#that turned into I’m getting worse what if I become too disabled to attend this college which turned into if I’m actually getting forearm

[nope-body]

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[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Roman Holiday: A Review

Hello, everyone, and welcome to my review of RWBY: Roman Holiday by E.C. Myers! Given my tendency to discuss this franchise at great length, I thought I'd start with a tl;dr section for those who might just want my general takeaway, not a deep dive into some of the novel's specific flaws and strengths. So with that in mind... 

Did you like the book?

I did! Let me put it like this. I'm incredibly critical of any RWBY material nowadays, I haven't had the energy to read #realbooks for a while, and I still managed to finish this in five days, even while stopping every few pages to take notes. So it was entertaining enough to hold my attention, unlike Before the Dawn. Is it a perfect novel worthy of nothing but endless praise? No and I'll delve into the many problems below. But is it also one of the better RWBY installments I've engaged with lately, including recent Volumes of the webseries? Yeah. If you're still emotionally attached to the show or these characters, I recommend giving it a try for the sake of nostalgia. 

But isn't there a bunch of creepy stuff in it? Didn't Myers turn Roman into a pedophile? 

No, he didn't. As I suspected, the rumors that we've been hearing lately probably came about from taking certain moments out of context, or by blowing up some pretty minor implications, or by straight up reading interactions between an adult and a minor in very bad faith. Purity culture and a desire to drag RWBY combining to create an argument that, frankly, isn't supported by the text. Are there jokes and interactions that some readers might find uncomfortable? Yes, but it’s no worse than what RWBY has already established as a canonical part of their world and writing style. See: Yang's interactions with Junior in her Yellow Trailer. If you're a fan of Roman and have held off only because you're convinced the novel ruined his character, I personally don't think that's the case. Breathe easy. 

I'm still worried about how the novel treats disability though. Specifically Neo's muteness. 

I was too, but I'm happy to report it's a pretty tame portrayal. If anything, I have more to say about the intersection between Neo's semblance and her sense of identity. Suffice to say though, Neo never speaks in the novel, there's no ridiculous reason why she can't speak (no reason is given at all, it’s simply a part of her), and only the bad guys pressure her into talking. Meaning, the bad guys from her and Roman’s perspective. Obviously she and Roman are both villains in the RWBY world, but when it comes to respecting each other's needs they're definitely, comparatively better than the rest of the cast. 

So there were no problems? 

Oh no, there are definitely problems lol. Let's just say they're not offensive enough to bother the average RWBY fan. At least, most of them (probably) aren't. If you're not neck deep in the franchise's struggles and actively thinking about how this novel does (or does not) fit into the larger RWBY-mythos, there's a very good chance you'll like the book, passing over everything I’m about to mention without a backwards glance. Hell, even if you're looking for problems there's a good chance you'll enjoy a lot of other aspects, just like I did. So I recommend taking a chance on the book far more than I recommend steering clear on principal alone. 

Okay, with that out of the way it's time to dive into the nitty-gritty!  

FYI I'm pulling my quotations from the paperback edition and, as is probably already obvious, this is not a spoiler free review. So tread carefully!  

Part One: An Imbalance of Protagonists

Would you like RWBY: Roman Holiday? Well, that might depend largely on which of its main characters you're most interested in. If it's Roman, you may be disappointed, despite the fact that the book is evenly divided between his and Neo's perspectives. This is, fundamentally, a book about Neo. She is the one undergoing all the character development. She is the one who is driving the plot. Roman just sort of exists within a criminal status quo until he bumps into her — almost exactly halfway through the novel's 308 pages — and then becomes caught up in her training, her desire to concoct new schemes, and eventually her family's problems. I don't want to make it sound like Roman is unimportant to the book, he's obviously there and he does things, but we're not given the same level of insight into him like we are Neo.  Frankly, I can think of only two significant revelations, both of which we might have easily guessed based on Roman's established characteristics: his mother abandoned him when he was a kid and he once worked for one of the main crime bosses in Mistrial, specifically Lil' Miss Malachite. Otherwise, everything Roman does and experiences is precisely the sort of stuff we saw him do and experience in the webseries. He commits petty crimes, fights people with his cane, and does it all with a dramatic flare which, notably, Myers writes quite well. 

This lack of impact on the story seems to stem from two decisions. First, Myers never jumps forward or backwards in time (with the exception of two small scenes that explain how characters got to a point we saw in the last scene/chapter). Though this definitely helps to keep things from getting confusing, it means that we never go farther back than Neo at 8 years of age and we're always looking at what both characters are up to at the same point in time. Given that Roman is a decade older than Neo, this means that, unlike her, we never get peek into his childhood. When she's 8 he's 18, already an adult and committing crimes in Mistral. A lot of Neo's development is inevitable, just by virtue of starting her story so young. She has to mature, develop her semblance, go to school, try various ways of being independent for the first time... Roman gets none of that. He's an adult when we meet him, his character fully formed and, since we already know that character from the webseries, we're given no new insight into him or how he developed that identity, just a reconfirmation that it exists. 

More of an issue though is that Roman isn't allowed an arc over the course of the novel. The man we meet on page 9 is precisely the same man we end with on page 308 — with the minor exception that he now has a partner in Neo and that, sadly, is a lesson he learns instantaneously. For the first half of the book, Myers sets up the expectation that learning to trust and, specifically, learning to trust someone like Neo is the great conflict that Roman will have to work though. He's very cynical in his own head, as we might expect: “On the streets, on your own. You only watched out for yourself. Anything else was a weakness. Anyone else was a liability” (14). No sooner is this perspective established than Roman is meeting people who challenge it. While babysitting the Malachite girls, they provide advice on how to improve his chances of pulling off heists: 

Melanie and Miltia, simultaneously: “You just need the right partner.” 

Roman: “Maybe. I just don’t believe anyone is going to watch out for me as much as I will” (41). 

After betraying Lil' Miss and fending off his peer Chameleon, she sadly announces that "you might have gotten what you wanted after all if you hadn’t been in it only for yourself. If you had allowed yourself to trust someone” (87). Myers isn't subtle about the theme here. 

Yet when Roman meets Neo, that trust is immediate, despite spending his entire life rejecting the idea of a partner, despite the viewer having just read about numerous other people who Roman spent years fighting beside and still didn't come to trust, Neo forms an instant, powerful connection with him — one that can't be explained by her saving his life when they first meet. Even Roman himself acknowledges that it's just another debt to repay. They simply click, with no explanation as to how that occurred, or even a serious acknowledgement that this is out of character for them both (what with Neo never having had a friend). Neo gives him the name "Neopolitan," knowing it's her true name now and, thus, a more personal offering than her birth name "Trivia." Roman gives her his entire life story during their first meal together. Roman also spends all of his money on Neo's modified parasol and at the novel's end continually offers to sacrifice himself so that Neo can escape. Neo thinks a lot about how Roman is the only one who can understand her through body language alone which, kudos to Myers again, he does describe her movements with enough clarity to sell that understanding (even if Roman does sometimes make leaps in logic that feel a little unlikely). “She really missed Roman. Most of the time she didn’t need to say anything and he knew exactly what she was thinking” (249). It's heartwarming. As someone who enjoyed their relationship in the webseires, this is likewise a joy to read. It's just that it... kinda came out of nowhere. 

Far from this just being an issue of Roman trusting when he's never trusted before, Myers sets up a conflict of loyalties in Neo that is then immediately dropped. She finds herself surprised by Lady Beat — the headmistress of the academy Neo attends — unexpectedly liking her insights and, in exchange for privacy and a more in-depth curriculum, agrees to help her capture Roman. Prior to this agreement, Neo considers helping the Malachite twins take Roman out when they corner him because then they might be Neo's friends instead of her bullies. That motivation makes perfect sense to me. Of course Neo would be more interested in assisting the two girls who attend school with her and improving her daily life over helping the random guy on the street, even if Roman's vulnerability (that's what Neo latches onto: a moment where his mask slips and he shows true fear) sways her towards helping him in the end. When she reunites with Roman later, he requests that she help him spy on Lady Beat... and Neo turns him down. So there's a very clear precedent here of Neo being out for herself, looking to improve her relationship with the other high society ladies she's spending most of her time with. The road to favoring Roman over them will be a long one. What will convince Neo to switch sides? 

Nothing. Soon after Neo thinks about how she's duping both Lady Beat and Roman (the reasoning there is never really explained) and from then on her focus is entirely on Roman, with likewise no explanation as to why she chose him in the end. “Roman clearly had some trust issues to work out, but Neo was going to prove to him that he could count on her” (219). Why this sudden desire to prove herself to Roman? No idea. The novel skips over the majority of their bonding. Yes, there are a few key scenes — Neo saving him, Roman giving her the parasol, etc. — but a single sentence reveals that Neo has been training with him for months now, bypassing the slow development of trust and Neo's changing thought process about what side she should choose. 

Or rather, there are explanations for Neo's decision, but they all occur after Neo has already chosen Roman. There are two major revelations that we're only told about much later in the novel: that Neo is suddenly dissatisfied with her life at school — “Neopolitan was having second thoughts. As much as life at the school had improved, more and more it felt like it wasn’t giving her what she needed” — and that Lady Beat is the head of a major spying conspiracy across all of Remnant (more on that later). Either one of these could have been the catalyst for Neo giving more attention to Roman and, eventually, growing quite close to him. A general dissatisfaction with her life, the revelation that Lady Beat isn't the kind of criminal Neo wants to support...either would work. As it is, her devotion to Roman seems to immerge randomly, fully formed and unshakable, with these ‘I guess the school and Lady Beat weren't that great after all’ justifications tacked on much later and, thus, presented as incidental to Neo's devotion. “[Roman] was basically the only thing that mattered to her in the world right now" is the conclusion Neo comes to without a lot of work put in to explain how he reached that point in her life (248). 

And I can see how this happened. We already know that Neo and Roman are a tight-knit duo from the webseries — Neo's love in particular has been emphasized since Volume Six — and so Myers banked on the reader applying that knowledge to the novel. He wrote the story of what Neo and Roman did prior to meeting, he wrote the story of their friendship prior to the webseries... but he didn't really write how that friendship came about. It's treated as a given, despite the huge number of reasons why that friendship should be rocky (or even non-existent) at the start, to say nothing of many fans' interest in getting an answer to the question, "How does an established villain who trusts no one wind up partnering with a girl a decade his junior?" The novel tells us that this unexpected outcome does, in fact, occur, rather than taking us through the journey of how such an outcome is possible. This is by no means a new problem in RWBY and, admittedly, Myers' depiction of the relationship isn't as noticeably a problem as some others in the webseries, simply by virtue of Neo and Roman being the focus of the novel and the reader knowing that they do, in fact, end up as partners. It's a lot easier to buy a shaky journey when you already know the inevitable conclusion, but that doesn't mean we couldn't have done a better job of showing it. 

Which, to get back to the original point of this section, means that Roman never has that arc about learning to trust someone. He just does trust, the moment Neo comes on the scene. Personally, I think this rapid-fire growth is particularly egregious given everything else we learn about Neo and Roman’s histories. Meaning, just like Roman's cynicism about trust is introduced early on, so is his hatred for the rich elite. In fact, Roman's poverty and the disdain that has bred are arguably the most prominent aspects that Myers added to his characterization. As seen in the novel's excerpt release, Roman's introduction is robbing a rich man coming out of a club where he shows more interest in humiliating and harming the man than just getting his stuff and running. Which, to be fair, isn't solely due to the man's status as a member of the elite. The novel develops both characters' sadist tendencies — “He’s vicious. He brutally beat a man just for his coat. He was having fun” (21) — but the man’s status isn't a non-factor either. Roman's internal thoughts say a lot about how stupid, rude, gullible, pathetic, and inept he thinks the rich are. At the start he's not just taking the man's coat because he likes it, but because he’ll need it to survive the Mistral winter, what with living in a shelter under a bridge and all. We learn that his obsession with survival is born of poverty — “Ma’am, when you don’t have anything, surviving is more. You’ve gotta start somewhere” (20) — and that Roman will go to any lengths just to meet his basic needs, potentially with a side of some comfort. For example, he knowingly risks his life by pissing off Lil' Miss just to get two days of food, baths, and a bed. As Roman puts it, those two days are worth it, even if it means the rest of his life is potentially forfeit. 

So this is a man driven by a desire to live in comfort, manifesting in a hatred of the rich that is so powerful Roman breaks the man's knee just for the hell of it. He's touchy about any comment on his upbringing too: "Roman froze. 'So that’s it. You think you’re better than me. Because you went to school? Learned a trade?'" (80). And, to be clear, this is a hatred of the high society rich. The kind of wealth that's never earned. Roman has a healthy respect for the well-fed crime bosses who have pushed their way to the top, just as he plans to. Not those living cushy lives at the expense of him and others. 

And wouldn't you know it, his partner to-be is a pampered little rich girl. 

"There's the conflict," I thought. "Roman doesn't just need to learn to trust, he's got to trust someone born into extreme luxury. How is that going to happen?" Well, again, it didn't. Neo and Roman's class difference is ignored for 99% of the novel, with the other 1% used for casual banter between them. It's not that Roman isn't aware of Neo's pedigree, so to speak. He finds her through the uniform she wears, the symbol of an academy that rich girls attend. When they share their first tea together, he notes how daintily she eats the sandwiches, more evidence that Neo has had manners drilled into her at a young age. When he finally gets confirmation that she's not just rich, but really rich — flying to her parents' mansion — Roman is just kinda moderately surprised, throwing in a comment about how someday that money will be hers and isn't that nice. Roman's hatred of the elite disappeared for Neo's sake, just like his trust issues did. There's no working through these differences, just an erasure of them so the novel can jump straight to them being the perfectly in synch duo we know from the webseries. 

As a side detail that I think demonstrates this imbalance rather well, hair is used as a marker of identity throughout the novel. Neo moves from being jealous that other girls are allowed to style their hair how they please, to making her hair entirely pink with her semblance, changing that to half brown instead, buying pink dye so she no longer needs to waste energy on something she wants to be permanent, and ending with her getting some white streaks even as she chooses to leave the name Vanille behind. Each change coincides with an aspect of her development and it works quite well. In contrast though, Roman has only setup, no follow through. Unlike the short cut we're used to in the series, Roman starts the novel with a long ponytail that characters frequently comment on. The twins steal his hat and beg to braid his hair when they're bored. Neo seems iffy about the style choice. A couple other side characters make vague references to imply that he should get rid of it — something, something it doesn't actually suit him. So surely we'll see Roman cut his hair sometime before the novel's end, visually representing his growth, just like Neo's changing color has represented hers (ending with a color mix that reflects neapolitan ice cream)? Nope. Not unless I missed it. The foundation for that change is there, but Myers never capitalizes on it, despite obviously knowing what he's doing with Neo. 

So if you want more Roman content, the kind of content we saw in the webseries, great. You'll love the novel. If you want to read about Roman undergoing any significant change, including a dive into how he came to trust Neo of all people, large chunks of that story are missing. In true RWBY fashion, there are plenty of details that allow readers to fill in the blanks for themselves, but the canon itself is, sadly, lacking. 

Part Two: Neo's Magical Identity 

We've established then that Neo gets the lion's share of the development and, frankly, most of it is good. Knowing she's set to become a villain, I loved reading the gradual move from understandably lashing out — Neo throws an umbrella at her father's face when he's being an emotionally abusive dick — to becoming just as stoically cruel as Roman — she launches a woman out of the back of a plane. Did she have a parachute? Who cares. There's a lot here to like about Neo's characterization, with Myers finding a nice balance between keeping her playful and not making her feel like a caricature (helped immensely by spending so much time in Neo's head). However, the one part that arguably fails is the development of Neo's semblance and, consequentially, her identity. 

To be clear, I absolutely get what Myers was going for and it's basically what I assumed was going on when I read the excerpt: Trivia (Neo's birth name) has an imaginary friend she calls Neopolitan and, over time, she realizes she is Neopolitan. The imaginary friend is who she wanted to be all along, not just the person she wanted to spend time with. I like it! Who among us hasn't imagined a badass, smooth-talking, beloved version of ourselves that impresses everyone with a Mary Sue-esque ease? (Or, if you haven't, guess I'm outing myself here lol.) It's a pretty relatable idea. Trivia imagines a girl with the power to dress how she wants, style her hair how she wants, with amazing acrobatic skills, a take-no-shit attitude, fun ideas to implement... but she also has Trivia's heterochromia and muteness. It's the perfect combination of Trivia's unique traits and the confidence/freedom she longs to have. Of course when given the chance she grows up to be Neo, even going so far as to take that name. It's what she always wanted. 

The only problem here is that in the RWBY world, Neo can't just be an imaginary friend. She's a manifestation of Trivia's semblance. As we learn later, the things Trivia creates are as real as real can be, provided she keeps up their existence. You can touch the wall. You can count the money. You can wear the clothes. They're less illusions than short-term creations — as Team RWBY realizes whenever they wind up attacking a Neo duplicate instead of the "real" thing — and that puts an odd spin on just how imaginary Neopolitan actually is. She's not imaginary at all. She's a real person that exists in the real world, it's just that this existence is temporary and dependent on Trivia's aura. 

The novel supports this by constantly writing Neopolitan as a distinct personality from Trivia. Not just the polished version of who she is slowly becoming, but an individual in her own right. Neo makes decisions that are fully her own, contrary to or even entirely unknown to Trivia. To highlight just a few examples: 

Trivia is unsure about sneaking out of the house so Neo "shoved her into the hall" (25). 

Neo "looked on jealously” as Trivia drinks a milkshake, implying a desire to have one and the knowledge that her current physicality doesn't allow for that. If she is Trivia, shouldn't she likewise be enjoying the shake? 

“She shot Neo a questioning look... before she realized what Neo had in mind” (92). Their thoughts are presented as separate and there's no instant mind-reading. 

Neo catches Trivia when she leaps out of a window, surprising her with the save. Trivia never planned for Neo to do that, Neo did it entirely on her own. 

There are lots of other instances like this, details that establish Neo has a person separate from Trivia (this confusion regarding their names should make that clear enough), no matter the fact that she's made out of aura. I mean, we've got Ozpin existing only as a soul in other's bodies. RWBY isn't exactly in a position to get nit-picky about personhood. More specifically though, Neo is presented as a bad influence on Trivia, an outside force enacting on her in harmful ways. Neo's introduction establishes her as the troublemaker to Trivia's more obedient personality: “But those were her parents’ rules, and Neopolitan never cared about those.... She bounced up and down on the cushions the way she wasn’t supposed to” with a “taunting smile” (2). Her father comments on this multiple times, saying that Trivia can't hide behind an imaginary friend. She's responsible for her decisions. And while yes, that's true, that level of responsibility changes when Trivia summons Neo into the world. During a fight with some other teens, they can suddenly see Neo and Neo, independent of Trivia, punches one in the face, making her nose bleed. That seems like a real person making her own, real decisions to me. So it was never Trivia doing things and then trying to foster responsibility off on an imagined cohort, it's a child bringing another, magically-based person into existence and being influenced by her since before the age of 8 (considering that Trivia and Neo have clearly been playing with each other for a long time when the novel starts). There's even a moment where Trivia seems to realize all this, acknowledging that sneaking out, breaking up her parents' party, causing a scene... all of it was Neo's idea. “That had to be Neo’s influence again. Trivia had to stay in control." 

But the idea of control is never actually explored. Despite establishing Neo's individuality and having Trivia comment on her influence, the second half of the novel abandons that for the expected, 'Trivia was Neo all along' reveal. There's a very strange moment where Trivia's mom slaps Neo, causing her to shatter and... that's it. “Neo had been so much more to Trivia. Now she was gone” (98). Neo is, apparently, gone for good, despite the fact that she should return the moment Trivia's aura does. Neo has been with Trivia since she was a small child, nearly her entire life and at least 7 years by this point in the novel, so why did a single slap send her away? That's not explained and, much like the ‘Why has Neo chosen Roman?’ question, the fact that Trivia did try to bring her back several times and failed is mentioned chapters after Neo's absence is presented as an inevitability. The order of events needs some reshuffling. 

Despite this confusion regarding why this change happened now, the explanation seems to be that Neo isn't really gone, Trivia has just realized for the first time that she is Neo. No need to summon up a separate person when you are that person and the novel, from then on, is peppered with constant reminders of this. 

“Trivia was on the verge of exhaustion, but she kept burning the last of her Aura to hold Neo together. To hold herself together” (96). 

Realizing she is Neo: “Trivia smiled. She took in a deep breath. She felt complete for the first time. She felt like herself” (99). 

“You must be Trivia,” the tall woman said. If I must, I must, Trivia thought (126).

“She wrinkled her nose. Her name still felt like a coat that didn’t fit right. She would need to tailor that, too” (153).

“Losing her friend was Trivia’s first step towards putting herself back together and embracing her true, best self” (152). 

“Wearing this [outfit], she almost, not quite, knew (or remembered?) who she was—not as a student or a daughter, but as Trivia Vanille," except the clothes are “the kind of thing Neopolitan would wear” (152-3). 

On not being able to summon Neo anymore: “She had realized that Neo was really just another aspect of herself” (175).

Though there’s also the occasional implication that she's not actually Neo, just someone highly influenced by her: “No, [fully pink hair was] too much of the other girl [Neopolitan]," so she settles on that half pink (Neo), half brown (Trivia) combo (153). 

As said at the start, it's a "twist" that works perfectly well... provided you ignore the magical elements and the amount of work done to establish Neopolitan as her own person, not just Trivia in a shiny, future glamour. Far from the empowering victory I expected to feel in watching Neo become who she always wanted to be, I found the whole situation to be somewhat tragic. Magic created a fully realized person who egged Trivia towards bad behavior since she was a young child, until Trivia comes to the decision that she should just embrace their personality 24/7. It felt less like the growth of a character into who they were meant to be and more like a manipulated kid taking the place of the person who used to exist alongside her — the only friend she ever had before Roman. Given that Neo is a villain, that's a pretty interesting idea for how the good girl goes bad... but it doesn't feel like Myers meant it that way. Rather, we're supposed to accept the simplest reading, that Neo was just a projection of Trivia's internal self, never-mind her individuality, her pressuring influence, her existence as something real in the world provided Trivia has aura. It's a much messier depiction of Neo's identity than that ‘She had an imaginary friend who she admired and eventually took her name’ setup. When magic is involved and a character's mind is creating fully realized people to stave off loneliness... that's a whole other kettle of fish. I don't actually want to delve into a psychological reading here — I simply don't have the expertise for that — but suffice to say, Neo's muteness might have been handled well, but there's a lot more to interrogate regarding her mental state and how much leeway we give to, ‘It's a fantasy series, just run with it.’ 

