#the steam deck is still under debate

[unpretty]

packing for a two week trip like, "okay i've got my phone, my work phone, my tablet, my ereader, my laptop, my mp3 player, my steam deck, my switch, my 3ds, my earbuds, my headphones, my controller, my solar charging lamp, my yubikey, my novelty bear-shaped thermal sticker printer, and all my chargers. i will buy deodorant when i get there."

[luigiblood]

An interpretation of the Dolphin on Steam situation.

As a reminder, Dolphin, the GameCube and Wii emulator, had announced a release of a Steam version using features from Steam like cloud save, Steam Deck native support and all.

A couple of days ago, Dolphin's Steam page was pulled down, then Dolphin's official blog mentioned a DMCA takedown, and PC Gamer reported on it, quoting the DMCA. Then we all went a bit crazy over this, then Delroth, a former Dolphin member, talked in a bit more detail, and debunked a misunderstanding.

You can still read this from Delroth here: https://mastodon.delroth.net/@delroth/110440301402516214

EDIT: Delroth has made one more very interesting post on Reddit about encryption keys in emulators here: https://www.reddit.com/r/emulation/comments/140b7x5/are_dolphin_devs_special_in_bundling_decryption/

All in all, the situation was misinterpreted from all sides, and to sum it up, according to Delroth: Valve asked Nintendo about this, and Nintendo said they don't want this, and quoted the DMCA's set of laws. In fact, not only Delroth says this, a lawyer contacted by PC Gamer essentially says the same thing in the updated report here.

One more preface: I am NOT a lawyer, legal text is very hard to fully grasp, this is only my own interpretation of the situation, what I am about to say may be VERY VERY WRONG. Got it?

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a copyright law from 1998. It is made of several titles and acts. The first title contains the anti-circumvention part which we'll get to later. The second title contains the takedown process part.

DMCA Takedown

I'll get to the second title first:

To sum it up, this is the part where you can do a copyright infringement claim, a "notice and takedown" process. This process also includes the ability of a counterclaim.

NONE OF THIS HAPPENED ON DOLPHIN ON STEAM. Nintendo did not use this process. They just told Valve a reason, and it was Valve's decision alone that got the emulator removed, and they notified Dolphin of the reason.

I won't really debate much on this, it's not really interesting.

"Anti-circumvention"

Now, the anti-circumvention part, the meaty part. There's a lot of legal text, but I will translate to the best of my abilities to you, don't worry.

This is the part where I feel the least comfortable about, and again, this is an interpretation, but let's start again from that quote that I had (from PC Gamer, by the way):

the Dolphin emulator operates by incorporating these cryptographic keys without Nintendo’s authorization and decrypting the ROMs at or immediately before runtime. Thus, use of the Dolphin emulator unlawfully 'circumvent[s] a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under' the Copyright Act.

The thing is... I only said that indeed, the Wii Common Key, required to decrypt everything, is included in Dolphin's source code. It's... not necessarily the problematic point of this, as I tried to read more into it, and I will go back to the Lockpick_RCM actual DMCA takedown.

Lockpick_RCM is a Switch tool that gets a set of keys from your Switch console and puts them into an easy to read file that could be used in conjunction with other Switch tools. They're required to decrypt pretty much everything about the Switch, from games to other packages.

The use of Lockpick with a modified Nintendo Switch console allows users to bypass Nintendo’s Technological Measures for video games

A thing you read a lot is "Technological Measures"... turns out this has a bit of a definition in 17 U.S.C. §1201... or rather, in that text itself, here's the very first thing you can read:

17 U.S.C. §1201 (a)(1)(A) No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.

The wording "circumvent a technological measure" happens to have a definition tied to it:

17 U.S.C. §1201 (a)(3) As used in this subsection— (A) to “circumvent a technological measure” means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner; and (B) a technological measure “effectively controls access to a work” if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.

It's a somewhat precise definition, actually, and purely relying on it... this makes pretty much everything Wii, 3DS, Wii U and Switch a very dangerous situation.

The "technological measure" also has a definition:

17 U.S.C. §1201 (a)(3)(B) a technological measure “effectively controls access to a work” if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.

Basically it just means a DRM (Digital Rights Management) process of sorts.

A lot of people loves to talk about the previous lawsuits on emulators, but note that I never mentioned the emulation being the issue here. Nintendo is NOT arguing, on a legal level anyway, that emulators are illegal by being one, their communication team does by stifling innovation in their public arguments.

According to 17 U.S.C. §1201 (a)(3)(A), just having encryption is enough to consider that they're protected, and just decrypting is already illegal... this affects a lot more than you think, it's not just Dolphin at this point, it seems we misunderstood a lot of things about the DMCA.

To sum it up more bluntly: I don't feel like the encryption key is the main argument, it's actually about what you do with it that they argue against.

So even if Dolphin removed the Wii Common Key, if they still include the decryption process, even if you provided the key yourself from your own system, EVEN your own Wii dumps, the argument here implies that since you're still decrypting the Wii dump data, this last part is argued to be illegal. This ain't right.

Now apply this to everything else, even if you decrypted the game beforehand so that Dolphin doesn't even decrypt anything, the problem would be moved to the dumper or the decrypter tool doing it. This applies to a lot of systems.

Considering the definition I showed earlier, this seems hard to argue against, however, notice that I never said anything as fact, and insisted that it is Nintendo's argument, legally speaking, I believe this is an important distinction to make.

Exceptions?

The law also explicitly defines exceptions to this, but please read carefully, because this is where I start to really interpret from here:

In 17 U.S.C. §1201 (a)(1)(B), my understanding is that when the protection itself prevents legitimate use, then you are allowed to break it. That said, and this is important: The later subparagraphs defines these paragraphs as something that CANNOT BE USED AS A DEFENSE. This is only there to shield the Library of Congress from any attack, and to allow them to research the various impacts that the protection does and determine rules. Their ruling is also explicitly not allowed to be used as a defense in the text.

After reading a lot of this, I only found one thing that, very honestly, I find quite unclear. Subsection (f) about Reverse Engineering, is particularly showing how much they're not well versed in computer science.

17 U.S.C. §1201 (f) basically says if you're trying to understand how the program works, you are allowed to circumvent the protection, under the idea that you're doing analysis, or...

17 U.S.C. §1201 (f)(2) for the purpose of enabling interoperability of an independently created computer program with other programs, if such means are necessary to achieve such interoperability, to the extent that doing so does not constitute infringement under this title.

In the case of infringement, I believe this is about copyright in general, as the law suggests this does not affect copyright laws in any way.

So what is interoperability... well let's take the definition from there:

17 U.S.C. §1201 (f)(4) For purposes of this subsection, the term “interoperability” means the ability of computer programs to exchange information, and of such programs mutually to use the information which has been exchanged.

So we're talking about the ability for a program to exchange information with the work, in this case, a game for example.

...what is this? Programs exchange information all the time. That's even the basis of a computer. Maybe there are other definitions, but frankly I can't be bothered to read even more legalese right now.

With just this, and not taking into account anything else, I feel like this allows emulators to work, they don't really modify the game, they try to run it within a sandbox, where a lot of information is exchanged to make sure the program runs as intended.

Oddly enough this would still make the ability to run those games on a modded Switch still illegal though, while emulators could be allowed to do this.

But make no mistake: This is not a legally tested argument. I need to repeat: This is an interpretation. Lawsuits literally work with lawyers interpreting information and the laws, and argue. The whole idea of laws being unclear is not necessarily a fault, it's specifically why lawyers exist.

Why now? And what now?

Honestly, as much as Nintendo argued, for the time being, they have not shown any intention to take down Dolphin as a whole. They could just argue as a scare tactic to prevent Dolphin to reach an even more mainstream status. I doubt Nintendo didn't know about Dolphin for that long.

Until I see an actual DMCA takedown, or worse against Dolphin itself, I'm going to assume Dolphin will stay up for a long time.

Removing the Wii Common Key from Dolphin will not change the situation, as it is the whole decryption process that the argument is about.

Whether Citra, Cemu, Yuzu and Ryujinx could have included the keys or not, the argument would still be the same here.

TL;DR of the complicated part

About the takedown itself:

Valve asked Nintendo about Dolphin on Steam, and they argued that Dolphin is illegal because it decrypts Wii games, and Valve, on their own accord, took down Dolphin from Steam from this. (Note: GameCube does not use encryption and cannot be impacted by this.)

An actual lawyer also takes this as a warning from Nintendo to Valve according to PC Gamer.

About the argument that Nintendo used against Dolphin:

Encryption Keys are NOT the main point of contention, because...

The encryption itself, as a whole, is argued by Nintendo to be a protection measure.

This means that decrypting the game outside of the intended way by the copyright owner (Nintendo, on a Nintendo Switch) is argued to be illegal by default.

The law, as in how I interpret it, goes in that sense, but for some reason you are allowed to make an additional program that can "interoperate" with the protected works in question and explicitly is allowed to break the protection. This is a vague part, and could be used in defense of Dolphin, potentially.

The final answer can only be answered in a courtroom.

[firewolf-pyro]

3. THASSA’S CRASH (Atropos)

The team of three are standing at the door of the charging bay, Kendra has her hand on her mouth as she listens to the thumping and scraping right behind the door. Henry is leaning his ear against the door looking wide eyed and frightened. Olesia is stood at the center of the two at the doors watching the door for a moment. The noise soon stops causing Henry to stand up away from the door. All three are staring wide eyed at the door as deep blue sludge slowly spills out from under the sliding metal doors. Blood.

The sliding doors shift open, revealing the mess within. Blood was splattered just about everywhere- spray landing onto their bedding, across the walls and over every surface was a misting of blue blood. The body laying in front of the servers had several large bites taken out of its face. The neck looked like it had been rung as it was lengthened and letting the head lay unusually to the side. There was a bloody trail leading from the body to the Dalek’s casing- blue blood seeping from under the dome which had been reattached to its swivels. The eyestalk turned to look at the trio standing stalk still in the doorway.

“This was a mistake, yes?” BT122’s eyestalk turns from left to right slowly to look at each one of the Torchwood’s crew. The trio stays stall still, Kendra goes green in the face. The stress of this whole situation was not helping her already frantic state.

“It… It was my fault.” Olesia steps closer to the Dalek as it focuses on her form. She needed to take the blame here just in case the punishment would be too severe. The Dalek moves closer to her spreading more of the blood across the floor.

“You have failed.” Blueton lifts their manipulator arm and grabs her sharply by the cloth of her shoulder. The cloth steamed under his grip threatening to burn the skin which lies just beneath.

“Don’t hurt her!” Kendra moves to try and pull Olesia away from the Dalek’s grasp until the eyestalk turns to face her along with the gunstick. She freezes solid- watching the tip of the gunstick as the three triangular parts from the barrel pointed out from it. He was not joking around here. Primed and ready to fire at anyone around him, Blueton turned his eyestalk back to Olesia.

“Kendra no-“ Henry hissed to her as he moves closer to Olesia to try and stop Kendra from intervening with the two of them. The gunstick twists towards the sight of movement causing Henry as well to freeze in place. He eyed the sharp edges of the barrel- waiting for it to go off at any second.

“You are inferior, you will not intervene.” Blueton pushes past the two of them pushing Olesia backwards down the hallway. Olesia lifts her hands up gesturing for the both of them to calm down and move away as she walks backwards checking behind her constantly. With the Dalek’s attention in her she could assure the other two wouldn’t be hurt. Or worse…

“Calm down, calm down- I’ll be okay- it’ll be okay-“ She calls over the Dalek’s shoulder section, continuing backwards as she is being pushed away from the two of them.

“What are you going to do with her?” Henry follows close behind the Dalek watching as Olesia constantly looks behind herself so she doesn’t trip. Blueton was pushing her towards the pilot’s room. The control deck was some place he was hoping to have a private one on one with her.

“Olesia agreed to accept the punishments should she fail this operation. She has failed.” Blueton turns to push Olesia into the control room of the ship. He lets her go once she is backed into the room before turning to face the both of the others. Still he debated exterminating them, the pros and cons of doing such a thing.

“Please don’t hurt her- she was only trying to do right by us-“ Kendra pleads as she crowds around the front of the Dalek trying to get into the control room as well. She reaches out towards Olesia who brings her own arms around herself as she stares down at the ground. Olesia wasn’t sure what Blueton was going to do to her but she could feel the ill will in the other beings very mind.

“You two will remain here. Do not move.” Blueton orders, backing into the control room as he looks between the two of them before turning. As he turns the doors to the control room slide closed, locking with a soft click.

Out in the Hallway the pair are left in the dark. Henry brings his arms in around himself, pressing his knuckles against his lips as he tries to keep himself from panicking. Both of them could feel Olesia’s fear over the mental link shared between the four of them. Thanks to the pathweb those emotions were rarely blocked out.

“She is not going to be okay in there.” Kendra turns and leaves Henry by the double doors. He watched her leave for a moment before quickly collecting himself and rushing after her. Kendra had something planned and he could feel it wasn’t good.

“What are you doing, Kendra?! He told us to stay there-“ Henry grabs her by her shoulders to try and stop her but she shakes him off spinning around to face him. She looked furious, an urgent energy radiated off of her.

“We can’t let her get treated like… like however he is going to treat her.” Kendra snaps, backing away from Henry before spinning on her heels to jog down the hall to the scrap room. There were plenty of components in there to build what she thought she needed.

“We don’t even know how he is going to punish her- he hadn’t killed us yet, the worst he had done is restrict rations - electrocute us when we are being ‘too slow-‘“ Henry follows after her at a jog as he lists off a number of ways the blue Dalek punished “bad behavior”.

Kendra rushes into the scrap room and begins immediately pulling scrap pieces out of the piles. Along the back wall of the room are sheets of metal piled up to the ceiling, barrels are pushed up against the stacks and old support beams are leaned precariously against those. There are bins full of wires and others strewn with what looks like computer screens, motherboards and so on. Kendra is busy pulling together and quickly rewiring a small device that looks to be made of parts of a microwave, cables and magnets.

“If we help her… If we help her we would be exterminated, Kendra…” Henry stays at the entrance of the doorway. He wanted to stop her, to prevent her from stepping in- prevent her from getting herself killed. But a part of him wanted this, wanted to help her build what she was building. To help her save their friend from the horrors that must have been happening to her behind closed doors. So he stayed put.

“I would rather be dead. I can’t let her take anymore of the brunt of our mistakes- we should have been in there to help disarm that Dalek, we should have stayed with Jones too- we can’t- can’t keep backing down.” Kendra lifts the boxy looking device up to her face before looking over to Henry. She believed Henry’s theory that Jones had been dispatched via the Dalek. Now, after searching the entirety of the ship from inside to out she could not deny it. Especially after witnessing the nature of a Dalek.

“I’m still not sure Jones�� is dead. I know Olesia thinks so but- I still hope…” Henry backtracks, stepping aside to let Kendra move past him. He was second guessing his previous conclusions. His hopes for the group to suddenly find evidence that Jones was still alive outweighed his logical reasoning. He knew the chances were slim to none. But he still hoped.

“He’s dead, Henry- and we’re as good as dead too if he finds out Olesia’s able to keep him out of her head now.” Kendra leads Henry out of the scrap room. She held herself confidently, the urgency of this situation shaking her fears away.

Back in the pilot’s bay Olesia sat against the control panel’s shelf. She watched the Dalek’s casing pace back and forth in front of her as the being debated on just what he would do with her. The likelihood of it harming her, she realized, was significantly lower now than it had been when they first met. This brought her some minor relief.

“I understand but-“ Olesia interrupted the Dalek’s thoughts out loud to try and get her own two sense in. At the very least, with little threat of violence towards her at the moment, she wanted to try and reason with the Dalek.

“You DO NOT understand! I can not, WILL NOT be alone again!” BT122 shouts at her, spinning around to face her. Even if the Dalek brood was successful it would be a long, long while before they would be sentient to the point he wouldn’t feel the loneliness. Not until he could find a way to properly info-spike them that was, without running the risk of overloading their tiny brains or causing them to go full Empire Daleks on him.

“You won’t be- I’ll stay, I promise but -“ Olesia started to plead with him. She wouldn’t get far into her deal before the sliding doors behind her suddenly ripped open. Sparks flew from its control panel as Kendra came running in, Henry hot on her heels. She made a B-line straight for Blueton.

“I require all three of you! You are all unique, useful-“ Blueton started unaware of the human rushing towards him. Kendra made it a point to stay right behind him, just out of view.

Olesia is leaning up against the control panels with one leg crossed over the other- her back to the screens. On the screens behind her the ship is alerting to the gravitational pull of the planet they were meant to skid past, using the pull as a sling shot for better fuel efficiency towards their destination. No one seemed to notice the warnings flashing red in the screens as Kendra comes around the side of the Dalek, weapon in hand. She was readied for what she had planned, the chaos she was about to create enough to distract everyone from the urgent warnings behind them.

“Kendra?” Olesia startles into a taller sitting position as Kendra rushes in past her. Now with Kendra between her and the Dalek it was becoming clearer Kendra’s intent with the device in her hand.

“KENDRA!” Henry tries to grab her shoulder but again she shrugs him off. The Dalek’s casing turns in sections towards the interruption. They don’t get much time to react as Kendra rushes him and smacks the device against the chest section of the Daleks’- pushing her whole body into the casing and pushing the casing into the glass of the control room. The dome like structure oversaw the rapidly approaching clouds of the planet below them.

“TAKE US HOME!” Kendra grabs the eyestalk of the Daleks to force it to stare into her face. If her demands weren’t met she would have no choice but to… To do her worst.

“Alien Device detected on casing- explain-?!” Blueton struggles to turn the casing towards her to shake her off of himself and pull his eyestalk out of her grip. He wanted to see what she had just placed on him. Wanted to see what she thought was so dangerous he would listen. Kendra was putting all of her weight into pinning the Dalek casing against the window of the cockpit. Even as the Dalek fought against her, even as her shoes squeaked and scraped against the ground she held him there until he was ready to meet her demands.

“I’ll burn a hole straight through your casing- take us home- take us home right now or I’ll -“

“Explanation unacceptable!” Blueton turns in a harsh circular motion slambing Kendra hard against the window- hard enough to cause a crack and crunch to occur. She lets out a squeak as the air was literally crushed out of her lungs from the impact. A second later she coughs, red blood spraying across the blue of the Dalek’s dome. Even as the life was being squeezed from her body she reached out for the device with one hand.

“Breach Detected-“

Both Henry and Olesia were paralyzed in place as the front of the ship began losing air pressure. The could see the structure of the crack caused by Blueton’s violence begin to spider web itself across the bow like face of it. They were in a grave amount of Al danger.

“I just-“ Kendra coughs, gasping she scrambles to reach the device just centimeters away from her.

“Blueton- BT122-“ Olesia inches around the side of the controls before Henry blocks her. He knew what Kendra wanted to do and believed she could. Trying to help her here might just cause the Dalek to end her before she had a chance to finish what she had started.

“Olesia don’t- make sure the ship’s energy shields are stable- I’ll… I'll try and get Kendra to calm down.” Henry steps around Olesia to walk towards the Dalek who is now crushing the tank of his weight into her. Each twist from Kendra’s body brought on another shiver of the armor as it pressed further into her to keep her where she was. The pressure was causing the cracks in the window to web further and further out. The only thing keeping it all together was the replicated gravity in the ship and the energy shield just outside of it.

“Blue…” Henry slowly approaches the Dalek with his hands up. The Dalek gives no response as the room shakes. The Daleks' attention was solely on Kendra.

“We have a different problem- the controls were drifting-“ Olesia frantically tries to get the controls to respond to her touch. The screen shows the coordinates glitch and adjust slowly as if there was some error between the touch controls and the actual computing system. There wouldn’t be enough time to adjust now, their ship being in a nose dive towards the now visible surface of the planet.

“Blueton- let’s just- just let her down, I’ll take the device and- and-“ Henry freezes when Blueton’s eyestalk swings around to stare at him. He was not expecting him to suddenly change targets like this but at the very least Kendra was no longer being crushed so violently against the window.

“NEGATIVE! You are a weapons design specialist, you will detonate whatever this device is!” Blueton decides, turning further into Kendra making her cough and gag uo more blood that splatters across the neck rings of his casing. He did not trust that Henry wouldn’t go against him. He was sure the trio now was working together to besmirch him.

“The controls aren’t responding to me- guys? Blue?! We’re nose diving towards the planet here-“ Olesia screams out but none of the group seems to hear her.

