#there should be an achievement for getting your back blown out by different characters on two consecutive nights

[invinciblerodent]

ah, he's finally getting to slut it up the way the gods (me) intended.

good for him. good for him.

[melodyofthevoid]

the way y'all are handling ocean idiots is actually kind of inspiring me, because i have Ideas but i feel pressured to turn it into a whole blown Thing when all i want to do is just have fun with it, because every artist/writer/etc ive seen does it that way.

yall are the first people ive seen who are just trying to Vibe with your blorbos and it makes doing the same thing feel more achievable to me. god bless

PS larus is my favorite. love the little skrunkly bird man. also can i steal yalls powerpoint idea 🥺?

PSS i assume everyone else working on ocean idiots will see this bc yall are mutuals, but in the event that they dont, could you please forward this to them? because i want them to know that theyre indirectly inspiring a random person with their Just-For-Fun-Creation as well >< many thanks

Aw, anon this is incredibly sweet. I sent your message along to the others before I got around to this answer both because I wanted to make sure they saw it, and because I wanted to respond to this in a way that really reflects my gratitude.

It's honestly so tempting to start making ideas "a thing". I didn't really understand that until the last couple of years and let me tell you, there is a lot of pressure to do that. People like projects! They like updates! They love seeing the progression of a story and getting invested in that. I absolutely understand why people leave comments like "this should be a webtoon" or "you guys should make an animated series". In a perfect world, that'd be a dream! The temptation to do that and establish a base is also attractive because it can really form a base that gives numbers and comments, which artists of all stripes thrive on (myself very much included).

But what most people never really see is the downsides of that. From their perspective, a one episode animatic, a chapter or two of fic or few panels of a comic, isn't a lot. It's kinda disappointing, and I get that. For the creator though, there's any number of reasons that things fall apart. Personal differences with friends amplified by the stress of expectations. Creative burnout. Shutting down due to the sheer scope of the undertaking. These are all real, and it sucks to deal with.

For me personally, I know I do want to tackle trying to write more of ocean idiots, maybe even try to nanowrimo this shit (not in an actual month but you get the gist). But that's just me. If it bums me out or I put it to the side, then that's just my personal project to pick up later. If we tried to make it a series, then we'd deal with the stress of trying to keep up a schedule on top of lives (college, jobs, personal lives, etc). It'd take the joy out of these characters we love.

Some of the most fun I've had in the past few years I've been writing and creating has just been fucking around with my friends. Throwing silly au ideas back and forth and exchanging art and fics for no one but ourselves. There's a genuine satisfaction that comes from it.

Not everything has to be a big production. Artists don't make their magnum opus every time. They draw shitposts and write crackfic and make funny edits. It's healing to have something silly, something fun just for you, and to share it if you want. That can connect with people, great! But it can also just be for you. I could go on a whole tangent about social media and the commodification of attention/art but that's not really what we're here for.

I hope that whatever you create, anon, that it makes you happy. That it brings a little joy to your day. That you can have that thing you share with maybe just your closest friends to play with. Lord knows I need to remind myself of that too.

[aeoki]

Phantom Airship - So I Raced Through The Sky: Chapter 4

Location: Miniature Island Characters: Natsume, Madara & Hiiro

Hiiro: ♪~♪~♪

Madara: “Hahaha! It seems I was right to leave it to you!”

“I thought I was a bit odd for asking a traveller for help, but I’m glad things went well. Thanks to you, our festival will be a success!”

“How was the dance, traveller?”

Hiiro: Uhh, I guess it was enjoyable but then again, it’s hard to describe it…

Madara: “...Oh, sorry. You shouldn’t be distracted when you’re dancing.”

“After all, the size difference between the ‘Miniature Island’s’ townsfolk and you is far too great. If you get even just a little bit distracted, it might cause a huge accident.”

“The performance is almost over. Keep focused right until the end and finish the dance!”

Hiiro: …Right. Thanks, Madara-snepai.

♪ ♪ ♪

Hiiro: Phew, it’s finally finished…

It was a lot harder than I expected. Who would’ve known you’d be performing such a careful dance every year?

I only did it once but the fatigue you get from doing this every year isn’t ordinary.

Madara: “Well, that’s just how my family is. As long as you’re fated to dance, you cannot run from your duty.”

“But it’s not all bad. There’s a lot you can gain from it.”

Hiiro: A lot you can gain…?

Madara: “Yeah. Especially since there’s nothing better than seeing the people of this island smile.”

“It’s an old ritual so parts of it have changed with the times, but being invited to dance can turn into encouragement for daily training.”

“Dancing automatically puts a smile on your face, right?”

“I think the true goal of this festival lies within the emotions created between your dance and the audience.”

Hiiro: Indeed. I also think I received a very wonderful gift.

After I danced on the big “SS” main battle stage, I felt a bit burnt out.

I decided to be an idol after watching the “SS” finals last year.

After realising I was now on that very same stage, I felt like I achieved one of my goals. At the same time, I felt sad, like I lost one of my dreams.

But after dancing here, I realised another thing. I should keep practising hard every day for the next festival.

When something ends, something else begins – it’s a takeoff for the next job.

Madara: “Yeah. Life isn’t just a big stage. It’s all about the overlay of working different jobs and those sorts of days.”

“You’re fine just the way you are. I think you’ll be fine just thoroughly enjoying life as an idol until your next big stage.”

“Maybe you’re now seen as a slightly bigger existence compared to before because of ‘SS’.”

“But you have friends who will also continue this ‘ALKALOID’ experience with you. If you ever have any doubts, go forward with them…☆”

Hiiro: Hmm…? Madara-senpai, why did you mention “ALKALOID”?

I don’t remember telling you about them.

Madara: “Oh, that’s something I wasn’t programmed to say. It’s just a bug in my programming!”

“Anyway, it seems the townsfolk have a present for you.”

Hiiro: Right. This is the ‘treasure’ from “Miniature island”.

What a delicate gold ornament – I’ll attach it to this outfit.

Madara: “Good. If you’re ever in any trouble, think back to your experience on this island.”

“You should be proud of the fact that you were able to make these people smile. I’ll be looking forward to your future endeavours!”

Hiiro: Thank you. I feel like my worries were blown away thanks to you.

Alright, I’ve got to find the rest of my members.

Madara: “Thank you! Traveller! Take care!”

Hiiro: …Hehe. I’ve got the ‘treasure’ on “Miniature Island” now.

Natsume-senpai, are you watching me? Can you tell me what I should do next?

I’d like to go to the next island, but the airship is broken. Do you have any solutions for me?

Natsume: “HeHE. Don’t worRY.”

“I retrieved the broken airship while you were danciNG. You can now take it to meet up with the other membeRS.”

Hiiro: Ohh. As expected of you, Natsume-senpai. No wonder you’re the “facilitator”.

Natsume: “WeLL, all I had to do was recall the data, so I suppose you could say it was an easy taSK.”

“We’re the navigators of this story, after aLL. It’s a piece of cake for uS.”

“AnywAY, you better hurry along to the next islaND. It seems one member is having a rather difficult tiME.”

Hiiro: Yeah. The trial on this island was harder than it looked, so we can’t let our guard down.

I’m sure the others will do just fine, though.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ← Previous Chapter ᠂ ⚘ ˚⊹˚ ⚘ ᠂  Next Chapter →

[undercityrezident]

I just watched the Pokemon Direct, and I can confidently say that I'm not crazy excited about anything I saw there today.

I don't really play Masters Ex, Cafe Remix, Unite, Detective Pikachu, or the TCG, so none of that grabbed me. I hope people who do enjoy those things have fun with what's coming for them. At the very least, I'm looking forward to some cute gifs of Nemona on my dash when she debuts in Masters.

I don't play Pokemon Go anymore, so Gen 9 coming to that game doesn't really affect me either, but I'm sure people will be thrilled with that.

But I'm sure as hell not interested in Pokemon Sleep. I don't want companies monitoring my sleep patterns, thank you very much.

The one thing that did raise an eyebrow for me is the new Paldean Winds webseries. I might check that out. I've kind of fallen off the new pokemon anime lately, so this might give me my fix for animated pokemon I've been missing. Pokemon mini-series aired in the past have sometimes been really cool, so I'm intrigued by how they'll portray Paldea and Scarlet and Violet's stories.

That said, the line about "depicting the youthful drama of academy students" gives me some pause because my least favourite aspect of Scarlet and Violet was the academy-centric portions of the game. I hope it'll focus more on their journeys beyond it.

Of course, most of the Direct was spent talking about the new expansions for Scarlet and Violet, and what I've seen so far has not really helped me get excited for it. As before, I wonder why the majority of these expansions are focusing on areas beyond Paldea and if they'll tie into anything related to Area Zero (which supposedly has content later in the expansion).

Kitakami seems like it's been developed to tell a completely different story from anything that I've become invested in within Paldea. It just sticks out like a sore thumb to me. The one way it does tie back to the region is that we're going there for a "field trip," which already plays on the part of the main game I didn't care for, namely the school angle.

But hey, I love Perrin's design, though I'm... not a fan of the ridiculous central bangs of the two other main characters: Carmine and Kieran. After the amazing character design of the major characters in the base game, these two feel like a step backwards. Similarly, I'm not blown away by the designs of the new pokemon introduced in part one of this expansion either. Dipplin seems fun though; I suppose there's usually a diamond in the rough.

And then there's part two of the expansion with Blueberry Academy. Again... I'm not interested in doing more school activities, so this premise and locale is already making me shy away from it. I will admit the multi-faceted biodome is impressive and intriguing, but I wonder how limited it is in scope and if it'll be enough to overcome my dislike of the school environment.

As well, none of the new characters' designs grabbed me (and that paradox Raikou looked weird as hell...), and while I love turtle mons, the new legendary might not be enough to convince me to want to attend this new academy. While the tease of being able to achieve full flight with your ride mon is something that had me leaning forward in my seat for a moment, I had to admit I was immediately wondering if that flight freedom would only be available in that biosphere and not in Paldea at large. Call me skeptical, but I suspect that'll be the case.

The only air of intrigue for me in these expansions is the "Mystery of Area Zero" section supposedly after the other two parts. Ideally, there should be something connecting the other two regions to this last part, but I have my doubts, given how disconnected from Paldea they seem, at least based on an assessment of the content in this and previous Directs. As much as I'd like to know what else Area Zero has in store for us, I don't know if I'd be able to muster enough interest to plow through the other two areas before getting to this one bit of the expansion I'd actually be excited for.

For me, an ideal expansion/DLC to Scarlet and Violet would've been something added to Paldea itself, whether it was an addition to some part of the existing landscape or some islands off the coast you could travel to via surfing or gliding. An artificial island like the kind seen with Blueberry Academy could've been a great place to fly to and discover, especially if it more of a research facility or pokemon preservation habitat rather than a school.

And while introducing new characters is great, I would be far more excited to be able to see and explore these new areas with the squad we formed in the base game. I absolutely treasure the bonds the main character forged with Penny, Arven, and Nemona, and I would be delighted to see more interactions between them like I saw when we were all journeying down through Area Zero.

All in all, I think an expansion to this game would benefit the most from connecting it to the strongest parts of the base game rather than flimsily tying it to its weakest. From what I see at this moment, I don't think I'll be investing in these DLCs. I might have to settle for watching someone else play them, if only to see what this mystery in Area Zero is leading up to.

[numberonesnarkfan]

writing DID systems, part 2: the disassociated identities

I've talked before about writing DID systems, but my disorganised mind has more points to talk about, so here's a part 2, electric boogaloo.

most alters have a unique relationship with reality. This can fuel a lot of conflict in our lives as many alters are constantly looking for validation that they are real - and being blown off as "not real" is a devastating blow as it confirms their worst fears. It can be distressing to exist knowing that you are simply a subordinate to your host. You don't exist like a human, you don't get to have achievable aspirations, or your own life. Once you are pulled unwillingly from your reality, that's it.

Another source of tension is how we are perceived. Many fictives (and I assume factives, too, though we don't have any) are very susceptible to becoming obsessive, willing to risk relationships, energy and happiness to be canonically compliant, for fear that if they aren't, they're existing wrong. And when that fear is confirmed, well... Here's a piece written by Virgil to explain in detail.

[I got canon-shamed once. Genuinely I think it's the most distressing thing that's ever happened to me. We were in a server that claimed to be sys-friendly and I posed the idea that we could include an alters introduction channel, to help alters in the server feel more at ease and able to speak as themselves. The mod who responded spoke in a way that was just "friendly" enough that I didn't feel I was able to argue or yell at them. I don't remember the entire conversation, but at one point they said that they weren't comfortable with my existence because I wasn't completely canon-compliant, and I definitely remember what that felt like. Legitimately I felt like I'd been stabbed. In hindsight, this was definitely what a full-blown panic attack felt like, hyperventilating and sweating and shaking, the works. I had to pull up my shirt at one point to make sure that I hadn't actually been injured because the sweat and pain in my chest made it feel like I'd been stabbed. This was in the evening, too, and none of us ended up sleeping that night. I'm certain I looked like a stereotypically insane character in a movie, biting my knuckles until they bled and rocking back and forth. Writing it out it sounds silly to be this affected, but it was devastating to know that there were people who were actually uncomfortable with me simply for the crime of existing.]

Over time, many of our system became more willing to stray from canon unapologetically, sometimes giving up huge parts of their original character that made them unhappy - or reinventing themselves entirely, allowing themselves to be as much of a mary sue as they wanted if it made them comfortable with themselves. Even then, though, there's a level of performativeness, as many alters still feel the need to act differently to make themselves seem more "human". So if you meet an alter who's not canon-compliant at all, rest assured it took blood and tears to get there.

an alter's unique relationship with reality comes up even more than just in interaction. In a system with a religious host, for example, alters may feel dejected as they feel that the Gods or God will not hear them or take them seriously. Or, on the reverse, an alter may follow a completely different theology to the host, but feel torn and guilty for it, especially if it is a theology that does not exist in the host's reality, and therefore is not "real".

(talking about this next issue might get me some flak, so let me preface this by saying that I don't condone blackface or brownface, even in this circumstance and do not believe it should be normalised, and neither do the affected alters.)

furthermore, a system with a white host and PoC alters poses a challenge as well. White alters can cosplay themselves, dyeing the body's hair, adding wigs, clothes and the like, while PoC alters can feel dejected by being unable to do this. It can be frustrating to be in a completely opposite body to your previous one, unable to change it due to societal issues that you cannot control.

racial identity in systems is complicated as well. For the record, I, the host, am a white Australian of European descent, while I have alters who are Hispanic and African-American. This poses a complicated issue as some of these alters experience a desire to connect with their heritage, but feel that it may be disrespectful of "real" people to do so, due to being forced to live in a white body. My actions usually follow learning as much as I can about these races from the internet to allow these alters to feel a connection without speaking to anyone directly - which is a flawed way of doing it, but does not risk making anyone uncomfortable.

all in all, every alter who has ever existed has had a more stressful experience of identity than most singlets, and even their hosts. While most singlets don't have to present a specific way, or worry about existing wrong, alters invariably do. Throw some respect to any non-canon compliant, inter-racial or otherwise different alters you know. They probably deserve it.

[lemonhemlock]

latest ask answered beneath the cut 🎀

Anonymous asked:

"the stories i’ve heard reveal such a fascinating level of delusion :)) like you said, not being able to accept the distinction between vampire spawn and vampire bride: he tells you (or least i chose that dialogue option) how one can become an actual, full-blown vampire and that no vampire would create a competitor! straight out of his mouth" That's very true but they just ignore everything he actually says to them and believe it simply doesn't apply to Tav because he loves them. Even in act 3 when you go to Cazador's palace and meet his human servants, Astarion mocks them for being fanatics and deluded for wanting to be transformed into vampires by him and thinking Cazador will grant them his gift of immortality, so he even he doesn't have a positive opinion of those who seek out something like this out of their own volition, and for good reasons. It goes hand in hand with his thoughts about Tav degrading themselves for accepting this and being his spawn.

Yes, the blatant ignoring of his actual lines is what gets me. :))

"yeah, that’s what i was talking with my friend about, that you’d be out of your mind to accept for him to ascend. and, like you said, it would negate any kind of character growth he might have had until then. so far, my friend was able to talk him out of it and he was grateful, whereas my boyfriend didn’t have a good enough approval rating so he had to kill him off. very different outcomes!

but neither of them have managed to fuck him so we’ll see on which shores the tides of love take us" I fully agree and yes he genuinely is grateful. Honestly, when you romance him it looks like he pushes even harder for ascension and says at one point something like "I'm doing this for you too. To make sure we are both safe, for good." In a way, some players may feel more inclined to push him into that direction because of this. Of course, it's part manipulation but it's also caused by his massive insecurities as he genuinely thinks he has absolutely nothing to offer as a partner besides sex. If you break up with him after you two are committed he even says he can't blame you for doing it as he has nothing to offer except more burdens and that he was "counting the hours" until the relationship was over... So he does end up thinking he must have all the power and everything else that comes with the ascension (inheriting Cazador's palace, riches and so on) firstly so he can finally be safe and free and secondly (if romanced), to finally have to offer something more to offer to a partner, if it makes any sense.

Part of what makes him compelling as a character is this, I guess: he is so scared and insecure deep down and that makes him lash out and make bad choices in a misguided grasp for security. Which I understand is very attractive as a rich petri dish for angst and drama! I get why someone would want to relent and choose the ascension for him, but he gets so insufferable afterwards that it's really hard to keep pretending you made the "right" choice.

Like, if I were going into this blind and let him ascend for the lols, I would immediately go back to an earlier save because I couldn't stand that level of clapback. :)) And, generally-speaking, I wouldn't let anyone in my camp achieve god-like levels of power because I just don't think anyone should be entrusted with so much ability.

That doesn't mean that I don't feel sorry for him. I think it's totally understandable to end up thinking and feeling like that after his experiences and reducing his entire self-worth to sex is really sad but realistic. But it's better to convince him against ascending, even if you have to break up with him. Not sure if those things are mutually exclusive, but, at the end of the day, he's an elf, I'm a human, we have different life spans and couldn't be together for a long time anyway. :))

"also, i think that maybe in another game, it would matter more towards making him “happy” if you just went along with everything he says, but the game mechanics here are a little different and it’s obviously telegraphing hard that this is Not A Good Path" That's the thing, the game pretty much spells it outright that this is not the best thing you could do to him.

"not yet, i don’t think! she just mentioned that they’re very weird with the voice actors as well. she sent me a very long and lachrymose tumblr post, bemoaning that his actor showed his discomfort with ascended!astarion fans during a livestream, how unprofessional and hurt they were by this very normal reaction " Lmfao I know the post and the person behind it, it's quite well known in the fandom and went viral last winter when it happened. Everyone laughed at it, naturally. The same person genuinely said at one point that YOU are Cazador 2.0 if you don't ascend him. She is one of the most unhinged Ascendedwives, in the top 3 quite honestly.

This plot line is truly the gift that keeps on giving, huh?

Here is what the writer in question (the wives' biggest enemy and the one who is to blame for everything they don't like) had to say about the ending: https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGate3/comments/16n1c1i/astarions_writer_on_his_endings/ They initially said it in a private discord channel with other fans and then the messages got leaked. I do personally find it unprofessional for writers to interact with fans in such manner but alas, it is what it is. I also understand why some fans feel the comments came across as judgy because yes, you can ascend him for reasons beyond seeing the character as a sex object (even so, fictional characters are...fictional, you are not hurting them by seeing them as an object, come on) but other than that, it's pretty much on point with everything the game tells you. (Welch is not Astarion's main writer, but they were responsible for writing huge parts of his romance arc especially in act 3, which includes the ascension)

I am going to put a pin in this and save the thread for later, after I've advanced more in the game. But thank you for sending me, this drama content will serve me well in the weeks to come. :))

"on a different note, she showed me the post with the life-sized astarion sex doll someone commissioned " Nooooo, not the sex doll lmao. The articles say it cost 20k$ but the person who owns it came out recently to clarify it was just 5k$…which is still a lot. Who the hells spends so much money on a creepy ass looking doll? Imagine seeing it at night! I'd rather have my boyfriend cosplay the vampire instead of spending precious money on things like that. (hey, that's an idea...maybe your bf will agree?)

I showed this to my boyfriend and we joked about buying the Zara Astarion!knock-off shirt. 💀

In all honesty, I wouldn't be able to stop myself from laughing, so the whole cosplaying element would be for nothing. 😂 And I agree, I don't........ get........ humanoid sex dolls, but spending so much money on a literal waifu pillow is

"i wanted to highlight this because it’s so true and something i’ve seen in more fandoms as well. i would say that aly$m0nd was a similar case, where a lot of shippers refused to engage with any potentially problematic aspects of their relationship and just pushed a sanitized true love narrative." I was thinking about Alysm*nd as well! This also goes for those who deem their incest ships to be good (like some Hel*egons and Da*myras), sanitize them and turn them into a loving couple, but lose their marbles when it comes to other ships they personally dislike like Hela*mond. It looks like deep inside many fans feel like they can't genuinely enjoy evil characters and fucked up dynamics without sanitizing them, which is a pity as it defeats the whole purpose about why said character or dynamic is like that in the first place.

Yes! Like the old adage, if you're so against 1nc3st ships, what are you doing snorting THEE 1nc3st series up the nose? And don't let me get into those "asoiaf is not about 1nc3st" litanies, they are so tiring. Yes, it's not about that, as in the message of the text is not "go forth and commit it, it's so neat", but it's a very prominent trope and if you are so uncomfortable with that dynamic, you're just not going to like seeing it all the damn time. Especially because not every such interaction is going to be dissected with flaming red arrows pointing at it to indicate "BAD". There are also neutral & even laid-back* depictions, there's just no way around that, like a good chunk of the Jaehaerys-Alysanne marriage.

*not going to say "positive" but, more like, light-hearted. Not everything is doom & gloom all the time and I would venture that's even a more realistic depiction? But, yeah, I think it's fair to say that the overall tone of this trope is not at all moralistic in ASOIAF. It's not presented as a respectable or aspirational practice, but it's not presented in a lecturing or scolding way EITHER. And that is something many of the high-horsers fail to grasp.

Which brings us back to the astarionwives. The plotline wants you to engage with the moral dilemma of it, both the evil and the understandable parts, not whitewash one in favour of the other. But many people have trouble reconciling that Venn diagram.

"And my plan currently is to summon the ogres when I go to the goblin camp, make sure they die, if not felled by goblins, then by my hand, and pick up the Circlet of Intelligence or whatever it’s called. It pumps INT up to 17, I think? I" Yes, it gives you 17 INT. I summoned the ogres against the fight with Dror Ragzlin, he's the hardest goblin boss to defeat. Priestess Gut is very easy to deal with (and the first one you should go after) as he she will call you into a separate room and with the right actions, you can kill her before she can use her call ability to call for reinforcements. Minthara can be hard especially if you seek to knock her out, as you have to be careful what type of damage you inflict on her.

Yeah, I'm gonna summon the ogres in the goblin camp, too, thanks for the tip against this boss. I'm hoping the ogres will die in battle, but, if not, I'll kill them myself to get that Circlet.

"Thank you so much for this suggestion! I wouldn’t have known otherwise. There are a lot of details or paths in this game that you could easily miss, some of them very random!" It kind of sucks because unless you have Astarion in the party to request the book and give it to him, you simply don't know that he can be interested in the first place and that you can gain so much approval for the gesture.

By the way, have you read the Necromancy of Thay book? Click right on it in your inventory to trigger a cutscene. If you pass three wisdom checks you will gain the Speak with Dead ability for free.

I tried but after Astarion reads it, it will not open for me anymore. Also, I'm sorry to report that giving him the book only got me a +5 approval rating. 😅 I'm currently at 39, so I'm gonna bring him with me to the goblin camp, too.

"She’s in her emo princess era currently. No time like the present to bust out the intense eye makeup!" I love that outfit on her!! My first playthrough was without mods as I wanted the experience the game in its vanilla state so I was dressed in rags the whole time up until act 2 when I managed to find some decent outfits.

You know, some of these rags are not so bad actually. Maybe with a little dye they could look respectable.

"Yeah, the bear sex I honestly find hilarious. I’m going to try to recruit as many as I can, because free labour and help? Why not? Though I’m not sure I can have both Minthara and Halsin in my camp (apparently they can’t stand each other?). My bf said I had to choose, but I wonder if I can’t get those two crazy cats to get along with my high CHA." In the beginning you couldn't have both Halsin and Minthara at the same time in your party but now it is possible. Minthara was originally meant for evil playthroughs only (because good aligned characters would've killed along with other goblin leaders) but some players managed to find different exploits in the game and eventually figured out that by knocking her out under certain circumstances, she will show up alive at Moonrise Towers when you get there in the next act! The devs relented (Larian are really big on fan service) and made this recruitment method "official": as long as you knock her out, she should show up alive later on. In Patch 7 (released last month) they even introduced new dialogue for her where she calls you out for doing it and ask why you knocked her out instead of killing her!! It's very hilarious.

Thing is, since she and Halsin were meant to be mutually exclusive, they don't acknowledge each other's existence once they are in the same party. But you can still have both if you want to. She's a very good addition to the party despite her being evil, she also won't give any big disapprovals or push your character into being evil themself and will be very loyal to you. Oh and since we are talking about her, if you want evil power couple vibes from your romance, she is the one you should go for instead of Ascended Astarion and his stupid ass. Bonus: she loves to dunk on Gale. Here is a banter with them: Minthara: Do you have elder siblings, wizard? Gale: You're about to say something awful, aren't you? Minthara: In Menzoberranzan, after a house has two sons, every subsequent male-born child is slaughtered at birth, as it is useless, even for breeding. Minthara: You have the aura of a third child about you.

Lmaoooo.

Fun fact: just like Minthara, Halsin wasn't mean to be a recruitable companion and potential love interest either. During Early Access, some fans were really horny for the guy while others wanted him because he genuinely was the nicest guy out of everyone and the devs decided to cater to the horny ones and included him. I don't personally like the decision that much considering that after you deal with the quest in which he has a major involvement in act 2 (and you need him to complete it), he has nothing more going on about his character except him being horny for you and being the designated fan service character or potential meme content generator (the bear sex). It definitely shows he was never meant to be a full party member. You can't even say no when he says he will join your party at the end of act 2 but hey, he's easy to ignore if you don't like him. Regardless, he's still a good guy and perhaps one of the most well adjusted individuals in the party (considering who the rest are, there is not much competition lol…).

