#the implication is that he’s so much of a powerhouse that he could end us with a thought if he wanted

[wall-maria-around-ba-sing-se]

totally just spitballing here but I feel like it might be because Z was actually posed as a threat for a lot of the game and so the difference between his implied threat and his actual threat is disappointing;

meanwhile Luxar has a ballasack neck for the entire game, talks like a Saturday morning cartoon villain, and flip flops between cutscenes on whether or not he actually believes in the “human DNA is poison” legend that his entire anti-human crusade is based on

Kind of baffles me that people think Z is the worst Xenoblade main antagonist when this guy exists.

[cerastes]

I know Chalter somehow is still a touchy subject in this game but I wanted to know something. So people are really gonna complain that much about her to end of days and yet just shit on new casters for being created because Eyja gets a pass? And haven't kept up but I think Eyja got a medic alt? So now she's there as well.

Mmm I think this is a case of A Pretty Widespread Opinion (Chung being disliked) vs prevalent opinions in different circles (Casters in a game with Eyja). And they have different flows to each other enough that I really don’t think — and have never before seen — they should be discussed in the same breath unless it’s to compare and contrast them. So let’s do that.

Long story short, Chung the Hung isn’t just a strong unit, she’s a strong unit that is also a one trick, one skill pony, that trick being Fucking Everything — DEF decrease, insane damage, true AoE, skill cycling & effective uptime, ease of use — you’d need to severely crush most maps or at least significantly reduce their difficulty. This unit is also a bikini-clad alternate version of a lore-heavy character armed with what basically amounts to a poluted water Super Soaker. On top of that, she completely outstrips the existing members of her type instead of being a stronger but not objectively superior alternative. Furthermore, her availability is limited. And finally, she very well set precedent that HG could start releasing lazy, gamebreaking limited units as much as they wanted. Chung isn’t just a case of “unit strong”, she carried with her implications. Opinions on her were mostly unified.

Eyja is a different case: She’s a powerhouse from launch, and while she does invalidate a lot of other Casters as the objectively superior option — worse of all Splash Casters, in conjunction with how undertuned Splashers were even without being compared to Eyja — it’s vastly different to look at a unit from launch be weirdly overtuned, likely not intentionally, than it is to look at a unit after more than a year into the game be weirdly overtuned and limited, definitely bloody intentionally. What’s more, Eyja is strong, for sure, but the opinions on her vary depending on who you ask: A Gamepress brainrotted zombie will probably parrot to you that she’s the best of the best forever, while other player groups will tell you, well, yeah, she’s strong, but Goldenglow and Ebenholz are probably more relevant nowadays. Ebenholz was called a garbage Caster for a while because he wasn’t as fire and forget as Eyja. Nowadays, anyone with the ability to rub braincells together will tell you that Eben is an insane boss killer and also helps a ton with general use with his S2.

Yeah, you’ll keep hearing “Eyja is better tho” forever, doesn’t mean it’s true, and it’s not really an opinion that is necessarily championed by everyone. Probably Gamepress zombies or y*utube grifters will parrot that and thus cast a wide web of influence, but, I mean, you can also look at high risk/max risk clears or runs of high waves IS3 or any sort of high end content, and you’ll find a lot of other units. Eyja included, of course, since she IS good, but not an untouchable — or untouched — god in the way some people might say she is, which is not everyone. “Eyja is the only good Caster forever” is something I personally hear from people that don’t play the game anymore but feel like bitching about it, personally.

Mind you, I like Ch’en a lot and don’t care for Eyja, so these aren’t biases, it’s simply what I’ve observed.

[the-antiapocalyptic-man]

A daughter of the dark dimension; a man who loves peace so much, he’ll kill for it; a master martial artist with a metahuman aversion field and a love for flaming hot cheetos; a quantum superman re-discovering his own humanity; a detective who has no answers, but merely a Question; and a genius inventor with a legacy to uphold and a mystery to solve

These are the Living Assault Weapons; this is the L.A.W.

a disparate group who often found themselves at odds with each other, none of the weapons strictly like each. Zelda Zanetti took a spot on the insistent of her mother Senator Eve Eden. Peacemaker seeks to atone for the crimes of his white supremacist father, the White Dragon. Sonia Sato is on a quest of revenge against the man who killed and betrayed her father...supposedly. Nate Adams is the ostensibly leader and powerhouse, but his eyes look towards other worlds, journey that will lead him and Zelda down a strange route. Renee Montoya does what she can honor her friend, Vic Sage, and seek true justice in a world of corruption and half-measures. Ted Kord is just trying to survive the group of violent, unstable weirdos he’s found himself involved with.

Among this group are a couple odd companions: Goff, an alien butterfly with good intentions but extremely questionable methods, the strange angel on Chris’s shoulder; and Skeets. Ted isn’t sure what’s up with Skeets, but the thing can’t ever seem to get dates right, and almost all of them seem to be future events. It also seems to miss someone very much.

Things came for a head for the group during an altercation with a competing team, Waller’s Task Force X, in which Chris murdered the Suicide Squad’s handler, setting off a chain of events that would change all of their lives forever. At least, those it didn’t end.

[notes]: so some of the takes here are a bit more obvious than other, but let’s run through them real quick.

Nate we’ve seen, but here he’s got a new “paint job” so to speak, as well at the implication that he eventually takes on the identity of Tim Zanetti (Breach in canon), linking him to...

Zelda! So this is Nightshade, with a couple drastic tweaks: Eve is pushed up a generation to serve as senator in place of her own father, while Zelda is technically an OC, but also very clearly a composite of Nightshade with HBO!Watchmen’s Sister Night. Tim Zanetti is now the equivalent of Cal Abar.

Chris is literally just John Cena, though now he’s part of LAW when he kills Rick Flag instead of betraying him from within the same team, since the Starro incident is much earlier and tied to Wonder Woman’s proto-JLA instead.

Sonia Sato is basically her canon self in a version of the DCEU costume, thought I revised her backstory so “Rip Jagger” was Yoshio Sato’s student who betrayed him, and she’s on a quest to avenge her father...kind of. There’s a twist on that I want to noodle on a bit, but otherwise Rip is now at very least a traitor, sidestepping the white savior trope unfortunately baked into Judomaster’s original concept.

Ted’s also pretty simple, though I wanted his costume to look a little more comfortable and homemade, almost Venture Bros-adjacent. Skeets is obviously a nod towards Booster Gold, but I thought it would be fun for him to find a malfunctioning version first and then meet Booster some time after leaving LAW and taking a spot on the League.

Renee’s inspired by her Final Crisis costume she wears on like five pages? Idk, I really love that look. I was originally going to use Vic because he maybe fits the time period this is taking place a bit better, but decided against it so I could give him a different kind of story later. (Or sooner. Technically his design is already done, but I might rework it since he’s not on this team anymore).

Also, idk if it needs to be addressed, but I did give everyone except Nate and Sonia guns. Zelda, Ted, and Renee have more sci-fi ray guns that do weird stuff, but Chris does have a straight up desert eagle. I actually didn’t realize I’d done this until I was uploading the initial sketches to color, but I think it makes sense for differentiating LAW from the League and its offshoots. This is essentially a Suicide Squad competitor drawn from a different pool of candidates and working for General Eiling instead of Amanda Waller.

Given the nature of the team and personalities involved (as well as LAW’s irl comic being fairly short-lived) it shouldn’t be a surprise that this group does uh...not stay together long.

[yuta-nakamots]

misfit - j.sc

Pairing - Sungchan x Reader

Genre - Horror/Thriller, Angst, Fluff

Warnings - serial killer, character death, violence, murder, implications of sex

Summary - A murderer is on the loose, killing with no regret and ending the lives of more than just a few people. No one knew who it was, turning against each other upon even the slightest bit of doubt. Maybe you should’ve been more careful with who you chose to trust. 

Word Count - 5.3k

A/N - this is inspired entirely from a dream I had a few days ago. I've added very little to what I saw in my dream aside from Sungchan as the male lead. yes, I am freaked out by this and yes, I am scared of writing for Sungchan bc I don’t know his personality all too well but as an ‘01 liner myself I have faith in us

Written for the #NeoHalloween writing festival hosted by @nct-writers​. Check out the masterlist here.

For five months now, your town has lived in fear. A serial killer was on the loose and he was known by the name of Hickleback Jack though no one knew where the name came from or who had started it. Each month, the population of your town voted on the local community board to have one person executed who they thought was Hickleback Jack. So far, not a single guess was right leaving five innocent people dead. Well, five plus an extra thirty, give or take.

See, the thing about Hickleback Jack, was that every time the votes came in at the end of the month, he could see just who voted for him and targeted them as his next victims. He killed six of those people over the following month, adding up to seven dead each time the town guessed incorrectly. It was getting to a point where no one trusted each other, no one dared to say anything against each other in fear of being accused or in fear of being the next to fall mercy to Hickleback Jack.

Not much was known about this killer other than his appearance. He’s male with a tall and broad figure though he always covers his face with some kind of mask. His common weapon is known to be an axe. People have claimed to have seen him late at night under the dim orange glow of the street lamps but he was never caught by the authorities, leaving everyone restless and waiting for the next kill.

The night was still young when you had gotten home from school and it was a Friday night which was basically an open invitation for you to call over your boyfriend, Sungchan. He had transferred in to your university at the start of the school year, and had ended up sitting next to you during your sophomore seminar class, leading to the start of your friendship with him.

A simple friendship soon blossomed into a relationship after Sungchan’s bright personality began shining through his somewhat intimidating exterior. You lived without fear when Sungchan was around, the love you had for him blocking out anything else in the world that wasn’t him.

You sat on your bed, your homework spread out in front of you while you held your phone up to your ear. “Do you want to come over tonight?” You ask as soon as he picks up your call.

You hear rustling on the other end of the call before Sungchan clears his throat and speaks, his voice husky from sleep. “Sorry, can you repeat that?”

“I said, do you want to come over tonight?” You paused and heard him yawn. “You fell asleep after class didn’t you?” You smiled to yourself thinking of your boyfriend’s handsome face as he napped after getting back to his apartment once he finished with his classes for the day, which was a common occurrence now that the semester was in full swing.

“Mmm,” he hummed in thought, “as much as I’d love to, I really shouldn’t have taken that nap because of how much homework I have.”

“Oh, that’s okay, do your homework first,” you reassure him, “maybe we can hang out some other time this weekend. It’s only Friday after all.”

“Definitely. Are you starting yours right now?” Sungchan asked.

“Yeah, I’d rather not wait and end up cramming on Sunday night.” You laughed, knowing that said event has happened more times that you’d like to admit.

Sungchan let out a noise of agreement. “I’ll let you know when I’m done with my homework though.”

“Same here.” You promised.

“Alright, let’s get to work and I’ll talk to you soon.” He told you.

“Sounds good, love you.”

“Love you too.”

With that you hung up, eager to start on your homework in hopes of getting to spend more time with your boyfriend. You actually had a lot of it this weekend thanks to molecular biology, and you figured that if you couldn’t talk to Sungchan, who had yet to take the course, you called up your study group discord instead. Luckily, many of them were in similar situations as you, faced with the daunting task of completing all the worksheets assigned during class earlier in the day.

“Okay so was anyone paying attention during the lecture today?” Your classmate Chenle asked.

“I know Yeji fell asleep so you’re in the same boat as her.” You interject, recalling the sight of both of them knocked out in their seats as the professor droned on about the functions of the structures inside cells.

Yeji let out a gasp of shock at how blatantly you called her out. “I may have fallen asleep but at least I still know that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.”

“Everyone knows that, Yeji.” Your other classmate Jaemin said, his voice void of enthusiasm.

“Okay, Jaemin, we get it, Mr. Serious.” You teased.

“Yeah, this is a biology study group, not a bible study group, lighten up a little.” Chenle jokes.

Jaemin scoffed, “sometimes I feel like I’m the only one who’s trying to do well in this class.”

“Well not all of us enjoy the taste of coffee with six shots of caffeine in them.” Yeji argued back.

“Guys,” you called out as Jaemin and Yeji started arguing, “guys!” They finally stopped to hear what you had to say. “Let’s just get this over with sooner rather than later because I know none of us want to be awake at 2am trying to figure this out alone.”

“Agreed,” Chenle said, “so question three, the one about the DNA mutation, how is missense different from nonsense?”

“Missense is where one of the bases mutates and changes to something else, therefore changing the protein level,” Jaemin explained, “nonsense is the same theoretical concept except it spells out one of the stop codes.”

Yeji let out a groan, “can you slow down, or like, I don’t know, use easier words or something?”

Most of your night passed by like this and before you knew it, it was already nearing midnight and you could tell your classmates were just as exhausted as you. “I think we should call it here.”

“Definitely,” Yeji confirmed, “tomorrow morning at 10?”

You all let out similar answers of acknowledgement before Chenle spoke up. “The poll closes on tomorrow night so make sure to vote if you haven’t already.”

Because of how long this has been going on for, everyone was already on the same page once someone mentioned the poll or voting. “There were only five kills this month so I wouldn’t be surprised if the last one is announced tomorrow or Sunday morning.” Jaemin chimed in.

“All the recent kills were related to the university so I know a lot of people are suspecting someone in our age range.” Yeji informed the group.

Jaemin let out a chuckle, “if the killer actually is a college student, I wouldn’t be surprised since it is getting close to the last wave of midterms and then finals so that would explain why the victims fall into the same category.” The chat fell silent at that. “I’m just saying that he’s getting a little lazy by grouping all his kills like this.”

“Jaemin, are you sure you’re not the killer?” Chenle asked with a laugh at the end.

“Guys, I can promise you that I’m not the killer, I swear on my life.” Jaemin promised.

“Alright, that’s enough detective work for tonight, I’ll start the call again around 10 tomorrow. Sounds good?” You conclude, wanting to curl up under your covers already, which is exactly what you do once everyone wishes each other a good night and hung up.  

Morning came a little too quickly for your liking, the bright sunlight flooding into your room through the window and forcing you awake. Checking your phone, you saw that it was 9:30am, meaning you had some time to spare before your next meeting with the bio study group, along with a notification from Sungchan that he had sent well after you had fallen asleep.

Sungchan > y/n

2:14am: Just got rescheduled to work opening shift tomorrow.

2:15am: Didn’t finish my homework but I can stop by at your house after work with my stuff and we can hang out and have fun once we’re both done?

Your heart warmed at how he stayed up late trying to finish his homework for you and that he suggested the idea of coming over after his shift at a small local restaurant finished just so the two of you could be together even if you’d be focusing on your own tasks for a while.

y/n > Sungchan

9:32am: Sorry I didn’t text back earlier, I just woke up!

9:32am: But of course you can come over, I might even be done with my work by then ;)

You plugged your phone to let it charge and left it on your nightstand as you made yourself breakfast downstairs. The house was quiet since your mom already left for work and you dad worked a night shift job and was probably sleeping at the moment. It was strangely serene as you prepared yourself a bowl of cereal though the calm was rudely interrupted by the sound of your ringtone coming from your room.

Deciding to get it after eating breakfast, you poured the cereal in first, thinking about the way Sungchan had told you before that he liked to pour the milk first and let the cereal soak up the milk. “It makes it super soggy and I like it.” He tried reasoning with you, to which you only raised an eyebrow at.

Just as you put the milk carton back into the refrigerator and was about to take a bit of your cereal, your phone started going off again. You placed your bowl onto the kitchen table and made your way back up to your bedroom to see what it was that was so important this early in the morning. Checking the notifications, it was Yeji who had been calling you so you shot her a message.

y/n > Yeji

9:39am: What’s up?

Yeji > y/n

9:40am: I just dreamt that it was Jaemin who was the killer

9:40am: please call me right now I feel like I’m going to go insane

You heeded her words and called her immediately. “So what happened in the dream?”