“I won’t- Blueton I SWEAR to you I will not hurt you-“ Henry continues to approach the Dalek. Blueton’s gunstick turns to aim directly at Henry and he stops only a few paces away from the pair of them.

“See? I am just-“ Henry slowly reaches over to the device even as the gunstick follows his whole form. Henry was slow- cautious as he reaches out to touch the device magnetically attached to the skirt of the Dalek’s casing. Just as Henry’s fingers pushed the device up a bit Kendra’s look of pained fear shifted into a malicious grin.

“EXTERMINATE-“ Kendra coughs out just as the tips of her fingers finally reach their target. A massive explosion rips through the front of the crescent ship leaving the cockpit of the ship a ball of fire. The ship nose dives further towards the planet with a scream of machinery and rushing wind leaving behind it a trail of ash and dust. The ship vanished between the peaks of two massive mountains. Just between them it collided with the ground with such a loud crash the snow from the peaks shivered letting their load billow down their sides.

A blue light blinks in the dark gray of the snowstorm the crash had initiated. It flashes in and out as a pair of stumbling legs pass in front of it. Henry, shivering in the frigid cold clutches his arms around himself. Being only in a t-shirt and jeans the sub-zero temperatures had made his pail skin a murky gray. He is charred in white as he stumbles away from the crash sight- turning in slow circles as the blank white and gray atmosphere around him confuses his navigation.

“KENDRA?!” He turns in a tight circle and stumbles into the gray void around him. The storm was wild bringing him back to a spot he had already been only moments later.

“OLESIA?!” Henry wanders into the blowing snow vanishing into it leaving the blue light just beyond the storm unblocked. The blue fades in and out as the storm’s snow swells and dies down.

Far off in the storm lies a Dalek casing on its side with a hole blown clear through the casing’s side. The light earlights on the dome dim as its’ eyestalk turns slowly, rigidly around in the blowing howling storm. The cold was getting to the mutant within casing each movement of the casing to draw on, slow and stutter. It didn’t take long before the whole of the casing froze up allowing the light in the eyestalk to finally dim and cut out fully.

Hours would pass that day before the storm cleared enough for people to leave their residence. As the alien sun beats down on the frozen grounds a group stumbles upon the mess of a crash that had occurred during the storm. Not a one of them knew exactly what had happened here and still they desired to drag the reck back to their facility. Bloodied bodies and all.

[theoldaeroplane]

continuing to early-AM journal/mind dump because why not it's probably helpful

Barn in an hour! I went on Thursday as well to see what the sessions with the miniature horses are like and decided I liked the ones with the regular sized guys more. (I did fall in love with the mini I handled though.) All week I've been being uselessly anxious about missing this week's food pantry because it falls during the time I'm at the barn. I still have probably half the food I got there last week so this was kind of a useless worry. I'll just go next week and stay at the barn for a little less time than normal.

Been reading more of my self help book. The latest chapter talks about the vagus nerve and how people who grew up in traumatic homes tend to be so familiar with feeling stressed out that their body craves it simply out of familiarity. In my reading about somatic therapy I've been kind of confused about why most of it seems to just be about mindfulness, but this chapter made it a little clearer to me? The idea behind it seems to be that instead of using your mind to calm your body you're using your body to calm your mind. This aligns with some stuff I asked my therapist about this week too. You have physiological reactions to perceived danger, so in reverse, by intentionally placing your body in ways that it would naturally do if you felt calm and safe, it's supposed to activate your nervous system in a way that leads to you actually feeling that way. I'm explaining badly but it's similar to the thought that if you smile even if you don't want to your mood will improve.

I got work shirts yesterday at the thrift store and goddamn I forgot how cheap things can be. Got all three for under $15. I had budgeted $65 for these, so I used the remaining money to buy some specific undershirts recommended for their lightweight nature. I'm extremely temperature sensitive and have never had success with undershirts before (too hot) so I'm hoping these will be worth the money. I got them on eBay so they were pretty cheap as well.

Been playing Zelda on my steam deck. I'll get an occasional graphics bug in the chasms but it's otherwise been shockingly playable. Last night I managed to get on one of the big dragons that floats around in the sky and rode it for about half an hour---it went INTO a chasm! I thought that was so cool.

I need a haircut real bad. Been debating cutting it myself since I have curly hair that can hide a lot of fuckups, but I also get nervous about fucking it up real bad.

[pocketbelt]

Final Fantasy IV Pixel Remaster (PC/Steam Deck)

I apologise in advance for the length.

Of the pre-Playstation "classic" Final Fantasies, I think FFIV is the one with the most versions/ports/remakes/remasters kicking about, not least because it technically has three separate versions on SNES (original JP, US, JP "Easytype" which is not purely a repackage of the US one). It's also debatably the most prominent of them, despite all of the love and accolades laid at VI's feet; after all, one of these two got a direct sequel over a decade later and it isn't FFVI. You might argue "it was an episodic game for Japanese flip-phones and later WiiWare", which is true, but I would counter "and it tangibly follows up on character arcs and threads from the original and does some of it justice".

But that's for another time.

Deciding "best version" of FFIV took a fair bit of thinking, but I think in the end the Pixel Remaster version just about takes it by a bit, with the added note that the GBA version is a very good alternative with bonus content (it has two bonus dungeons which are neat but not terribly compelling to me, but more importantly lets you swap your party around to use the members who drop out after certain plot points normally, so you aren't locked to the original final five). The Pixel Remaster is basically a grand amalgamation of the many mechanical and design tweaks, changes and additions of the PS1, GBA, PSP and DS versions, with some original ones thrown on to generally smooth the experience out.

Both are visually good updates and rather close to the SFC/SNES originals, both have well-translated and localised scripts but the Pixel Remaster does have fantastic remixes and versions of the original soundtrack, and they hit well enough to give it an edge. The resolution of the GBA does make it a little claustrophobic at times too, with the text boxes and text sizes relative to the rest of the screen.

Final Fantasy IV remains a superb game on its own terms; its music is fantastic, its story and writing are still simple but a noticeable leap above what the NES could manage and it has genuinely compelling moments and characters, and it's a mechanical and presentational leap in myriad ways. It's the origin of Final Fantasy's ATB combat system, which is mostly a way of presenting a turn-based system more dynamically than before (picking character actions as their turn comes up rather than queueing up everyone and watching the turn play out), which has advantages and disadvantages, but by and large I do prefer it to most turn-based games - although, being its first incarnation, IV's version does lack some refinements that really make it shine to my eye (for instance, ATB gauges pause every time an enemy acts, which is aggravating in fights with multiple/very active enemies, and something they resolve after a point).

On the one hand, its overworld/"cutscene" sprites are very simplistic and small; on the other, they're used so well and directed so carefully in a way such scenes rarely were before in console games that they are some of more expressive characters of their time. And, of course, there is its true strength: FFIV is basically the bar to meet for "gameplay-story integration", for integrating your storytelling with gameplay mechanics and using the two inform, show and tell their opposite number. And I don't mean in a "meta" sense either, I mean in a pure and straightforward sense. You can think of and find examples that go above and beyond, for sure, but I call it the bar because FFIV presents a largely achievable standard that many games (indeed, most 'Western'/anglospheric games above a certain amount of budget for decades now) fail to manage.

As ever, more assorted waffle and spoilers (or 'spoilers') under the cut, but Final Fantasy IV is a game worth playing if you love your RPGs and is practically 'required reading', in my eye, if you want to be academic about game design, this genre and story-telling in games in general.

Seriously, the ways Final Fantasy IV's narrative is woven through the design of the game itself is at once detailed but also simple. "Gameplay-story integration" always sounds hard or overly complex or even hoity-toity, but consider some of the ways FFIV does it:

Rydia is traumatised by the burning of her village at the start of the game. She can use Black Magic, but cannot learn Fire, despite learning the others normally as she levels. She doesn't 'unlock' Fire until she pushes herself to overcome her fear of flames at a fixed point in the story.

Because Rydia can't use Fire to that point, Undead enemies aren't common but when they do show up they can be perturbingly resilient. They aren't too bothered by Cecil's Dark Knight powers, some are resistant to physical hits and are often most easily dealt with by exploiting that healing/resurrection spells have the opposite effect on them. Thus, a bit later, when Golbez fears Cecil becoming an issue, he sends Scarmiglione, Elemental Lord of Earth and prime among the undead, to handle him using the logic that they aren't bothered by Darkness...but Golbez doesn't account for Palom and Porom's presence, only the absence of Rydia and Rosa.

Tellah the Sage is really old and not up for going on a grand quest for revenge, but he is driven to do so anyway out of sheer hatred and anger toward Golbez for killing his daughter. Sometimes when he levels up, he doesn't gain any stats and in some versions he actively loses them. He also has a really basic spell set until exposed to the magic of Mt. Ordeals, whereupon (in unsealing the Meteor spell he came seeking) he remembers them and becomes the great sage anew.

Meteor is the supreme Black Magic spell, and is so powerful that it's truly demanding to cost. Tellah alone has the skill to use it initially, but once you get it, you find it costs more MP than he has, and he never gains more MP. Thus, the system reinforces the fact that to cast Meteor, Tellah would have go beyond just giving it his all to use it...

The famous one: Cecil is clouded with doubt and self-loathing and guilt as a Dark Knight for the crimes he committed at his liege's order. A Dark Knight must give of his life to wield Darkness as a weapon (the Darkness command costs HP to use but will decimate or bisect most encounters early on). Atop Mt. Ordeals, Cecil faces a magic mirror that creates a shadowy clone of him, a manifestation of his guilt; to achieve penance, you must fight the doppelganger with Cecil alone...and do nothing. You're put into an actual fight with it and have full control, and must wait for it to deliver attacks; attacking at all prolongs the fight, as to do so is to reject or resist accepting Cecil's guilt. Once completed, Cecil is transformed into a Paladin, a literal class change as in FFIII's job system, and is reset to Lv1 but with a powerful new sword, fantastic base stats and the same EXP reqs as other early-game Lv1 characters, so he grows quickly.

A character is turned to stone of their own will to stop a wall from advancing and crushing the trapped party. Tellah attempts to cure their petrification by casting Esuna, the catch-all status effect curing spell, in the cutscene and it fails to work because the character willed their petrification, rather than being subjected to it.

I could go on but I think this is a good example of what I mean. FFIV uses its mechanics (the battle system and screen, your very stat, equipment and magic screens on the menu and the established mechanics you use to do things) to convey, reinforce and even perform its story. There are many examples of scripted fights where the game enters the battle screen to play out a fight as a story sequence automatically - that seems so basic to us now, but that was still a very new idea when it came out. Tellah learns a spell he can't use without an unfathomable cost, Rydia can't learn a spell because she associates it with the destruction of her home and the death of her mother, Cecil literally gets better as a party member when he comes to terms with his guilt and sheds the symbol of it by changing class, and more; in past games characters could dual-wield freely as any class, but now only Yang and Edge (a life-long trained monk and ninja respectively) can dual-wield weapons, being both ambidextrous and trained to do so, whereas the knightly Cecil and Kain are trained to use shields in their off-hand and so can't dual-wield.

You can also use these systems to add little details; as mentioned, Yang and Edge are ambidextrous, and that's noted by both weapon slots being labelled as their preferred/favoured hand. Kain is left-handed so his weapon and shield slot are flipped on his equip screen.

A lot of this is basic and simple stuff in its own right, but you'd be surprised by how often games that cost infinitely more and involved hundreds or thousands of more people don't even come close to this level of care. I think often about Rockstar's games, for example, where missions will instantly fail you for not doing things exactly as they scripted, even if you achieve the goal of the mission or objective of the character in that moment (like killing a guy too soon).

There's also an aspect that doesn't get considered as much as it should; because the story is considered so much, the different areas and regions of the world are designed around the party members you have when going through them in the story. This also extends to the enemy encounters; when you have characters capable of significant crowd-control, like the mage-heavy party going through Mt. Ordeals, enemy numbers are significantly higher per fight than they are elsewhere. When you have mostly single-target attackers on hand, enemy count comes down a bit, but they become individually bulkier and often have weaknesses to specific weapons that are provided or available around the place. The game seeds equipment around dungeons to compliment the party the devs know you'll come in with. That seems obvious, but remember; in FFI and most of FFIII, the devs can't know or guarantee that you'll have a specific set-up at any given point. They can force a White Mage on you for some parts, and force the four-Dragoon party for Garuda, but they don't want to be doing that all the time as they also want you to freely design and utilise parties you prefer, so most fights in most places are just straight slug-fests with no regard for what you can have. FFI has it worse as the devs can only truly know you have four characters, you can't change classes in that one, so all fights have to be more or less winnable by any party combination.

Now, they can not only know but guarantee who you'll have in any given area when it matters most, which lets them design fights around that. Moreover, as they can control who leaves and who joins the party when through the story, they can design areas around characters you will get in a little bit, which means encounters can really put the squeeze on you until they join and bring things back in line. It lets them emphasise each character's strengths and capabilities and utilities, or make their presence valued in a direct material way which engenders positive sentiment in the player. Yes, that's basic and even seems obvious, but so many can't or won't do even this.

I mentioned in the FFIII post (and probably the FFII post as well, I forget) that IV is where the series becomes itself, and to elaborate, it's pretty much because of the above and how IV is distinctly a fusion of all three of the previous games. Classes are fixed like in FFI but the class change idea of FFIII is a plot point; characters are actual distinct people with names and personalities and histories like in FFII, but the SNES has actual room to convey that more easily and express it both with text and more elaborately animated or depicted scenes. The class archetypes established in III are all distinct entities in IV's world; Black Mages, White Mages, Sages, Paladins, Dark Knights, Dragoons, Monks, Ninjas, these are all entities in the setting with actual societal and military ramifications and considerations. II's attempts at cutscenes and story battles, as mentioned, are significantly improved upon and take centre stage, becoming one of the defining elements of the series now.

One aspect also shines through in FFIV compared to its predecessors and contemporaries: encounter design. While there were RPGs with some notion of designing fights, mainly boss fights, around specific approaches and ideas, most of the time fights in FC/NES RPGs were straight slug-fests. The sauciest it would get would be hitting an enemy's weakness or sometimes having to contend with status effects, and rarely a special gimmick. FFIII is one of the notable examples here, the oft-mentioned Garuda fight is a good example: that fight assumes a full party of Dragoons, who can Jump and be off-screen for a turn and thus avoid all of Garuda's attacks. To reinforce this, Garuda's attacks are incredibly powerful and will quickly decimate a non-Dragoon party and there is little recourse you can take (bar simply massively over-levelling to force through him). The Barrier Shift boss is a similar idea, a boss that changes its weakness every few turns and so you must take measures to identify the new one or it will absorb your spells and waste your MP and time.

FFIV has rather more elaborate encounter design, a good deal of which is enabled by the Active Time Battle system. The ATB system lets characters take actions when their ATB gauge fills, which as mentioned means you don't queue up attacks to go and then watch the turn play out, but rather more dynamically act as the enemy's actions happen in and around your own. A key element of this is that enemies will take their turns even as you sit on a character's menu (if you set the game mode to 'Active', they'll take their turns while you're fucking about inside the magic and item menus, and otherwise don't; a lot of people say to use 'Active' but I tend to prefer 'Wait' just because the inventory can be a whole fucking thing sometimes), which means that you can 'wait' by just idling on their menu.

This is best demonstrated by the first boss fight, the Mist Dragon. Every few of its turns, it will dissolve into a mist cloud that can't be damaged and will deal a stinging counter to the whole party if attacked. In a regular turn-based system this would involve spending turns using Defend or some other means to burn turns, in the ATB system you can just wait a few seconds for it to eat a turn of its own or two and then it reforms, and just line up your commands as it's animating the reformation. Sounds simple, but it adds a level of nuance to fights that allows for things like hovering on the party healer's turn to get off a heal/status cure/resurrection ASAP the second you need to while keeping everyone else ticking over. If more than one character has a full ATB, you can swap to the others to use their turns as you wait. It allows a layer of strategising somewhat distinct from regular turn-based systems; one downside of this is if Bahamut decides he hates your healer, he can (and will) just kill them while you're sitting on them or going through your menu, snapping it closed then and there, which can be quite a bit more annoying than a healer being sniped before they get their spell off in the old FF turn-based system.

With that concept, of turns happening a lot more "on the fly" and in an adjustable and even controllable order: you can line up who goes before or after who in your party by "holding" someone back, for instance - like say, holding Rydia back until Rosa can go and use Dispel to break the Reflect on an enemy, letting Rydia's spells actually go through (in the versions of the game that permit that, at least, which I think are the 3D remake and the Pixel Remaster; I forget if GBA allows it). That gets paired with a generally greater focus on turn order, turn count and also status effects: Reflect is the star of the show here, with multiple boss fights being based around the boss or one of its adds utilising or providing Reflect to ward off your spells, or to do tricks like bouncing spells off of itself.

In FFIV, and many later FFs, a spell bounced off a Reflect will ignore Reflect on whoever it's bounced to in order to prevent eternal 'tennis matches'. FFVII tries to add a bit of nuance by making spells bounce between Reflects up to four times before 'piercing' through, but the idea's the same. Some bosses will cast Reflect on you to try and get you to bounce healing spells onto them, or will cast Reflect on themselves or an add and target spells at it to lob them at you and get through Reflect on your side. Other elements FFIV utilises to design special fights that must be navigated in specific ways:

Counters! Some bosses will counter-attack if attacked in specific states, or will perform automatic counter-attacks in response to specific attacks, i.e. being hit with a spell. This latter one is one aspect of what makes Zeromus an unholy terror if playing unguided.

Special states. Some bosses will change state/stance and this will usually cause some effect; sometimes it's simply being immune to damage, but some bosses will gain more Evasion, require being hit with a specific action to become targettable again, or invert their elemental weaknesses and resistances, or gain counters - usually some combination of all of these.

Multiple opponents. Some bosses will have simple adds they summon or you have to kill, nothing special there, but some will come as sets of 2, 3 or 4 distinct entities who work together in a specific way or pattern that requires you to figure out how to prise open their defences or mitigate their offence. For example, a core "big boss" unit that summons an attacker and a healer, and if you kill both it does a special move and re-summons both, and the healer will immediately undo any head-way you've made on the big boss' HP. So you kill the healer and just weather the attacker's onslaught until the big boss falls.

This leads to a lot of 'puzzle' fights, which demonstrate a level of thinking about the mechanics and the direction and choreography of a fight far beyond the prior Final Fantasies. It's the point where the devteam have come into their element and truly begun engaging with the systems they've built to create memorable encounters. And the answer is always either given to you somewhere (either by stumbling into "the trap" and being warned by a character with mid-fight dialogue, being plainly observable, or in text somewhere in the world; the tricks to beating Odin and Bahamut are in books in a specific location, for example), too, this isn't some "we made this to sell guides" Sierra adventure game shit.

This is true of some random encounters, too, quite a few of which actually show that they are encounters with some thought behind them. Enemies that co-ordinate buffs or attack combinations, enemies that heal each other, enemies that can give mid-battle dialogue to trigger their minions' actions and respond to their deaths (usually by fleeing the second their minions go down; tellingly first observed by a "General"/"Captain" after his men die). Many are still just slug-fests/burn-down fights because that's honestly just good for pacing, but it provides variety to dungeon crawls and can make some encounters memorable or infamous for reasons other than "hits really hard".

The ATB system also has profound meaning for Slow and Haste; instead of simply increasing or decreasing speed stats/'initiative' for turn order, Slow and Haste make ATB gauges go slower or faster, which effectively means less or more turns. Slow becomes immeasurably valuable for sticking onto bosses, and Haste becomes critical for your party. And the game will have fun with that occasionally; one optional boss will stick Doom (countdown from 10 to auto-kill the afflicted; this is Doom's debut, I believe, an FF staple!) on your party and then cast Haste on everyone, which makes Doom tick down faster. So you have to either kill it real quick in your Hasted state, or cast Slow on the party to bring the counter under control...or kill someone and resurrect them to free them of the timer, if you want (though I think it just re-applies Doom+Haste if you do). This makes these two spells the most valuable buff and debuff in the game, and while bosses ignore a lot of status effects, a good chunk of them (including the final boss!) do not resist Slow!

All of this; the massively improved (and, well, existant) encounter design, the gameplay-story integration, the much more developed and involved story and characters and the mechanics taking their core shape after three forms of experiment, and the introduction of the ATB system, all of this is why I say that Final Fantasy IV is where Final Fantasy "becomes itself". This is the series' identity come together at last, with all of its key components online in some form (if needing refinement or improvement in places) and its world and aesthetic elements all coalescing to form a cohesive whole. Going from the NES FFs to FFIV is fucking insane, honestly, we really don't get generational leaps this big any more.