I did hear that Minthara was funny, which is why I'm interested in having her in my camp. A shame that Halsin is so boring! For a sex bear you'd think he'd be more LOL?

Love to hear that she dunks on Gale, man's become bottom tier in my companion list alongside Shadowheart. 😂 His reveal about him being Mystra's lover just gave me the ick - that's such a story only a MAN could tell. Becoming the buttboy of a goddess who couldn't give two shits put together about you (otherwise why wouldn't she help him with his current condition) is soooooo lame. Also he came off much too eager about Raphael's offer which is another dumb man take. I get that he'd want to get rid of his weave problem, but he only has himself to blame for that in the first place. We're NOT vibing atm.

Yes, I met Raphael while I was on my way to grab the Guidance Pendant (so that I could get rid of Shadowheart) and I sent him packing. Told him I'd "think about it". (I have no intention of taking his stupid deal, as one of the reasons that put me off the warlock class is the concept of binding yourself to a demonic master. Mirta would NOT approve.)

"Yeah, I can imagine the blood bank fics, 😅 but, unfortunately (or fortunately for the sane ones amongst us), Mirta would wake up with some of her abilities depleted at the cost of Astarion’s boosts. " Or the period blood ones…yeah, there is also period blood discourse every once in a while in the fandom. It's not my thing but some people get weirdly in arms about it, some even went and searched for scientific sources regarding menstrual blood and why it would be gross for Astarion to consume something like this since it lacks the proper nutrients. Lol. It's just not that serious you guys.

I hadn't even considered period blood fics, my goodness. =))))))))))))) I mean, if I were to entertain this train of thought, this is a fictional realm, why wouldn't period blood count? It's magically-infused by being associated with fertility and the like! Think, wives! "Lacking the proper nutrients", my arse. 😂

"He did ask me whose blood I’d suck, which was quite hilarious, and insisted I’d answer. :)) I picked Gale for the lols, hoping it would trigger what you said, but nothing happened. I guess fang boy abides by our deal and keeps to hunting animals? Who would have thought? But maybe I’ll try to bite Gale tonight, to see what he does. " He should have the Vampire Bite ability in the menu (in the left section) after you find out the truth about him, even if you tell him to only drink from animals. You should then also be able to use the bite yourself while being in combat on humanoid type of enemies and on other characters of your choosing, including Gale, which is what I meant when I said to have Astarion bite the wizard (Astarion will get poisoned by Gale's blood by the way, suggesting there is something wrong with him...honestly, Gale's secret is deadlier than a potential vampire being in your camp). The dialogue where he asks you whose blood you'd pick has nothing to do with it.

I did this, it was very funny!

"Also, it’s rather annoying to be playing a Baldurian character but they’re seemingly unaware of anything going on in Baldur’s gate. For example, Mirta should have been aware of Cazador, I feel? At the very least that there’s a coven of vampires in her home city and that no one is doing anything about it. :)) Or just generally question Astarion’s magistrate background. " Baldurian and especially noble Tavs should know more about Cazador, that's for sure. When you find more about him and Astarion in act 2 you even have a dialogue option tagged as [balduran] where your Tav is like "that palace is inhabited by vampires?????". As far as I can recall right now, Astarion tells you that to the public Cazador is just another ordinary noble, just more…reclusive. Honestly, I don't buy that no one else didn't know he was a vampire. That he's been around for like 200 years may not raise suspicions since since he is also an elf and they have a lifespan of more than 700 years but there are should've been other hints.

I hope I addressed everything!! Have fun with the game!

Thank you! I'm currently debating about what to do with the missing shipment. I feel bad about killing Rugan and Olly after I've JUST saved them from gnolls, but the Zhentarim sound like major arseholes, so I'm contemplating just playing nice until I can trade/loot them, then killing them in their hideout. But if I spare Rugan and Olly now, won't I just end up killing them in the hideout? Seems like the same outcome. I wish I'd get an persuasion check to convert them or something. Or at least Olly, as Rugan seems to be more shady. Although he was very nice to me after I saved his skin!

bg3 anon, answers under the cut for ease of scrolling! 🤝

Anonymous asked:

"you’re right. i think i’ll perhaps do it as a safety check because i don’t intend to be respectful of the bloodsucker twink lmao. i put him in a ridiculous looking outfit and it’s so hard to take him seriously AT ALL i’ll see how it goes. he’s currently leaving me on ‘Seen’ with an approval rating of 3" Darling (pun intended, sorry, couldn't help myself) it's going to be a problem starting his romance if you're still at 3 approval. I would suggest checking the BG3 wiki, it has most of his approvals and disapprovals listed so you could farm them, but that would be way too immersion breaking to be fair as it goes against the beauty of role playing, at least if you are the type who truly immerses oneself like I am...sometimes I can't bring myself doing things I personally want to do it in a game because it would go against the character I am playing...it's super weird lol.

If romancing him doesn't work out maybe you can go with Gale instead? Or why not maybe Shadowheart will grow on you haha By the way I don't know if I mentioned this but to successfully romance the bloodsucker, you need to sleep with him at least once in act 1. You can't start his romance later.

As for ridiculous looking outfits…here's a suggestion you may want to keep in mind: at the start of act 3 there's a circus where you can loot a clown outfit and buy clown makeup. I put everything on Gale personally because why not? However, sadly the only clown in this whole affair was myself considering I spent 5000 gold on making Astarion a fucking statue, which stayed in my camp for the remainder of act 3. And he didn't even comment on it!!! Well at least I didn't go for the naked version of it, but next time I'm definitely choosing to make a statue for my Tav lmao.

"well the wives are the reason i’ve started to play actually, as counter-productive as that sounds 😂 i have a friend who explained the lore to me, so i know most of astarion’s background and what happens with him, though i don’t remember details, of course. she told me how delulu they are in excusing every thing he does, even his insane decision to become the no 1 ascended vampire boss. how they deceive themselves into believing astarion becomes in love with them if they act like complete doormats and go along with whatever fuckass thing he wants, even if the 'detect thoughts’ option clearly indicates that he thinks badly of them :))"

I didn't want to mention the possible ascension because of spoilers but since you know a lot about him already thanks to your friend…yes, it's all true. The ascension wives are the most unhinged subsect of the Astarion fandom. If you let him do it he even becomes abusive if you are in a romance with him and you'll even have to agree to let him turn into his vampire spawn otherwise he'll break up with you (some of the wives 100% believe he turns you into his vampire bride, but obviously there is nothing in the game confirming this, on the contrary, the evidence is quite flimsy). The craziest thing is the wives think YOU are the abusive one for not letting him sacrifice 7000 souls (including children) in a diabolical ritual, a deal with a fucking archdevil in order to let him ascend, because how can you condemn pookie to a possible life without the sun while still feeling a vampire's hunger? They think you are robbing him of his own agency and infantilizing him. Not to mention that once you get rid of the tadpole, he won't even let you break up with him anymore. Like, at all. You have no choice anymore. He outright laughs at you and says "your future is mine to decide." Also, if you break up with him just before he's about to turn you into his spawn he admits he would've used your love for him against you until "you were nothing", that he appreciates you for doing this, saying he didn't think you had it in you (breaking up with him, that is). Oh and since you mentioned playing the game for meme potential, well, here you also have the option to kick him in the balls when he says "on your knees, darling" to your Tav, before he's about to transform them into a vampire. But be careful, he breaks up and leaves the party permanently after doing this to him lmfao (like any Real Man™ would).

But no, the wives won't hear any of this, in fact they blame you for only choosing the confrontational dialogue options and say that if you are nice to him, he doesn't turn abusive. What??? That's not how this works lmao.

Yes, he has all that power, glory and money if he ascends, but at what cost? He totally loses himself and any positive character growth he had is totally gone and nullified by the ascension. Like yeah he does push for ascending, but does he really need it? There is a difference between wanting something (for all the wrong reasons imho, he can be safe and free without doing this as his good ending proves it) and needing something and you as his friend or lover should know better rather than have him give in into his worst impulses. Tbh I think many of these wives genuinely believe that if he says he wants something, you have to do it because how can you deny your boyfriend this "but he said so!!!". Loving someone doesn't mean agreeing with them every single time, that's not how actual relationships work. That's not to say one can't enjoy toxic relationships in fiction, but that's not what these people are doing here, let's be real. He actually approves and genuinely thanks you if you talk him out of ascending, by the way. He says he was not himself back then when he was just about do it and although he did not appreciate it at the time, is now grateful for saving him from himself, that you saw and believed he is enough just way he is, that now he is "truly and honestly free". The game couldn't be more clear about this, the parallels, the foreshadowings are all there from the very beginning but everything completely flew over these people's heads. Sure, he gets sad when he loses the tadpole and can't be in the sun anymore but eventually he embraces the shadows (in a good way this time) and realizes he can be free and happy like this as well.

Did your friend mention the fact that the wives also harassed and stalked one one of his writers for calling this ending the bad one for him? Because they did this. (tbh personally I do think that writer unprofessional in how they expressed their opinion but they still didn't deserve to be harassed for it…and it's also not like the text itself doesn't confirm what they said).

I do feel bad for those who do like his evil ending for what it is without trying to whitewash it because they often end up catching strays thanks to the crazies, like people telling them they'll be abused in real life by their partners because they like this version of Astarion…which is not a nice thing to say to someone even online. On the other hand these wives claim they are genuine villain fuckers, that they love Astarion as evil as he can be, they also claim to love dark romances but then they totally dumb down the toxic elements of the relationship with him and turn it into uwuuu loving evil power couple. Come on…they genuinely insist his bad and evil ending is the GOOD one! Most characters have a good and evil or bad ending yet fans of other companions don't pretend the bad ones are secretly the good ones "for reasons" or "but they said so, they said they wanted it". I've yet to meet a Shadowheart fan who genuinely thinks her bad ending is in fact her good one, for example. Or a Lae'zel fan.

______________________________________________________________

Darling (pun intended, sorry, couldn't help myself) it's going to be a problem starting his romance if you're still at 3 approval.

i shot up to 28 now! 🤙 without basically doing anything evil, apart from letting him feed on Gandrel (but i kept him alive, at least) out of curiosity, i'm going to go back and see if that gained me any approval points or not

I would suggest checking the BG3 wiki, it has most of his approvals and disapprovals listed so you could farm them, but that would be way too immersion breaking to be fair as it goes against the beauty of role playing, at least if you are the type who truly immerses oneself like I am...sometimes I can't bring myself doing things I personally want to do it in a game because it would go against the character I am playing...it's super weird lol.

oh, i am so tempted, but i'm trying to maintain at least a semblance of unpredictability and candor! i totally get not wanting to do smth if the character would be against it

If romancing him doesn't work out maybe you can go with Gale instead? Or why not maybe Shadowheart will grow on you haha By the way I don't know if I mentioned this but to successfully romance the bloodsucker, you need to sleep with him at least once in act 1. You can't start his romance later.

good to know, soldier! 💪i am not refusing any of his (most likely) cringe sex proposals if i can get them 🤡

As for ridiculous looking outfits…here's a suggestion you may want to keep in mind: at the start of act 3 there's a circus where you can loot a clown outfit and buy clown makeup. I put everything on Gale personally because why not?

LOL i have a mod that gave me a clown outfit and i put it on shadowheart 😂 but gale sounds hilarious, too

However, sadly the only clown in this whole affair was myself considering I spent 5000 gold on making Astarion a fucking statue, which stayed in my camp for the remainder of act 3. And he didn't even comment on it!!! Well at least I didn't go for the naked version of it, but next time I'm definitely choosing to make a statue for my Tav lmao.

i was in tears when i read this :))))))))))))))))))) anon, i'm so sorry :)::):):)::):):):):) i can't imagine

i'm fine with letting astarion drain my blood, but i draw the line at spending so much money on his ungrateful arse 😂 priorities 😂

The ascension wives are the most unhinged subsect of the Astarion fandom.

the stories i've heard reveal such a fascinating level of delusion :)) like you said, not being able to accept the distinction between vampire spawn and vampire bride: he tells you (or least i chose that dialogue option) how one can become an actual, full-blown vampire and that no vampire would create a competitor! straight out of his mouth

Not to mention that once you get rid of the tadpole, he won't even let you break up with him anymore. Like, at all. You have no choice anymore. He outright laughs at you and says "your future is mine to decide." Also, if you break up with him just before he's about to turn you into his spawn he admits he would've used your love for him against you until "you were nothing", that he appreciates you for doing this, saying he didn't think you had it in you (breaking up with him, that is).

to think!! i would crawl straight into the depths of the mariana trench 😭 no way is this loser going to pull this level of insolence on mirta

Oh and since you mentioned playing the game for meme potential, well, here you also have the option to kick him in the balls when he says "on your knees, darling" to your Tav, before he's about to transform them into a vampire. But be careful, he breaks up and leaves the party permanently after doing this to him lmfao (like any Real Man™ would).

i puked a little in my mouth 💀

There is a difference between wanting something (for all the wrong reasons imho, he can be safe and free without doing this as his good ending proves it) and needing something and you as his friend or lover should know better rather than have him give in into his worst impulses.

yeah, that's what i was talking with my friend about, that you'd be out of your mind to accept for him to ascend. and, like you said, it would negate any kind of character growth he might have had until then. so far, my friend was able to talk him out of it and he was grateful, whereas my boyfriend didn't have a good enough approval rating so he had to kill him off. very different outcomes!

but neither of them have managed to fuck him so we'll see on which shores the tides of love take us 🤡

Tbh I think many of these wives genuinely believe that if he says he wants something, you have to do it because how can you deny your boyfriend this "but he said so!!!". Loving someone doesn't mean agreeing with them every single time, that's not how actual relationships work.

very well said!

also, i think that maybe in another game, it would matter more towards making him "happy" if you just went along with everything he says, but the game mechanics here are a little different and it's obviously telegraphing hard that this is Not A Good Path

That's not to say one can't enjoy toxic relationships in fiction, but that's not what these people are doing here, let's be real.

exactly, there needs to be a level of awareness here of what the dynamic actually is, not a senile denial of basic power imbalances

Did your friend mention the fact that the wives also harassed and stalked one one of his writers for calling this ending the bad one for him? Because they did this. (tbh personally I do think that writer unprofessional in how they expressed their opinion but they still didn't deserve to be harassed for it…and it's also not like the text itself doesn't confirm what they said).

not yet, i don't think! she just mentioned that they're very weird with the voice actors as well. she sent me a very long and lachrymose tumblr post, bemoaning that his actor showed his discomfort with ascended!astarion fans during a livestream, how unprofessional and hurt they were by this very normal reaction

on a different note, she showed me the post with the life-sized astarion sex doll someone commissioned

I do feel bad for those who do like his evil ending for what it is without trying to whitewash it because they often end up catching strays thanks to the crazies, like people telling them they'll be abused in real life by their partners because they like this version of Astarion…which is not a nice thing to say to someone even online.

of course, you can enjoy even that ending. i can see myself playing with my friends and making the most idiotic choices, howling with laughter. every one has a kind of setup that allows them to revel in the silliness or (why not) the kink-factor of these situations. it's the "convincing yourself this isn't abusive" part that's the issue

On the other hand these wives claim they are genuine villain fuckers, that they love Astarion as evil as he can be, they also claim to love dark romances but then they totally dumb down the toxic elements of the relationship with him and turn it into uwuuu loving evil power couple.

i wanted to highlight this because it's so true and something i've seen in more fandoms as well. i would say that aly$m0nd was a similar case, where a lot of shippers refused to engage with any potentially problematic aspects of their relationship and just pushed a sanitized true love narrative.

I will address the rest all at once without quoting separately since it's faster. Hopefully I didn't miss anything important:

The spear you found in Withers' place is okay for Shadowheart momentarily but it will soon become obsolete as you will find a much better weapon for her just before entering act 2. It's a mace called "The Blood of Lathander" and is located somewhere within the Githyanki Creche (you will have to go there as it's part of Lae'zel quest). Just deal with the giths first and then go and search for the weapon. It's super good for clerics especially and it's one of those weapons that is effective even in act 3 by the end of the game.

I heard about this mace! I will keep an eye out for it. Add it to my list of items I need to find while still in Act 1.

Entering turn based mode is also a good idea when stealing from merchants.

Yeah the weightless consumables mod is a must have. It seems useless now but when you start collecting all kinds of arrows, potions, scrolls, gold you will become encumbered really, really quick.

I'll see how much longer I'll mentally last with loading and unloading all of the crap I pick up. :))

I think you can sneak past Ethel's masked servants, some players managed to do it (perhaps you could try and make everyone invisible?). Personally I fought them as I didn't want to complicate myself by trying to sneak.

Oh yeah, I go more in detail in my last post about my Ethel adventures.

The Ethel point, if not used on your character, might very well go on one of your companions as I may have said in one of my previous asks. If anyone's main stat is still 17 use it to get it to 18. Then use the ability increase feat to even other odd ability points left? Mayrina will be angry with you no matter what you do so don't worry, it will pass.

So, I requested an INT +1. And my plan currently is to summon the ogres when I go to the goblin camp, make sure they die, if not felled by goblins, then by my hand, and pick up the Circlet of Intelligence or whatever it's called. It pumps INT up to 17, I think? I can then dump all of my INT numbers down to the minimum of 8, add Ethel's +1 and I'm up to 18. With a lot of points free to distribute someplace else. If I can get my hands on the Gloves of Dexterity, too, I can almost turn Mirta into a tank. I feel that secretly she longs for the bloodsong of the battlefield, but is keeping real quiet about it. :))

Nice that you persuaded the ogres to fight for you!!

You got the necromancy book? That's great. Buuuut you might have wanted to take Astarion with you as he has an interest in it. Giving it to him will also grant A LOT of approval (10 points I believe?) which is desirable since you want to romance him. And no, he won't do anything funny with it, the book will be safe in his hands. I mentioned in a previous ask about trusting and agreeing with some of his less insane suggestions, well, this is one of them.

Thank you so much for this suggestion! I wouldn't have known otherwise. There are a lot of details or paths in this game that you could easily miss, some of them very random!

As for your latest incident I should've mentioned that trusting him to NOT drain you dry isn't a good idea lol. I'm sorry once again however it's still extremely funny what he did to poor Mirta. At least she punched him!!

She's in her emo princess era currently. No time like the present to bust out the intense eye makeup!

After you are done with all the side quests in the area you can go to the goblin camp and do what's needed to be done there without needing to kill ALL of them. Rescue Halsin if you want to (he is a nice guy but a boring character overall and the bear sex stunt turned me off his character a bit I fear) and kill the goblin leaders. Not sure if you know, but one of their leaders (Minthara) can be recruited later in act 2 if you knock her out. So no killing - so don't use spells and ranged weapons on her if you want her to survive and have her in your party eventually.

Yeah, the bear sex I honestly find hilarious. I'm going to try to recruit as many as I can, because free labour and help? Why not? Though I'm not sure I can have both Minthara and Halsin in my camp (apparently they can't stand each other?). My bf said I had to choose, but I wonder if I can't get those two crazy cats to get along with my high CHA.

You may want to expose Kagha and the shadow druids before doing the goblin camp.

Good to know, thanks!

This is weird, when it comes to dialogues you should have the possibility to select the Friends cantrip in the bonus section before you roll the dice. It should be there near Shadowheart's guidance. Once you select it two dices will show up on your screen, then the dice with the higher number will be taken into consideration. You may have a bug if it doesn't show up. But yes other than dialogues, there's not much practicality for it.

You're right about that, I will reconsider the Friends cantrip later on maybe. I imagine I get more cantrip slots as I progress.

Also, if you want access to the Guidance cantrip, there is a necklace that grants you this spell so you won't need to drag Shadowheart around you. (a short video with the location so I don't have to explain it to you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_abMisavwU )

This would be so useful, thank you very much!!! V excited about this!

Yep, Dancing Lights disarming traps and vents is apparently a thing which I found out quite late in the game. I always threw stones and random weapons at vents to cover them and then I had Astarion disarm them and any other traps.

As for lightning and ice spells or cantrips: Shocking Grasp and Ray of Frost are the only cantrips available, but you may want to look into spells. I know the temptation is to not spend your spell slots and focus on cantrips since you can cast them endlessly but trust me, sometimes you'll have to use spells. Once you hit level 5 you'll begin to have access to other cool lightning and ice spells. Lightning Bolt and Glyph of Warding (this one lets you choose the type of damage you will deal and both ice and lightning are available - Shadowheart as a cleric will also have access to this spell) and on later levels there are even more cool ones. You probably missed this one but on early levels there is also Chromatic Orb which is similar to the Glyph.

Oh, yeah, I do use spells, too, but you never know when you might need an elemental cantrip you can cast without limit.

The only items Gale can eat will have a text written under them that should say something like "Gale can absorb this item". He has standards, he won't eat just anything!

Too bad I didn't figure that one out sooner, but no real harm done!

Not you giving Gale the Dancing Lights amulet. You are right that it is redundant but it has sentimental value since it's from Arabella's parents. How could you???

The bard hat must be worn by a bard, even if you gain that ability from Alfira it won't work on your character. Bards, depending on their current level, have a number of "Bardic Inspiration Poins" which are similar to cleric's Guidance cantrip and will grant other party members bonuses when they roll their dices. Some of their attack actions are also dependent on this system and may cost bardic inspiration points. If you don't intend to respect someone into a bard or use multiclass (a feature that's not available on your difficulty level anyway) on a party member, then the hat will be useless and Gale can eat it.

Oh.... Well, it was worth a shot. I did look goofy while wearing it. Gave it to Gale after all.

Gloves of uncommon power? Did you mean gloves of power? They are fine on Lae'zel or maybe even better on Astarion due to the Sleight of Hand +1 bonus. You could give them to Gale and then buy the Gloves of Thievery for Astarion from the Zhentarim merchant (I think you need to deliver the shipment from the caravan to them without opening it in order to have access to them and other cool items from full inventory).

These names sort of blend into each other after a while. :)) I'm writing down the Gloves of Thievery, thanks. :))

thank you for the Magnus Archives podcast link!

You're very welcome, I hope you liked the episode!

Anonymous asked:

"lmao anon don't worry! i genuinely did it for the lols at least i got him to an 18 approval rating for me, more than karlach, lae'zel OR gale somehow (motherfucker, and this is AFTER i gave him an artefact to consume)" Thanks the gods lol, I was surprised a bit since most players did not genuinely trust him to not do something stupid. The fact that you have options to make him stop is enough of a warning imho, the game is pretty much like "are you sure about trusting him, hmm?".

Tell me about it, but you can't really think clearly with vampire fangs down your neck, right? ☠

And how did you manage to have fucking Gale at a lower approval lmao, now I feel stupid for suggesting in my other message to go for him instead if you can't manage to romance the vampire. Gale and Shadowheart were the only ones I managed to have much high numbers compared to Astarion, and quite early on. Karlach was the hardest for me, followed by Lae'zel.

I'll have to check how I stand with them in this post-Ethel administration! 💪 Shadowheart and Wyll are quite keen on me.

"i'm glad he's fucking "happy", what can i say 🤡 maybe now we're not going to fail every perception check in ethel's cave at least. we're going TODAY so i can benefit from this bonus (i did work my arse off for if after all!)" From now on up until the end of the game you can use his bite ability on enemies when in combat and he will gain the "Happy" condition each time, including the +1 bonus. Alternatively, you can also have Mirta become his willing blood bag and invite him to feed on her each night or so lol & the following morning he will gain the condition that way as well, but I think letting him feed on enemies is better.

Yeah, I can imagine the blood bank fics, 😅 but, unfortunately (or fortunately for the sane ones amongst us), Mirta would wake up with some of her abilities depleted at the cost of Astarion's boosts. And that doesn't really work for her since she's discovered her own penchant for dueling after her brush with death. How can she take all that damage enemies frontload on her in combat otherwise? 💬

A fun happening which I forgot to mention previously but there is this Rha*nicent fan art that's been living rent free in my head ever since I saw it back in august (link: https://x.com/kknoahh/status/1825991659835867357) with short haired Rha*nyra, who I genuinely thought to be…Astarion at first. I was like who the fuck started to ship Alicent with him lmao, like can you imagine this crackship.

Oh my goodness, Rhaenyra really does look like him. 😳 Alicent really out there catching all strays and being shipped with anyone with the slightest potential of becoming psychosexually obsessed with her. :))

Have fun at the birthday party!!

Thanks so much, it was nice to go out and see my friends!

Anonymous asked:

Well, Gale isn't in a position to criticize Astarion for hiding his true nature, to be fair. You'll find out soon enough when he confesses the full truth about his condition and why he really needs to consume all those magical artefacts. I don't remember if the rest of your companions have something to say each time after you give items to Gale to eat but after you feed him for the third and final time they should have something to say if you click on them, at least those who are in your active party at the time (again, no exclamation mark will show up above them).

This tip has proven very useful and I always make sure to check on them at the end of the day and after I hit long rest. Most of them did comment on Gale some way the other, but NONE of them had ANYTHING to day that the leech spawn KILLED ME. Forsooth!

Astarion will be like "who would hide something like this from his friends? you can't trust anyone this days", which is quite hilarious considering Gale was more understanding lol.

This line is even funnier if you think he's being self-aware while saying it. :))

I may offer you a hint that won't spoil anything: make a quicksave to be sure just in case and then use Astarion's bite ability on Gale. You'll see that something is wrong with the guy… ;)

He did ask me whose blood I'd suck, which was quite hilarious, and insisted I'd answer. :)) I picked Gale for the lols, hoping it would trigger what you said, but nothing happened. I guess fang boy abides by our deal and keeps to hunting animals? Who would have thought? But maybe I'll try to bite Gale tonight, to see what he does.

Unfortunately, backgrounds don't matter so much, Tav is pretty much a blank slate. You get some specific skill proficiencies and maybe some unique dialogue options here and there but other than that? Pretty much nothing, except for also receiving inspiration points. It's really a missed opportunity and one of my main criticisms of the game, there are plenty of occasions in the game where your background could've been taken into into consideration. You actually gave a good example about perhaps being allowed into spaces common born people aren't, but unless I missed something, nothing like this happens. You even meet Baldurian nobles in act 3 and you have no dialogue options with any of them when normally you should've been familiarized with at least some of them, being a noble yourself. Two of your possible companions, Wyll and Minthara, are of noble birth as well and you can't have a noble to noble conversation with them (you have a noble dialogue option with Minthara but only if you play as a drow noble, other races aren't acknowledged and as far as I can recall, Wyll has no specific dialogue for other nobles).