“I don’t know, I just remember being chased by a man with an axe and I was running to the school to try to see if I could get help but then I tripped and when I turned around, it was Jaemin.” Yeji blurted out without a single breath in between.

You paused, trying to take in all the information she just threw at you. “Do you have any reason as to why you think you dreamt this?”

“The way he was talking last night,” she stopped to catch her breath, “he spoke so in detail that I couldn’t help but overthink like, what if he is actually the killer? What if we’re next?”

“Well, you can vote for him in the poll if you want but personally, I don’t think it’s him.” You think of your next words carefully. “I’m not trying to invalidate your thoughts but Jaemin does come from a reputable family-”

“Y/n, it could be anyone. Family doesn’t matter. We have no information on the guy, we don’t know what economic class he’s in or anything.” Yeji interrupted.

You took a few seconds to gather your thoughts before speaking again. “That is true, but we all know Jaemin wants to be a surgeon right? He’s in all these difficult classes and he maintains such high grades-”

“Okay but how is that relevant?” Yeji interrupted yet again.

She was getting on your nerves but you held yourself back. “Listen, I’m just trying to say that with the amount of time and effort he puts into school, I don’t think he could be the killer. The killer plans his kills well enough that we just can’t find him and that probably takes just as much time as school does for us.”

Yeji took a while to respond though when she did, her words surprised you. “Now you’re starting to sound like the killer.”

“Yeji, I can promise you that it’s not me. I’m just as scared as you are in this whole situation,” you reasoned, “I’ll even vote for Jaemin if it makes you feel better.”

She let out a sigh across the line. “Okay fine. Maybe a kill will happen while we’re on the call and it’ll clear Jaemin’s name.”

“I think you’re letting it all get to you, just try not to think about it for a bit.” You advised.

“But am I really overreacting y/n? We live every day in fear of being the next victim. Tomorrow is not promised to any of us, so am I really overreacting?” You look over at the clock on your wall as she spoke, realizing that it’s already 9:55 and you should probably start the call already.

“No, I don’t think you’re overreacting, I’m just saying that constantly thinking about it to this extent isn’t good for you. We still have school to pay attention to,” you explain, “speaking of, I’m gonna start the call now.”

“I can’t just stop thinking about it that easily but whatever, let’s just hope that we’re not associating ourselves with a murderer by doing this.” You can only shake your head as you start the call.

Chenle joined immediately followed by Yeji. “Good morning ladies, President Zhong here. How are we doing on this fine day?”

You rolled your eyes even though a smile spread across your face. “I’m doing good, Mr. President. Ready to finish off these worksheets.”

“Good, good,” Chenle affirmed, sticking with his act, “and you, Miss Yeji?”

“Fine.” She shot out.

Chenle let out a quiet chuckle, “someone’s a little grumpy this morning. Maybe we should’ve met a bit later.”

“No, let’s just get this over with.” Yeji grumbled just as Jaemin joined.

“Great! Now that the head brain cell is here, let’s get this meeting started.” Chenle exclaimed.

Four hours into your meeting and eight out of ten worksheets later, your phone begins to ring with an incoming call from Sungchan. “Hold on guys, I gotta take this call. Hello?”

“I’m downstairs, come pick me up.” You couldn’t deny the butterflies that spread throughout your chest upon hearing your boyfriend’s voice. You got up to let him in though you certainly didn’t miss the teasing coming from your laptop as your classmates yelled about you and Sungchan.

As you made your way downstairs, you froze halfway down the stairs, seeing Sungchan already in the kitchen eating the bowl of cereal you forgot about. “I’m guessing you made this for yourself earlier and forgot to eat it.” He said through a mouthful of food.

“Babe, no, don’t eat that, it’s like five hours old. The milk is probably stale.” You exclaimed, worried about his health if it really did go bad.

Sungchan only shrugged as he took another spoonful into his mouth. “Tastes fine to me.”

You rolled your eyes before turning to head back upstairs. “Join me in my room once you’re ready, you cereal monster. Leave the dishes in the sink too.” As you returned to your room, you couldn’t help but wonder how Sungchan got in though you figure he’s probably seen you use the spare key under the doormat a couple times since you often were too lazy to get your own keys out of your bag most of the time.

When you sat down in front of your computer again, Jaemin had just finished explaining the answer to the problem you guys were working on earlier so you chimed in asking him to go over it again though he was quickly overrun by an excited Chenle. “Is Sungchan there?” He practically yelled.

“No, not yet, he’s eating some soggy cereal downstairs.” You inform him.

“Alright, let me know when he comes in.” Chenle says, unphased by your boyfriends’ odd preference of cereal.

Halfway through Jaemin’s explanation, Sungchan came into your room, placing his bag down at the foot of the bed before he took his jacket off and stripped out of his work uniform. “I heard a door open, is that Sungchan?” Chenle shouted over Jaemin once more.

“I never get to fucking speak in this group.” Jaemin huffed, at which Chenle muttered a quick ‘sorry’ back.

“Yes, Chenle, Sungchan is here,” you announce, looking over at the boy in question who had just finished pulling a shirt over his head and winked when he saw you staring at his body, “he seems very flirty today, must be because of you, Mr. Zhong.”

Sungchan sits down next to you and places a kiss on your cheek, smelling oddly of cleaning supplies, but you pay no mind to that, figuring he must have used them at work. “How’s it going Chenle?” He asks, though his attention is only on you and he places his hands on your cheeks and leaves a quick kiss on your lips.

“I’m gonna pretend I didn’t just hear the two of you kissing,” Chenle remarks, earning a laugh from Sungchan, “but anyways, you should come back to the basketball team. We miss our giant point guard, you know.”

“Nah, I’m too busy these days. I already have work and school plus I still want to spend time with y/n.” He commented as he shifted to lie on his stomach next to you.

“Man, who knew a girl would be all it took to make this dude throw his love for basketball out the window.” Chenle taunted.

“Love makes you do things, you know how it is.” Sungchan replied, resting his head on your thigh.

Running a hand through his hair, “anyways,” you divert, “back to what Jaemin was saying about meiosis.”

“Thank you, y/n, I thought I’d never be able to speak again.” Jaemin uttered pointedly. “As I was saying, the main difference between meiosis and mitosis is that it creates four daughter cells instead of two like mitosis does.”

“Hey guys, wait, did you see the article that just came out?” Yeji inquired. “It’s another death.”

There was a moment of silence before anyone said anything. “No but you can read it to us.” Chenle concluded.

“Okay,” you could hear the deep breath Yeji took before reading the article, “it says here that the body was found at around 1:20pm in an alley between the lower-income housing apartments, the cause of death is assumed to be by Hickleback Jack using his axe, and the estimated time of death is anywhere from 12 to 1pm.”

“Wow,” Jaemin began, “so he just killed out in broad daylight.”

“Not gonna lie Jaemin, but I thought you were the killer.” Yeji let out blatantly.

You were mildly shocked at her bluntness, but not surprised given how stressed everyone was. “Me?” Jaemin gasped, “Yeji, you know I’m pretty much Rapunzel with how much time I spend in my room studying. And when I’m not studying, I’m either editing pictures or playing video games.”

“It’s true,” Chenle confirms, “he really doesn’t leave his room. We had a sleepover once and I felt like I was becoming a hermit like him.” Sungchan slightly wheezed at that, sending Chenle over the moon. “Did you hear that? Did you guys hear that? Sungchan thinks I’m funny!”

“Yeah yeah, enough about me being a hermit. But Yeji,” Jaemin addressed, “why did you think it was me?”

Yeji hesitated before responding. “I just- the way you were talking the other night...I don’t know. It just sounded so specific and detailed that I couldn’t help but think that it could have been you.”

“I don’t think a murderer would simply reveal his plans like that, you know.” Sungchan proposed.

“Well yeah, but it’s just the way he spoke, it was like he had things organized...you know what? Let’s forget I said that, but I know the four of us are clear.” Yeji resigned.

Sungchan sat up, “wait, why am I not cleared?”

“Y/n, what time did he call you?”

“Like 2-ish.”

“Exactly. Sungchan, you don’t have an alibi, as far as we know, until 2 and the time of death is stated to be 12 to 1pm.”

“I was at work earlier in the day, though.”

“Can you prove it to us?” Yeji pressed on.

“Yeah, my coworkers can vouch for me.”

You were quite surprised at how aggressive Yeji was being towards your boyfriend but you didn’t see any reason to stop her since she had very valid arguments. “Send a screenshot of it to Chenle and we’ll verify you from there.” Yeji commanded.

Sungchan slouched down a little next to you. “I don’t have the numbers of my coworkers though.”

“Alright, then you’re still on the list of suspects.”

After finishing all the worksheets for microbio and ending the call around 3:30, Sungchan pulled out his laptop and started typing away at a half-finished lab report for his human A&P class. You fell asleep curled into his body, his warmth and the constant tapping of his keyboard lulling you to sleep.

When you woke again, you immediately noticed the absence of a large boy next to you and frowned to yourself. As you came to, you heard noise coming from the kitchen and identified your mother’s voice followed by Sungchan’s. Noticing the time on your phone, you guess that he was probably helping her prepare dinner since it was already past 6 and your family ate around 7 before your dad left for work.

By the time you made yourself presentable and came downstairs, your mom and Sungchan were already setting the table. “Looks like our sleepyhead finally woke up.” Your mother exclaimed, making you grimace. “You didn’t tell me Sungchan was staying over,” you were about to open your mouth to say that you didn’t know that either but you weren’t given the chance to do so, “it’s okay, especially with that killer still on the loose, it makes me feel better knowing there’s someone around to protect my baby.”

You looked at Sungchan as if asking him for answers though he seemed to only avoid your gaze, reluctantly taking the seat across from you at the dining table. Your father walked in, delighted to see your boyfriend. “Sungchan! Good to see you, how are things at school?” He asked as he joined you all at the table.

“Okay for the most part, I haven’t taken to my writing class all that much though I enjoy my other science classes.” Sungchan answers.

Your dad hums in approval while you stare down Sungchan, trying to get him to look at you. “Remind me again what you’re majoring in again?” Your mom asks, Sungchan whips his head around faster than you can make eye contact with him.

“I’m majoring in forensics.” He states.

“Interesting, interesting,” your father contemplates, “you know, y/n here wants to become a pediatrician. The two of you are practically opposites in the science field, one dealing with crime and the other dealing with children.”

Sungchan let out a laugh, “I guess opposites really do attract then.”

You hated how well he entertained your parents and you hated how much they liked him. For the rest of dinner you tried to pin him down through your stares and even played a game of footsie with him but nothing seemed to work. It was only once the two of you were back in your room getting ready for bed that you were able to talk to him.

“Look, I’m not mad at you or anything, I’d just appreciate it if you talked to me first before just telling my parents that you’re staying over.” You told him as you went through your skincare routine.

Sungchan jumped onto your bed as he apologized. “Sorry, I just thought that since both of us finished our homework and with the killing today, it would just make sense for me to stay over.” He opened his arms, inviting you in as you stood up after finishing your night routine.

You copied him, jumping into your bed straight onto Sungchan, effectively pushing the air out of his body. He grunted as your weight fell onto him though he still wrapped his arms around your waist and shifted you up the length of your body so your face was level with his. “Hi” you giggle, shy from the sudden close proximity.

“Hey.” He says back with a smile as you slide off him, leaving an arm and leg slung over his body. “Tired?”

“No, not really, I took a nap earlier since someone didn’t care to wake me up.”

“You looked too cute, besides, you need all the rest you can get.” Sungchan explained, using his free hand to squish your cheeks. “If you’re really not tired then I know a way to make you tired.” His hand found its way down to your butt to further emphasize his point.

“Ew, no, not now.” You quickly refused, moving his hand up to your waist. “Just go to sleep and I’ll probably fall asleep after you anyways.”

“Oh wait,” Sungchan said, reaching over you to the nightstand for his phone, “did you vote on the poll yet?”

“No, I almost forgot.” You groaned, lazily reaching for your phone as well.

You pull up the local community board and enter your information, looking at the list of all the citizens, pondering on who you’d give your vote to. “Who are you voting for?” Sungchan asks, looking over at your screen.

“I really don’t know.” You tell him, though truthfully, you had someone in mind.

Thanks to the nap you had, you really couldn’t fall asleep no matter how hard you tried. You ended up dozing off occasionally but you’d wake up half an hour later only more irritated than when you first fell asleep.

You don’t remember what time it was, but at some point, Sungchan had removed himself from your grasp, unaware that you were still awake, though you made no effort to stop him thinking that he was just going to use the restroom and come back. Five minutes passed, five minutes turned into ten, then twenty, and you decided to check on him once thirty minutes had passed.

The house was completely dark, not even the light from the bathroom was on. You checked inside in case Sungchan had maybe gotten hurt and passed out, but he was nowhere to be found. After searching almost all the rooms in your house, you had yet to find any sign of him. After a bit of thinking, you had wandered out to your mothers’ greenhouse thinking that maybe some time with the plants would help to calm your mind.

It did anything but that.

Not long after setting foot inside of the small shed, you heard screams coming from nearby, getting closer and closer. You watched from the inside of the tinted glass as three girls ran through your backyard and into the next property. You couldn’t help it that you were frozen to your core, knowing who was coming.

You saw his frame as he jumped over the fence from the other end of your yard, axe in hand, running through the open grass and you thought he might have noticed you until he stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes glued on you. You should’ve ducked down as soon as the girls ran past but it was too late now and there was no second way out of the greenhouse.

You knew you should have tried to run, maybe smash through the glass panelling but something in you told you that maybe, just maybe, you’d be able to stop him. Steeling your nerves as he crosses the threshold of the greenhouse, you call out to him. “I know who you are.”

“I’m well aware of that.”

It was as if your world was crumbling before you, the once so comfortable relationship you knew felt fake, even though Sungchan, your loving boyfriend stood right there. The only difference was that you knew who he really was.

“Why?” You start, “why did you kill all those innocent people?”

“It’s all for fun, y/n.”

“What do you mean ‘for fun’? Those are real people you know, people with families and friends who miss them dearly.” You nearly cry out as he continues to approach you.

“You see, life is a game.” He paused his words as he came to stand in front of you. “Laws are nothing but a social construct that us humans follow mindlessly until our own demise.”

He takes a step closer to you, but you stand your ground. “Laws are what keep us safe and keep us happy. They allow us to lead our lives peacefully with others-”

“They are nothing but limits.” He closes the distance between the two of you, an arm wrapping around your waist, pulling you towards him, and you allow him to do so. “My dear, sweet, y/n. If only you weren’t so smart, I wouldn’t be faced with this dilemma.”

“You wouldn’t kill me.” You were trying to persuade him just as much as you were to yourself. “You’d never.”

“Oh? And what makes you think that?”

“You love me.”

“I do, I love you so dearly, but now that you know who’s behind all the killings, there’s no way that I can let you go.” You felt his axe nudge the back of your leg as he brought both arms around you. To an outsider, it would look as if a couple were having a conversation, but for you, this was a fight for your life.

“Take off the mask.”

“Why should I?”

“So I can talk to you properly.”

He took off the mask without much more convincing, his normally handsome face now distorted by the crazed look in his eyes. People often say that the eyes are the windows to the soul, and if they really were, then Sungchan didn’t have a soul.

“I swear to you that I won’t ever tell anyone about this, about you.”

“I don’t believe that you’ll keep that promise, my dear.”

“You know how much I love you. As long as we can stay together, I will not say anything.”

“This is not a tale of beauty and the beast. I am no beast to be tamed and there is no happy ending to this story.”

“Sungchan, no. You don’t mean that.”

“Do I really not mean it, or is that what you would like to believe? Something tells me it’s the latter.” He held you tight against him with one arm, the other raising his axe. “It’s truly a shame that your beauty must go to waste, you were truly a wonderful person both inside and out but I’m afraid that your life must end here.”