This has gone on quite a bit (can you tell I particularly adore FFIV) so I'll start to wrap up. Two last key points: version preferences, and Zeromus.

First, I was going to put this above but I mused over the version differences some when deciding which got picked as the 'definitive edition':

The SFC/SNES originals, all three versions (OG JP, US, JP Easytype) all have their own issues and weird changes. A fan translation of the original Japanese version with some gameplay tweaks might be the ideal way to play these, as the original US localisation sucks (not surprising for the time, really) and the other releases have their own problems.

The PS1 version is actually pretty alright, all things considered, it's just blighted by CD load times in particular. It has a vastly superior localisation compared to the SNES one, though it's still not ideal; the GBA version will build upon and refine it and that one will mostly be the basis for later versions.

The GBA release has bonus dungeons, the first properly good English script and lets you cycle in party members who usually drop out of the plot at points towards the end, so you can alter your party setup for the final dungeon. That's interesting, at least, and the bonus dungeons are good if you want more meaty gaming, but I didn't find them overly compelling when weighing up an ideal experience. This version is also decently close to the SNES visuals but with improved colours and such, though the resolution makes things feel cramped.

The PSP 'Complete Collection' has the Art Gallery, Music Player and Bestiary concepts that the Pixel Remasters will adopt later, and also has FFIV: The After Years included, along with a brand new original intermission chapter 'Interlude' to bridge the original and TAY. That sounds like the optimal version, but unfortunately I find the spritework here pretty ugly, it does mar the experience a bit even as it tries to be faithful. So close, lads.

The DS once again got a 3D remake, and it's interesting; it has full voice acting with an actually good English track (and there's a JP one, though I forget if that was on-cart for the Western releases), and being 3D means it needs to redo cutscenes, which it does with quite some skill. The localisation is also significantly different from other versions, and actually improved in quite a few ways: for example, this one introduces the term "Carnelian Signet", so it isn't so silly when Cecil and Kain are shocked that the thing called the Bomb Ring is a bomb. There are also some interesting new mechanics, like Augments, which let you equip people with the innate skills of other party members, or special attacks of bosses. But, like FFIII DS, this version is made significantly harder and it's done in often poor ways (for example, gutting the gil payout for fights, which makes updating equipment fucking horrendous from the halfway point on). That makes it rather poor for a first go, but it's interesting to look at if you want a different style for FFIV. It's also on PSP and Steam, for your emulation/platform preferences.

The Pixel Remaster is an amalgam of the PS1, GBA, PSP and DS versions, mostly the middle two. It has mostly the same translation as them, it uses some ideas (like Dispel breaking Reflect, a later FF rule that FFIV DS brings to IV) from the 3D remake and adds the sprinting from PS1. It smooths over other design ideas (making arrows infinite, for example) and is among the most bug-free of the releases. It also has a much more comfortable resolution, a really good aesthetic lift of the SNES sprites and style, and its OST of remixes and new arrangements is top-notch.

So it sort of comes down to if the GBA bonus content matters to you, or you have no other comfortable way to also play The After Years (which has a IV DS style 3D remake on Steam, by the by). If it doesn't and TAY doesn't factor in, Pixel Remaster does ultimately take it, but there is something to the GBA version's party freedom that makes it worth considering.

On that note, if emulating the GBA version, go with the PAL release. 50Hz was dying off by this point but also never applied to handhelds anyway, and the PAL release came 6 months after all the others: as they were wont to do for us, almost as if in exchange for the delays for us, Square made the PAL release a distinctly improved version. In this case, it fixes almost all of the bugs that plagued the US and original JP release (and after the PAL release, they updated the JP release to use its fixes). It's the version to use.

Finally, Zeromus. I always feel like I have to mention Zeromus when talking people into FFIV because he's a total fuck. He's the final boss and he's a gigantic difficulty spike if you don't know the deceptively simple approach to contending with him. He routinely blasts the party with a devastating party-wide attack, he periodically deletes all buffs and debuffs, and he hard-counters all the obvious big damage methods with counter-attacks that come independent of his own turns (so if he's about to take his turn and you trigger a counter, he will counter and then also immediately nuke you). There's a lot of horseshit and bluster around him, so here's the shit:

Zeromus counters all Black (and I think White) Magic used on him by casting Flare on someone at random. This will usually do in the area of 2500-3000 damage, which will kill everyone but Cecil or Kain between Lvs50 and mid-60s, and even then will usually set them up to die in Big Bang.

Zeromus counters Summons by broad-casting Bio onto the party, doing 1000-1700 damage and inflicting Sap (constant real-time HP drain) on everyone. This, too, will basically set you up to die to Big Bang if Rosa isn't immediately about to heal everyone.

Zeromus periodically casts Black Hole to delete all buffs (and I think also debuffs but unsure), so don't particularly bother with Protect/Shell/Haste. They'll get deleted and in the time it takes you to do them, Zeromus will hack chunks out of you that you desperately need Rosa to fix rather than set up buffs Zeromus will eat seconds later.

Big Bang is the real killer. This is 2000-2500 damage to all party members very frequently. The only real way to deal with this is to have Rosa be equipped with the biggest Spirit-boosting staff you have (and any other applicable gear that doesn't compromise her own durability), and then group-cast Curaja every single turn. Every one. If you're lucky you can save MP one turn with a Curaga instead but you'll basically be spamming Curaja every turn to mend each Big Bang's impact.

You will see people online say that stealing an item called Dark Matter from Zeromus will weaken Big Bang's damage. This is horseshit; the Dark Matter does nothing in most versions, it's basically a bragging rights trophy for flexing on him (especially in versions where it isn't on his attack-less "plot" first form). Though, you do need it in the 3D remake to unlock a special boss fight in NG+.

So, what's the trick? Well, besides being durable enough to live a Big Bang with around half of Cecil's HP (and also Kain's if you can manage it) and have Rosa's group-Curaja heal close to that, it's simple: just have everyone but Rosa use Attack. Edge can throw instead, and you should just chuck all your big Fuma Shurikens and special weapons you didn't use for the big damage, and when out have him attack. If you're saucy, use Bacchus Ciders or cast Berserk on the lads to get more damage in between Black Holes, or equip Cecil with the Avenger (which auto-Berserks).

The real part of the trick is that if Rydia goes down, let her stay down; even with a good bow and Artemis arrows, her damage isn't worth the costs and risks of resurrecting her. The same ultimately goes for Edge, if he drops let him stay down. Rosa's Curaja will heal more when split across fewer people, and around Lv57-60 with 3 people she can completely absorb Big Bang's damage between casts. Just keep Cecil and Kain attacking and occasionally popping a Dry Ether or Elixir on Rosa to refill her MP (but make them do it, don't let her stop casting Curaja).

Zeromus will flop over dead pretty quickly, especially if Edge got some good Throws in before dying; in some versions Zeromus will inexplicably get a one-time heal of 9999 when he hits 50% HP, which is your sign that it's going well.

Honestly it's a bit of a weird and demented fight given how considered and properly puzzle-y all the other boss fights can be, but it does make Zeromus a big memorable bastard and make him seem like the most evil of all.

Anyway, play FFIV, it's good. One day I will probably vomit words about The After Years, it's interesting. I never did play that 3D remake version of TAY, maybe it'll be when I do that.

[auntygrumpycow]

Non ship version of before

The ships is quiet.

Ed forgot how nice it is to not have everyone milling about for a bit. Just him, The Revenge, and the sounds of the sea, wind and gulls. He lounges around the deck for a while, basking in the sun until boredom drives him inside.

He wanders back into the captains cabin debating a nap versus a good rummage through the maps to see if inspiration strikes when the sound of splashing draws his attention.

The sound doesn't come from the outside.

It's not the waves breaking on the ship's hull.

It's coming from Stede's private washroom.

Ed sneaks towards the cracked door peeking in.

He'd thought that Izzy had left the ship as well, remembered seeing him in the dingy in fact...Ed wonders how he'd gotten back without him noticing and when.

Considering the steam still coming off the water, Izzy had been back long enough to heat water and fill the tub. Long enough even, to wash himself judging from the suds floating on the water and the smell of lavendar thick in the muggy air waving from the little room.

Delighted with the discovery, Ed nudges the door a little wider.

Izzy's eyes are closed, his throat bared calling on every predatory instinct Ed has. Who takes baths when they should be on watch? He bends over the tub ready to dunk his first mate under water...and almost gets his nose pierced by a wet and suddy dagger.

"Blackbeard?!" Izzy squeacks like a scandalized maiden.

Ed needs a moment to uncross his eyes as the soapy dagger is withdrawn.

"Where the fuck did you have that thing?" He wonders squinting down at the subs. The tub is all smooth as far as he remembers from sitting in it...and Izzy isn't wearing anything.

"What the fuck are you doing here captain?" Izzy growls, sticking the dagger into the hull to free up an extra hand to cover himself with. "Was there something you needed? Did fucking Bonnet do something?"

Stede is probably going to have something mild to say about the stab marks on the hull, Ed thinks, and the fact that not only have several of his soaps beeing used, but the hair stuff as well.

"Captain!" Izzy snaps just as Ed goes to poke at the soap.

"Huh?" It doesn't look as apetising wet, the soap, but it still smells yummy and glides around the dish when Ed pokes at it.

"Was there something you needed?" Izzy sounds out like Ed is an idiot. He really can't have that, not with Izzy taking liberties all over the place already.

"Watch your tongue," he says, wrapping his hand around Izzy's throat and pushing down.

Izzy flounders.

Ed hopes some of the crew comes back before Stede, because he's not going to be the one cleaning up all the suddy water flying all over the place.

He reaches for the soap getting a good hold on it before letting his strugging first mate up for air.

Izzy surfaces with a gasp, mouth wide to suck in air, eyes blind with terror.

Ed shoves the soap in and let's Izzy go.

For a moment nothing happens except his first mate gripping the sides of the tub. Then Izzy's face twists, his jaw works, suds dribble down his gotee, his eyes go wide with shock, then rage crashes onto Izzy's face like a wave onto a beach.

Wondering if he's made a slight miscalculation, Ed backs into the doorway as Izzy claws at his own face to fish the bar of soap out of his mouth.

"For fuck's sake, Edward!" Izzy howls.

Ed barely manages to duck the foamy bar as it flies at his head.

Retreat seems like the sensible option all of a sudden as another bar flies past him. The lilly one from the smell of it.

Stede, Ed thinks ducking the bergamot scrub bar, is not going to be happy when he comes back.

Not at all.

Next to him something shatters.

[magalidragon]

n°7 - “Is there some space left in that bathtub?”

In the “Heat Wave” universe, pretty please!😊

YES! Love these beans! 🔥🔥🔥 And  because I also got another ask for this same universe, I’ve combined it into one Drabblish-ish (2700 words, not 2500, lol).  And THANK YOU FOR THE MOODBOARD DARLING!  Enjoy!

Smutty One Liner Prompts

7. “Is there some space left in that bathtub?”

10. “Jealousy seems to be a great motivator for you.”

Bliss, that's what this was, Dany thought, her eyes still closed, her breathing even, and her skin tingly and warm.  She sighed, exhaling out any worry she might continue to have—there was no more worry now that she was out of the Hell House and living in Heaven's Hall—her body nestled in a soft, fluffy mattress with thick quilt and soft flannel sheets covering her.  She smiled, serene, and opened her eyes slowly, peering up at a set of red eyes, watching her.  

She smiled wider, quirking an eyebrow up.  "That's really creepy Ghost."

Ghost said nothing, licked his chops, and then her face, and hopped away from his nighttime stalking.  She chuckled, sitting up on her elbows, glancing at three faces underneath one of the throw blankets over the bed, all of her little dragons purring contentedly, no doubt thankful she had relocated them completely.  She wiggled her toes, returning feeling to them, and scanned the room, which was empty.  

The snow had eventually stopped, the wind fading away, and now the sun was out, but to her surprise, she must have slept through most of the day.  Bloody cold, she cursed inwardly, for she never got sick.  She had slept most of the last couple of days, interspersed with coughing fits, cranky moments of letting Jon take her temperature and pour soup and tea down her throat, and the occasional "I am not sick, so you can totally fuck me, I promise I won't pass out" debates.  He had refused, tucking her into the big bed in his room, saying that she was his patient now, and one did not take advantage that way.

"You're too honorable for your own good," she bitched, the last time she'd tried to suggest a little nookie.

"Sue me."

"Hmm, I might."  

He simply kissed her nose, told her she was adorable with her pouting, and she fell asleep before she could reply, cursing her body for succumbing to this strange Southern cold during this strange Southern storm.  

It was almost sundown; the light fading overtop the trees cocooning the house on the mountainside.  She blinked at the reflection of the snowy treetops in the huge windows and felt good.  Good enough to get out of bed, she figured, sliding free of the sheets, the huge Night's Watch hoodie falling over her hips to her knees and sleeves over her fingertips.  She shuffled in her thick wool socks—also stolen from Jon—to the bathroom, flicking on the light and taking stock of her reflection.  

Her nose was chapped from blowing into Kleenex, her eyes slightly blood-shot, and her hair was a nest of epic proportions, she wondered if there was a dragon living in it.  She scrubbed her cheek with her palm, shaking her head, and glanced at Ghost, who looked up at her curiously.  "Do you think I'm sexy Ghost?"  She put on a fake pose, thrusting her hip to the side, pretending to look cute in the oversized sweatshirt and nothing else.  

Ghost did not indicate one way or the other.  He just wandered off towards the sunken tub, hoping into it and then put his paws on the other side, tail wagging and gazing out the floor-to-ceiling windows.  She wandered over, sitting on the edge, and followed his gaze, smiling down at Jon, who was moving firewood from the deck into the house.  She scratched Ghost's head.  "Thank you for keeping me company, I'm sure you'd rather be with him."

She ran her fingers as best through her hair as she could, wincing at tangles.  "Ugh."  A shower was necessary.  She shivered; it was still chilly, even with the heat returning, the pipes back to working order.  

Somewhere in the bedroom, her phone dinged.  She left Ghost to his watch, getting off the bathtub edge and went to pick it up from the nightstand, staring at the email notification from Tyrion Lannister.  

Thank you for your message, Lannister Properties is currently closed due to significant weather activity, we will respond in due time. She scoffed, opened up one of the emails that had been sent immediately after and saw that indeed, Tyrion had replied.

Ms. Targaryen, I was sorry to see your negative review of our property.  As you know, significant weather activity is possible, and while we cannot compensate you for any destruction caused by Acts of the Gods, we would like to offer you a 20 percent discount on your next Lannister Property rental.  A Lannister always pays their debts, and we would like to no longer be in debt to you!  Thank you, Tyrion  P.S.  Our insurance investigator will survey the property damage and be in touch regarding your payment options.

Her mouth dropped.  "Fuck you!" she shouted at the email.  She would definitely be handling this stupid little lion herself.  After drafting a very strongly worded email with tons of legal jargon she hoped would have the Lannister quaking in his boots, she dropped her phone, a muscle twitching somewhere in her shoulder.  She rubbed at it, scowling at the dragons, who were watching her from where they now were seated on her pillow.  She shook her head.  "Fucking Lannisters."

At least she had Jon, she figured, and picked up her phone again, sending a quick message to Missandei.  Despite the weather, the plague, and the shitty rental, I'm feeling much better now.

Her phone buzzed almost immediately.  She smirked at her BFF's reply:  Yes, I've heard endless banging can do that to a person.

After saying that she was not endless banging Jon-- they'd had to take a break because of the plague after all-- she put the phone on silent, charged it up, and then padded back into the bathroom, because now she well and truly needed a hot, long, relaxing shower....or...maybe...

Her eyes landed on the tub.  It had been used just to store water those first couple days without power, but a week later....she swished her lips around and decided.  She deserved a soak.  Just like she wanted when she first saw it.  She leaned over and tugged on the taps, letting the hot water pour in, steam instantly rising.  It was rather deep, like a small pond, and she puttered about looking for some candles, finding a few in another bedroom and even some bath salts.  They smelled divine, lavender and eucalyptus, perfect for relaxing and also shaking loose any remaining crap in her nose from the cold.  

She watched the bubbles foam, fluffy and cloudlike, almost resembling the snow that pillowed along the windowsills outside.  The sun had fully disappeared behind the trees, the stars peeking out.  It was rather breathtaking, maybe even something she might have seen if she'd been up at the Wall with Missandei and Grey instead of down in Dorne, when she had planned to just watch sunsets over red sand dunes and mountains.  Go figure, she was getting the North and she didn't even pay for it.

Stripping out of her hoodie and her granny panties— Jon had thankfully not continued to make fun of her for their use while she was sick—she slipped into the tub, hissing at the first touch of the hot water on her skin, and then moaning in delight, her dragonblood positively singing.  Her brothers jokingly referred to her as "the Unburnt" because for whatever reason she did not feel pain with heat.  Barely even flinched when fire flicked her fingertips as she loaded the fireplace with wood, to Jon's shock.  

It was straight out of the Heavens of Valyria, she thought, sinking fully under the foamy bubbles, the lavender soothing her dry skin, the eucalyptus filling her lungs, crisp and healing.  She reached to adjust her knotty hair, piled on her head, and closed her eyes, groaning happily the deeper she sunk into the tub.  The lights off, the candles all around her, it was how she wouldn't mind spending another power outage.

Ghost was not one to leave her out, his head on the edge of the tub, accepting wet scratches now and then on his head.  She chuckled, opening an eye to peer at him.  "If you want in here, you're welcome to it, but I'm not dealing with that wet dog smell later."

He huffed, annoyed.  

The only thing truly missing, she realized, after an undetermined amount of time later, was some music, a glass of wine, and a very attractive, very sexy, very naked Jon Snow.

"Well look at you."

Eyes springing open, she turned her head sideways, spotting Jon leaning against the door frame.  His sweaty curls slicked at his neck and temples, his t-shirt and sweats damp from the snow and exertion of moving all the firewood around.  In his hands, he had a bottle of beer and a glass of wine.  She smirked.  "Which one is for me?"

"Which one do you prefer?"

"Gimme."

He already knew her, handing her the Dornish red, while he sipped at the Northern ale.  He glanced at Ghost, who was scowling up at him.  "What?  I'm not giving you a bath."

"Am I in his tub?"

"Yes, he likes baths."

"Your dog is very weird Jon Snow."

"Don't I know it."  His eyes darkened, the candlelight shooting off the gray irises in sparks, his lip curling over his teeth in a wry smile.  "In fact, I have to say, I'm a little upset with you."

She smirked, flicking some bubbles at him.  "Oh yeah?"

"Aye, you're sharing bathtime with my dog and not me."

Ghost stuck his nose into the bubbles, blowing them up into the air and snatching them with his teeth, until some went up his nose and he sneezed, rubbing his nose into the rug.  She sat up, peering over the edge of the tub, laughing.  "Oh Ghostie!  You alright prumia?"

The Valyrian for 'my heart' had begun slipping easily when it came to the fluffy dog, who whined, rubbed his nose with his paw, and accepted her kisses, even if some of the water dripped from her arms and shoulders when she leaned over to reach him.  She fell back into the tub, once Ghost had finished with her, and wandered off, the door banging shut after him.  She frowned, about to ask, but Jon answered the unspoken question.

"Aye, he closed the door.  He also likes giving people privacy."

As he had kept to himself, hiding off away from them during those couple nights on the floor in front of the fireplace, she had to thank the dog for that.  She smirked up at Jon, who looked a bit annoyed, and was toeing off his socks, the beer now on the edge of the tub.  She sipped he wine, surveying him appreciatively, the black t-shirt falling to the floor.  She purred, recognizing the gleaming lust in his eyes.  "Who knew jealousy was such a powerful motivator for you?"

"Jealous?" he scoffed.  "No way."

"Hmm."  She disagreed.  

“Is there some space left in that bathtub?”  

When she opened her eyes, she found that he was naked, the sweatpants joining the t-shirt and his socks.  She licked her lips, shifting and gestured; there was more than enough room.  She smirked at him, as he stepped in and yelped.  “Careful, it’s hot,” she cooed.  Gathering some bubbles, she piled them in front of her, annoyed that they shielded her favorite part of him from her gaze.  She had an ulterior motive of course, for hiding her body from him, smirking as he scowled back at her, no doubt mad he couldn’t see beyond the lavender scented shield.