That's unfortunate. It would have been a great addition. Like, I imagine noble characters could start out with more coin in their pockets or that common-borns could have streets smarts (survival proficiency) or knowledge about the local flora or fauna or small settlements. I sometimes have dialogue with people about aspects my tav should already be aware of, even general world-building stuff, like fellow races or just current events. :))

Also, it's rather annoying to be playing a Baldurian character but they're seemingly unaware of anything going on in Baldur's gate. For example, Mirta should have been aware of Cazador, I feel? At the very least that there's a coven of vampires in her home city and that no one is doing anything about it. :)) Or just generally question Astarion's magistrate background.

Good luck with Ethel!!

Thank you! Whole other post below on my hag struggles. :)

[crystaljins]

Finding Christmas again

Characters: Taehyung x Reader

Word count: 21K

Synopsis:  After a lifetime’s worth of turbulent and miserable Christmases with your family, you finally make the executive decision to spend this year’s Christmas alone. 

However, when you take home a box of old Christmas decorations from your friend’s shop, it seems that this Christmas is set to be different from the others.  

ChristmasScarecrow!Tae x human!Reader

Notes: Here it is!!! My contibution to the @thebtswritersclub​ secret santa (and also their monthly holiday prompt, Holiday/festival)!!!  And my secret santa is.... *drum roll*....

Hi @pars-ley​​, Merry Christmas!!!!! I hope you enjoy your secret santa!! 

Anyway, I know the premise sounds weird but bear with me!!!! It’s kinda cute, I promise!!

Rating: PG13

Genre: Fluff, angst

Warnings: Mentions of divorce, fighting, alcoholism, depression, mean step-siblings (OC’s family). Mentions of house break-ins, some kissing and some ANGST, santa is real, really poorly explained world mechanics that are kind of glossed over because I’m lazy LOL

For you, the start of the Christmas season is always marked by Seokjin unboxing the stock for his December-long Christmas sales. Any stock from the previous year that didn’t get sold gets lined up along the shelves along with a few new trinkets here and there. He pulls out a series of dusty cardboard boxes, soft and collapsing from age and within are numerous fraying, gaudy Christmas decorations he likes to string around the shop to give off a bit of a “festive” atmosphere. Of course, an overstocked, tacky dollar store can only be so “festive” but Seokjin never seems deterred. 

This year, however, marks a change. You sit amidst towering, overflowing shelves whileJin beams at you over the counter of his tacky dollar store and slides the first of the decrepit and infamous cardboard boxes towards you. 

“If you’re being stubborn and insisting on spending Christmas alone this year, at least put up some decorations.” He insists. Hesitantly, you peer inside- the tinsel has lost some of its magnificent sparkly mane, but it’s still passable and there’s a few tangled lights that you know from experience may have a bulb or two blown but are still somewhat useable. 

“I guess I could,” you reluctantly agree. Your small apartment could definitely do with a little apartment sprucing. “You’re not going to decorate this year?” You question. Jin shakes his head and beams, gesturing to a series of brand new cardboard boxes, freshly shipped. They’re crisp and upright in a way that makes the old boxes look even more soggy and pathetic.

“I’ve done a little bit of online shopping this year and thought it would be nice to freshen up my decorations. And I know you could use some decorations so I knew my babies would be going to a good home.” He announces, positively giddy with delight. Christmas always leaves Jin on the edge of manic. Starting the month off with his birthday and then finishing it off with the entire world decked out in festivities is like giving him a month-long sugar rush. Nothing says festive season like the terrifying sparkle to his gaze.

“Well... thank you, I guess.” You say. You’re hesitant but grateful. You’re not the kind of person who hates Christmas or thinks the grinch was a victim, but it’s always been a season that didn’t ring as joyful for you as it seemed to for everyone else. After all, for you, Christmas had consisted of you hiding upstairs while your parents had screaming matches while they were still together, and then it had been a mix of being picked on by your step-siblings the years you were stuck with your father, and nursing your mother after she’d get drunk over eggnog and cry over her broken family when you spent it with your mother. Perhaps this is your chance to reclaim the season. “I can load these up in my car and then we can get started hanging up your new decorations?” You suggest, as Jin finishes balancing the till. 

Jin nods absently, counting under his breath, before leaning against the counter with a smile. 

“That would be absolutely fantastic. Your santa hat is in my office- don’t forget it!” He reminds you. You groan. 

“Do we have to do this every year? It’s demeaning.” You complain. Jin nods and then ignores your grimacing, returning to counting the day’s takings. 

With a heavy sigh, you take your time loading the boxes into your car, parked out the back of the shop, before ducking into his office. Sure enough, two embroidered Santa’s hats sit haphazardly on Jin’s desk. You tug one over your head and grab the other for him. 

You’re not sure when this tradition of helping Seokjin set up his shop for Christmas began. If you’re being honest, you’re not even sure when you started being friends with him, but this has been a yearly tradition since he started the shop, and the closest you’ve ever gotten to Christmas cheer. Your job is to string out the decorations in the least gaudy manner possible while Jin arranges his Christmas stock on his already overflowing shelves.

Back in the shop, Jin has just finished locking up when you come down the stairs at the back. He turns to you and beams, before gesturing to the boxes filled with new decorations. 

“Time to put that interior decorator eye to good use, (Y/N)!” He cries, clapping his hands enthusiastically together. You wince- it would take a lot more than some Christmas lights to fix the mess that is Seokjin’s shop. Even a professional interior decorator couldn’t fix this chaotic mess. His shop is ten years past a clearance sale.

Still, you walk over and begin to open up the boxes, sorting through the decorations until you come across an older box. You thought you’d loaded them all, but it looks like you’ve missed one. 

“What’s this box, Jin?” You ask, peeling back the lid to find a series of old, musty decorations. Jin pauses in his detangling of some dangling star lights to look over your shoulder. 

“Those are the decorations I put up for sale every year that never seem to go. Even the words “clearance” isn’t enough for people to want them.” He sighs, and he’s surprisingly melancholy as he looks upon the unwanted decorations. You’ve never had much to do with the things he chooses to sell- frankly you’re a little afraid with the things you may find should you venture into the labyrinth of his dollar store. Curious, you peel back the cardboard flap and peer inside at the myriad of unwanted decorations. 

Oddly, it makes your heart twinge a little, to see the stock that has been stuck gatherinf dust for eleven months. As dramatic as it sounds, you know a thing or two about being unwanted. 

Not that your parents ever implied you were unwanted! It’s just hard not to feel that way when you’re born to a couple who want nothing to do with each other. The constant back and forth between your two feuding parents had constantly made you feel more like a “pass-the-parcel” package than a human being.

And when your dad had remarried, he’d always insisted that you were welcome, but it’s not difficult to see how happy he is in his new family. How his stepchildren’s achievements made him smile or how he’d finally achieved the noisy, warm household he’d always dreamed of. The household he never had with you. And now even your mother is trying new things- she’d asked you to come with her to meet the family of her new boyfriend, but you couldn’t bring yourself to suffer through the awkwardness. 

That’s why you’d chosen to spend this Christmas alone- because you can’t seem to shake the feeling that you’re an afterthought when it comes to a holiday that involves spending time with your family. You exist, and you share their blood, but they have plans with people they actually chose to be in their lives. You’re welcome along, but not really wanted. 

Jin watches the expression on your face with mild interest. 

“Do you... want any of them?” He questions tentatively. “They’re a bit gaudy, but you could give them a home?”

You grimace at the ugly decorations- it’s not hard to see why no one wanted them. Tacky, corny baubles and cheap little mantle ornaments that a even a seventy year old grandmother would turn her nose up at.

But despite your general distaste, a tuft of red wool at the corner of the box catches your attention. You reach forward and tug it free.

A Christmas-themed scarecrow toy smiles back at you. Tufts of red, woollen hair peak out beneath his little santa’s hat, and two sewed on black buttons make up his eyes. His mouth is a simple stitched black line, a little upwards curve, and a little paint on upside down triangle makes his nose. He’s dress in a flannel shirt and overalls, but the overalls have a little christmas tree embroidered on the front and his flannel shirt has fluffy cuffs like the ends of a santa shirt. He’s sort of charming, if a little strange- why a christmas scarecrow? What an oddly specific decoration. 

“I can kind of see why no one would want these.” You snort, though you don’t put him back. Jin nods sympathetically. 

“This little guy has been with me for years. All the other decorations I bought with him eventually got sold but this guy is still unwanted.” He admits, taking the scarecrow from your hands to examine it fondly. “I even tried giving him away for free once but they didn’t want him.”

You bite your lip at that. The two button eyes stare up at you longingly, and for some reason you feel a sense of camaraderie with this stupid, gaudy christmas scarecrow. 

If you’re taking a bunch of decorations, why not this guy? He clashes with every instinct you have in terms of decoration, but the thought of him sitting on a shelf, unwanted for a month only to go back in this dusty old box at the end of the year is too depressing for you to handle. With a sigh, you take him back from Jin. 

“Might as well, since you dumped all your other old decorations on me.” You sigh.

And you miss the way Jin winks at the little scarecrow when you’re facing away from it. 

++

You actually forget about the decorations for the next few days. They sit in your car, unpacked. You’re busy with work as they rush to wrap up the end of year projects before their deadlines. And it’s not like putting up decorations has a deadline, right? You put them up some time before Christmas and hopefully remember to take them down before February hits. 

It’s when Autumn finally draws to a close and the first of December hits that you’re finally motivated to put them up. You’re in a deep clean kind of mood and when you duck out to your car to chuck out the various wrappers and old papers you’ve built up over autumn, you recall the boxes in your boot. 

The little Christmas Scarecrow is the first thing you pull out once the boxes are unloaded into your home. The little button eyes gaze up at you mournfully, as if scolding you for leaving him unattended in your car for so long. 

“Sorry little guy.” You sigh, straightening and setting him atop your mantle. He looks a little out of place with your decor but it feels right to place him there for some reason. This way he’s in full view of any guests that walk in. “Here. This can be your spot. Front and centre.” You tell him, and from this spot his button eyes look a little less mournful. With a smile, you begin puzzling out how to assemble Jin’s ratty old Christmas tree. 

You’re in the middle of a youtube tutorial on how to make your tree appear fuller when your phone lights up with your mother’s contact image. 

It takes you a few moments to steal yourself to answer her.

You aren’t on bad terms with your mother or anything. It’s just... for a few years after the divorce, when you probably needed her most, she just wasn’t your mother. And she’s done really well and gotten a lot of help and she’s in a really good place right now, but it’s still hard. It’s hard to talk to either of your parents, really. 

“Hey mum.” You finally say as you answer the phone. You can guess what she’s going to ask- every since she found out you wouldn’t be going home for Christmas, she’s been doing her best to convince you otherwise. 

“I was just at the store this morning,” she greets you. “And I saw all the ingredients for that christmas cake we used to make when you were small. Do you remember? And we always made it snowman-shaped and you’d cry when we’d eat it.”

You smile at the memory- it’s one of the very few fond ones you have on Christmas. When you were a very young child, before whatever your parents had between them went sour. Before life transitioned into hiding upstairs and trying to block out the sounds of shouting and being bounced back and forth between opposite sides of the country because your mother and father couldn’t even handle being in the same city together. 

“I do remember.” You say.

“We could make it!” Your mother urges. “Just think- wouldn’t it be so fun? John has a daughter your age, and she loves to bake! She’s so eager to meet you too- we could-“

“Maybe next year, mum.” You say. “I’m just absolutely slammed at work this year. Besides, I’ll be down for your birthday soon. I’d just rather spend Christmas at home, this year.”

Your mother is silent for a moment. You know she didn’t miss the implications of your statement. When you had first moved out for studying, returning to your parent’s place had been “going home”. Even you’re not sure when avoiding your family for the holidays had morphed into “staying home.”

“I... I’m sorry. I know I keep bringing it up, but I heard from your father that you weren’t going to spend it with him either and I... I don’t like the thought of you alone for Christmas.” She finally says. “I know I’ve failed you in a lot of ways, but I don’t want this to be one of them. John’s wonderful and his family would love to have you. We could make room for you.”

You go quiet for a moment. Your mum is trying her very best. You know that- you know that so well and yet you can’t. You just can’t do it. You don’t have it in you to brave through Christmas with either of your parents and play happy families and pretend that the years of misery didn’t happen. You don’t want a Christmas where people are “making room” for you. You want to have a place that is just inherently yours.

“Next year.” You promise. Next year you’ll have steeled yourself. Next year you’ll have it together. Next year you can try again. Next year you’ll be a little stronger and more resilient and then you can face the mess of your broken family.

Your mother sighs on the other end, in a sad, disappointed sort of way. 

“Next year.” She finally says, and there’s a promise in her words. Next year she’ll be better too. She’ll keep trying. 

You stay on the phone a little longer, and when you hang up you just spend a moment in your empty apartment. Boxes are sitting, strewn around you and currently the only decoration is your little Christmas Scarecrow. 

Oddly, he almost looks judgemental as he peers at you through the buttons. 

“Don’t look at me like that.” You sigh, getting to your feet and beginning the process of organising the Christmas decorations. “It’s complicated. You don’t know my mum and I know she loves me and I know she’s trying... but it’s... it’s just complicated, ok?”

You continue to ramble as you finish up your decorations. It’s quite therapeutic, talking to an inanimate object. It almost feels like he’s listening- there’s something warm in the little stitched mouth and button eyes. You and your scarecrow, both unwanted on Christmas day. You tell him about your parent’s divorce, about your past Christmases. About Jin and your friendship with him. About your decision to be alone for Christmas this year because neither of your parent’s offers seemed particularly appealing. 

By the time you’ve finish, your apartment actually looks decent. The Christmas tree sits in the corner, decorated with baubles covered in chipped paint and balding tinsel. There’s lights strung across the ceiling and across your mantle and maybe there’s one or two missing spots, and maybe it’s just a little tacky, but it’s warm. It’s home. You’ve carved out a little home for yourself in this apartment, and maybe it’s not perfect, but you like it. 

When you fall asleep on the couch, exhausted, you dream of ringing sleigh bells and cheerful Christmas tunes. 

++

You awaken suddenly. Your heart is in your throat. 

There’s someone in your apartment. You can hear them rummaging around in the kitchen. You don’t know how they got there, but terror fills you. 

The first thing you do is discreetly reach for your phone. You want to call the emergency number but you don’t want the intruder to know you’re awake in case they retaliate. Instead, you shoot a text to Jin. 

There’s someone in my house. You text. The response is almost immediate. 

I’m on my way. He responds. You resist the urge to groan. You’d told him so that he could call the police, not so that he could play hero. 

You roll off the couch and sneak closely to the wall. A metal bat rests there- a housewarming gift from Namjoon when he first learnt you’d be living alone. You never thought you’d have to use it. You never forget to lock your doors and surely no one has the guts to scale a building and come in through your balcony, right?

Still, you’re grateful for it now as you grip the handle tightly between both fists. 

Hesitantly and quietly, you inch towards the kitchen. The light is on and you can make out a figure bustling inside. 

With a cry, you rush forward, swing the back in a downwards arc. 

Only for your terrified intruder to whip around and catch the bat with the palms of his hands. Ignoring the fact that he just caught the full swing of a metal bat without flinching, you try and pull your bat back to tru for another swing. 

But he merely tightens his grip on the bat and this gives you time to take in his appearance. 

There’s a lot of striking things about the man’s appearance. Bright, brilliantly red hair, the colour of Christmas ribbons and raspberries, a straight, prominent nose. A sharp, well-defined jawline and two warm, dark eyes, almost familiar in their dark shade. 

It’s hard to know what to take in first. His startlingly handsome face, his brightly coloured hair, or his outlandish outfit. You don’t think you’ve ever seen someone look cute in tacky, Christmas themed overalls or a flannel shirt that’s an odd mix of a Santa’s hat and a farmer’s uniform. Complete with the Santa’s hat and the bright red hair, the man could almost be twins with your Christmas Scarecrow. 

“Who are you?” You demand. You attempt another futile tug on your bat, but the man’s grip is firm. 

“Don’t panic, (Y/N)!” He urges. His voice is deep and velvety but edged with a little terror. Your eyes widen. 

“How do you know my name?” You demand. If you weren’t afraid before, you are now. 

“Seokjin said it! In the store, a few days ago!” He cries, still pressing firmly against your metal bat. Despite you pressing your whole weight into it, it doesn’t budge a centimetre closer towards him. 

“So you’re a stalker?” You cry. 

“No!” He counters. “It’s me, (Y/N)! The scarecrow!”

That startles you enough to relax your grip on the metal bat. He senses the lapse in your grip and tugs the metal bat free. He holds it away from you and approaches you slowly, cautiously. 

“I was just making you some hot chocolate.” He says slowly. “You seemed sad after your phone call with your mum and I wanted to comfort you.”

He’s crazy- a crazy guy has broken into your house and has been listening to your conversations for who knows how long, and has been stalking you before that. 

“How long have you been stalking me for, you psycho?” You demand. His eyes widen in horror. 

“I’m not a stalker!” He insists. “I’m your scarecrow- turn around and I can prove it!” 

“What? So that you can stab me while my back is turned?” You demand. You make a grab for the bat. “Get out of my house!”

He manages to throw the bat backwards and grab both your shoulders as you lunge for him. With impressive strength he presses on your shoulders and spins you around. In the same motion, he shoves you forward a few steps and you stumble to re-gain your balance. 

Enraged and terrified, you whip around, ready to retaliate.

Only, he’s gone. Where a weird red-haired man previously stood, your kitchen is now empty. 

The counters are scattered with objects- your milk is out, and an open tin of cocoa, a few of your spice jars are laid neatly next to the pile of pots. 

And, sitting neatly where the man had been not a moment before, is your little Christmas Scarecrow. He smiles up at you, button eyes gleaming like he knows something you don’t. 

You can’t help it- you crumble before it. The post-adrenaline crash hits hard and you stare dumbly at the embroidered smile for a moment. 

“It’s a dream.” You finally conclude to yourself. “This is some messed-up nightmare and tomorrrow this haunted scarecrow can go right back to Jin’s store.” 

You grab it and hold it at a distance, your arms outstretched like it smells bad. 

“This is fine.” You assert. “It’s a dream. Just. Just go back here. And I’ll go... run into a wall or something. And this will all be some sort of fever dream.”

You settle the Christmas Scarecrow back into its rightful spot on your mantle, before turning around. You take a deep breath, mentally preparing yourself to run full speed at the wall just opposite. 

“‘Haunted’ is a little much, don’t you think?” The same velvety voice from earlier asks, and you turn to find the very same intruder leaping off your mantle onto the ground. “I’m not a ghost, or anything.”

He comes to stand in front of you, arms folded and lips pulled into a frown. Looking upon him now, you see the similarities to the Christmas Scarecrow- even the loose thread in the embroidered tree of his overall pockets is identical. It... it really is your Christmas Scarecrow, standing before you in human form. 

You nod to yourself, a peaceful wave of acceptance washing over you and- 

No wait, never mind. That wave is nausea- you’re blacking out.

++

When you come to, you’re arranged neatly on your couch with your scarecrow hovering over you. You almost want to faint again, but you hold strong. 

“You’re awake!” He cheers, waving a damp towel around. He’s been dipping it in a bowl of cool water and pressing it against your forehead and you flinch as his actions send icy drops over water scattering across your face. 

“And you used to be a scarecrow.” You grumble, sitting up. You squint and lean in closely, taking in every detail. Each mark on his skin, each strand of bright red hair, the smooth curve of his smile... it’s so human. Probably the most ethereal and beautiful human to walk the planet, but still human. One of his eyelids is a monolid and the other is a double lid and one of his front teeth is just slightly longer than the other and yet the effect is that he’s just so charming. Far too beautiful to be sitting in your tacky, poorly decorated apartment and far too beautiful to be spending most of his time as a cringe-y christmas-themed scarecrow that Jin probably fished out of the bottom of a clearance basket at a thrift shop and thought he could get away with re-selling. “You have maybe thirty seconds to explain before I call the police. Or an exorcist. Or both.”

He holds up his both his hands in surrender.

“Wait. Please.” He pleads. The desperate way he says the words makes you pause. Honestly, the sane thing to do would be to kick him out. Leave the weird, haunted scarecrow out on the street to fend for himself and go about your days as if this particular little supernatural incident never occurred. 

You sigh. 

“Just... please tell me what’s going on.” You finally say. “I won’t do anything drastic, but at least explain.”

Relied and gratefulness shines in his eyes and he clasps your hands gratefully between his own. Your attention is momentarily caught by the way his large hands dwarf your own. The bony prominences of his knuckles catch your attention- they shift and glide beneath his skin as his grip around your hand tightens. For some reason, the tiny action seems huge. You lift your gaze slowly to meet his eyes, which are round and warm. 

“My name is Taehyung.” He explains. “And I’m a Christmas Spirit.”

“Christmas Spirit?” You echo in bewilderment. Taehyung nods eagerly and sits forward. He pulls his legs together so that he can sit cross-legged and wraps his hands around his ankles. 

“Yup!” He says, and he’s surprisingly nonchalant despite the supernatural implications of his statement. “We’re beings that come about from the magic of the season. And our job is to spread Christmas cheer to whoever welcomes us into their home.”

As if that’s just a normal thing that someone can spring on you and not expect you to panic! Yet he announces it like he’s a five year old excited to explain the drawing he made of you in school that day. All you can really manage is to nod mutely for a moment. Despite the absurdity of his words, it certainly sounds like what you had done- taken a tacky, unwanted Christmas decoration and welcomed it into your home. 

“And that’s you, (Y/N).” He says warmly, and the way he says your name is so fond. Like you’re his oldest, most valued friend. It startles you- you don’t think you’ve ever had the syllables of your name pronounced with such care, like they are a precious gift. “You are the first human to ever welcome me into your home. All my friends eventually found people to take them, and I’m the last one to remain. I’ve never gotten to fulfil my duty, not even once.”

“Why not?” You croak out. Why was there a random little christmas ornament in Seokjin’s store that held this kind of power? Why did it end up with you? Who was this mysterious man in your house, gazing at you like you’re the best thing to ever happen to him?

“Well, it’s probably not hard to tell.” He admits, rubbing awkwardly at the back of his neck and then adjusting the santa’s hat atop his head. “Not many people want a Christmas-themed Scarecrow for a decoration. At least not around here.” He sighs. But then he turns to you and his gaze is bright. It’s a little blinding, his mega-watt smile, and it’s certainly overwhelming to have the full force of it directed at you. “But you gave me a chance! You took me home!”

“So... you spread Christmas cheer for me? What does that even mean? What happens when you finish?” You say, leaning back just a little to give yourself room to breath. His scent fills your nostrils and it’s overwhelming. A pleasant mix of christmas scents- gingerbread, cinammon, peppermint. It sits thick in the back of your throat like the pleasant burn of a hot, sweet drink. 

He looks surprised at the line of questioning and a frown replaces the warm, glowing look he’d borne just moments earlier. 

“Well, I’m not sure. I suppose when I finish then you put me away for a year or you pass me on to someone else.” He admits. “This is my first time, so I’m still learning the ropes.” He’s a little sheepish as he admits it. But then his gaze lights up again and he pulls himself up onto the couch so that he can sit shoulder-to-shoulder with you. “But spreading Christmas cheer is just helping you enjoy the season! You haven’t had a great experience with Christmas, right? I can help!”

You stiffen as you recall earlier that day; you had essentially aired all your dirty laundry to what you’d thought was an inanimate object. Taehyung now knew more about you than even some of your closest friends did. You’d unintentionally opened up and made yourself vulnerable to some guy you hardly knew. The thought has you recoiling. You’re not against the idea of opening up- certainly when people ask the right questions, you’ll answer honestly. But people rarely ask and you’ve never volunteered. No one has has access to every dirty detail like Taehyung now does. 

And for some reason that thought has you terrified.

“I’m... I don’t mean to burst your bubble, Taehyung.” You volunteer quietly. Taehyung stiffens at the tone of your voice. “You seem like a nice enough guy. Or spirit. Or scarecrow. Whatever you are. And I hope that one day you’ll find someone you can give lots of Christmas cheer to. But I didn’t sign up for this. I don’t want any of it- the “Christmas cheer” or the festivities, or anything. I’m just...” you inhale deeply. “I’m just trying to make the most of what I have.” 

You get to your feet, your back facing him. 

“You can stay the night, but I’ll take you back to Jin in the morning. I’ll see if I can convince any of my friends to take you, if you like.”

A slight tug on the sleeve of your jumper stops you from leaving. You glance down at your wrist. Taehyung has just the tip of your sleeve, pinched between his fingers. It’s not enough pressure to stop you from leaving. The slightest tug would liberate you from his grasp and you’d be free to go back to your room. 

“No one else will.” He admits quietly. There’s a sort of heart-aching tone to his voice that makes that tiny grip feel like he’s handcuffed to you. “I waited for five years in that store. I’d sit in a box for eleven months of the year, and hope that this year would be the one someone chose me and every day of December that passed I’d watch people walk right past me. And before that, I was passed around from store to store. People would keep me in the store until they realised I’d never sell and then they’d palm me off to someone else. They didn’t even have the guts to get rid of me. And I’d watch as the objects around me got chosen. They got sent to good homes. But never me. I have waited twenty five christmases for someone to let me in. You’re the first.” He quietly admits. He hasn’t changed or adjusted his grip on your sleeve. Just that tenuous, fragile grip, that little bit of hope that can be snapped at any moment keeps you in place. “Please.” He breathes. 

You stare at his fingers, at the tacky cuffs of his sleeve, at his hopeful, pleading expression. 

You don’t have to do this. He’s asking you, but he won’t force you. You can say no and have the bleary, lonely Christmas you’d originally planned. You can keep pushing everyone away and forever allow Christmastime to be a holiday of heartbreak for you. 

Or you could let this random Christmas Scarecrow and his sparkly, bright eyes into your home.

“Ok.” You finally say. “My work hasn’t shut down yet so I’m gonna be super busy for the next few weeks. But in between you can give it a go.”

The answering smile he gives you in turn has your heart fluttering in anticipation. 

Maybe Christmas won’t be so bad this year.