Part Three: You're Dodging Those Rumors, Clyde 

I admittedly am. Let's take a break from deep dives into characterization to instead tackle Roman Holiday's — undeserved — reputation. I get it. At this point the RWBY franchise is, frankly, a poster child for offensive content and workplace problems. In the last two years alone we've dealt with horrific crunch culture, sexual harassment allegations, an arguably glorified assisted suicide, bad comparisons to real life politics and dictatorships, a huge reversal on the show's disability stance, one subreddit banning another over criticism, a collective YouTube response to the fandom's behavior, iffy choices regarding Mother's Day merch, accusations of queerbaiting, a resurgence of using Monty's death to forward or dismiss arguments, continued worry over whether the bees will be made canonical next Volume... and honestly, that's just some of the big ticket subjects. RWBY's story, workplace, and fandom have a lot going on, much of it bad, so it's no surprise to me that people are primed to see the worst at every turn. Why wouldn't we be? At this point it's a pretty justified response. 

However, in this case it's unwarranted. Let's tackle Neo and Roman first. Yes, they're a decade apart in age and yes, there are some details that could, potentially, imply romantic interest on both sides. But they really are tiny and the novel confirms nothing. Indeed, the back of the book's summary says, "Just like every story, every friendship has a beginning..." So that's the focus here and all the ambiguous hints, importantly, happen after Neo is confirmed to be 18 years old. Roman takes her to a fancy tea shop only because he owes her. “It certainly wasn’t because he wanted to impress her or anything” (189). Neo blushes when he compliments her semblance. Twice Roman jokes “Don’t worry, it isn’t flowers” when Neo is opening up her parasol present (212). Neo also acknowledges Roman's looks at one point: “With his tousled orange hair, dressed like a street punk, he didn’t look much older than her. In fact, he was kind of cute” (184). The most intimate they get though is at the novel's end: “She leaned over and kissed Roman on the cheek. His face went red," though this is immediately followed by "It was fun to mess with him sometimes” (307). Honestly, the most overt "hint" towards a relationship is probably the title itself, a play on the 1953 romantic comedy Roman Holiday. But upon reading the novel, I think it's clear Myers chose that title only because Roman's name is, you know, Roman and the plot somewhat mirrors the idea of a reporter getting involved with a princess. Only in this case it's a criminal getting involved with a high society girl and "involved" just means a crime spree, not a romance. 

So is there something there? Maybe the start of something, if you're willing to read into it, but to me it comes across more like the two of them poking fun at social expectations — he's the guy so he "must" be getting the girl flowers; she's the girl so she "has" to kiss him on the cheek — rather than anything serious. Even if Myers had developed a relationship, Neo is both an adult and at least Ruby's current age, if not a year older, so if some fans want her to start a relationship with the 14-year-old farm boy housing her ancient headmaster, is a ten year age gap really where we're going to draw the line? I know that makes a lot of people uncomfortable — frankly it makes me a bit uncomfortable too, more-so because of the difference in their life experiences (Neo is still a student, Roman a long-established criminal) than the actual gap itself — but we should be wary about when personal squicks turn into unfounded, "This is a sin!" purity culture. And for the purposes of this conversation, the point is that there is no relationship. If anything, Roman is just as aware of Neo's age as the reader is. He initially thinks he's looking at a “little girl” only to quickly realize “She was also older than her diminutive height suggested, maybe about the same age as the Malachite twins” (168). But, as we'll get to in just a sec, Roman very much treats the twins as the kids they are too. Roman even refers to Neo as a "kid" until she makes it known she dislikes it (183-4). He drops the term, but that doesn't mean the mindset disappeared. 

As for the twins, they're the only other minors that Roman spends time with. Lil' Miss instructs him to act as their body guard while in hiding, which means he spends over a week living with them. Frankly? I think it's a really wholesome part of the novel — or as wholesome as the villains can ever get. That's when the girls get bored enough to steal Roman's hat, toss it around a bit, and beg to braid his hair. Myers does a good job of balancing Roman's bad boy attitude with a clear indulgence for them. He doesn't actively like the twins (who does Roman like besides Neo?) and ends up orchestrating a ridiculous plot to get out of "babysitting" them (another indication that he's well aware that they're kids), but he doesn't wish them any real harm. He even cares about them in his own twisted, villainous way. We get to see a moment where Roman tries to convince the girls to escape from a grimm, leaving him behind. We might have been able to write that off as Roman just saving his own skin in the long run — Lil' Miss would kill him if any harm comes to her girls — but there's no need to fake comfort: “Roman squeezed Melanie’s hand reassuringly. He needed her and her sister to remain calm” (52). As one of the other goons observes, “You’re bluffing. It’s obvious that you care about [Miltia], which means you’re up to something” (51). Much later, Roman's thoughts confirm this when the girls are older, more powerful, and trying to kill him: “He’d had to endure their dance recitals when they were little. He’d clapped for them at gymnastic competitions. Now they were trying to do a number on him... He didn’t want to hurt the lil' brats, despite everything, but he couldn’t let them take him down” (166-7). Really, I like everything about this. I enjoy how this humanizes and complicates Roman without undermining his status as a villain. I like the loyalty to their mother it shows in the twins that they'd turn on a man who was so involved in their childhoods. It's just fun to read about a badass bad guy trying to manage bored pre-teens with superpowers and a crime boss mom. Their relationship isn't something I expected from the novel, but I'm glad we got it. There's nothing here to imply the twins are uncomfortable with Roman, or that Roman is inappropriate with them. Anyone who balks merely at the idea of a grown man, quote, "babysitting" two young girls is working from bias and bias alone. 

There is, however, one inappropriate comment made by a goon and an assumption made by Miltia, both of which Roman refutes. First, the goon asks if Melanie is Torchwick’s “new girlfriend” to which Roman responds, “You know who it is... She’s just a kid, big man” (47-48). Later on, we get

“Cute,” [Roman] said. 

“Flattery’s not going to work on me anymore,” Miltia said. 

“I was referring to your moves, not you” (158).

Now, we could drag Myers for including such "jokes" and misunderstandings to begin with, but that's why I mentioned the Yellow Trailer at the start of this review. It doesn't feel right to single Myers out for something Rooster Teeth has already embraced, especially when he's the one working to mirror their original product. Yang deliberately toys with Junior and Junior willingly goes in for the kiss. Jaune blushes at older moms eyeing him up at the crosswalk. Nora tells Ren not to look up her skirt in the middle of a deadly fight. Neo and Cinder both go to Atlas in scantily clad outfits because it's more important for the women to look sexy than it is for the show to stay consistent about the dangers of the tundra. Much of RWBY has that frat boy energy about it. I'd be shocked if nothing snuck its way into Myers' work too. But Roman the pedophile who ogles the twins and manipulates a kid Neo? That just doesn't exist. 

Part Four: Déjà Vu, Anyone? 

I dithered about whether to include this section, simply because I don't want anyone to misunderstand what I'm trying to say... yet at the same time, I'm not entirely sure how to articulate the problem I have here. Or if I'd even consider it a problem at all. In the end, "déjà vu" is the best term I can come up with. I'm not saying that Myers is lazy in regards to plot and choreography. I'm definitely not saying he's plagiarized. What I am saying — the only thing I'm saying — is that there were a lot of times during the novel where I went, "Okay, we've seen this before." Whether or not that's bad I'm... not sure. 

Let's start broad. When the excerpt dropped I mentioned that Neo's situation sounded pretty very to Weiss' and I stand by that claim. Actually, having read the novel now, I'd say it's a LOT like Weiss' story. Neo is the daughter of an incredibly wealthy family, suffering from an abusive father, a more loving but absent mother, whose only freedom stems from her semblance and combat abilities. Alright, let's dig deeper. Like Jacques, Jimmy's abuse is on full display for the viewer/reader. I could give you a laundry list of examples, but here are just a few: 

Jimmy is frequently described as barely controlling his anger around Neo, “there was rage behind his shadowed eyes,” etc. (4)

There are times when she is "suddenly afraid" of what her Papa will do to her (35).

When Neo is taken home by the cops, they reveal that they didn't even know that Jimmy Vanille had a daughter. That's how sequestered she's been.

He and his wife lock Neo in her room when they go out, which means that when she starts a fire she had no way to escape, no one to open the door for her, no way to call for help (her scroll is engulfed in the flames). Neo ends up chancing a fall from the window. 

He comes very near to hitting Neo at one point before backing down. 

Later he drugs her and, again, locks her in her room. 

As said, I could go on. There are a few inconstancies across the novel that, frankly, I've come to expect of Myers' work and RWBY in general, which I bring up now because it messes with the abuse plotline a bit. There's supposed to be a shocking moment when Jimmy grabs Neo tightly by the arms: "Trivia stepped back, appalled. Papa had yelled at her, punished her, even ignored her over the years, but he had never hurt her before” (97). Except she’s forgetting that, at the very start of the novel, Jimmy grabs her by the ankles, pulls her out from under the couch, and proceeds to shake her upside down while her hand bleeds. I'd say that's a pretty intense, physical interaction, making squeezing Neo's arms fail to have the impact Myers was looking for. Similarly, when Neo finally snaps and throws her parasol at her father's face, it's because “The things she had claimed for herself were just more stuff her parents had paid for," meaning, everything she stole on a shopping spree her father made sure to pay for twice over. It's not the ableism, abuse, isolation, and the like that Neo reacts to, even though she clearly struggles with those throughout the novel as a whole. So there are disconnects at times, but the point is this man is an abusive asshole to his daughter until she learns to literally fight back. Sound familiar? 

What particularly struck me was that both men have built their abuse around how the family is perceived. Both are obsessed with their image and how their daughter does or does not serve it. Jacques yelling at Weiss for speaking out about Beacon could be swapped with Jimmy yelling at Neo for not speaking at all. Jacques has maintained his wealth by exploiting the faunus in dust mines and getting in deep with criminals like Watts. Jimmy maintains his wealth by getting involved in illegal dust trades and getting in deep with criminals like the Xiongs. Both try to justify their actions in the name of perpetuating both that image and that wealth: “the things I have to do for that money” (5). Both lock their daughters in their room when they can't control them anymore. Both keep portraits in the hall that “showed her and her parents posing together as if they were a happy family,” a symbol of this familial deception (271).* Both have more compassionate, terrified, but ultimately enabling wives that, the story reveals, have secretly been spying on their husbands this whole time. Just as Willow set up all those cameras and gave the footage to Weiss, Carmel is using the camera in her pin to acquire information on Jimmy, with plans to use it to help Neo. By the time Neo's solution to the "What now?" question was to fly Roman back to her mansion and drink tea for a while Volume 8 style, complete with a Sun-Blake style shock that this is her house — sure you don't mean the tiny one behind it? — I was honestly wondering just how far we were going to stretch these parallels. I don't want to make it sound like these characters are identical (Carmel isn't an alcoholic for one thing)... but they share enough characteristics and distinct details to feel, well, a little weird. It also feeds the fandom's question, "Doesn't RWBY know any villain backstories except abuse?" 

*(As a side note, I initially thought the book's cover, showing a young Neo with two brown eyes, was a mistake. Turns out her parents had the painter get rid of her pink eye because they were ashamed of it, so kudos to the cover artist for keeping that consistent!) 

The similarities between Neo's backstory and Weiss' are absolutely the most obvious example here, but there were two other, smaller déjà vu moments I wanted to toss out, both involving combat. Myers has, at times, repeated fights almost exactly in order to cover two character's perspectives. I get the need to rehash plot in that manner, but he tends to focus on the exact same details back to back, making for a boring read. That incredibly nit-picky criticism aside, it means that I was already aware of combat moments that I'd seen before, not just in Roman Holiday, but RWBY in general. Does this description sound familiar to anyone? 

Neo hopped up lightly onto the broad blade. Rin tried to shake her off. Neo vaulted away just as the Huntress activated the flames, somersaulting over the Huntress. She planned to land behind her and whack her with her sword, but Rin turned and kicked high while Neo was still in the air. The Huntress’s foot connected with Neo’s stomach, knocking the wind out of her and knocking her clear across the room (199). 

If it's not familiar don't beat yourself up because it really is a minor similarity (and, in fairness, there's only so many ways you can write combat...). But take away the swords, replace them with a parasol and scythe, and you've basically got Ruby and Neo's interaction in Volume 8. Ruby tries to land a hit on Neo, she turns, kicks high while Ruby is still in the air, and she flies across the platform, knocking the wind out of her. We've also seen the 'Landing on a broadsword to get close to an enemy' bit with Tyrian and Qrow. But again: minor. What's a far less minor repeat of combat techniques is seen between Roman and Chameleon. Basically, Chameleon is Ilia, minus being a faunus and thus framing her abilities as a difference she's shunned for. Her semblance allows her to camouflage at will, giving her a major stealth advantage in a fight. Which means that when she goes after Roman, things get exponentially harder when the lights go out. But then it's better for Roman when a fire starts. He beats Chameleon and she helps him in the end because she's always been in love with him, even though Roman didn't love her back. If you're going, "Hey, that's the basic plot of Blake and Ilia's fight!" then yeah, me too.

It's not the whole novel. I don't want to make it sound like Roman Holiday is just a stitched together version of previous RWBY content because it's absolutely not. At the same time though, there were enough major similarities — and enough smaller ones that started standing out as a result — for me to raise an eyebrow. As said, I'm not entirely sure what to make of this eyebrow raising, or even if I want to label it a criticism at all. You all can decide what you think. 

Part Five: Wait, Now There's Not Enough RWBY? 

Yes, I contain multitudes and contradictions. As does this book. Even while Roman Holiday repeated some pretty familiar RWBY elements, there were times when the novel didn't feel very RWBY-ish at all. Part of the problem is that it lacks what's arguably the most crucial part of RWBY’s world building: battling grimm. Safe behind the walls of Mistral and Vale, we only see one grimm in the whole story, a captured Capivara that one of the crime lords uses to dispose of people who have displeased him. Roman and the twins barely get more than a few hits in before it escapes upstairs, leaving the kill to happen off screen (and why the grimm ran is another problem entirely. Again: we'll get to that). So although there are plenty of battles between people throughout the story, it doesn't feel quite like RWBY to me without the show's first and most significant antagonist. 

More than that though, Myers goes back and forth between emphasizing RWBY's unique, cultural elements and putting them aside entirely. When he's including them, it's great. We learn that there's an old saying “You can’t put the moon back together” which yeah, of course idioms would develop around the shattered moon (151). Honey Wine, a night club singer, paints her face with red dust as a symbol of both wealth and her dare-devil nature — one stray spark and the dust would ignite, blowing her and potentially the club up too. Yeah, of course people would come up with foolish, ridiculous ways to use this resource if they had it. During one of Neo's lessons, a passage for diction practice goes like this: 

The gruesome Grimm grew greedy. Get that greedy gruesome Grimm, Gregory. Go, Gregory, go. The greedy gruesome Grimme gorged Gregory. Good-bye, Gregory, Good-bye. The gory, greedy Grimm gave a gruesome grin (175).

Yeah, of course the elite would develop silly lessons using grimm as examples! We've got math problems about Johnny and his dish soap (yes, I'm quoting the Vine), so why wouldn't this world use grimm in the same way? Especially those who are rich and privileged enough to never encounter one. 

When it's good, it's good. When it's not... I don't want to take Myers to task for this because, in his defense, much of what makes the book feel generically modern has been seen in the show. Like computers. Or video games. Still, when these things are mentioned frequently it undermines the fantasy/sci-fi core, especially when Myers keeps the standard terminology. Why is a phone called a scroll, but a TV is still called a TV? Why are cops patrolling normal sounding malls with normal sounding guns? Neo sneaks out at one point and it struck me that, up until she uses her semblance against a bunch of bullies, there's nothing to distinguish this outing from a realistic portrayal of an average girl getting a milkshake. None of this is helped by the times when Myers slips on the terminology that is unique. Roman describes what he steals as "cash" rather than "lien" (105). One moment we're getting phrases like “She wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box," the next it's "or rob a convenience store for a six-pack of Dr. Piper” (44, 239). So is RWBY a world that has all the same products we do — crayons and TVs — a world that's different, but only because the author is making it different in a humorous way — Dr. Piper — or a place with a unique culture and history — scrolls, lien, shattered moon idioms? It's a challenge every fantasy writer has to face. Can you have a French braid in a world without France? Some will say no, others will bank on the reader's understanding that you can't change up every aspect of our language. You'll drive yourself nuts if you try. So I'm sympathetic, but it's nevertheless noticeable when Myers seems to remember that he's writing a fantasy world, tossing in "bullhead," "oh my Gods," and "thank the brothers" in a single scene, as if he’s making up for the whole chapters where that work is missing. Take out the grimm, take out semblances for a good chunk of the plot (since Roman doesn't have one), get iffy about the details... and you're left with a story that sometimes feels more generic Young Adult than it does RWBY. Enjoyable Young Adult, but a little lackluster in the world building all the same. This isn't a book where girls turn into rose pedals, lamps grant wishes, and teenagers fight giant mechs. This is a story where a guy uses a cane to beat people up, a girl uses illusions to shoplift, and the final confrontation is basically a shoot-out. Not bad by any means, just not the level of insane "The gun is also a gun!" nonsense that has become RWBY's brand. 

Part Six: Stupid Plots (and Strange Details) 

If Roman Holiday lacks a lot of that RWBY insanity, then that means nothing stupid and ridiculous happened, right? Lol of course not. The novel suffers from what I think of as the, "Well that's convenient" problem. In its immense defense though, it's nowhere near the level of, say, Amity suddenly being ready to go. The world's rules do not bend for Neo and Roman... they just wind up experiencing things that can test the reader's sense of disbelief at times. For example, how likely is it that two huntsmen will waltz into a bank in the middle of Roman robbing it? Very likely, apparently. Why not just have them respond to a silent alarm? Well, because of reasons we'll tackle in Part Seven, so we're left with the iffy coincidence of two trained professionals being at the right place at the right time to show the reader a fight. It's a fun fight though — love the use of dust in it — so we'll let that pass. After all, if coincidence serves the reader's entertainment, aren't they ultimately a good thing? 

Far more frustrating in my opinion is when disaster is illogically postponed and characters are written as incredibly stupid in order for a protagonist to get by. In this case, Neo. One of the major reveals of the novel is that her father has been stealing dust from the Xiongs and hiding it beneath Neo's bed. We're supposed to believe that a moment of Lil' Miss shooting into her room sets this volatile dust off, resulting in an explosion that kills both of Neo's parents (side note: she intended this), but the dust didn't blow up when Neo started a fire in said bedroom, a fire that then proceeded to consume the entire top floor? ...right. 

When Neo isn't conveniently surviving non-explosions, she's duping people left and right with her semblance, despite the fact that she, of course, can't speak. This trick becomes less and less convincing as the novel goes on. First, Neo drugs her tutor (that poor woman) and pretends to be her to escape the house, holding a one-sided conversation with her father as he walks her to the door. He finds nothing strange in this. Later, Neo sneaks back in by pretending to be her mother and though this time her father catches her, it's because “If you want to know whether someone is lying to you, it’s all in their eyes” (70). Not because, you know, his "wife" inexplicably won't respond to him verbally. Finally, Neo takes the place of Xiong, traveling with his assistant for over thirty minutes, and never once do any of the goons question what's going on with their suddenly mute boss. This includes interactions like Neo holding out her scroll and just staring until the assistant gets that she should follow the GPS, and the need to ignore the fact that Xiong, characterized as quite talkative throughout the novel, is suddenly quiet as a mouse. Neo's muteness should have been a severe limitation on her ability to masquerade as others, not something the story outright ignores in an effort to move the plot along. 

The novel is peppered with such coincidences, small inconsistencies, and just downright strange details. Roman notes that the police haven't arrived to his robbery yet, only for the next sentence to say they were swarming in. Later he "pulled on his bonds, testing whether he could slide one of his hands free, but he’d been tied up real good” but then again, a few sentences later, “He craned his neck to try to look out the front window. He managed to unbuckle his seat and hop to the front” (259). Like forgetting how rough her father has been in the past, Trivia bemoans the fact that she can't wear anything that Neo would, something in pink and white, for example, forgetting that her former "adventuring outfit" consisted of a white tank-top and white sneakers with pink hearts (26).* She also claims that the Roman illusion she sends running from the twins is her first long-distance use of her semblance, even though she just got done recalling the time she created a butterfly and watched it fly until it was "out of sight" (170). The novel writes out Neo's texting as dialogue even when someone else isn't speaking it aloud — something I initially made a note to praise it for. This is her version of "talking" after all — only for the texts to suddenly become bolded halfway through the book. As for strange details, Myers seems to like giving his antagonists a lumpy food to indulge in — Lil' Miss forces Roman to eat her cottage cheese, Xiong oatmeal with the consistency of cement — and Roman, quite oddly, decides to cover his spider tattoo with a grinning pumpkin. (Were they a thing in A Clockwork Orange? It's been years since I read it...) Neo learns to fly a plan by watching Xiong's assistant start it up and then, I kid you not, pulling up a How To article. Perhaps my favorite bit though is when Roman reveals his master plan to gain a monopoly on Vale's coffee industry and successfully does so by attacking one (1) warehouse. This is treated with the utmost seriousness. 

*(Second side note: the color brown is tied closely to Neo's backstory; to the person her parents wanted Trivia to be. She has her brown hair, only one brown eye, is introduced in a brown dress, wears a brown blazer and pants that her parents bought, and attends Lady Browning’s Preparatory Academy for Girls, the school meant to turn her into a 'real' lady.) 

That last bit though, the coffee heist, feeds into my biggest problem with the book's plot. @superzerokarasu​ and I have been talking about this the last two days, acknowledging it as one of the book's bigger flaws. (And, Superzerokarasu, if tumblr actually tags you, feel free to ignore this absolutely massive wall of text. I just wanted to give credit for the conversations 👍). Basically, towards the end of the novel it is, quite randomly, revealed that there is an important Room at the academy. Important enough that the story capitalizes it — that's not my doing. We haven't heard at thing about this Room before but Neo, apparently, has been trying to sneak into it for weeks. She knows Lady Beat is hiding something in there. Did we know this, especially since we've spent half the novel in Neo's head? Nope! No sooner has this mystery been introduced than Neo is solving it, much like how the group solves the problem of using Ambrosius moments after his rules are explained. Neo throws up an illusion of an empty hallway, picks the lock on the door, and discovers that Lady Beat has been spying on everyone who ever attended her school through the small pins students and graduates wear. This means she has access to private information about important people all over Remnant. Shocking! Neo reacts to this discovery by tearing the hard drive loose, there are some confusing suggestions about how this information will save them from Lil' Miss and Xiong, and then Roman sends the information to a news station, revealing all. Thus ends the world-wide conspiracy we just found out about. 