He sank back into the tub, his head popping over the side, leaning on the other edge and his feet sliding along her legs, before they stopped on either side of her arse.  She slipped her leg along his, the salts and soaps giving her skin an added slickness.  He narrowed his eyes on hers and she smiled, innocent, as her foot moved over his calf, his thigh, and then pressed between them, her brows arching.  “Hmm,” she murmured.  “Such…hard work out there.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I was alone in bed when I woke up,” she continued.  She sniffed, hoping her voice didn’t have the added thickness to it from her cold.  She was trying to be sexy, scooping up a handful of bubbles and blowing them towards him.  

A little pillow of bubbles landed on his head and he smiled, eyebrow lifting.  “Cute.”

“You do look cute.”  

“I don’t usually like baths.”  He flicked some bubbles away from her chest, scowling again at them.  “They’re blocking the view.”

“Well that’s too bad.”

“It really is.  Makes things…inaccessible too.”

“And what are those?”  Her foot was still sliding along his cock, her toes tickling along the hard, thick length, and suddenly it fell to the side, as he lunged towards her, a wolf with its prey.  Water splashed around them, bubbles everywhere, and before she knew it, his arms were around her thighs, hoisting her up to the edge of the tub, and splaying her legs out.  A wicked grin shot up at her, his sinful lips twisted, and eyes black.  She cried out, before she even knew what was happening, and he tugged her forward, arms wrapped around her legs, which fell over his shoulders, and he dove down.

The first thing she felt was his tongue, spearing straight into her.  “Fuck!” she screamed, clenching around his head and grabbing at his wet curls.  She moaned, long and low, her head falling backwards, smacking against the foggy windowpane.  She kept a hand on his hair and her other fell back as well, grappling for something to hold, and eventually found the edge of the window itself, holding tight to the wooden frame.  

He feasted like a man starved, his tongue slipping in and around her folds, which had already been damp at the sight of him and had grown increasingly slick with her need for him as he teased her and stripped in front of her. She panted, Valyrian babbling with “Jon” and “fuck” and “yes”, everything he did in response to her body’s craving.  His tongue was pure magic, lips suckling here and there, and his hand breaking free of her leg to slip between them, a single thick finger sliding inside, crooking at just the right angle to find the spot inside of her that had her whining, high-pitched, desperate to come.  

Flicking his tongue around her entrance, he gathered up her wetness with it and carried it to her clit, nibbling and sucking the little bud, alternating between giving it the attention she wanted and sliding it back into her, a second finger now joining the first.  He let go of her other thigh, since she was holding herself up and his other hand pressed above her pubic bone, at the exact moment his fingers pressed to that magic spot, the pressure too much for her to bear.  

She was coming, the flame already flickering, and stoked higher and higher.  She gripped his hair so tight; she almost tore it clean from his skull, and when her eyes pried open long enough to meet his, that devious, devilish look that told her he knew exactly what he was doing, she couldn’t take it.  It shattered her, the flame exploding into thousands of tiny ones, engulfing her.  

Hand falling off the window, smearing finger tracks down the condensation, she thrust her hips aimlessly into his mouth, her body clenching, spasming around him.  He carried on, careful of her sensitivity, and kept moving, fingers slipping along, this thumb tapping and circling, and tongue angling through, drinking up her sweetness.  She came again, her body quivering, exhausted.  

It all felt so good, so fuzzy, and she slipped back into the tub, water splashing out over the edges, her head almost falling straight under the top of the still steaming water.  He caught her, turning so she was draped over his chest, the bubbles fading away around them.  His cock was still hard, pressed between his abdomen and hers, and she lifted her hips enough to trap him there, teasing her and him both.  “Soon,” she sighed, eyes closed.  “Give me a minute.”

He brushed his lips over top her hairline, damp now with sweat.  “Feeling better?”

Rising over him as best she could, at the awkward angle, bathwater and bubbles still coating her skin, she reached her hand around his head to pull his mouth to hers, groaning at the taste of herself she still felt on his tongue.  “Oh Jon, you have no idea how good I feel now.”

“Glad to hear it.”  

[pocket-void]

Some Stuff About Marcus Pt.1

Alright, I’m finally gonna talk about Marcus in more depth for a lil bit because honestly the more I think about him the more I want to talk about him. So I’m gonna do just that! Both for fun and to get some stuff out of my creative system. ^///^

So let’s start with the man himself, shall we?

Marcus

Marcus is my personal version of the mysterious Orange side, and he’s more of an OC than a theory and I just really enjoy talking about him sometimes. So I do! I talk more about what he represents in this post (there’s also other miscellaneous scraps of info about him in the orange side tag), this one is gonna focus more on his exact relationship with each of the other sides (I always welcome more specific asks if you ever wanna know anything else! Since I’m very rambly and believe me when I say that I have answers to basically everything >///<). These are longer than I thought so I’m splitting it up...but if you’re still here, then strap in folks! u///u

Roman

Marcus doesn’t dislike Roman, but he’s not a big fan of him either. Theoretically they could have a better relationship but it’s hindered by a perception of Marcus that someone else had set a long time ago. (We’ll get to that)

One of the bigger reasons why Marcus and Roman don’t quite get along is simply due to their completely opposite levels of self respect. Roman is insecure and often unsure about his accomplishments and how others feel about him, while Marcus is too sure about his skills and how others perceive him. There are clear flaws to both.

In Marcus’ case, it’s made him incredibly stubborn and bitter as a result of being seen as a problem and not being able to do anything. It’s very difficult to convince him he’s wrong, and while he’s not dumb enough to think he’s right about everything, he gets more aggressive than necessary in the face of opposition at times. But more than anything Marcus is honest. He’s blunt and isn’t afraid of just stating how he feels to people, and Roman’s reluctance to do so really bugs him at times. In fact, he’s sometimes angry for him.

The fact that simple phrases can shatter Roman’s entire ego drives Marcus up walls, because if he were in his position he’d probably deck someone in the face right then and there. Being insulted? Getting what he fears most spat at him like venom? Marcus would never stand for that. Beyond that he’s also mad for the people who care about Roman. Why can’t he believe them? Can’t he see how much he’s cared about? How worried people are? Does he really? Marcus thinks that distrust and insecurity feels like an insult to them.

The thing about Marcus is that he’s been through being branded bad and evil. He’s still the bad guy in a couple of ways. He’ll play the bad guy if he has to. He’s over it, though not quite over it as he’d like to be... In a way, he’s also envious of Roman. Roman is important. The others do actually love him. And deep down, Marcus also respects the things he does and doesn’t want him to be crippled by his self doubt because what the two have in common is passion. A drive and determination to do the things they want, and to achieve the goals they aim for. It’s just a shame that their relationship is soured by their general perceptions of each other.

Marcus also just isn’t big on theatrics, but that’s because he uh, can’t see. He likes to make fun of Roman just like anybody else in casual conversation and only ever refers to him as “Red”, “Princey”, or on occasion “Ruby”. He jokingly takes Roman’s threats seriously when they quip, and while they never actually get into fights, Roman is aware that Marcus will actually throw down.

At the end of the day, Marcus wants Roman to consider himself his own hero. He doesn’t understand Roman’s need to keep up an image because he’s never had an image to live up to, let alone anyone who'd look to him for inspiration. Whether Roman likes him or not doesn’t really matter to him, he doesn’t care about people who’ve made up their minds about him and are too set in certain ways of thinking.

Which is hypocrisy at its finest, but we’re not there yet.

Janus

Right off the bat, they do not get along. Which you might find kind of odd, considering they’re both under the umbrella of “dark side”. The truth is, they’re tentative colleagues at best. Hilariously Logan probably gets along with Janus better than Marcus does, and there are a couple very fair reasons behind this.

On the one hand, they both agree on doing things for the “self” (Which in their case is c!Thomas). They both agree that the self should be the most important person in one’s life, and will do whatever it takes to protect it. However, the biggest difference between them is the methods they go about doing so. And it’s here that Marcus’ righteous anger often clashes harshly with Janus’ need for self preservation. Marcus doesn’t lie, he doesn’t see the need to. If he wants something, he’ll do it. If he believes something, he’ll say it. He does it because he knows he’s right, and that’s what matters. Obviously this would cause a lot of problems in real life if you actually are that blunt 24/7, and in those cases Janus has to reign him in quite a bit.

Marcus is fundamentally reckless, brash, and prone to getting carried away if not kept in check, which makes him kind of a danger to Thomas’ wellbeing at times. The thing is, both of them are aware of this. Which is actually why Marcus isn’t as spiteful about stepping down as he could be. He knows that he can do more harm than good if he ever steps out of bounds. This won’t stop him from feeling like his input would infinitely accelerate certain debates, and on a personal level he does still feel like he has the right to fight for that recognition, but he doesn’t because he’s not dumb enough to actively cause harm to others for the sake of himself. It’s not what he wants. What he will and often does do however, is do things that end with him getting hurt in the end. Maybe the reason he disagrees with Janus so much is because his own sense of self preservation is surprisingly poor.

A mildly exaggerated analogy I like to think about is that: If under any circumstance the two of them would have to plot revenge, Janus would focus more on personal safety and Marcus would focus more on personal vindication. Marcus has zero qualms about actually throwing hands, no matter the resulting physical consequence (If his scars were any indication) which Janus would 100% be against. Imagine the consequences of a physical confrontation! Absolutely not. Snake man would prefer more subtle and manipulative tactics, and would probably prefer to frame someone without being implicated himself if possible. They usually compromise, but always butt heads one way or another.

In casual conversation, Marcus is more snarky to Janus than anything. They trade sarcastic remarks often and tend to be a lil snippy, but they often agree on similar points? But also insist that they don’t get along, which is pretty funny. Marcus calls Janus “Yellow” or “Snake”, and sometimes a few yellow flower names like “Tansy” or “Marigold”.

Remus

Would it come as a surprise if I said these two actually get along ok? Think about it: They’re both blunt, forthcoming with their ideas (As wild as Remus’ are), and are at times prone to violence. They’re both seen as “bad” and both have experienced being forcefully repressed one way or another. They kind of just vibe on a similar plane of existence if I’m honest with you. More than that however, both are relatively accepting of themselves, Remus more so than Marcus actually. There are some things Orange unfortunately still has to come to terms with.

On a casual level, they probably can do some pretty reckless and dumb things together. Marcus respects anybody with self confidence really, and the way Remus just owns being the garbage man he is definitely gets a pass in his book. It doesn’t mean they never disagree though. In a lot of ways, Marcus is still tied to logic, and Remus’ chaotic nature isn’t always suited to how he works. They conflict the most when it’s time to put the chips down and actually get things done. Remus totally does his best to bug the hell out of him too, much to his chagrin. He makes it pretty clear how he feels about it, but the duke isn’t fazed. Tackle the blind man, he dares you.

Marcus isn’t exactly good with creative input, it’s not his function. In fact, he himself is actually locked in a very specific type of world view from his experiences over the years. It’s not intentional, he just tends to grow irrational when he gets too heated. Sometimes he forgets to take his hand out of the fires that burn him, and it inevitably comes at a detriment to himself. Remus has the capacity to make him incredibly furious under bad circumstances, and if they aren’t careful he might actually act upon dangerous suggestions that Remus just casually suggests. If Remus is the voice behind intrusive thoughts, Marcus is the impulse that actually acts upon them. He won’t, obviously, but spite and anger can push people to do rash things. They both know better than that of course, but it’s a possibility that will never go away.

Marcus calls Remus “Green”, though he also refers to him by odd green things sometimes like “moss” or “seaweed”. I like to imagine the two of them going off and smashing up random things to blow off steam/just for fun. But that’s just me. u///u

---

If you’re still reading then thank you??? This is honestly more self indulgent than anything, but I just have way too much stuff I could talk about and it needs to go somewhere akjbefkaefk.

I shall talk about the rest in Part 2 perhaps. o///o

[rodypowderedmilk]

hehe @tonguetiedmisfit1

Del remembers being a teenager and desperately wanting to shop at Victoria Secret, like the girls with the beautiful bras in the laundry room. She wore Hanes bras from Target, and never felt comfortable or beautiful enough to join in with the confident strutting of the girls with the lacy bralettes and push up bras. Not to mention the imagined embarrassment of her mom doing the laundry on Sundays and having to move the lacy, sexy bras or underwear from the washer to the dryer. The situation was shudder inducing- at best. 

But she still thought about it and admired the window displays from the lingerie shops. In her brave moments she browsed the online shops, looking at all the pretty lace and gauzy material, the fancy embroidery and intricate straps. She wondered what it might look like on her body. 

Now, almost a real adult and going through her masters program in the shining and steaming city of New York, Del does her own laundry and has her own washing machine. Well. A washing machine that she doesn’t share with her mother. New York certainly has more malls and outlets than the midwest, and the copious amounts of advertisements- billboards, big screens, and window displays had been something to get used to. They’d become the starry night sky of home. On full moons, it used to light up the town, back home. Now every night in the city, there are no stars to be seen, but the light of the city is akin to every beautiful full moon. 

It was the second semester of her freshmen graduate program when she’d been on her walk home from campus, gyro remains in her hand from a late lunch when she’d walked past that great big Victoria’s Secret store. She’d taken one look at those glamorous black and white photos with the airbrushed girls and their [double decker titties] and said to herself, today is the motherfucking day. 

Del remembers wondering what Dr. Banner might think if he knew what she were using her internship money for, and at first it was hard to reconcile what seemed like such a frivolous and needless purchase with her current lifestyle. High school days were filled with going along for snack runs and declining to buy those chips she wanted, and trips to the mall wondering whether or not to use that three year old gift card from Auntie Margaret because maybe something even better will come along and I’ll really, really need it. 

Things have changed a bit from then. 

You keep trying to talk yourself out of it and the inside of your head is beginning to feel like a high school debate team meeting, except none of the arguments are well thought out or succinct. It’s mostly just panicked half-thoughts and repeated curse words. 

It’s, of course, not your first Avenger’s party- not even by a long shot. There’s been Superbowl Parties, March Madness Parties, dinner parties- sushi, pizza, and chocolate fountain alike. There've been drinking parties, and New Year’s parties, and then, of course, the Just Because parties. You are no stranger to the party planning expertise of Tony Stark. 

Tonight seems to be one of the ‘Just Because’ parties, with all the staff from the upper floors of the tower invited. Which means some of your coworkers from the lab floors. And, of course, Tony Stark who is a bloodhound. 

So, while the strappy piece of lingerie that is currently laying on the bed seemed like a good idea, it now seems very… rash. 

It’s black and… risque, to say the least, and you’ve already picked out a dress to wear over it. With any luck, no one will notice what you’re wearing underneath. But the thought of anyone finding out what you’ve got on is enough to send your head spinning and your stomach alight with aggravated nerves. You reach out to touch it, one little pat, and groans. It shouldn’t be this hard, should it!?

“Hey, uh Del?” 

You jump, hearing Bruce call from the other room and clutch at your chest which is still damp from your shower. 

“Are you almost ready?” he calls out. 

“Shiiit,” you curse to yourself through gritted teeth, lightly pounding your first against your forehead, “UhhrrrrAH, fuck- Yeah just a minute, I’ll be right there!” You yell. 

“Fuck.”

The ride up to the Party Deck, as Stark has so affectionately dubbed it, is spent trying to get your legs to stop shaking. Not to mention the, ahem, underclothes you’re wearing are wedgied so far up your ass you think if you were still a virgin, you might have just been deflowered. 

Bruce reaches out and grabs your hand, bumping his forehead against your shoulder, “Hey, you look really nice.”

The struggle to hide a squeal or a moan is immense and you finds your cheeks growing hotter despite how long you’ve been with this man. 

“Thanks, I- uh, thanks,” you give him a short smile. 

The elevator dings, opening, and Bruce places his hand on your back. You relax into him, grateful for his warm touch. God, he’s just a calming presence, and for a second you want to ride the elevator back up to his floor and just.. 

He tenses up beside you, and you realize his hand is resting just over where all the straps conjoin. You fight the urge to whine and collapse from embarrassment. He looks over at you, eyes wide. You’re hoping no one is looking at who’s just arrived. 

“Uh, surprise?” 

When you’ve made it away from the entrance, coaxing the shocked Bruce Banner beside you, he holds onto your arm. 

“Are you-” he blows air out through his mouth, and groans a little bit under his breath, “Mmmmm Del….”

All you can really do is whimper and squeak and face plant into his shoulder, making various embarrassed noises. “I’m sorry, I just! I got the idea and…”

Bruce runs his hands over your back, probably attempting to soothe you, and consequently feeling the rest of straps up and down your body. 

You pull back and look at his face, trying to gauge what he’s thinking. He swallows thickly, “Yeah.” 

He reaches down and absentmindedly adjusts himself, eyes still locked on you, his other hand still on your back. You squeak, “Bruce!” 

“Huh- oh, what? S’ just… tight.” 

You faceplant back into his shoulder, pretending to sob, “Ohmygod.”

He chuckles, “No, no, it’s good, I… I really like it.”

“Obviously,” you grumble. 

He holds your shoulders, pushing you back. He holds your face, “I really like it,” and presses his groin into your stomach. You can feel him hard under his pants, and it lights up your stomach, and deeper, between your legs where you’ve become hot and swollen- the arousal zinging through your body quicker than lightning. You hold back a whimper. 

He kisses your nose, “Now, let’s go see if we can find me a chair… or a pillow.” 

A snort escapes you, unattractively, and he shoots you a fond smile. 

The first 20 minutes pass without fanfare, although your stomach remains a livewire of energy and nerves, snapping like crackling fire and embers. Bruce sits beside you on the incredibly posh and low to the ground couch that Tony for some unthinkable reason has deemed acceptable for the Party Deck. Some of your coworkers are milling around and have stopped to come say hello to you and Dr. Banner. You fight a blush every time they do, what with Bruce’s hand comfortingly on your thigh, and his blazer awkwardly draped over his lap.

You’re worried at any second there’s going to be some impossible breeze and everyone is going to see your underthings, or maybe the material is actually see-through or thinner than you thought, and everyone is going around and whispering about what you’ve got on. 

You’re trying to hold onto the arousal that you felt moments ago, but are only grasping to the tail end of it, like a rope falling out of your hands. The longer you sit there, the more anxious you become. Until, of course, Bruce’s hand begins creeping up your thigh. 

You shoot him a look, and at first he looks bashful, but as you lean further into his side, he continues. His hand moves over one of the straps around your thigh and you can feel him breathing in shakily beside you. “Jesus, Del,” he says, breathlessly. His grip on your skin tightens, and you feel yourself growing hotter, thinking of the way he revels in the shape and feel of your thighs. He pulls at his pants again, looking around the room surreptitiously. “Ohmygod, Bruce,” you whine, tilting your head onto his shoulder. 

“Ah- I’m sorry! It’s- it's tight.”

You can’t help but nervously laugh, the noise coming out a bit hysterically. 

“‘And ‘s your fault,” he rumbles. That alone is enough to make you want to hide in the crook of his neck and never come out. 

“I’m sorry,” you whine, drawing out the y at the end. You’re feeling almost like you could cry, you’re so overwhelmed and anxious and hot. 

There’s the noise of a glass ringing, someone tapping their glass to make a toast, silencing the small crowd of the party. 

“Heyo,” Tony says, where he’s decided to stand on top of some impossibly designed coffee table, “drinks are served,” he announces, elongating his r and pronouncing the -ed ending. 

The crowd heads over to the bar, mostly leaving you and Bruce alone in your area of the floor. 

“You look like you could use a drink,” Bruce jokes, stroking his hand over your jaw, “you’re all red,” he teases, cupping your cheek. 

“Bruuuuce.”

It seems your embarrassment is just turning him on more because he adjusts himself again, actually palming himself this time. 

“Ohmygod, Bruce!” you whisper shout. 

“Wha- I can’t help it! It’s just-” he sighs, “you’re so fucking hot,” he says, almost mournfully. 

You feel like you have a sunburn, your face is so red- probably unflatteringly so, “Uhm, do you wanna… do you want me to…” you swallow, feeling his intent gaze on you, “you want me to, uhm, help?”

“Oh my god,” he mutters, almost to himself, “Yes. Yes. Please,” his voice cracks. “Wait, wait, are you sure? Are you sure?”

You’re not, really, but you respond, “Yes, yeah, of course. I offered didn’t I?”

He kisses you, so soft, so sweet, with a little nip, “Hey, you really don’t have to. I can- I can go get a glass of,” he swallows, “of ice, or or, or something, I-”

You stand up, holding his hand in both of yours, “Let’s go,” you pause, “please?”

He stands before you, blazer awkwardly held in front of his crotch.

“Yes. Yes, always.”