++

Although you had had every intention of welcoming Taehyung into your home and applying yourself to the festivities as best you could, your workplace dials everything up to eleven over the next few days, just as predicted. Taehyung, to his credit, doesn’t whine or complain. He spends most of the day while you are at work in his scarecrow-form or binging netflix on your account and he spends his evenings stretched on the couch, or beaming at you over dinner. It’s kind of like having a loyal golden retriever to come home to, but maybe with better manners.

It’s actually kind of pleasant. You occasionally catch him humming Christmas tunes and he keeps leaving his Santa hat in strange places but otherwise he’s a rather nonintrusive roommate. He even makes you dinner on occasion and he’s not a terrible cook.

 It’s only as the weekend approaches and you’re contemplating how to spend it that it occurs to you that Taehyung hasn’t left the house once. It’s not like he can just wonder down the street in his scarecrow outfit- it’s not exactly designed to withstand subzero temperature. And you’ve been so slammed at work that it never occurred to you that you’d essentially let the poor guy stay with you and then left him to the equivalent of house arrest.

“Do you do much during the week?” You ask Taehyung across dinner that night. You had quickly learned that he does need to eat and shower and sleep like every human but he can stave it off by staying in his scarecrow form, and so dinner time had just become a shared meal most evenings. He had even waited in his scarecrow form for you to get back on the days you had finished late that week. He pauses through a mouthful of pasta and looks up, cheeks bulging. 

“Not much.” He confesses, after a noisy swallow. “I don’t really have anywhere to go.” He reminds you. 

Guilt churns in your stomach and sours your dinner. You had promised him you’d give him a chance, and yet here you were a week later, making him fend for himself in an unfamiliar and empty apartment with nothing to do but watch netflix and raid your pathetic excuse of a pantry.

“Right.” You sigh, thoroughly chastened. “I... forgot. I’m sorry- work just hit me really hard.”

“It’s fine.” Taehyung dismisses. “It’s my job to entertain you, not the other way round!”

You stir awkwardly at your food, still unable to dispel the guilt.

“Even so... we could go somewhere tomorrow, if you want? I have the weekend off.” You offer as nonchalantly as you can. “If you’re here for the rest of the month, you’ll need clothes. And proper bedding. We can pick that stuff up and then do some other things.” 

He positively beams at your offer and it’s jarring. You aren’t used to such joy at such simple things. It’s so easy to win a smile from him, but rather than make his smiles seem meaningless, it just seems to make them brighter. You’re not used to earning such easy affection for so little and it leaves you unsure what to do with yourself.

“Really?” He questions eagerly. “The whole day?”

You duck your head slightly to disguise your fluster. You’re not even sure why your heart seems to race at his smile. Perhaps because you’ve never seen such a beautiful person smile quite like that. 

“The whole day.” You reassure him. “I can make up for this week- I really didn’t mean to ignore you like this.”

Taehyung shakes his head. 

“Don’t be silly!” He scolds you. “You told me that work would be busy. It just means we have to make your weekend even more enjoyable to make up for a missed week.”

He gets abruptly to his feet, wiping pasta sauce from the corner of his mouth. 

“Oh, I have so much to plan! Can I borrow your laptop? I have to plan our day!” He asks. A little startled, you merely nod at him in bewilderment and he grins determinedly to himself. “Ok! My first day on the job. Here I go.”

He storms off and then performs a quick u-turn. 

“After I clean up my dishes.” He recalls sheepishly. 

The next morning you shuffle into your kitchen a bit bleary-eyed and still in your pyjamas. Taehyung never seems to be tired or grumpy no matter what time of day it is, and so it’s not surprise that he’s up and humming to himself as he cooks breakfast for the two of you. 

He hears you shuffle in the kitchen and glances over his shoulder to smile at you and it catches you off-guard for some reason. You’ve gotten used to him cooking meals, to his singing, even to just his general presence, but you can’t seem to get used to the way he seems to just smile so easily. Something about the way the wintery sun streams in through the windows and catches the tips of his hair and gilding the sharp edges of his handsome face is just ethereal. You can believe he’s not a human in that moment- he’s too gorgeous to be one.

“You’re up!” He cheers. You shake your head to try and rid yourself of your strange thoughts and shuffle forward to scrutinise the breakfast he’s preparing. 

“I’m making a Christmas classic.” He informs you when he notices you attempting to peer over his shoulders. “At least, according to her.” He gestures to your ipad on the counter, where he has one of those food blogs run by stay-at-home mums that write essays on their blogs instead of the actual recipes. This one seems to have a picture of tacky santas made from pancakes and whipped cream. 

Looking at Taehyung’s progress so far, it actually looks fairly similar to the picture, but that’s not saying that much considering the quality of the picture. 

“Isn’t that like cannabalism for you? Isn’t eating Santa basically eating your coworker?” You point out. Taehyung laughs, a full-bodied laugh that makes his eyes curl up into little crescent moons. 

“He’s actually my boss more than my coworker. But he loves Santa-themed decorations. He says it makes him feel jolly.” He tells you. 

There’s a lot to unpack there and so you choose to ignore it by occupying yourself with the cleanup. 

“So I was thinking that we can get some clothes for you today and maybe some other necessities if you’re going to be staying here all month.” You inform him. Taehyung nods distractedly, gently nudging one of the santa pancakes onto a plate. He reaches for a bowl of blueberries, arranging them into eyes and then spraying whipped cream in the shape of a beard. It kind of seems like he’s not very interested in your schedule for the day.

“Tadaa!” He exclaims, showing off his creation. He then reaches for a blueberry and pops it in his mouth. “They’re not bad for frozen fruits.” 

“Looks great.” You praise him. “But the plan for today-“

“(Y/N).” Taehyung cuts you off. He looks a little stern, but there’s still a warmth to his expression that softens the harsh edges. “I told you I’d plan today. It’s my job to make your Christmas season enjoyable. I’m not here for you to babysit- got it?”

Chastened and surprised, you nod meekly. He grins. 

“Good. Now open up.” He says, brandishing a blueberry menacingly between his fingertips at you. Your eyes widen.

“But Tae-“ you protest, and he’s shoved the blueberry into your mouth before you can finish your counterargument. This time, when he smiles, it’s a little smug.

“No “buts”.” He sighs. “Just sit down and enjoy breakfast and trust me. We can pick up some

clothes since the Christmas overalls are a bit weird, but after that, then I take over. Ok?” He demands, and you chew through the blueberry, a little disconcerted.

“Ok.” You finally agree reluctantly. 

Breakfast is a peaceful affair, with the two of you enjoying the pancakes. Cleaning up with Taehyung is almost domestic- there’s something pleasant about having him stand shoulder to shoulder with you, drying the dishes as you wash them. 

Outside is a frigid affair- it hasn’t quite hit the point where it’s snowing outside, but temperatures are definitely creeping lower and lower and Taehyung nearly glows blue in the short sprint to your car. You fix it by blasting the heater the second the two of you are safely secured in the vehicle. 

“So, if you’re planning the agenda for today, what are we doing after we grab you some clothes?” You ask conversationally. Taehyung pauses from where he’s flicking through your phone, scrutinising your spotify playlist like he’s studying it for an exam. He looks up, his eyebrows still furrowed in concentration. 

“Well, I called in a favour from an old friend and booked us a free Christmas bauble painting workshop.” He announces, looking pleased with him. You squint at him and grimace just a little. 

“I don’t know if you know this, Taehyung, but I am terrible at drawing. I’m so bad that in highschool all these kids signed a petition to ban me from it.” You say, completely serious. He stares at you, bewildered for a moment. 

“Surely it can’t be that bad?” He wonders aloud. You just shake your head grimly at him.

One shopping trip later, Taehyung discovers that it is, in fact, that bad. 

“What did Rudolph ever do to deserve this?” He questions in abject horror. You feel your cheeks heat as you curl your hands protectively over your glass bauble. 

“It’s not that bad!” You insist. And then you hesitate. “Is it?”

Taehyung pries your fingers back to expose your masterpiece- splotchy brown paint, sparkles, and a lovely dollop of red paint in the centre. 

“(Y/N).” He says seriously. “It looks like someone walks into Santa’s stable, massacred all the reindeer and then scattered glitter over the scene of the crime.”

You squint at your painting, and, depressingly enough, his description is more accurate than what it’s meant to be. It was meant to be Rudolph, smiling happily through the glass of the bauble. 

“Forget it.” You snap, setting the glass bauble down and moving to get up. “This is stupid, anyway- we still have to pick up a mattress protector for your bed.”

“Wait!” He laughs, grabbing at your sleeve before you can make a hasty retreat. A firm tug from his has you landing back in your seat, face to face with the awful paint spill you call a painting. “I’m sorry! Just relax, ok? This is supposed to be fun.”

“I’m not having fun.” You sniff. “I told you I wasn’t good at painting and now you’re laughing at me.”

Taehyung winces. 

“Well... it’s not totally unsalvageable.” He finally compromises. He picks up the bauble, examining it for a moment. And then he picks up the paintbrush, and with quick, precise strokes of his paintbrush, he morphs the brown splotch formally known as Rudolph into a sort of sleigh-shape, and the red-splotch is rounded into the curve of Santa’s belly. “There.” He says, satisfied. You blink in wonder at the new creation. It’s still a little ugly and a little streaky, but it definitely doesn’t look like someone went on a Christmas-killing spree. “How’s that? Now you just have to decorate the sleigh an add sparkles. Surely you can’t mess that up.”

“You underestimate me.” You deadpan at him, and to your surprise, he snorts with laughter. A couple of the other people painting baubles glare at you, and Taehyung merely offers them a merry grin. 

“There used to be an elf like you at Santa’s workshop. No matter what he did, he’s somehow always mess up painting the toys.” Taehyung recalls, shaking his head fondly. “The two of you would get along.”

It’s the second time he’s mentioned it, and this time you can’t keep your curiosity at bay. 

“So... does that mean you’ve met with Santa? The Northpole and all that is a thing?” You ask. Taehyung nods. 

“It sure is! It’s where all Christmas Spirits grow up. We get raised there and taught about the best ways to spread Christmas cheer and then we get sent out to spread the cheer.” He sighs warmly. “I was top of my class.”

You grimace as you picture it. Dozens of Christmas Scarecrows, sitting at tables, studying books on how to paint the perfect Christmas bauble. 

“And so you just... get kicked out after a certain age? They raise you and send you out to sit on a shelf for eleven months of the year and then follow silly Christmas traditions for the last one?” You question him, and for a moment you’re horrified by the loneliness of such an existence. “Wouldn’t you... just get sick of Christmas? Spending your life only ever being in Christmas mode?”

“I wouldn’t know.” Taeyung reminds you as he sprinkles glitter over his painting of a snowman. He doesn’t seem particularly bothered by the idea, but you feel like he’s slapped you. “This is my first official Christmas on the job, remember? I haven’t had a chance to get sick of it yet.”

That makes you go silent. 

Taehyung seems to pick up on the way the mood has shifted. He stops detailing the buttons of his snowman painting and glances at you. Your eyes are wide and slightly misty.

He’s never felt particularly sorry for himself. Sure, the many years he’s spent gathering dust on a shelf have been lonely. He missed his friends, and all he could ever dream of was getting to sit on a mantle as he watched a family enjoy Christmas. That would be the closest he’d ever get, and that’s been his dream for so long. 

But for some reason, with you looking at him like that, the ache that he’s sought so hard to push down resurfaces. It’s like a damn breaking; it’s soothing. To have someone look at him and actually be acknowledging how hard and lonely and painful what he went through was. 

“I’m ok now.” He reassures you, though his voice is a little hoarse. The sheen to his eyes is a little less brilliant, and your heart aches for him as you process the twenty-five year wait that Taehyung has endured. “After all, someone welcomed me into their home, right?”

You blink- that someone is you. You’ve welcomed Taehyung into your home. Christmas is perhaps even lonelier for Taehyung than it is for you, and yet all he seems to want to do is make it enjoyable for you. 

You duck your head, distracting yourself by stirring the tip of your paintbrush in the bright red paint. 

“I guess so.” You finally say. You offer him a tentative smile. “I guess I have a responsibility to make this your best Christmas ever, then.” You resolve. 

Taehyung is silent for such a prolonged moment that you’re forced to face him again to ensure he hasn’t died. When you do, what you find is him gaping at you like a Christmas tree just sprouted from between your eyebrows. 

“What?” You question, a little defensively. It’s hard to interpret the look on his face. 

He shakes himself, coming back to his senses. 

“Nothing.” He reassures you. “I just realised that you’re a bit rare to smile, is all.”

Something about the look in his eyes has you feeling flustered- your fingers tremble enough that you knock over the glitter and it spills across Taehyung’s newly bought trousers. You get up quickly, horrified, but he laughs it off. 

“I think we’ve done enough damage to these baubles.” He says with a warm smile. “We still have things to buy, right?”

The rest of the day passes in a blur. Taehyung drags you from store to store, excited by the smallest things. He stares at a Christmas-themed hot chocolate for so long that you end up having to buy it for him. The look of gratefulness in his eyes is unparalleled and almost makes up for the fact that you literally have to plead with him to buy actual clothes and not just ridiculous Christmas Sweaters. In the evening, you wonder the shopping district, appreciating the lights that line the main street in brilliant arrays. 

When you slump down on your couch beside Taehyung that night, showered and ready for bed, you’re exhausted to the bones. Oddly, it’s not the same kind of tiredness you feel after a long week at work or after you’ve had a long argument with your mother. Instead, it’s a satisfying fatigue- like you’ll drift off quickly and dream of christmas lights and children’s laughter. 

“How did I do for my first day?” Taehyung yawns from where he is sprawled on the couch in a similar position to you. 

“Good.” You say, turning your head to glance at him. The dim light of your living room softens the slope of his nose, and his dark eyes catch flashes of the light that makes it seem like his irises are tiny little galaxies. There’s something so inherently peaceful about the warmth of his presence beside yours .

“I’m glad.” He says, though his lashes flutter and you too find yourself fighting off the comforting waves of sleep. He shifts and turns his head so that his cheek rests against the couch and he gazes at you. “Hey (Y/N)?” He calls gently. 

Your eyes are closed by this state. 

“Hmm?” You hum, in acknowledgement of his statement. He’s quiet for a moment before he ask.

“Why did you want to spend Christmas alone?” He asks. You blink open your eyes and look back at him. His gaze is steady and unwavering. But it’s not scolding or judgemental- instead he just seems curious. 

“You told me about your parent’s divorce and all their fighting on Christmas... but I heard the way you spoke to your mother on the phone too. You want to spend Christmas with her, don’t you? You just... can’t?” He asks. “You said you didn’t want the Christmas cheer... but you still took me home and decorated for Christmas. You painted the baubles and drank the hot cocoa and did the Christmas shopping... why do you pretend to hate it all?”

If it were anyone else, you would probably stop the conversation there. You have no interest in delving into your long, complex family history only to be met with looks of confusion, or worse, pity. 

But somehow, in the short space of a mere week, Taehyung has become someone you feel safe opening up to. Perhaps it’s because he’s already heard your whole story already. Or maybe because of the way he genuinely just wants to see you smile despite there being no substantial gain for him other than job satisfaction. Or because he’s proven himself trustworthy in the little ways he’s slotted himself into your life, like sharing meals. Whatever the reason, you don’t clam up like you usually do. 

“I don’t pretend to hate it.” You tell him softly. “I just got sick of trying to love it.”

Taehyung is silent for a long period of time. For a moment, it’s just the two of you, exhausted and sleepy. The weight of your confession hangs in the air, and the moment is strangely intimate. 

Then he smiles. 

“Then I’ll keep trying for you.” He promises. 

The two of you don’t manage to stay awake for much longer. Eventually the long day catches up to you- you drift off first, with one of those rare but peaceful smiles on your face, and Taehyung follows suit soon after.

++

The week that follows is one of the worst you’ve had in a while. You’re putting in ridiculous amounts of overtime and everyone is a little on edge from sheer exhaustion and the mounting stress of deadlines. 

And in that time, Taehyung is honestly a lifesaver. It’s remarkable, being able to come home from another hellish day at work to find him with dinner ready and a crappy Christmas movie set up. You spend your evenings laughing and unwinding. It’s not like you don’t have friends who will come rushing if you tell them you’ve had a bad day, but there’s something special about the way Taehyung does it. With bright smiles and easy laughs and an infectious joy that seems to chase the fatigue that plagues you away. 

It’s towards the end of the week that you hit your limit. You’re not really the type to cry much. You’ve always been fiercely independent, and your upbringing meant that you were the kind of child to retire to your room and work things out for yourself when you felt the need to cry. It’s not like crying ever really achieved anything. Maybe the occasional sad scene in a movie would get you, but usually you’re the kind to feel sad internally.

But after this particular day, you’re close to tears. Your boss had yelled at you, one of the major projects you had been working on just hit a major snag, and you found out your favourite coworker was leaving. 

All you can thing about as you walk in the door is spending another peaceful evening with Taehyung. You’ve been thinking that maybe it’s time to expand his taste past cheesy Christmas movies and had even made a list of films he may like during his lunch break. You swing open the door to your home, eagerly rushing in and calling out to Taehyung so that he knows you’re home. 

And that’s when your phone goes off. 

It’s your father, probably the last person you want to talk to right now. 

Unlike your mother, who at least was trying to make up for the ways she’s screwed up in your upbringing, your father has never acknowledged his part in their divorce. It was always what your mother did wrong, how she let him down, how it was because she changed and wanted different things. He was the kind of man who always wanted a big family, and he had adored your mother at first. But her pregnancy with you had been difficult and you had, admittedly, been a sickly child. She’s never outright said the words, but you suspect postpartum depression might have played a part in her downward spiral. Either way, she had resolved to have no further children after you, something your father was heavily against. 

You suppose it can’t have been easy- your father had been in love and the two of them had agreed on the kind of future they wanted together- the kind filled with children, a quiet suburban life not far from either of their parents. And for your mother to change so suddenly and drastically would have been devastating and incomprehensible to your father. 

Still, you can’t help the resentment and hurt you feel towards him. Why did you have to get caught in the crossfire of his heartbreak? And then the icing on the cake was his remarriage. 

His wife is a lovely woman. Coming into the marriage with three children of her own, she had treated you with the same love and kindness she expected of your father towards her children. Her children, however, were not bound to such conduct, and made it their personal mission to make your life a living hell. Perhaps they felt insecure over the fact that your father was related to you by blood and they weren’t.

Either way, it put him in a difficult position- perhaps he felt he couldn’t tell them to back off without it coming across as favouritism. But he could have done something- spoken to his wife, or chosen you before the family he married into. But he didn’t. He ignored it and turned a blind eye and to this day he continues to pretend that things are normal. Especially after the birth of your half-sibling.

“Hi.” You say, as you answer the phone. Taehyung has stepped into the entryway with you, watching curiously as you answer the phone. 

“Hi sweetheart!” Your dad calls on the other side of the line. You wince at the unwelcome nickname.

“To... to what do I owe the pleasure?” You ask. You can hear a loud racket in the background. Its probably your half-sister. She’s always been on the louder side, even as a baby. 

“Nothing! I was just thinking it’s been a while since we last chatted. You haven’t been returning my calls.” You have no doubt the sadness in his voice is genuine, yet somehow it feels insincere. 

“I’ve just been really busy at work.” You lie, rather than admit you had seen the missed calls from him and not even bothered to listen to the messages he left. “I haven’t had a chance to call you back.”

“Right... right. No, that’s fine. I’m sure your very busy.” He rushes to reassure you. “I was just calling because your mother contacted me. She was hoping I could convince you to spend Christmas with us.”

You stiffen at the familiar topic. You had thought it had been a little too quiet on her end. Perhaps she had thought that if she couldn’t convince you to come home, maybe your father could. She’s always had this idea in her head that maybe you aren’t close to her because you prefer your father, and it’s not like she can handle having a long enough conversation with him to find out she’s wrong. It’s surprising she even managed to let him know your plans for Christmas. 

“It’s fine. Like I told mum, I’d really much rather spend it here this year. Besides, I thought you all were going away for Christmas this year? We already spent Christmas together last year.” You say, pointedly trying to remind him that Christmas isn’t even a yearly thing with him. He does the contractual every-second-year with you, and then plans fun events with his family on the years he isn’t stuck babysitting. 

“That’s true. But that’s why I’m calling! It took a bit of convincing, but there’s a spot on this trip with your name on it, if you want it.” He tells you. He almost sounds excited, like he’s really done something thoughtful and kind. Not just made some last-minute attempts to shoehorn you in. The invite hadn’t been there to start with, after all. It’s only as an afterthought that he’s made any attempt to add you in- a chance to pretend like things are good. Like the two of you aren’t on rocky terms the rest of the year. Like you’re close enough to go on holidays with your stepfamily. 

“I think I’m fine dad.” You finally say. Taehyung is watching the expressions play across your face with mild curiosity. He probably can’t hear your father’s voice on the other line, but he can see the anger on your face, and hear the wobble to your tone. “You have fun on your trip. I’ll make do here.”

There’s a beat of silence and you hear your father sigh. You grimace- that’s his pre-scolding sigh. The sigh he gives before any lecture he thinks you’ve earned. As if he has any parental claim to scolding you. 

“(Y/N),” your father begins. “It’s Christmas. Don’t be like this- you should be spending time with your family-“

“I did.” You cut him off, and you surprise yourself with the way tears fill your eyes. You squint, trying to keep them at bay. Taehyung watches with alarm as he registers the way you are on the verge of crying. “I spent every year. With you and mum. And then you and then mum and then you and then mum. I tried for so. damn. long. to do the family Christmas thing, but all it ever ended in was the two of you letting me down. Mum was too drunk or you were too busy. And yeah, maybe you guys were going through your own stuff. But don’t you dare try and tell me that Christmas is about family because if that’s what family is, I don’t want it. At least if I spend Christmas alone, neither of you can let me down.” You snarl into the phone line. 

Your father is silent after your outburst. Taehyung watches you, waiting for your response. 

And the tears finally spill forth, rolling down your cheeks. 

“Well, if that’s how you feel, then I won’t stop you.” Your father finally says. He sounds hurt, as if you’re the one who’s hurt him. “I guess we’ll see you in the new year. Your sister’s birthday is coming up and Rachel wants to have a big party since she’s ten this year.” 

“I’ll see you then.” You say, your throat raspy and your voice small. 

You’ve barely hung up the call before two strong arms have wrapped around your figure. You go stiff in Taehyung’s arms. This is probably the first time he’s hugged you, and it isn’t unpleasant. Instead, the scent of gingerbread and peppermint fills your nose and it’s strangely soothing. You shift and turn your head just slightly so that your face is buried into the soft cream of his jumper, one of the fresh purchases from the other day. 

“You can cry if you like.” He tells you, and you feel the words rumble from deep in his chest. “I won’t look.” He promises. “That was painful for me to hear, and it’s not even my dad- if you want to cry, then cry.” His voice cracks on the end of his sentence, and you abruptly realise that Taehyung is crying. He’s known you for just a short couple of weeks, and the only nice thing you’ve done for him is not drop a tacky Christmas Scarecrow back into a box of junk, and yet he’s crying just from hearing your half of a painful phone call. 

Perhaps it’s the permission you need. For all of the long, lonely years you were stuck in the middle of feuding exes, you never gave yourself permission to cry. Instead, you’d retire to your room, pressing a pillow to your ears to drown out the sounds of screaming. 

For a long time, you just stand there, sobbing into Taehyung’s arms. He runs his hands soothingly over the back of your hair, and eventually the steady rise and fall of his breathing lulls you into a sense of peace. 

Taehyung is quick to act from there- before long, you are forcefully seated on your couch with a mug of hot chocolate and a blanket wrapped around your shoulders. Taehyung crouches before you, swiping at the tear trails on your cheeks with his thumbs. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” He asks cautiously. You grimace and shake your head. 

“It’s just the same old stuff.” You reassure him. “Long day at work; daddy issues; the usual standard.”

Taehyung smiles and settles himself beside you on the couch, tugging the blanket from your hands so that he can curl under it. 

“Good thing your personal Christmas Spirit is here to save the season.” He whispers conspiratorially. He leans forward towards the coffee table and grabs your iPad, before pulling it into the safe cocoon of your blanket. “I’ve been researching all day! Tomorrow’s your day off, so it’s week 2 of spreading Christmas cheer.” He announces, unlocking the iPad and scrolling through the internet page he has open. 

You nearly choke on your hot chocolate. 

“Taehyung,” you rasp. Your oesophagus is probably blistering as you speak. “That’s a page for date ideas. This stuff is all for couples.”

“We are a couple.” Taehyung answers, confused. He points to himself and then to you. “A couple of people.” And then he grins at you and you realise he was teasing. 

You snort and can’t hold back your laugh. Taehyung’s smile softens and he leans into your personal space. 

“There it is.” He remarks. Wonder fills his tone. “That lovely smile.” He taps the tip of your nose fondly. 

The smile slips off your face at his words. Lovely? Your smile? He thinks your smile is lovely?

A weird, electric feeling fills you at the thought, and you lean away from him quickly before your stupid heart can get any funny ideas. He didn’t mean anything by that compliment. He’s a Christmas Spirit- it’s literally his job to make you smile. You won’t overthink it and ruin this strange but precious arrangement you have going on. 

Taehyung, to his credit, doesn’t look hurt or uncomfortable at the way you’d blatantly pulled away from him. Instead, his smile widens. 

“Good idea. You gotta rest up those smiling muscles for tomorrow or you’ll get a cramp.” He tells you. He then gets up and and stretches, letting out a tremendous yawn. He glances over his shoulder at you with a wink. “Prepare yourself for the best day ever.”

++

Said “best day ever” begins with you staring listlessly up at your ceiling. Taehyung had talked big the night before, promising you a day of fun and enjoyment. 

But you just can’t picture it. You’ve spoken to coworkers and friends before, about the excitement of Christmas. How they see lights or hear carols or even smelling gingerbread triggers this warm, nostalgic and joyful feeling deep in their hearts. But you’ve always felt nothing. Christmas has always been just another day, to you. 

With a sigh, you roll out of bed. 

Out in your living room, Taehyung is fidgeting with your smart tv, trying to get it to play what looks like Mariah Carey’s rendition of “All I want for Christmas is you”. He’s mumbling to himself, and his santa’s hat droops lower and lower on his head. The little white pompom at the end brushes his nose, and the bright red strands of hair that peak out from beneath the cap stick out in every direction. 