Before he could prep his swing, you pulled away and grabbed the nearest pot, launching it at him, the ceramic breaking against his head making dirt rain down upon both of you.

Not even a second passed before his axe was flying at you, lodging itself into your neck, nearly severing your head from your shoulder. You should’ve been thankful really, thankful that Sungchan had given you a quick death, not his usual route since it was so painless and easy for both the victim and the assailant.

He liked a struggle, but for you he made an exception out of love so that the last thing you’d see was him, your lover, before everything stopped.

[p-ssypink]

I'll never hold tangentiality against you: I'm the one who always finds a way to relate religion, history, and current events to every discussion we have. Also, understand I audibly laughed as soon as I read Levi's name. I knew by some twist of fate this is where we'd end up, and that will never garner any complaint from me.

Specifically regarding the premise that characters like Eren and Floch are more easily accessible in terms of relatability because they are pillars of the ease of becoming a cog in the machine and upholding the structural violence characteristic to these systems of power I think it's important to acknowledge their accessibility lies in hyperactive emotion. Propaganda lives in pathos disguising itself as logical and ethical, ethos and logos; that is not to say that emotion, emotional responses, or being emotionally inclined is bad; we see Armin throughout the show be simultaneously one of the most outwardly emotional, ethical, and logical people in the show; but to say that being exposed to constant emotional propaganda disguising itself as reason gives way to people seeing purely emotional characters as reasonable. Floch acted solely from a place of misplaced fear; Eren from misplaced anger. Two emotions that are consistently weaponized by colonial powerhouses as being inherently rational.

Something I always think of when this topic presents itself is the second red scare: the US government making patriotic propaganda posters where they utilized imagery of the Hydrogen Bomb along with the verbiage of "civilization vs communism: who will win?" to dehumanize participants of the communist party by divorcing them of their humanity through the implication that they were uniquely dangerous monsters who could commit unspeakable acts of terror unto US Americans via nuclear weapons all the while they were bombing Hiroshima.

[Sidebar: think about Godzilla vs Superman and where they came from. They are both beasts that developed from nuclear fallout: one a terrible monster, the other a patriotic superhero. Historic propaganda that has bled it's way into the mainstream because of just how powerful their individual sentiments were, yet many don't know they are actively consuming propaganda]

These things are not rational— propaganda is not rational. Yet it's conditioned us to weigh emotion heavier than logic when it comes to rationality, which is incredibly dangerous. That is, in part, why I think people dislike and project onto Levi's character so much. Because he doesn't prioritize his emotion over what is logically the best course of action. He never had the chance to debate the effects of moral purity because he was too busy surviving and helping other people survive. He didn't have the luxury of getting caught up in his own head about it, so he understands the people who have had to do the same. He understands Annie, and Reiner, and Bertolt, because he was, to a degree, Annie, Reiner, and Bertolt. He has had to kill indiscriminately to survive all his life, and he sees the mercy these three have all had for their comrades and the people within the walls throughout their tenure in the military and can understand the dilemma they've been faced with far better than anyone. He's lived it in the underground. He's lived it in the scouts. He's one of the only people who was deeply disturbed to learn that he was killing people for years when they found what the titans really were. Hange was fascinated, Erwin, hopeful.

Levi, to me, reads similar to Huckleberry Finn. Poor kids from poverty stricken backgrounds that were intimately faced with the cruelty of the world from the moment they took their first breath, kids who didn't have the time, the education, or the resources to worry about anything but how they were gonna survive and how they were gonna help others do the same because they learned very early on that we can't make it in this world alone, and you wouldn't want to anyway because that means hurting people just as you've been hurt. Both are brash, blunt, and incredibly bad with words, but were going to do what needed to be done to protect those who they could to their own detriment.

Because of this being paired with an incredibly expression-repressed background, people like to project this modern holier-than-thou, incel behavior onto Levi's character because they see him as deeply disconnected from life around him and, therefore, only concerned for his own skin. They relate lack of emotional expression to aloofness and apathy because they, themselves, manifest their lack of emotional expression in those ways, but the fact of the matter is Levi is deeply in tune with his emotions and we see them displayed, albeit mostly subtly, time and time again. From his threatening the Female Titan to his conversation with Hitch in the Stohess district to holding Mikasa back when Reiner and Bert kidnapped Eren.

They misunderstand his self sacrifice as haught and arrogance, yet fail to see, as you've said time and time again, the blatant disregard he displays for his own life in favor of everyone else's.

https://www.tumblr.com/makiruz/751280466269716480/and-another-thing-aot-isnt-saying-jews-are-human?source=share

PLEASE fucking read this cosmie

lol, just... why? What is wrong with people? This entire assumption that the Eldian's are meant to be some sort of allegory for the Jews is based on nothing more than the fact that they're kept in internment camps in Marley (a detail shared by countless oppressed groups throughout history), and they're identified by wearing armbands embroidered with an emblem of the nine titans (again, hardly unique to the Jews). What people don't seem to GET is that AoT pulls from multiple sources and historical incidents of oppression, war and prejudice, and that the entire story is an amalgamation of all of these things. It isn't meant as a straight allegory for any one event or group of people, it's a melting pot of various, real-world events and people and history, used to ground its themes and messaging in concrete reality. There's multiple other details which also draw parallels between the Eldian's and the Germans, and obvious resemblances between the Yeagerists and Nazi's. I don't understand how people can't seem to get it through their thick-skulled heads that AoT isn't an allegory at all, it's an original piece of fiction that has parallels and similarities to real-world events because it's dealing with real-world shit like prejudice, bigotry, oppression and war.

The titans themselves are just a metaphor for how all people are capable of being monsters. They aren't meant to be seen as literal monsters, and certainly not meant to be some statement about how Jews have some horrible "genetic quirk", like this idiot says, that allows them to be "mind-controlled" by their oppressors and made to do evil things. Do people know how unhinged that sounds? Yes, I'm sure Isayama really believes Jews have some special genetic quirk that can be used to turn them into giant, man eating monsters. Again, AoT is a fantasy. A totally fictional world where magic exists. Any resemblance to real life is, again, simply because, while it's a totally fictional world and deals in fantastical elements, it's dealing with very real things in its themes and messaging.

The monstrosity in AoT is human nature itself, and the human condition. The ones who act the most like monsters are the higher-ups in Marley. Their deliberate cruelty, driven by their prejudice, selfishness, power-mongering and pettiness, are what make them monsters, not the magical ability to turn into literal giants that eat people. In the end, the titans are just victims of human monstrosity.

I swear, that bullshit IGN article, or wherever it originated from, sure did it's job of brainwashing the susceptible idiots in this fandom. Nobody can think for themselves, these days. They get told something about something, and they just believe it without applying any kind of critical thought or nuanced examination.

I really wish people would use whatever small amount of grey matter they actually posses, instead of continuing to spread this kind of baseless, intellectually bankrupt drivel.

[worstloki]

Part 1

--[official naming and legal rights ceremony for Morgan]--

Tony: you know what would be really funny? Pepper: Tony... Tony: THINK about it Pep- how can you say no to this once in a lifetime opportunity? Pepper: Rhodey and Steve. We already decided. Tony: ok fine. FINE! I'll just give up the chance for our daughter to have two literal powerhouses watching over her Pepper: one of them isn't even alive! Tony, signing the paperwork: he was the dodgy one anyways! Pepper: oh g*d tell me you didn't Tony: too late. our daughter's got 1 thunderer and 1 deceased trickster listed as her ~*godparents*~ and no punishment you come up with will ruin this moment for me Pepper: its fine, this is fine, it wont even be legally binding since you can't have two male godparents listed so its invalid anyways, haha this is fine, everything is fine,,, Tony: i actually heard from Thor that Loki could be female if they wanted... Pepper: ... Pepper: TONY!! -- [later] -- Rhodey: dude did you seriously put LOKI down as a legal guardian for your kid instead of me Tony: well I wanted Thor but he insisted that I put Loki down too... something about honouring Asgardian tradition...? Rhodey: tradition is fine but isn't he DEAD? Tony: sure Thor thought he was dead 5 years ago, then again 4 years ago, and then again 2 years ago... but if he was alive he would have already, statistically speaking, shown up by now Rhodey shaking his head fondly: okay i forgive you for replacing me with Thor and his deceased brother, but the next kid has my name on it. I've already called dibs with no takebacks, okay? Tony: one kid is already keeping me busy enough, honeybear... 

---[3 years later]---

Tony: And. I. Am. Iron Man... *snaps* Thanos' army: *disintegrates* Tony: *taking his last breathes* Pepper: you can rest now... Loki: *shoves Pepper aside and pulls the gauntlet off Tony* Pepper and Rhodey and Peter who were standing around tony: LOKI ?!? Dr Strange: no SToP you cant juST do THAT- Loki, taking out the time stone: why not Dr Strange: if you change anything now it'll ruin the timelines!!! Loki, reversing time on Tony and bringing him back to life: that's not how time works, Dr. Supreme Dr Strange: It’s Strange, and- Loki: Yes, I agree, it is strange that you decided to let Earth's best hero die when literally every infinity stone is rigHT HERE Dr Strange: but its wrong to misuse their pow- Loki: Then it’s a good thing I'm evil and don't care Dr Strange: buT- Loki: no need to worry, I'm only helping you heroes out this one time because apparently while I was stardust Tony chose to give me partial ownership over his child so now i am bound to care for it  Pepper, remembering that Loki is legally Morgan’s godparent: oh my g*d   Rhodey: well, I bet Tony didn't expect this Tony, speaking in his sleep: frickity frackity Loki, looking at Tony disapprovingly: I agree.  --[a week later]-- Tony: okay, so like, i don't want to seem ungrateful for you saving my life, but i only wrote your name down to get Thor - Loki, annoyed: Yes I figured as much Tony: -yes but if you've saved my life I was wondering exactly how bound you are to help and how far you're willing to go to watch over her Loki: does this have anything to do with the 18+ end-of-the-world-celebration party at the end of the week? Tony: maybe Loki: *stares at him* Tony: ...okay, yES… do you think you could make sure Morgan is alive and well and safe while I go? It’s clear you don't appreciate being forced to be her godparent so if you do it I'll even get your name off the legal documentation by the end of the week and you can leave after Loki: If you so much as try to remove my name when it is THOR that has been neglectful of his duty and has been ignoring the implications of having a child under their name then I will have no choice but to hit you over the head with stormbreaker Tony: oh. okay. no name removing then that's cool i guess just please don't smite me or i'll dob to thor that you're going to try touching his shiny axe and have are regressing on your journey to goodness  Loki, pulling stormbreaker out of his pocket dimension: I’m afraid you’re too late to warn him about the potential theft of his favourite beer opener. I will, however, watch Morgan over both days of the party, IF I also get put in charge of the spider child and Wakanda's princess Tony, doing his best to ignore the huge axe: how do you even know about them, weren't you snapped for the past 5 years?? Loki: I understand that they're not allowed to attend the party either and will not have any parents or guardians available to care for them at the time... Tony: you're not going to try any funny business right...? even if you wont hurt Morgan how do i know you wont lay a hand on the others?? I cant just trust you to watch over a bunch of kids no matter how much bruce and thor vouch for your sanity Loki: you can trust I wouldn't risk scarring Morgan like that if you don't trust i wouldn't intentionally attack a bunch of literal children Tony: hmm okay I guess I’ll just cross my fingers and hope you don't relapse into villainy  Loki: wonderful. inform the children that I will pick them up 2 hours before the time of the party. Tony: need me to get you a ride? Peter lives close but Shuri lives just a tad bit out of walking range Loki: no thanks I'll be fine

---[at the party]---

Pepper: YOU LEFT HIM ALONE TO CARE FOR MORGAN?! Tony: he’s been doing a fine job of it while we’re around, and besides, it’s not like I left her with him alone or anything! Pepper: No, of course not Tony, that would be too simple, no, you left LOKI in charge of not JUST our child but also Peter, and the PRINCESS of Wakanda too Pepper: do you have any idea how badly this could work out?! putting aside the political disaster that would occur if something happened to Shuri the ethical considerations alone make strangling you very tempting right now Rhodey: Pepper, Tony would never do anything to put Morgan or Peter or even Shuri in danger... he knows they're kids, right Tony? Tony: Peter can benchpress a mag-lev and Shuri can design one in 60 seconds flat. I’m not concerned because they'll be fine even if he does try to pull off anything even 2% evil! Pepper: *not impressed* Tony: some sort of Asgardian binding magic was involved so he literally cant try to inflict any harm on Morgan, and that includes emotional distress just for the record, believe me, i checked Rhodey: what do you mean 'i checked', what did you do man Tony: Morgan wanted ice pops the other day so i told her to ask Loki Pepper: TONY he's a WAR CRIMINAL Tony: so anyways Morgan went up to the ally we’re kindly hosting - who literally takes residence on whichever couch is closest to Morgan by the way and it’s super funny to watch him move between couches every time she leaves the room - and he's reading when she asks if he'll get an ice pop with her Tony: and I've tried talking to him when he's reading and it does NOT end well Pepper: and you sent MORGAN to do it anyways?? Tony: and he said no at first, which was predictable, right? but then Morgan got sad and a bit teary-eyed and she asked again and when he saw she was sad he literally jolted in pain and he put the book aside and got up so fast to immediately lead her to the freezer to get some  Rhodey: so, what? he physically cant say no to Morgan or some wacky voodoo thing compels him? Tony: That is the conclusion I have come to with my findings, yes. It seems he can’t intentionally do anything to hurt her in any way. So Morgan and her new friends are completely safe, sweetie. Pepper: I'm leaving to make sure she's doing okay... Tony: I also installed cameras just to make sure no one gets murdered without thorough evidence to convict him, if that helps? Pepper: If you can get the live feed to go to my phone I'll consider staying Tony: deal.

--meanwhile, in Tony's house--

[Peter Shuri Morgan and Loki are wrapped up in blankets and watching The Hobbit. Loki is doing some paperwork and Morgan is drinking orange juice while Peter and Shuri share some popcorn] Peter: so are we going to talk about how we're watching a movie with the person who attacked New York with an alien army a few years ago or not Shuri: he was not acting of his own volition so i thought we were excusing that Loki, looking up: you are literally the first person to have mentioned that Peter: but Mr. Stark said that-- Shuri: footage of the 2012 attack conclusively showed that his eye colour changed before and after he had been subdued the final time, which was a phenomenon associated only with being under the influence of the sceptre containing the mind stone  Peter: he does magic though! it could be a trick or the cameras could've been too grainy to tell Shuri: They weren't. But the changes in his behaviour and speech patterns also indicate that he was being controlled or at least coerced to some extent. He's also sitting next to us doing paperwork and watching Bilbo sneak around a dragon. Loki: Congratulations, you are officially the only person from this planet for whom I can confidently vouch is not a- *covers Morgan’s ears* -complete imbecile. Shuri: Thank you. Peter: well, she is a genius Shuri: Yes I am, in fact I'm a genius that has the approval of Loki, which is even better, because I'm assuming he'll have some neat ideas on how to make a fool of T'Challa in my lab on camera more often Loki: I may have some experience in the making-a-fool-out-of-my-brother department Shuri: wonderful! we can brainstorm after the movie :) Peter: I don't have a brother to prank :( Loki: I can fix that Peter: ...what Shuri: yeah, what?? Loki: oh I meant that if you wanted I could legally become your godparent and then you'd have Harley and Morgan as prankable siblings Peter: you know what? I'm actually considering it Shuri: how angry do you think T'challa would be if I made Loki an official Wakandan by saying he's my godfather because I think that would get a hilarious reaction out of him Loki, nodding: According to Asgardian tradition claiming a godchild forms an irrevocable bond and he would have to accept that his sister has someone who pulls off legendary pranks keeping her safe from any attempts at his retaliation Peter: that’s so cool and i'm definitely accepting your offer Shuri: and I'm joining in because i have a folder filled with evidence that Loki was mostly innocent of the New York attack but some videos of us together pulling off harmless pranks would make fine contributions to it Loki: wonderful! Loki, holding out documents and a pen: just sign here, there, and there, Peter: wait you've been sitting next to us filling out godchild adoption forms this whole time??? Loki: well actually I started out filling out the godparent-removal forms because Thor is an irresponsible buffoon and i refuse to share custody with him Peter: do you think i could get ~*Thor*~ to adopt me- Loki: Nopity nope. Too late. You've already signed the forms so you're stuck with me, and I refuse to share any of my friends with him Peter: aww you called us your friends Loki: you have no proof i said that Shuri, pointing to the camera in the corner of the room: but that hackable camera does >:) [peter jumps over the sofa and is going to retrieve the camera for shuri to get the blackmail material when he gets hit by a pillow. shuri says 'hey that was not nice' as she hits loki with her pillow. peter throws the pillow he has at loki. morgan yells 'PILLOW FIGHT!!' before joining in, and by the time they settle down again all of them have missed the ending of the film and have to rewatch the last 20 minutes before drifting off to sleep together on the floor in a patchwork of all their blankets]

---[later at the party]---

Tony: sorry pal, I'm a certified genius and even I don't know how she managed to carry around and slip Morgan’s papers to you when that dress has no pockets and her purse is barely large enough to fit a small-to-medium-sized wrench Rhodey: it was probably the same way she switched your drink for Thor's godchild renouncement forms when you weren't looking Tony, whispering: I think she has CEO paperwork powers Rhodey whispering back: you're only noticing now?