You’re pretty sure you two manage to slip away unnoticed by the crowd, and hopefully unnoticed by Stark, who’s ribbing you won’t be able to handle come Monday. 

You slam the door of the bathroom shut behind you, leaning heavily against it. Bruce is panting heavily, facing you and staring at you with the intense longing of a starved lion faced with a field of gisseles. 

“Ohmygod,” you whisper, covering your face with your arms, “oh my god, ohmygod.” You groan into the corner of your elbow. You’re genuinely worried your legs might give out, that feeling coursing through your stomach and between your thighs, turning you molten and shaky- like melting cotton candy about to be blown away into the wind. And then you feel Bruce’s warmth, pressing you into the door behind you with his hips, and caging you in with his hands pressed into the darkwood beside your head. And, god you can’t help but throw your arms around his neck and cling for dear life. Jesus, it’s just a glorified bra. 

“Hey, hey,” he kisses the side of your head, “Hey, baby, you’re okay. Listen, listen, we can go right upstairs, no problem.”

You shake your head, “Mm, no, please, wanna-” you gulp in air, “wanna suck you. Please.”

“Fuck. Fuck,” and he devours your [mouth], thrusting his tongue into your mouth like he wants to taste every inch of you. You can’t help but open up, melt into the door, and make soft whimpering noises- and he, he smiles into your mouth, devilishly amused at your reactions. “Mm, that’s my girl, huh?” he murmurs, kissing down your neck, the sharp press of his teeth making you gasp and grasp at the salt and pepper hair at the back of his head. 

His hands are under your dress, pulling and kneading at the skin of your thighs, hungrily feeling for the straps you’ve hidden under your clothes. 

“Mphm- wait, wait,” you pull back from him for a second, trying to get some oxygen to your brain and knowing that if you don’t pull his hands away from you, you’ll get fucked bare ass on the glass sink of Tony Stark’s ridiculously lavish party floor. The- it’s- underwear doesn't really go with the set you’ve bought. You’re surprised your dress hasn’t already got a wet spot on it from when you were sitting on that couch- and it’s, it’s made your thighs tacky with your own wetness. So, no, you don’t think Bruce- or you for that matter- will be able to contain yourselves.

Your hands are shaking as you try to unbutton his pants, weak with desire for him. “I just,” gasp, “gotta get my mouth on you,” you get out, finally getting the button. He shoves your hands away unzipping the rest and pulling his underwear under his cock, “Here, here, that’s it.”

It’s thick enough that you never quite get over the difficulty of getting your mouth around it, on it. Your mouth is spread wide enough for you to feel a tug at the corner of your mouth, a considerable stretch. And you never had a thing for big dicks before, but Bruce’s makes your mouth water, wrapping your lips around it and massaging your tongue against the head. 

You remember your first time with him, timid, and awkward, but so fucking hot to see him above you in pleasure. You’re not much better than that first time- can’t get the length very far down, and you’ve not mastered any intricate technique, but you’ve got a wet mouth and an eager disposition.

“Yeah, that’s my girl, look at you, so perfect. Damn, how’d I get so lucky, fuck, god you’re so beautiful.”

And that’s your other favorite part. No matter how poor of a job you do, Bruce seems to eat it up, praising you to hell and back, his mouth running faster than he can keep up with. It sends pleasure down your spine, tingling pleasantly against your neck and cradling you in warmth. It makes you suck on him harder, makes you whimper, makes you take him deep enough to gag. 

He reaches down, cradling your face between his palms, “mm, good gir- ah mm, good girl,” he’s got your hands in your head, half trying to pet you, and half trying to hold on to something. He’s got his head thrown back against the bathroom door, and that makes you swallow, and whimper, setting off vibrations against his skin. He’s hot and heavy in your mouth, hard and perfect. You can taste his wetness on the back of your tongue, and goddamn it’s just… fantastic. 

“That’s it, uhnn, fuck, that mouth, jesus you’re so good. So hot.

Look at you- how lucky am I, how lucky am I, hm?” 

He holds his hand under your chin, coaxing you to look him in the eyes, “You want this, baby?” he asks, checking in with you more than goading, and pushing his hips into you a little bit. You nod, or nod as much as you can with a mouthful of cock. He presses into you slowly, pulls out and then in again, “Oh, oh mm, baby, shit-” you suck on him harder, “whew, fuck that feels… uhhhhnnnn yeah, go on.

“Here let me hold you,” he says, holding your face and caressing his thumb over your cheek. You get a little too eager, slipping forward and gagging, wanting to feel his touch on your skin. “Gentle, gentle,” he eases, “damn, girl, you really want it, huh?” 

You nod and moan low in your throat. 

“OH, fuck, ahhmfuuuuck, you’re gonna get a lot more than you bargained for really quick, sweetheart, shit.”

And that makes you even more eager, bobbing up and down on his dick, breathing as deep as you can through your nose and letting a few tears roll down your throat. You’ve got your eyes trained on him, ensuring his eyes stay closed. You’re still a bit insecure about how you look giving head, and as far as you're concerned, if his eyes are closed, that means you’re doing a good job- and even better, he can’t see you. 

“Jesus, kid, you trying to make me look bad?” he says, with a little jerk of his hips. You can tell from the tension in his stomach, and the kicking of his dick in your mouth that he’s close. You can feel the tremors of his thighs, and you put in that extra mile.

“Fuck, fuck, slow down, slow down, slow down, oh no, fuck I’m gonna- Fuck, Del, sweetheart, I’m gonna come if you don’t-” you swallow hard, and moan, “you gotta-mmMM” and he comes in your mouth.

[lllluka]

A LUXY Conversation with a Debatable Amount of Eye Contact

Been doing assignments and exams all week, so I’m doing all my LUXY week content late. Here’s my day one (on day 5 lol). ‘Eye Contact’. @luxyweek .

This is the same Universe as: 

1. ‘THIS IS WHY XY ISN’T ALLOWED TO WEAR SHIRTS WITH TEXT ON THEM’ - A comedy oneshot about a shirt selection gone awry. 

2. ‘ ONESHOT ’ - In which Bob Roth and Anarka Couffaine are now ‘drinking buddies’ and XY stays over on the houseboat. Luka hates him. Luka hates him SO much. 

3. ‘THIS IS WHY LUKA SHOULDN’T LOSE HIS MIND AND COOK DINNER’

 - A chaotic comedy/unique horror crack-scenario from the POV of a 26 y/o Marinette.

From start to finish this experience had been living Hell for Luka, and as more and more time passed by, Luka began to mirror his feelings about this whole ordeal with his body language; leaning on doorways, brooding, with his arms folded- sitting near Bob and his mother as they attempted to play poker on the deck, with his guitar, but ONLY electing to ‘tune’. At some points it seemed as though Bob was about ready to say something in reaction to his purposeful intermissions, but Anarka somehow managed to grasp the old man’s attention back whenever his moustache-endowed lips begged to open.

The worst part about Bob and Anarka hanging out so much recently, wasn’t even the presence of the producer in his home space. For the most part, Bob just minded his business and didn’t really acknowledge Anarka’s adult live-in son. It was Bob’s OWN live-in son that was actually the problem, and this was specifically because the SOB (Son of a Bob) had not only brazenly stolen his band’s music, pissed off his former love, AND gotten him Akumatized on multiple occasions, but was now rubbing his decorated fingers all over Luka’s equipment. He figured, save from physical violence, the best he could do was try to drive the company away at the source, hence the live tuning entertainment, but… there was apparently no budging.

One particular night, after playing the same four-note riff about a quarter of a thousand times, Luka begrudgingly picked up his guitar and headed downstairs to call it a night. Now, as much has he’d been worried about XY snooping about and digging through his equipment, it hadn’t occurred to him until now just what an inattentive, easily distractible person could do to his bedroom. The air was suddenly deathly quiet, as his footsteps creaked the pastel floorboards, body allowing for an involuntary shudder as he approached the poorly-designed door handle to his bedroom. After hefting the majority of his bodyweight into it, he opened the door.

Luka just about had a heart attack when he realised XY was not there. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He worked out how to turn the doorhandles? He’d just figured Xavier was too stupid to consider turning it with both hands. So much for that, it’s not like that guy could not be trusted on such a delicate vehicle-slash-home. God forbid the asshole got into the controls or sunk the boat.

It was definite. He had to be found, and that was not an action Luka had voluntarily elected for in the past. Though there was an extreme sense of urgency, Luka, of course, did not forget to stop and gently tuck his guitar under the sheets of his bed—leaning over once the instrument looked cosy, to kiss it good night. The strings rung out in tangy appreciation, and that’s how he knew he did a good job. God, he’d make a great father- but that was a thought for later. NOW, at least, he should probably redirect his attention to finding the hidden celebrity.

Just as he rammed back through the door, he saw the guy. Xavier was just standing there, staring blankly, with a half-eaten cup of noodles in one hand, and chopsticks in the other.

“What are you looking for?” He inquired, twisting more noodles onto his chopsticks. Luka stared egregiously at the man, first thinking ‘he’s eating my food’, and then ‘he can use chopsticks??’. He would have figured, with the guy being XY and all, he would have just mistaken them for, like, rectal thermometres or something. …You know, after consideration, he should probably start hiding everything that a second-grader wouldn’t recognise. Especially eating utensils.

“You.” Luka replied cautiously, a hand lingering on the doorframe. To be honest, he was still completely spun from the situation, and watched at half-attention as XY continued slurping up the ‘dles.

“That’s sweet. Want an autograph?” After blowing out the steam of his last bite, XY pecked an air kiss in Luka’s general direction, although his eyes were still fully focal on the food. It irritated Luka a lot, that the guy didn’t even have the decency to look him in the eye when he mock-kissed at him. Like, really. Where is the etiquette? Didn’t XY learn this in bully school? Luka bit the inside of his cheek for a moment.

“No thanks, I’m fine.” The words were civil, the tone was tense. It at least earned a double-brow raise from the disk jockey, but still no eye-contact.

“You know,” Xavier began, “you’re really mean to me.” Luka was more than taken aback. He had never been called mean in his LIFE. Not by anybody, and not at any point. He felt his flesh freeze under his skin, stomach wobbling with tense anxiety. The worst part about it was that he couldn’t even say that it was untrue. He’d been nothing but a jerk to XY since he’d gotten there, and even before. …Maybe they had some old beef, and he didn’t care for Xavier’s taste, but… he had to admit, out of the two of them, the guy had been pretty civil this whole time.

‘Oh God’, Luka realised. ‘The asshole might have been me all along’. It was physically nauseating to him, and he struggled to find anything to say. All he could do was stare intensely at the guy.

At the silence, Xavier finally lifted his gaze, double-taking-in Luka’s stunned face with pleasure.

“See! You totally know it too! I knew I wasn’t wrong!” He seemed delighted to have struck a chord (haha). Luka swallowed, shaking his head through throbbing confusion.

“I’m not mean.” It was the only thing he could think to say, though it was tense, almost like a question. XY nodded, getting through another mouthful of noodles.

“No, I know. I didn’t say you were mean, I said you were mean to me.” He elaborated, moving to rest his shoulder on the doorframe, next to Luka’s hand. “And because I know that you’re, like, this SUPER goody-goody guy to everybody else, it’s kinda, like… twice as mean that you’re only being like this to me.”

The shock didn’t fade in Luka, but the already-seated distaste for XY caused him to swallow the guilt for a singular moment. “I’m just being myself. It’s pretty hard to get me to dislike somebody, but, yeah, someone being amoral is one of the things I can’t stand.” …He couldn’t forget. XY was worse, and in action. He was a thief, and a liar, and a senseless egotist who didn’t care about music, or other people. “You’re the one who’s… mean.”

Xavier didn’t flinch. His voice fluttered away, casual as can be.

“Yeah, I’m mean, but I’m not mean to you.”

The polar opposite of Luka, apparently. …And yeah, maybe there was a point there. He’d been suspiciously tame around Luka, despite being incredibly judgemental of everybody else. No where near what Luka had anticipated when he’d found out he’d be in the presence of XY again.

He wondered why that was.

“…Yeah, but why?” Well, that was an easy way to coax an answer. Maybe he was just too lazy to fight with him, or… maybe XY was, like, in love with him or something, like that lady that kept ordering pizzas at his last job.

He scrunched his face at the thought.

XY shrugged, draining the cup of its broth and then moving to place it on a barrel within arms-reach.

“That’s not an answer.” Well, not really. At least not one that satiated Luka’s curiosity. With a pained sigh, Xavier waved his hands back and forth like he was using his hands for invisible pinball. He seemed to be considering his reasoning.

“…I don’t know, dude. I just don’t feel like that toward you. …I mean, it’s not you, it’s me. I just need a little time to focus on myself-“

“You don’t feel... mean toward me? Wh---Are you using breakup lines?” Luka stared incredulously. A light in XY’s mind popped, and bright realisation appeared on his face.

“Oh, shaa! I guess I was just copying my old convos.”

It took all of Luka’s willpower to not slug XY right in the face. His fists balled, but he let out a long breath. One of these days, he really should to get back into meditation, lest he be in jail for hot-blooded murder due to some rage fit.

“…XY-“

“It’s because I respect you.”

Luka paused, opening his eyes to meet a strong blue gaze from the other artist.

“What?” Wire-pitched numbness took over the fuzz in the guitarist’s head.

“Your music, and stuff. …Like, it was good enough for someone like me to draw inspiration from.” XY shrugged once again. ‘Inspiration’, yeah, right. He tried that line years ago as well, if he recalled correctly. …Still, there was something weirdly flattering about it.

“Oh.” Thanks. Say thanks, Luka. “………What the fuck.”

That wasn’t it. …But still, the unexpected reaction made XY laugh out loud, chuckling hysterically in waves that he evidently couldn’t contain. Luka watched blankly at his reaction, his neck feeling itchy all of a sudden, and his face very red- a reaction surprisingly hard to evoke within him.

When he watched XY straighten his posture and finally wipe the tears from his eyes, a smile of his own peeked out, but soon faded to neutral in stubbornness; a natural response, whenever Xavier made eye-contact.

[eagesoldartblog]

Loveless Glasses 

What was Valentine's Day, but a way to monetize a holiday primarily based around affection and joy around lovers? Or not. Vivi muses, drumming her fingers against the leather seat. Whatever it was, Vivi didn’t celebrate it. Hell, she didn’t start until a few years ago, and even then it was minimal at best. Minimal being- she bought all the candy she could get February 15th and snack for the rest of the month while listening to podcasts around various whatzahavits and reading strange textbooks in her spare time.

Arthur, on the other hand, was much different. Vivi couldn't wrap her head around that fact. At first, she didn't even notice it, but leading up to it, Arthur was slowly changing out the colors of his outfit into light pinks and reds. Then on the eve of the mediocre holiday, he would use his spare time to make them-... her gifts for the day. Last year he spent the entire week making her a custom leather bound book, going as far as to take a class on book binding, just for that! … Not that she didn't appreciate it, no, she was stunned beyond belief and wanted to do something for him as well. But… this behavior was startling obvious when they spent a majority of their time cramped in the van. She glances over her shoulder, watching Mystery snooze in a ball on one of her spare hoodies, unaware of Arthur’s persistent work. Then again, he may have purposefully started to drown it out. Glancing back over at him, her eyes fall to the many, many cans scattered around him. So unaware and oblivious to her watching him for the upteenth time that week. 

Don’t get her wrong, she loves road trips, and she loves catching surprises when they were still in development. Spending time with certain people and having a glorified sleep over over the course of a month, or week. Even better when she is so completely aware as to why they’re so excited about whatever they’re hiding from her. Vivi never let them know that she did. And she loved how their eyes would light up and the joy that went into it. But this?

She didn’t love this. Didn’t love how he stayed up all night working and scouring his computer for nonexistent clues, and now he hardly sleeps more than an hour per night - especially now due to the fact that he’s tinkering with a pair of sunglasses.. 

Pink, a sharp magenta.

Hesitantly, Vivi brushes her fingers against the wire of her black ones. Those pink ones broke last week, and she was more than happy to forget about them- she didn't even know where she got it, much less why she wore it- and instead being content with these raggedly black ones. They had a charm to them. But no matter what she said, Arthur insisted. Reluctantly she handed them over for him to start blueprinting and getting to work… Said he can add something that allows her to spot more spiritual entities.

Watching this? She wished she simply threw them out. Nonetheless, her focus reverts back to Arthur. To his hunched back and his stained and dirtied vest that Arthur always cared about. He always got fussy over it, 

Something is wrong here. It shouldn’t be going this way. It shouldn’t.

The thoughts had been repeating in the back of her head ever since this road trip started. Getting louder and more persistent to the point where Vivi couldn’t ignore it. And despite that, she didn't act on it by Arthurs request.

Crawling over the seats, she hops onto the lower deck She should have put a stop to this a long fucking time ago. Her black rimmed glasses slip from off her nose and clatters to the floor, but Vivi doesn’t notice, even when it cracks and a lense pops from under her foot.

The van shifts and rocks from the sudden weight change, finally popping the little Buble Arthur was trapped in, and his brain flicker with dizziness when he looks back at her. Evident by how his head waved and he gripped the ground. 

For some reason, Vivi freezes. Her sleep ridden brain skidding to a stop like a deer in headlights, and it didn’t provide a proper response until Arthurs expression changes. For the first time in what seems like months, the corners of his mouth draw up, and he smiles at her, “Hey Vi.. Happy Valentines da..”

That was enough. Cogs turning in her head and the sound drowns him out because Vivi isn't able to hear him past the rising ring. Built up emotion suppressed so heavily Vivi couldn’t distinguish what it was made of. But the ugly mix of steam powers her body forth, feet so heavy that she was almost stomping. That is until he’s watching her with alarm, staring up at her with an expression of confusion decorating his face.

Over her shoulder, Vivi can hear Mystery yawn. Jump over the cushions, and she can feel like piercing stare drive into her shoulder. If she was any less confused, and tired, she would send the white dog a reassuring smile. 

But she wasn’t. In a fashion that was far too dramatic- even for her- she falls to her knees, forehead bouncing and hitting his shoulder. 

“Viv’?” He tosses his lap top aside and Vivi resist the urge to spit at it. Instead half focusing on the alarm evident in his eyes. When Vivi doesn’t respond, only sinking in closer, it occurs to him. Arthur grips one of her arms gently and loops his metal one. He knew why. Didn’t need an explanation for her sudden shift in attitude. 

Why? She’s tired. Vivi’s really, really fucking tired, hasn’t slept in maybe two days and now the flood gates of thought have opened and allowed her impulsiveness to bleed even more into the box of clarity and action. 

It was nothing compared to Arthur, but her head screams and rings and everywhere she looked it was spinning and so blurry and yet falling asleep meant being victim to some panic inducing sleep paralysis or the worry that Arthur would push it too far. The fear and stress was immense.

And every night, Arthur would be there when she tossed and turned. Came to the bark and call from Mystery who often realized when that would occur. Arthur cared, and he loved her. He didn’t need some shitting holiday to express it, and she knew that. He would also give the world to her if given the chance, even if it meant he would die. He was so much better than her in that regard, he actually cares for his friends. He-

Arthur’s lifting her the smallest bit, holding her against his chest with mild difficulty and extreme caution, before plopping her down and rearranging her onto their- her bed. The thought pokes and prods and stabs through her brain, but she couldn’t even come up with a proper reason for feeling this dead. Arthur was suffering, not her!

She knew that. But with it, she only can make out the thrum of something distorted and wrong in her head. Knots and ribbons of wrongness tangled in horrific messes. 

Arthur fluffs the pillow under her head and reaches over to snags a folded, knitted blanket adorning primarily yellow and white and- clarity rings through again and Vivi’s mind focus’s on that blanket because she made that for him, why is he- drapes it over her. Gingerly tucking it under her, like a child. 

For a single second golden meets bluet, and Arthur gives her his best smile. 

Only to try and leap back. Vivi’s arms shot up, fingers tightly lacing behind his back. A yelp gets lodged in his throat as she rips him down against her. Much to his surprise, he’s now laying completely on top of her. Arthur blinks blankly and tries to snag a handle on anything to pull him up until Vivi rolls them both over and he is next to her. A blanket- his blanket- hurriedly being thrown over his side and in that moment he realizes what she's doing, but a bit too late. 