Apart from the santa’s hat, he’s dressed remarkably stylishly. That had been a big surprise on your little outing the week before- his impeccable fashion taste. Today he’s wearing a soft, fuzzy red cardigan over a large white t-shirt and tan trousers. 

“The volume’s off.” You inform him. He starts, glancing at you in surprise, before confirming that he has accidentally managed to turn the volume all the way down. “You operate technology like a grandpa.”

Taehyung grins as you take the remote from him, adjusting the volume and selecting the song so that the familiar opening begins to chime through your speakers. 

“You say that like I didn’t catch you yelling at your printer two nights ago.” He chuckles. “Are you ready for our ultimate Christmas adventure?”

He must catch the way your guard goes up, because his smile softens from something amused into something more gentle and comforting.

“Nervous?” He asks. You hesitate, just a moment, before offering a terse nod. 

“Sorry.” You finally settle on. “I just... I’ve tried the “christmas cheer” thing. And it didn’t work Tae. I just feel like... Christmas is just another day.”

“That’s because it is just another day.” He reminds you. “But if you give it a chance, it can be more.”

 You bite your lip hesitantly, and he shakes his head. 

“What if you didn’t think about it like Christmas?” He asks. “How about, today is a day for me to cheer you up after a long week. We’re gonna do fun things and enjoy ourself because we want to. Does that sound doable?”

It does. It’s strangely reassuring and low pressure, and something about his words and the patient, warm light to his eyes puts you at ease. You don’t know why you feel so much pressure about enjoying Christmas but maybe it’s because you don’t want to let Taehyung down. He has so much riding on this Christmas and you don’t want to be the person who ruins Christmas for him. Who makes its a tedious, miserable event like your parents did for you. 

And maybe a small part of you wants to enjoy the season for you. To claim back the years lost to misery and fighting and to share in the merriment that everyone else holds.

“Ok.” You finally agree. “Lead the way.”

Taehyung beams in response. 

First on the agenda seems to be in the park in the centre of your city. Not every year in this place has a white Christmas- some Christmases are just cold and muddy, with a thin layer of ice over dirty pavements. This particular Christmas has been quite frosty, and quite early on- the first snowfall had been earlier that week and now a thick layer of snow coats the ground and clings to thick winter coats. 

“Tadaa!” Taehyung proclaims, waving a hand out towards your first activity of the day. An open carriage, decked out in sleigh bells, and two gorgeous white horses, standing tall and sleek in their crystalline surroundings. 

You creep closer, and their handler spots you. He’s a cheerful man in a formal suit, offset by the bright red santa hat atop his head. He matches Taehyung, who seems reluctant to part with his beloved accessory no matter the time of day.

“You must be (Y/N),” the old man cheers, crowding closer. His horses snort and stamp their feet at his excitement, but he pays them no mind, instead skittering forward to greet you. “Taehyung has told me all about you! Come, get yourself seated and we’ll begin the tour.”

You glance at Taehyung, who merely shoos you encouragingly towards the carriage. 

“How did you afford this?” You hiss at him. He shrugs and smiles. 

“Christmas spirits have connections.” He whispers, before placing a hand on either side of your waist. You smother a yelp as you feel him practically lift you up the first step, and it doesn’t take you much encouragement to scramble onto your seat from there. It’s a vain attempt to distract yourself from the feeling of his large hands encircling your waist. 

“All seated?” Your guide questions. Taehyung nods as he scoots in close to you and that’s really all the warning you get before the carriage lurches forward. 

You steady yourself with a yelp, and an arm around you from Taehyung keeps you upright. You glance at him in surprise and are momentarily caught off-guard by his profile. A thin, delicate smattering of snowflakes has been caught on the breeze and they catch on his hair and lashes. The tip of his nose has gone endearingly red in the cold. 

He turns his gaze when he feels your stare and he grins. 

“Enjoying the sights?” He wonders innocently. You grimace and look away. He merely laughs. “Let me explain to you the logic behind our first activity of the day. First of all, it came as a package with the activity my friend got me for free. Secondly, I thought that it might help you see how little perspective can make the things you see every day so much more special.” He finishes his explanation by pointing an arm across you to gesture at the scenery of the park. He’s right; you’ve seen this scenery hundreds of times, across all seasons, but there’s something special about it in the moment. The warmth of families, covered in thick, puffy jackets, the flutter of chilly snowflakes against your skin, the sheen of frost over the pond on the far end of the park. It’s all familiar and yet in that moment, surrounded by the glimmering sound of sleigh-bells and the stead thud of horse shoes against the pavement, the park you’ve known since moving to this city is different, magical. 

The carriage pulls to a stop beside a crowded pavillion. On the other side, you can glimpse people taking advantage of the outdoor figure skating rink thats set up in the park over winter. 

“Is this our second stop?” You ask Taehyung, as he helps you alight from the carriage. Oddly, though he grasps your hand as he helps you down, he doesn’t release it once you’re on solid ground. Instead, he keeps his fingers wrapped around yours as he waves farewell to the carriage driver. 

“You guessed it!” He congratulates you. “Stop number two; appreciating the fun of winter! Nothing screams winter wonderland like a figure skating rink.”

“Can you skate?” You ask him as he leads you to the skate rental counter. 

“No?” He asks. “But how hard can it be, right? It looked really easy on all the videos I watched in preparation.”

A short while later, you get to bear witness to Taehyung learning just how hard figure skating can be. 

“It’s just like walking.” You attempt to soothe him, all the while wincing at the vice-like grip he has on your hands. “Just keep standing upright.”

“Have I always been this tall?” Taehyung breathes. He’s gone deathly pale, and you don’t think the cold is the reason behind it. “Why is the ground so far away?”

“You can do it.” You urge, still allowing him to cling onto your forearms like he’s about to plummet off a cliff edge and you are the only thing keeping him from certain death. “Come on, Tae.” 

He shoots up straight, eyes widening at the sudden nickname. Unfortunately, it’s the wrong move, because he topples forward, and the only thing keeping him from lying face-down on the ice is you. You’re toppling backwards before you can stop yourself. 

Taehyung yelps and you brace yourself for your head to impact against the hard ice, but it never comes. Instead your head lands in the firm cushion of Taehyung’s palm. Somehow, in the chaos of slipping, he’s landed on top of you but managed to stop you from banging your head. 

You blink open your eyes and for a moment, your senses are overwhelmed with the scent of peppermint and the warm brown of his eyes. He looks just as startled as you are. You feel your face heat and his breath puffs warm against your cheeks, contrasting the chill of the air.

“Maybe figure skating isn’t for me.” He volunteers sheepishly. 

You can’t help but offer a crooked smile. He’s so silly but it’s strangely endearing. He looks surprised at your smile, and it seems that’s the moment he abruptly realises the position you’re in. Quickly, he scrambles off you and helps you into a sitting position. 

“Sorry.” He says glumly. “I thought it would be fun, but clearly I overestimated myself.”

You get to your feet and offer a hand to help him get up. He looks nervously at your outstretched hand. 

“It is fun.” You reassure him. “And it can still be fun. Just hold on to me, and trust me ok?”

Something in his gaze softens and he accepts your outstretched hand. It takes a bit, but with an arm around his chest, you manage to stabilise him between yourself and the wall of the ice-skating rink. 

He peeks up at you through his bright red fringe. His santa’s hat sits lopsided on his head. The smile he gives you this time is different from all the other ones. It’s not as ecstatic or joy-filled. This one is more reserved, almost shy; you feel a bit like you’ve been punched in the chest for some reason when you see it. 

You stretch out your hands again, your hands flat and palms extended skywards, and he place one hand into each of your palms. Even through your thick gloves, your skin feels oddly warm when he holds you. 

Gently, you take slow, gliding steps backwards, while he follows with much smaller, much more jilted steps. 

“It’s just like walking, but smoother.” You explain, and the words are forced through a tight throat. Perhaps the cold is getting to you- that’s the only explanation you can think of for why you suddenly feel so short of breath. 

Taehyung nods, focussing hard on the ice. He gives a big exhale that releases in a huge, cloudy breath, and presses one foot forward. And then the other. It’s not long before he’s gliding along before you. 

“That’s it!” You cheer. “I’m going to let go of one hand now, ok? I can’t keep skating backwards or I’ll crash into someone.”

Taehyung looks a bit fearful, but then he nods with determination lighting his eyes. Slowly, you release one hand and spin so that you’re standing shoulder to shoulder with him. He still maintains a death grip on the hand that’s still grasping his, but he manages to stay upright and not go tipping forward. 

“Ok, here we go.” You say, and you take one step forward, followed by a second, and then a third and before you know it, you and Taehyung are drifting across the ice, albeit slowly and with lots of breaks to allow Taehyung to steady himself on the wall. 

It’s actually quite fun, and relaxing, gliding across the ice like this. Music crackles through the speakers, and the people around you are all enjoying themselves. Surrounded by the bright flurry of December snow, it’s easy to smile and let loose and enjoy the season. 

Eventually, the cold does manage to catch up with you, but Taehyung’s quick to press on to the next scheduled activity before you can feel too sad that the ice skating is over. 

He crowds you off the ice, eagerly urging you forward with a hand planted on either shoulder.

“Hurry! We’re going to be late!!” He informs you. You deliberately slow down at that and he gets so huffy and impatient at your silliness that you find yourself laughing. 

After warming yourselves up with a hot chocolate and some lunch in the warmth of a well-heated cafe, it’s starting to get a bit dark by the time Taehyung leads you to your final activity. He refuses to say what it is- instead he leads you in an increasingly convoluted route on public transport. He gets more and more amused the more unfamiliar with your destination you become, and by the time you step off the bus on the snowy outskirts of the city, you’re starting to think the whole Christmas Spirit thing was an act designed to murder you in a forest somewhere.

Particularly when he claps a hand over each eye, obscuring your vision. 

“Taehyung,” you sigh. “If this is how you’re going to murder me, can’t you at least let me see the knife coming?”

“I’m not going to murder you.” He scoffs, though with gentle pressure, he leads you forward, his chest pressed protectively to your back. “I just want to surprise you.”

“I’m very easily surprised.” You remind him. “I don’t need to be blind in a forest to be surprised. Just give me a box of chocolates after a long day of work or something.”

“Hush.” He shushes you. “Just walk, and trust me.”

You take a deep, inhaling breath and your lungs fill with what has become the calming, warm scent of peppermint and cinnamon. It’s Taehyung, you remind yourself. He’s had plenty of opportunity to hurt you or scam you or even kill you but instead all he’s done is wait eagerly for you to return home and watch tacky Christmas movies with you. 

“Ok.” He says, against your ear, and you shiver at the heat of his mouth tickling the cold tips of your ears. “Are you ready?”

Words fail you for some mysterious reason, so you settle for nodding mutely. 

Taehyung drops his hands from your eyes and it takes you a few blinks to adjust to the sudden onslaught of light. 

What lies before you is a long, brightly lit pathway. Market stalls line the paths, with vendors brandishing their wares. Fairly lights string across the stalls, in various tones ranging from warm-toned white lights to festive blues, greens, reds. Overhead, brilliant archways decorated with marvellous, intricate arrays of Christmas lights mark the path.

“What... what is this, Tae?” You breathe. Your chest hurts a little and this time you’re willing to admit that it has nothing to do with the cold. 

“This is the Annual Christmas Markets.” He announces proudly. “Brought to you by your local council and sponsored by Subway (sandwiches not included).”

You take hesitant, wondering steps forward. You don’t really have any words for the strange, ballooning feeling in your chest. Like your heart is so full it’s about to burst. You feel on the verge of tears yet at the same time you feel free and light and happy. 

“It’s so... pretty.” You say. Taehyung beams and steps in close so that he’s shoulder to shoulder with you. 

“Pretty magical, huh?” He asks you. “I found it on google! Did you know the city throws this event every year?”  

You shake your head wonderingly. 

“I had no idea.” You admit. He tilts his head towards the festivities.

“Then let’s explore!” He cries, tugging you forward with a hand wrapped around yours.

There’s lots to do around the markets. There’s christmas light sculptures scattered around, like a scavenger hunt of sorts. Taehyung’s favourite is the one of a santa formed from wires twisted together, skiing across the snow on a sleigh, two reindeers are standing tall. Your favourite is probably a tunnel of lights, tightly woven together to create an archway as people weave through it- you like the way it turns Taehyung’s bright red hair into brilliant licks of flames, and how his eyes look like they hold the entire night sky within their depths. 

There’s a mulled wine stall, although Taehyung pulls a face at the taste and you have to buy him a hot chocolate to get him to forgive you. 

“I just don’t understand how anyone can dislike Christmas carols!” Taehyung protests across his hot chocolate as the night progresses. You’re nearing the edge of the market stalls, which open up onto a big open space, paved with asphalt and with the snow scraped off it where various families and groups of people are starting to gather. Most of them are in parked vehicles, all facing towards a central stage that hasn’t been lit up yet. 

“If you talk to anyone who works in retail, they just get repetitive after a while.” You explain. “I mean, “Last Christmas” is a good song in theory, but not after the six repeats that played before your lunch break.” 

Taehyung “tsk”’s and shakes his head. 

“I think you just have the wrong associations with the songs.” He sighs. “If you associate it with work and bad things, of course you won’t like it! You have to make positive memories and think of those when you hear the songs.”

The stage lights up ahead of you and a small band starts to take the stage. You gaze at the performers as they prepare.

“Any suggestions?” You ask softly. You surprise yourself, and when you look at Taehyung, he looks a little stunned to. “To make positive memories. What should I think of instead, when I hear those songs?”

He searches your gaze for a moment, and then the corner of his mouth quirks in a little half smile. 

“Follow me.” He urges, leading you across the asphalt towards the stage. You have to duck between parked cars where people have makeshift little dens to enjoy the show from. He brings you to a stop where there’s a bit of a space just before the stage. A few couples have already taken advantage of what is essentially a dance floor. He spins around and pulls you in close. You stumble a little, not expecting the movement, but it seems he was expecting that. He steadies you with a hand against your waist and tugs one of your free arms up to rest on his shoulder. “When you hear this song... you can think about today.” He tells you with a smile. “And about all the fun we had!”

He begins to sway you back and forth in a slow turn. You wonder why his weird Christmas Spirit school taught him how to slow dance. Up on the stage, the singer begins to croon the opening notes of “have yourself a merry little christmas”. You tell yourself its the cold that urges you to shuffle in closer to Taehyung as he sways you from side to side. He’s so warm, and solid. Unbidden, your heart starts to beat a little faster, and when you raise your eyes to meet his, something about the warmth in those dazzling depths has you feeling light-headed. 

“What do you think about when you hear them?” You ask him, changing the subject in an attempt to overcome the strange, overwhelming emotion you suddenly feel weighted with. He spins you out in a twirl, before tugging you back in. 

“Hmm...” he contemplates. “I think about hot chocolates, and snowball fights, and the smell of Christmas trees. And Christmas lights and Christmas bells.” He lists, his gaze hazy as he thinks through his list. It’s a bit of a scary thought, but you could honestly stay here forever, watching Taehyung list the things he loves, being swayed gently in his arms. And then he glances down at you and there’s something so warm and fond in his expression that you feel your face heat. “And I think about your smile.”

A funny thing happens in that moment, after his confession. Your heart goes on strike for a moment- even she seems shocked at the sudden turn of events. And then suddenly the air is electric, and all your senses are just filled with Taehyung. His smell, his eyes, his hair, his warmth... his lips.

It’s a sudden revelation, like being struck by lightening. The look in his eyes seems to thread into your veins, leaving burning trails in its wake. His scent washes into the very bottom of your lungs. You like him. In a very short amount of time, he’s wiggled past all your defences and now here you are, standing in his arms, and you realise you want to stay there. You want to keep seeing his smile and keep spending time with him and you don’t want this Christmas to end. 

The songs draws to a close and you step away from his embrace. He seems to sense your sudden change in mood. 

“Is everything ok?” He asks you and you nod, smiling in a way you hope is reassuring. 

“Yeah. I just noticed how cold it’s getting, is all. Shall we head back home?” You ask. Taehyung blinks and glances around as if he’s just now realising how cold it is. He shivers and steps in close to you. 

“Yeah, you’re right.” He admits. “Let’s head home.” He wraps his arms around you, rubbing his hands up and down your biceps to try and warm you up. “Did you have fun, though?” He asks eagerly. 

“Yeah.” You say, and this time the smile isn’t forced. “Yeah, I did.”

++

A week later, you’re stressed and bustling around the kitchen like a madwoman. 

“Is it golden brown yet or is it just the oven light?” Taehyung wonders, attempting to peer into your oven without opening the door. “Are you sure we shouldn’t just check now?”

Your realisation of your feelings hadn’t changed too much around the apartment. As work for the year finally drew to a close this week, you hadn’t really had a chance to overthink it, and then you’d been busy planning a pre-Christmas dinner upon learning that Taehyung has always wanted to try a family Christmas dinner. You’d insisted upon throwing one despite his protests that he was the Christmas Spirit, not you. Finally, he had relented, and you were keen to return all the memories he had given you tenfold. 

Only a couple of your friends had still been without plans, this late into December. Jin always manages to make time where food is involved, and Dahyun had had to cancel flights back home for the year. She’s also dragging along an old friend of hers, Jungkook, and then Nayeon had invited Namjoon and Jihyo. They’re all good friends of yours, but there’s something about organising a home-cooked Christmas meal that is just inherently stressful.

“The recipe says another ten minutes.” You remind Taehyung in between your attempts to both whip the cream for dessert and finish placing all the appetisers into sufficiently aesthetic containers. 

Taehyung frowns, and straightens. He watches you dance around in a frazzled manner for a few minutes, before catching you by the shoulders. 

“Hey.” He scolds. “I know I said I wanted a Christmas dinner, but not at the expense of your sanity. I don’t appreciate you undoing all my hard work of making you enjoy Christmas.”

You stiffen at the warmth of his palms against your shoulders before taking a deep breath. 

“You’re right.” You finally say. “I’m sorry. I just... I want you to have a good time. I’ve had so much fun these past few weeks and I want you to feel what I feel. I never thought I could ever look forward to something like Christmas, and yet here I am, throwing an entire Christmas dinner.”

“Seeing you enjoy Christmas and smiling like this makes me feel happier than you can imagine, (Y/N),” Taehyung reassures you. “This dinner is just a bonus. I’m grateful for it, but what would make me feel the best is if you’re having a good time.”

There he goes again. He’s remarkably smooth for a strange mystical being that was raised in the North Pole. He’s just so good at making your stomach feel like it’s filled with butterflies and making your heart forget to beat. With a deep, resigned sigh, you nod to him. 

“Ok. I’ll chill out.” You promise, before returning to your preparations in a far more mellow manner. 

Guests start trickling in. Jin just barely manages to avoid a throttling when you see him, after his stunt where he didn’t show up when there was an intruder in your home. It all worked out fine, but it’s always offensive to learn that your friend would leave you to die because he had “an oven emergency”. Jungkook and Dahyun come in bickering over the intricacies over some meme they’d seen, and Jihyo drags in far too much alcohol for the night. 

The night settles into a comfortable sort of atmosphere- people scatter across the living space of your apartment, catching up and just generally enjoying the vibe. Taehyung gets a few probing questions into the nature of your relationship and Jin seems to develop some sort of facial tic with all the eyebrow wagging he’s doing, but otherwise things go smoothly.

At least until it becomes apparent that Jin had taken the liberty of doing some decorating of his own while you were setting up for dinner. 

Namjoon and Jihyo are the first of the victims to the numerous mistletoes Jin has concealed around your home. Luckily, they are dating and so it’s just a quick peck between them to the sounds of laughter and hooting. 

At least until the other attendees realise that if Jin has hidden multiple mistletoes around your home, at any moment they could fall victim to a dreaded mistletoe kiss, with a completely undesired partner. 

From there, things devolve into a terrified, suspicious sort of scavenger hunt. Jin thinks it’s hilarious, watching you all scour the place like sniffer dogs, comfortably reclined on the couch as he shouts out hints that could be true or could be total lies. It’s always hard to tell with him. 

Of course Taehyung, poor, sweet naive Taehyung, had missed the dramatic revelation of Jin’s prank. He had been in the kitchen, dutifully monitoring dessert as it slowly cooked in the oven, and he had only stepped out to check with you when you thought it would be done. 

You feel him tap your shoulder in the middle of combing through your mantle, making sure Jin hadn’t hidden anything amidst the photo frames and decorations that sat there. You jump, surprised, and turn to face him. 

Only for Jin’s screeching laughter to reach you. 

“Victims number 2!” He calls triumphantly. Taehyung looks confused, and you grimace as you finally spot the offending object. A small bit of mistletoe twisted in amongst the tinsel lining your ceiling. You’re not even sure how the madman actually got it there without anyone noticing. 

“Mistletoe!” Dahyun chants, from where she’d been pressed into a corner and snarling at anyone who dared walk close enough to her lest she too fall victim to the mistletoe. “Mistletoe. Mistletoe. Mistletoe.” Slowly everyone joins the chant until your apartment sounds a bit like a cult. 

“Let’s not be hasty!” You plead. “Think about it. If you let me off, then we can all ignore this silly tradition.”

Taehyung, interestingly, has gone very still upon realising the two of you stand beneath a mistletoe. 

“(Y/N).” he calls, audible only to you beneath the chanting. “We can’t leave. It’s a mistletoe- I have to.”

You squint at him. 

“What do you mean? It’s just a silly tradition, why would you have to-“ you begin, before trailing away as it occurs to your that Taehyung is actually not a human. This isn’t two friends caught beneath a mistletoe and talking their way out of a silly tradition. Taehyung is a Christmas Spirit and thus bound to different rules to you. “Oh.” You breathe. “So I have to... do that?”

With a deep blush that nearly rivals the brilliant red of his hair, Taehyung nods. You wince and let your gaze drop. His mouth is a soft pink- one of the first things you’d bought on that first shopping trip had been lip balm after he’d seen you applying your own. He applies it meticulously and his lips are always faintly glossy and soft looking. This close you can count the tiny moles that sit against his skin like little stars, and you feel a little bit like your heart is in danger when you finally draw your gaze back up to meet his. 

His expression is a little hard to interpret, but you don’t let yourself overthink it. You slide your palms up around the back of his neck and tug his mouth down to press against yours. 

Taehyung makes a little surprised noise when you do, and it makes you blush. The smell of peppermint and cinammon is strong but captivating, and you wish you could stay there. You wish you could keep kissing him, but you know it’s wrong.

With a sigh, you pull back. Taehyung’s eyes are round and mystified and the blush sits high on his cheeks. His tongue darts out to swipe his lips and he clears his throat awkwardly. 

“I...” his gaze flickers down and then he averts his gaze quickly. Around you, your friends let out a few wolf whistles before returning to the panicked search for any other offending items. Taehyung’s breathing seems a little faster and you can’t say you’re in much better state. “I just came out to ask you about the dessert.” He finally manages, though his voice comes out a little raspy. You nod, hoping he doesn’t think much of the way you mirror his fierce blush. 

“Right...” you say awkwardly. “I’ll just... go and check on it.”

You dart around him, heading straight for the kitchen. 

When you are there, you take advantage of the lack of other party guests and bury your face in your hands. It was just a mistletoe kiss, it didn’t mean anything and yet your traitorous heart is rioting in your chest, threatening to go on strike. Your mind can’t help replaying the moment- his lips on yours, his familiar, striking scent, the scratch of his ugly Christmas jumper beneath your fingers. The size of this stupid crush is embarrassingly enormous. 

It takes a few moments, but you manage to regain your composure enough to discover that the dessert is very slightly undercooked, which you know Jin will bitch and moan about, but everyone else won’t mind. It’s nothing copious amounts of ice cream or custard won’t cover up. 

When you step out into your living room, it seems the panic over the mistletoes has settled. Jungkook had smothered Jin until he caved and gave up all the locations and now your living room has devolved into a ridiculous Christmas dance party- Jin and Dahyun belt out the lyrics to Last Christmas with absurd amounts of drama and gravitas, and Jihyo and Namjoon are curled up on the couch, murmuring to each other softly. Jungkook has gotten ahold of Taehyung and is currently trying to teach him ridiculous tiktok dances, and all-in-all it’s kind of a dream vibe for a Christmas party. No pain, or fighting, or tears. Just warmth and laughter, and a shared camraderie of the season. 

You find yourself smiling as you finally admit to yourself that maybe Taehyung was right. 

Christmas isn’t so bad after all. 

++

After everyone goes home, you and Taehyung are left to the cleanup. 

It’s a bit awkward, standing shoulder to shoulder after the kiss. His movements are slow and hesitant, like if you move too quickly he’ll get frightened and bolt. But gradually you settle into a kind of rhythm, tidying things up together and you can’t resist asking him about the party. It had been for his sake, after all.

“Did you have fun?” You ask. Taehyung jumps from where he’d been gently working the sponge into a lather and a clang rings through the kitchen. The silence seems more pressing after the loudness of your party. 

“Um... it was good.” He says, though his voice is a little high and squeaky. “I had a lot of fun- your friends seem nice.”

“It’s not really a family dinner.” You admit sheepishly. He pauses and offers you a smile, and the pleasant expression on his face seems to thaw through the lingering ice in the room. 

“No, don’t be silly.” He tells you. “It was everything I could have hoped for. Except for Jin’s interpretative dance to Santa baby. I feel like I could have gone without that.”

You laugh and shake your head, stepping in close to pluck plates off the drying rack and drying them off. 

“This was nothing. Wait till lizzo comes on and then you’ll see peak Seokjin.” You sigh. But then your expression changes and you offer Taehyung a smile. His eyes drop for just a fraction of a second, so quick you think you’ve imagined it, before raising quickly back to your eyes. “I’m glad you had a good time.”

He nods, and hums, still making his way through the pile of dirty dishes. 

“What about you?” He asks. “Did you enjoy yourself?”

You pause to think about it. The laughter of your friends, the silly Christmas carols, the snap of Christmas bonbons.... you did. You really, truly enjoyed yourself in a way you didn’t think you could and it’s thanks to the man before you. The man who patiently waited for you to come home each evening to eat dinner with you, and who dragged you across the city to places he thought you’d enjoy... he’s truly a magical person. 