It's muddied. It's ridiculous. It, most importantly, comes out of nowhere. There's absolutely no buildup to this mystery, just a sudden announcement that it exists and, wouldn't you know, here's the conclusion. Superzerokarasu is correct that this problem could be solved by increasing the academy sections and fleshing this mystery out. I'm of the opinion that it could also be solved by eliminating it entirely. Why in the world do Roman and Neo need to grapple with a world-changing reveal, especially when the rest of the novel is so tame? Roman shakes money down from other small-time crooks. Neo learns diction and combat at school. Roman leaves the Kingdom to avoid Lil' Miss. Neo sneaks out of the house and goes on shopping sprees. She saves him from a street fight, he takes her out to tea, they proceed to rob convenience stores. Their conflicts take place on such a small scale that this conspiracy plot feels ridiculous compared to the rest of the novel, even if it did have better setup. In contrast, their big coffee heist likewise feels ridiculous for how small it is. As a duo (not Neo as an individual, now that she's involved with the Relics and such), they operate in a pretty specific niche of small crimes conducted for villains with large plans. Given the number of times the novel brought up that Roman should start stealing dust, I foolishly thought that the novel would conclude with them stealing dust. Why coffee? Why conspiracies? Why shootouts between two crime bosses on Neo's front lawn? Let them pull off an epic dust heist together, tying it back to Neo's family since her father is already neck-deep in the illegal dust trade, all of it setting up the characters we'll meet in the webseries: street crooks now stealing dust for Cinder. That's their specialty. Why not start that specialty here? 

Instead we get a bunch of hurried plot points that, of course, will have no bearing on the first eight volumes of the webseries. Which brings us to... 

Part Seven: Roman Holiday's Impact on RWBY

Quite obviously, this isn't a novel that exists in a vacuum. Roman Holiday, given that it is presented as an official Rooster Teeth product, is likewise meant to fit into the already established canon. This has been a challenge for Rooster Teeth in the past — important lore winding up in card games, mischaracterization in other novels, worry about how the upcoming game will re-tell events we've already seen — but has Roman Holiday perpetuated that trend?  

Well, yes and no. Which is never a particularly satisfying answer, but in this case there are both aspects that are working and aspects that aren't. Let's tackle the good first. 

Myers includes a lot of details throughout the story that help fill in RWBY's gaps. In this case, it's not information the viewer should have gotten in the webseries in order to have a complete understanding of the situation, but rather things that simply help connect the two works together, adding depth to what we already know. For example, there are those before mentioned times when characters suggest that Roman start stealing dust. “You aren’t the first person to suggest that. Maybe I should look into that...” (216). I do think it's a missed opportunity not to make a dust heist the climax of the story, but that doesn't erase the fact that this still functions as excellent setup for the webseries' premiere. We know RWBY opens on Roman robbing a dust shop. Now we have a better sense of how and why he got into that line of criminal work. 

We likewise get to see the origins of Neo's parasol, not just how she got it (Roman), but also what led her to wanting that kind of weapon in the first place (struggling with the heaviness of swords, getting attached to a parasol she stole, impulsively using it to attack her father, escaping the fire with it and realizing that the ability to float from high places is an asset). Something else I particularly like is that Myers was careful to explain how Neo became so adept at fighting. According to the webseries, there are only three paths you can take: go to combat school like Ruby, live on the streets like Roman, or live outside the Kingdoms like Blake. Neo, as a rich girl kept within high society, doesn't fit any of those models, so Myers introduces an Academy that seeks to train young women for any eventuality, even an attack. Neo learns how to smile, sew, cook, courtesy... while also taking classes in acrobatics, combat, ballet, and fencing. All the girls train with a combat instructor — “I know this isn’t a combat school, but by the time we’re done, you will be as skilled as any Huntress in Remnant” (201) — and, not only that, but she undergoes some pretty intense testing. Balance is taught by “balancing on a tightrope twenty feet in the air, with no net below you. Lady Beat believed in ‘though love’—without the love part” (146). It's a teaching method that makes Ozpin's cliff test seem a little less insane and it highlights one of those fantasy elements of RWBY. When your students possess aura that can save them from a twenty foot fall, it's slightly more reasonable to include that as a challenge. So when Neo starts following Roman around, it doesn't feel off that she can keep up with him. She's been trained, has practiced her semblance alone, and gets additional tutoring from Roman himself. Myers neatly dodges the question of how a non-Huntress and such a privileged girl — unlike Nora or Cinder — became to be as talented as Neo is. Privilege actually bought her that knowledge, which Neo then combines with Roman's street smarts, making her the formidable fighter we know and love.  

However, for every nice tether there is between Roman Holiday and RWBY there's a moment of worldbuilding that messes with our sense of the webseries. Or at least raises some pretty big concerns. 

Given that we just came off of Volume 8, it's no surprise that I read the novel with an eye for hints about how these future events — the destruction of Atlas, evacuees in Vacuo — might impact the rest of Remnant. What Myers gave us... doesn't look good for RWBYJNOR's decision, or the theme Rooster Teeth was going for in Volume 8. Meaning, the show took on a very black and white view by the end of the Atlas arc. Ironwood is an irredeemable bad guy, Atlas is full of racist trash and deserves to sink, the heroes made the best decision possible given the circumstances. Myers' novel introduces some nuance that, sadly, doesn't serve that black and white view well. He describes Mistral as, frankly, suffering the exact same problems as Atlas. “The city elevator didn’t come down this far, to keep more of a buffer between the haves and the have nots... people at the base of the mountain had no business topside” (10-11). Sounds like the sort of divide between Mantle and Atlas, huh? With the exception that one elite is stationed on top of a mountain instead of a floating city. It's a class issue Neo confirms as a kid when she sneaks out to the lower districts, thinking that, "she was never, ever allowed out alone. ‘For your own safety,’ they said” (25). Rich, racist elites who think themselves better than everyone else isn't an Atlas problem, it's a Remnant problem. RWBYJNOR solved nothing by leaving the place behind (and having one citizen hold hands with a faunus) and the fact that the story acts as if things are better now that Atlesians can’t have picnics on a floating city is... a problem. We already knew RWBY struggles with its racism and classism themes, but moments like this continue to add fuel to the wildfire. 

Similarly, the novel spends a not insignificant amount of time referencing Atlas as the technological capital of their world. We knew that already too, but hammering it home now, post-Volume 8, emphasizes the damage the group has done. No Atlas, no technology. Pretty much any technology, given how often it’s said to come directly from Atlas, or cloned from Atlas originals. 

Regarding the evacuation, Myers gives us a moment where Roman outright rejects Vacuo as a place to escape to: “Vacuo was a good place to hide, but the desert was probably one of the few fates worse than Lil’ Miss. And while there was a thriving criminal element, it wouldn’t be particularly welcoming to a newcomer. There was no future for Roman there” (88). So the desert is a fate worse than a crime boss and Vacuans are so unwelcoming one individual won't risk going there... and now our heroes have dumped an undetermined number of evacuees in that desert, heading towards a Kingdom that doesn't want them. Obviously Myers needs to come up with a reason for why Roman ends up in Vale where Neo is, but doing it this way just highlights so many of Volume 8's problems. Specifically, that the group made such a world-altering decision when it arguably was no longer necessary and, more importantly, did so without once considering the consequences that seem obvious to everyone else in Remnant. Vacuo is the last place anyone wants to escape to... so why was that the heroes' first choice? "Because the show hasn't gone there yet" isn't an answer. 

There are a couple smaller problems throughout — muddying the waters between semblances and magic again; emphasizing how many people unlock their semblances as kid and rely on their aura to get by, bringing up the question (again) of how Jaune was so ignorant — but I just want to cover two more issues here. 

The first is what I mentioned above about the one grimm the novel has. Suffice to say, the grimm ignores the three fighters in front of it (Roman and the twins) and runs off because... well...

“Grimm are drawn by emotion. You never controlled it. It killed your enemies because most people you drop in here are going to be afraid. They won’t be able to fight back. But as far as I can tell, these girls don’t feel anything. And I’m not afraid to die... Anger can be a more powerful emotion than fear” (54-5).”

Let's tally up the problems with this speech: 

The idea that Roman experiences no fear despite being cornered by a massive grimm, in a tiny room, in enemy territory 

The idea that an ability to fight back increases the chance of the grimm running off to pick other targets (if that were the case, the group would never finish any fights) 

Claiming that they're also left alone because the twins "don't feel anything" which is obviously ridiculous  

Reframing Roman's lack of fear into, specifically, not fearing death. Again, a grimm doesn't care whether you fear death or no

Saying that the anger of the boss all the way up in his office is a stronger draw than the three people currently attacking the grimm

It's just a lot of nonsense, bending one of RWBY's most basic rules to give Roman a cool-sounding speech. Cool provided you ignore what the speech is actually implying, that is. Why bother with this? Just let the grimm break down the door halfway through the fight, moving the fight into a new space with new people causes chaos, Roman either escapes then, or he kills the grimm first and escapes afterwards. Better, in my opinion, to give the story a single grimm kill than introduce a bunch of philosophical complications about how much these characters definitely don't feel fear and one man's anger is suddenly a grimm magnet. It's just a strange scene and, looking back, the only scene where I really went, "What?" As evidenced by this entire review, I have problems with certain aspects of the novel, but none actively made me question what in the world Myers was trying to accomplish. This moment is the exception. 

Finally, I'd like to briefly mention the ways in which Roman Holiday messes with our understanding of the huntsmen profession. Again, this is nothing new. From Blake and Yang shrugging off Adam's death, to Weiss asking if she can arrest her father, the true purpose of the job seems vague, especially when you toss in what they're legally allowed to get away with. At first, the novel seems to support the idea that huntsmen are responsible for defending the people from both grimm and criminals, especially in the cities where walls do most of the work of keeping grimm out. Roman worries that huntsmen will show up to put a stop to his robbery, there's a bounty for him “posted on all the Huntsmen job boards," and then, later, two huntsmen do show up to his bank heist and try to stop him — that coincidental timing (176). "It’s kind of refreshing to fight a bad guy instead of a Grimm for a change," says one, implying that their primary focus will always be grimm, but they're also not going to ignore criminal activity. I get that. I buy that. It fits with what else we've learned about the job from the webseries: students attend school specifically to learn how to fight grimm, but they're capable — and expected — to use those skills for the people's benefit, no matter what form that comes in. Hence, jobs like Jaune acting as a crossing guard. It works.

....Aaaand then Myers blows that understanding right out of the water. 

“[The huntsmen are] being fined for destruction of public property and reckless endangerment. This isn’t the first time they’ve been reprimanded for using excessive force and gross misconduct. The Vale Huntsmen Guild reportedly is considering suspending their licenses (118).” 

So wait, never mind, apparently huntsmen aren't supposed to stop bank robberies that they walk in on. Or at least, they're not supposed to stop them using "excessive force" and resulting in the "destruction of public property." Problem is, there's no way to battle another fighter of Roman's skill without doing property damage and, potentially, putting civilians in danger. The strength of Yang's punch blows small craters into the floor. Weiss uses dust that causes minor explosions. Ruby swings her scythe in such large arcs she could easily hit someone if she's not paying attention. Within the context of RWBY's powers, the huntsmen here didn't use "excessive force" because aura, semblances, dust, and insane weaponry are all staples of combat. So... what are they meant to do instead? Find out if Roman is just a normal dude and, if he's not, back out like, "Oh sorry. We can't fight someone our equal because that would require, you know, fighting. We'll wait for the police to capture you. They'll have a much better time without training, semblances, or any other combat resources, I'm sure..." 

This single excerpt sends us right back into the "Huh?" territory. What are a huntsmen's responsibilities then? What are they legally allowed to do? And why are these expectations so inconsistent across the franchise? I know the answer here is that the group was pardoned by Ironwood, but it still seems absurd that we watched them steal military property, attack an official, cause a major grimm attack, and actively hide from the authorities... and all that's presented as fine. But trying to stop the guy currently robbing a bank? Well, that’s a suspendable offense. And we know this was taken seriously because Roman runs into one of the huntsmen later, a Roch Szalt, and we learn that his license wasn't just suspended, he lost it entirely. These side characters are out of their livelihood for defending the people while RWBYJNOR gained licenses for endangering them. There's something fundamentally wrong with your world building when your protagonists primarily get by on such massive inconsistencies. 

Part Eight: The Last Section, I Swear

This is another aspect of the novel that I really hesitated over including, just because I do think there's a line between legit criticism and unkind nit-picking. In the end though, enough of a trend emerged that I thought I'd toss it out, especially since I've recently been pondering the question, "How does RWBY treat its women?" The answer should be obvious, right? This is a show about four girls fighting evil! Yet as the webseries continues, fans are noticing more and more divergences from that initial premise. Like creating a world where women are almost never in the primary positions of power. Like giving Jaune and Oscar the active, plot-forwarding scenes that should belong to Ruby and her team. Like that frat boy mentality I mentioned earlier on. The purpose here isn't to analyze that aspect of the webseries, I simply wanted to lay out where my thoughts were while reading Roman Holiday. 

The disclaimer? Neo is great. The strange intersection between her identity and her semblance aside, I think she's entertaining, well-rounded, and the fact that she is given not just half the book's chapters, but that focus mentioned in Part One, resulted in a well-developed character. However, outside of Neo the women are frustratingly built around the same thing: sex appeal. Honey Wine is the club singer whose semblance lowers customers' inhabitations, acting like a Remnant version of a siren. The twins — despite those pedophilia rumors about Roman proving unfounded — are the butt of girlfriend/"You're cute" jokes, drawing attention to their developing looks more than their combat skills, strategies, etc. Both Lady Beat and Carmel, Neo's mom, possess that older woman charm expected of high society ladies. They're dangerous because they can acquire information and they acquire that information by looking the part: pretty smiles, fine clothes, figures that catch the eye. Even Lil' Miss, an established character with a lot of power at her fingertips, isn't exempt from this. When Roman first meets her he observes that fashion is clearly a part of her strategic mind, “a plunging neckline and purple corset distracted Roman even more” (19). Distracted, meaning, that Lil' Miss deliberately makes herself look hot so all the straight guys will lose their heads. 

It's a bit more heavy-handed than just some over-used archetypes though, particularly when it comes to making Roman the guy that every girl wants — even when that's just him assuming they want him. Lil' Miss, again, suffers that treatment. “'Is she flirting?' he suddenly wondered. He hadn’t ever considered that she might like him, but if that was the case, he could use that to—” (57). In a similar situation played straight Chameleon, Roman's peer, is introduced with the statement that “She considered him a friend, and plainly wanted more than that" so Roman "continued to string her along” (45). It's that Ilia/Blake dynamic, just with added cruelty and a gender setup that carries completely different implications. Even the minor characters aren't safe from Roman's charms. Lisa Lavender — you know, Remnant's reporter? — receives flowers from Roman after she labels his robbery “one of the most brazen displays of lawlessness” she's ever seen (117). It's not presented as the villain being creepy though. When Roman contacts Lisa directly, we're given a verbal joke about her maybe interest. She loves... the ratings he brings in. Just the ratings. Of course. 

It's worth noting that Chameleon isn't just reduced to a silly crush whose love allows Roman to escape, she's also the character who "has" to be naked in order to make the most of her semblance. Despite writing in an Atlas cape that blends into various backgrounds, Myers still emphasizes the absolute necessity of this woman fighting naked: 

“She didn’t wear much clothing these days, both because it thwarted her natural camouflaging abilities, and because when she chose to show herself, it could be quite distracting... she stripped for added stealth—it wouldn’t be the first time” (81, 85). 

It's a writing choice that I personally despise. And make no mistake, it is a choice. In a world with magical abilities and futuristic tech, there's no reason to make the presumably young woman — we're never given an age, but Chameleon is written to be particularly naïve — getting naked in front of others, especially a man that is stringing her along. Clothes only "thwart" a magical ability when the author says it does. Why can't semblances make outfits camouflage too? Because then there wouldn't be an excuse for the hot women to strip. 

Particularly for more important characters like Lil' Miss or Lady Beat, these aspects are not the sum total of their characters... but there's enough there to be wince-worthy if you're already sick of such trends; already keeping an eye out for what RWBY writes in regards to gender. I think a good way to summarize Roman Holiday's idea of feminism is when Neo is staking out a coffee shop and Roman asks her to bring him a coffee when she comes back. She returns with an empty cup reading, "Get your own coffee." It's clearly meant to be this empowering moment — how dare the man ask for food like she's some servant! — except it's ruined by the context of the situation. Namely, that Neo is already at a coffee shop. And Roman isn't rude about asking for one. And they've already traded presents in the form of a crazy expensive parasol for her and a new hat for him. Asking your crime partner, who just happens to be a women, to pick up a coffee on her way home when it’s clearly not a hassle, is not the outdated insult Myers seems to think it is. And that's what a lot of these choices are: details that don't break the novel by any means, but come across as out of touch none-the-less. 

Part Nine: The End (Okay, This is the Final Section) 

The novel concludes with Roman and Neo flying off together, avoiding the authorities, nothing they have to do except "set the world on fire" (208). It's a rather bittersweet ending given Neo's certainty that no one will ever catch them because we know, eventually, Roman will die and Neo will be left alone. I quite like ending things on that optimistic note, both because it fits their current mindsets and because it adds that extra, emotional punch for the reader. Their story isn't done... but it will be soon. 

And thus ends my review as well! Review? Analysis? Little mix of both, I suppose. Hardly the most succinct thing I've ever written, but what did anyone expect. Final thoughts? I still liked the novel. Despite everything above — despite re-wading through eight major problems I had with the text, ranging from minor preferences to arguably massive mistakes — my overall takeaway remains, "I'm glad I read it." It's been a long time since I actively enjoyed a RWBY story; where my entertainment and appreciation of the writing outweighed the problems I had with it. I know I'm far from the only one currently dissatisfied with the canon, so if you're looking to re-ignite some of that old, RWBY spark? Give Roman Holiday a try. 

And, of course, thank you for reading! 💜

[brainbuffering]

Denki Kaminari: Accidental Epileptic Icon

[ID: A digital drawing of Denki Kaminari from My Hero Academia. He has a bi grin on his face as he gives out two peace signs. He is wearing a Purple TShirt that says “THIS IS WHAT A DISABLED PERSON LOOKS LIKE” on it.] 

By this point I think I may just be becoming an Epileptic!Kaminari blog, but since the DVD/BluRay just came out I thought I'd cross-post from my Fandom Twitter about why I am so passionate about this headcanon.

There have been plenty of electricity based Superheroes in the past: Static, Black Lightning, Surge, and Thor to name but a few. What marks Denki apart though is the intense NEGATIVE side effects his power has.

There's a trap writers often fall into when creating disabled heroes, where the hero's disability actually grants them some immense power e.g.: Daredevil's superior hearing and reflexes. Denki's quirk does not make his life easier, but much like kids on meds, he's learnt to control it. Mostly.

When Denki releases a sudden and much too intense amount of electricity his brain short circuits, causing him to lose some level of brain function. His dopey expression and dropped gaze could be read as a variety of seizure types. I go with Absence, coz I'm a narcissist.

Not only this, but Denki's "Derp Mode" contains many of the symptoms of a Postictal State ("the altered state of consciousness after an epileptic seizure"). These include, but are not limited to: drowsiness, confusion and headaches. Again, sound familiar? Now, if I believed this was a DELIBERATE attempt at representation I'd be frustrated and a little insulted. There are problematic elements within his "Derp Mode", but when you're epileptic you take what you can get. Which is… overall? Not a lot.

Seriously, take a second to try and think of, say, three explicitly stated epileptic characters in mainstream media... Pretty tough, huh? Even Google can't really help you. Our representation is mostly limited to murder victims.

"How did he die?"

"Well, the super computer didn't like that he tried to turn it off, so it flashed lights at him until he had a seizure and died!"

This is an actual plot line from Elementary. Yeah. It sucks. Back to anime!

Denki's struggle for control is what makes him relatable. He has episodes during regular classes that detract from his learning. His friends make fun of his "derp mode", the period where he's the most vulnerable. These aren't NICE things, but they are all too relatable. He could be criticised for taking too many risks, and trying to use too much of his power at once without thinking it through. This is what we experts call "being a teenager".

From my personal experience, your teen years are when you start to really discover what your triggers are. You try to push yourself, find where your limit is and maybe even try to rebel against it. Perhaps with enough practice you can break those limits and be cured! (Spoiler: You can't be.)

Pushing limits could mean: not taking your medication, staying up late, watching films with flashing lights etc. So when I see Denki being too gun-ho about using his quirk- that's what I see: a teenager testing his limits and making mistakes.

But I also see him LEARNING from those mistakes. He pushes his voltage limit up slowly, testing it in a safe environment with support staff around. He has aids to help refine his technique and prevent overload. His level of self-control from Two Heroes to Heroes Rising is remarkable!

So that brings us back round to the film, and why I cried in the cinema, admittedly on my 4th watch. (I had a pass. I made the most of it.) The answer is: Kaminari knowingly and painfully pushing his limit to save the island. Specifically I am talking about the scene where the power has gone out across the island, and it is Kaminari's job to charge the emergency batteries Momo created to bring power back to mainframe units.

We see him and Momo struggling to produce these generators. They require more energy than they possess, but without them they're doomed. When Jiro suggests they take a break Denki replies "If I don't charge these [batteries] now I won't get to"

This hit home. I have been in that situation. I've had to pull an all nighter. I've had to wake up too early, too often. I've been so stressed that I can feel the tell tale signs of a seizure on the horizon… but I had to push through it. Once that feeling of an oncoming seizure begins there is no taking a break. There is no five minute gap, I have to complete my tasks, be it handing in coursework or stacking shelves, right then coz I'm gonna be flat on my bed in 10 minutes regardless.

That's what I saw in Denki, and in Momo. The familiar pain of knowing the worse is coming, knowing there's nothing you can do, but the pressure of the immediate task means you can't stop. All because, for you, pushing your limits has deadly consequences. For the first time we saw Denki's "Derp Mode" played as a consequence with little to no comedic element. This wasn't "Silly Denki thinking he can do it all! No he can't!" or "Look at his derpy face, how funny it is so make him suffer!"

Denki's loss of awareness was a sign that he had been acting as a hero. He'd given his all for his friends and the islanders. In his next scene we saw him attending a meeting in a Postictal State. He has nothing more to give, but he was still included in the group.

I've never really seen that before. I've never been given a chance to explore those feelings through media. It made me process my life and my choices. Through Denki's extraordinary situation, I was able to look at my ordinary life more clearly.

Denki was me. Denki was me age 10 missing things in class and thinking I was an idiot. He was me age 14, losing friends because they thought I was ignoring them. He was me age 19 at Uni, hiding under a desk during hand-in because my brain couldn't cope anymore. He was me age 24 realising I had to quit my retail job because I couldn't keep up with the long hours; my seizure count going from 1 a month to 3 a day. He's me age 26 crying as I write this.

Representation matters. Seeing yourself represented let's you understand parts of your life you never got to before. It helps you feel seen, like your struggles matter to other people. Denki isn't perfect, but he’s all we have. And I love him.

[lexosaurus]

Everything Was White: Part 10

Part [1] / [9]

Read on [ffn] [ao3]

---

Click.

“Danny Fenton Phantom was spotted today exiting from the Fenton Ghost Assault Vehicle at the Kaufman Health Center, a recovery center specializing in adolescent mental health and trauma—”

Click.

“—what I want to know is what the hell happened here? Okay? Because in this video I see a kid who can’t walk, who’s looking around like he’s terrified someone’s going to come get him, and you’re sitting here telling me that this is Danny Phantom? This kid? So what happened inside—”

Click.