Arthur clears his throat, “Vivi-”

“Shut up, I don’t care,” She hisses in response, burying her face against his chest to keep him steady... at least that's one part of the reason, the other part being that she couldn't stand this part of herself and didnt want him to bear witness, “I don't care about this person you’re after. Please, just- fucking stop for one night..” Too late…

Arthur’s body stiffens, the metallic arm is pinned under her side and the other one lowers to hug her. Murmurs something illegible into her hair. “I.. Vivi, I - I have to find him.. F-for you-” 

A fit convulses through her and she tightens her hold, she glares harder into his shirt, not caring about the wet drops of tears wetting it now. Instead, “Don’t do it for me then. I would want more than anything in the entire fuckin’ world for you to stop all of this.” 

“I can’t-” 

Vivi grits her teeth, imaginary steam burning her lungs, “You won't be able to find them if you’re dying, Artie. Wh-what then?” She asks, her voice quivering from frustration- As the ball in her chest fights and jumps to leap out of her chest in the form of sobs and pain and screams instead of the cold determination and sternness she needed. Instead, her shoulders shake and her hug tightens. 

Arthur sputters the smallest bit, before his hand is stroking through her hair, maybe having given up on even debating it. 

But oh no, that wouldn’t be enough for her, would it?

“Wha- who is this guy..?” Vivi chokes out, already able to recite what Arthur would say next. Her boyfriend. A man with purple hair. Someone so tall you would be able to spot him in every crowd. A man with a smile so sweet and a scent so spicy he’d made your heart melt with just one.

After a few moments of silence, He says his name, and she doesn’t hear it. Nothing from those inaudible syllables makes a difference in her mind besides allowing the floodgates to flow faster and the cogs to turn harder. The results crashing against her eyelids, and soaking through. Running along her face and her body shudders and curls and Arthur doesn't stop holding her. 

She's so selfish… Vivi hasn’t ever deserved him… nothing she’s done or will do can truly make up for everything that Arthur has given her and that one thought hurts. It hurts, and cuts and the ache is so strong

“D-did-...” her mouth is moving faster than her thoughts can collect, rampaging through a weakened filter that was too hard to reinforce, one burning question she always forced herself to shove down, no matter what, “did you love him... ?” 

With that one question, Arthur’s body stiffens like he was hit by a wall of bricks, shoulders tight and the fingers half buried in her hair halt and nearly grip, “Is that why you keep- why you keep searching…?”  

She's such an asshole, why now? Why on his favorite fucking holiday did you decide to have this breakdown?

Silence fills the van. Mind for the laptop’s fan’s blasting and the scratching of Mystery’s nails against the floor as he tries to plug it in the way he always did. Except for Arthurs stilted and shuddering breath and his all too quick heartbeat thumping away at his ribcage. Save for the swirling thoughts that fill her mind and soul and makes each beat of her own feel like earthquakes and lightning striking her arms and legs and bruising her all over. 

Silence. That is until Arthur takes a deep breath, and nestles her close, lips pressed to his forehead as he whispers, “I do.. But I love.. I love you too, I love you both…” 

They stay there. Until no light is shining in any part of the small space. Until Mystery is snuggling up to her legs and snoring. 

Vivi doesn’t let go.

But in the morning, she wakes up to click-clacking and a gift box beside her pillow.

And nothing in her heart. 

[chuckling-chemist]

Chapter ???

(I have become a slave to my own creative whims on this stupid crossover and need to scream into the void so just take this draft since it’s more comprehensible and easier to skip than a fuckload of bullet points. Look, I have a general plot now and its taking a real shape and I’m so mad)

Luxord (well, that’s what he was still intent on calling himself. Much like Xigbar he grew too attached to the name) sat himself down at the nearest plush blue barstool in the jazz lounge, card fiddling between his two fingers. How long had it been since he’d felt like this? He’d been a Nobody for so long, playing his part to a faceless master, watching the eternal servant to the Master of Masters...for how long? Don’t get Luxord wrong, there was a visceral enjoyment to running around Castle Oblivion while Xigbar continued to be none the wiser, but it felt good just to enjoy a gin and juice without dealing with muted emotions.

And, he reminded himself, no more bulky overcoat to keep himself safe from corruption. He had the choice to blend into his actual environment. Or, more likely, fit his aesthetic. Maroon sport jacket and tie, straight out of someone’s fantasy of Las Vegas. Something perfect for sitting in a lounge featuring a live band filled with people pointedly not infected with malaria, playing an actual jazz song. Couldn’t get that luxury back with those pirates, much as that world was his go-to in those days.

Then again, the drinks were cheaper. And, unlike now, he actually knew the generalities of Xigbar’s plan. If that black box didn’t contain whatever was left to return Xigbar’s master, it was at best a clever ruse to keep the other pieces of Xehanort busy while Xigbar put together the pieces to bring his true master back.

Well, you can’t win them all.

“Pretty abnormal to see a Brit come in here. They generally keep to the more touristy places up in the red light district,” the bartender said pleasantly. She was a pleasant looking woman, long dark hair braided down her back and large, round glasses behind brown eyes. Wearing an apron over what looked like a pantsuit.

Another boon: the bartenders are much cleaner now.

“Then again, nothing’s quite returned to normal yet after the whole Phantom Thief fiasco.”

Luxord raised an eyebrow suspiciously. He was a gambling man, after all. Kept his cards close. This was no exception. Phantom Thieves were not something that casually popped up. If nothing else, it was worth the inquiry. 

His gaze swooped the lounge. In the back corner, secluded to themselves sat a young androgynous person in a dark blue cap and peacoat, so quiet as they tapped away on a laptop they might just disappear into the hazy blue of the wall had it not been for the singular empty glass on their table. Two patrons, a young stern woman with silver hair and an old man in a fedora, debated philosophy over a table littered in drinks. Two others, obviously tourists if their pallor skin indicated anything, in dark sunglasses played billiards. An empty lounge, mostly. Thank God for off days, or else he’d worry about Xigbar having ears somewhere. He shifted in his seat, letting him lean closer on the dark wood of the bar and asked, “Phantom Thief fiasco?” 

“Did you not hear about it? A whole string of high profile celebrities and politicians, all confessing to various crimes because of some seventeen year old kid thinking he was changing the world. And, on top of that, this is the same kid who our former prime minister claimed assaulted him! A scrawny high schooler, calling himself a Phantom Thief! Can you believe?” She shook her head, holding back a laugh. 

“And it made national news?” Luxord asked doubtfully. 

Truth be told, in all the iterations of Japan he’s visited over the years - both in his stay with Organization XIII and before - he hasn’t been to this specific iteration for longer than his memory can adequately say. But matters like that he struggled to imagine the government wanting such a controversy getting out of its borders. 

“Eh, you know how it goes. Kids on the internet go crazy for that anti-capitalism, vigilante rogue bullshit. Guess we’re lucky the Americans were still flipping out over some gorilla or else Twitter would’ve been an absolute nightmare that year.”

He flashed the bartender a smile, the kind that indicated he appreciated the conversation, but he also had a drink to attend to. “Quite.”

The song shifted from whatever upbeat tune they were playing to something more somber. The old man in the fedora was up at the bar now, asking for two more cocktails and giving a bit of trivia at the same time.

He took another sip of his gin, running through what he knew once more. First, Xigbar was not Xigbar. Luxord knew that from the start. No one pulls two Keyblade wielders, Dandelions no less, from the first war as Nobodies and manages to strip them of their memory of such without knowledge of such. He’s lucky Xehanort was apparently a bigger fool than Luxord initially took him for, or else that would’ve tipped him off right away. But, unlike Xehanort or Xigbar, Luxord never moved until he knew he had a good deal.

Second, while Xigbar likely had the box, and acquisition of said box wasn’t great news for Luxord, Xigbar would not ever be able to find the Book of Prophecies. Xigbar, Luxu, he was smart after all. He’d know the best place to hide something is right under the searcher’s nose, and would know it would be somewhere in Radiant Garden. But while he was focused on kissing Xehanort’s ass, he never once thought to check someone. And taking a book from a child, the one remaining totem of his home before Radiant Garden? From the good master’s ward, no less? Why, such would get him thrown out of the castle immediately.

(There were moments Luxord worried Xigbar knew who exactly carried around the Book of Prophecies like his lifeline around the castle, and grew concerned the reason why Xemnas was so willing to consider a teenager as his second in command was Xigbar’s own meddling. But, if such were the case, he likely would have done more to stop Saix and Axel’s Castle Oblivion Massacre. His long con worked out in the end albeit in an unexpected fashion: illusions work well for hiding what you’re holding.)

Third, and most worryingly of all, the damn Foretellers were back. Theoretically, this was a point directly in Xigbar’s court. He was a Foreteller after all, albeit not the leading Foreteller. And all of the Foretellers worked directly for their master. However, in the past, the Foretellers have been incapable of working together the second hardship arises. If fortune fell in his favor, history would merely repeat itself. If it didn’t, it could be tricky.

He finished his drink. If there was any time to check how his deck was stacked, now was as good a time as any.

He swooped the card into the sleeve of his jacket, exchanging it for a different card from a different deck and letting it drop onto the table.

The Fool. 

He swooped up the card and planted it back into his sleeve. In any other world, he’d blow it off and draw again. For matters like this, drawing the Fool meant literally anything. The beginning of a journey, with roads and challenges yet uncovered. A non-answer and a sign his tarot cards had enough of his shit for the day. But he wasn’t in any other world. He was in a world ruled by cruel gods and the humans that chose to surmount them. In a jazz lounge where all the walls looked to be the same dreamlike, hazy blue. No, this was a person.

A thief, if his intuition had anything to say about it.

“Ma’am, one more question. If you will.”

The bartender strolled over with an inquisitive look and grabbed his drink, topping off the gin and juice. 

Funny enough, Luxord used to hate gin. He acquired a taste for it, spending days at a time in Port Royal, downing gin and tonics to keep the mosquitos (and the malaria, fuck that malaria) away.

“The supposed Phantom Thief high schooler. Do you know their name?”

The bartender frowned. “Can’t say I recall it, no. His lawyer fought hard to keep it out of the press. But if you want to talk to her, she’s right over there.” She pointed behind him, back to the table where the heated debate sounded like bickering. “Nijima. Absolute beast in the courtroom. Can’t believe she turned to defense.”

“And the man with her?”

“Sakura. He runs a tiny hole in the wall coffee shop down the way. Leblanc, I think? Named after a French painter, I think. Been there once or twice, but coffee’s not really my thing, you know?” She shrugged helplessly. “Anyway, they’ve come in together every now and then and end up arguing politics every time. You think he’s trying to get with her? Cause that’s what I’ve been thinking.”

Luxord fought back the urge to snort. He was too dignified for that. “Not the way they’re arguing. You said she was a defense attorney, yes? Probably just helping her blow off steam.”

“Eh, I think if he wanted to do that, he’d make her free coffee. I don’t know much about Sakura, but he pours a damn good cup of coffee.”

“Hm.” He pulled out his card from before and threaded it between his fingers. Old habits die hard, after all, and cards were an ancient habit of his. “Do you think he plays cards?”

She rolled her eyes. “Hell if I know. You’ll have to go to Leblanc yourself and ask him yourself.”

Approaching someone like Nijima for the name of a particular Phantom Thief wouldn’t yield results. Not if she was unwilling to name him for the media firestorm. However, if she’s getting drunk on the regular with this Sakura man, he might know. Might even tell Luxord, if he’s lucky. “I think I will, thank you.”

The bartender grinned. “No problem! Hope you enjoy your game!”

He grinned. The game was on. “I believe I will.”

[antoine-roquentin]

The Great Depression in the United States was an environmental collapse every bit as much as it was an economic collapse—­“twin peaks of a systemic civilizational crisis of unprecedented but entirely foreseeable and preventable proportions,” as Collins characterized it. It was the end point of how we had always done things. We could see it and feel it and breathe it, all around us.

By the 1930s, five sixths of the original indigenous animal population that existed in the United States when the Europeans arrived had been wiped out. Seven eighths of the original woodlands had been cleared. One sixth of the topsoil in the United States would shortly blow away in the ecological disaster of the Dust Bowl.

The dust storms were very much a man-made disaster, the result of the heedless booms and busts that had succeeded one another for decades on the High Plains. We knew that farming this place was a bad idea—had known for over a century that much of the region we called the Great American Desert did not have enough water to support the crops we wanted to grow. But that didn’t stop us. Much as the Trump Administration and corporate America react today to the idea of climate change or anything else they don’t want to hear by making stuff up, the government and the railroads, in the second half of the nineteenth century, promoted quack theories to serve their purposes. No water? Don’t worry: there was always “dry farming,” “dust mulching,” and the imperishable notion that “rain follows the plow”—or civilization in general.

“The Santa Fe Railroad printed an official-looking progress map, showing the rain line—twenty inches or more, annually—moving west about eighteen miles a year with new towns tied to the railroad,” wrote Timothy Egan in his magisterial history of the Dust Bowl, The Worst Hard Time. “With scientific certainty, steam from the trains was said to cause the skies to weep.”

Unlike the dirt-poor farmers of the Tennessee Valley, the plowmen of the High Plains were able to obtain the latest motorized combines and tractors, thanks mostly to cheap bank loans, and during the wheat booms of the 1920s they used their machines to tear apart the fragile ecosystem of the land around them. As prices kept declining due to the glut of crops they kept producing, they ripped into even more marginal lands, still funded by the local, undercapitalized banks that forked over loans with low interest rates on almost no collateral. Soon they were joined by “suitcase farmers” out from the towns and cities on weekends, looking to “hit a crop” and make some quick cash.

But so what? Americans wanted more bread, and cereal for breakfast—a “need” created largely by the breakfast-cereal companies and the advertising whizzes they hired. Europeans wanted bread, too, since many of their fields had been ruined in the First World War. To supply these needs, US farmers were harvesting bushels of wheat in record amounts—and wrecking much of the countryside.

“The tractors had done what no hailstorm, no blizzard, no tornado, no drought, no epic siege of frost, no prairie fire, nothing in the natural history of the southern plains had ever done,” Egan noted.

They had removed the native prairie grass, a web of perennial species evolved over twenty thousand years or more, so completely that by the end of 1931 it was a different land—thirty-three million acres stripped bare on the southern plains.

Before long, the dust began to blow. There were 14 dust storms in 1932, another 38 the next year, a record 134 in 1937. It is difficult to adequately convey the terror of a dust storm to those of us living today who have never experienced one. You can get some sense of them from the photographs of the time: mountains of darkness closing in on humble Western towns. They barreled along fronts that were hundreds of miles long and could be at least 10,000 feet high; some reached altitudes of over 20,000 feet. It was nearly impossible to run away from a duster, or even to escape it in the fastest conveyances then available. Often moving at up to one hundred miles per hour, they overtook cars and derailed trains. Airplanes fared no better.

The dust storms were not merely blown dirt, frightening as that might seem, but entire weird weather systems marching across the land. The static electricity they generated made fire dance along barbed wire and shorted car ignitions. It electrocuted farm animals and those few crops the blowing dirt had not already smothered—literally blackening vegetables in the patches where they lay. The people in the paths of these storms huddled in the darkness, unable to see their hands before their faces for hours, choking—sometimes choking to death—on the “dust pneumonia” that scarred their lungs as badly as if they had contracted tuberculosis.

There was no natural stopping point to the storms. They traveled for as long and as far as the winds blew—and the winds were fairly constant out on the Great Plains. One Dust Bowl survivor remembered the wind blowing for twenty-seven straight days and nights, one more natural phenomenon to threaten the sanity of those who had to withstand it.

A fresh storm blew up on May 9, 1934, this one out of the freshly turned earth of Montana and Wyoming, an estimated 350 million tons of dirt suddenly airborne. It dropped more than 12 million tons of grit on Chicago, then covered the East Coast from Boston to Savannah. In New York City, it cut the sunlight of a lovely spring day in half for five hours. Nor did it stop there, since there was nothing to stop it. The duster did not dissipate until it had blown over three hundred miles out over the Atlantic Ocean, startling sailors when it rained dirt on the decks of their ships.

In that same year, as William Manchester recounted in his social history The Glory and the Dream, the new National Resources Planning Board estimated that 35 million acres of previously arable land had been completely destroyed, while another 100 million acres would soon be barren and 125 million acres beyond that—altogether the land of 756 counties in nineteen states—had lost nearly all their topsoil.

Without enlightened national leadership, Collins conjectures, we might have faced an even worse environmental catastrophe—that as the crisis worsened, local, piecemeal attempts to fight the despoliation of the land would have only made things worse, until the entire devolving crisis left us at the tipping points of global warming and species destruction. That is, right where we are today.

There was no known plan put forward by anyone in private enterprise—­although at least in the 1930s no business lobbying group had the temerity to tell us that the dust storms sweeping over New York and Washington weren’t really happening. Individual suggestions for dealing with the Dust Bowl included littering the Plains with junked cars to hold down the dirt under their rusting metal chassis and simply paving thousands of square miles with asphalt. Congress actually debated ways of trying to alter the flow of water from the Continental Divide.

[sunevial]

The Strings that Bind Us Together: A Moment’s Reprieve

Introducing something that’s been in the works for awhile: a sequel to the Followers (aka, the fanfic I’ve written based on @internetremix‘s Discord Murder Party games, master post here!)! This series is a little more slice of life than the previous one...at least for the moment anyways :3 Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy this first chapter!

“Are you absolutely sure the Captain didn’t just kill him and dump his body here for us to have a little fun with? I mean, he hasn’t moved since she dropped him off, and that was almost ten hours ago.” Cheerful, the excitement in her voice almost making the scene seem normal. A small slap echoed through his ear drums, one that he felt he should be able to name but could not conjure up through the fog.

“No no no no no, he’s still breathing. l checked a couple of minutes ago and I’m pretty sure he’s not completely dead. Then again, I’m not a doctor. I unalive things not…re-alive things.” Familiar, the voice of the woman with round glasses and chestnut hair he so quickly bought a ticket for. There was a small crack: the settling of…wooden furniture?

“The kid’s been through literal hell and back, let him rest a little. He’s just sleeping off the transformation.” Relaxed, yet powerful, belonging to a man who knew how to command without using force. A cough, some light shuffling of clothes against bodies, the crunch of teeth. Impossible to discern just how many people were there, but he could guess it was more than three.

“Oh no, he’s been awake for the past, oh, five minutes just listening to us talk. I’m pretty sure that he doesn’t want to be sprawled out on the couch half unconscious, but the magic She uses makes muscles…well, you know, experience rigor mortis. So my guess is that he literally cannot move.” Inquisitive, his words intelligent and terrifyingly precise. A few sharp clanks and rattles bounced around his skull, easily identifiable as two glasses clinking off of each other.

“Rigor mortis, huh? Would’ve been nice to know a few hours ago, but hey, better late than never. But that’s a pretty easy fix.” Simultaneously sarcastic and sincere, as if two identities were at war in her words. There was a creek as something scraped against the floorboards, followed by muffled footsteps and some indiscernible chatter.

Trying to sense what was going on through the noise, a shadow fell over his already darkened vision. He felt a warm hand tilt his head back, the clanging of metal bracelets against one another. Something cold pressed up against his lips and he nearly gagged as something bitter ran across his tongue and down his throat. A weight he had forgotten was there lifted from his chest, cold air rushing into his lungs that could now fully expand. His whole body shuddered. Legs were burning in the pits of hell, arms were being used as a pincushion, head was being hit over and over again by a mallet; he tried to scream but his vocal cords didn’t seem to want to work. But he could move, if you could call violently thrashing in agony movement.

Through the unbearable haze, he just made out a single drop of something pleasantly sweet touch the tip of his tongue. Just as quickly as he had been engulfed in an unending sea of pain, it vanished as if it had never existed at all, his limbs crashing against something soft and velvety. He groaned, turning on his side and fluttering open eyelids with more force than was probably healthy. All that greeted him was a sea of blurred probably humanoid figures.

“Oh right, you probably need these.” A familiar thin piece of wire touched his left hand. He instinctively grabbed them and put the thin frames over his eyes, blinking for a few seconds as everything came into focus. A young woman stood over him with a curious expression dancing in her eyes, her bobbed hair casting an ominous shadow around her cheeks. She smiled warmly. “So, how are you feeling?”

“Well, I’d say like a herd of elephants just flattened me, but that would imply something ran me over. So…I’ll go with I feel like gravity just enacted a personal vendetta against me,” he mumbled, slowly sitting up and holding his head. What…happened just then? There was the soul, then he gave Her his name, and then she started drawing something with string and then…nothing…nothing except darkness, bloodlust, and screams that may or may not have been his as he was consumed by his new name. No longer…well it didn’t matter anymore did it? He was the Young Priest now. And these…these people in the room were his new colleagues. His stomach turned just thinking about it and he sank back down into the cushions.