“I really did. It’s gotten me so excited for the rest of the year, to be honest. Are there any other Christmas traditions we can do? Christmas is almost here, but what about New Year’s? We could do something fun then too.” You suggest. Suddenly the season seems so bright and exciting, and the fact that there’s a whole week and a half left to December leaves you unbelievably excited. 

Taehyung pauses from where he scrapes at a stubborn crumb on your baking tray. 

“What?” He asks, and his voice goes strangely soft, and tentative. You blink- something about his tone makes you uneasy. 

“For after Christmas.” You clarify. “You’ve already got Christmas planned out for us, right? So I can plan something for New Year’s. Return the favour.”

By now, Taehyung has completely stopped cleaning. He doesn’t look at you, and stares straight ahead. 

“There... there isn’t an “after Christmas”, (Y/N).” He confesses. Your heart drops into your stomach. He turns to face you, and for once, his eyes aren’t bright, and filled with joy. They’re dark and miserable. 

“What?” You breathe, trying to speak past the sudden shattering sensation in your chest. “Why... why not?”

“I’m a Christmas Spirit.” He reminds you. “I bring Christmas Cheer and then I go back in a box for the rest of the year.”

You blink- you feel like you aren’t hearing him right, or just not comprehending things. 

“Why? I can just not put you away. Why can’t there be an “after Christmas”?” You urge. You step in close, fighting past the sudden panic in your chest. “How could I just put you back in a box for the rest of the year? That’s crazy! Just, don’t go in the box.”

“It’s not that simple.” He protests. “There are rules, (Y/N). I can’t just ignore them. My job is to make you happy during Christmas and then that’s it. That’s what I was born and raised to do. That’s what I spent 25 years waiting for.”

Your eyes widen.

“But surely there’s another way? Surely you don’t want to be in the box.” You cry. You step in close and grab his hand, pulling it towards you pleadingly. 

“It doesn’t matter what I want.” He says, and there’s a resigned note of finality to his tone. “After Christmas, that’s it. I lose the strength to turn into a human. You can keep my out of the box, but it doesn’t make a difference. It ends on Christmas night.”

That makes you fall silent as you finally learn the full truth. You’d been so busy having fun that you hadn’t thought about what comes next. You’d stupidly let yourself believe that you could just keep having fun with Taehyung. You hadn’t thought about the logistics or the long term of it. You feel like you’ve been slapped. 

Christmas has an end date. 

Taehyung spots the tears forming in the corners of your eyes before you do, and his expression softens at the sight. 

“It’s not fair.” You rasp. Somehow, he manages to pull a smile from somewhere, though it’s tinged with a deep sadness that makes more tears spill forth. He steps in close and pulls your face into his chest. 

“I know.” He soothes. “It is. It’s unfair. I want to... I want to stay. But I can’t.” 

You can’t keep your composure after that, and the sobs come in in full force. 

“I wanted to keep having fun with you.” You bawl, and he just shushes you with a tighter hug. 

“I did too.” He confesses. “But it just means we have to have even more fun until Christmas. Can you do that for me, (Y/N)?” He breaks the hug so that he can gaze into your eyes, smoothing the tears from your cheeks. “Please.” He begs. And you see the way his own eyes are red and moist. 

You want to tell him you absolutely cannot. That if he’s going to make Christmas fun and then leave you at the end, he can leave right now. Before you fall even harder. Before it’s too hard to say goodbye. 

But you’re a fool. A masochistic, lovestruck, weak fool. You can’t look into his eyes and tell him no. Not when you know what this means to him; you can’t take away his first Christmas for selfish reason. 

“Ok.” You finally rasp. “I’ll do it.”

You’re walking off a cliff face with your eyes wide open.

For once Taehyung’s smile isn’t enough to comfort you.

++

Christmas day dawns cold and subdued. The days following dinner had been warm, but quiet. Reserved. Like you both knew a goodbye was coming and didn’t want to acknowledge it. You spend one night curled up in your car at an outdoor theatre, laughing along to some silly Christmas comedy, and another day is spent going bobsledding. You both go through the motions of merriment, but it’s clear that neither of your hearts are in it. It’s hard to be enthusiastic and merry when each precious moment that passes is one step closer to when he turns back into a scarecrow. 

When you step out in the kitchen, Taehyung is making breakfast already. He sees you and smiles. 

“Good morning.” He calls. “Merry Christmas.”

It triggers a pang in your chest as his words confirm that this is truly your last day with him. 

“Merry Christmas.” You yawn, attempting to conceal the way your heart aches by settling into a chair at your table. 

Taehyung scurries over, a plate in each hand. 

“Breakfast is ready.” He declares. He’s gotten quite creative in his cooking- he can now manage a fairly decent semi-scrambled omelette and his bacon is surprisingly crispy. You’re eager to see what he has prepared for Christmas Day.

When he sets it down in front of you, however, you glimpse the Santa pancakes he made that first day. Your face falls. Two familiar blueberry eyes stare dolefully up at you and even the banana smile seems less curved and cheerful. It’s clear Taehyung had been a little distracted making them, because they’re not as carefully put together as that first meal. But the sentiment behind them still stands; that Taehyung cooks for you. He likes seeing you smile and he goes to absurd lengths to get you to enjoy yourself and he has for the entire month of December. He’s come to mean so much to you in such a short span of time- somehow he’s made a season that previously only meant cold and misery become a time of warmth and laughter. And now you have to say goodbye, before you’ve even started. There’s so many adventures the two of you could go on together, and yet you don’t get to. It’s so cruel. You’re alarmed when the tears come, unbidden. 

Taehyung watches the expressions play out across your face, before wordlessly reaching out with the sleeve of his sweater to wipe the tears that fall away. His touch is gentle and his expression somber. He hasn’t even donned his usual Santa’s hat.

“I’m sorry.” You say, in a small voice. “I know I said I wouldn’t cry.”

He shakes his head and smiles, pulling his chair up so that it’s seated as close as possible to you. 

“It’s ok. Just means I have to work a little harder. I wanna see that pretty smile, before I go.” He reassures you. You sniff and scrub at your eyes before staring determinedly at your pancakes. 

“Ok.” You say. “Let’s do this, then.”

Taehyung searches your expression, and you’re not sure what he sees there, but it seems to satisfy him. You feel that the last few days, his smiles had been duller and decidedly less genuine, but this time he hits you with the full force of his dazzling smile.

“First things first, we have to open presents!” He cheers. You frown. 

“But I don’t have any presents-“ you protest, but Taehyung cuts you off with a sharp rush of air through his teeth. 

“Then what’s that?” He questions innocently, gesturing to your ratty Christmas tree. 

And sure enough, beneath it is laden with presents. You stare at it for a long time. 

“I didn’t get you anything.” You finally admit. Taehyung laughs. 

“You enjoying my gifts is the present.” He says dismissively, before crowding you towards the tree. “Anyway, it’s a universal Christmas tradition to open your presents after breakfast, and I have failed you as a Christmas Spirit if we don’t do that.”

He slides the first gift towards you and eyes you coyly. “Open this one first.” He urges you. 

They’re all small gifts, relatively inexpensive. You’re not expecting Swarovski crystals from Taehyung considering he’s an unemployed Christmas Spirit. But each gift is thoughtful and sweet and bought specifically with you and your tastes in mind. By the time you open the last of the presents, you’re fighting off tears again.

“I didn’t get you anything.” You lament, sniffling slightly as you set the last gift aside. Taehyung’s eyebrows wrinkle together and his mouth pulls into a pout. 

“I already told you. Just being here is a gift for me.” He insists. “Besides, it’s not like I can use anything you give me for eleven months.”

That causes you to fall silent. You bite your lip as you look away. You had been determined not to acknowledge the elephant in the room, but you can’t do it. You can’t spend the day pretending you’re not on the verge of tears.

“I know I said I wouldn’t. But I can’t keep pretending this isn’t going to happen, Tae.” You say, and when he looks at you, you know it’s the first chink in his armour. He’s held it together considerably better than you, and you’d thought maybe it just didn’t bother him. After all, you were the one with feelings, not him. “At least... you can answer questions, right? If I know more, maybe it will hurt less.”

But looking at him now, you realise that he’s been fighting to stay composed to. 

“What do you want to know?” He finally says, and he’s quiet. Defeated. So unlike the optimistic, cheerful being you’d come to adore. 

“Are you trapped? Will it be be uncomfortable?” You question. “Can you still hear me? Will you... will you be lonely?”

“Not exactly.” He reassures you. “I look like a human but I’m also a glorified Christmas ornament. Time and events are different when I’m a scarecrow. It’s hard to explain.... but it’s not so bad. It’s just... how I am. I’m waiting, but I’m not trapped.” He explains vaguely. “I can hear and see what’s going on, but I just process things differently. Time just... feels different.”

You nod, a little comforted that at least you’re not sending your friend to be trapped in a prison of his own body for eleven months.  

“Am I meant to pass you on to someone else?” You ask. “Or do I keep you here?”

“I guess...” He looks uncertain, and tentative. “I guess it depends how your year goes. Eleven months...” his voice cracks and he clears it awkwardly to hide it. “It’s a long time. You can keep me here, and I’ll see you next December, if you need a little extra help enjoying the season... or you can pass me on to someone else if you don’t need me anymore.”

He’s right. Eleven months is such a long time. Long enough to forget Taehyung and his bright smile and cheery disposition. Long enough to spend next Christmas with your family and pretend like things are ok between you. Long enough... long enough to forget just how much your heart aches today, and fool yourself into doing the exact same thing next year. 

“What do you want?” You finally settle on. It’s the last question of the interrogation. After this, you can pretend everything is ok. You can go on like nothing’s wrong. 

Taehyung’s eyes go wide. He points at himself, bewildered by your question. 

“What do... I want?” He echoes, as if he’s never heard the words before. You nod. 

“I want you to spend Christmas happy.” You confess. “So where do you want to be, next Christmas?”

He’s quiet for so long you’re worried that his brain has stopped functioning or that his weird Christmas Spirit voodoo has kicked in. But when he finally looks at you again, his eyes shine with so much emotion that your heart aches in your chest at the sight. 

“I want to be here.” He finally says. “I want to spend Christmas with you again. There’s so many things we still didn’t get to try, and I want to do them all.”

Your throat goes tight, because yet again, you’re signing yourself up for heartbreak. If you do this, you’re the only one who will be hurt. Pining alone for most of the year for a season you used to hate. The irony of the situation is not lost on you.

But you’re helpless to him, to his smile and his sweetness and his warmth, and you can’t say goodbye. 

“Ok.” You agree. “Then you’ll stay with me. Now let’s have some fun.”

++

The day must inevitably draw to a close. Though you and Taehyung linger at every activity, attempting to draw out each moment, the point in the day comes where the two of you are back at the apartment, with the time drawing closer and closer to midnight.

You unlock your apartment door with trembling fingers and inhale a shaking breath. You glance over your shoulder at Taehyung. He’s a broad-shouldered person, tall and imposing were it not for the warmth of his eyes and his puppy-like demeanour and normally he just seems larger than life. But in that moment, he’s so small and uncertain. 

There’s so much you could say. You could plead with him; try and see if there’s a way to bargain out of the inevitable goodbye. Or you could thank him, from the bottom of your heart, for the first enjoyable Christmas you’ve had in your entire life. Crying feels like a viable option too, or getting angry. Your heart can’t seem to settle on a response and so instead it’s settled on numbness. Like it’s cold, lifeless hunk of metal rattling around in your ribcage.

“Do you want to watch a movie?” Is what you finally settle on. He stares searching at your expression, before nodding to himself and squaring his shoulders

“Yeah. That sounds fun. I’ll make us some hot chocolate as well.” He says, stepping past you into the foyer. 

You eventually settle on watching the Polar Express. When you sit on the couch, Taehyung sits far too close and tugs a blanket over both your laps. He hands you a mug of hot chocolate and the two of you settle into a peaceful quiet, opposite from the laughter and activity of the daytime. The evening melancholy seems to have settled in. The whole movie, you don’t really pay attention, instead trying not to think about the way the clock on the wall seems to be moving quickly. 

“(Y/N).” You’re startled when Taehyung calls your name. It’s out of the blue, and you hadn’t noticed the way he’s steadily edged closer until the words are said almost directly into your ear. You’d been watching the clock instead of the movie, and you think for a moment that he intends to reprimand you. You turn to look at him and the proximity startles the breath out of you. “It’s almost midnight.” He tells you, as if you haven’t been glaring the clock down for most of the night. 

It’s true, though- the minute hand is edging closer and closer to the dreaded twelve. It makes you realise that he’s been eyeing the clock as well. 

“So it is.” You acknowledge, and he’s so close that his breath skates against the skin of your cheeks, staring at you with an intensity you don’t understand.

“Did I... Did I do a good job?” He asks you. You press your lips together; in a way he did. You think you may have smiled in this month alone more than you have the entire year. But you also know that the rest of the year will now pale in comparison; the rest of winter will leech by, depressingly dreary, and summer will come and go in muddy heat. The year will both inch and speed by and that whole time you will have the special month of December in mind. The times you spent with Taehyung. 

“You did.” You finally say. “I... Christmas was always so lonely and miserable to me. Where we tried to pretend that things were ok and merry and it would just dissolve into screaming matches. But with you, it wasn’t. You helped me make it into something warm, and beautiful. And even though...” your voice cracks, and it takes you a moment to reclaim your composure. “Even though the ending will be lonely and sad, you gave me all these wonderful memories. I’ll hear a Christmas carol and think of you from now on, Taehyung.” 

When you finally gain the courage to meet his gaze, you’re startled to find tears pouring down his cheeks. He’s been sad and a little misty-eyed ever since he admitted he wouldn’t be around after Christmas, but he’s also been frustratingly composed. 

But in that moment, he’s anything but. He looks devastated as he brings his hands up to press into his eyes in a vain attempt to stem the flow of tears.

“I’m sorry.” He gasps. “I tried so hard but... I never imagined Christmas would be like this. I was only supposed to make you smile and then go back to being a scarecrow and that should have been enough but it’s not.”

He’s full on sobbing now, and you can only stare in bewilderment as tears form in your own eyes. 

“I want to spend New Year’s Eve with you, and start the New Year together. I want to see you on your birthday. I want to see you on happy days and sad days. I want to...” he rubs his eyes clear and stares straight at you. “I want to make you smile the whole year.” He confesses. 

And that’s when your phone goes off. You’d set an alarm, earlier in the morning, so that you’d know the exact moment midnight hit. You glance away, for just a moment, dread hitting you full force like a sledgehammer. 

And when you turn back, it’s too late. The familiar little scarecrow stares up at you from the couch, where Taehyung had been seated just moments before. 

And you finally let yourself break down at the sight of the familiar button eyes.

And just like that, Christmas is over. 

++

“Why does your apartment smell like someone’s been dumped?” Jin sniffs as he steps through the threshold of your home, uninvited as usual. You’re not sure how he got in, but he probably had a copy of your key made somehow without you noticing. He’s prone to doing invasive things like that.

“Being dumped doesn’t have a smell.” You snap, from where you had been curled up on the couch under a mound of blankets. 

“Yes it does.” He insists. “It smells like...” he pauses to take one long, obnoxious sniff to the air before wrinkling his nose. “B.O. and cheetos.” He recites. 

You sigh, still not bothering to shift from your blanket nest. You’d been expecting his visit, to be honest. It’s the day before New Year’s Eve and you haven’t responded to his annual New Year’s Eve Bash invite. He’s very intense about RSVPs.

“What do you want, Jin?” You ask. He picks his way delicately towards you, navigating his way through your semi-dissembled Christmas tree before settling before you in a crouch. You’d made it part-way through the post-Christmas clean up before you’d been too upset to continue.

“Well, you aren’t answering my texts or calls. Zero activity on social media, no RSVP to my party... So I thought I’d make sure you hadn’t choked on a piece of tinsel.” He looks around your apartment with distaste. “I’m actually not sure if I’m relieved that you’re ok if this is what “ok” looks like.”

You ignore him, choosing to focus your attention back to Netflix. His expression softens, just a fraction.

“Tell me what’s going on, (Y/N). And where’s.. where’s Taehyung?” He questions tentatively. 

You’re unable to conceal the way your shoulders stiffen, just slightly, at the mention of his name. You’ve been doing your best in the five days since Christmas to bounce back and return to normal life, but you can’t seem to. It’s easier to lounge around on the couch than to muster up the emotional energy to pretend you’re ok. You’ve spent too long pretending you’re ok. There isn’t a single drop of you left that can even try to do so. 

“He had to go.” You say, hating the way your voice goes abruptly raw with tears. Jin’s eyes widen just slightly, and he shuffles closer. 

“What do you mean he had to go? He’s-“ As he said the words, his eyes had been darting wildly around the apartment, but he abruptly cuts himself off when he spots the scarecrow on your mantle. “Why is Taehyung...” he begins, before his gaze flickers to you. 

“Oh.” He exclaims simply, understanding dawning in his eyes. “Oh, (Y/N).” He says, his voice filled with sympathy and sadness on your behalf.

You’re surprised when Jin engulfs you in a hug. You’ve never had that sort of friendship- he prefers to show his love by nagging you. But it’s weirdly comforting and you melt into his embrace. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t RSVP.” You say glumly. “I didn’t feel like celebrating.”

Jin pulls away and scrutinises your expression. 

“Forgive me if it seems probing, but I don’t understand what happened. You guys seemed like you were going great at dinner the other night.” He says. “Why... why didn’t you use his wish?”

You pull back and blink at him in confusion. 

“His... wish?” You echo. Jin nods. 

“All Christmas Spirit receive one wish for their entire career. It was instituted recently, though, maybe only in the last twenty years or so, so maybe Taehyung didn’t know about it?” Jin wonders. 

Your eyes widen. 

“Christmas Spirit?” You splutter. “You mean you knew?”

For someone who’s dropping a bombshell, Jin looks remarkably deadpan. 

“Of course I knew. You think I wouldn’t notice a Christmas Spirit living in my store for five years?” He questions you with exasperation. 

You stare at him incredulously. 

“And you never thought, just once, that it would be a good idea to tell me what I was bringing home?” You demand. He rolls his eyes. 

“Oh please. Like you would have believed me.” He says dismissively. “Little Miss Grinch, hates Christmas, told her weird Christmas Scarecrow is actually a special Christmas Spirit? I’m a simple man, (Y/N). I see an opportunity for a great Hallmark movie, I take it.”

You stare at him in rage, and then something occurs to you. 

“That’s why you never came when I texted you that night! You knew it was Taehyung!” You realise in horror. “What if you had been wrong?”

At least he has enough sense of propriety to look sheepish. 

“Taehyung would have helped you if I was wrong.” He offers meekly. The change in pace of conversation has you deflating. 

“If you knew... why did you let him go home with me? I could have spent Christmas at home, alone, and not be dealing with any of this.” You confess, and Jin softens just a little bit. 

“Well, because I didn’t want you to spend Christmas alone.” He admits. “Every year, you’re so miserable. And I thought Taehyung could change that. And honestly, I didn’t think it would end up like this and even if I did, I thought Taehyung would use his wish.”

“What wish?” You ask. Jin shrugs. 

“Every Christmas Spirit gets one wish throughout their career. Usually it ends up being that they become human, but I know of some who have wished for other things.” He admits. You brows knit together as you gaze at your friend. Where is all this knowledge coming from?

“Jin... just who are you?” You ask hesitantly. He smiles awkwardly and rubs at the back of his neck.

“I’m Jin. The same Jin you’ve known for years. But before that, I was a little Christmas bear who spent years trying to make people happy on Christmas day.” He admits. “And one year... I’d had enough. So I wished that I could be human. And here I am today.” He smiles at you. “And it’s not too late. Taehyung can still do the same.” He glances over at your mantle, where the motionless Christmas Scarecrow sits. “Anyway, I have to get going. I was just coming to make sure you were alive.” He gets up and dusts off his pants. “Maybe give the apartment a clean, and then you can sit down and have a nice, long chat with that scarecrow over there.” 

He makes to leave, but can’t resist tossing one last comment over his shoulder. 

“I’m just going to assume you’re bringing a plus one. I’ll change your response to “going” on the fb invite.” 

++

One clean apartment later, you stand before your mantle, gazing into the button eyes of the scarecrow. It’s weird to know that behind them, Taehyung watches you. What is he thinking? Is he sad? Lonely? Trapped? Is he listening? 

You’re strangely nervous. Taehyung had told you that he’d wanted to spend the rest of the year with you, but maybe he changed his mind. Maybe watching you lounge around your apartment the past five days made him realise how lame you are. And if he only gets one wish in his entire career, why would he waste it now? He’s only had one Christmas to live out his purpose as a Christmas Spirit- maybe he’s not ready to give it up yet. Maybe you’re asking too much of him. It’s only been a month; to ask him to become human and face the horrors of the human world is maybe the cruelest thing you could do.

But your heart yearns, and ultimately that it what gives you the courage to begin speaking. 

“I... don’t know how much you heard of what Jin said earlier.” You admit. “He pretty loud so you probably heard at least some of it. But the basic gist... is that you get a wish. Only one wish, so once you use it, that’s it. So, you have to use it wisely.”

You look away and squeeze your eyes shut. 

“And, I understand if you want to save it. You’ve only just started out and maybe you want more time. But I was thinking... if all that stuff you said before is true... Maybe you can use it now. To be a human.” You inhale shakily. The offer is out in the open now. 

The scarecrow doesn’t move. 

“I mean, maybe you didn’t. That’s ok. I’ll be ok if you don’t actually want to spend the rest of the year with me. It’s a lot to ask when it’s only been a month. But I want to.” You squint and you feel the hot prick of tears forming at the corner of your eyes. “This has been the best Christmas I’ve ever had. I’ve never smiled so much before, and so easily. Something about you makes it so easy. And I was never brave enough to say it, but I like your smile too. I like it so much. It’s ridiculous that you can say my smile is lovely when you can look in the mirror and see what your smile looks like. And I... I don’t want to only get to see it on Christmas. I don’t want to spend eleven months waiting for you but the ridiculous part is that I will.” You admit. “I’ll just keep comparing things to the time I spent with you. I’ll spend eleven months of the year waiting for you’re smile. And that’s because... I really like you, Tae. So much- no, too much. I like you too much.” You’re full on crying at this point. “So please. Spend it on me. Wish to be a human. Wish to be here the rest of the year.”

You fall silent, and still, the scarecrow stares at you. Unmoving, unchanging. 

You smile helplessly, before scrubbing at your eyes. He doesn’t want to use his wish. That’s ok. He doesn’t have to. It was stupid of you to think that he would.

You sniffle and open your eyes.

Only to be engulfed by two arms around your body.  

“I like you too much as well.” Taehyung gasps. It takes you a moment to process- your face is smushed into his chest and his arms hold you securely. “I didn’t know about the wish. But... I want to keep spending time with you. I’d have spent it on you a hundred times over if I’d known.”

You go to pull away so that you can see his face, but he doesn’t give you the chance to because his lips are meeting yours. 

It’s a sweet kiss but also a little clumsy and eager. Like he’s worried time is running out. 

Gradually, the urgency fades and he pulls away. At this proximity, you can see the way his lashes frame his bright eyes, and the way his eyes crinkle into little tiny half moons. It’s a little surreal, being able to gaze upon him so freely when just last week you’d been prepared for a goodbye. 

“So... you’re a human now? You get to stay?” You ask. He pulls back and squints at himself. 

“I guess so. I can’t seem to turn back into a scarecrow so I guess... that I’m human now.” He says.

You kiss him again, after that. It’s soft and sweet and perfect. When you pull away, his eyes are hazy and his expression is unfocused. He looks adorably dishevelled and distracted, and then he offers you that smile, the one that makes your heart feel like it’s about to burst. His fingers come up to delicately trail over the paths of your face, like he’s trying to memorise what you look like. 

“You’re smiling.” He breathes, his tone filled with wonder. His thumb comes up to reverently trace the curve of your lips. “It was your smile.” He confesses. You blink up at him in confusion and he chuckles in response. “It threw me off guard. At the ornament store. Up until that point I’d been so nervous whether I was in over my head with the whole Christmas spirit thing. And then you smiled at me and it wasn’t even because of anything I’d even done and suddenly I wanted to keep that smile on your face.” 

You flush, a bit flustered by his admission, but he isn’t finished, apparently. 

“It’s so pretty. You’re pretty.” He insists. “When you kissed me under the mistletoe I thought my heart was going to burst and then I remembered what I was. That I’m a Christmas Spirit and that I don’t get to do this. I get your smile at Christmas and then that’s it.” He smiles self-deprecatingly at himself before it shifts into something warmer, and fonder. “But now... now...” he trails away, too emotional to continue and he settles for pulling you into another tight embrace, tucking his face into the crook of your neck. All you can smell is that comforting scent of peppermint and cinnamon, and you melt. “Now I get your smiles the rest of the year too. I can’t wait to spend the rest of the year with you.” He confesses, a soft, whispered confession into the warm crook of your neck. 

And there’s lots to do, and things you need to work out now that Taehyung is by your side as a human. Your relationship with your parents isn’t fixed, and he doesn’t have a job or a source of income, and there’s still some remaining Christmas decorations that need to be placed in storage. 

But that’s ok. You’ll both work all that out together eventually. After all, you have the rest of the year to do so.

[swaps55]

.

Here we fucking go. 

We have a glorious moment, one of the best of the trilogy. Anderson dies, and Shepard has to get up. 

What do you need me to do.

No protests. No arguments. There is only the mission, and Shepard isn’t done. It’s the very essence of Shepard, the heart and soul of what makes them such a magic character. 

And we follow up that moment with this bullshit. 

I’ll take this moment to remind folks that in the original, vanilla ending, there was no explanation of the reaper origins. Shepard couldn’t ask questions. There was just, HEY. Pick a color. 

So to my jaded self, the Extended Cut and Leviathan are merely attempts to sleep in the bed they made. 

The biggest mistake BioWare made was attempting to explain the reapers. They are supposed to be unknowable. Beyond our comprehension. Yet here, in the final moments, they are distilled into something completely knowable and understandable, at the expense of everything the trilogy spent three years building. 

“The reapers are not at war with you.” 

Yeah, except you gave Harbinger understandable motivations, an ego, an obsession with a tiny organic, and a vendetta. You made the impersonal Cthulhu monster something with a very personal agenda. Those two ideologies are in direct conflict with each other. 