[pepper and tony get home the next day]

Pepper: i still cant believe you left Loki near the kids Tony: and i still cant believe you didn't know how to check the live feed and decided to ignore me the entire night instead of bothering to ask. clearly deep down you trusted my judgement and the decision to leave the kids in Loki's capable, mischiefy, slightly-insane but apparently reformed hands.

[yelling is heard from the living room and Tony and Pepper run in to find Loki Peter Shuri and Morgan sitting around wrapped in blankets and playing Mario Kart and exclaiming their thoughts very vocally. when they are noticed all the kids freeze and stare at Tony. Loki mumbles something about telling Tony he lost the bet since he did in fact manage to keep everyone alive and at that point even Pepper is staring (glaring) at Tony.]

Tony, realising the kids have bonded™: oh no. what have i done.

[stillchaoticlogic]

Falling: Chapter 4

Pairing: Raihan x Reader

Falling in love is easy…

It’s falling out of love that’s the hard part.

As you try to run from old feelings you meet someone who is determined to bring the spark back into your eyes. Raihan isn’t sure what happened in the past and he doesn’t care. He’s got one shot to make you his and he’s going to take it.

First Chapter: Here

Second Chapter: Here

Third Chapter: Here

Lose You to Love Me

*One Year Ago*

Five challengers…

You had five challengers today and that last one almost got you. Pure exhaustion is the only thing your body processes at the moment. Your team is exhausted and you are beginning to wonder if you asked too much of them today. 

You couldn’t relinquish your title though… Not yet…

Kukui walks into the locker room with his usual smile and excited greeting. 

“That was amazing! You were insane out there!” He praises and you preen under his words. 

“Thanks, Kukui! That last one almost had me…”

“Nah! I knew you wouldn’t lose, that’s why you’re the champion!” he walks up to you and puts his hands on your shoulders giving them a gentle rub.

“You’re really tense though… Maybe you need a spa day or something?”

“Yeah, I think that would be good for me and my team.”

He nods, “I’ll set one up for you! I can’t have my champion getting burnt out!”

In your head, you heard something else entirely. That had been happening a lot lately, you wish he would refer to you as his. You want more from him than just friendship and the immense guilt that comes with those thoughts. You adore him, but you know he’s married. Happily married. Also, his wife is awesome and she’s a friend of yours. Which only amplifies your feelings of guilt.  

“Want to grab dinner? Burnet is staying at the lab tonight. We could get sushi?”

And then he does that…

“Yeah, let’s get dinner! I’m starving!” you readily agree. 

How can you say no to him?

“Great! Get cleaned up and then we’ll head out! We’ll go to our favorite place, yeah?”

“Yeah…”

It’s not even anything big that you miss, it’s the little moments like sushi with your best friend, that you had fallen in love with, that you miss the most. You roll over onto your side and heave a sigh gazing at the red numbers of the cheap alarm clock. It’s not even 11 O’clock and you can’t sleep. You tap Rotom to wake him up and apologize as he buzzes sleepily to life. 

“Call Ku-” you stop yourself short, you can’t call him anymore.  

“Call Raihan.”

“Hello?” questions a sleepy Raihan, “Evrthin’ okay?”

“I woke you didn’t I?”

“S’okay….”

“I can’t sleep…”

“What’s wrong?” His voice sounds clearer as he begins to shake the sleep off. 

“You want to get a pizza?”

“Are you inviting me over?”

“...yes…” you murmur hesitantly, unsure of what you want from him exactly. 

“I want meat lovers and I’ll be there in about 20 minutes.”

You smile to yourself as you pull up the pizza app and place your order for two pizzas. You aren’t surprised when Raihan shows up at your door with the pizzas in hand. 

“He was in the lobby so I just thought I would grab them for us.”

“Thanks… for coming… for everything…”

“No problem! Now, what do you want to do.”

You love that he doesn’t ask what is wrong. That he’s ignoring the way your eyes are a little puffy from crying earlier. That he doesn’t ask questions that you don’t want to answer. He is just here. 

The two of you walk over to the little sitting area in the suite you are in and flip through the new releases. You both eventually settle on a comedy and you don’t really think about it as you rest your head on his shoulder as he drapes his arm around you. You don’t think about the way you curl into his side and you don’t think about how peaceful it is to just sit next to him and laugh at the absurd movie playing before you. You don’t think about the entire pizza the two of you devour each. You don’t think about anything at all except how nice it is that he’s beside you. 

You feel peace for the first time in a long time. 

You wake up the next morning to the sound of a phone ringing. You glance up at Raihan as he stirs and you both blink into the early morning sun shining through the curtains.

“Hello?” Raihan’s voice is gruff with sleep and you suppress a shiver as you bury your face into his neck. You try to convince yourself it’s from cold and not the way his voice sounds coated in sleep. The arm that is already around you gives you a squeeze and you glance up at him. 

“Yeah… Umm…. I’m with (Y/N)...”

“What?! What do you mean you’re with (Y/N)?” You hear Leon say through the receiver.

“She called me last night and asked me to come over so I did. We fell asleep while watching a movie.”

“Okay…”

You pull the phone from Raihan and hold it up to your ear, “What time are you coming? Do you think you can bring Raihan a change of clothes and his toiletries?”

“Umm… yeah… I can… do that… What is happening?” Leon asks in confusion.

“Nothing is happening Leon, we just had a movie night.”

“Okay…”

“Don’t say that like you don’t believe me,” you grumble to the man on the other end. 

“Yes, ma’am!” Leon says somewhere between jokingly and seriously. You aren’t quite sure where he lands, you don’t think he knows either. 

You untangle yourself from Raihan and stretch before you head into the separate bedroom.

“Once I’m done showering you want to go?!” You yell from the bedroom. 

“Sure! You want breakfast? Coffee?”

“Yes to it alllll! Could you get me oatmeal though? That pizza isn’t as good of an idea this morning.”

You hear him laugh, “You got it, my queen! Anything else?”

You smile to yourself at the nickname, or is this a pet name? You aren’t sure at the moment. 

“Nope, I’m good!! Just hurry back! We have to catch a Dreepy today!!” You exclaim all traces of last night washed away in the morning light. 

“Of course, we have to find you a couple of new powerhouses today.”

You giggle at the thought. “I really need to let Cerberus and Luna out for a run today too. Joker too…” you muse aloud to yourself as you pick out your outfit for the day. You can’t help but wonder if Raihan would like it. 

Pulling on a pair of fitted black jeans and a deep blue top, you grab your belt and head out into the living area where Leon and Raihan are whispering among one another. 

“Are you keeping secrets from me?” You ask with a smirk making the duo jump in surprise. 

“Nope! Just guy stuff!” Leon answers his hand rubbing the back of his neck self consciously. 

“Okay…” you murmur before addressing Raihan, “The shower is all yours.” 

“Thanks!” He says with a smirk as he passes you on his way to the bathroom. 

You fix Leon with your gaze and notice the way he swallows subtly. He just might be intimidated by you, this could be fun.

“So what were you two talking about?” You ask as you make your way over to the table and pick up the oatmeal and latte Raihan picked up for you. 

“Nothing… you know just… stuff…”

“Ummm hmm…” you hum as you hold his gaze bringing the coffee to your lips and taking a sip. Your favorite drink swirling on your tongue. The first few times Raihan brought you coffee was a generic order, but this is your order. You blink in surprise as you gaze down at the cup in your hands. 

“You look surprised,” Leon says a sly smirk sliding onto his face.

“It’s my order…” you say as you regard it with surprise.

“Raihan is pretty perceptive if he cares about someone he likes to show them.”

“Cares about them?”

“Yep, he really likes you, just remember that when you call him late at night…”

“What are you implying Leon?” You ask with an edge to your voice. 

“Nothing,” he says as he holds his hands up in surrender. 

“I’m not using Raihan if that’s what you're worried about.”

“I didn’t say it was, I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“Perhaps think about your implications than before you voice them.”

“Why did you call him last night?”

You pause for a moment as you gaze into your food in thought. 

“Do the thoughts in your head ever get so loud that the only way to quiet them is to pull yourself from your head and into reality?”

“...Yeah…”

“Things got too loud with my past last night and Raihan’s been really sweet about things so I figured...maybe… just him being there would make me feel better… and it did. It’s been so long since I haven’t had to hide myself or feelings from people and it’s just nice. He’s a great person and I really like just hanging out with him.”

Leon blinks at you in surprise. 

“I see… I really didn’t mean-”

“It’s fine, you were looking out for your friend,” you say dismissively as you take a bite of your breakfast. 

The silence that settles over the two of you is heavy as you check the news. You know you will be able to release your team for some much-needed training today, they aren’t used to being this inactive. Once Raihan has finished his shower you all head out into the Wild Area. The minute you step onto the grass you release your team.

Havoc your Garchomp, Ember your Ninetails, Aurora your Aloan Ninetails, Joker your Zoroark, Cerberus your Houndoom, and Lunatik your Midnight Lycanroc are all excited to be out and about. Both guys release their respective teams and you watch in amusement as they race around or play fight. You all leisurely make your away towards the Lake of Outrage.

You are surprised when a storm begins to brew out of nowhere and suddenly you are caught in the rain. Cerberus and Ember are especially displeased with the water and demand to be put back in their homes with Aurora following along quickly behind. The change in weather doesn’t seem to bother Havoc, Joker or Lunatik as the three of them rush ahead of you all only to run back a few moments later. 

“This is perfect!” yells Raihan.

“Perfect?!” you yep back holding the hood of your jacket over your head against the wind. 

“Yeah, the perfect storm for a Toxel…”

You smile as you rush towards the tall grass and begin to look around, it isn’t long until you stumble across several of the little guys all pouting about. You squeal as you take out your poke’balls and throw a few at the surprised baby pokemon. You check the stats to find out the information after deeming them acceptable you send them to your box. 

“Why did you catch three of them?” questions Leon as he comes up behind you. 

“I’m going to send one Hau to congratulate him on being the new champion.”

“You’re pretty close to the kid aren’t you?” Raihan asks. 

“I’ve known him for several years and I have trained him on many occasions.”

“Did you train him to take your place?” Raihan asks. 

“Smart boy,” you say with a smirk as you glance behind you. 

“So you knew you didn’t want to be champion anymore?” Leon throws the questions over his shoulder from the lead. 

“I did. There was a point last year where I knew I needed to start grooming my successor and I chose Hau. I don’t know that he ever really caught on until he beat me in that official match. It’s hero worship you know? You always feel that those you look up to will always be better than you.”

“Yeah... well... you’re still the queen in my book,” Raihan says with a wink as he glances over his shoulder at you. His canine winking at you with his smirk. 

“Thanks, Raihan… The question is: when are you going to ask for that battle you’ve been itching for?”

“How do you know I’ve been itching to battle you?”

“I’ve seen the way you look at Havoc. You want to battle him so badly.”

He laughs, “You caught me! I do want to battle you! Maybe when you’re settled we can go to the ring? Make an event of it?”

“You want your crushing defeat on national television? I can roll with that…”

He barks another laugh, “I may not be so easy to beat…”

“You’re cute when you’re optimistic… I bet you’re downright adorable when you’ve been defeated…”

“I know this is technically supposed to be trash talk but you just called me cute and I’m going to leave it right there. Small victories you know?”

You threw your head back and laughed at him right as a large lake comes into view. You aren’t surprised when a Gyarados pops up out of the water and roars before diving back under. You feel the adrenaline kick up and you love it. 

 “This is crazy!” you yell as you peddle on the water bike racing the guys to the other side. Once there you look around at the pokemon in the area and you squeal in excitement. Several types are wandering around that you have never seen before. Quickly you begin to poke around the area with the boys following close behind you. Raihan is leaning against the wall as he watches you hang out in the tall grass. You are very still as you take in the pokemon and the new surroundings. You spend the next few hours asking Leon and Raihan about the pokemon that you come across that you don’t recognize. That is until you see a Dreepy floating close to a nearby rock peeking out at its surroundings. 

Cautiously you creep up on the baby dragon and giggle before you engage it with a pokemon suited for catching it. It isn’t long until you’ve worn it down enough to capture it. 

Pleased with the two baby pokemon you’ve caught today you all decide to continue your trip to Hammerlocke. You head back to the lake and hop onto the bike before you head across the lake. Gazing into the blue sky you feel that new feeling of peace that you are slowly getting familiar with. You aren’t prepared when out of nowhere a Gyrados leaps from the water right below you and sends you under in a matter of seconds. You are disoriented and you aren’t sure which way is up as you tumble about below the currents and the sea snake circles you. You can feel your chest tighten as what little air you have is slowly depleted. Vaguely you are aware of the Gyrados getting closer to you until an attack hits the water and it rears back before rushing towards what you assume is the surface. A blinding light catches your attention in the water and you notice floating beside you is Joker your Zoroark. He quickly grasps your hand before he makes his way to the surface. 

The moment you break the surface of the water you inhale the biggest breath of air of your life. You are dazed and disoriented as you notice Raihan’s Flygon battling the Gyrados as the trainer himself rushes towards you on this bike. You see pieces of your own floating in the water near you, but you brush them away as Raihan hauls you onto this bike. His arms wrap instantly around you before he checks for injuries. 

“Are you okay?!” he asks as he hugs you to him once more satisfied you aren’t in any imminent danger. 

“I am…” you wheeze out. 

“Are you sure?”

“Not really… I’ve had many life or death situations on my travels but this was the best yet…” You lean against Raihan in an attempt to rest and before you really know what happens, your already foggy brain shuts down and you pass out in his arms. 

Notes: So sorry for the delay in stories! I’ve finally found my stride again and I’m feeling better about life. Thank you so much for checking on me and the well wishes for my kitty baby! If I didn’t answer it’s because I had a lot going on for a while that I needed to deal with, but you all made me smile nonetheless! Please comment or send me a message to let me know your thoughts! 