“Careful there, you were just loaded with enough magic to kill a small bear,” the young woman said, pulling out a crocheted blanket from a nearby basket and draping it over his shoulders. “But hey, you’re conscious and not six feet under, so you must’ve passed the final test with flying colors.”

“I’m tempted to debate you on the conscious part,” he mumbled, spotting four other people in the background. They were sitting at a table set with glasses of colored liquids and small piles of cards, all looking at him with varying degrees of attention and curiosity. He recognized the woman dressed in long flowing clothing and peering at him through spectacles and eyes closed to the world: Old Priestess, oldest of the Followers and the only being in the universe who could actually be considered the Captain’s friend.

“It’s about time you got up, sleepy head,” she said with a large smile. “You’re missing all the fun. And me winning. That’s very important.”

“It’s certainly been one of the better games we’ve had in the past two centuries,” the young man at the head of the table said, shuffling a deck of cards in his hands while orange and green tokens lazily floated around his stark white hair. “Especially because you’re not cheating for once.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I always win fair and square,” Old Priestess said, sipping a steaming mug of what was presumably tea.

“Oh yes, and that five ace play you’re so well known for is completely legal,” he replied with a bemused smirk, dealing out a small stack of cards to only five of the six seats at the table. With a snap of his fingers and a casual hand gesture, the tokens darted away from their suspension and settled in neat little piles next to the glasses, resting with a soft clatter against the wood.

“Are you all…playing poker?” Young Priest asked, stumbling over his words a little. He involuntarily shivered, his skin trying to decide whether he was stuck in the harshest of midwinter blizzards or the height of summer in the driest of deserts.

“Well duh, it’s game night,” a woman said with a snort, downing a large glass of something that reeked so strongly of moonshine that it assailed his nostrils from across the room. She was well muscled, sporting a red tattoo on her exposed arm and eyes that were pitch black where the whites should have been. With a shrug, she drew an arrow from the quiver at her side and pointed it between the dealer and the Old Priestess. “And we’ve already ran as many Uno games as we can before his future seeing funny business makes the games predictable and her illusion mess making makes winning pretty much impossible.”

“And so you immediately switch into poker, shunt me away into the role of the dealer, and never let me play my own hand,” the young man continued with a laugh, spinning a token on his finger. “I simply cannot understand why.”

“I seem to recall a several century winning streak that ended with swords clashing across the common room of a tavern, several choice words aimed at your honor and the honor of whatever creature thought you into this state of being, and the Captain explicitly banning you from ever betting with actual currency for the rest of your unnatural existence,” the last man replied, stretching out large raven wings that seemingly blended into the shadows behind his chair. His hair was swept back out of his face, long as his beard was short.

“Oh, and don’t forget you got bashed over the head with a table leg,” the muscled woman pointed out.

“And burned on your leg with the fire poker,” the woman with bobbed hair piped up.

“That too,” the winged man agreed. He shot a glance over towards where Young Priest was sitting, giving him about the same amount of attention as he was the cards on the table. A light smirk crossed his face, and he turned back to the others gathered around the table. “But if it’s any consolation, there is no mortal or immortal --living, dead, or otherwise-- who can run a table better than you can.”

“And to that, I must agree as well,” the dealer replied. “It’s…well, not exactly fun being stuck as the dealer for all of eternity, but I enjoy watching from the sidelines. It’s fascinating to watch people play card games. Really shows someone’s character…if you know what to look for.”

“Boys, girls, that’s enough chit chat, our newest colleague doesn't want to hear us old farts talking about all that boring stuff that happened the past,” Old Priestess said, picking up her hand and thumbing through the cards. She smiled wickedly and waved him towards the table. “Come on, don’t be shy. Pull up a seat.”

“I…well,” he stammered, fidgeting a little in his seat. “I assumed that I’d be here to, you know…train or be taught magic or…well, not playing cards, I suppose.”

The Old Priestess snickered, the sound dancing out of her mouth like the yelp of a young fox. “Sweetie, we have all the time in the world here.  And we’re all tired out from running across the planet. What’s a game or two or ten?”

Before he could protest, or confess that he wasn’t sure he could physically pull up a seat, the young woman pulled up on his arm and yanked him to his feet with about as much force as someone that small could muster. He shouted a little as he was forced upright. His legs might as well have been made of jelly on a hot summer’s day, but they kept him standing. With shaky steps, and a great deal of help from the young woman, he crossed the room and just about flopped into the wooden chair.

“Hm…unstable leg muscles…didn’t use enough powered newt,” she muttered as she took the seat next to him and picked up the cards. “Sorry about that. But I’m pretty sure you’ll be back to normal in about, oh, an hour or so.”

“Ah, it’s quite alright,” Young Priest said with as much confidence and politeness as he possibly could. “I should be the one thanking you for the potion.” He paused for a second, trying to remember everything he had learned from the years of searching and the old tales whispered in the halls of old wives and suspicious sailors. All of the Followers were fairly unique in talent, so it wasn’t long before he stumbled on an old tale of the greatest potions master in the known realms. “I’m…guessing you’re the Witch?”

“What gave it away?” she giggled, taking a look at her cards and tossing two orange chips into the center. “The potions or the recipe ingredients talk?”

He turned to the young man, remembering the mentionings of him being able to see into the future and a strict ban on card playing games. Combine that with the casual magic he possessed and only one name really came to mind, the name of the chaos entity who could manipulate time and space like a potter shapes clay. “And…I’m betting you’re the Advisor…” he slowly continued.

“Precisely correct,” the young man replied, leaning back in his chair and sipping from a glass of water.

It wasn’t hard to discern the identity of the remaining woman, though the stories of her feats and power were less known. That wasn’t exactly the fault of mortals though, considering so few had met her and lived to tell the tale of the wild woman who spoke with animals and who’s art laid in killing. “Then you must be the Huntress,” he said, nodding toward the woman still brandishing the arrow.

“Oh no, I’m definitely the Witch,” she said with an eye roll and a cursory glance to the cards. She swiped them up in one fell swoop, stared at them for a second, then tossed in three chips. “Me with my giant hunters bow and hip quiver, but thank you for assuming otherwise.”

“Which leaves you as the…Lieutenant,” he finished, the words rolling right off his tongue as he gestured towards the winged individual with a hand. When his brain finally caught up with his actions, he went almost as stiff as he had been just a few minutes prior. This was not just any winged individual; this was the being who could slaughter cities singlehandedly, the one who’s loyalty to their god was unquestioned, the one who was the next in the chain of command. And his leader. “Or, wait, no…the Right Hand?”

“I’ve been called both of those and several more names besides, pick whichever one you like better,” he said with a shrug, picking up his hand and raising an eyebrow. Taking two chips from the pile, he causally rolled them between his fingers before throwing them into the center. “So, you’re the new Young Priest?”

“Er, yes, sir,” said. As if on cue, he quickly snatched up the cards in front of him and looked them over. A pair of fives…not great odds.

The Lieutenant snorted. “Oh please, now you make it sound like I’m in charge or have any semblance of power.”

“But…aren’t you technically our…leader of sorts?”

“And your point being?”

Young Priest could feel his cheeks turning the same color as his hair. “I…uh…alright then…I’ll just…go back to looking at these cards…” As he trailed off, some of his birth accent slipped out and he couldn’t help but wince.

The Lieutenant chuckled a little and glanced over to Old Priestess. “I will say this, I like this one a lot better than the last guy. But you didn’t say anything about him being British.”

“I said he was a good fit, was I wrong?” she asked, tapping the top of her tokens with a long finger nail. Curiously, while everyone else had tossed in orange tokens that shined like fish scales, she was using dull green chips with a tortoise shell pattern along the sides. “And what are countries anyways? Borders change, people move, buildings crumble into ruin as languages and accents die out, and time goes on.” She flicked four chips into the center pile.

Huntress glanced him over from head to toe as she refilled her drink. “Well, you’re a little on the scrawny side, but that’s nothing a few days out in the woods won’t cure,” she said with a smirk, tipping the bottle towards him. “Want anything to drink? Whisky? Beer? Vodka?”

“Um…do you have ginger ale?”

“One of these days I’ll get one of you to be my drinking buddy, mark my words,” she said with a sigh, grabbing a can out of the cooler and sliding it across the table. “But yeah, seems like a good fit. Assuming you don’t try and backstab us like the last one did.”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Witch said with a nod of her head, leaning back in her chair and balancing it on the back prongs. “Seems like you’ve got a good head on your shoulders and a good sense of humor. And if Old Priestess is telling the truth, you’ve already got a little magic, so this next part will be a piece of cake.”

“I will say, you’re certainly different than I was expecting you to be…and I am very curious to see what our newest colleague has in store,” Advisor said, shooting him a cursory glance and a raised eyebrow. “Now that being said, are you going to bet or not?”

“I mean…I would…but I’m not exactly sure what I’m betting here…” he slowly replied, turning one of the orange betting chips over. “I’m…guessing souls?”

“I mean, we’re currently using enchanted goldfish, but if you wanna use souls, we can switch over,” the Lieutenant said with a shrug.

“You’re…what?”

“We used to use souls, but then Captain got annoyed with us playing with her meatsacks and messing up their nap time,” the Witch clarified. “But between the koi pond, a little potion stuff from me, and Advisor’s enchantments, it works well enough for casual games.”

“I use turtles because I’m fancy,” Old Priestess chimed in.

Young Priest just slowly set the single chip in the center of the table. “...is it worth for me to question any of this?”

“Nope!” Old Priestess replied, throwing down her hand into middle of the table to reveal a royal flush. “Read ‘em and weep!”

A collective groan erupted from the table as the rest of the Followers tossed their cards with a huff and some very colorful language. With nimble fingers and a victorious cackle, Old Priestess snatched up the pool and started stacking her earnings into neat little piles. There was a sharp clap and the remaining cards floated into a small discard pile, Advisor going back to dealing with the same bemused expression on his face as Huntress cussed out Old Priestess with just about every curse word known to man.

The Young Priest bit back a small smile. Not exactly what he had expected the five most dangerous followers of the Murder God to be like.

But not exactly unwelcome either.

[lyricsaboutcats]

      Summary:  When Mordin comes down with a cold, it's up to Shepard to take care of him. (Mordin/Femshep, ME2)

Mordin Solus sat on a light green medical bed, feeling deeply affronted by the situation he found himself in. Karin Chakwas had just finished taking his temperature after poking and prodding him very thoroughly. He recognized his own methods instantly and narrowed his eyes at her.

"You've got a cold, dear," she was saying to him, tutting as if he should know better than to ever catch one. She turned away and opened a cabinet. "I'm going to prescribe eleven milligrams of dextromethorphan and bed rest for the remainder of the day."

Her voice echoed kindly around him in the Normandy's medical bay. Too kindly, for how chilly the thermometer had been in his mouth and how sterile the lights above him were.

Mordin's eyes narrowed further.

And the bed squeaked as he shifted with annoyance. "No need," he said. "Well enough to keep working. Propagated a bacteria culture myself this morning. Bacillus ryskosis. Very interesting. " He took a breath, ignoring how the air scratched against his throat and how cold he felt. "Not contagious," he added with a smothered cough.

"Mordin," Shepard said, "I'm not letting anyone on this ship work when they're sick."

She was leaning against a counter nearby, watching everything with a troubled expression and her arms crossed. Her freckles had faded with pale concern, matching the cast of his own face.

Mordin's eyes fell back to normal at the sound of her voice. But he waved her concern away with a gesture of his hand that immediately retreated to cover another cough. There were endless things to do as the only research scientist on the Normandy. He had samples to cook, and more bacteria cultures to propagate. And, more importantly, the Collector database wasn't exactly going to analyze itself.

His mind raced through a fog as he thought about all of it. The simple truth of the matter was that he was brilliant and he was harried, and he had places to be that didn't involve inconveniences like sitting around in bed all day. So Chakwas and Shepard would just have to understand, despite the way they were both looking at him.

The bacillus ryskosis would also have to understand, despite its lack of a functioning neural network.

So Mordin stood up to leave, slipping past the combined protests of the human pair, hurrying until he was only a few feet away from the medical bay's entrance. But as his pace grew faster the world began to wobble in his vision, slowly turning sideways.

He took a painful, frustrated breath and immediately leaned against a counter to steady himself.

Shepard paled even further. Her face wobbled at the edge of his vision like everything else. "Is he really going to be all right?" she asked Chakwas.

"Oh, he'll be fine," Chakwas answered. "But doctors are absolutely terrible patients," she added. "I know because I'm one of the worst. He might need supervision to make sure he rests properly."

And then Chakwas gracefully held out the vial of liquid dextromethorphan to Mordin. He began debating under his breath if it was more embarrassing to take the vial or keep clutching the counter like he was enduring an earthquake.

He stared at the vial for a moment. "Would have prescribed four milligrams," he said, but took it.

"Only so you could keep working," Chakwas replied with a knowing smile. "Now, I'm assigning Shepard to make sure you get your rest. I'm sure you won't mind."

Mordin blinked down at the vial, then glanced at his free hand still clutching the edge of the counter. Chakwas obviously thought that she was sweetening the deal before she thoroughly knocked him out. But the truth was that it was very important to Mordin, lone research scientist of the Normandy SR-2, that Shepard didn't worry about him. He made a point of not letting her take care of him at all.

He wasn't concerned with himself, or the dust on his uniform and the long hours he kept. And if he could have just hidden in the lab and then come out again when he felt better, as bright and quick as usual, that would have been ideal.

He glanced uneasily at Shepard, who remained pale and watched him with fracturing patience. "I'll pull rank on you if you try to go back to work, Professor Solus," she said, lifting her chin slightly.

Mordin smiled a little at that despite himself. She never pulled rank on him about anything. "Understood, Commander," he said.

Chakwas nodded with approval. "Doctor's orders," she added. "You'll feel better when you wake up."

Mordin sniffed with an air of outnumbered dignity, then drank the medicine. It tasted like cherries.

Shepard smiled at him. "Come on," she said and helped him up.

Mordin's eyelid's wavered as she led him to the elevator. "You're going to take a hot bath," she was saying to him, with the same firm voice that she used to convince strangers to pour out their deepest secrets to her. "And then I'll bring you some tea. Gardner probably has some civvies in the storage deck that you can wear as pajamas until you feel better."

And as the elevator ascended Shepard unhooked his weapons, then his omni-tool, frowning while she thought about something. She paused for another moment, then reached up and took his silver audio-input device off of his shoulders. Mordin's eyes widened as she unceremoniously turned him around and yanked the entire thing from its place on his back.

Mordin glanced over his shoulder and down at her, trying not to smile and beginning to fail while she manhandled him. "Realize the subdued state might be tempting, Shepard," he said. He cleared his throat with a wince. "Try to restrain yourself."

Shepard raised an eyebrow at him, holding everything in her arms. "Excuse me?"

He couldn't help himself, not even with every word burning against his throat. He turned around again. "Intent to undress on full display," he explained, a little proudly. "Understandable, of course. Human hormone cycle. Attractive salarian pigmentation. Problematic considering the bacterial circumstances."

Shepard smirked and looked up at him through strands of red hair. "Mordin, I don't think you need to worry, " she said, almost teasingly. "I'm very good at not even trying to kiss you, remember?"

"Indeed," he agreed with a dip of his head. "The very best."

But, if Shepard was going to kiss anyone at all, it would have been him. Mordin felt a little smug about that. He was obviously her favorite.

And having her fuss over him wasn't as bad as he thought it would be, even in such a state. On the contrary, it was vaguely endearing. They entered her cabin. And after he took a long shower, breathing in hot steam and feeling a little regretful about the lost potential for the world of science that day, Mordin found himself in Shepard's bed wrapped in every warm blanket she had. The white jellyfish in her aquarium drifted like clouds nearby while she tucked him in.

Mordin said, "Worrying, Shepard. No need for it."

Her hands hesitated, clutching military issue gray wool. She looked embarrassed suddenly and pulled them away. "You're right," she said. "I don't ever know what to do when people get sick."

"Understandable," he replied. "Can't shoot a cold. Penchant for destruction mostly useless. Feelings of helplessness lead to irritation, lead to worry."

Shepard nodded. "My usual strategy is to drown people in omni-gel or find you and release an antidote into an H-VAC system, I guess."

He smiled at that. "Good strategy."

She patted his chest affectionately, and then stood up. Mordin watched her go until he was alone in the blankets with a click of the door sliding closed behind her. And it was in the silence, with nothing more than the gentle burble of the filters in the aquarium, that Mordin acknowledged how terrible he felt. His head pounded with pain and he felt vaguely dizzy. The medicine had yet to take effect.

The bacillus ryskosis was truly a villain, he thought. It would be prudent to eradicate it from the galaxy when he felt better. He glanced at the door again, wondering if Shepard would set aside funding for the endeavor. He knew she probably would.

He calculated the costs and then the equipment needed until she came back. And Shepard carried a steel teapot on a tray from the mess. She set it on the nightstand next to him and poured him a cup of tea. "How are you feeling?" she asked as she handed it to him.

Mordin held the hot cup carefully in his bare hands. He patted his throat with a finger.

Shepard frowned. "Still? Even with the medicine?"

He nodded. His throat felt like sandpaper, and he drank the tea in a single gulp.

Shepard sighed, then looked around the cabin. "Well, we should probably get you something to do so you don't go completely stir crazy. I don't have a vid screen in here, but I could get you some music or something."

Mordin looked down at the empty cup, tapped his finger on it. At any other time, he would have said yes to music. His thoughts were racing through his brain without distraction or outlet. But he shook his head, unsteadied by even the simple movement. Percussion would have ended him. Worse, he might be tempted to sing along.

Shepard took the cup from him and set it on the nightstand. She tucked the blanket over his shoulders again. "It's strange to see you so quiet," she murmured. "I don't think I've ever seen you just... not talk."

Mordin took a breath. "Don't like the silence," he managed to say, pushing through the pain and trying to hide his unease. "Troublesome. Lots of thoughts. Ideas. Regrets. Prefer to get them out during the day."

She glanced at him. "Does it work?"

Mordin tilted his head as he thought about it. Sometimes it worked.

Sometimes.

Shepard nodded at the unspoken answer and sat down at the edge of the bed. Mordin knew that she wasn't a stranger to being haunted by the past, if her own tendency toward a lack of sleep was any indication. "Do you want me to talk for a while so you don't have to?" she asked him.

He glanced at her in surprise. Shepard was more of a listener, in his experience.

His throat was already beginning to throb from the exertion of speaking at all. "Would enjoy that, actually," he still said.

Shepard smiled and said, "Do you care about the subject?"

Mordin shook his head, clearing his throat again. He shifted beneath the blankets and his hand slipped along his own bare side before he settled it on his stomach. Bare skin met bare skin, etched with lines. Mordin hesitated, thinking about it, and then left it there. It was an unusual sensation without the gloves.

And he felt as if he was sinking for a moment, lost in blankets and pajama pants and the waning relief of the hot tea. Vulnerability wasn't a feeling that he was used to, or enjoyed in the slightest.

"I wonder what I should talk about," Shepard said to herself. She settled next to him and distracted him with a shift of the mattress. Blankets began to accumulate around her while she tucked herself in with him. "I guess I could tell you about when I became a Spectre. You missed that part."

Mordin felt his interest pique and took his hand away from his stomach, settled it at his side again. And then Shepard, usually a quiet person in favor of listening to others, began to tell him about it. She leaned against his shoulder.

"The whole thing started when Nihlus boarded the Normandy. Joker thought he was really suspicious." She paused, frowned a little at the memory. "I agreed with him, even though I regret it now. I'd never met a Spectre before, didn't have much experience with turians. When we went to the Citadel I'd never even been to the Presidium before."

The warmth of the blankets combined with her voice and surrounded him. It was low, with a soft pitch of affection whenever she smiled at him.

Listening to her was soothing. And, halted by his own forced journey into silence, Mordin began to travel with Shepard's words, walking along the Presidium with her while she marveled at the lake and the embassies for the first time. She described the Council chambers to him, and then the restaurants full of executives and diplomats. And Shepard explained to him quietly, almost aimlessly, about a bar called Flux where a volus named Doran had taught her to dance. She laughed a little when she remembered it.

"He taught me all of my best moves," Shepard said, glancing at him with a dry smile that was very self-aware.

In the slowing fog of his thoughts, Mordin almost felt that he was looking out the windows of Flux with her. He had never been there. He supposed that the medicine was finally taking effect, stronger by the moment.

The watery lights of the wards trembled as he watched them, veiled by both of their reflections on the glass. "Will have to send a thank you note for the entertainment," he said.