“Who designed the Crucible?” 

“You don’t know them, and there is no time to explain.” 

WHEN THE FATE OF THE GALAXY HINGES ON IT, YOU SHOULD PROBABLY MAKE TIME. Honest to god, this translates to, “we dunno, fuck off.” 

Now onto the color coded choices. I’ll further point out the reminder that the vanilla ending included no voice over, no slideshow depicting the outcome and consequences, no memorial for Shepard. It was literally exploding relays in three different colors, with no other differences between them. At all. 

The Extended Cut is a direct response to the uproar, which included the following: 

“The relays exploded. Everyone’s dead.” BioWare, astonished at this assumption, somehow forgot they put out a DLC that makes it explicitly clear that destroying a relay releases a titanic source of energy that would wipe out a system. So Extended Cut? Comes out and says, “everything that was broken can be fixed.” No why, no how. You have a decimated galactic economy, the bulk of half a dozen armies stranded in a single system, and the codex clearly states we do not know what kind of material the relays or the Citadel are made from. So...how do we fix all of these things in the next few lifetimes? Fuck you, that’s how. 

“...how the hell did my love interest get on the Normandy??”  Because in vanilla, there is no goodbye scene. Shepard runs to the beam, never looks back, gets blown up, then stumbles to the beam. There is no injured squad mates, no evac, no tender goodbye. One second they’re there, the next they’re exiting the Normandy on Lame Jungle Planet. Which is why Harbinger so patiently waits for Shepard’s ship to come take the wounded love interest away, because we had to have some reason for them to wind up on the ship, and there isn’t a way to do it that makes sense, so have a tender goodbye and don’t think about the fact that the Normandy apparently could have just dropped you right off at the front door and saved everyone a lot of time and trouble. 

“Why did the Normandy flee?” In vanilla, there was only the cutscene of Joker frantically mashing buttons while consoles exploded around him, with a swelling instrumental cacophony that ended with a discordant shriek, suggesting total disaster. When I first played it, I somehow thought, to my horror, that I’d killed Joker. And guess what? Joker and your love interest exiting the Normandy on Lame Jungle Planet is just where the game ended. That music is the credits music. That’s where the journey stopped. Not ended. Stopped. The only other scrap was the voiceover by Buzz Aldrin and a pop up saying, ‘you did it! buy our DLC.’ So the Extended Cut added a cry from Hackett to run from the Crucible, though there’s still no reason given for why, aside from ‘energy is bad for technology,’ and apparently the Normandy is the only ship that somehow winds up stranded on Lame Jungle Planet.

If the Crucible was essentially just a giant EMP that nukes all technology, then everyone is basically fucked, and how do you ‘outrun it,’ since it goes everywhere??

Fuck you, that’s how.   

The choices themselves can fuck themselves, too. Attaching strings to the trilogy-spanning goal of destroying the reapers is a cheap bait and switch. A human being somehow being turned into an immortal vessel to puppet the immortal machines is a complete disaster waiting to happen. Human minds aren’t meant for that, and we’re given no context or information on how that’s supposed to function. 

And Synthesis? You’re asking one person to directly violate the bodily autonomy of every single being in the galaxy? With zero explanation given for what that means other than a few utterly abstract sentences, how it works, what it changes, and what the consequences will be, good or bad? Fuck right off. 

Is my interpretation of the endings completely and forever impacted by experiencing the vanilla ending after playing ME1 when it launched in 2007 and waiting five years for the finale? Yes. I won’t even pretend that I can take an unbiased look at Extended Cut, because all I can see is how blatantly and poorly it tried to respond to the backlash. 

Beyond the incompressible narrative choices, the plot holes, the confusion, etc., the worst sin the original ending made was not giving the player an emotional release. There was no closure. No end. It just stopped. That haunted me. It sounds stupid to say I lost sleep over the ending of a video game. It sounds melodramatic and entitled and obnoxious. But I did. This world and these characters meant everything. I’d like to think that after having lived through a pandemic, it’s a little easier to understand why the fictional places we escape to so we can forget about the real world feel like a lifeline. It may be stupid that a video game means this much to me. But it does. And I have never gotten over how that ending made me feel, and I have never forgiven it. 

The only thing the Extended Cut does is provide an emotional release, in the form of goodbyes to your love interest, an ending slideshow, and a voiceover telling you all the ways the galaxy isn’t actually fucked, even though it is. For a lot of people that’s enough, and that’s a good thing. Emotional release is a big deal. Even if the ending isn’t satisfying, having somewhere to put your emotions makes it a lot easier to swallow. 

This is the first time I have experienced the ‘true’ ending since EC came out in 2012, and now that I have the achievement for finishing the game, I never intend to do it again.

I’m going to go boot up the Citadel DLC, which is the love letter send off the trilogy deserved, and what BioWare was capable of giving us all along. 

They just...didn’t. 

[veronicamarsconfessions]

Editor’s Note: TV moves on, but we haven’t. In our feature series It Still Stings, we relive emotional TV moments that we just can’t get over. You know the ones, where months, years, or even decades later, it still provokes a reaction? We’re here for you. We rant because we love. Or, once loved. And obviously, when discussing finales in particular, there will be spoilers:

There was a time when Veronica Mars’ legacy was that of a beloved cult show that was canceled too soon by network executives who didn’t understand it. With the arrival of a crowd-funded feature film in 2014, its legacy evolved as one of the first shows to see the benefits of a revival. Now, it simply brings thoughts of sadness, rage, and betrayal.

When Hulu first announced it was reviving the series for an eight-episode fourth season, the news was met with resounding joy from a vocal and passionate fanbase that had never given up hope it would return after the crowd-funded feature film reunited Kristen Bell’s Veronica, a pint-sized private eye with a sharp mind and even sharper wit, with her one true love, the reformed bad boy Logan Echolls (Jason Dohring). But the fire that had burned for more than a decade and twice-revived the show was suddenly extinguished in a single, heartbreaking, and wholly unnecessary moment when Logan was killed by a bomb left in Veronica’s car shortly after the couple exchanged wedding vows.

I can still remember the shock I felt when I reached the end of the screeners Hulu sent. The whole thing felt kind of surreal, like if I didn’t acknowledge what had happened out loud maybe it didn’t actually happen. But it did happen. And I’m still filled with a fiery rage and a deep sadness when I think about it now, nearly two years removed from the episode in question, because needlessly killing Logan was a betrayal of the worst kind. The character’s untimely demise felt engineered for nothing more than shock value, like it existed only to leave Veronica even more isolated and cynical. But the interviews that series creator Rob Thomas gave in the aftermath, in which he tried to defend the decision, revealed something much worse while only driving the knife he’d stuck in fans’ backs deeper.

“In order for us to keep doing these, I think it needs to become a detective show—a noir, mystery, detective show—and those elements of teenage soap need to be behind us,” Thomas told TV Guide of the decision to kill Logan, noting that he also hoped to take Veronica out of Neptune and on the road in potential future seasons. “I sort of viewed these eight episodes as a bridge to what Veronica Mars might be moving forward.”

Instead of being a bridge to the future, it was a bridge to a grave of Thomas’ own making. Not since How I Met Your Mother ignored literal years of character development to deliver a half-cooked series finale the creators had come up with several years prior has a show felt so out of touch with its characters, the story it was telling, and its fans. Thomas’ decision to kill Logan is the perfect example of a creator being unable to recognize their own biases to the detriment of their creation.

He wrongly believed that Veronica needed to be hardened by years of nonstop torment and trauma in order to prove she was a great detective whose story was worth continuing. In putting her through the emotional wringer (again) after spending the entire season attempting to dig into her flaws and determine the root of her problems, Thomas swiftly undermined his heroine and her trauma with one misguided act of devastating violence. The fact that Thomas then chose to also skip over Veronica’s grieving process entirely reveals how little he ultimately thought of Logan or Veronica’s relationship with him, which had pushed her to be better and work through her longtime trust issues.

It is common knowledge by now that Logan was not intended to be Veronica’s love interest when the show debuted, but the fans took to the character more than they took to Teddy Dunn’s Duncan “He Used to Be My Boyfriend” Kane, so the latter was jettisoned from the show after Season 2. And in the end, Logan turned out to be a much better partner and match for Veronica’s personality. So what’s truly unfortunate about Thomas killing Logan, and killing him so violently, is that his thought process during Season 4 has the potential to color everything that happened in the show up until the moment the bomb went off. There is also the issue that Thomas apparently believed that Veronica achieving some level of romantic happiness was a one-way ticket to the grave, as if shows like Friday Night Lights hadn’t already soundly debunked the myth that happy couples did not make great TV.

Obviously an emotional family drama does not play by the same rules as noir, but Veronica Mars had already proven that you don’t need to play firmly within the sandbox of the genre to excel creatively. So why should the more adult version of the show attempt to put itself back in the box to be confined to something more traditional or stereotypical? Furthermore, love and contentment are not character flaws or weaknesses. They are not an element of “teenage soap,” as Thomas put it. In fact, one could argue that by allowing herself to believe that she and Logan could have a happy future together regardless of everything she’d witnessed in her line of work, Veronica had shown more personal and emotional growth in the show’s fourth season than she had in the entire run of the series.

At the heart of the matter, though, is one simple, glaring truth: Logan’s death was a fundamental misreading of the entire Veronica Mars fandom and what they liked about the show. Storytelling should never be dictated by the fans and their desires—one of the loudest and most common complaints critics had about the movie was that it felt too much like Thomas was just giving the fans what they wanted rather than attempting to tell a good story—but when your fandom has dug their hands into the cold soil of the TV graveyard to raise your show from the dead, you should probably have a grasp on what exactly the fans like about it in the first place. After all, they’re the reason you still exist and will be one of the final arbiters of whether or not you get to continue to exist in the future. And the idea that fans would somehow be interested in watching a version of Veronica Mars in which Veronica was on the road, completely alone, and Logan was blown to bits is just a wild miscalculation.

This isn’t to suggest Veronica Mars could not ever survive without Logan. That would be to undercut the rest of the show and the woman Veronica has become since we first saw her cutting Wallace (Percy Daggs III) off the flagpole in the series’ pilot. But there is a difference in writing Logan out of the show’s ongoing story arc—his secretive Naval career offered the perfect out—and violently killing him in an attempt to shock viewers and show just how resilient your heroine is in the face of trauma. A survivor of rape who had to solve the murder of her best friend (Amanda Seyfried) while still in high school because the sheriff’s department was too inept to do it (or simply did not care to do it), Veronica had already been through more in her young life than anyone should ever have to live through.

Although Logan’s death led to her finally seeing a therapist, it seemed to be a one-time thing, so nothing has really changed. Veronica is still the same person she was before the show returned, except now she’s also a widow and Thomas has alienated an entire fanbase to the point that many fans, though likely not all, have no interest in revisiting her story. And they’re not likely to either, since Hulu chose not to move forward with another season.

So much for that bridge to the future.

[linkspooky]

I wonder what your thoughts are regarding Kamo Sr, especially regarding his goals compared to his host's and Gojo's

It’s kind of hard to give an opinion on Kamo Sr.’s actual character because he’s not established yet? There’s more we don’t know than we know about him. We know he spent 1,000 years making deals for the sake of the change of the world, we know he cares more about cursed energy than individual people, we know he’s absolutely ruthless in his methods of bringing about change, but also that change seems to be just a recreation of the heian era he once lived in, but we don’t really know why he does these things? Geto has both a goal, and an established motivation for those goals. So far we’ve only seen Kamo Sr. in terms of his goals, we know what he’s doing, but not why he’s doing it. 

However, since you asked specifically in pertains to his goals I can discuss what his goals are in the broad scheme of things. To understand his goal you have to compare it to Geto, Gojo, and also Yuki Tsukumo. 

1. The Kids Aren’t Alright

Geto and Gojo share the same primary goal, to protect young sorcerers so they never have to go through the same trauma that destroyed their youth. However, they have opposite ways of going about it. They both view sorcerery society as something that is corrupt and destroys individual lives, but they place the blame in different areas. 

Gojo blames it on the elders on top that hold power in their society. He believes if he can raise students as allies who are strong enough to replace them, then the new regime will replace the old and will get better.

Geto believes the problem lies in the uncaring masses. That a minority (in this case sorcerers) is being oppressed in order to protect a majority of peopel who don’t even know about their struggle.That the masses are blind to the fact that they create curses, and because of this sorcerers have to needlessly sacrifice their lives over and over again in an unchanging system. 

They’re both wrong. Like, Gojo is not trying to kill a bunch of people obviously but he’s only addressing half the problem. He believes if he raises children as political allies to replace the elders with a new, better regime things will improve politically and the previous generation will stop oppressing the new generation but he sort of misses out on the fact that he’s still using children as tools. 

But Gojo’s like, no they’re my tools, I’ll treat them well, because I’m the strongest when I send them into battle as long as they’re also strong they’ll be just fine. (Joke). 

What I mean to say is, basically what Gojo teaches his students is being stronger is what will fix your problems, when Gojo himself knows that doesn’t work. He says after losing Geto “Being strong isn’t enough to save people.” Gojo doesn’t know how to teach his students cooperativeness or getting along with others. He knows that’s what he’s missing but thinks the solution is in raising others to be strong as his, not like... teaching people to come together.

You can look at how the students fight in the Shibuya Arc as an example of this, all of Gojo’s students, run off on their own, try to be strong indivudally and fail. Yuji loses to Choso because he was fighting on their own, Megumi flips out and does a suicide attack, Nobara slips up in a fight against Mahito and gets her face blown off. They also didn’t really listen to other people, Nobara was told to stay back by an adult concerned for her well being because she would get hurt and she recklessly charged in. Megumi advised Yuji not to run off or be reckless, but Yuji did anyway and Sukuna rampaged. Gojo knows strength but he doesn’t know cooperativeness, and he doesn’t seem to understand how complex society’s various abuses can get, it’s not just a bunch of corrupt elders on top, it’s familial abuse, it’s corrupt clan politics, it’s disabled people like Kokichi not getting the help they needed and being used as tools. Gojo’s solution is just, if I raise these kids to be strong enough, then they wont’ be affected by the corruption of the world around them. 

Geto’s philosophy is more wrong (obviously), but he at least picks up on the fact of how wrong it is to be using sorcerers as disposable tools. Geto values cooperativeness, and the strength of the bonds between sorcerers. Geto loves empathy, he loves the connections between people and believse that’s what makes people stronger. He calls the people he’s helped his family. I mean, you can tell the difference between what Geto and Gojo value from the way they treat Megumi and Nanako + Mimiko. 

Geto raises them as his two daughters. Gojo shows up, offers his protection, gives them money, and then has them live mostly alone. Geto isn’t perfect either but he did offer himself as a substitute family. Also Geto doesn’t predicate his help to Nanako and Mimiko on the fact that they have to be allies to him growing up. Gojo offers his help to Megumi on the condition that, when you grow up you have to be a political ally to my side. I mean he ends up using his family as tools as well, but Geto even directly pulls them out of harm’s way and orders them to retreat, whereas Gojo sent his students as backup to the fight against Yuta and Geto on the premise that they would get hurt, and it would motivate Yuta to fight. 

They’re just different in the way they see people in treat people, Geto doesn’t want sorcerers to be used as tools, Gojo is like, what if I made sorcerers into stronger tools, hmmm.... then they wouldn’t get hurt. 

Something Gojo doesn’t seem to realize, because he views himself as a tool ultimately too. However, even if Geto were to accomplish his goal of eliminating everyone but sorcerers, young sorcerers would still continue to die because the sorcery world is still politically corrupt. 

Gojo idealizes indivudal strength and believes that if he raises people to be individually strong enough, they’ll replace the old regime with something better. (That’s wrong.) Geto idealizes sorcers as a whole community, and believes that if the problem of curses were removed from the world, that Sorcers as a superior species to humans would all be able to come together and make a more ideal world. (That’s also wrong.) 

Geto and Gojo both agree on the same idea, that sorcery society should be fixed so that the youth will not have to keep suffering the same mistakes as their predecessors, that no one will have to live the childhood that Geto and Gojo did, but they both have half complete methods for bringing about this fix. 

I spent so long on elaborating on that because I wanted to establish, Geto and Gojo, in their own way both care about young sorcerers and would fight the world in order to protect them. Yuki and Kamo Sr. both don’t care about individual people at all. They’re very much the world > people. 

2. Who Cares About Them Kids?

I think the fact that Yuki Tsukumo purposefully sat on her hands while people were fighting and dying, waited until the last possible moment to intervene, and then when Yuji was left in the aftermath didn’t really offer that much of a helping hand just sort of walked away shows that she’s not really that hung up on the suffering of individual people.

Both Yuki and Kamo are so focused on cursed energy, that they don’t really pay attention to individual people. They believe the way to change the world lies entirely in cursed energy, ignoring the plights of individual people. You know, even though the world is made up of people. 

Yuki’s not outwardly malicious, she’s just careless. The senseless loss of life in the Shibuya incident doesn’t really bother her the way it does people like Yuji, because that’s not where her focus is. It’s not like one of them is the good mad scientist and one of them is the bad one. It’s more like Yuki is lawful because she at least seems to abide by some rules, whereas Kamo Sr. is chaotic because, he purposefully promotes chaos as a way of finding the ideal answer, and also he willfully breaks all of society’s taboos. 

When she brings up Toji Zenin she’s not really interested in him as a person, she just thinks he’s a cool science experiment that he wants to study. I once thought Yuki Might have been manipulating Geto but, I was wrong on that front. I don’t think she’s the kind of person who would purposefully manipulate someone to that extent because of the way she views individual people, they’re just not interesting enough. What she’s interested in above all else is cursed energy. The fact that Geto eventually was corrupted didn’t even register to her, because she’s not focused on his individual well being. He’s one piece in a big game she is playing (this is just my guess of course we have nothing on her). 

So while opposite Kamo Sr., both Tsukumo and him sound eerily alike, because they both prioritize cursed energy over people. 

They have different methodology, but their ideals are the same. 

I think Tsukumo at least is an idealist in the grand scheme of things that she doesn’t want to introduce more unncessary suffering into the world to achieve her results, and also is worried about the consequences of her action on a large scale. 

But at the same time, like I said she’s not an ally of any one individual. She’s not on anybody’s side. She’s not really sympathetic to Yuji or his plight considering she just, wanders off, because her concern is with the world. 

Now to finally get into Kamo Sr.’s methodology, there’s an interesting paradox between his ideals and his method. He says he wants to bring out the potential of human beings, but we’ve estalbished again and again Kamo doesn’t actually care about the welfare of individual human beings.

I thik it’s imporant to show the way he treated Choso and his family. He dismissed Choso and his brothers as failures, before they were even born, and then abadnoned him. 

Then he diagnoses the fact that they were wrong because they were a failed creation. That’s like, objectively wrong here. Choso and the others never reached their potential, because he didn’t stick around to see their potential. I think the reason they failed is because you abandoned them about five seconds after they created. 

Kamo Sr. wants to experiment with people to force them to grow and reach their full potential, but he also doesn’t really care about what happens to them. He wants to see individual potential, but ignores individuals and looks away from them. See, his methods are at odds with his ideals.

Kamo Sr. also tries to introduce chaos in order to witness that potential, but he like... at the same time is a complete control freak. These ideas conflict each other. He wants to witness chaos to see what will happen, but he always has to be in control. He has to be the one to have a hand in the creation for chaos. His idea of making chaos is, spending 1,000 years making binding vows that he controls, and he releases. A binding vow is represented by chains, that’s like, the opposite of freedom.

Not only that but his directly stated world he wants to create, is a contradiction. He wants to create a new world, because he believes the safety of the modern age has caused sorcery to stagnate as a whole. Which is why he prefers the chaotic heian era, because the danger and constant fighting pushed sorcers to their peak, the so-called golden age of sorcery. 

However, his idea for creating a new world comes from... an over idealization of the past, and a desire to hold onto the old ways. His ideals might be to create something new, but his methods are just, the same old thing. Traditionalism. The past was better. Things should be like they were in the past. 

This all leads to the fact that Kamo Sr. isn’t actually creating a new world, not really, he’s hitting a reset button on the world and undoing 1,000 years of progress because he thought the Heian era was better. 

Kamo Sr. claims to be something else, but he’s actually no different than the elders who currently hold power in the Sorcery World. He’s sacrificing the young people,  out of some idealization of the past and a desire to return to how things used to be, when things in the past were never really that good. He says he’s for change, but his actions are actively resisting change by trying to push the world back 1,000 years, because the chaotic heian era was just so much better with its lack of universal medical care, and indoor plumbing. 

[fictionadventurer]

Father Brown Reread: The Absence of Mr. Glass

The consulting-rooms of Dr Orion Hood, the eminent criminologist and specialist in certain moral disorders, lay along the sea-front at Scarborough, in a series of very large and well-lighted french windows, which showed the North Sea like one endless outer wall of blue-green marble.

I like how the first and second collections both start with a story focusing on a professional detective who’s not Father Brown.

True to form, we’ve got a color word in the first sentence. And not only that--a hypenated color word! You don’t get much more Chesterton than that.

Everything about him and his room indicated something at once rigid and restless, like that great northern sea by which (on pure principles of hygiene) he had built his home. Fate, being in a funny mood, pushed the door open and introduced into those long, strict, sea-flanked apartments one who was perhaps the most startling opposite of them and their master.

Highlighting this because “Fate, being in a funny mood” is a great phrase.

But also because I love when the stories contrast Father Brown’s clumsy, homely shabbiness with characters who look more distinguished and accomplished.

"My name is Brown. Pray excuse me. I've come about that business of the MacNabs. I have heard, you often help people out of such troubles. Pray excuse me if I am wrong."

It’s odd that Father Brown is consulting another detective on this. He doesn’t seem the sort to seek out other help. He usually just winds up on the scene of the crime by accident.

It seems like he should have the confidence to solve the mystery himself.

It seems like the more natural way to bring Hood into the story would be to have the girl approach Dr. Hood and Father Brown just to be at the house for priest reasons before figuring out the mystery.

But maybe Father Brown’s stumped from lack of evidence and doesn’t have the time for an investigation. (Actually paying attention to his priestly duties for once?)

After all, it’s only luck that the crisis that gives them an excuse to investigate the apartment happens two minutes later.

And of course, the whole point of the story is getting this Holmes detective to the same crime scene as Father Brown to contrast their methods, so it doesn’t much matter how he gets there.

And there is a lot of fun in seeing shabby little Father Brown in this professional detective’s immaculate study.

"Oh, this is of the greatest importance," broke in the little man called Brown. "Why, her mother won't let them get engaged." And he leaned back in his chair in radiant rationality.

It’s not a full-fledged Father Brown story unless the mystery is centered on a romance, is it?

A stock Chesterton exchange: foolish-looking character says simple, silly-sounding statement as if it’s the most sensible thing in the world, before being forced to elaborate by a confused listener.

This story gives us Father Brown at his most silly-seeming. Here he’s not just unassuming and sheltered; he seems like one of Chesterton’s holy fools. He hasn’t looked this simple-minded since “The Blue Cross”

"Mr Brown," he said gravely, "it is quite fourteen and a half years since I was personally asked to test a personal problem: then it was the case of an attempt to poison the French President at a Lord Mayor's Banquet.  It is now, I understand, a question of whether some friend of yours called Maggie is a suitable fiancee for some friend of hers called Todhunter.  Well, Mr Brown, I am a sportsman. I will take it on.  I will give the MacNab family my best advice, as good as I gave the French Republic and the King of England--no, better: fourteen years better.  I have nothing else to do this afternoon. Tell me your story."

Sure, he’s a condescending ass, but I can’t help liking this guy. He’s got a good heart and a good sense of humor.

I kind of wish he’d have showed up in at least one or two other stories (preferably with a better end than Valentine).

The little clergyman called Brown thanked him with unquestionable warmth, but still with a queer kind of simplicity. It was rather as if he were thanking a stranger in a smoking-room for some trouble in passing the matches, than as if he were (as he was) practically thanking the Curator of Kew Gardens for coming with him into a field to find a four-leaved clover.

I like this metaphor very much.

Brown is still very, very much the simple little curate of “The Blue Cross”. But with the bumpkin traits turned up to eleven.

I’m very curious about Dr. Hood’s past cases, and how he achieved such renown.

"I told you my name was Brown; well, that's the fact, and I'm the priest of the little Catholic Church I dare say you've seen beyond those straggly streets, where the town ends towards the north.

Yet another parish! How many is this? This seems like the most distant, rural parish that Father Brown has yet had.

And Father Brown’s actually doing some work at it!

He seems to have quite a pocketful of money, but nobody knows what his trade is.  Mrs MacNab, therefore (being of a pessimistic turn), is quite sure it is something dreadful, and probably connected with dynamite. The dynamite must be of a shy and noiseless sort, for the poor fellow only shuts himself up for several hours of the day and studies something behind a locked door.  He declares his privacy is temporary and justified, and promises to explain before the wedding.  

Doesn’t the landlady have a key to the door of her own lodger? Can’t she just demand to look?

British people, I tell you.

Unless the daughter is preventing her from looking, out of respect for her beloved.

And, you know, he does promise to explain, so it’d be rude to just barge in.

So why bother consulting the great detective in the first place? If Todhunter’s really on the up-and-up, he’ll explain eventually, they’ll get engaged, and all will be well.

he is tirelessly kind with the younger children, and can keep them amused for a day on end

Given Todhunter’s chosen profession, this makes perfect sense.

You see, therefore, how this sealed door of Todhunter's is treated as the gate of all the fancies and monstrosities of the 'Thousand and One Nights'.

Another Father Brown mystery built upon a fairy tale atmosphere.

To the scientific eye all human history is a series of collective movements, destructions or migrations, like the massacre of flies in winter or the return of birds in spring. Now the root fact in all history is Race. Race produces religion; Race produces legal and ethical wars. There is no stronger case than that of the wild, unworldly and perishing stock which we commonly call the Celts, of whom your friends the MacNabs are specimens. Small, swarthy, and of this dreamy and drifting blood, they accept easily the superstitious explanation of any incidents, just as they still accept (you will excuse me for saying) that superstitious explanation of all incidents which you and your Church represent.

A lot of the most racist characters in Chesterton are the most educated, scientific and progressive.