[azdoine]

"you can't write a kickass training montage to prepare to win someone else's heart" to be honest, I wouldn't mind reading a fanfiction where instead of toning down Sakura's crush to make her "take training seriously", it is amped up a bit and she's just a bit more unhinged she gets tunnel-vision about being strong enough to take care of any threat to Sasuke or anything that might come between them, and it has the same effect. Girls in her class are competition for potential future Sasuke girlfriend? Crush the competition by being stronger, or by intimidating them. Slightly older girls seem to think Sasuke is cool or cute? Clearly she needs to up her game. Sasuke's whole clan was wiped out? Instead of "I need to date him so we can repopulate the clan" or "I'll just stand by his side being supportive uwu", she immediately starts to try and figure out a way to eliminate that threat first, somehow. Clearly it wouldn't be healthy for her or for Sasuke but adults in that world would probably just chalk it down to "girls being girls" and think it's cute or funny that he's got a very dedicated "fangirl", but at least there would be room for character developement as she either grows out of that phase by herself or someone manages to get through to her that she's basically treating him like an object without feelings or she becomes so obsessed with her goal of getting stronger to help get rid of the threats that she ends up forgetting about Sasuke altogether, idk

I know I say "getting stronger" but since she clearly can't compete with chakra powerhouses, maybe she could pull a Kabuto and use medical chakra in unethical ways or something

HELL YEAH

pedantry ahead, though, because tbh, aside from the Senju and the Uzumaki, IDK if the concept of a “chakra powerhouse” even exists in canon - b/c chakra is just a mixture of physical and spiritual energy. so Sakura having low chakra reserves is just an expression of the fact that she’s not very fit, and the Senju/Uzumaki having super-chakra is just an expression of the fact that they have overwhelming levels of vitality.

the disconnect between physical ability and chakra reserves is pretty much fanon, and ppl typically point to Lee to justify it, but he’s just “talentless” (i.e. intellectually or learning disabled) at ninjutsu, not physically or metaphysically disabled. really, he shows that anyone can get ridiculously buff (and thus get ridiculous reserves of physical energy in return, by implication)...

lmao im sorry anon, i can’t commiserate with you about sakura badfic without losing track and deep diving into naruto fanon. my bad

[classpect-crew]

Class and Purpose

I’ve heard a lot of people theorize about the purpose of each Class in any particular session. As you can probably imagine, I have a few thoughts about that. Let’s get into it, shall we? (Edit: this took me nearly two hours to write. It’s almost 7am. I need to sleep.)

First, we ought to start with the Witch and Heir. Now, all the Witches we’ve seen in canon seem to have a very similar beginning. They start off fairly passive (lowercase “p” this time) and have quite a lengthy maturation arc, not unlike Pages. However, once they hit a certain breaking point when they come into their powers, there’s a sort of “oh, shit” moment when everyone else is forced to reckon with one of their most unassuming players swiftly transforming into a powerhouse. With this much power at their disposal in such a short period of time, you may be wondering what they’re going to do with it. Well, historically speaking, they’re going to massively fuck things up for the session, whether intentionally or not. If the game determines that a brick shithouse of a player is required for some ultimate endgame, that means things are going to go very, very wrong. Ironically, the Witch may very well be the one to save the team from total catastrophe. It will usually work out in the end. Usually.

Now, the Heir is a bit of a different story. As one whose Aspect coddles and protects them in desperate times, the Heir is destined to become their Aspect in one way or another, for better or worse. After all, when a sullen, hungry Aspect like Void was influencing Equius, he ended up vanishing into irrelevance. Even his blood was used to obscure information in Rose’s tome. A similar fate befell Mituna, and he became the embodiment of sacrifice—of Doom. Heirs are doorways for their Aspects to affect the universe. They are the closest any living being can get to a distilled, pure form of an Aspect. If your session has an Heir, pay very close attention to the implications of their Aspect, because this will almost always determine how they’ll be used most effectively. An Heir of Blood, for example, is going to be your hard-working people-person, and you’ll want them in the center of your team, keeping everyone grounded and focused on the task at hand. Take heed: the appearance of an Heir is a sign that one Aspect in particular is going to have a strong influence on the session.

Next, we’ll discuss the Mage and Seer. A Mage’s role in a session is to unravel the mysteries of their Aspect, which means they’ll take on an advisory role. Their appearance marks a significant need for in-depth understanding of some kind. Every session has its riddles and puzzles, but those which possess a Mage need the mind of a scientist in order to parse out the most convoluted secrets. Perhaps the session is filled with difficult or confusing Aspect-related mysteries that must be taken apart and examined for an endgame victory to be possible. Unfortunately, we just don’t know enough about Mages in canon to speculate a whole lot more about what their presence in a session might mean.

The Seer has a similar purpose as the Heir, though to a lesser extent. While the Heir embodies their Aspect, a Seer is guided by theirs in subtle ways. The appearance of a Seer as an adviser ensures that the ultimate path to success will be either helped or hindered by their Aspect, and it’s up to them to figure out the extent and purpose of their Aspect’s sway in their session. This Passive Class tends to be assigned to otherwise active players who wish to exert their will over the universe, but must learn to step back and take on the role of a guide. Many will balk at this, but most will eventually realize that their true strength comes from trusting others to take their advice and push the team forward.

Now, onto the Maid and Sylph. The Maid, as I’ve discussed previously, begins their journey at the mercy of their Aspect’s most negative qualities. As you can imagine, a Maid’s purpose is to gain control of their Aspect in a way that allows them to “tidy it up” and maintain its integrity. The appearance of a Maid in a session almost guarantees that their Aspect is going to be fraying and torn, in need of their mending expertise. You can certainly expect a lot of difficulties to arise in the realm of their Aspect at the beginning, since they’ll lack the ability to smooth out those bumps for quite some time. Once the Maid realizes their potential, however, stand back and allow them to do their work. Chances are, they know what needs to be done to succeed, and you don’t want to stand in the way of a Maid and a stitch to be fixed.

Ah, the Sylph. As one myself, it’s fairly easy to imagine what my purpose in a session would be. Similar to the Maid, a Sylph’s job is one of restoration and healing, though they tend to start out with much more confidence toward their Aspect than the Maid. The presence of a Sylph in a session is a handy sign that their Aspect is likely going to be lost or broken at any given point, and therefore in need of restoration. This could be metaphorical, or quite literal, depending on the situation. As a Sylph of Time myself, it’s easy to imagine bringing back an amnesiac’s memories by “restoring” the time they lost, or healing a wound by speeding up time around it. Beware, however, as a Sylph’s energy isn’t limitless, and even the most dedicated healers need time to recuperate, or else they risk overexerting themselves and burning out. (Trust me, “Sylph Burnout” is a very real thing.)

Well, the first half is over, so now it’s time to talk about the Prince and Bard. As destroyer Classes, one might wonder what these might mean for their Aspects. That’s quite simple: both indicate an overabundance of their Aspect that must be pruned away. The Prince, in particular, is infamous for destroying their Aspect within themselves before turning their crusade outward. Too much of one Aspect upsets the balance, after all, so it must be purged to allow its opposite to rush in to fill that gap. If your session has a Prince, buckle up tight, because any semblance of their Aspect that exists is going to be an irresistible target for their princely purge. Although this is probably a good thing overall for the session, it’s going to be rather painful at the onset. Princes may “get the tumors out,” so to speak, but they’re likely to leave the patient bleeding on the operating table afterwards.

Having a Bard in your party is a little bit like inviting a chimpanzee to a D&D session: it’s exciting and unpredictable at first, but after a while, shit really starts to hit the fan and you’re left wondering “who invited this guy in the first place?” Truthfully, though, the Bard can be both a game-changing player and the one who dooms the entire session. In rare cases, they’re both simultaneously. Their Passive nature makes it difficult to predict what they’ll do next, since they act based on the whims of both their Aspect and its opposite, but it’s fairly certain your session will be rife with discord and conflict, due in part to the Bard. It’s sort of the universe’s way of throwing a curveball in the form of a player to challenge the team even further. A Bard is both a buff and a nerf to your team. Use them wisely, and never, ever turn your back on the Bard.

Well, well, it’s about time we talked about the Knight and Page. A Knight’s appearance has a very obvious consequence: whatever their Aspect is, that’s what your session will be lacking. Dave’s session was very, very short on time, Karkat’s had virtually no natural cohesion, and Latula’s was filled with big personalities with no regard for the consequences of their actions. This is because the Knight’s job is to use whatever they can get of their Aspect and exploit the hell out of it. Give them an inch, and they’ll turn it into a mile without breaking a sweat. This is especially handy when there’s precious little of their Aspect to go around.

Now, having a Page in your session may sound like a recipe for dead weight, but that would be an incredibly unfair assumption. Rather, a Page has access to a great deal of exploitative power as they reach the climax of their development. The presence of a Page is a very good sign indeed, as long as the team is willing to put up with their very slow and steep maturation arc. Their Aspect is one that will be opened up to be used by their teammates in game-breaking ways, provided they’re patient and encouraging toward the Page. Good things come to those who wait, and wasting the potential of a fully realized Page is not a mistake you want to make.

Last but certainly not least, we have the Thief and Rogue. Thieves get a bit of a bad rap in canon, but it’s safe to say that the Thief will become a powerful player in any given session. Their appearance signifies great conflict and strife, which they’ll almost certainly cause in the first place. Thieves begin much like Pages in the sense that they lack their Aspect and seek to obtain it. For the Thief, this Aspect-shaped hole is too much to bear, and their schemes to take it at any cost will likely be the source of the session’s woe. This isn’t necessarily all bad, however, as knowing your Thief well enough can help you predict the nature of this unavoidable conflict, allowing you to prepare well in advance. Remember, the Thief can make an incredible ally, but their interests won’t always fully align with those of the party.

Finally, we have the Rogue. Ultimately, the Rogue is in charge of balancing their Aspect by redistributing it from areas of abundance to those of scarcity. Too much of one Aspect upsets the universal balance, and as we’ve covered previously, there are quite a few Classes whose purpose involves tipping the scales back where they’re supposed to be. The Rogue is the most intricately tied to this delicate dance between their Aspect and its opposite, since the presence of one necessarily negates the other. Their job is to facilitate this natural order, ensuring that their Aspect doesn’t become too concentrated in one form or another, ultimately supporting a natural sense of order over chaos.

If you’ve read all the way to the end, congratulations! You’ve officially read through nearly two hours of my creative process. I’m actually really impressed.

[starwarsnonsense]

Top 10 Most Anticipated Films of 2020

Now I’ve got my embarrassingly late ‘Best of 2019′ list out of the way, I can finally proceed to the list that’s probably more exciting - my most anticipated films of 2020!

This list excludes films that have already been screened at festivals (otherwise, stuff like Saint Maud would be here). It’s also somewhat analogous to groping about for a light switch in the dark - these lists very rarely accurately predict my ultimate favourites for the year, so it’s more of a fun speculative exercise. Hopefully this puts some intriguing-looking films on your radar for the year ahead! 

1. Dune (dir. Denis Villeneuve)

Plot: The story of Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet), a brilliant and gifted young man born into a great destiny beyond his understanding, who must travel to the most dangerous planet in the universe to ensure the future of his family and his people.

Why be excited? The reasons to be excited about Dune should be pretty self-evident - it’s directed by one of the greatest filmmakers working today (Villeneuve’s Incendies and Blade Runner 2049 are all-timers for me), and is based on one of the best science-fiction novels ever written. The cast -  Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Javier Bardem, Charlotte Rampling, and more - is absolutely stacked with talent. There’s every reason to believe that this will be something special, and I couldn’t be more pleased that Villeneuve is the man responsible for filling that Star Wars-shaped hole in the December release schedule.

2. Annette (dir. Leos Carax)

Plot: A stand-up comedian (Adam Driver), and his opera singer wife (Marion Cotillard), have a two-year-old daughter with a surprising gift.

Why be excited? You may not have heard of him, but Leos Carax is one of the most exciting directors working - he only makes around one film a decade, but the films he does make tend to be very special. I’ve only seen one film of his - Lovers on the Bridge - but that was filled with such ecstatic romance and wondrous visuals that it made me tremendously excited for Annette. Annette is a top-to-bottom musical with songs by American duo Sparks (if you know them for anything, it will be ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us’), and said songs will be delivered by Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard. It goes without saying that both actors are extremely talented performers with great voices (see Driver in Marriage Story and Cotillard in Nine for evidence), and I’m looking forward to seeing how they demonstrate their talents here.

3. Last Night in Solo (dir. Edgar Wright)

Plot: A young girl (Thomasin McKenzie), passionate in fashion design, is mysteriously able to enter the 1960s where she encounters her idol, a dazzling wannabe singer (Anya Taylor-Joy). But 1960s London is not what it seems, and time seems to fall apart with shady consequences.

Why be excited? I’m not the biggest Edgar Wright fan, but I admire him greatly and the premise of Last Night in Soho is like cat-nip to me. Speaking to Empire, Wright explained the story as follows: “I’m taking a premise whereby you have a character who, in a sort of abstract way, gets to travel in time. And the reality of the decade is maybe not what she imagines. It has an element of ‘be careful what you wish for’.” I’m a sucker for a good, old-fashioned high concept, especially when said films play with genre and really challenge the viewer. The two female leads - Thomasin McKenzie (JoJo Rabbit, Leave No Trace) and Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch, Emma) - are among the very best young actors working today, and the supporting cast features absolute legends such as Diana Rigg and Terence Stamp. Whether it’s successful or not, this film feels like a genuinely original prospect and I’m eager to see how it turns out.

4. The Green Knight (dir. David Lowery)

Plot: A fantasy re-telling of the medieval tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Why be excited? There has been a sad lack of films based on mythology in recent years - or, to be more accurate, there has been a sad lack of films that attempt to honour what the myths were actually trying to convey. The stunning trailer for Green Knight promises a film that genuinely engages with its source material, and is just as interested in the psychological truths of the tale as the spectacle of its fantastical scenarios. Dev Patel is an extremely talented actor coming off another great movie in The Personal History of David Copperfield, and the supporting cast (Alicia Vikander!) appear to be fully committed to their parts. I’m excited to see a true myth on the big screen again, and David Lowery (A Ghost Story, The Old Man & The Gun) can be trusted to give an old tale a new sense of vitality. 

5. The French Dispatch (dir. Wes Anderson)

Plot: The staff of a European publication decides to publish a memorial edition highlighting the three best stories from the last decade: an artist sentenced to life imprisonment, student riots, and a kidnapping resolved by a chef.

Why be excited? It’s a Wes Anderson movie! Of course I’m excited! In all seriousness, the trailer was all I needed to get hyped about this. It’s clearly Anderson’s quintessential style, but it also shows flashes of some very bold and striking compositions (yes, I’m thinking of Chalamet on the back of that motorcycle) that you wouldn’t necessarily think of in relation to him. I’m intrigued by the prospect of there being stories nested within a story, which feels like the perfect choice for the structure of a film about a newspaper. The cast features all of Anderson’s old favourites (Swinton! Murray! McDormand!), as well as some exciting new additions (Timothée Chalamet, Elisabeth Moss, Christoph Waltz, among others) that feel so well-suited to his style it’s surprising they haven’t worked together before. Bring on all those immaculately composed shots and exquisite colour palettes.

6. Tenet (dir. Christopher Nolan)

Plot: Unknown. The project is described as an action epic revolving around international espionage.

Why be excited? I hate to sound repetitive, but ... it’s a Christopher Nolan movie. That alone is enough to be hyped about this. Details of the plot are vague for now, but the teaser suggests the sort of intelligent, high-concept film-making we’ve come to expect from Nolan. John David Washington - who impressed in BlacKkKlansman - is a great choice for the lead, and I also love that Tenet will feature Robert Pattinson and Elizabeth Debicki (among my favourite actors) in prominent roles. There’s not much else to say given how little we know about this, but suffice to say I’ll be there on day one!

