end of Dreaming Still I was kind of like "shit, I can't just write the same scenario as Loser Takes All again." I mean. I could. But I had to do something a little different. Then it got out of hand, as things so often tend to.

This is the longest thing I've ever finished! I am actually quite proud of it! It is probably going to be at least a month before I can stand to look at it again. *sighs, and walks into the lake*