“—was released from his inpatient stay at the Amity Park Psychiatric Center just this week. Though it is unclear at this time if we’ll see him soaring through the skies again anytime soon, sources say he is recovering quickly—”

Click.

“—no, Dave, I agree that something’s not right here. If you ask me, he’s gotta be a ticking time bomb—”

Click.

“—a ghost or a human? That’s the question we’ll be discussing tonight—”

Click.

“—while what happened during his time within the government’s hold is still unknown, one thing is for certain: Danny Phantom has a long way to go if he wants to get back to his former glory.”

Click.

The screen went black.

“You shouldn’t be watching stuff like that,” Jazz said from behind him.

Danny stared blankly at his lap, not even bothering to turn around and face Jazz’s disappointed gaze. His therapist had told him—had told his parents—that Danny should avoid the news for a while. In her office, Danny found it too easy to comply because he was only just beginning to jigsaw together the broken pieces of his life, so why the hell should he care about the news?

But now it was different. It was unavoidable. The media had been tipped off that Danny Phantom had returned to modern society—somewhat—and that he was attending a PHP program, and now any brief semblance of anonymity he had was gone.

Just like that.

“Twitter’s worse,” he muttered.

Jazz sighed and came around the sofa, sinking into the cushions next to Danny. Her hair was up in a messy bun with strands sticking out like gravity didn’t exist. She pulled the sleeves down on her oversized hoodie and wrapped her arms around her legs.

There was a long pause, and for a moment, Danny prepared himself for a Jazz-style lecture about teenage psychology and how he needed to listen to his therapist because she was the expert here, not him, but instead all she gave was a small “I know.”

His stomach turned, and in a moment of vulnerability, he uttered, “I think the worst part is...they’re right.”

“Danny—”

“No. They...I...I used to get this stuff all the time. When I was just Phantom.” He paused, waiting for Jazz to butt in, but she didn’t. “It was so much—so much easier to ignore. Back then. Because they were wrong. I—I knew they were wrong. I wasn’t...a ghost. I was a halfa. They were...they were looking at me like a full ghost, you know? And...the theories were wrong. They didn’t know…”

“Some of the things they said were pretty ridiculous, I remember that.”

“Right?” Danny twisted around to face Jazz. “It was obvious to us, but they didn’t know! They sounded crazy!”

Jazz looked at him with an uncertain gaze. “You realize that they still sound crazy, right? All the people talking about you?”

“No...you don’t get it. The theories are updated, and they know—they know I’m Phantom. Don’t you get it? Everything they’re saying...it’s all based in truth.”

Her expression turned pained. “Danny, stop.”

“But I’m right.” 

“Danny just—come on, think about it for a second! The public hasn’t seen you in months, everything they’re going off of is based on rumors!”

“They saw me this morning, didn’t they?” Danny gestured at the television.

Jazz scoffed. “And you’re really going to take their word over mine? Because of a five-second video of you going into a building?”

A headache was building in his skull. Jazz was trying to guilt him, wasn’t she? But he knew the truth.

The public didn’t need much more than the short video of him going from the GAV to the building, because there wasn’t much else to the legendary Danny Phantom anymore. Everything in that video...that’s all he was now.

Just a traumatized teen going to a health center.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Danny—”

“No, I’m—I’m...” He pressed his hand to his forehead. “I’m tired.”

“Me too.”

Her voice was so quiet, so defeated . Danny couldn’t remember a time where Jazz ever sounded like this.

He was selfish, wasn’t he? He had spent all this time so caught up in his problems and his anxieties that he never thought about what Jazz was going through. They had talked, but not really. 

A wave of guilt swept through Danny because he was such a selfish and awful brother who didn’t ever think to check in with his sister despite everything she had done for him and she deserved so much better than him.

His throat felt tight. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Hey, cut it out,” she said, slapping his arm playfully.

He tensed and immediately felt his face heat up in embarrassment. He kept his eyes trained down to his lap, not wanting to see if Jazz noticed his reaction.

“It’s not your fault, Danny.”

Danny didn’t know what she was referring to. Even so, she was probably wrong. “You shouldn’t have to deal with this.”

“With what, spending quality time with my little brother?” 

“Sure.”

“Well...” She yawned. “See? I’m too tired to do any more homework. Guess I’m forced to chill here on the couch with you. Woe is me and all.”

He rolled his eyes. “The horror.”

“I know, you should pity me.”

“Maybe you should take a nap.”

“Why do that when they’re showing reruns of ‘The Bachelor’ on TV right now?” Jazz plucked the remote from Danny’s fingers.

“Oh god.” A grin began to creep on Danny’s lips. “I get back from—from being abducted by the government...and you want to torture me with trash television?”

“Yup!”

“Unbelievable.” 

Jazz shot him a playful smile. “Well, your options are either ‘The Bachelor’ or you could always find Dad and let him blather on about ghosts for three hours. Choice is yours!”

“And become the victim of his—his latest invention? You drive a hard bargain.”

The depressive fog was beginning to lift in the room, and it was as if Danny could see clearly for the first time. Here he was, joking around on the couch with Jazz, just like before. There was nothing holding him down. He didn’t need to stand up and walk anywhere, his chest was surprisingly calm for once, and his brain felt clear and calm.

This was what he’d always wanted, right? To sit here with his sister, watching mindless television and joking about whatever was on their minds.

This was what he’d dreamt of nearly every night in the Guys in White compound.

He was safe.

Right?

“Ugh, I don’t know why she got so far into the season,” Jazz said, her eyes glued onto the screen. “She was awful.”

Danny watched as a brunette on the screen threw her purse at another girl and stormed out of the scene cursing. “The producers probably...they made her stay.”

“Oh yeah, no doubt. She was crazy. There’s no way Kevin actually liked her.”

“I mean, it is reality TV. It’s not—not actually real.” 

Kind of like how this isn’t real, huh, Fentino? 

Danny gripped his shirt. No, his brain needed to shut up right now. This was real. He was safe and the government was nowhere near him and they couldn’t touch him because the courts had made sure of it. 

“Well, she was annoying either way. I know they like to keep someone on there every season to make drama but ugh, she was just the worst. Like, look!”

“This whole show is the worst though. I can’t...believe you’re make—making me watch this.”

“Well, there’s always those packets Lancer left you!” Jazz said in a singsong voice.

Danny couldn’t hide his disgust. He flopped back against the cushions. “Ugh, don’t even joke about that.”

She took one look at him and laughed, her voice light like a stone skipping over a pond. It was a bright and cheerful sound, one that reminded him of the time he tried to attempt duplication in front of Jazz, resulting in an extra arm sticking out of his torso. 

Danny stared mesmerized at his sister, watching as her smile widened across her face and her eyes squeezed shut, crinkling at the corners. He tried to recall if she’d laughed like this at all since his release from the government, but came up blank.

Sure, they’d had moments of sibling bonding since his release, but they were all held back by something. Whether it be the watchful eyes of nurses or Danny’s body perpetually in recovery mode, there was never a moment where they could truly relax and enjoy each other’s company.

But now he was safe.

Well…

His brain drifted back to the leaked video, and his mood instantly soured. His phone felt heavy in his pocket, and he resisted the temptation to take it out and scroll through Twitter.

He couldn’t even imagine what people were saying.

He was probably a joke to them now, wasn’t he? Amity Park’s hero, reduced to nothing more than a shell of his former self. To go from a confident teen who would soar through the skies, protecting citizens from all sorts of unsavory characters to a traumatized, disabled teen who couldn’t get through a day without hours of therapy and needed his mom’s help to get inside of a building was...well, if that didn’t make him a joke, what would?

Jazz’s attention was now back on the TV screen, and Danny tried to emulate her. After all, he was safe and comfortable and with his sister and there was nothing else to this moment, that was all there was to think about. 

But then something flashed in the corner of his vision, and for a moment he hoped that his eyes betrayed him because it looked like a white van but that was...it couldn’t be…

No…

But it was.

He glanced over to Jazz, but she was too transfixed on the screen to notice him, and he wouldn’t know how to get her attention anyway because his voice wasn’t working and he couldn’t even breathe now and he was going to die, wasn’t he? He was going to die.

They were coming back for him.

He was going to die.

The van slowed to a crawl, and he desperately tried to see inside of the tinted windows but he couldn’t and they wouldn’t roll down their windows either so who was in the van? Was it...was it…

But it had to be him, right? Who else would come back for him?

He tried to suck in a breath but couldn’t. His chest wasn’t working anymore. 

He blinked and the backs of his eyelids were green. Just like his cell floor and the splatters along his wall and his rib when he awoke to it in front of his face and oh god he was going to die, he was going to die, they were coming back for the rest of his core and his ectoplasm and he wasn’t going to survive another round of the compound he knew it he would rather die than do that but his core wouldn’t let him because it needed to protect him his stupid Obsession was going to force him to endure whatever they threw at him in order to protect him.

Unless they ended him first.

Which they were probably here to do.

He was shaking. He was distinctly aware that he was shaking and he hoped that Jazz hadn’t noticed him but she probably would have said something, wouldn’t she?

Oh god. She was going to have to go through it all again too. No...he couldn’t let her...he couldn’t let that happen.

He needed a plan.

But...there was no plan. He couldn’t do anything. The only thing he was capable of was sitting here like some helpless dog watching the van slowly drive by his house. All he could do was wait for it to stop at his driveway, for the agents to jump out of the doors and surround his house, for Operative O to step out with that signature smirk on his face as he held up the inhibitors in one hand and the fucking red bag in the other hand and say with his deep, arrogant tone, “You ready for round two, dog?”

But then, just when the van looked like it would stop, it sped up and turned the corner of their block.

Danny blinked, staring at the empty spot where the van was just seconds ago. 

Had it really...left?

He let out a shaky breath. And then another.

It left.

But it had been so close to stopping.

Oh god. Oh no. Oh no no no.

“Danny?”

The room was spinning. He needed air. The lights were so bright. When he looked up, the ceiling was white and he kept trying to tell himself that it was a wooden ceiling but the room was spinning and he couldn’t see correctly and the lights were too bright.

It was too late. His cover was blown. His hands flew up to his hair and he felt a comforting tug on his scalp.

Get a grip, get a grip…

“Oh my god, Danny! Hey, look at me!”

Danny shook his head. Or, he tried to. He didn’t know if he was able to or not, because he definitely couldn’t look at Jazz right now because he was going to be sick—

“Danny, what do you need?”

“I—”

What?

He squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn’t think. Everything was frozen. He felt something wet on his face but he didn’t know what it was or where it came from and his chest was sparking to life and his ears were ringing and he didn’t know what to do. 

“Try to breathe.”

Right, he needed air.

He tried to push himself up but only succeeded in falling back onto the couch. 

“Hey, what are you—”

Hands invaded his vision, touching his arm, and he swatted them away.

He needed to get out. Escape.

Something grabbed his wrist, and he yanked his arm back to his chest, his eyes snapping onto Jazz’s face.

“Danny—”

“Van!” he gasped.

Jazz stilled. “Huh?”

“There was…” Danny looked back out the window, half expecting to see the white van back outside their house.

But there was nothing.

“...a van.”

Why had it left? What did they come here for in the first place if not to take him back to the compound?

It didn’t make sense.

“What are you talking about?”

“I…” He hugged his chest, looking desperately at Jazz’s confused face for even an ounce of understanding.

Why did the van leave?

“Do you need me to get Mom?”

“No!” He was breathless. He couldn’t explain what was going on because he didn’t even know what was happening. Why the Guys in White decided to patrol around their street. Why they decided to slow down in front of their house. 

Jazz tracked his gaze to the window where a black APC News van was stopping to park across the street.  “Danny, I know there are lots of news vans around here now, and I know it’s really stressful. But Mom and Dad tinted all the windows so they can’t see inside of the house, okay?”

Danny gritted his teeth. He wanted to yell out that it wasn’t the news, it was the Guys in White, but his voice wasn’t working and even if it was, Jazz would just call him paranoid and insist that the government wasn’t there to get him again, that he was safe, even though he knew that was a lie.

So instead, all he could force out was a tense “sorry.”

“I know this is hard, but we can get through this together, alright?”

He felt a hand on his shoulder, and he looked up to see her bright, trusting eyes. And, with a final shuddering breath, he felt the last of his adrenaline rush out of him.

Because maybe Jazz was right. After all, this was Jazz. She was always the smart sibling, the one who everyone could trust. She must have been right. It had to have been just a news van.

Maybe he really was unstable.

“Sorry. I’m fine.”

He was suddenly hyper aware of where he was, sitting on the living room couch with his sister, who was looking at him like he was a ticking time bomb—and maybe he was. Maybe that was all he was destined to be from now on.

Either way, it was embarrassing. 

“Sorry, I—I’m gonna go lie down for a bit.”

Jazz’s face almost looked relieved. Danny couldn’t blame her. 

“Sure, Danny. Do you need help getting upstairs?”

“No.” Danny glanced over to the stairlift, grimacing. He really couldn’t get his core back quick enough.

He began the arduous task of getting up to his bedroom, trying to remember the stupid grounding techniques that the PHP therapists were making them practice. “When you feel your brain trying to pull you into your trauma, remember your senses. Try to think of one thing for each of your five senses to bring you back to the present.”

It was stupid. He didn’t need grounding techniques because he wouldn’t even be in this situation if not for the Guys in White trying to ruin his life again.

One, touch. He could feel the loose ectoplasm beneath his fingers, the way his hands were sticky against the damp tile, the burning electricity they would use to punish him, the cold metal straps chaining him down to the examination table, the ecto-inhibitors weighing down on his neck, the way Operative O’s fingers trailed his chest just before the scalpel sliced through his skin, his flesh tearing off of his body all while he lay there, silently screaming, waiting for the pain to take him because he couldn’t do it anymore.

No, that’s wrong. You’re doing this wrong. 

But how could he come back to the present when the past refused to leave him alone?

Think, Fenturd. 

He closed his eyes and felt...his sweatpants. And…

Two, hearing. He could hear Operative O’s deep voice—

No.

—and the way it would echo around the tiled rooms, the sounds of nice black shoes hitting the pristine floors, the squeaking of Phantom’s damp hero suit as the operatives dragged him across the floor, the—

Stop. 

—machines whirring to life as they prepared to drain him of more ectoplasm every day, the scraping of tools against a metal table, the metal straps clicking into place each day, the slight squeak of the IV drop they would have to wheel into the experimentation room after Danny stopped being able to eat—

STOP.

His hand slammed the emergency brake, and the stairlift lurched to a halt. A wave of nausea swept over him, and he sat there at the top of the stairs, focusing on breathing if only to prevent hurling all over his dad’s stairlift. 

He needed to calm down. Ground himself. Be present in the moment. Do what the therapist told him to do.

He could hear his heartbeat. The TV Jazz was watching. The crickets outside.

He flipped the stairlift back on and continued forward.

Three, sight. He could see the controls for the lift. The red emergency brake. His hands. His human skin.

He ascended the last few stairs and, like a robot, rolled off the platform and pushed himself to his bedroom.

He could see his door. It was a wooden door, not like the metal door in the Guys in White facility. The metal door smeared with green ectoplasm—he got punished for that one—with a sickening pool of ectoplasm right in front of it from Danny’s attempts at eating the meals they would bring to him every evening. He could see the cameras in the corners of his cell, always pointing down towards him as a constant reminder that he was always being watched. He could see the granola bars on the other side of his cell mocking him, the tube Operative O would show off before he would shove it down Danny’s throat—for being an insolent, disrespectful creature, of course—the scalpel glistening under the bright lights, ectoplasm speckled on it like jewels.

He could see his bed. His window. His rug.

His nightstand, which he knew if he opened the drawers he would see pens, batteries, his phone charger, and a bottle of oxycodone.

Danny pulled himself onto his bed, pointedly turning his head to face his wall. He could see all the cracks in the wall. When he first got out of the hospital, he used to spend hours tracing the cracks. It was the only thing that would help distract him from all the pain.

He ran a hand along the rough surface, but to his disappointment, the magical distracting aura of the wall had vanished, leaving behind nothing but a broken surface.

Four, smell. Ectoplasm. Nothing but ectoplasm. Burnt battery acid with a hint of lime. Disgusting, revolting, inhuman. On his skin, in his hair, under his nails, everywhere. 

The smell of Clorox in the hallway, the distinct rotting of his cell, the red bag…

He covered his face with his hands. He was doing this exercise all wrong, he knew he was, but for some reason he needed to do it this way. He wanted to forget, but there was another part of him that almost needed to relive what happened as if to punish him for existing. It was an ugly, revolting part of him that he loathed right down to his core but it just wouldn’t shut up.  

He glanced over to his nightstand.

He needed to make a decision, didn’t he?

Five, taste.

---

“So, Danny. Your mom’s been worried about you,” the therapist said, scanning her clipboard. 

Danny prodded at the stress ball in his lap. The one in the hospital had been blue, but this one was green. It could have looked like a ball of ectoplasm if it weren’t so dull. 

“Oh?” He feigned surprise.

“She said you’ve been having trouble eating again.”

He hummed, neither confirming nor denying her statement. There was no point in really responding anyway. This was his personal therapist, the nice blonde lady he saw three times a week. She knew him better than anyone at this point. If he even thought about lying, she would call him out.

She tapped her clipboard with her pen. “She told me your father made hot dogs last night. Do you remember?”

Danny stared down at the white carpet. It was so clean, so fresh. If it weren’t for the small grey diamonds patterning the material, it would have looked nearly identical to the government floors.

This office was much brighter than the one she used in inpatient. Much cleaner, and the sofa was more comfortable too. Yet Danny couldn’t help but have a sudden urge to walk straight out the door.

If only he could.

“Danny?” she asked, her voice softening. 

He sighed, jabbing a finger into the stress ball. “My dad made hot dogs.”

“Right, and do you remember what happened after he made hot dogs?”

He wanted to forget. 

It was bad enough before, with the nurses and his parents constantly going over his meal plan and the stupid protein shakes. But now that everyone was at least vaguely aware that Danny may have had some stupid experience around food and that he may have accidentally brought that home with him and he might be failing to hide it from everyone close to him?

He did not want to get put on a meal plan again.

Maybe he could convince Tucker to pick up some Nasty Burger for them. If he ate it in front of his parents, surely that would get them off his back. That was a normal teen thing, right? He did that before everything changed. That sounded like a good plan.

Danny glanced up at the therapist, the suggestion ready to leave his lips, but faltered. She was looking at him expectantly. She’d asked him a question about dinner, hadn’t she?

“Uh…” Danny squinted at the stress ball, trying to remember the question. 

A part of his mind tried to recall what the Nasty Burger tasted like, but he couldn’t remember. It was good, he knew that much. He used to eat there all the time, but now he couldn’t remember.

What if he didn’t like their food anymore? What if it smelled wrong and he couldn’t eat it? The Nasty Burger was a normal teen thing, so if he couldn’t eat it then that would make him abnormal which was the exact thing he was trying to avoid with this plan.

This was a disaster. He knew he was going to fail at eating the Nasty Burger. Why did he think he could do this? He was too much of a mess of a person to even think of eating a burger.

Not a person, remember? You’re just a—

“I’m not,” Danny whispered. “Shut up.”

“Yeah?”

Danny dropped the stress ball into his lap. He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his fists, trying to fight off whatever game his brain was about to play, before groaning and burying his head into his hands.

“Take your time, Danny. Deep breaths.”

Right, he needed to breathe.

In...and out…

In...and out…

He was fine.

“Are you alright?”

Danny nodded, rocking back and forth in his chair ever so slightly. He was fine. He was fine. 

He allowed the silence in the therapist’s office to stretch a bit further, focusing on calming his racing heart and embracing the dark, silent parts of his mind. They were his safe havens, the parts of his brain that he could lock himself into to escape the ugly memories of the government facility.

His brain felt like swimming in a hurricane with no land in sight. But every once in a while, he managed to spot the eye in the storm, and sometimes he could even fight the riptides just long enough to swim to safety.

He was fine.

“It’s stupid anyway.”

“What is?”

“This. Me. Everything...dinner.”

“Why do you think it’s stupid?”

He shook his head. “The whole thing...it’s so dumb. I don’t…”

The therapist didn’t say anything. Vaguely, Danny could hear the click of her pen, but he couldn’t hear the familiar scratching of the pen on the clipboard. 

She must have been waiting for something, Danny realized. 

This was the perfect opportunity. Dinner last night had been a complete and utter disaster. He had already been on edge courtesy of the white van—which now he was almost positive he was such a paranoid idiot because it was probably just a news van—and then the next thing he knew he was curled up in the bathroom trying to fight off the smell of processed meat that was attacking his home. 

He could have told the therapist right then and there. She knew about the dissection, about the night he tried to escape, about the nights he’d spent locked in his dark, damp cell, shivering, desperately trying to cling to the memories of his family and friends because he knew—or he thought—that those memories were all he’d have left of them.

And suddenly, he wanted so badly to tell her because what was worse than being ripped open and torn apart? What could possibly be worse than being electrocuted and dragged away from his family? What could be worse than hearing gunshots and not knowing for weeks after if the Guys in White had actually shot and killed his family?

It was all so screwed up. He was so tired of the panic, of the pain, of the lapses in his memory and the freaking therapies and the chest pain that never seemed to go away. This was his life now and he was exhausted.

This was the only part of his captivity that he hadn’t told her. He could end all this secrecy right now. She could help him.

He looked up at her, and there she sat with her blonde, curly hair clipped back, revealing a patient smile paired with her signature soft, grey eyes. Her legs were crossed, and in her hands, she held her clipboard and pen. She was here, radiating kindness and a judgment-free environment where Danny was sure he could reveal exactly what the hell was going on without worrying about seeing that horrified face he saw from his mother or Jazz during family therapy.

She could help him. He just had to say it.

“I…” He took a shuddering breath, dropping his eyes back to his lap where the green stress ball still rested. “Um…”

Say it.

“I…”

Say it.

“In the...in the…”

SAY IT.

“...”

Why couldn’t he say it?

He glanced up again and she was still sitting as patient as before. She was waiting for him, because she trusted him to tell her what was wrong, and he wouldn’t say it.

Because he couldn’t.

Because he was weak. 

Because Operative O did train him, just like he had promised he would.

And worst of all, Danny had let him. He knew exactly what Operative O was trying to do, and he’d let it happen. He hadn’t tried to fight him off at all, and he hadn’t eaten the granola bars when asked. He could have easily avoided all of this, but he didn’t. Because he knew, and Operative O knew, that Danny deserved it.

“I don’t know.”

The therapist hummed in response. “Food can be just as powerful of a weapon as a knife. It can be used against us as a means for control. And then sometimes, we may take that trauma home with us. Do you feel like the Guys in White used food to control you?”

“Of course they did,” Danny snapped. What did she think the entire meal plan was for?

“Can you think of a time where they did this? It can be any time that jumps out to you.”

Danny frowned, rolling the stress ball around in his lap. If he outright refused to answer, then she would tell his parents and they would start crying again and would threaten to send him back to inpatient. And after yesterday, he was already on thin ice. 

So he would have to give an answer, even if it wasn’t the whole truth.