7. Wonder Woman 1984 (dir. Patty Jenkins)

Plot: Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) comes into conflict with the Soviet Union during the Cold War in the 1980s and finds a formidable foe by the name of the Cheetah (Kristen Wiig).

Why be excited? The original Wonder Woman was an absolute delight, and I couldn’t be more pleased that Patty Jenkins is back to continue Diana’s story. The decision to pick up with Diana in the 1980s is most intriguing (and paves the way for all kinds of exciting choices when it comes to the music and the fashions), especially since it looks like the film is actually going to explore the implications of being an immortal being in a mortal world. 

8. Raya and the Last Dragon (dir. Paul Briggs and Dean Wellins)

Plot: A lone warrior from the fantasy kingdom of Kumandra teams up with a crew of misfits in her quest to find the Last Dragon and bring light and unity back to their world.

Why be excited? The animation scene in 2020 looks kind of ... blah at the moment, with the notable exception of Raya and the Last Dragon. The setting was described by the film’s producer as  "a reimagined Earth inhabited by an ancient civilization that venerated the mythical dragons for their power and their wisdom”, and that alone is enough to fire up my imagination. Off the back of Moana and the Frozen films (which I all unabashedly love), I trust Disney Animation to instil this with plenty of colour and verve.

9. I’m Thinking of Ending Things (dir. Charlie Kaufman)

Plot: An unexpected detour turns a couple’s road trip into a terrifying journey through their fragile psyches.

Why be excited? Directed by Charlie Kaufman (writer of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), I’m Thinking of Ending Things is based on a prize-winning novel. However, despite the pedigree the main reason I’m looking forward to this is Jessie Buckley. Buckley gave a star-making performance in Beast a few years ago, and has since proven herself an actor of immense talent and skill (see Wild Rose for proof of what a powerhouse she is). I’m excited to see her career continue to go from strength to strength, and I’m Thinking of Ending Things seems poised to be a great showcase for her.

10. The Last Duel (dir. Ridley Scott)

Plot: King Charles VI declares that Knight Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon) settle his dispute with his squire (Adam Driver) by challenging him to a duel.

Why be excited? Ridley Scott is a bit of a mixed bag for me, and has never come close to reaching the heights of Alien and Blade Runner with his recent work. Nonetheless, against my better judgement I can’t help but be excited by the prospect of a medieval epic with Scott at the helm. The acting talent attached to The Last Duel is top-notch, and I’m particularly fond of Jodie Comer (of Killing Eve fame) and Adam Driver (do you really need me to say more?). There’s a very real danger of the highly sensitive plot (the ‘dispute’ at the heart of the story concerns an accusation of rape, the truth of which is to be determined with a duel) being mishandled by Scott, but the involvement of screenwriter Nicole Holofcener gives me some hope. This could turn out to be a misfire, but my hope is that it will, at the very least, be interesting.

[autumnsky]

That transcription and sociolignuistic analysis of the “does running water hurt vampires” scene! Under cut because it’s a whole short paper. The transcription is done with a simplified version of the Jefferson transcription system.

I still can’t believe I not only handed this in for marks, but got 100% lmao. Prof’s only comment was “I didn't know you could sociolinguistically analyze the speech of a vampire coven until I read your assignment.” 

Transcription

1   Dracula:     Any city (.) built over running water is a place that we (.) as vampires should approach carefully.

2   (3.0)

3   Isaac:         Running water,? (.) I’ve never heard of that affecting vampires.

4   Godbrand: Death by running water hasn’t happened in ma?ny centuries

5   Hector:      Why not,?

6   Godbrand: Look arou?nd. We moved into the middle of countries.

7   Hector:      I’d been told that vampires couldn’t cross running water

8   Godbrand: I’ve been on boats (.) I’ve had baths.

9   Isaac:        When. ((Godbrand gives him a look but does not verbally respond))

10 Hector:      Baths aren’t running water though. are they.

11 Godbrand: Course they are

12  Isaac:        How can baths be running water. The water’s stopped being poured when you get in.

13  Carmilla: The Greeks used to bury us on small islands because the graves would be surrounded by running water

14 Godbrand: I think I would feel (.) like running water would probably kill me.

15  Carmilla: Really? (.) Do you feel like poison would kill you? Of course you don’t <it’s a thing you learn.> It’s not like we’re given a manual for being a vampire=

16  Dracula: =ENOUGH!

Short Paper

           The above dialogue transcription is from Netflix’s Castlevania, Season 2: Episode 2: “Old Homes” and the speech situation is a war council between Dracula and his generals on which city they should focus their troops on, which gets side tracked by an argument over if running water affects vampires and if so, what that affect is. The setting is the throne room of Dracula’s castle. The participants are Dracula, Isaac, Godbrand, Hector, and Carmilla. Each participant has their own agenda in the surrounding conversation but during the part that is transcribed the only ends are the generals to exchange their knowledge of running water affecting vampires and Dracula to make them shut up. Act sequences include line 1 as a warning, line 3 being a statement used as a prompt for explanation, line 4 as either a barely related statement or an explanation for why Isaac hasn’t heard of this vampire lore (rather than elaboration on said lore, which Isaac seems to be prompting), lines 5 and 6 are a question/answer adjacency pair, lines 7 and 8 are a statement and denial, lines 9 and 10 are both criticisms phrased as questions (the implications being “you are unhygienic” and “you’re speaking nonsense”), line 11 is another denial and line 12 is another questioning criticism, line 13 is an unrelated statement, line 14 is a sort of suggestion, line 15 is another criticism (first as a question before being outright), and line 16 is a demand. The key/emotional tone is annoyance and confusion. The mode is spoken, and the type varies between characters but is generally informal. Conventions of interaction are broken multiple times with barely related statements but there are also instances where conventions are followed, such as questions being answered, and statements being acknowledged. The genre is conversational.

           This segment is meant to be comedic, which at least partially explains why it is very informal compared to the formal setting of a throne room in which the conversation takes place. Further explanation may be that the generals are expressing a subtle disrespect towards one another by consistently no-naming instead of addressing others with their proper titles, in addition to their thinly veiled insults. This is in notable contrast to how they usually address Dracula with variations of “Lord Dracula” and “my lord” though it is not evident in this short segment, effectively establishing him as having the highest status but refusing to address other generals in a way that might reflect more than equal or lesser status. Dracula’s power status is evident in this segment specifically by the way he does not involve himself with the side-tracked argument except to put an end to it with a command of a single word (line 16) which the generals obey. Despite being a fair distance from most of the other people in the room, Dracula does not raise his voice or speak quickly in line 1. This may be in part because most of his generals presumably have heightened senses, but it also shows that he is confident that the rest of the room will stay quiet and listen closely. There is also a noticeable beat after Dracula’s statement in line 1, where the generals wait to speak longer than they do with each other, possibly in case he will say more. The generals are much less worried about making sure other generals are finished before speaking, although they do not have a high enough involvement style that they overlap their lines.

           That said, one might interpret the way Isaac and Hector both incredulously question Godbrand (lines 9 to 12) as a show of solidarity. They never directly address each other but they both express doubt about the same subject which might count as an indirect agreement. Isaac and Hector are together second in command to Dracula while also being criticized for being the only two humans in Dracula’s inner court, and therefore have the most reason to get along.

Hector is implied to have lived in the Mediterranean before moving to the castle, so Carmilla’s seemingly random fun fact about old Greek vampire burial traditions (line 13) may also be an attempt to gain Hector’s approval as part of her plan to manipulate him into betraying Dracula. By switching the topic right after Isaac asked a question, even something as unimportant as why Godbrand would think baths count as running water, Carmilla may also be using a positive face threatening act to undermine Isaac’s authority and create a rift between him and Hector.

Overall, the conversation is referential with much expressive, and some phatic, subtext. It is also worth noting that the segment transcribed does not have a very solid opening since the transcription does not start at the beginning of the scene but rather at the beginning of the off-topic tangent.

 References

Ellis, W. (Writer), Deats, S. (Director), & Wan, S. (Director). (2018). Old Homes [Netflix series episode]. In Castlevania. Powerhouse Animation Studios.

Herk, G.V. (2018). What Is Socioloinguistics? Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

[ktlsyrtis]

Conflicted. That’s the only word that comes to mind when I think about tonight’s episode. Serena Campbell has left the building, and with it comes the end of a era in both the world of Holby and my life (and the lives of plenty of others).

And now I find myself here with a glass of wine and a whole mess of feelings.

The good:

Tonight’s episode was truly a gift for Serena fans. After over a year of her being reduced to beautiful set dressing and everyone else’s agony aunt, it was a pure delight to see the fiery, passionate, funny, capable powerhouse of a woman who captured my heart from the moment she declared her love of a bargain with a wink and a smile.

I was rewatching some old episodes yesterday, and to see Serena go from a surgeon who was considered by others to be a bit of a soulless paper pusher, that preferred a world of well-ordered electives and financial targets, to the woman touting the joys of thriving in chaos, and performing surgery on her office floor with a pocket knife, is something I will always treasure.

It was also so satisfying to see so many of Serena’s colleagues acknowledge her as the badass she is. Serena has always been one of the emotional backbones of the show, and that really shone in this episode.

The part that made me happiest was the ending. After everything she’s been through within the walls of Holby in the last eight years, seeing her walk out that door with her head held high and a smile on her face is honestly all I could’ve hoped for. It does my heart good to see her go into a future full of possibility.

The bad:

This is where the conflict comes in. Because there were some aspects of this episode, and Serena’s larger storyline, that are hard for me to reconcile.

To start, I hate the entire Max/Ric/NHS conflict story at its core. I hate that, once again, Serena’s story revolves around her abuse and betrayal at the hands of the institution she’s given so much of her life to. When Max fired her out of hand (no matter if it got reversed), it damn near broke my heart. And don’t get me started on Holby’s apparent belief that professional women can only be competitive backstabbers, rather than supporting each other. Max has been a deeply wasted opportunity.

Also, while I’m glad to see her leave, Holby beating Serena down to the point that she seems to be honestly considering giving up medicine? Doesn’t feel like a victory to me. It feels like just another thing she loves that’s being taken from her.

The Bernie:

You could technically file this under ‘the bad,’ but I thought it warranted a separate conversation.

Let’s start with Bernie in this episode. Because she was definitely there, in every corner. From the conversations with Alex and Cam, to the glare Serena gave Max when she sat on the edge of Bernie’s desk, Bernie was present in a way that was almost palpable. All of the scenes with Alex were just...ugh. Uncomfortable, off-putting, and infuriating are a few words that come to mind. 

I actually like the idea of Serena and Alex being friends, in theory. It would make sense that they would share a strong bond and be able to connect in a way they can’t with anyone else. Shared grief will do that. But does Alex have to be so fucking creepy all the time???? And just because they’re two queer women doesn’t mean there automatically needs to be the implication of some thing romantic there. Literally no one wants that. (Quick shout out to Catherine Russell for not ever leaning into that for even a second. I’m convinced she had our backs on that one!)

The part that upset me the most was their conversation after Alex’s surgery. Watching Serena have to comfort Alex about her sadness over losing Bernie...I don’t think I have the words for how upsetting that was. Like, what kind of fucking slap in the face. She doesn’t even really get to grieve the love of her life, and now she has to hold the hand of the woman Bernie moved on with? Thanks, I hate it.

Which takes us back to the core issue, the one that irrevocably tainted the whole proceeding from the start - why on earth did it have to be like this? 

I honestly don’t understand the logic behind killing off Bernie, and I doubt I ever will. I’ve tried to make my peace with it as best I can, but this episode really hammered home what nonsense it truly was. Because from a narrative perspective, it did nothing? Except to make Serena’s life that much more miserable, and to give Cam even more mommy issues. But nothing about it really impacted the plot in a way that couldn’t have been done another way.

The whole episode, all I could think of was how very easily they could’ve given us the happy ending we deserved. They didn’t even have to get them back together! Imagine if instead of the whole death plot, Cam had just occasionally mentioned all the good Bernie was doing in Africa, how it made him feel like what he’s doing is so much less important. They even could’ve had Alex show up injured, and let slip that she and Bernie are engaged. Think of the drama! And then when Serena is finally fed up with it all, and she’s standing with Ric and he asks what she’s going to do next? She just smiles That Smile™, and says she’s heading to Africa. That she’s going to try and win Bernie back. 

But of course that isn’t what happened. And there’s a part of my heart that can’t get past the idea that while she may find peace, Serena is never going to be truly, fully happy.

The tl;dr:

At the end of the day, with everything that came before, I think this is the best possible ending Serena could’ve gotten, and for that I’m extremely grateful. It’s just going to take me a while to process the end of a character who’s meant so very much to me, and all they ways it could’ve been so much better than we got.

[prism-sakura-s]

Gingerbread Houses

Chapter 1: A Night of Decision

Prompt: Fake Relationship for the Holidays

Warnings: sympathetic remus and deceit (his name is Nathaniel here), pressure, mentions of murder, decapitation, and gutting

Pairings: Eventual romantic Intrulogical, (background) established queerplatonic Prinxiety, (background) pining Moceit

 <   >   AO3

A/N: Here it is! My second fic for @sanderssidescelebrations‘ ts holiday month! Finished just before the last day of Christmas (in America). As such, this whole thing is pretty much raw and... unpolished. Sorry about that. Hopefully y’all find it decent lmao

~

“Oh yes, how could we have seen that one coming?” Nathaniel drawled sarcastically, lounging on the couch and exasperatedly watching Logan pace across the living room. “It’s not like your mom, who birthed a brainy powerhouse, also has a strong memory of her own, as she has demonstrated many times before.” 

“Come on, Nath, give Logan a break,” Patton urged in a kind but firm tone. “It was a simple mistake.”

“A simple mistake I should not have overlooked!” Logan hissed desperately. 

“See? He agrees anyway,” Nathaniel said, shrugging. 

Patton sighed.

“Well, what are you going to do?” Virgil asked, zir feet draped across Roman’s legs. “You just gonna tell your parents you lied?”

Logan paled. “Oh, definitely not,” he said. “They hate it when I lie.”

“So then what, Single Bell?” Roman inquired, clearly entertained by Logan’s befuddled state. “Perhaps say you broke up with your mysterious lover. Holds up the lie while eradicating it completely at the same time.” 

“No, just tell them you accidentally murdered your boyfriend!” Remus suggested gleefully. “And then make up a sob story as to why exactly you did it, along with a graphic description of how! I suggest gutting and decapitation.” 

“But what if they find out you lied in the future?” Virgil asked, ignoring Remus completely. “You eradicate their trust that way.”

“They are…  rather sensitive souls.” Logan grimaced. “There isn’t much I can do about this situation, is there?” 

“How about feeding the lie?” Nathaniel proposed. 

All heads in the room turned to him. 

“What do you mean?” Patton asked. 

“Bring someone along for the stay, tell your parents he’s your boyfriend,” Nathaniel elaborated. “And then say you broke up after, so you don’t have to keep up the act. Easy peasy.”

“You’re just stealing a very popular fanfic trope,” Virgil pointed out. “I believe that’s called a ‘Fake Dating AU’, wherein the two characters in a fake relationship almost always fall in love by the end. If you’re looking to avoid that, I don’t think that would be the best way to go.” 

“Ah, but that’s in the fanfic world, dear Vee,” Nathaniel countered. “We-- wipe that scowl off your face Roman, it’s just a simple nickname-- We are not in a fanfiction, as far as I’m aware. And I think you’re forgetting that Logan here is a master at not feeling extreme emotions. Who says it won’t turn out differently? We’re just employing the tactic, not the plot.” 

“That is a good point,” Patton agreed. “What do you think, Lo?”

“That could be a solution,” Logan mused. “But… are any of you available?”

Silence fell upon the room... for about a second before it was quickly broken by Remus.