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "Hey, No talking, Mister."

Mordin glanced over at her and smiled. "Apologies."

She shook her head a little but smiled up at him. Then she placed her hand over his mouth in the cabin, willing him into silence, and winked at him in Flux. "So," she continued, leading him toward the neon evening of the wards, "When we couldn't convince the Council that Saren had shot Nihlus, we went looking for clues."

Mordin closed his eyes and listened. Shepard led him through the alley and the firefight to save Tali, then headed to C-Sec where she pointed out the orange tinted trees that grew without sunlight. They stepped into an elevator where tinny music played on the speakers.

Mordin reached out as they ascended, unsteadied by the idea of percussion, and took Shepard's hand in the blankets.

And when he tried to open his eyes again, the cabin was made of dim shadows and the gentle noise of the aquarium mixing with her voice. It was soft and insubstantial. Mordin wasn't quite sure if Shepard was still talking, or if he was dreaming in broken fragments. He knew that he was still holding her hand.

He reached out, placing his other arm over her to anchor himself, cupping her shoulder. In the haze, her voice paused and then continued again.

"Mordin," she was saying quietly to him, "are you all right?"

He settled against her, with his head resting against her collarbone. He could hear her heart beating at eighty-one beats per second. He closed his eyes.

The jellyfish floated like clouds above the Presidium's lake while she continued the story.

And it was during the second Council meeting that Mordin fell completely asleep, holding onto Shepard beneath the blankets while he watched her in the growing crowd of the Council Chambers. Shepard stepped forward to become the first human Spectre in history, and Mordin finally lost the battle against the eleven grams of dextromethorphan.

He really would have prescribed four milligrams, he thought as he faded.

He relaxed completely and drifted to sleep. Here was Shepard's red hair, he thought as he did so. The smooth fabric of her shirt, pressed against his skin. The sound of very soft breathing that he had come, over time, to associate so closely with her presence. The smell of the tea on the nightstand.

And Shepard saved the Citadel while he slept next to her.

He knew that she would.

Mordin dreamt of clouds against a blue sky above red trees. And when he awoke a few hours later, he took a deep breath. The cabin greeted him with its firm and less medicated reality. He noted that the air didn't scratch against his throat anymore. It was a simple matter to dig himself out of the blankets and pillows and sit up. He didn't even feel dizzy.

"Salarian physiology," Mordin said to himself, feeling smug at the advantage. He would be able to go back to work now.

In fact, he remembered that it was just about time for the latest samples to be done cooking down in the lab. He moved to get out of the bed, theorizing that if he was quick enough he might even have time to create a few extra ocular flash-bang implants for the crew before evening. His uniform lay waiting for him, draped over the couch. He picked up the black and red undersuit, and then the dented armor stained with dust. He picked up the shoulder speaker.

But Mordin looked down at everything gathered up in his arms, then back to Shepard. She was fast asleep beneath the pile of blankets, breathing softly and steadily.

He hesitated as he watched her. Mordin had always been impressed that the various biological uncertainties and impossibilities that made up Shepard's existence could combine in such a way in private. She was a hurricane of precise, tactical violence out on the battlefield. She was kind on her ship, a little temperamental but still beautiful and intense. He had never been surprised that she was the first human Spectre, nor that someone would go to such lengths to save her from the fate of Alchera.

They must have missed her, he thought to himself. He would have. Shepard was, after all, very good at not even trying to kiss him.

But occasionally he would point to his cheek, leaning over in the lab, and she'd kiss him there. After all, if Mordin was ever going to kiss anyone at all, it would have been her.

And so he watched her for a moment, blinking slowly. Then he left the uniform with its dust on the couch and headed back to the bed. He sank into the blankets again and pressed his forehead against hers.

Shepard opened her eyes, still mostly asleep. "Mordin?" she said quietly.

Mordin wrapped his arms around her, smiled when she did the same. "A pleasant occupation," he began singing very softly to her, "for a rather susceptible professor..."

Doctor's orders, he decided.

[dfhvn]

A Day In LA With Deafheaven // Stereogum

Loud Love : A Day In LA With Deafheaven The California screamers open up about real life, baby ducks, and 'Ordinary Corrupt Human Love'

Full article by Larry Fitzmaurice via Stereogum

Everyone has to grow up eventually — even ducklings. “Look, dude — the baby ducklings!” Deafheaven guitarist Kerry McCoy stops as we’re mid-conversation, pointing out a plump of web-footed friends on a small rolling pitch alongside the walking path of Los Angeles’ Echo Park.

“I know! They’re getting big,” the band’s howling lead singer George Clarke marvels, as the two stop to briefly ponder the not-quite-grown, no-longer-young fowl squatting and waddling on the grass.

“I saw them the other day, too,” says McCoy.

“They were more yellow before,” Clarke explains with a level of attentiveness that would make one think he raised the ducklings himself.

I’m here to observe what Clarke describes to me as “what a normal day for us is like,” as Deafheaven luxuriate in the relative calm before the busyness of touring and promo that will accompany the release of their fourth album, Ordinary Corrupt Human Love (out July 13 via ANTI-). These days, Clarke and McCoy are sticklers for routine — and as they recount their regular goings-on to me, it’s slightly adorable that these longtime friends’ day-to-day approach bears close similarity: wake up around 7 in the morning, hit the gym, run some errands, meet up in the park for a bit, and watch a movie or an episode of Billions before crashing out. Both spend part of their day caring for others: Clarke for his grandfather who currently lives with him, and McCoy for a few persistently hungry cats. “I have to stay out until 6 or 7 PM, otherwise they meow until they get food,” he mock-complains with a grin.

Earlier in the day, Clarke and I hit up the Echo Lake outpost of crunchy Cali natural-food chain Lessen’s, as he dumps a variety of salad-bar ingredients — corn, beets, kale, shredded cabbage and peppers, and a heaping helping of steamed veggies, if you’re looking to take on the Deafheaven Diet — into a container. We walk over to the sprawling Echo Park and Clarke unfurls a sizable blanket, festooned with the album art for the band’s 2013 star-making LP Sunbather, before stripping to a white tank-top and laying out belly-down to nosh while we chat about the latest mixtape from Oakland rapper All Black. McCoy joins us soon after along with former member Stephen Clark, who stoically sips from a bottle of water and sucks down a few cigs while the trio are quite literally sunbathing under the LA rays.

All it takes is one listen to Ordinary Corrupt Human Love to deduct that this period of respite is well-earned. Since their alluring 2011 debut Roads To Judah, the band’s dark-arts alchemy of death metal’s frigid rush, shoegaze’s impressionistic swarm, and the emotional catharsis of post-rock has somehow only grown more epic with every release. That’s even more true with their latest record, which at times recalls Mellon Collie-era Smashing Pumpkins and Sunny Day Real Estate’s Diary in its ultra-bright melodic sweep. There are female vocals present, courtesy of West Coast occult-rocker Chelsea Wolfe — as well as actual singing, as Clarke shows off a deeper vocal register beyond his signature burned-out bark.

The personal boundary-pushing and overall prettiness of Ordinary Corrupt Human Love doesn’t so much suggest a newer, shinier Deafheaven as it does a natural progression (or a full realization, even) of the genre-blending hard rock sound they’ve spent most of the decade refining. As tempting as it might be to refer to the album as Deafheaven’s “mature” turn, there’s still a youthful passion that courses through it like a lit match dropped into dry brush — but that doesn’t mean the quintet haven’t gone through some serious personal changes in the interim between 2015’s New Bermuda and now (which marks, to date, the longest gap between Deafheaven records).

“We were 24 when Sunbather came out,” Clarke reflects while discussing the intense emotions and personal strain the band’s been through since that record’s release. “We were still sleeping on floors when we were home, but the rest of the time we were on tour with idle hands and free cash.” He pauses for a second and chuckles ruefully. “Some people are smart — but we decided not to be.”

Before their current residence in LA (Clarke and McCoy have lived in the city for about four years now) and Deafheaven’s teeth-cutting Bay Area days, the pair spent their adolescence scrapping about in the central California suburbs of Modesto. “It was normal,” McCoy describes their respective upbringings, “but it’s all relative. I’m sure Bill Gates’ kids have seen some shit, too.” But he’s quick to note that the relative mundanity of their upbringing also made for a normalization of the intolerance the young punks experienced growing up, too: “I’d just accepted that the way the world went was seeing a giant truck with a Confederate flag drive by, calling me a fag.” (In the middle of this parkside recollection, Clarke interrupts to point out something decidedly not normal: a shirtless pedestrian sporting a full-chest Monster energy drink tattoo. “Check out how lit this tattoo is,” he giggles, as we briefly debate its authenticity.)

When he was 15, McCoy’s father took him to a protest against the Iraq War, and he wore a white armband to school afterwards, which resulted in him getting “destroyed” by his classmates. “We recently went to the March For Our Lives,” Clarke mentions, “and I think it’s really cool that kids these days — even if they’re not 100% informed on stuff — are really making an effort to be. Comparatively, there was no one [in high school] thinking about anything else other than the direct narrative you were given in this small town.”

Music had been in both of their lives from an early age — McCoy’s father once worked as a music journalist, and some of Clarke’s earliest memories include leafing through CD booklets with his mother — and the outsider feeling both of them shared only further deepened their sonic interests. “When you’re living in the Central Valley and you’re into ‘alternative’ things, it forces you further into the hole you’re digging for yourself,” Clarke explains. “You’re already a loser with acne, and now you’re painting your nails for a Misfits show,” McCoy follows up with a chuckle. His first band was a punky high school outfit called The Confused, which self-distributed a CD called What The Hell that everyone in his social circle thought “sucked.” Clarke’s inaugural musical foray was in a band called Fear And Faith Alike that, in his words, “was very 2002 metalcore.”

CREDIT: Frazer Harrison / Getty Images

Clarke and McCoy first became friends when the latter saw “this fool” (Clarke) sitting outside in the rain during high school, decked out in fishnet arm sleeves, a Slayer T-shirt, and a white backpack covered with pentagrams and band names scrawled in Bic. They stayed close as the former bounced around high schools, returning to Modesto after barely graduating in San Jose; after a few failed attempts at forming post-high school bands, the two formed Deafheaven in 2009 after McCoy joined Clarke to share a $500/month apartment in the Upper Haight area of San Francisco.

Deafheaven began as a pretty much anonymous project, to the point where the pair created a Facebook page for the band that essentially positioned it as a one-man act. “We didn’t tell anyone we grew up with about it,” Clarke explains. “We knew if we told people it was us, everyone would be like ‘Fuck off.'” In 2010, they recorded a demo with Bay Area producer Jack Shirley for the cost of $500, a sum which Clarke and McCoy (who were scrambling to even make monthly rent) struggled to pay back for six months.

“This man’s patience is endless,” Clarke speaks admirably about Shirley, whom McCoy refers to as “the Ian McKaye of the West Coast” and “like a straight-edge Marine”; he’s produced every Deafheaven record since. “They were broke beyond broke,” recalls Shirley, whose work with Deafheaven has led him to record acts like Wolves In The Throne Room and Jeff Rosenstock. “It wasn’t a huge deal, though. I try to be patient in those situations, and I’m glad I didn’t [let money get in the way], because it would’ve severed my ties with a band that I have a great relationship with now.”

After the demo made the rounds online, Deafheaven expanded to a full-band lineup and signed to Converge frontman Jacob Bannon’s Deathwish Inc. label, who released Roads To Judah and Sunbather — the latter of which received a profile-raising critical response that metal and “heavy” music in general typically doesn’t enjoy. “We went from a band that nobody really gave a fuck about, to … not the world’s biggest band, but a thing!” McCoy exclaims. “I had an apartment, I moved to LA, I got a girlfriend — life got kind of big.”

The success Deafheaven enjoyed following Sunbather’s release was, for a band on their level, a bit dizzying. Their fanbase spanned kindred spirits like Mono and Explosions In The Sky to rapper Danny Brown and Third Eye Blind’s Stephan Jenkins. On the other hand, the band found themselves unwittingly receiving the indie-TMZ treatment after a Swedish blogger spotted them hanging out at the VIP area of Gothenburg’s Way Out West festival with a Sub Pop representative (full disclosure: I was also present for said hang), ginning up a post shortly after speculating about the band’s potential next career moves — a surprise to the folks back at Deathwish. “I felt so bad,” Clarke says in a tone of sincerity about the accidental reveal.

CREDIT: Gari Askew II / Stereogum

Combined with the extensive post-Sunbather touring schedule, the increased attention on Deafheaven — as well as the pressures of writing and recording the band’s next album, which they’d committed to within a tight time frame under new label home ANTI- — was starting to take its toll on everyone involved. “All this touring and great stuff was fun and exciting, but it blows up your personality with regards to things you have when you become middle-class,” McCoy states. “And you have habits that blow up with that.”

As work on New Bermuda progressed, the pressure of following up their big breakthrough began to wear on the band — hard. Shirley states that, as a “habitually sober” person, he didn’t witness any dysfunction in the recording studio; but McCoy describes the ways in which Deafheaven’s members dealt with the situation as “unhealthy,” and he and Clarke started to literally lose sleep over the prospect of what would come next. “I’d wake up in the middle of the night thinking that everyone was mad at me because the record sucked,” says McCoy, “and we’d all have to go back to Whole Foods — everyone was laughing at us.”

Various substances were on-hand and frequently present during this time — a product of bad habits never dropped and exacerbated by the party-hardy temporary lifestyle that touring afforded. “You’d be like, ‘Well, I gotta be in the practice space for five hours today — better bring two 40’s,'” Clarke remembers. “When you’re touring for five years, your body degrades,” explains guitarist Shiv Mehra, who joined the band along with drummer Daniel Tracy while Sunbather was being recorded. “Drinking doesn’t help.”

Clarke recalls a show in Sao Paulo on the band’s first South American tour supporting New Bermuda as a colliding point for the band’s substance use and personal strain. “It should’ve been insane,” he recalls with a touch of regret, “But everyone was backstage burnt that the booze wasn’t there yet.”

“We were all just sitting there staring at our phones, waiting for whoever — or whatever — to show up,” McCoy adds. “Our entire world wants to come backstage and be the guy to hang out with you, and they know there’s a certain way to do that.”

“We were all still bothered by each other from touring,” Clark, who possesses a quiet yet thoughtful demeanor, states. “We didn’t have any time off from each other for years.” Following New Bermuda’s tour cycle — a period of time he says “quite literally ruined his life” — he chose to leave the band and was replaced by current bassist Chris Johnson, but still remains close with everyone.

“I didn’t handle having money well,” Clark asserts with straightforward conviction. “It was so easy to party, and I was never much of a partier — so I was all over the world having fun, with no longevity in mind. It all came crashing down.”

“It was a dark and bad experience,” McCoy states plainly on the time period surrounding New Bermuda. By the end of the album cycle, everyone was exhausted, and the mere act of being in the band had turned into drudgery.

“It stopped being fun,” Clarke states on his view towards the band at that point. “It became a chore.”

I ask if there was ever a point during this period of time in which he thought Deafheaven would cease to exist. Later, when I relay his answer to others in the band, they’re quick to note it was an exaggeration, but it’s a rough reply regardless: “I kind of thought someone would die,” says Clarke. We’re not gonna break up because we don’t have anything else, but something drastic or scary happening was within the realm of possibility. If anything would’ve taken us down, it would’ve been … tragic.”

When I press on if there were any specific close calls that took place, the three demur, nervously laugh, and murmur to themselves, “Maybe — not really,” declining to elaborate. “When you’re fuckin’ around, you’re fuckin’ around,” Clarke says with an uneasy chuckle.

Clarke quickly follows up: “When you have a problem, you have a problem.”

Work on Ordinary Corrupt Human Love informally began in late 2016 around a single piano riff McCoy had been toying around with, but much of the album was written and recorded from October of last year until this past February. Deafheaven camped out in a cluster of Oakland homes and, after an informal jam session during the first day of recording, found that the time off did them good.

“We finally dealt with all the stuff that made New Bermuda so dark — and when we did, we realized that all that other stuff was junk,” McCoy passionately describes. “When we all got in a room together, I was like, ‘This was the juice of life right here.'”

“It was like we’d been holding our breath for three years, finally let it out, took another one, and said ‘Everything’s gonna be OK,'” Clarke adds.

In truth, there was still a ways to go. To this day, Deafheaven’s members describe themselves as living “healthier” than before, but McCoy is the only band member who’s completely sober, a decision he made during recording late last year after an extended struggle with drug addiction. It’s a sensitive topic for him to discuss, and the details he’s willing to offer regarding his path to sobriety are scant — but he makes it unmistakably clear that things could not go on the way they were for much longer.

“I’d come to a point where I was done being out there,” he explains, “And I was willing to try anything to get off it.” McCoy reached out to a friend, who helped put him on the path to recovery; he’s been sober since late 2017. “My favorite thing in the world was to play guitar,” he states, “And for a long time, I forgot that. Ever since I made this decision, my life has gotten immeasurably better.”

Casting aside the past was essential for not just McCoy, but the entirety of Deafheaven to move forwards after the fraught period of time they were trying to leave behind. “I don’t think anyone who worked on New Bermuda wanted to make another record that sounded like New Bermuda,” Clarke states, who goes on to describe Ordinary Corrupt Human Love as the sound of “people enjoying what they’re doing.” If the aesthetic of the new album reflects the emotions of the people who recorded it, then the lyrical content zooms in on the world around them — the splendor and sameness of peoples’ everyday lives.

CREDIT: Gari Askew II / Stereogum

The universal, explicitly humanistic focus was developed after Clarke began collaborating with photographer Nick Steinhardt to, in his words, “photograph people in their natural habitat.” “I told him I didn’t want anything extraordinary — just people in their everyday routine, looking at a snapshot of someone in their day and just drinking it in,” he explains. The album’s cover features an anonymous woman in Los Angeles’ Civic Center area, her scarf blowing in front of her face; the inlay art features a child holding out his hand to his mother as he prepares to cross the street.

McCoy describes the album cover as “a potential alternate version” of the iconic album art for Radiohead’s The Bends, and Clarke cites the tinted-hue portraiture of Belle And Sebastian’s visual art as a parallel — both comparisons serving as reminders that, despite their roots in heavy music, their palettes span far beyond what genre purists might come to expect.

And if Deafheaven’s genre-agnostic approach seemed polarizing around the time of Sunbather, it seems weirdly prescient now. In a way, the 29-year-old McCoy and Clarke are indicative of the landscape-flattening streaming generation, in a good way. Sure, it’s easy to bemoan the age of the algorithm and the fluctuating state of discovery for budding music fans in the digital age. But it’s even easier to forget that discovering “good” music used to possess a distinct social element not far off from joining the football team in high school: Are the indie kids any different than the jocks if they still bristle at people joining their lunch table?

For Deafheaven’s and younger generations, discovering new music is easier than ever, and if you’re willing to turn discovery into creativity as they have been, the possibilities are endless. And anyway, even though Deafheaven’s earlier work was sometimes overshadowed by the band’s perpetual and ineffective battle with the metal scene, the band’s members have since learned to hang with the genre misconceptions. “My girlfriend sent me a screenshot about how ‘Honeycomb’ has a punk section — that’s textbook Oasis!” McCoy says with an easygoing laugh that speaks to a greater truth when it comes to getting older. Sometimes it’s easier to just let old grudges go.

Despite the cloudy forecast, it’s a bit brighter of a day than we’re expecting. With the threat of sunburn fast approaching, we pack up the blanket, take a leisurely walk around the park, and head to the 826 Time Travel Mart. The Mart’s a funky Sunset Blvd. spot funded by the Dave Eggers-founded nonprofit 826, featuring arch, kitschy items ranging from giant dinosaur eggs to a powdered concoction called “robot milk” — but McCoy’s less invested in the temporally-out-of-whack wares on display than he is in the tutoring courses being offered in the next room of the nonprofit-funded space.

An employee explains the programs offered as McCoy listens intently, and when Clarke returns from grabbing a coffee nearby he does similarly. At first blush, the thoughtfulness and social investment that the pair show during my time with them might seem too fitting of a narrative for a band trying to straighten up and fly right — but such character traits often come with growing up, too.

“Nikki Sixx was 27 when shit got really bad and he tried to clean up for the first time,” Clarke points out as our time comes to a close, before McCoy has to go check on the cats and Clarke’s grandfather needs help getting his computer fixed. “We reached that age too. We want to take what we do seriously and have a career — and to eliminate the things that get in the way of that. If you don’t die at 27, you can do a lotof shit.”