“They were mad that I had to use IVs,” he started. “So they tried to force feed me.”

“That must have been really scary.”

“Yeah…” His throat tightened, and his eyes started to burn.

“Can you tell me about it a little?”

No.

“Uhh…” He squeezed his eyes shut. “By that point, everything just hurt so much. I don’t really...I can’t…”

“What was hurting?”

He hugged his torso. “My back, mostly. My arm too. Ribs. That was before...before when they—with my chest, you know. I didn’t have that then. There was time in between my back and that.”

“Right.”

“Yeah.” He was starting to feel hazy. Things were blurring together, and he didn’t know if the tingles in his chest were a sign of his pain medication wearing off or if they were just a part of a distant memory.

“Did the smell of the hot dogs bring you back to that place?”

“Kinda. I don’t know. It shouldn’t have.”

“Why do you think that?”

Danny pressed a hand to his chest. The tingles were starting to get worse, and Danny tried to remember if he had taken his medication that morning. 

He had to have taken it. His mother controlled his medication, per doctor orders, and she always made him take it with breakfast.

But the tingles in his chest were starting to feel like fire licking at his skin, and even when he tried to smother the fire with his fingers, it only seemed to grow worse. 

It didn’t matter, he would get more medication soon. He just had to grit his teeth and bear it until then.

He was fine.

“Danny, what’s on your mind?”

Danny flinched, and once again, he was made aware that he was still sitting across from his therapist who seemed to have an unlimited supply of patience for his bullshit. 

He glanced up at the clock. They still had a half hour left of this session.

“Yeah.”

What were they talking about again?

---

The phone lit up, illuminating the dark room.

Danny wasn’t sure how long he’d been sitting on his bed, staring out the window at the stars speckled against the sky. It was a clear night, a full moon. It would have been perfect for a flight if he could. If he didn’t have this chip in his neck.

He ignored the phone. Whoever was trying to contact him would have to wait. The night was too perfect, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d gazed out at the stars.

It was so serene. If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine he was outside, floating face up towards the Milky Way. But he wasn’t going to close his eyes and imagine that, because it wasn’t real. And he didn’t know when he would even get that opportunity again, if ever.

And besides, if he closed his eyes, how would he look up at the stars?

His phone went dim, leaving him once again submerged in the darkness of the night.

The stars were too far away. Maybe if he tried, he might be able to at least drag himself onto his roof.

But what if he couldn’t? Did he even want to try, knowing he was likely to fail? Would he be able to handle that kind of defeat?

It was no use. He would just have to ask his parents to take the chip out in the morning. Surely they had safety-proofed the lab by now, hadn’t they? If they were so worried about Danny being hurt? It must have been a top priority for them.

But then why hadn’t they done that during the two months Danny had been in and out of the hospitals? Why wait?

Unless…

Stop it. 

It was preposterous to think that his parents would lie to him about this. After all, what was the point of keeping Phantom locked up? They knew it was hurting him to be separated from his ghost core for so long. Surely they were going to take the chip out as soon as possible.

Right?

The phone lit up again, snapping Danny out of his thoughts. Whoever was trying to contact him this late could certainly wait till morning. If Danny hadn’t picked up the first time, then what made them think he was going to answer now?  

He snatched the stupid device off his nightstand, fully intending on shutting the damn thing off, but froze. There, displayed perfectly on the caller ID, was the name of someone he hadn’t thought about in months:

Vlad Masters

His blood ran cold. Vlad? Why him? Why now? As far as Danny knew, he’d kept his distance since the court case. Of course, Danny had known that he was the one financing the entire lawsuit—Danny wasn’t an idiot—but he assumed it was either Vlad’s attempt at either reconciling his own stupid guilt or, the more likely scenario, that it was Vlad’s way of making sure the Guys in White couldn’t keep their grimy little hands on Danny’s halfa biology. 

Either way, Danny assumed that Vlad would have enough tact to know to stay the hell away from him.

But Vlad was never one to uphold unspoken boundaries, now was he?

Danny’s finger lingered over the end call button just a moment too long.

Although his stay with the government had changed him, his poor decision-making skills and teenage impulsiveness had unfortunately survived these past few months.

Danny jabbed the answer button and whipped the phone up to his ear.

“What do you want, Plasmius?”

---

As always thank you so much to @imekitty for beta-ing this fic. If you like this fic, check out her fics on ffn, they are very angsty and brilliantly written!

Thanks for reading!

---

<previous / next>

[cartoonfangirl1218]

5 times Leonard was surprisingly affectionate

1 They had been loitering at the New York Zoo and Sara was just uncharacteristically frigidity. She kept inching towards the bird section that was chaotic with sounds of macaw squawks, dove coos and the never ending screech of some tropical bird that Leonard hated. The noise was driving him nuts.

Stein had advised that it would be a great place for a 3rd date as that if they had an awkward pause, there was an automatic conversation starter if a lion ever got loose. Right now he wished a lion would go on a rampage right now and kill those stupid birds.

Sara really seemed to enjoy the trip so far, he didn't get the big deal it was just a bunch of animals in caging staring back at you. Or just sleeping.

Sara just smiled and dragged him to the bird aisle. Leonard couldn't help but give a small smirk. He really liked her smile, it was bright and casual. Yeah, that's it, casual. Not too big or that blinding smile that made him feel warm all over.

Just casual.

He was with someone he trusted. Not a daily feeling in Leonard Snart's life. He hadn't felt safe since he killed his father with the cold gun those many months ago. Or was it a year?

But with Sara it was different kind of safety. An emotional one. That she understood what it was like to be one of the bad guys. The feeling that no matter what you did, you couldn't be redeemed. The vulnerableness of being with all those "heroes," the disbelief that you could ever become that good.

She went through it to. She got through it and somehow it made him feel hopeful that he could too.

Sara raced past the tropical birds and scanned the name cards. Then a beep sounded. From Rip.

"Savage, 1997." was his message.

"Oh,” Sara sighed, shook her head and strode confidentially out of the zoo.

At the Waverider, the team was leaving the base after Rip informed them that getting Savage before the Team had formed might be their only chance at saving Carter and maybe getting another muscle. Sara was leaving to her room to get a katana, when Leonard stopped at her door.

"I got this before we left." He handed her a wooden canary that started to play a simple tune.

"How did you?" Sara gently took the canary, a giddy smile unconsciously spreading over her face. "I have my ways."

2 She had been shot by Nyssa and was lying on the hospital bed getting stitched up. She stated that she didn't mind the pain, it was numb to her, she had worse things. But Leonard could tell she was in pain.

Just not the physical kind.

Leonard was aware of her past with Nyssa and he could just imagine the hurt of her former lover shooting her in the shoulder.

To be fair, Nyssa didn't know who Sara was. She was just raised as Ra's daughter, to kill. Sara had been standing between her and Chronos. He also knew Sara was berating herself for getting shot, for being weak.

"Sara, you can't blame yourself." "Yes, I can!" Sara protested "I knew she didn't know me, and I kept telling her what a good person she was. It was just stupid. I'm so stupid. Ugh!”

"No you're not. You're badass but not stupid."

"This is not the time." Sara glared.

"Fine but I'm taking your night watch" - Night watch was when two team members stayed at the base to study any activity from Savage then shifted to another two later in the earlier morning. Today was her turn to watch with Stein and Leonard was suppose to take the later one with Ray.

"Leonard, I'm shot not disabled, I'll do it." Sara insisted. "No, you won't." "Yes I will." "No, Sara." He leaned close to her, whispering in her ear, "It's okay to be hurt right now. Just sit and relax" Then walked away.

Sara remained in her bed like Leonard told her and in the morning she heard the toy canary by her bedside, singing and an exhausted Leonard was asleep in the chair next to her.

3 The third time was four months after they made it official. They were boyfriend and girlfriend and life couldn't be any easier, well love wise, the world was still in danger.

They were watching the Matrix on the couch and Sara had fell asleep at some point when the Matrix exploded.

Sara because of her assassin tendencies and the probability everyone tried to kill her in her sleep was a very light sleeper.

Sara hadn't been sleeping lately for various reasons, Nyssa being one of them. 2nd timeline Nyssa shooting her had been a recurring nightmare.

The sound of the Matrix exploding had been surprisingly calming, like how she wanted to kill someone and that just watching someone in pain made her feel better.

Sara had woken up to someone brushing her hair, she was about to stand up and ask what he was doing when she felt him lay his head on hers then he put her head on a pillow and walked away.

Sara shrugged and went back to sleep, probably some his brooding walks of thoughtfulness.

A few seconds, she heard him tiptoe back and put the blanket over her.

4 "Sara what were you doing?" Rip yelled.

Leonard cringed as Sara frowned. Sara had just killed a flight attendant that was preventing her from getting into Savage's private jet.

The killing had accomplished the goal to get into the jet, but Savage still escaped, Sara was covered in blood and the news reporters were more than eager to get the headline of Victor Scolia's attempted murder, assassin in jail.

Then the team having to go to jail to bust her out hadn't made Rip's twitch any better.

"My job to get Savage," Sara replied stiffly.

"By killing the guy. You could have just hit him on the head and be done with but now all of Cincinnati has your name on America's Most Wanted." Rip continued on with tirade on how she must use simpler means such as a small blow to the head to make people unconscious, not dead.

Leonard gave a small internal sigh himself. He knew how difficult it was for her. The spent many nights were Sara discussed her bloodlust and how she wanted more action. She needed to feel the blood over her hands, smooth and sticky and know that she was alive because she ended someone else.

Besides it was more practical, sealed the witness more quickly. But since his little deal with Scarlet he had resided these urges. Then again, he hadn't been resurrected from death in a Lazerus pit so this must be a different level of bloodlust.

Sara strode to her, poised as usual. But he noticed a slight dejected slump. She knew she screwed up It was best to leave her alone.

But the part of being a supportive boyfriend wouldn't let him.

Sara was sitting in her bed, staring at the wall.

"I had to kill him. For myself. Like a monster," Sara muttered, vaguely registering his presence.

Rather than doing another one of the talks that had been played over before, he sat next to her. Sara leaned against his chest and screamed in frustration. He slowly patted her shoulder.

5 She attempted to cook for him for their first anniversary. It was a simple meal, just some mashed potatoes and an omelet but it went wrong.

Really wrong.

She had burned both the egg and potatoes and left the bottoms scorched. She had tried to make it up by posting ice cubes to lessen the heat. Leonard felt a little fearful for his stomach but gave a shaky smile in return and put on his best poker face.

"Enjoy," Sara sat down with her own glass of water and played with her eggs.

Leonard noticed the way she looked at him worriedly. "She really wants me to like it.” Leonard thought and decided faking until he made it would be the best option. Just this once and it was for her.

He took a forceful of egg and shoved it in. It tasted awful. The grease and the smell of smoke filled his nose and mouth but Leonard valiantly continued and ate it all. Breaking a chair leg in the process of trying not to let his pain show.

The next morning Leonard was excused from work due to food poisoning that he blamed at the Taiwanese McDonalds.

Though Sara just knew it had to be her cooking. But he didn't say a word, he just smiled and ate those eggs.

And that was anniversary gift itself.

And the 1 Leonard had been in the shower in the men's room. Staring himself in the mirro r in disgust. He had ran into Lewis once more during their missions in the timeline and the scars across the front of his chest glared mockingly at him.

Of all those years of obeying the dead bastard.

Nothing big occurred between them, not wanting to mess up the timeline and such but seeing him again just brought back all those memories.

He pulled on his parka and strode into the HQ. He hit the table over and over with his fist, cursing.

Sara walked in, "What is it?" She asked soothingly.

"The bastard" he replied "The damn bastard that did this to me. The bastard that treated me like his flunkies for diamonds. Couldn't hold his damn liquor. The loser doesn't know anything. He took my childhood and put me in juvie he put a fucking bomb in my sister's head just so I worked with him because he couldn't do it himself! I have spent half my life in hell!"

"Hit me," Sara commanded, holding up the palm of her hands to hit. Leonard hit immediately, the impact only pushed her a few feet backwards.

”Harder." she insisted.

Leonard continued to hit her hands until her hands turned red and he was kneeling to his knees with effort.

Sara quietly lifted his head and hugged him. His cold body melted into the warmth of her arms

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The madness of elite varsity sports

When I think of the last 40 years of neoliberalism, I think of a game of musical chairs, in which the music's tempo steadily increases, the number of chairs rapidly decreases, and the penalties for not having a chair become more ever-more cruel. Movements for racial, gender and gender identity justice are a source of panic for the most precarious chair-chasers, because these movements increase the number of people who get to compete for chairs - but don't increase the number of chairs in play. The wealthiest, most powerful people could mobilize their fortunes to secure chairs and for a long time, the game served them: the increasing desperation for chairs on the part of everyone else translated into ready access to toadies, jesters, bodyservants and courtesans. But we're at the endgame. The number of chairs is trending to single digits. The world will soon boast one or more trillionaires. You can't amass a trillion dollars solely by raiding the pathetic reserves of poor people - you've gotta pauperize some billionaires. The 2019 Varsity Blues scandal revealed the desperation of the chair-habituated mid-upper echelon, who had participated and benefited from the maintenance of a wildly unequal society but now saw that their kids would have no place in it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_college_admissions_bribery_scandal It turns out that the Varsity Blues parents were amateurs. The real pros don't cheat their kids into sports-based elite college admissions - they DESTROY their kids to get sports-based elite college admissions. Ruth S Barrett's feature in the current issue of The Atlantic exposes the jaw-dropping world of ultra-rich families' tormented children and their desperate, moneyball gambits to buy their way into sports scholarships. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/11/squash-lacrosse-niche-sports-ivy-league-admissions/616474/ It's a longread and worth your time, but here's a quick tldr: you've got kids whose parents move Olympians into their guest-cottages to train them in squash or fencing in private gymnasia on their sprawling estates. They spend vast fortunes flying them around the country and the world competing. Children are exhorted by professional athletes to stab each other with fencing foils until they are at the point of collapse. Then they're given a break to eat dinner out of a cooler toted by nannies who bark math problems at them. Their parents argue about whether to disclose their kids' multiple concussions to new coaches, and the kids grow up with long-term chronic sports-related disabilities. And the thing is, the Ivies and Big Ten schools were already seeing through all of this before the pandemic. Even schools that really wanted to have a top lacrosse or water-polo team were savvy enough to understand that these kids had already peaked. If you're 18 and performing in the 94th percentile after being trained for a DECADE by Olympians, nothing the school does will make you any better. How could they? If you want to find prodigies, pick undertrained kids who still perform competitively and polish THEM. What's more, these kids are basket cases. They arrive at university with no grip on reality, no capacity for self-management or self-actualization. They spiral into substance abuse and mental health crises. These sports admission programs often have their roots in an attempt to provide space at elite schools for poorer kids, especially kids of color (that was definitely the case with the USC football team when I taught there). But the chair-having motherfuckers figured out how to buy these seats, too. And why? Why destroy your kids' health and their sanity? Why watch as your adolescent daughter gets STABBED IN THE THROAT in a fencing competition and then re-enroll her in fencing? Because the number of chairs trends to single digits. That's why you pay nannies to do oppo research on the kids your offspring competes against; it's why you pay dirty tricksters to bombard admission departments with dirt on kids competing with yours for a spot on the team. All that was BEFORE covid: parents waking up and realizing that they were destroying their kids' life for a gambit that would probably fail, but doing it anyway because they knew that a world of trillionaires would leave the chairless grubbing for roots and insects. And now the elite schools are simply getting rid of the teams these children have been optimized to play for, in a process that recognizes that they were just a way for the wealthiest, whitest plutes to buy their way in. Hilariously, billionaire parents have responded by starting  "urban" leagues for elite sports to create the appearance (if not the reality) that your fencing team might not be a back-door for the ex-CEO of American Express's progeny to attend an ivy. While others are promising second-tier colleges that starting a water polo team will bring in a bunch of full-tuition kids who've been honed from birth to simulate one another's death by drowning. It ain't gonna work. Here's a telling quote: "Sorry, but there’s no way in hell. What parent wants to have a child who’s going to be playing for a bottom-tier school with bottom-tier academics in the armpit of the United States? I want to be polite. But there’s no way in hell." -Water-polo mom from Stamford. In Capital in the 21st Century, Thomas Piketty describes how the Age of Colonization ended primogeniture, whereby great fortunes were kept intact by passing inheritances solely to the eldest son, while other kids became spouses or clerics. Colonial looting made it possible for the Great Families to bud off new fortunes for each of their offspring, for two or three generations. When they exhausted the world's supply of brown people to enslave and rob, that ended. Plutes whose parents and grandparents' cohorts had each started a new fortune had to tell their own kids that the ride was over. But any system that has been in place since your grandad was a kid is effectively eternal and it was unthinkable that the eternal would end. So the plutes decided that it wouldn't end. They would all get new fortunes, and since they'd exhausted the world's supply of poor people, they turned on each other. We call that fight World War I. For 40 years, the world's wealth has been gathered into fewer and fewer hands, as oligarchy's musical chairs game has run faster and more vicious. Now, the chairs are tending to single digits. Plutes are desperate. The idea that their kids would lead worse lives than theirs - an idea the rest of us have been expected to swallow for a quarter-century - is unthinkable. So they're not accepting it. They are destroying their own kids in a bid to acquire one of the final chairs. Most of those kids will not get a chair, and the ones that do will be broken and shriveled things, stunted by a lifetime of abuse. But it's not them I'm worried about. I'm worried about the kids that DON'T get a chair. Their parents were willing to torture their own kids FROM BIRTH to get them a chair. When that fails, what will Plan B look like? Image: Wannapik https://www.wannapik.com/vectors/3887 CC BY https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

[365days365movies]

March 6, 2021: Wolfwalkers (2020) (Part Two)

Living up to the Cartoon Saloon mold so far!

Although, I do have some thoughts on that whole thing, but...we’ll get there in the Review! Still, this is a gorgeous film with a nice story, and I’m looking forward to the second half! So,  let’s jump in! Part 1 is right here!

Recap (2/2)

After their night out in the forest, they make their way back to town. Robyn wonders if Mebh’s mom has been caught, which Mebh adamantly denies. However, Robyn has her doubts. In any case, she promises to help Mebh find her mother, and help them leave the woods for a new home.

Robyn heads back home, but as she’s about to enter her human body, she smells something coming from the great hall, which is almost certainly Mebh’s mom, just sayin’. She runs there, past Seán in the stocks, and heads to the hall...before running into her angry father, who’s been hunting her all night. Soon, commotion and gunshots ring out, as does the news of a wolf in the town.

The chase gets far worse, as Cromwell shows up to kill the wolf with his men. Robyn BARELY manages to escape, and manages to make it into the hall, where the cage is. And yes, this is indeed Moll MacTíre (Maria Doyle Kennedy), Mebh’s mother.

Moll isn’t happy that Mebh bit Robyn, and is less happy that Mebh is still in the woods. She tells Robyn to tell Mebh to leave with the pack as soon as she can, and not to rescue her from Cromwell’s clutches. And as Cromwell approaches, Robyn hides.

Cromwell, a devout Protestant, prays to God as the Irish people of Kilkenny are rioting about the presence of the wolf. He pledges to civilize this wild land, and it’s revealed that Moll is there to show the townsfolk that Cromwell has “tamed” her, as he will to the woods as a whole. But he sees Robyn as he says this, and fires at her, but she narrowly escapes by jumping into the river below.

She manages to make her way back home just as Bill arrives, and jumps back into her human body just in time. But it’s not over yet, as Bill is now in BIG fuckin’ trouble with Cromwell, who’s furious. He’s demoted from hunter to foot-soldier, and Cromwell takes over the duty of exterminating the wolves. Robyn tries to stop him, telling him to release the Wolfwalker in front of the town. And Cromwell orders his men to take her to the stocks.

But at Bill’s urging, he gives them both one last chance. Bill has one more chance to find the wolf’s den, while Robyn must remain a scullery maid and do her duty as well. Which is REALLY hard because she can’t risk falling asleep, or will turn once again into a wolf. The next morning, she does what she can, and sends Merlyn to warn Mebh of the danger.

Mebh, meanwhile, waits for Robyn at their tree the whole next day, but she obviously isn’t coming. Merlyn finds her, which leads to Mebh (in human form, of course) coming into town to find her, with Merlyn’s help. When she does, Robyn relays her mother’s message, to her own sadness, and to Mebh’s confusion and anger, as she believes that Robyn is breaking her promise to help her. They both leave in tears.

But on the way home, Mebh overhears commotion about a wolf that Cromwell has captured and is displaying in the courtyard, and realizes that this is her mother. She reacts...poorly, and immediately heads to find her mother. Robyn also heads there, as Cromwell has ordered the townsfolk to attend.

Robyn stops Mebh in the crowd, and uses the bullies to capture her in a cage. She tells Mebh that it’s for her own good, which angers Mebh further. This is all while Cromwell is speechifying, nothing that he was sent there by God to tame the wilds, and the wolves. He unveils Moll, to the shock of everyone, and she’s chained up to show her “obedience”. And that’s then Mebh busts out.

She runs up on stage, to her mom, much to Robyn’s sorrow, Moll’s worry, Cromwell’s shock, and the amusement of the townspeople. Bill is told to catch Mebh, which proves a challenge, and Cromwell grimaces at the townspeople’s laughter. He commands Bill to put Mebh in the stocks, and this angers Moll, who breaks her muzzle and bites Bill OH FUCK DUDE

Mebh manages to escape the men, and climbs up the walls, where she shouts that she is a Wolfwalker, and will come to town with her pack to destroy it and the townspeople. This is war now. And she leaves to gather her troops.

Cromwell shakes this threat off entirely, and pledges to burn the forest down that night to destroy the wolves. He berates Bill for his inability to catch Mebh, and gives him one last chance to prove himself, or be put in chains. He also tells him to kill Moll, and to teach Robyn some manners. DICK.

Once again, Robyn tries to get through to her father, but he angrily turns her away. And as he goes to kill Moll, Robyn is fucking DONE. She stands between her father and the cage, and he responds that he’s doing this because he’s afraid, specifically for her. But he’s distracted by the news of wolves outside the town, and Robyn takes the opportunity.

Sick. Moll and Robin ride out of town, with the men and Cromwell hot on their tail (literally). They get out of town, though, and find Mebh and the wolves as she’s about to invade the town with the wolves. Mother and daughter tenderly embrace, finally, and Mebh and Robyn make up, becoming friends once more. Yay, happy ending!

FUCK SAD ENDING

Well, not an ending yet, but yeah, Moll is shot by Bill, who believes she’s in danger from the wolves. As they surround her, they’re all interrupted by Mebh, howling to heal her mother with wild magic. Moll turns into a golden spirit, and heads towards her sleeping body in the woods, with Mebh and the wolves following.

Robyn tries to go after them, but is held back by Bill. She reveals to him that she’s a Wolfwalker, which upsets her father further. He holds her tight, not wanting to lose her, but she wills herself to sleep, and becomes a wolf. She runs off, leaving Bill behind. Cromwell and his men arrive to burn down the forest, and chain Bill up.