“Ro-ro and Virgey-poo are busy platonically smooshing booties, Patton’s family are kidnapping him so they can go to the Philippines to talk with unfamiliar and uncomfortably prying relatives, and your mom loves eye-murdering Nathaniel, so I’d say most of us are unavailable.”

Logan stared at Remus for a while, carefully putting together the information. “So.. all are unavailable… except for you.” 

Virgil coughed into zir sleeve several times. Patton’s eyes widened. Roman looked genuinely panicked. Nathaniel merely smirked. 

Logan considered his option. Truth to be told, although Logan has hung out with everyone a decent amount of times, he’d say Remus was the one he was least close with. Remus was... endearing in a certain way, although Logan couldn’t really pinpoint why. The guy was honest, observant and had a very expanse knowledge of murder techniques, but that’s about all Logan knew about him. 

“I’m a little worried you might… unnerve my parents,” Logan admitted. “Er, no offense but, your interests are very… disturbing to most.”

“Not to Jeffrey Dahmer they wouldn’t be.”

Logan sighed quietly. Was Remus really his only option?

“Aww, pwease Newdy Wowvewine?” Remus cooed, pouting and trying to make puppy eyes. “I pwomise I’ww be a vewy good boy in fwont of youw mommy! And even behind the doow! And on youw be-”

“Okay, you definitely cannot take him with you with that kind of behavior,” Roman protested. “Just tell your parents the truth, Single Bell Twunk!” 

“You just made the same joke as Single Bell,” Virgil said. 

“It was a variation! Logan, you are a very dear friend to me, and I will not see your dignity and reputation spoiled by my rabid gremlin of a brother!”

“Don’t listen to him, Tech Weenie!” Remus scoffed, casually raising his foot to behind his head. “I sincerely, candidly, earnestly, unequivocally-- you like that last word? It’s a big word, turns you on doesn’t it-- promise to pretend to be your boyfriend for your one week visit to your parents, in an appropriate manner, so their hearts will not be torn to shreds. Rip my heart out, cross it, and-” he giggled, “-swear to die.” 

On that note, Logan needed a fake date to please his mother, and he supposed this would be a good opportunity for some bonding with Remus Reule. 

~

Nathaniel sipped some sparkling wine begrudgingly, as the others did not want him to get drunk the night before he drove Patton to the airport. He still drank it out of a wine glass though, because that’s exactly the kind of bitch he was. Nathaniel listened to the clinking of the kitchenware and the stream of water from the faucet as Patton washed the last of the dishes. Everyone else had headed off to their respective rooms, except for Roman, who stayed with Virgil. 

“Is it really a good idea?” Nathaniel heard Patton mumble from the kitchen. 

“What is?” 

Nathaniel saw Patton flinch a little, as if the latter wasn’t expecting someone to actually hear him. 

“Er, the plan with… Logan and… Remus…” Patton trailed off. 

Nathaniel hummed and took another sip of his drink. He savored the fizziness before swallowing, then went on to swirl the sparkling wine for fun. No, he totally wasn’t trying to buy more time so he could continue to stay in the room with Patton. That would be ridiculous. 

What was Patton concerned about again? Oh, right. 

“Logan can handle Remus alone for a week,” Nathaniel reassured. “Have you seen the man? Hardly anything disturbs him. He could find a corpse and go, ‘Oh someone was murdered here. That is normal. Better call the cops and assess the body for research. Bleep bloop.’” 

“Naaaaath, that’s not nice,” Patton berated, though Nathaniel could hear a smile in his voice. 

“I’m just saying, if anyone can stay with Remus for a week with no other company but their parents and not go crazy, that person would be Logan,” Nathaniel said.

"Although…" he continued, "I’m a little curious to see if there will be a sort of… romantic outcome, in the end. It is certainly a possibility.”

Both of the persons in the room knew the implications of what Nathaniel was talking about, but none bothered to voice the shared knowledge.

“If there is… it’ll be quite surprising,” Patton chuckled breathily. 

Nathaniel raised the glass to his lips only to find it empty, not to his dismay at all. He sighed and brought it over to Patton, who proceeded to wash it as well. Small “goodnight”s were exchanged between the two, and Nathaniel headed off to turn in.

“Oh boy,” Patton said to himself as he heard Nathaniel’s door close, “Logan’s gonna have an interesting week.”

~

Taglist: @omgsomeonesomewhereonearth

[whetstonefires]

"the top three of its forty floors are filled with brass telescopes of every size, pointing in every possible direction, including several that do not exist within the normal three dimensions of space." thats SUCH a cool image / "If any harvest will come." ooh i wonder whats going on / "The roofs are of red tile, the stucco of the houses painted in shades of blue. It stands empty, but has not had time to fall into disrepair." the little bits of detail getting added to the picture im LOVE (1/?)

I’m gonna do these all as one post but broken up for ease of reference, I think.

Thank you! 🥰 Deciding the theme for the Tower and giving it that visual anchor really helped to pull things together. If you consider the whole setup, it seems unlikely the Tower was originally built as an observatory, since those tend to benefit from height (especially if you’re looking around you rather than up, but for the up ones also) and the builders could easily have put it on top of a mountain or at least some hills, but instead put it by the river. It’s above sea level, and it’s away from light pollution, but there were better locations. Nearby.

So either it wasn’t an observatory, and it’s been refitted as one, or they had so many observatories they didn’t care about locating them optimally, there was some other factor making having the tower there important even if it was suboptimal in terms of observation capacity. Or, potentially, it’s been moved since it was built!

:} Yay thank for being interested by the foreshadowing. I tried to put just enough in without actively overshadowing the actual place-setting-up and making the reader impatient with the description. 

"If you look through an enchanted telescope you may see trees without needles fail halfway up the nearest of the great peaks, and even these fail before the top, though there is a span of nearly barren stone past that line, before the snow begins." you: mentions different plants living in different climates me: :0 / there's so much good description!! its all so pretty!! (2/?)

sflka;l;jlk i mean yeah, that’s pretty straightforward isn’t it. But! It establishes How Much Mountain it is visually rather than by saying ‘it was a big fucking mountain’ or ‘it was tall enough for the thinness of atmosphere near the top to create a small tundra region.’

o(*￣▽￣*)ブ

<3 Thank you! I kinda cut loose lmao.

"blocks veined with every color, pale blues and purples, reds and greens and golden-duns all mottling toward white and grey and black" god i want to live there so badly!! this tower is meeting all my standards!! cool pretty magic tower with rad telescopes!!! / "make a remark no one present understands about a Doctor named Seuss. His guide, the dousing tracker Amnaphi, will assume this person to be a famous astronomer from his homeland." im love!! misunderstandings about references!! (?/?)

💗💖✨ Yay! That’s an important feeling to create in fantasy, imo. The wanting. 

I really enjoyed playing with the standard forms for ‘thing made of marble’ here, because all these marbles really exist, but in spite of the existence of the word ‘marbled’ our narrative uses of it tend to be tied up with Neoclassical aesthetics. So very white and smooth, yeah?

Also idk if it’s obvious to the reader but this Tower is to some degree in dialogue with Orthanc, which made a great impression on my mind as a child as the iconic wizardly tower, and while I don’t disagree with any of Tolkien’s use of symbolism for the purposes he was deploying it, there’s so much potential in Isengard as a setting that LotR had no space to explore, even if Tolkien would have noticed those angles at all.

Like...the parkland around the Tower is shown being despoiled for the orcish war machine and then reconquered by the forest, but of course it wasn’t forest to begin with. What was it for before Saruman lost his shit? Ordered gardens, for peaceful contemplation? Who dedicated the space that way? Who maintained it? 

Did Saruman employ a gardener? Did he design his own gardens, or did they come with the keep, which we’re informed was built not by him but by the Numenoreans? 

(“I liked white better” is still one of the greatest lines in a fantasy novel, Tolkien does not get enough credit for his contextually hilarious one-liners that rely on pointed code-switching, but Saruman’s evil rainbow oil-slick robes also sounded really baller and it’s kind of a shame they were not attempted for the movie lol.)

The fact that this is a world designed around a kid getting portal-fantasied into it and staying for 30 years really gives me some options which are fun to deploy but also like. Risky lmao. Because it encourages the reader to surface from the setting-logic and apply their own perspective, which can really break up the magic.

Being able to zoom out on the Tower after all that detail and be like ‘it’s awesome but also it looks like something Doctor Seuss would draw’ was fun though.

"Within the even hexagon of its outer wall, the Tower encloses a great parkland, enough that if it was all put under cultivation it could easily feed as many people as could live in the Tower itself." the tower has PLANTS i love it so much / "Ten Years’ Winter" god PLEASE tell me this is going to get into the agriculture and society stuff game of thrones didn't about long winters that would be SO cool / "Watchers of the Stars" AND they have a cool name holy shit (?/?)

Plants are important! As is food supply. As everyone who’s been reading this blog for a while already knows I think lol.

I mean, it’s not about that, really? The Ten Years’ Winter is a historical event--the most recent meteor impact severe enough to have global climate fallout. The dust it kicked up took a while to settle, and the famines were pretty severe.

But the cultural consequences of something that happened a hundred and fifty years ago exist, and are important, including the relationship between governance and disaster preparedness, which varies a lot regionally as you may imagine. 

Astronomy has a long history as a wizardly sort of activity in the real world, both because it’s had continual overlap with astrology and just because the process has always been mystical and abstruse. In this setting, with a history of both devastating meteor impacts and being invaded from the Moon, but also actual magic, it’s got more obvious practical importance. Although since neither of these are remotely everyday occurrences, the average person on the street might not agree lol.

So it’s on the one hand a purely descriptive title, and on the other hand a serious boast, suggesting as it does that they are primarily responsible for Watching The Sky For Stuff. While also having broader philosophical implications and just sounding nice lol. 

You gotta have good marketing if you want to persist as a wizardly order, because if talented students aren’t motivated to come to you how will you gain new members? Natural replacement is not an ideal strategy to say the least. That’s how you turn into a cult instead of an intellectual powerhouse.

"The northern third of the Tower’s park contains neatly regimented orchards, apples, pears, plums, and a few rows of carefully tended peaches and apricots, all clipped flat against low brick walls angled south and slightly west." hhh t r e e s / "wizards, while enthusiastic about innovation in the abstract, hate change." me too, wizards. me too / "The Tower grounds are filled with refugees." ooh now we get to why everything was empty earlier (?/?)

Trees! Which are also food!

And technology lol. Greenhouses built against fruit walls with good insulation are so much more sensible than ones heated from inside. Obviously as a passive solar-powered technology these only work when the sun is available and not, for example, cut off by a giant dust cloud. 

These people are fairly acutely aware of their dependence on the sun and it figures prominently in a majority of their religions and their magical theory, even more than in ours.

There seems to be a mild consensus that the wizards are relatable. In truth: we are all wizards. :D

Yup! At long last lol.

"This division corresponds imperfectly to the usual split of the town by the course of the Meroda." because people!! take comfort!! in what normalcy they can find!! / "Makeshift pallets line the spaces between every fruit wall—the injured are being laid out here, now that the Tower is full, to get the benefit at night of the warmth meant to mature fruit." the awesome magic tower people trying to do everything they can for the injured who come to them for help in case i thought i couldn't be (?)

more in love / "Half of them are making ready to turn south along the Meroda." oh nooooo / "but the Moon People are the successors of the ancient magics, and just because they could not break the walls the last time they came, according to legend, does not mean they have not worked out a method now." im so worried for the people oh no (?)

Yeah! It really seemed natural. But of course they also aren’t recreating it obsessively; lots of people are grouping up with relatives who normally live across the river, or with people in the same line of work on the river, because people also adapt to circumstances.

No institution is ever perfect, of course, but I’m glad the Watchers have come across this way so far. They’re broadly well-intentioned and mostly well-organized.

And they were not ready for this.

A significant fraction of the reason for the order of the Watchers to exist at all, particularly in this observatory with its great eye fixed ever on the face of the green moon, is to be able to warn the world if this ever happens again. But the Moon People knew they were being watched, this time, and they kept all the build-up to mobilization that might have given them away on the far side of the moon until the last minute.

What the Magister is doing, as I hope was made clear or at least successfully indicated--I wish your commentary on the ending had come through!--is summoning what turns out to be an actual child from another world to do hero stuff.

Even if he’d gotten an adult that would be kidnapping someone to help with your problems, a routine element of the portal fantasy whose ethics have been addressed in a variety of ways, most famously ‘is Lion Jesus and always right.’ 

The reason they need a hero from another world is that the Moon People build a lot of their wards and their offensive and disabling magical attacks around a targeting system based on what planet people are from, because even though they’re originally from the same stock--they’re the descendants of ancient moon colonists who evacuated ahead of a major meteor impact somewhere approaching four thousand years ago--on a magical level having been born and raised on the planet or the moon makes a pretty huge difference. 

So no one can get into the place their magic space elevator is anchored and fuck it up so they can’t keep bringing troops and supply in and loot out. Their single supply line is their only strategic weakness, and they’ve taken appropriate precautions.

Getting someone in from a third location is the best idea anyone’s been able to come up with in the very limited time available. Since no one can figure out how to turn one of the Moon People against the cause they came here for, on short notice, when they aren’t even stopping to talk to anyone so far. Like, that’s clearly not going to happen.

Heron Yl Fanult isn’t unaware that it’s ethically questionable, but he’s doing it anyway.

So I’m glad the ominous imminent oncoming of the Moon People can really be felt, because that atmosphere is fairly essential context for the decisionmaking going on at the top of the Tower.

"Young wizards sit in their bunks, six each to rooms that were previously individual, and hold lighting cupped dancing in their palms." a quick break from being worried to point out that this is rad as hell / "some with their heads decorously covered..." cultural differences!! especially with regional purposes like the Hedro!! 

Thank you! 😆💖 I thought so too lol. 

It also establishes the parameters of the magic system a little more. Throwing lightning bolts is pretty iconicly high-powered, right? And here it’s what most of the student wizards are practicing in anticipation of a battle, because most of them aren’t specced into combat and this is actually one of the easier lethal spells to master, especially if you have an academic background.

‘Electrocute’ isn’t a very flexible spell and it’s easy to lose control of, but it’s actually easier than, say, ‘set on fire to a significant degree in a non-electrical manner’ because concentrating a lot of heat in a certain location takes a lot more brute force than encouraging ionization. 

You can pull most of the actual destructive force for the palm lightning spell out of the physical air and/or earth if you grasp the principles, which is much easier than channeling a comparable amount of magic directly because it doesn’t have to go through you. 

The limiting factors on magic in this setting are how much power you can tap into and how much of it you can actually use without hurting or killing yourself. It’s not usually a lot, though the amount can be increased by things like choosing your workspace, prepping your workspace, and a whole lot of practice and meditation and things like that.

Magical traditions that get bundled under the heading of wizardry tend to focus on force multiplication, obtaining enough contextual understanding of a subject to make whatever power is applied go further. This means a lot of studying theory and using magic to make observations (such as the existence of microorganisms and their connection to disease) and often results in making clever devices based on what you’ve learned that may not actually wind up being magical at all. 

Which is why the solar greenhouse proposal is considered ‘more wizardly’ than the fruit walls, which are wizardly in the first place even though the technology is pretty widespread at this point--it’s carried the principle of minimizing the energy you have to invest to get the result you want to the logical conclusion, where you don’t have to do any magic at all, you just set up the situation and get out of the way and the sun will do the work for you.