Robyn, Mebh, and the wolves head back to the den, where Moll’s wolf spirit merges with her body, alongside the arrow wound. Mebh tries to heal Moll, but it’s bad. Meanwhile, the men approach, and Robyn takes the wolves to hold them off while Mebh works. Said holding off is also a great sequence, but it’s cut short by Mebh realizing that she needs the pack in order to fully heal her mother.

They retreat to the den, while Bill sees Robin once again, but through...wolf vision this time! THERE we go! Magic’s beginning to settle in through the bite, finally! Cromwell and his men pursue her, and a cannon blast knocks her out. They follow her into the den, and she fights them again after waking up, and disables their cannon fully by making it fire at the ground.

That also knocks her down and out, and Cromwell comes in to finish the job, about to kill her with a sword. But Bill...Bill’s tired of Cromwell’s bullshit.

HOLY SHIT, HE LOOKS FUCKING AWESOME.

Bill’s also, like, IMMEDIATELY good at the wolf schitck, and takes out Cromwell without too much difficulty. But Cromwell figures it out, and ties to kill Bill’s human body, only for Robin to wake up as a human and disable him with her crossbow.

This culminates in a battle by the waterfall, and the DEATH OF OLIVER CROMWELL, HOLY SHIT! Something about the catharsis of that whole thing from an Irish film is...fuckin’ palpable, goddamn. After Cromwell’s death, Bill and Robyn unite as wolf father and daughter, and head out to help Mebh and Moll.

Mebh and Robyn come together, and with the help of the wolves and Bill together, they finally, finally heal Moll’s wound, and bring her back from near death. Mother and daughter happily embrace as well, and Bill and Robyn are officially welcomed into the pack as fellow Wolfwalkers.

They find a new home together, and the new pack is safe

.And that’s Wolfwalkers! I loved it! I’ll elaborate more in the Review. See you there!

[salthaven]

Make a Change P5

   Miss Bustier is....rather confused by this turn of events. The past few weeks have been rather hectic, haven’t they?

    Yes, they have. First Marinette, her star pupil, her role model for her peers, changed. She became bitter, angry with the new student. It wasn’t like Marinette, wasn’t anything like her. Perhaps they had a little spat. Surely that was all, just some simple miscommunication. 

    Marinette had disliked Adrien when they first met, after all. And Miss Bustier wasn’t blind to love, she never has been. 

    So Miss Bustier, naturally, assumed that Marinette would calm down and see reason. After all, Lila seemed like a kind, well-rounded girl who gave up far too much of her time to help others. Actually, she reminded her of Marinette, but a bit more...all over the world.

    Miss Bustier was sure that, together, the two girls would change the world for the better.

    But Marinette didn’t let go of her grudge. She hated Lila, and suddenly...suddenly Miss Bustier found herself with an anonymous note stating that Marinette had stolen the test answer guide, and soon after her star pupil was expelled.

    Expelled.

    Miss Bustier never imagined that the bluenette could do something so wrong, but suddenly Lila was claiming that Marinette stole answers, that Marinette pushed her down the stairs, that Marinette stole from her.

    And Marinette was gone.

    And then she was back. Because Lila, the sweet, selfless girl that she was, also had a disorder that caused her to lie and do things that she didn’t mean to. She seemed so distraught as she explained her issue to the principal, and Miss Bustier had felt so awful. But Marinette was back, and surely she would be so happy to know that Lila had confessed. They’d be great friends, wouldn’t they?

    Miss Bustier had even changed up the seating charts, so that Lila and Marinette could sit together. If sitting together helped Alya and Marinette become best friends, who knew what it would do for these two?

    (She didn’t learn from last time, did she?)

    But things didn’t go as planned. Marinette’s mother had called during the weekend, explaining that Marinette would be busy until further notice. 

    That was fine. Miss Bustier decided that she would simply wait until Marinette returned to enforce the new seats. Until then, she would just skip Marinette’s name on the attendance sheet. 

    But Marinette didn’t return.

    It was a normal Monday morning. It was normal, and calm, and...and then Damocles walked in, and he asked to speak with her.

    Mrs. Cheng was waiting, and mon Dieu was she angry. Her words were like ice as she spoke. And the longer she spoke, the worse Miss Bustier’s day became.

    “Ever since we first enrolled Marinette here, she was bullied by Chloé. And you did nothing.”

    “Mrs. Cheng, I’m sorry, but you have to understand that-”

    “That what? That I should stand by and let my daughter be bullied because the problem causer is the mayor’s daughter? That I should let my daughter be hurt for no reason?”

    “Your daughter was meant to be a good example!”

    Mrs. Cheng froze then, and her eyes narrowed. “Is that all my daughter was to you? A good example for your students? Is that why I’ve finally heard of how awful her class has been?”

    “Her class hasn’t been awful to her,” Miss Bustier defended, appalled at the idea. “Marinette has been causing some issues lately, yes, but the class is as usual.”

    “As usual must mean different things to us, because my poor daughter was sobbing in my arms this weekend over the fact that nobody believed her because of that liar.”

    “You can’t be upset over that. Mrs. Cheng, Lila has a disorder-”

    “She’s a bully! She threatened my daughter! She threatened to ruin Marinette’s life and take all of her friends, and she did just that! You let this happen. You failed my daughter, and as such, she will no longer be attending this school. In fact, she’s already transferred.”

    The world froze.

    “A bully? No, you don’t understand. Lila would never bully anyone, or threaten to do such a thing.”

    But she was wrong, it seems. Because Mrs. Cheng had no problem recalling every lie Marinette talked about, and taking the time to pull up the truth. Jagged Stone never had a cat. Prince Ali never worked on dealing with pollution. Marinette would never do any of the things that Lila stated that she would, or hated Lila over jealousy. And Lila didn’t have any of the disabilities that she claimed to have.

    Lila Rossi was a liar, down to the way she claimed she had a disorder.

    It was...unnerving.

    So when Mrs. Cheng got up to leave (and it was only fifteen minutes, how had so much happened in such a small span of time?), Miss Bustier could only say, “I’m sorry.”

    “You should be.” And Mrs. Cheng was gone, taking Marinette’s papers with her. Taking the last piece of Bustier’s star pupil with her.

    Guilt weighed down on her shoulders as she went back to her class. And when she got there, all of her students looked to her. 

    “Miss Bustier?” Alya asked. “Where’s Marinette? Is she sick?”

    Miss Bustier tried to smile, but it felt strained. It felt fake, like it was being pulled up by strings. 

    “Marinette has transferred schools. She will no longer be attending this school.”

    She expected chaos. She expected shock, and screaming, and demands for explanations.

    She hadn’t expected to see Lila’s gleeful grin, to see the satisfied glint in her eyes.

    She felt sick. 

    Miss Bustier had lost her star pupil for a lying, deceiving one. 

    Something had to be done.

    But what?

    The question had stumped Miss Bustier, and the rest of the day was a blur as she tried to figure out what to do.

    Which leads her to now, where she sits at her desk, the bell rung just minutes ago, desperately reaching for straws, needing ideas on how to fix this mess that she’s allowed to happen in her classroom.

    Her thoughts are cut off by footsteps, and a small, concerned, “Miss Bustier?”

    She looks up from her desk to see Alya, who seems so small compared to usual. Nino has his hand on her shoulder, consoling.

    “Yes, Alya?” She asks, because even if she’s grieving the loss of such a great student, she’ll be damned if she ignores another.

    She can’t let this happen again.

    “Do...do you know why Marinette left? She won’t answer my texts.” Rubbing at her eyes, Alya adds, “I think it’s because of Lila.”

    Miss Bustier frowns. “I’m not sure that it’s my place to say.” Because at the very least, she needs to respect the poor girl’s privacy. Heaven knows she failed to do that when Lila gave her that anonymous note.

    Alya frowns. “Oh...right. Thanks anyways, Miss Bustier.”

    “Of course. And Alya, don’t be afraid to come talk to me if there’s any problems.”

    Alya nods, but she doesn’t respond. She just walks away with Nino, leaving the teacher alone with her thoughts.

    Miss Bustier feels awful, not being able to help yet another of her students, not being able to answer Alya’s questions. 

    Questions.

    Miss Bustier races to Damocles’s office, slamming open the door. Racing to his filing cabinet, she pulls out Lila’s papers.

    And right on the emergency contact part? Mrs. Rossi’s number.

    It’s time that Miss Bustier asked some questions of her own...and finally get some real, honest answers.

~~~~~

And here’s part five! Tags: @domena151 @7-sage-7 @blackcanary13 @fatimaabbasrizvi @chez-pezeater @captainmac6

[amarantine-amirite]

Deja Vu

I have Asperger Syndrome, so I understand what it feels like to have everyone mad at you for saying the “wrong” thing.

Why does it happen? In my case, it usually comes down to this. Aspie cracks some stupid, wicked inappropriate joke. The neurotypicals in the room laugh uncomfortably, sort of as a discreet way of saying "knock it off". Aspie misses the nonverbal message completely, and cracks more inappropriate jokes. The neurotypical, wanting to keep the social order, smiles and nods.

The minute you leave, they go behind everyone's back and gossip about you. They badmouth you. Next thing you know, everyone's mad at you. Everyone waits for you to screw up so they can pounce on you. Sometimes, they even set you up to fail just so they can lay it on you the minute you screw up.

The best you can do is just try and watch yourself so you don't say or do anything stupid, which is actually a lot harder than it looks. You don't know what'll set people off. And believe me, I learned that lesson the hard way when I snuck out of the house in sophomore year.

The night I snuck out of the house, I met up with my friends Siobhan and Christian. As we waited in a slow moving line at the McDonald’s, Siobhan commented, “This line stretches all the way to Morocco.”

I nodded and chuckled. “Yeah,” I replied, “you ain't seen a line like this.” As I said this, I momentarily forgot that she was blind. It didn’t matter. She and I laughed it off like it was nothing.

Or, at least I thought it was nothing. The person standing behind us didn’t agree. “That’s not funny” she snipped.

I turned around and looked at her. “What?” I said.

“I heard everything you said”

I shrugged. “I was making a joke, it’s nothing,” I replied politely.

The woman shook her head and rolled her eyes. “ It's the 21st century,” she barked at me in a moralizing tone.  “Nowadays, even nothing is something.”

As she scolded me, I couldn’t help but notice what she was wearing. She wore a suit that looked like a green, stripy pool table and a pink shirt with black polka dots underneath. It made her look like a watermelon. It didn't help that she was fat. I couldn't stop thinking, watermelon. Watermelon. That woman looks like a watermelon. Watermelon.

It was our turn to order. We got our food, and we headed back to Christian’s car. On our way out, the woman in the watermelon suit gave me the bird. I meant to say “whatever”, but I accidentally blurted out, “Watermelon”

And that was the end. We did what we set out to do, I got home, and my parents were none the wiser. And my sneaking out would have just become another adolescent memory had it not been for this.

Roughly three weeks after the whole incident took place, I had to attend a emergency disciplinary hearing. When I got to the guidance counsellor’s office, she didn’t greet me with “Hi” or “Hello”. Instead, she said,  “Judith, I heard about what I said to Siobhan at McDonald's.”

I sat there, confused. “How?”

The guidance counsellor exhaled sharply out her nose. “What you said was considered extremely ableist.”

I shrugged. “So, you know the fat woman from McDonald’s? Did she rat me out?”

“Judith,” she continued, “the person behind you in line at McDonald's that night was Vivienne McCandless, a close friend of mine.” She then raised her eyebrows menacingly. “Speaking of which, you also call her a watermelon”

“By mistake”

“Doesn’t matter.” Her eyes felt like they’d piece my skin. “In fact, I would recommend that to fully understand the scope of your actions, you must write a five-page apology letter to all marginalized individuals.”

And then it came. The ultimatum. I got suspended.

Getting suspended felt weird, like when you're in a different city and Seinfeld comes on at a different time than it does at home. I was in shock. In fact; I felt a bit sick to my stomach. And it wasn't just because I got suspended.

Here's where things started to freak me out. I was writing my apology letter and my computer began to hang. One minute, I was typing, and the next; it stopped working. After a few seconds, it just shut off with no warning. For a second, I thought it was broken. I tried jiggling the switch, and to my surprise, it came back on. There was only one problem. It decided to update its operating system, and all my files were wiped. Worse, the auto install for the new operating system got to 85%, then it crashed. "Holy shit" I said under my breath, "this thing is worse than having cancer!"

No sooner than two minutes after I said that, the phone rang. I didn’t answer, so it went to voicemail. But the message scared the ever loving crap out of me:

Hi Judith, it's Vivienne. Who the FUCK do you think you are?! How can you live with yourself?! How fucking DARE you compare a computer failure to cancer! You don't know what I've been through! I've ACTUALLY HAD CANCER, you fucking ignoramus! I hope you fuck off and die, you bitch!

I started shaking. I felt sick to my stomach. At that moment, I got the feeling that Vivienne found a way to follow me around, waiting for me to drop my guard.

Could she have been stalking me? How'd she know my name and phone number? How did she know what I'd said? I was in my own house, and nobody else was home. Did that mean she had enough information to bug every room of my house? I hoped to God that she hadn’t. If so, then that would mean that she was always watching me.

It's hard for anyone (much less a person with Asperger's) to watch what they say so that they don't hit anyone's murder buttons. You don't know what'll set people off. You also don't know who will overhear, nor will you know where they'll be. And just because you’re home doesn’t mean people aren’t watching you, listening to every word you say, and looking for something to take offense to.

I’m not going to take it. This is too far. I’m not going to stand for someone waiting for me to screw up so she can relentlessly berate me for having a social skills disability. 

I called back. I hauled off and said to her, "OK, Vivienne, you don't know me, and I don't know you, this has got to stop. You cannot stalk and harass someone just because they said something that made you feel uncomfortable. Alright? I get it, I made a mistake, and I apologize. We all make mistakes, but relentlessly stalking people and badgering them when they make a mistake is inexcusable. Just fuck off and move on like a sensible adult."

What she said next surprised me. "Come and find me,” she said just before texting me an address.

Usually when I'm confronted with an address I don't know, I check the address on Google first to see if it’s legit. Since my computer crashed, Google Earth was no longer an option. I had to actually go there.

I was shocked to discover that the address Vivienne gave me wasn't for an apartment. The street and house number went to a cemetery, while the apartment number was for a gravestone. I was really spooked when I saw the name on the gravestone:

Vivienne Jane McCandless

At first, I thought that somehow between now and my first incident with her, she'd died. Nope. Wrong again. My jaw dropped when I saw the date of death on the gravestone: Vivienne had died six days before I was born.

[dellikay]

Arnold Chiari Malformation Blogs: How it all began & getting a diagnosis

This is the first in a series of blogs where I’m going to be writing about my experiences with Arnold Chiari Malformation (ACM, as it will be referred to from here on out), ranging from how my condition suddenly worsened and made it itself known, all the way to present day and how it affects me now. These will all be likely very long posts, but there is a lot of information to share and it is all integral to address, so that people reading this who don’t know much about the condition can understand exactly what the condition entails and how it feels to actually have it. I’ve split the whole ‘story’ into five parts and will be working to get those typed up and released as soon as possible. What I want to start with is how my condition made itself known to me, having laid dormant internally for 15 years of my life and the ordeals I went through to secure a correct diagnosis. It all started on a perfectly normal day - I was playing Simon the Sorcerer 3D (I’m blaming the game for it all because it was bloody awful and broken beyond all belief) on the family computer. I got to a part of the game (among many others) where the game had glitched and I couldn’t progress any further. I accessed a walkthrough online and read how to navigate around the glitch. I then started to feel nauseous. I tried to carry on as normal, but the intensity of the nausea increased rapidly and I had a really massive headache, one of the worst that I had ever experienced up until that point in time. I had to give up on my game and laid down flat on the settee. Before long, I was having major coughing fits and had to run to the toilet to be violently sick. This, of course, made the headache worse, so I ended up making up a bed on the settee and having to stay on there. I was too weak to do anything and I kept having to rush to the toilet at the drop of a hat to be sick over and over again. After a few days, my other symptoms from what we assumed was the flu started to subside but I was still being violently sick multiple times a day and had agonising headaches that lasted all day and all night. I assumed the headaches were an issue because of how often and how forcefully I was being sick multiple times a day. Months passed and I was still the same. I’d been to see my then GP a couple of times since regarding what was happening to me. Because I had been diagnosed with OCD and depression from the age of 11, he immediately assumed that my symptoms were a physical manifestation of my mental illness, so just upped my dosage of whatever I was on at the time and sent me on my way. I was going to college by this time, after I had to leave secondary school due to being bullied to the point of...well, not being in a very good state of mind, I’ll just put it that way. Somehow, I managed to attend classes and go when I should do and even went on a trip to Alton Towers with the group I was in there, all the while getting worse physically, having to excuse myself from lessons suddenly to go and be sick and having headaches so bad that I had to lay my head down on the desk. Walking to and from college (which was literally a ten minute walk from my house) become more perilous as my balance became affected...on one occasion, I was crossing the road and a car was approaching faster than I anticipated. I tried to run the rest of the way over but my legs immediately collapsed from under me and I fell flat onto the road, about six feet in front of the car. Thankfully, the driver had seen what was going to happen and had the foresight to slow right down. However, I couldn’t get myself off the road because I was dizzy and my legs didn’t want to cooperate and no one stopped to help me or to see if I was alright. I walked the rest of the way home in tears. I didn’t know what was going on and was obviously shaken from what had just happened as well as the sheer rejection from the public who just acted like I was invisible even though I was in dire need of help. Sadly, after a few more months of this deterioration, I had to stop going to college because I was too poorly to make it through lessons and the journey to and from college was way too risky. From one end of the day to the other, I laid flat on the settee and was just enveloped in a complete world of pain.  I persisted with my GP, insisting that there was something physically wrong with me, as opposed to it all being ‘in my head’ (ironically) and that the medication he had put me on my own wasn’t doing anything to stop the headaches or the vomiting. He wouldn’t listen to me and even got cross with me at one point and basically told me to stop putting it on to get attention. I felt defeated - I KNEW my own body and I KNEW that there was something very wrong but no one would listen to me. I could see and feel that it was getting worse. My balance became worse still, my weight had plummeted because I couldn’t keep any food in my system, I was still being sick multiple times a day and by the end, just bringing up water because my stomach was empty. I was accused of having an eating disorder and once again, doing this all to myself for attention. My headaches had got so bad that one time, I was laid on the floor in the living room because my head was too painful to stand or even sit up and suddenly my body started to move of its own accord. It was like I was rolling down a hill but I was on a completely flat surface. My body kept trying to roll to the side as if to balance itself if I was on a slope. It was completely out of my control and certainly one of the scariest parts of pre-diagnosis. I phoned for an appointment with my GP again, ready to stand my ground and insist once more that my symptoms were the result of something physical. I was angry, in incredible pain 24/7, weak, scared and I just wanted to be heard. When I went to the doctors, not feeling the most confident, I was told that my GP was off that day and I would be seeing one of the junior doctors instead. This made me feel a tiny glimmer of hope but I repressed it just in case he was of the same mindset as my regular doctor and he also accused me of being an attention seeker. When I was called into his office, I took a seat and I was asked to describe my symptoms. As I told him, the doctor started to look more and more concerned. He did some balance tests on me, which obviously I was incapable of completing and within five minutes, he told me that in no uncertain terms that my symptoms were way too severe to be merely a figment of my imagination and that he agreed that there was something physically wrong with me. He told me he’d book me in for an MRI. Finally. Someone listened. Someone believed me. I cried, partly from relief and elation that I had a chance of being saved from whatever it was that was destroying me from the inside out - and partly from fear because there really, truly was something wrong with me. Something seriously wrong with me, according to the doctor I had just seen. The following few months are a blur to me and I can’t remember any real details about what happened or the order in which things happened. I just remember going to Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham multiple times, being prodded and poked and being sent for more scans and then I saw a man who warned me that no matter what a man called Mr White said to me, I should REFUSE to have brain surgery. Under no circumstances should I listen to what he was saying and carry on as I was. He also asked me outright if I thought I had an eating disorder (basically, that I was causing myself to be sick and lose all of this weight - which was getting on for four and a half stones (63lbs) by the point - and made me feel like I had to concede that there was a possibility that could be the case, even though I knew it wasn’t. Of course, being in the sorry state that I was, I couldn’t understand this path of logic and neither could my parents. It turns out the Mr White was one of the leading brain surgeons in the country, specialised in rare brain conditions and would be the one to perform my surgery if I consented. We (as in me and my parents) met him shortly after and well, basically me and Mum fell in love with him. Lol. He was very softly spoken, gentle and kind - completely different to the man we had seen previously. Mr White was the one who told me I had Chiari Malformation Type 2 and what that meant. I was 18 years at the time (bear in mind my symptoms had started when I was 15) so he took his time with me, was very patient because he could see how terrified I was about what he was telling me and told me everything I needed to know and answered any questions I had. He explained why I was experiencing the symptoms I had and how the surgery would at the very least hopefully stop the progression of them getting even worse. He also told me that alongside the ACM, I also had hydrocephalus (water on the brain) and this was putting extra pressure on my brain and squeezing it into an even tighter space. This also meant I had a rare version of a rare condition (as it was known now - the classification of the illness has now been upgraded to ‘uncommon’, which means it’s not as rare as once thought but often misdiagnosed) so any surgery that would be carried out on me was not guaranteed to have the same level of success as if I hadn’t had the hydrocephalus. In fact, my cerebellum (the part of the brain that controls the nervous system, balance and coordination and reactions to external stimuli) had been wedged behind the top few vertebrae of my spine, which was what was causing the disabling headaches. Despite what the other man had advised me to do, I agreed to the surgery. There was no other way I was going to get better. It was scary either way and the decision was completely mine to make. Mr White was extremely concerned as he could see how poorly and fragile I was and was pushing for me to have the surgery before Christmas (I think we went to go and see him at some point in November). However, I was frightened and I just wanted one more Christmas before going through such a huge life event. I wasn’t sure I’d make it out the other side so I wanted just one more big celebration. Even though he wasn’t best happy with me wanting to wait until after Christmas, he agreed but he said he would book me in for as soon as possible afterwards. Basically, time was of the essence, I had a ticking time bomb in my head and it could have detonated at any second. I was too young and too frightened to understand at the time but me choosing to have the surgery a month or so later than was wanted by the surgeon could have cost me my ability to walk entirely or my life if my health had taken another slump.

[lovemesomesurveys]

What's the most beautiful thing you've seen in the last week? Snapchats/IG stories my cousin posted of the ocean while she was there earlier this week.

What is beauty, in your opinion? Something you find aesthetically pleasing.

What's your favorite brand of potato chip?  Original Ruffles and ranch dip is quite good. Of all the bands you hate, which do you hate the least? I can’t think of any band I hate. There’s bands I don’t like because I just don’t vibe with their music, but I don’t hate them. Do you believe it is possible to know something that's false?  Yes?

Does man have free will? Yes.  How many people have you ever dated? Two. Would you rather do evil or have evil done to you? Uh, neither... Who's better, Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera?  I like songs from both of them.  How many friends do you have? Zero. What's worse, algebra or geometry? I hate math, period. We didn’t vibe. Are you a vegetarian of any sort?  Nope. What's your sexual orientation? Straight. Who do you look up to? My mom. Should art that does not represent anything be considered art at all? Anything can be considered art. Just because it might not represent anything to you, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t. People can look at the same thing and see something totally different. Have you ever... Literally wanted to kill someone? Stayed up all night...two nights in a row? Had a near-death experience? Been obsessed with a celebrity? Believed a person to be perfect in every way? <<< Only Jesus. Been hated by the people at an online forum? Planned your own suicide? Had an overwhelming religious experience? Fainted? Had an imaginary friend? Been windsurfing? Volunteered for an organization without having been forced into doing so? Wanted something so badly you'd sell your soul for it? Seen something so disgusting you puked? <<< Pretty damn close. Changed your mind about something important three times in one day? Written anything longer than twenty pages (typed, single-spaced)? Read anything longer than one thousand pages (in one day)? Felt as if you could do anything? Taken a friend on a family trip? Attended a Marxist gathering? Memorized the lyrics to the Internationale? Witnessed a solar eclipse? Fallen asleep during class? Been away from your family for more than six weeks? Which of the following best describes you Simple/Sophisticated Altruistic/Selfish Smart/Dumb <<< Kinda smart, kinda dumb. I feel I’m just average. Cute/Ugly Reader/Writer Math nerd/history buff <<< Neither. Into sports/Into music Unwavering/Impulse Serious/Funny Favorite Type of animal: Dogs and giraffes. Word:  *shrug* Number:  8. Music video: I’ll say Lady Gaga’s Paparazzi video because it has Alexander Skarsgard haha. TV show:  I have several. Philosopher:  I don’t have one. Video/computer game: Mario Bros anything pretty much, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and The Sims.  Sport (to play):  None. Sport (to watch):  None. Living political figure:  I don’t have one. Work of art:  The Scream by Edvard Munch. Month of the year:  October and December. Name:  Alexander. Calculator:  Uh, I don’t have a favorite calculator. I just use the one on my phone if I need one. Comic strip:  Peanuts.

Enemy:  I don’t have any enemies. If I did, I don’t think I’d have a favorite one... Year of your life:  I’ll give you a decade: the 90s. Teacher:  I’m not in school anymore.

Restaurant:  Wingstop. Textbook: Do you crave adventure?  I’d like to travel. I really could use a vacay. Do you wear glasses?  Yep. What's the purpose of your life?  I haven’t figured that out, yet. Do you have moral integrity? Yes. Do you like your family?  Yes, I love my family. Do you like yourself? No. :/ Would you ever respond "Yes" to the question "Are you hungry or full?"  No? Your religion? Christian. What do you care about most in your life?  God and my family. Have you heard the term "Luddite?"  Uhh, nope. Have you ever been elected a class officer?  No. Do you get good grades? I’m done with school now, but yeah I got A’s and B’s. Do you litter?  NO. Huge pet peeve of mine. Just throw it away!  Are you a paragon of virtue? A what? Okay, so I Googled it and it’s a term for someone who describes themselves as being perfect and having no faults or imperfections; often used sarcastically and ironically. I am certainly no such person, no one is, and I wouldn’t even say I was joking cause just no. I clearly have faults and imperfections. I know people who would use that term about themselves, though. What is virtue, in your opinion?  Having to do with morals. Do you have a boyfriend/girlfriend? How long have you been together? Why do you like him/her? Nope. Is incest wrong?  Yes. Do you have a calendar of any sort?  Yeah, I have a physical one and the one on my phone. What time is it?  6:04AM. Tell me something interesting. I got nothin’. Do you cuss?  Not a lot, but yes.

Are you bilingual(/trilingual/quadrilingual, if that's a word/etc.)?  No. I wish.

Are you mentally ill? I have major depression and anxiety. Does mental illness exist?  Uh, yeah it absolutely does. Ever fallen in love online? No, but in 6th grade I had an online boyfriend I met in a teen chatroom lmao. I would say I was like 16 or 18. I shouldn’t laugh cause it’s very likely the guy was probably an old perv. Who is John Galt?  I don’t know. How many songs are on your playlist?  I have no idea, but it’s a shit ton. What's your favorite singer/band? Linkin Park is definitely my top favorite band, but I have many favorite artists and bands. List three favorite songs. That’s too hard. Do you approve of math jokes?  I probably wouldn’t even get them, ha.

How about "your mom" jokes? Not a fan. Are you addicted to online surveys?  Yeah, you could say that. Are you addicted to anything else? Caffeine :O <<< Same. Do you have any anti-technological tendencies?  No. Are you bored?  Nah. Who do you despise?  Evil, sick, disturbing people. If you could cure one social ill, what would it be?  Child abuse. If you were dictator of the US, what's the first thing you would do? I wouldn’t want to be a dictator, for one. Also, I wouldn’t want to be in control in any kind of way over the country. How many kids would you like to have? Zero. What's the biggest lie you've told within the past two weeks? I haven’t told any huge lies in the past two weeks. Do you have AOL?  No. I haven’t had AOL since like 2004. Do you consider yourself a loser? “Soy un perdedor, I’m a loser, baby.” Are you putting off something important to take this survey?  Sleep? It’s 6:22AM, but sadly that’s become the norm for me this year. If you could change the design on the American flag, how would it look? I’ll leave it the way it is.   Why do you believe children like stuffed animals? Because they're soft and cuddly. <<< Would you rather die or have ten random strangers die?  Wtf. Do you believe nuclear weapons should be eliminated? Absolutely. Education? What about it? I think it’s very important if that’s what you mean. Slavery? Of course not!  Do you deliberately cause physical harm to yourself?  In a way I have since I don’t take care of myself like I should. I’ve neglected and ignored things I shouldn’t have.  Are definitions for losers?  No?? We need to know the meaning of words... Summarize yourself in one word.  Blah. Do you have any pets?  I have a doggo!  Ever had a blood transfusion?  I’ve had a few. Who was your first crush?  This kid named Philip when I was in the 3rd grade. When did you have it?  Oh. ^^^ What's your earliest memory? Preschool memories come to mind first. Are you listening to anything right now? Yeah, an ASMR video. Are you a good writer? People have said that I am, *shrug*  Are you physically disabled in any way?  Yes, I’m a paraplegic. Would you rather lose an arm or a leg?  I guess a leg out of the two. As someone who relies on their arms for everything, I really need those. I’d like to keep all my limbs; though, thanks. Are you easily amused?  Yeah, you could say that. Are you socially inept? I’m socially awkward, is that the same? Who's your favorite fictional character?  Eric Northman. Where will you be in twenty years? Gah, I can’t think about that. Do you remember the 1996 election?  No. I turned 7 that year , I didn’t pay attention to that stuff. I was a kid, I cared about kid stuff. Do you remember anything that happened in 1996?  I remember I got the chicken pox. Is it worse to be considered unfeeling or irrational?  I’d say both. What's the greatest sports team of all time? I really don’t care about sports at all. What turns you on/off? It’s been so long, who knows. Do you get angry over little things? No, but I do get very irritable and frustrated quite easily. If you could have one wish (other than more wishes), what would it be? Good health. Do you enjoy hypothetical questions? Ehh, depends.

How much will you accept without proof? Uhhh. Ever dumped someone?  Yes.

Ever beaten someone up?  No. Ever been addicted to drugs/alcohol/tobacco?  No. Who's your best friend?  My mom. Who's your second-best friend? My younger brother. Do you approve of democracy?  Yes.

[clunelover]

I’m going to attempt a cut because this may be my longest ever post

Okay here is the long post I’ve been writing and rewriting and adding to in my head:

I love my BFF. She’s wonderful and giving and insightful and funny and we’ve been through some Real Shit together, such as me getting evicted from our college apartment and dropping out of school due to my then-blossoming mental illness. Her realizing she is bisexual and trying to figure out what that meant for her life going forward, and then finding her now husband and planning a wedding while he had a mental health crisis and had to go to treatment (same as what I did but like up a level in intensity). At times she and I have been possibly too enmeshed. Okay. So, current challenges are based on a lot of backstory, some of which I’ve posted about on here before but not all:

Her now husband has been in treatment for mental health twice. Once around Thanksgiving before last, and he is there again now. Last week he stepped down after like four weeks inpatient, and now is onto the day program like I did, only currently it’s all from home on video.

When this was all going down the first time, their wedding was 6 months away. I struggled a lot over how much to say, and ultimately told her I thought she should at least postpone, maybe cancel. And when he came out of treatment that first time, he even said he wanted to postpone! She declined, citing social pressure and embarrassment and save the dates having gone out. I think an unspoken part of it was that she wants a baby real bad, so she thought they should just push through, get to baby making, deal with whatever fallout later?

But in between finishing treatment and the wedding, he continued to mess up - he does a lot of avoiding (including of work) and when he’s ashamed, his first instinct is to lie. So she kept having incident after incident of “discovering” that he’d been lying about going to work. Or hiding some additional debt (and also not paying on it). At this point I think I told her, just financially speaking, you should not tie yourself to this person. She did not like me saying that, and eventually I said I could not hear any more about his fuckups. Because she kept giving him ultimatums, but never followed through on them, and I just could not go on that roller coaster. That was a tough moment in our friendship. Conversation became very strained because so much was happening that I had opted out of hearing about. I still don’t know if that was the right thing to do. I tried to support her emotionally but that was difficult under that boundary I set.

Then they got married last May. After lots of talk with my therapist I decided that I should still go to the wedding and be matron of honor and stuff, because I was doing it out of love for her. And I do actually like him a lot too! Just had and have a lot of concerns.

After the wedding things seemed pretty good, he got a job at a dog daycare and seemed to really love that (or maybe before wedding, who can recall).

BFF was officially game on, full court press for baby. I’m 34 which means I think she’s 35 and turning 36 soon.

Sometime in fall he got fired from dog daycare for badmouthing the owner and then getting into a shouting match (!) with them. In January he got a new job, as an assistant manager at a grocery store. I did not say this to BFF but my initial thought was “if he can’t hack dog daycare how can he assistant manage a busy grocery store?”

I think he lasted a month at grocery store. Then he started punking out and calling in because his “feet hurt.” BFF freaked out because she assumed he was going to lose another job. She apparently had some very firm conversation with him about how she wasn’t happy and almost none of her needs were being met. A couple days later he told her he’d been feeling suicidal and needs to go back to treatment. OH and somewhere in there things also went off the rails with trying for baby. I think he has performance issues in addition to low libido, AND the thought of becoming a dad was triggering. For instance, he was supposed to give a semen sample for analysis but freaked out just being in the clinic for it and left. When BFF told me all this she kept asking “is this okay” and “is this too triggering for you to hear” and at first I thought she meant because of how I also was having a flare up in mental health symptoms due to stressful job, but then later I realized it was because of my previous “can’t hear this stuff anymore” edict. But honestly, I feel totally different about that now! They’re married. The disaster (in my view at least) that I was trying to prevent did happen. So nothing feels urgent or painful to me now, other than sadness for her.

While he was inpatient, BFF had been driving his car because it’s nicer than hers, and then it got reposssed so like she came out one morning and it just wasn’t in the driveway. She knew he’d been very behind on payments, like to the point he had a small claim against him, but she thought he’d finally dealt with that and set up a payment plan. When she called him to say what was going on his inclination was to drop out of treatment and come home early to “deal with it,” which he was eventually talked out of.

So THAT is just to get caught up on past events! Sheesh, this is so long. So my current agitations (some of which are serious and some petty) are:

I’m worried that when his back is against the wall he claims mental breakdown to evade responsibility. This feels very mean of me to think, and also he’s been assessed by experts who presumably can tell when someone is making it up, so...I know he really must not be! But this still feels like the pattern.

Another petty thought is that I too have some heavy duty diagnoses and childhood trauma, but I’ve got it together and manage my mental health very avidly to stay as healthy as possible, so why can’t he. ALSO NOT FAIR! I know that. But it keeps popping into my head. It’s shitty that I can relate to him so well and yet it almost makes me LESS sympathetic. Something for me to work on.

I also worry that the instinct to lie is something that’s hard to get rid of. I know because I have it! I think I have stopped listening to it but it still comes up. And how can you have a good marriage with someone who regularly lies about important things. I don’t think you can.

BFF’s current line is that she’s going to wait til he finishes treatment but then she wants to go back to intense trying for baby. And that if he doesn’t want to, or says he needs to wait, she might want to get divorced. She says she’s put a lot on hold for him and can’t wait anymore. So, yes, she has. And there is the matter of age that is also a consideration. But this feels so mixed up to me! Like, the time for strict ultimatums and maybe splitting up was a couple years ago! Now he is working on some serious mental health stuff and it seems unfair, and possibly undermining of his progress, to say “well I’ve waited long enough so impregnate me now or else”...but also I do think it seems likely and possibly for the best that they’d end up divorced, so what do I care if she rushes that process along?

Big picture though, I don’t think he’s ready to be a dad or maybe doesn’t even want to be. I feel so sad for BFF because he was her first real boyfriend and she was kind of desperate for this to work, so she has just always grilled him about his desire for marriage and kids or what his timeline is, and has taken any vague affirmative response as total agreement. Like they were at the mall and Gymboree was going out of business so he suggested going in and buying a onesie. So, you know, proof positive that he really wants a baby ASAP too!! 😞 ...so, again, even though it feels somehow unfair to me that she’d start pushing on him now, I suppose it’s better that it come out sooner rather than later if that is the case

She also just totally steamrolls him, see getting married even though he asked to postpone, so I really hope she doesn’t steamroll him into having a baby if he doesn’t want one...

She’d never say it, but I get the sense that deep down she thinks let’s just have the baby and if he’s in a bad way I’ll just do all the work. She’s kind of a control freak so she may feel like she’d prefer that! But I think she overestimates how much harder it would be to have a baby while the other adult in the house can’t help you, won’t get a job, etc. than to just DO it alone for real.

I think she is also glossing over how having a baby and the attendant sleep deprivation can make mental health issues get much worse. Like when I was pregnant with Edie, my psychiatrist strongly recommended I just not even try to breastfeed, so that Jeremy could take night feedings because of how crazy I could go without enough sleep. I did not listen but she may have been right! I did go pretty fucking crazy, with both kids.

Oh! And she also has this big plan that he’s going to get on disability. I have all kinds of feelings and opinions about this. Like, rightly or wrongly, I don’t think he’d meet the criteria for this. Also she keeps saying “well he lost his last three jobs due to mental illness” but...does getting fired for screaming at your boss and telling them “you’re terrible” count as losing job due to mental illness?? But she’s so sure this will work and I have trouble engaging with it and being supportive because it feels delusional to me. It’s also making her view all issues of disability through this lens. Like, my stepmom is anxious and as a result very scatterbrained and inarticulate, and she’s also not worked in a few years partly due to health concerns (but like, complications from gastric bypass...not a disability) and BFF keeps saying “why doesn’t stepmom get on disability?” And I’m like “UMMMM because she’s not disabled??” I did finally tell her to stop saying that to me. But yeah, it’s just hard because again, it feels delusional, but she’s going ahead with it so what’s the point of me being harsh about how much I don’t think it’ll work?