Other schools of magic, particularly religious ones, are more likely to emphasize just getting better at handling energy for yourself, which tends to yield a lot more in the way of immediate practical dividends and in a lot of quarters wizards who don’t do something obviously practical like physic or smithcraft with their theoretical background are considered crackpots or dilettantes 

An impression helped along by the fact that being taken on as a student of wizardry at a basic level tends to focus more on your reading comprehension than your ability to actually do any magic, so in places where religious and wizardly institutions coexist the most talented students have a tendency to gravitate toward the religious life. This is particularly marked in areas religiously dominated by the Compact of the Golden Circle, wherein full ordination is contingent on being able to pull off certain fairly hefty rituals, so if you aren’t physically or mentally up to that kind of magical heavy lifting your religious career will stall out in one of the lay fraternities. In some of the cities on Sutouchel, the landmass to the southeast where the Compact is based, a slang term for wizard is ‘sanctum washout.’

But of course force multiplication is something that can scale up pretty far, and studying theory doesn’t stop you from also putting work into your practical skills, and not having talent isn’t the only reason someone would choose not to seek out a clerical career, if it’s even an option. Religion along the Meroda is pretty localized; communities tend to have local deities who correspond to a natural feature like the nearest mountain or the river or something, and if that deity rates a fulltime shrine the keeper also tends to be the major local medical provider, and since the wizards got settled in at the Tower it’s become pretty popular for shrinekeeping families to send their kids there for a year or two to get some educational polish in addition to what their parent already emphasized.

So depending on where you live and what your personal experience has been you’re going to have very different ideas about what wizards are good for.

Hrm. I’ve gone on a tangent. But that wound up taking so long you came back! :D I love it when being turtle works out in my favor.

Or was this actually the meta I was supposed to be doing in the first place? Aaaaa who knows.

im fairly confident you said eight asks survived so this is number nine? anyways onwards! "The hale survivors of the First Battle of the Second Descent sit waiting in their leathers, jack-chains and helmets laughably inadequate armor against the coming danger, and yet the best hope now just as they were on Carun Tol once the wizard fell" i have a lot of emotions about how their best bet is also a terrible bet but its all they have (9/?)

Yes 8. 

Woo, thank you! ^^ & I love that you described it that way because that also describes the ‘summon alien’ spell Yl Fanult is casting and echoing the same emotional theme throughout the scene was very much the goal here.

"Threads have escaped from the braids pinned across the top of her skull: she has not had the chance to take them down for two days." god just the continuation of how desperate everything is / "He leans forward to peer through the narrow glass that has been turned on its articulated base to face the middle of the room, and relaxes very slightly. At least there has been no catastrophic alteration there, either." what does that one do id assume theres no approching army in the middle of the room -

:D Yeah, the fact that one of the chief medics available is already overworked to the point of neglecting nonessential personal hygiene and the enemy isn’t even here yet I hoped would resonate.

Well, remember how some of the telescopes at the beginning point in directions not included in the normal three dimensions of space? :}

- "trained as it long has been upon the face of the moon" also forgot to mention their enemies being from the moon is Rad As Hell / "He snaps his fingers for a spark that falls into the deep circular groove full of distilled spirits, and steps through that as well. He is not burned." ooooh whats he doing / "At his feet lie a glittering piece of gold ore, a moonstone, and a carefully sanded round of pumice." i see the connection to the moonstone bc moon army but i wonder about the others -

Thank you! It took a fair amount of poking before I decided it was a solid approach; it provides just enough physical alienation that there’s no direct cultural relationship and you can have that ‘everyone in the entire world Disliked That’ vibe, without needing to create any complicated magical and cultural explanation for such a long run of isolationism. They were out of contact because they were On The Moon.

Also I really get a kick out of putting space invaders in a fantasy setting in a way that stops just short of turning into sci-fi.

I’m glad the ritual lead-up is exciting! Even if the foreshadowing wasn’t as obvious as I thought it was lol. That’s fixable. 

Gold is for the sun, moonstone is yeah for the moon lol (although in other circumstances people also use jade, because it’s been a long time since the moon was uniformly silver on account of it having been terraformed a few thousand years ago) and pumice is for the world--it’s a stone full of air that floats on water, so it’s popular as an anchoring device for rituals that call on all three local celestial bodies.

"He cannot take much time. He has only until the ring of fire dies." whats he doingggggg / anyways i love this so much!! the descriptions are gorgeous and im so invested in all of everything!! i hope you write more im so curious about it all!! 

XD Ok I covered this already, I would have saved it for down here or Been Mysterious if tumblr hadn’t eaten the last few asks the first time lol. Thank you so much again! For encouragement! Before and now! I’ll try! To keep it going!

Here’s hoping this successfully posts, tumblr just kicked me onto New Dashboard again and disabled the turn-it-off button, so now my alternate posting strategy is borked up too. 🤞😅😘

[a-crimson-lion]

Strengths... and Weaknesses

I think an appropriate phrase for this post would be:

"Lord forgive me... I'm back on my bullsh*t."

Anyone who's been viewing my tumblr recently knows of my excessive hatred for one Katsuki Bakugo. I have stated time and time again that he's a gigantic asshole who only managed to tone it down a notch or two as of late. He might be the slightest bit more tolerable then he was at the start (I'm not the type to say that Katsuki had no development; I'm the type to say his development is there, but it's slow and poorly executed), but he's still overall an asshole.

In fact, before I start this post, I want to make a few things clear on where I still currently stand with Katsuki, as a person who has only seen up to Season 3 of the anime and read up to the Shie Hassaikai Arc in the manga.

First off, let's address one of the more triggering parts of the series: Katsuki's suicide instigation. Horikoshi has apparently stated that he "went too far" with Katsuki in the first chapter of the manga, and for me and maybe a few others, that sounds like if Horikoshi was given the option, he might have written out that scene entirely. Well, okay then, I understand that much; I mean, Katsuki was never that level of harsh once the story started to really kick off. So what does that change?

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

From where I stand, even if you ignore or flat out rewrite Katsuki telling Izuku to kill himself out of the story, that still doesn't change the fact that Katsuki is still a terrible person with very little development. He still bullied Izuku since they were kids. He still burned his notebook and threatened Izuku while burning his school uniform to not go to U.A. He attempted to harm Izuku on their first day at U.A., and during the Battle Trial, used a highly dangerous piece of support gear which could have very much killed Izuku (instead of, you know, using the capture tape?). He's still anti-social as all hell, which isn't a crime in and of itself until you realize that being a hero requires at least some form of cooperation. Even Eraserhead, an underground hero (which is probably as potentially anti-social as you can get) still at the very least has to work with other Pros and the authorities with some level of respectful communication. Katsuki's on his way to becoming the second Endeavor (which, depending on how the latter's redemption pans out, might be even worse than before).

That last bit is probably more the fault of my second grievence: the narrative coddles him too much. Yes, being consistently kidnapped by villains is very much not okay and is probably very traumatising, but that doesn't mean he's realizing he's becoming a better person. After the sludge incident, he didn't bother Izuku because he was too occupied with his own inferiority complex; he was angry at himself for not being "strong enough," and spent his time up to the entrance exam stewing in his insecurities. While at U.A., he gets no form of proper addressment for his actions. Eraserhead is willing to restrain Katsuki, but he won't expel him, or at the very least talk to him. Katsuki goes volatile during the Battle Trial, but no one discusses and addresses how much excessive force he uses. During the final exam, Katsuki isn't docked for his initial inability to cooperate and the fact that it took a literal punch to the face to begin doing such, and even then, Izuku caried his already beaten body past the gate, which means he technically passed. He should have been failed for his actions, maybe the villains wouldn't have been able to kidnap him during the Training Camp arc. Speaking of which, why doesn't he go back to camp and save his classmates the trouble? He just wants to fight, and this simple-minded desire ends up getting him kidnapped. And what does he learn from that kidnapping? Again, "he's weak." No introspection on his behavior except for a minor one before Deku vs Kacchan 2. No discussing his actions because he can't bring himself to be the bigger man and just talk to All Might. No, he has to bring out Izuku in the middle of the night and pummel him, and we're supposed to feel sorry for the kid because he's going through an existential crisis. Which I would feel bad, had it not been for the fact that it could have been avoided, AND his behavior aside, he's going through all the wrong coping methods. I don't care if he only knows how to express himself with violence, that fact alone warrants heaps upon heaps of propery therapy, NOT FURTHER VIOLENCE.

Before I officially take a complete dive into "anti" territory, let's look at one last thing.

Remember after Kamino Ward when Katsuki had Denki electrocute himself and he gave Eijiro some money as compensation for spending it on some fancy binoculars. Well, some of the antis I've seen have claimed the money was stolen from Denki. Personally, I don't see it. I can see Katsuki causing Denki to electrocute himself to show his begrudging care for his fellow classmates (even if it's still trying to grow). I can see Katsuki giving Eijiro money for his troubles, even if it's a blow to Katsuki's pride. I just can't see Katsuki stealing money from other people. Sure, he's an asshole, but he's not a thief. His morals are warped, not corrupted beyond the point of redemption.

Okay, so what dud I really want to talk about? Oh, right: Katsuki's obsession with strength.

We see this about three times in the manga. The first time is when Katsuki is saved by All Might at the USJ. He quickly dismisses Izuku's praise of him dodging because he didn't dodge: All Might pushed him out of danger. He won't take credit for a feat he didn't do. This segues into the second instance: his fight with Shoto. He wants Shoto to go all out in order to prove once and for all that he's the strongest in their class. Only Shoto is going through personal issues that Katsuki knows about because he eavesdropped. Even when Shoto manages to releaae his flames, he quickly snuffs them out because change is gradual; he still has to get used to the new implications of using his fire. (Sidenote: not an excuse for Katsuki's dickish behavior. Tenya and Shoto were initially percieved as assholes, and they managed to bridge that disconnect eons before Katsuki has.) Of course Katsuki's pissed at this, but I feel like he completely ignores Shoto's personal baggage and instead focuses soley on his physical strength. We'll get back to that later, but for now, let's move on to the third incident I can recall from the top of my head: Katsuki vs Setsuna. Remember that part of the Joint Training Arc where Katsuki saves Kyoka, because he FINALLY understands that saving people is important? Well, yes, but partially no. Katsuki didn't save Kyoka because of whatever goodness there was in his heart; he saved her because he thought getting a 4-0 victory was something worthy of the strongest heroes, and he even explicitly stated this. He's still focused on strength, and completely ignoring the more social aspects if heroism aside from prestige.

Remember after Deku vs Kacchan 2, where All Might says he focused too much on Katsuki's physical strength and not his emotional strength. Yeah, he's not the only one...

Katsuki himself never pays attention to the emotional side of himself. Years upon years of praise and his own decisions have led him to believe that his strong quirk and overall strengths are all he needs to become a hero. His brutal and excessive technique makes him a powerhouse to be reckoned with, but it also makes him predictably stubborn. Running away isn't an option, he has to duke it out with no remorse. The Number One Hero is about to curb stomp you? Don't run away and pass the test, try beating his ass and end up losing your lunch! Potentially dangerous villains trying to kidnap you? No worries, just keep fighting because you're a badass and no one tells you what to do- and oh, you got kidnapped. Even when confronting Izuku on his quirk, the possibility of Izuku getting his quirk for something other than physical prowess is a foreign concept for Katsuki. He ignores any and all chances of it being possibility, going so far as telling Izuku to shut up when he tries to explain himself, and even outright attacking Izuku after he tries deescalating the fight multiple times, only conceeding to Katsuki because he believes he's responsible for Katsuki to some extent (because Shonen Protagonist).

His obsession with strength is in character, but dear God it's getting old... and it's selfish.

Virtually everyone else trying to be a hero has a reason for getting stronger that isn't inherently to flaunt their superiority. Ochako? She wants to make money so her folks can rest easy. Tenya? He wants to live up to his family's legacy. Shoto? He wants to be able to protect his mom. Eijiro? He wants to be like his chivalrous idol, Crimson Riot. Izuku? He wants to get a better grasp on his quirk so he can save more people. Katsuki? He wants to prove that he's better than All Might from a physical standpoint, using the title of "Number One Hero" to elevate his status and earn the attention of everyone around him.

...see the disconnect?

I don't have a well thought out conclusion to this mess, so I'm just gonna close with this tidbit: Katsuki and Izuku sometimes do the same things for different reasons. Getting mad at Shoto? Izuku wants Shoto to go all out because everyone else is going all out, and he wants Shoto to move past his father's control; Katsuki wants Shoto to go all out because he wants to prove he's undoubtedly stronger. Idolizing All Might? Izuku admires All Might's ability to inspire and save people; Katsuki just pays attention to the physical strength and prestige, electing to ignore everything else. Saving people? Izuku saves people selflessly, with no inherent regard towards himself (he will gladly break a few bones or risk doing so just to save kids, for crying out loud); Katsuki only saves people because it strokes his own ego (the only time he ever truly went beyond was in an unnecessary fight against All Might; Two Heroes is the only exception). I'm pretty sure the list goes on.

I just hope that Katsuki learns somehow, some way, that physical strength isn't everything. Victory isn't everything. 'Cause if he doesn't, he's in for a world of hurt...

...and it's not gonna be something he can just explode and be done with.

-Crimson Lion (6 September 2019)

[realm-sweet-realm]

What would it be like if the others be in Henry’s spot in the game? ((Hope that makes sense))

From would handle it worst to best:

Couldn’t get through one loop:

Susie: She’s 95 pounds and weak as a hummingbird, combat would be a disaster. Lots of screaming and running away, lots of getting killed. Would never get past Brute Boris. Having the pedestal she put Joey on be destroyed this thoroughly would be hard on her emotionally.

Jack: would not go well. He lacks speed, agility, and stamina, so he’d get killed a lot. He’s also easily bewildered and would have a ton of empathy for the ink creatures. Definitely couldn’t get past Bertrum.

Could get through a loop. but wouldn’t escape:

Wally: easily startled, gets killed a lot at first. He’s fairly adaptable, though, and could fight decently. The puzzles would be a problem. Wouldn’t think about the deeper implications of things until he was a few loops in, but would get very upset and give up hope once he’s realized that everyone is dead.

Bertrum: combat would be a problem because he’s old (pretty strong and steady for his age, though, and is physically large). He has a solid will on him, and not much attachment to these people, so mentally he’d take it well.

Shawn: Good at combat, pretty average otherwise. Would continuously worry that Boris is Wally.

Might eventually escape:

Grant: he’s nervous, rigid-minded, and not going to take this well. He’s also pretty weak combat-wise. Even though he’s smart, once he realizes he’s in a time loop, he’d fall into despair and repeat endlessly without trying to think of a way out. Would probably figure something out eventually. (Though he’d take a long time and die more than anyone but Susie, Bertrum, and Jack.)

Allison: would be less scared of it than most, and would be above-average at fighting. Would almost enjoy the opportunity to find out all of these cool supernatural secrets until she found out how much harm they’ve caused. Would be very nurturing and kind to friendly ink creatures like Jack and Boris. Would try to talk Joey into releasing her from the time loop, and even if that didn’t work, she’s clever and might be able to come up with something.

Joey: reliving all his past mistakes has him despairing. Assuming he’s young, he’d be pretty average at fighting. He’d obviously know his way around. Might have a clue about how the time loops work and thus be able to break it.

Sammy: is emotionally strong and has a powerful will. Wouldn’t be the best at fighting, but would be one of the better ones at mentally handling it. Creative, would probably put a lot of thought into how to escape the loops.

Would escape:

(Henry would be here)

Norman: this is his game. He’s big, strong, fairly fast, can use stealth, and has a bizarre ability to turn off his emotions when need be. He’d show far less shock than most since he knew half of this was happening anyhow. Would be clever enough to find a way to break the time loop.

Thomas: powerhouse. It would be a massive guilt trip for him, but combat and puzzle-wise he’d be great. After one loop, he’d smash Joey’s face in and then call the police. 

Lacie: very good at combat, not easily phased. Would knock Joey out to end the time loop on her second loop. Wouldn’t die once.