Okay last one - she likes to source opinions and experiences from other people to help her think things through. She’s always been close to my stepmom, who had to divorce my dad because of how bad his drinking got, and my dad is also disabled (for real!) so she spent a lot of time as a caregiver. So BFF has had a lot of long phone conversations with stepmom about all that. I also have another friend whose husband is too mentally ill to work (but not on disability! Which BFF also keeps bringing up). He’s been out of work for years and they have two kids and to be fair, their life does seem crazy to me from the outside, but that friend seems to have her eyes open about everything and feels it’s working for her for now. Anyway, that husband has ALSO done the program that BFF’s husband and I have done, so when he first went in BFF wanted to have a chat with this friend about her experience, so we all met up to chat. She was very up front and blunt - “if we didn’t have kids we’d be divorced” and “we haven’t had sex in years”...but now, BFF basically uses this friend and my stepmom’s relationship with my dad as sort of justifications in her mind - “well I’m not THAT bad!” which I hate. Especially wrt to friend whose husband doesn’t work - “I’d never let it get that bad. I’d have left before now. I’d say he had to get a job or get on disability” etc etc. This drives me craaaaazy. Like, remind me not to introduce you to people to have a heart-to-heart if you’re just going to use them as your mental worst case scenario. Also, bitch, you wouldn’t “let it get that bad?” YOU ARE ON THE ROAD TO “THAT BAD” RIGHT NOW! Your husband lost three jobs in as many years. You also don’t currently have sex. How do you get to years? You start with weeks and months.

Okay, that’s it. It’s just been building and rolling around in my head. If you read it all, um, congrats? Also, this maybe makes our friendship sound bad, but other than most aspects of her marriage I have no issues with her and we get along great!! It’s been hard because prior to me telling her not to get married we’ve seen eye to eye, or close to, on everything important.

[ko-chan-the-blueberry-donut]

Everyone Loves Marinette 8

Finally the chapter I’ve finally figured out how I am doing! Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Don’t own ML

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

Felix is pretty sure he’s sick or broken. Something is wrong with him. How else can he explain his addiction to attending the same bakery everyday when he doesn’t even like sweets? What makes it worse is whenever the owners’ daughter comes to help, he can’t help but watch her out of the corner of his eye.

And then what makes him sure he’s broken most of all is when she sits down to speak to him, he finds himself losing his voice when the girl grins at him with such radiance, she could outshine the sun. It didn’t seem to bother the pigtailed girl though, surprisingly, and she would wish him well and he’d be left feeling warm.

Maybe he really should consult a doctor…

It all started when he was caught in the rain. He was forced to take shelter in this very bakery and if it wasn’t for the rain, he would’ve turn tailed out at the smell of sweetness. He was never a fan of so many sweet things, but he took a seat at one of the tables regardless, needing to dry off.

Suddenly, there was a hot cup of tea placed in front of him and he found himself gazing into eyes that reminded him of summers in the Caribbean with his family. Her greeting smile made him think of cozy nights by the fire, and Felix could swear he felt his brain short circuit.

“Here!” the girl said. “I noticed you were wet! Here’s something to warm you up! I can get you a towel too!” she informed him.

Felix blinked, not used to strangers’ acts of kindness. He was rather unapproachable with his cool demeanor and harsh words so having someone speak to him so welcomingly made him flabbergasted.

The girl came back quickly with a towel like she promised and continue to confound Felix when she took a seat across from him with a platter of cookies and her own cup of tea. He raised an eyebrow.

“Sorry! It’s just that it’s very slow today and you look like you could use some company. I hope you don’t mind. The cookies are on the house, by the way.” She added to assure him, taking one and biting into it. “They’re fresh out of the oven!”

He was about to tell her he wasn’t a fan of sweets when he realized for some reason, he becomes tongue tied in her presence. He tried several times, and nothing seemed to work. His heart was too busy pounding and the heat in his face increased against his consent. The girl didn’t look perturbed by his silence, choosing to keep talking.

“The chocolate chips are dark chocolate, so they’re not as sweet as a regular cookie. You seem like the type of guy who’s not really into sweet things. You might like them.” Marinette urged him to try one and by god, her earnest eyes were his undoing and he found himself taking a bite out of the shockingly tasty treat.

“See? They’re good right?” she was grinning, relishing in victory, and Felix felt his lips twitch upwards slightly at her expression. She was pleased with herself even more at the sight.

She ended up staying with him the whole afternoon, and he stayed even after the rain was long gone, just listening to her voice. Surprisingly, he wasn’t annoyed with her presence, and even more surprising, he returned the next day.

It was a curious affliction, and he was sure the girl had something to do with it. Away from her presence, he was able to converse normally, but as soon as he entered the bakery and she directed him with a smile, he felt he had trouble breathing as all the blood in his body rushed to his face.

Felix told himself he kept coming back because he wanted to know the reason why he kept choking up in the girl’s presence to the point where he couldn’t even say hello. Maybe she was an akuma in disguise disabling anyone to speak in her presence? Then he caught sight of other customers being able to speak to her just fine, and he was begrudgingly back at square one.

It was another month until Felix figured out what disarmed him so—her smile.

Every time she directed a smile at him, his body practically self-combusted. If he could stop her from smiling, then he’d be able to speak around her again. With his plan in mind, he went to the bakery per usual and took a seat at his usual table. Soon, the girl would come up and give him his usual cookies and tea, and he’d now be prepared to finally have her be the one short-circuiting!

“Hello again!” She greeted happily. This time instead of a blank stare, he leveled her with a glare. The girl blinked, wondering what she did wrong. She placed the cookies down, preparing to sit with him as per usual, but he was quicker and handed her back the cookies and turned her around. The girl looked flabbergasted and turned to him questioningly.

“Do you… not want me to sit with you today?” she asked hesitantly. Felix just gave her his most icy glare and the girl’s shoulder drooped. “Oh… okay. I’m sorry for bothering you.” Her broken tone startled Felix, and he soon found he was kicking himself in his head. He didn’t want to make her cry! He just needed her to stop smiling so he could speak to her!

The girl swallowed and prepared to walk away. However, Felix surprised her when he gently grabbed her wrist. She glanced at him in confusion. Felix took a deep breath and cleared his throat, mustering his voice.

“Please sit. I just had a bad day.” He finally spoke quietly, and her familiar smile was back, brighter than ever, and she immediately took a seat, Felix steeling himself against the effects of her smile. By the Gods, he would not lose his voice again now that he had spoken to her!

“Why don’t you tell me about it?” she urged softly, and this smile was gentle, not as subduing as her regular smile and Felix, at last, fought the malfunctioning in his brain and urged himself to speak.

 He was always a person of very few words, and even with this new development, the girl didn’t appear deterred that he was still the silent type. Her smile still choked him up and rendered him speechless at times, but he now he knew he just had to over-expose himself to it in order to overcome its effects.

Her company was quite enjoyable after all.

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

There you guys go! Sorry if it was bad or not really any shenanigans but I had fun writing the Felix chapter.

[algrenion]

[ #implied CSA tw _ #CSA tw _ #dissociation _ #dissociative identity disorder _ #mental health _ #PTSD ]

is this scene remastered? or am i tripping out? honest question. 

It has to be remastered, right?

‘Cause i mean, this game came out in 2001 supposedly, and it shows now in the gameplay, however advanced it might have been at the time... but damn.

Remastered or original, Takayoshi Sato clearly put an immense amount of thought and effort into these brief little animations... Just look at these beautiful shots... and for that matter (though i only have 40 mins of gameplay so far to take this from), from my perspective, he seemed to put a certain amount of love and care into animating Angela, specifically? 

I’m going to sidetrack into the writing for a moment, as we all know Character Design Is My Passion.

Angela is my favourite character so far in Silent Hill 2, so i’m really intrigued by the detail and realism in just... little flashes of her storyline and character presentation. That said i believe they handled her dialogue and scripting (for the english vers. at the very least) very clumsily, considering they’re tackling an extremely sensitive subject matter with the addition of her storyline. Even more clumsy’s been James Sunderland’s approach to her -- unless they were trying to make him out to be a self-centered, oblivious and mildly sexist (and i would not be surprised if that was the intent! Seeing as most of the monsters in this verse seem to represent flaws in either James’ or the other protagonists psyches, and especially focus on the male gaze) then perhaps they might have chosen some different dialogue for the scenes they’re involved in. 

I’ve watched and analyzed the Abstract Daddy boss fight / character / sound / environmental designs. And I felt the dialogue was handled so poorly, it does a disservice to the very grotesquely accurate symbolisms in the scene, as the player is left with this sense that -- through the dialogue -- Angela is somehow in the wrong, and irrational in her ‘back-and-forth’ views on male sexuality, while clearly going through a distinct mental breakdown, influenced by her father’s abuse. In that I believe the scriptwriters (again, at least for the English dub) executed the post-fight scene’s dialogue... poorly.

But, with personal details in mind, I can say that in an overall sense, the team handled her infantilization and confusion quite realistically. 

I’m a suspected sufferer of childhood PTSD with repressed memories, and I’ve been told by my psychiatrists that even small things, like being left alone too long, to big things (like being witness to domestic violence), can trigger a state of infantile speech and presentation (ex. Angela makes a point of correcting herself by saying “Mother” after having said “Mama”, in order to reinforce the adulthood she is losing her hold on, which I, and Angela, both do very often -- hence why I find her so relateable). 

These types of traumatic and dissociative disorders can also lead to blackouts, confusion and lost time. Uncertainty of what you might do to yourself when left alone. Again, these are all things that me and Angela share in our character. 

I think, in that sense, they’ve presented her with tremendous realism. That’s a very, very personal take, however, and I understand there’s thousands (if not millions) of people out there, similar or worse off in circumstance than me, who I’m sure would contest with that view. But for me... I felt that every interaction with Angela portrayed a piece of myself... My mental health, my traumas, and my dissociative disorder.

Going back to my original point, as far as animations go, this brief little 20 second clip is absolutely stunning and surpasses what I see in most modern video games. And I was literally like four years old when this came out. 

If anyone could confirm if this is a remastered scene please get back to me, it’ll be important to keep tabs on for my personal research.

I’m sitting here with a notebook just scribbling bulletpoints on any little detail I find worth mentioning, and I reckon by halfway through watching this three-and-a-half hour lets play, I’ll have filled at least a notepad’s worth of (extremely abstract/speculative) amateur Game Dev. ramblings, which may become my personal bible.

I just... I want to learn, and keep absorbing all the info and the merits and flaws of these utterly beautiful, masterfully created games that never stood a chance on the market in how far they strayed from the growing industry’s popularity contest -- and somehow, against the odds, held their ground and grew succsessful. Sometimes not only successful, but revolutionary in a genre where originality and (in turn) success, are very limited.

Sorry, I went on an absolute tangent there, I started studying the gameplay not long after I woke up and I’m still pretty hazy :’-)

(this is what happens when you finished high school with a 5% attendance because you’re sick and disabled, then your passions evolve entirely in front of a computer screen and you cry every time you see mildly impressive technology from the times you were blossoming into a little gamer baby)

[thecorteztwins]

Inhuman royal family in the Evo verse

I was hoping someone would ask this one! How to work the Inhumans into Evo is actually something I’ve thought about a lot, because I love the Inhumans and I love Evo, but they SEEM so incompatible, since Evo doesn’t really have any other superhuman species besides mutants, and just plonking some in doesn’t fit the tone of the universe, in my opinion.The EASIEST option is just to make them all mutants, give them some human names (Blackwell Bolton and Maxwell Bolton for the Boltagon brothers, Gordon for Gorgon, etc) and let their Inhuman names just be their codenames. But...I feel like that takes away their Inhuman-ness. That is, I think them being this weird isolated people with their own culture who are wary of outsiders and consider themselves superior to all others is a really important part of who they are, and I’d like to keep that.So my idea is they are mutants, but they’re not just normal “I grew up as a normal human in a normal human family til whoa I got my powers!” mutants. They’re an extended mutant family that has lived in an off-the-grid commune for GENERATIONS. The idea is that their ancestors were mutants whose powers surfaced much earlier in history, like Logan or Magneto, or maybe even before them. Persecuted by humanity, who believed them to be witches (like maybe they came up during Puritan times in America?) they fled and formed their own secret community. They’ve welcomed in new blood here and there over the years, but it’s still very small and tight, implied to be a little inbred. So they’re people who are mutants, who grew up knowing they were mutants even before they got their powers, whose parents and grandparents before them were mutants, whose neighbors are mutants, who have only ever known other mutants. To them, it’s HUMANS who are the weird ones. And since they didn’t have the word “mutant” til very recently in history, they’ve always called themselves “Inhumans”. The “Rite of Terrigenesis” in this version wouldn’t be what gives them their powers, but instead a coming-of-age ritual that they perform after their abilities first surface. They go deep into a mist-filled crystal cave at the center of the commune, and meditate on their new abilities until they come up with their new “Inhuman name” to reflect said abilities. So they’re given human names at birth and then take on names like Triton and Medusa later. Which makes a bit more sense than “yeah the kid we named Triton just happened to turn into a fish guy when he got his powers, what are the odds”.The emergence of mutants en masse amidst the general populace has shaken their sense of identity, as they always considered themselves a unique people, and caused debate among them if they should reach out to these other mutants, attempt to rejoin humanity, if these other mutants count as “Inhumans” too or if you have to be raised in the Inhuman culture to count, should they help the persecuted mutants in the outside world, etc. As for Xavier, he actually learned of the Inhumans long ago via Cerebro, even before he formed the X-Men. He visited them and offered them the chance to send their children to his school, but they declined, wanting nothing to do with the outside world at the time. However, since he had found them, he knew, as they did, that the rest of mankind would sooner or later. So he worked together with them to develop technology that would “block” devices like Cerebro, should anti-mutant forces ever develop them. Thus, the Inhumans stayed hidden successfully---until SOMETHING happens.I don’t have a distinct idea as to what. Off the top of my head...I’m going to say Crystal ran away, wanting to explore the outside world, and she got attacked/captured by a Sentinel. When the X-Men liberate the mutants being kept in the same holding facility as her, they of course get her as well. From her, they learn about the Inhumans, and they want to go meet them. Xavier, however, is like “no, they want to be left alone, I’ll return Crystal privately.” And Crystal is like “but I don’t wanna go home!” but since she’s not being treated badly there, Xavier is like “well you’re going” because he knows the Inhumans, he knows they’ll just come take her back by force. So Xavier takes her there in the Blackbird with some of the older X-Men. But the New Mutants, of course, are all “hey if this teenager says she doesn’t want to go home cuz it’s boring, she shouldn’t have to!” and they stow away, intending to “rescue” her. So after Crystal is handed back to her family, the New Mutants sneak out of the Blackbird and come help her escape AGAIN, but they get caught by her sister (Medusa), cousin (Gorgon), and sister’s boyfriend (Black Bolt). This is how we meet the Inhuman royals, and how they come into conflict with the New Mutants.And somehow or another, by the end of it they’ve decided they want to explore the human world too, and convince the elders/their parents to allow them to be the first explorers into the outside world since the community’s founding, as ambassadors to the “NuHumans” (as they call other mutants) They don’t become permanent members of the school or the New Mutants/X-Men, but they do have a temporary stay at the Xavier’s mansion and attend Bayville High for awhile as “transfer students” from the country of “Attilan” (the name of their commune) Xavier probably helps a lot with convincing the Bayville high officials that “Attilan” is TOTALLY a real country, guys, it’s a tiny city-state in the Himalayas! And the reason they’re white is because it was founded by, um, European missionaries!And now after that VERY LENGTHY SET-UP, here’s the Inhuman royals! As teens! Because that’s the fun of Evo!

Blackwell Bolton aka Black Bolt: As in the comics, he doesn’t speak due to the destructive nature of his vocal powers, which almost destroyed the Attilan commune when he was a child. Because of this, he feels great responsibility for the commune, and protecting it to make up for the damage he did as a baby, even though it wasn’t his fault. His first thought is therefore always looking after his fellow Inhumans, and his reason for coming to the outside world is mostly just to protect the other kids while they explore. His teachers are told that he is deaf-mute but that he has a hearing aid (he wears a fake one) so he can hear them, just not reply. The reason given to his teachers as to why he doesn’t speak sign language is that “oh he does but only Attilan sign language, and there are no interpreters for that in America!”He’s seen as the “strong silent type” by the girls at Bayville High, and it makes them VERY interested in him. The guys claim it just makes him “weird” however, mostly out of jealousy. I imagine there’s a scene where the Bayville guys invite him to play sports or have some other athletic competition, and they expect they’ll humiliate him because there’s no way the weird foreign disabled kid will be able to be good at anything...and he ends up EFFORTLESSLY WHIPPING ASS!He and Medusa might already be dating, I did call him her boyfriend earlier, but I think maybe Romantic Tension might fit Evo better. The show was ALL ABOUT THAT ROMANTIC TENSION. BB/Medusa/Max might be the new Jean/Scott/Rogue?Maxwell Bolton aka Maximus: BB’s younger brother, of course! I’m not sure if I’d make him a villain yet or not? And whether he is or not would influence if he keeps his powers a secret or not. If he’s not going to be a bad guy, then he doesn’t keep them a secret. If he is going to be a bad guy, he keeps it secret so that he can more easily use them without the other Inhumans and X-Men realizing what he’s up to. And if he’s a bad guy....what’s his motive? Do these Inhumans still have royalty? Is BB still in line to be king? Or is it something else? Also, he probably still disdains regular humans (and possibly also “NuHumans”) like in 616, so if he’s got some villainous plan that could give him motive to come along with the others to the human world. But it could also be he just wanted to hang out with Medusa, who of course he has to have an unrequited creepy crush on.Max is obviously a science/engineering whiz, basically the new Forge, and ends up being INCREDIBLY useful on the X-team for this. I think that there should probably be a scene where he and his tech single-handedly trounce the Brotherhood, all with a smirk on his face. So at first they love having him around, but his personality quickly grates on everyone, even MORE than the other Inhumans (who, it turns out, are all kind of snotty besides Crystal)I think I wouldn’t write him as obviously “mad” at the start, just very energetic and enthusiastic about his work, so hyper and weird but nothing to suggest he’s truly unstable. But there increasingly starts to be moments where he just goes “too far” against enemies or even just people who bother him, to the point it starts to be worrisome, with eventually the others having to actually FIGHT him to put a stop to it. I think that, as with the “Royals” series, there would definitely be acknowledgement and exploration with how ableist Attilan society is, that they had no sign language for Black Bolt, no way of recognizing or treating whatever it is Max specifically suffers from, with the explanation being that in this universe, they never moved on with the rest of outside society on these matters, that they still look at these ailments the way their ancestors did long ago. I think there would have to be careful balance to show that he’s not evil BECAUSE of his illness though, more than he actually ends up failing in said evil because said illness trips him up. Something like that. Also the idea wouldn’t be that he was hiding his mental illness, but that it’s developing/getting worse now that he’s hit puberty. And there should be a really emotional scene where it’s been figured out what’s going on and he begs Xavier to fix him and Xavier explains he can’t rewire Max’s brain on that level ;A;Madeleine McQuillan aka Medusa: As mentioned, she’s either Black Bolt’s girlfriend already, or there’s at least Ship Tease between them. She keeps her hair tightly bound so that she can’t subconsciously use it in public. She’s very sensible, responsible, etc., and is basically the “Jean Grey” of the group, except she’s much more no-nonsense, she can be kind of cold and harsh but only when it’s actually called for. She’s basically the serious sister to contrast Crystal’s free spirit, and she takes the leadership role in the group alongside Blackwell, being the one who reprimands the others when they get out of hand or doing something dumb that might get them hurt, reveal their powers to normal humans, etc. But she also defends them against the X-Men when the X-Men try to reprimand them for the same things; she’s very much got a “these are my idiots and only *I* can call them idiots!” attitude, and she cares about them and feels responsible for them, something Blackwell can relate to. I think her arc should be less about romance, and more about her and Crystal’s relationship, their differences and conflicts, and each coming to understand and appreciate why her sister is the way she is. Crystal McQuillan: Might give her an elemental-themed codename if I can think of one! Anyway, she’s the open-minded free spirit of the group, curious about the human world and eager to explore it. She’s very fun-loving and doesn’t hesitate to follow her heart, but the downside means she’s impulsive, childish, and doesn’t think about others before she acts. Due to her enthusiasm for the human world, she’s been consuming human media since childhood (probably something she and Max did together as kids actually), and thus seems the most “normal” to the Bayville kids and X-Men alike, and fits in with them the best out of all her family. The boys especially like her, and I imagine she’s got ship-tease with Sam Guthrie and Duncan Matthews both. I think there might be an episode where she starts getting involved with Duncan and Jean tries to warn her what a jerk Duncan is, but she ignores her and then ends up in some real trouble because of it. There should probably also be some obligatory moment where Pietro winks at her during a battle with the Brotherhood and she calls him cute or something, but nothing beyond that.Gordon Peters aka Gorgon: First thing, someone will ask him why that’s his codename since weren’t the Gorgons what the mythological Medusa was, and he’ll explain that there’s another creature in lore called a Gorgon that is a bull-like creature. Because there is, and his codename baffled me until I found this out.Anyway, Gordon ends up fitting in at the school IMMEDIATELY. He’s a jock, he loves to party, he fits right in with the “popular crowd” even while all the other Inhumans (except Crystal) struggle to various degrees to integrate. Same powers, he wears specialized boots/shoes to disguise his hooves and block the effects of his stomps if need be. I don’t really have any ideas for him besides that he probably gets a human girlfriend or at least is implied to be as popular with the ladies as Blackwell (and unlike Blackwell, he reciprocates the attention!)Carson and Tristan, aka Karnak and Triton: Haven’t picked a surname for them! I also haven’t decided if Karnak’s powers come from training like in the comics, or if they’re actually POWERS like in the ABC series. I’m thinking the latter. Either way, he’s even colder and harsher than Medusa, and way more abrasive about it, so he rubs people the wrong way easily as much as Max does. Thus it annoys the X-team EVEN MORE how useful he is. There’s probably a scene where he goes toe-to-toe with Logan during a fight in training after Logan has wiped the floor with everyone else, but instead of this making Logan or the kids LIKE him, it actually just makes them more irritated with him. The fact he doesn’t care at all makes them like him even less. He’s kind of like Jean in that people resent him for his talents, but unlike Jean this doesn’t cause him any conflict. The only thing that bothers him is when everyone else is BEING AN IDIOT.Triton had to live in the Attilan lake ever since his powers surfaced. He didn’t think he’d be able to go on the trip into the outside world, but once Maximus had access to the level of tech available at Xavier’s, he was able to build him a breathing apparatus. It fits around his neck, and he hides it with scarves and turtleneck sweaters. He uses an image inducer like Kurt, of course.Due to the fact he hasn’t been able to socialize much since he was a kid, a lot of his social skills are very awkward, and he comes off as shy and weird even when he’s TRYING to fit in very hard with the other kids, he’s just so happy to be here but they all think he’s a weirdo. It’s also hard for him to prove his worth in combat to the X-Men since like...he doesn’t really have any powers? He’s just really good at living in an aquatic environment. In the comics he has a lot of training, but in Evo I think he’d lack that, and thus be pretty useless in a fight unless it was underwater. Kurt would see him as a kindred spirit, and go out of his way to be his best buddy, take him to social events, etc.Lockjaw - Of course Lockjaw has to be included! Since there’s no Terrigen Mists though, I think he’d just be a normal dog! Still probably an unusually large bulldog, like the size of a pit bull or Saint Bernard, maybe he’s a mastiff, but he’s not cow/hippo-sized like the comics and show. He also cannot teleport, but maybe he has some kind of teleporting device put on to him by the Attilan parents as an emergency portal back home should the kids ever need it. 

[jwoodhouse08-blog]

I’m starting to write books, when dogs aren’t laying on my keyboard, so I thought I would share some of my creative writing pieces.    

I’m quite obsessed with the dark ages and have written the beginnings/bits & pieces of some journaling of noble women whose lives I invented through a game.

                                                        -  1 -

 I was so close to being someone that mattered in her eyes, at least it seemed that way, but truly I do doubt that my mother could ever be pleased. She was sick when I was sent off to be the handmaiden to Baroness Ophelia, but I was certain then she would get better. Apparently her fever overcame her within the night, and just like that, I am without a mother. Why is it I think of her bitterness in the wake of her death? The viper of her tongue, the storm of her temper? She was so often in a huff, but not always. And gods, Lillith isn’t even going to know what it’s like to have a mother at all. I asked father if he would remarry and he said it wasn’t any of my business but if I must know he thought he’d done his bit in having children, and expected his daughters might give him a grandson to inherit. “You mean to marry me off just after mother’s in the ground?” I asked bitterly.

              “Why dally? She’s not getting any warmer,” father said, unmoved.

              On the eighteenth of August during a gnarly heat wave, I met my husband.

He was superior in form, which wasn’t hard to be with I fair and maidenly. I hadn’t know him but I would soon and often and intimately, such thoughts made me squirm with great insecurity. I had scrutinized my body in the mirror the night before, flickering between pale freckles, examining the curls in my pale pubic hair. I did not expect my husband would inspect me soon, a somewhat foolish smile plastering his face. He tipped a long hat at me, greeting hollowly, “My Lady.”

We were married within a fortnight and I was greatly disappointed and invaded, shortly after a sobbing disappointing mess wishing so badly to write my mother. I settled for drafting a letter to my old nanny in the wood closet, ignoring my husband’s tepid apologetic knocking on the door, I wanted so badly for him to go away.

We did not recover well from such despair, I couldn’t look to him without wrinkling my nose with disgust, but still I did my wifely duty and no more. I should have not been surprised to find he was finding comfort in a Mistress, Miss Eleana Finch, a butcher’s somewhat portly wife who fondled his genitals and put up with the tickle of his mustache hairs for far longer than I could ever endure. Bless her, I thought, hating my husband and then they had some sort of falling out. Suddenly there were letters, to me, his sisters, his aunts, one to his grandmother, accusing my husband of immoral and disquieting things. He has sullied our family name so quickly and so deeply.

Somewhere amid the throes of disappointing me, my husband has made me pregnant. My bones ache and I am weary and fat, and there are far too many opinions, and swarming hands. Then the labor pains come and they are unlike anything I have ever heard of, threatening to take me early in the most immoral of way, fonts of blood spilling from between my legs. Somewhere along the way the bleeding stops, and I have a daughter they swaddle in white and rub liquid from the face of. She looks very inhuman to me, much like an angel might and in this hazy post blood loss world, I find her strangely beautiful, and decide to call her Angela.

Lady Angela was only six months along when Ophelia invited me back to her attendance at court. I was dying of boredom and glad for the escape, promising to visit in only a weekend, sure Angela would forget me entirely. Between carriage rides to the court and home, I received word of my grandmother’s passing. Shortly after I happened upon a divine opportunity, a position for Indra under Ophelia, as one of her handmaiden’s had passed away. My husband proved not entirely useless when he inherited an estate from an elderly Uncle, a wondrous place called Portmouth. I thought perhaps the tides had changed and took up with our second baby, just to lose her at birth, my heart as hollow as my womb, as empty as my arms.

Sweet Angela turned three, a proper Lady, far blonder than me, then my sisters Indra and Karlai were married to respective husbands in turn. When I became pregnant again the fear visited me anew, I spent nine months in great anxiety, only to have a healthy boy who we called Taylor. The long awaited grandson, my father sent me a letter expressing his great pleasure and intentions to visit soon. It wasn’t until Mona was married a year later he took the opportunity to meet his grandson, apologizing and saying he had little interest in babies but was happy to slap the family name on it. My husband called him uncouth, but I am used to father. Mona seemed so young to be getting married, like a child herself. I hope she does not find her nuptials so uncomfortable as I did, I was sure to warn all my sisters – it was my obligation, really.

Karlai had a baby, following in my footsteps of new husband, new baby, another grandson for my father at that. I’m sure Stuart and Taylor are going to get along swimmingly when they’re older boys. We vacationed shortly after, on my return I received a parcel from my father, a birthday gift – a beautiful necklace that I will treasure always, I will be sure to pass it on to Angela.

My other sister, Mona, had a boy and then another, my own daughter Angela turning nine, and Taylor almost a proper man at six. My grandfather fell ill but bore through it, giving me great prospects of death as a corpsely old woman.

After much discussion it has been all but decided that Taylor will be pursuing the path of religion. It isn’t that I disagree, I think it is a great field for my son, and just as honorable as taking to the battlefield – but to be told, rather than asked? I am, after all, only his mother. My husband says it isn’t like that, he knows only I am maidenly and my heart will weep for him and I may miss him too much to do what is best for him! He is such a stupid man. It was terribly painful seeing Taylor off with his father for the Monastery, he seemed so young and round faced, it is a small mercy he didn’t beg me not to go. He promised he would write. Angela was terse, she went to be alone after.

                                                                              1613

Great gods, I was written by father and Lillith has turned up in the family way! She isn’t married – no, not in any way. Father is besides himself with grief, hasn’t said anything about the father which leads me to believe he is either married, or worse, destitute. I wrote Lillith a letter but she has not written me back at all, I suppose I shouldn’t have scolded her so, it cannot be easy to carry a baby in secret just to turn it out. Still, to be so selfish. She has hurt our family so,

1614

              The world has it out for my sisters it does seem. Indra had been writing through the aid of another, complaining of nearsightedness causing her headaches but it seems things have progressed. She is completely without her vision now. Her poor husband did not sign on to be married to a disabled woman…I worry for poor Indra. There is little protection for women like her in our world.

              Shortly after the plague on Lillith and Indra, misfortune visited my bedside too, I delivered a stillborn son. It was an ugly exhausting labor and he was a violent shade of purple. I dare speak no further on it, it is horrible and I think of it far too often. Still I seem big, like he is inside, worse still at times I swear I feel him kicking. I will pray.

                                                                                              1615

              Angela is becoming a most reformed young lady, she’s made me proud in her studies and showed great prowess with music in particular.

              I knew the chances were I would not be so lucky as to outlive all of my sisters, but to lose Karlai in only her twenties, while she’s having a daughter? Elaine won’t even have a mother now. I wrote her father offering guidance – no reply.

              I wouldn’t even talk about my pregnancy, didn’t tell the husband, not until he said I’d gone and gotten fat and I told him he’s a dim-wit and there’s a baby coming. “Well no one told me,” he said in such a storm. I haven’t ever been fat, the loser. “You really having a baby, Mama?” Angela asked, I confirmed as much and no more was said on it. Ellen came in a rush, my labor nightmarish but quick, she was born in hours, really, though I’d been bedbound for months with various ailments. It is good to have a baby again.

              My husband was called to arms and all but slaughtered like a pig brought in by the ring of the dinner bell. He had no business in combat but things grew, they grew so ugly. There was a draft and – and now I am without a husband.