Granted, Chesterton does a lot of stereotyping along national lines himself. But usually it’s not with the idea that these differences are bad things. And certainly not with the idea that race is the cause of all war.

the door opened on a young girl, decently dressed but disordered and red-hot with haste. She had sea-blown blonde hair,

Is this the first blonde female love interest in these stories?

They were quarrelling—about money, I think—for I heard James say again and again, 'That's right, Mr Glass,' or 'No, Mr Glass,' and then, 'Two or three, Mr Glass.'

Given the eventual explanation of what’s really happening here, wouldn’t she have heard some other noises (possibly crashing noises?) alongside this?

"I do not think this young lady is so Celtic as I had supposed. As I have nothing else to do, I will put on my hat and stroll down town with you."

Wow, you were really just going to disbelieve her because of her nationality, weren’t you?

Playing-cards lay littered across the table or fluttered about the floor as if a game had been interrupted. Two wine glasses stood ready for wine on a side-table, but a third lay smashed in a star of crystal upon the carpet. A few feet from it lay what looked like a long knife or short sword, straight, but with an ornamental and pictured handle, its dull blade just caught a grey glint from the dreary window behind, which showed the black trees against the leaden level of the sea. Towards the opposite corner of the room was rolled a gentleman's silk top hat, as if it had just been knocked off his head; so much so, indeed, that one almost looked to see it still rolling. And in the corner behind it, thrown like a sack of potatoes, but corded like a railway trunk, lay Mr James Todhunter, with a scarf across his mouth, and six or seven ropes knotted round his elbows and ankles. His brown eyes were alive and shifted alertly.

The clues are laid out very nicely here.

This is one of the most Romantic (in the literary sense of the term) crime scenes in all of fiction. Every clue is as picturesque as possible.

"How to explain the absence of Mr Glass and the presence of Mr Glass's hat? For Mr Glass is not a careless man with his clothes. That hat is of a stylish shape and systematically brushed and burnished, though not very new. An old dandy, I should think." "But, good heavens!" called out Miss MacNab, "aren't you going to untie the man first?"

This entire segment is so funny. I laugh every time one of his long-winded deductions is interrupted by the common-sense demand to untie the man.

Now, surely it is obvious that there are the three chief marks of the kind of man who is blackmailed. And surely it is equally obvious that the faded finery, the profligate habits, and the shrill irritation of Mr Glass are the unmistakable marks of the kind of man who blackmails him. We have the two typical figures of a tragedy of hush money:

So much of the Holmesian deduction process relies on stereotypes, doesn’t it? Sure, Holmes doesn’t label people in “types” quite this way, but it relies on using the evidence to reach the most stereotypical conclusion without factoring in the random possibilities of life. (The suspect might have ink on his hands, but it doesn’t mean he’s a clerk). It’s fun that this story calls out that conceit.

"No; I think these ropes will do very well till your friends the police bring the handcuffs."

Okay, so there’s a sensible explanation for why Hood ignores their cries to untie Todhunter. But it doesn’t make the previous exchanges any less funny to read.

"But the ropes?" inquired the priest, whose eyes had remained open with a rather vacant admiration.

It’s interesting that Father Brown’s actually buying into this. My memory had him being more skeptical of the deductions, but he’s admiring the chain of logic being built here.

It’s kind of a nice change from the usual Chesterton tack of the mouthpiece character disdaining every scientific explanation.

It was not the blank curiosity of his first innocence. It was rather that creative curiosity which comes when a man has the beginnings of an idea. "Say it again, please," he said in a simple, bothered manner; "do you mean that Todhunter can tie himself up all alone and untie himself all alone?" "That is what I mean," said the doctor. "Jerusalem!" ejaculated Brown suddenly, "I wonder if it could possibly be that!"

And we’re off! I always love the moment when Father Brown puts everything together, and it’s especially satisfying here, after he’s spent the whole story sitting back and letting another man do all the detective work.

"His eyes do look queer," cried the young woman, strongly moved. "You brutes; I believe it's hurting him!" "Not that, I think," said Dr Hood; "the eyes have certainly a singular expression. But I should interpret those transverse wrinkles as expressing rather such slight psychological abnormality—" "Oh, bosh!" cried Father Brown: "can't you see he's laughing?"

Each sentence gives a vivid picture of the three different personalities here. The tender-hearted young woman. The too-practical man of science. And the brash common sense of Father Brown.

He shuffled about the room, looking at one object after another with what seemed to be a vacant stare, and then invariably bursting into an equally vacant laugh, a highly irritating process for those who had to watch it.

Irritating to watch, I’m sure, but very amusing to imagine.

"But a hatter," protested Hood, "can get money out of his stock of new hats. What could Todhunter get out of this one old hat?" "Rabbits," replied Father Brown promptly.

I love the hat conversation and these lines in particular.

He was also practising the trick of a release from ropes, like the Davenport Brothers

According to Wikipedia, the Davenport Brothers were an American magician act that toured England in the 1860s. They built on the Spiritualism craze and claimed all their tricks were done by spirit power. There isn’t much about what their tricks wer, (besides a couple of escape tricks and spirit cabinet things). Most of the Wikipedia article is about the many times their tricks were debunked. (Naturally, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle refused to believe they were frauds).

But the mere fact of an idler in a top hat having once looked in at his back window, and been driven away by him with great indignation, was enough to set us all on a wrong track of romance, and make us imagine his whole life overshadowed by the silk-hatted spectre of Mr Glass."

This isn’t so much a debunking of the Holmesian deduction methods as a case study proving why logical deductions have to be built upon sound premises. One mistake at the beginning can send you in a completely false direction.

"You are certainly a very ingenious person," he said; "it could not have been done better in a book.

I love when the characters get meta.

This is a very snide remark in context, but of course Father Brown proves himself.

Mr Brown broke into a rather childish giggle. "Well, that," he said, "that's the silliest part of the whole silly story. When our juggling friend here threw up the three glasses in turn, he counted them aloud as he caught them, and also commented aloud when he failed to catch them. What he really said was: 'One, two and three—missed a glass one, two—missed a glass.' And so on."

I can’t explain how deeply I love that the entire mystery is built on a pun. This one section is the reason this is one of my favorite Father Brown stories.

This drives home the idea that mysteries and jokes are the same types of story. They both require laying out information that’s put together into a surprising conclusion.

There was a second of stillness in the room, and then everyone with one accord burst out laughing.  As they did so the figure in the corner complacently uncoiled all the ropes and let them fall with a flourish.  Then, advancing into the middle of the room with a bow, he produced from his pocket a big bill printed in blue and red, which announced that ZALADIN, the World's Greatest Conjurer, Contortionist, Ventriloquist and Human Kangaroo would be ready with an entirely new series of Tricks at the Empire Pavilion, Scarborough, on Monday next at eight o'clock precisely.

I grew up on cheesy sitcoms. I’m a sucker for the “everyone laughs” ending.

If Todhunter’s willing to admit the truth here, he could have saved himself a lot of trouble by just admitting the truth right away. (I don’t buy the “he keeps it secret to keep his tricks secret” explanation. You can tell people you’d a magician without giving away everything about your act).

Does Mrs. MacNab let them get married? Now she knows he has a harmless vocation, but it’s not exactly a stable one. Would she let her daughter marry a guy so flighty that he can’t even settle on a coherent focus for his own stage show?

Given that the story ends here, we’re supposed to assume that she does. I guess he must be a successful performer--part of her mistrust came from the fact that he had too much money. So he and Maggie should have a comfortable life together.

I’m glad. He seems like a nice young man.

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #242: “EASY COME... EASY GO!”

April, 1984

“Okay Avengers, the party’s over!”

Being a buzzkill, party-hating Cover Vision!

Hmm. Something about this cover makes it feel like from an older era. The returned Mighty Avengers logo or maybe the inking? Or perhaps the Silver Age DC superdickery energy to it? I can’t put my finger on it but this feels like a cover you’d see in the 70s instead of the 80s.

Last time on Avengers: Well, they went to San Francisco for a two-parter where they fought Morgan Le Fey to save Jessica Drew’s soul. As ya do.

Vision has also been a tube boy after he walked into a null field. Starfox hooked him up to the Titan supercomputer and that didn’t fix him, it did overclock his robot brain and let him broadcast giant holograms of his own head. That’s almost as good.

This time:

Some guy: “HOLY GEEZ!”

An interesting note, this guy has only ever seen Quinjets in pictures and never thought he’d see one in person. Tells you how often the Avengers hang around Ottumwa, Iowa.

We start with the Avengers in mid-return from California.

In one of the Quinjets, She-Hulk is telling Starfox that she wished they could have spent more time before returning to New York so she could have shown him LA.

Starfox: “Ah, well... I’m sure another opportunity will present itself, She-Hulk! Besides, the scenery around her has plenty to offer!”

Wanda looks like she’s trying to astral project away from Starfox putting his hand on her shoulder but she’s really just distracted thinking about Vision.

The Avengers on the Jessica Drew mission radioed back to the Mansion that they were bringing Hank Pym home but Wanda suggested that Hank could examine Vision and maybe fix him. But Vision rejected the idea and Wanda is at a loss for why he’s determined to overcome his robo-paralysis on his own.

I’m also a little confused why they didn’t call on Hank Pym sooner to examine tube Vision but then again that would have been super awkward for Wasp and Reed Richards, that hack, said Vision should have recovered quickly.

Speaking of super awkward, Hank and Wasp are alone together in the other Quinjet.

Hank is also baffled that Vision turned down his help. He repaired him once before! Remember? He got super tiny and had a fantastic voyage inside him? In Avengers #93?

Jan comments that she hasn’t heard Hank sound so confident in years and he confirms that devoting his time fully to SCIENCE and taking superheroing off the table as an option has done wonders for his emotional outlook.

He also reiterates that he never felt cut out for the superhero life. Aw, enjoy it while it lasts, bud.

And he thanks her for calling him Hank instead of “Dr. Pym” like she did at the hospital.

Wasp: “Oh... That. Well, when you flew out at my request to help save Jessica Drew’s life... after all we’d been through... the divorce and all... I’m afraid I slipped into my stuffy Avengers chairwoman voice. I thought it might make things easier, but it didn’t... For either of us. I’m sorry, Hank.”

Hank Pym: “That’s okay, Jan. I understand. Your ‘stuffy chairwoman voice,’ huh? Heh-heh. How often do you have to use that?”

Wasp: “Wellll... Most of the time the others will go along with ol’ ‘dingaling Jan’ -- but sometimes, I have to get tough. That never fails to grab their attention!”

Hank Pym: “No doubt! Once, I was the only Avenger who knew how tough you really were! I’m glad the others are learning.”

Wasp: “I guess that none of us are ever too old to learn, Hank.”

Feels like Hank is rewriting some things in his memories since Jan often had to diminish herself to make him feel better but then again it didn’t always work so maybe the idea is that he knew all along how strong she was?

Either way, nice to see these two interacting so amiably.

Also, I like that she’s able to be an effective leader while still being ‘dingaling Jan’ since it doesn’t change how smart and capable she is. And the contrast if she has to get serious only helps.

I think overall I like that her leadership style is so uniquely her and that when her character was retrofitted to operate outside of being ‘Hank Pym’s partner’ she still remained recognizably her.

We have a whopping several women on the Avengers at this time (glorious) and Wasp, She-Hulk, Scarlet Witch, and Captain Marvel all feel like different characters.

Since Vision declined Hank Pym’s help, Wasp drops him off back home in Central Indiana.

Once these two were husband and wife, friends and lovers. But they were very different people and, without meaning to, they hurt each other very much. Today, they have perhaps put a small bit of that hurt behind them. Today, they have again become friends.

Daaaaw. Friends.

Wasp returns to Avengers Mansion to discover there’s a full-on party going on. There’s even streamers and a Captain America who seems incredibly enthusiastic about streamers.

(In another fun bit, Monica knew about the party already because she flew ahead to the mansion before joining Wasp in the Quinjet after she dropped off Hank. And she was bursting to not tell Wasp what was going on as they landed.)

Wasp is even more surprised when she learns that the party is celebrating Hawkeye’s marriage.

Wasp: “Barton? You mean Hawkeye? Married?!?”

Hawkeye: “‘Fraid so, Jan! I’d like you to meet my bride... Mockingbird.”

Mockingbird: “How do you do?”

Wasp: “Oh... fine. You’ll have to excuse me. This is... quite a surprise.”

A reaction that Mockingbird says she’s getting used to because she’s seeing it from all of Hawkeye’s friends!

Hah!

Hawkeye asks Cap on the sly whether he made the right move, getting married, but Cap is very supportive, saying its the most responsible thing he’s ever done.

Hawkeye: “What?! Cap, you cut me to the quick! Haven’t I always acted in a mature, responsible manner?”

She-Hulk: “Look who’s talking... the man whose proudest achievement is the invention of the water-balloon arrow!”

Provided She-Hulk isn’t just making stuff up, there’s some serious off-screen shenanigans that we didn’t get to see, possibly involving Hawkeye shooting water balloons at She-Hulk all day.

But... CLINT. YOU INVENTED AN ANTI-GRAVITY ARROW!

Why am I the only one who remembers that?

Thor shows up at the party next, back from his own solo adventures, and offers his own congratulations to Hawkeye.

Mockingbird is undergoing some culture shock here, as she’s astounded that Hawkeye calls Thor “Goldilocks.” And when Thor turns his Thor charm on her, and blesses their wedding, she’s rendered briefly speechless.

Its fun that we get this side of her. I think she was similarly blown away when they met Cap on the subway.

But even though she was a SHIELD agent and then a freelance superhero, she doesn’t seem to have a lot of exposure to your Avengers types so Hawkeye pulling her into those social circles is a lot of fun.

She’s going to get used to it though. I know that she Avenges herself in the future.

Also, look at Thor’s flagon of mead. Holy shit. Its as big as his whole torso.

Jarvis is really dedicated!

Over in a quiet corner of the party, Wanda tries to convince Vision to let Hank Pym take a look at him but Vision dismisses the idea.

Vison: “Please, Wanda, let’s not spoil this happy occasion! Surprise parties are all too rare, and few of them are party to as many surprises as this one!”

And instead of explaining what he means, he turns his hologram off.

Well, okay.

AH HA HE WAS REPAIRED AND JUST DIDN’T MENTION

For reasons of surprise.

What a whimsical turn for the Vision.

Aw, that panel of them kissing and everyone cheering is sweet. That’s how I like to remember them. Not, err, later developments.

(I also like Mockingbird being confused whether or not he’s still a hologram because of his intangibility)

Everyone congratulates Vision for being bipedal again.

Vision: “It’s good to be moving, Jan. But my recovery shouldn’t come as that big of a surprise. As I told you a few days ago, it was just a matter of time before I isolated the cause of my body’s motor dysfunctions -- and initiated the proper repair systems.”

But he tosses some sweet cred to Starfox, for hooking up to an alien supercomputer. It’s like matchmaking but with networks.

The surprise of his surprise recovery pales compared to his next surprise, as he announces (without consulting Wanda at all, geez) that its imperative that she and him stay with the Avengers full-time.

All I’m saying is communication is important, Vizh.

And maybe you should have brought this up with Wasp too? She is the chairwoman and as Cap points out, the team is already pretty packed, especially with Hawkeye and Thor back.

Vision: “Yes, the ‘chairman’s privilege’ limit! But you’re not the leader now, Cap... the Wasp is! And she’ll just have to change that limit -- or the membership roster -- to include Wanda and myself! We will be needed in the upcoming emergency!”

Kinda dropping a lot of surprises on this surprise party, Vision! I don’t know if you really get the concept wholly? You’re not supposed to save up all the surprises for this one day.

Also, Vision’s speech bubbles have changed. They’re still rounded rectangles but they’re not yellow anymore and the font is a bit italicized. Hm. Wonder if that means anything.

Anyway, Vision announces that while he was a tube boy, he detected two major fluctuations of Earth’s electromagnetic fields by some “unknown energy of near-infinite power.”

He’s secretly been working with Reed Richards on this and neither of them have been able to track down what this nonsense is. But until this malevolent mystery is uncovered, he and Wanda as two of the more powerful reservists must obviously be active Avengers.

But how does he know its malevolent if he hasn’t been able to uncover what it is? Deductive reasoning and intuitive presentiment!

Pffffft.

I think this might be my favorite recent punchline from this book.

But Vision has more than just bad vibes to be given a frighten by this upcoming ominousness!

Vision: “The energy I detected goes beyond the limits of any known to man! The power flux showed on our screens for a mere fraction of a second, and then disappeared without a single trace. That concerns me... And it should concern all of us! If we cannot discover the source of this energy, there could be catastrophic consequences!”

And to show how seriously he’s taking this, he makes this horrifying face.

He looks like he’s trying to eat Wasp.

I do not care for this. Either the specific panel or the overall idea of someone eating Wasp.

Anyway, Vision and Scarlet Witch goes off to check the super advanced equipment he installed in the monitor room without asking anyone. He’s doing that a lot lately.

Wasp is both annoyed that he went over her head and impressed with his initiative in doing so.

But she has other matters to attend and asks Thor and Cap(tain America) head down for a private meeting with her.

And now the party is kind of over!

Yeah, you ruined it, Vision! You put too many surprises on the surprise party! You could have saved some for later!

Vision and Scarlet Witch went off to the monitor room. Wasp, Cap(tain America), and Thor went off to have an executive meeting. And Hawkeye and Mockingbird slipped away from their own party not long after that!

Leaving Captain Marvel, She-Hulk, Starfox, and Jarvis to stand around awkwardly wondering where the party went. They didn’t even cut the cake yet!

Dammit Vision!

Hawkeye snuck out to the garden behind Avengers Mansion that’s been there all along. And Mockingbird followed to see what’s bugging him.

Hawkeye: “I’ve always loved this spot. Great tree, isn’t it? Ya know, it’s not easy to get an apple tree to grow this big in the city!”

But Mockingbird sees through that and asks what’s really his beef.

Hawkeye: “Aw, it’s just that I can see another membership shuffle in the works!”

Mockingbird: “So?”

Hawkeye: “So, I’m the one most likely to get bounced!”

I like the range of Hawkeye emotions here.

Hawkeye says that since he has a life (marriage) outside the Avengers now, he doesn’t mind so much being cut from the team. But if they’re going to be facing the latest and greatest menace of all times, he wants to face it with them!

Mockingbird: “That was pretty profound... for a guy who’s supposed to be a butt-head!”

Hawkeye: “Well, thank you, Mrs. Butt-head!”

Aww.

This is a fun bit too.

Mockingbird asks if Hawkeye wants to go inside and get some cake but he shoots an apple from the tree and offers Mockingbird one.

Pretty slick, Clint.

Over at the monitor room, Vision is really into monitoring whatever is upcoming. Super into it. So Wanda has to ask a question.

Scarlet Witch: “Darling... Are you sure you’re all right?”

Vision: “What sort of question is that?”

Scarlet Witch: “You’ve been acting so peculiar lately!”

Vision: “Wanda, how do you expect me to act? I’ve just recovered from spending what seemed like an eternity in a life support tube, able to move about only as a holographic image! Before that, my body was possessed by the dying sorcerer, Necrodamus. And that was almost immediately after I’d gone through the agony of losing an arm. Thankfully, the Inhuman scientists of Attilan were able to restore my limb. But you must admit we’ve both been through a score of trails these past few months! And now, I’ve detected something which could be the biggest menace we’ve ever faced! All things considered, is it really so surprising that I’m acting this way?”

Huuuuuh. I mean, he has a point. That’s a lot of shit in a very short time frame to endure.

This could very reasonably be a reaction to it all.

That’s a very unnerving smile though.

Over at the not-secret but private just Wasp, Thor, and Cap(tain America) meeting, Wasp, Thor, and Cap(tain America) are meeting.

Well, really, its more that Thor is recapping the tale of Beta Ray Bill for the other two. But we, the readers, just get an editor’s caption telling us to read Walter Simonson’s Thor (and I don’t need to be told twice) and Thor summing up to the salient point that Donald Blake is gone forever and is definitely never going to come back multiple times.

What Cap takes from this is ‘hey i hope that means you’re back on the team then!’ which Thor affirms.

Thor: “Aye, Captain America! Some of my finest hours have been as an Avenger. It would be the greatest honor to continue my service in your company... if you will have me!

But Wasp isn’t going to dump Thor from the roster!

Problem being, what the heck is she going to do with the roster? She doesn’t want to dump anyone off it, she doesn’t want to tell Vision to eff off, but she doesn’t want to lead an unwieldy team either. Six is a good number of Avengers!

I love Wasp’s note paper where she’s scrawled various roster ideas, clearly getting more and more frustrated with the exercise.

Cap suggests that maybe a temporary expansion would be the best move, if there even is a menace!

He’s somewhat doubtful of Vision’s story but wouldn’t you know it, as soon as he says that, the priority alarm goes off because Vision has detected the Ominous Energy Readings again.... IN CENTRAL PARK!

And lest anyone doubt Vision this time, an enormous and blinding flash lights up the Manhattan skies.

Cap: “I... believe you, Vision.”

Hah.

The Avengers head for Central Park with devices that Vision has created that will help them trace the energy but he could have saved the time.

There’s a big obvious structure that wasn’t there before. Odds are pretty good that that’s the anomaly.

Hmmm... Y’know, that structure looks familiar. As if I’ve seen it somewhere... But wheeeeeeeeeerre. I guess its a secret to everyone.

The sudden appearance of a large structure right after a massive flash isn’t even the weirdest thing going on. As Reluctant Science Guy Starfox waves around the detecting device, he realizes that the Ominous energy isn’t coming from the giant structure. It seems to be coming from everywhere. But it dips as you get closer to the structure.

Starfox posits that the energy is being focused on the ring from another location.

Curiouser and curioserer.

The Avengers poke around some more. Hawkeye calls attention to an arch built into the wall of the structure. It’s just real interesting. It’s super, incredibly interesting. Plus, the air is nice in the arch.

And it’s an arch. It looks like it’d be a doorway or tunnel to the middle of the structure but it doesn’t go anywhere.

Huh.

How fascinating.

She-Hulk, Cap(tain America), Captain Marvel, Wasp, and Thor join Hawkeye in the arch and agree that it’s a pretty interesting arch.

Perhaps this arch was made for them.

As soon as they join Hawkeye in it, there’s another blinding flash of light and those Avengers vanish in a curl of smoke.

Wow.

I can’t believe Hawkeye, She-Hulk, Captains America and Marvel, Wasp and Thor are dead.

Huh. And Wasp was just complaining about having too many Avengers!

Everyone is appropriately shocked by this, especially Vision because there were no energy emissions coming from the thing so it should have been inert.

Scarlet Witch and Starfox wonder whether the missing Avengers have been teleported somewhere, into some other story... or destroyed.

But before they can investigate the structure for clues, or see if it’ll strike again?, the whole thing vanishes as quickly as it appeared.

The plus side is that it makes Starfox lean toward ‘teleported’ which still doesn’t answer where the Avengers have been taken or who would do it.

If it’s the Collector again, I swear!

Here we go... Follow @essential-avengers​ because I thought I had more time! Oh geez, I don’t know how I’m going to handle this... Also, like and reblog because I like to think I do good work.

[dream-a-little-bigger-x]

Chapter 24 -- Perfect Harmony | Charlie Gillespie

Summary: Emily Fox is a talented 17-year-old with a passion for all things music. Her dream is to become a successful singer-songwriter one day. But to achieve that dream, she needs to get into one of the most prestigious music schools in her district – it’s all been part of her plan since she was six. Sadly enough, those schools cost a ton of money that her parents don’t want to invest. They don’t even want her to pursue her dream. So, now Emily’s hustling, working at the music store to save up to get into college. That’s until she meets Charlie, an annoying seventeen-year-old boy with the same dream as her. The only difference is, he’s just doing it. He doesn’t need a fancy college to pursue his dream to become famous with his band. He just writes his songs and books small gigs here, there and everywhere. Will meeting Charlie defer her from her dream college, or will he actually help her achieve the dream?

Pairing: Charlie Gillespie x OC (Emily Fox)

Warnings: mentions of death, sexual assault

Important note: the characters of Charlie, Owen, Jeremy and Madison are based on the characters they play on the show and i do not own their names, only OC are mine. The songs aren’t mine either, they’re all from the show except for one.

~|Emily Fox|~

Friday isn’t any better than Thursday. Though Madi and Mitch kind of filled up the void in my heart yesterday, it just seems to seep out the very next day. I don’t go to school yet, but Madi does today. Her mother allowed her to skip once, but not twice. I don’t blame her for it. Just because my life is ruined and I have no future, doesn’t mean Madi’s life needs to be ruined too. No. I want her to thrive. I want her to graduate High School and go to her dream college. I want her to have the things I don’t have. “Muffin,” Mitch’s voice sounds from the other side of the bedroom door, “I made you breakfast. Can I come in?” I let out a chuckle at how adorable my uncle is. He’s been like that since last Saturday. Just the cutest, greatest uncle alive. “Yeah, come in!” I sit up straight in bed, placing my phone to the side. I’d been scrolling through Tumblr aimlessly. At least the memes are still somewhat hilarious. Unless they’re memes Charlie sent me, because then I cried. “Made you some eggs, your favorite comfort food besides Madi’s mom’s lasagna!” He places the tray on my bed, the delicious smell of freshly made eggs hitting my nostrils. “If it were healthy to eat that much lasagna, even in the morning, I’d let you. But you know… Got to stay healthy.” He sits down at the end of my bed and grabs his own plate. “What movie are we watching today?” he asks before taking a bite. I grab the other plate and start eating too. “You can choose,” I tell him and take a bite, then hold up my finger to tell him to wait until I swallow. “But it can’t be a musical or anything Disney. Especially not Aladdin!” “Ten Things I hate About You?” He suggests hopeful. I think about it for a moment, then nod my head. “Kat does play guitar in that, though?” I shrug. “At least they don’t break out into music every other minute and it’s not the guy that plays the guitar because that would remind me of… you-know-who…” I tell him and take a sip from the orange juice he’d brought along. “Voldemort?” Mitch jokes. I tilt my head a little and raise my eyebrows as if saying ‘really, dude?’. “I’m kidding, Muffin. ‘Ten Things’ it is then!” We continue eating in silence for a moment which gives me the time to think about life. What am I going to do with my life? Since the Music Academy didn’t work out and I don’t have the band anymore, maybe I should do something more … Parent-approved. “I’m thinking of looking into other colleges,” I blurt out, capturing my uncle’s attention. “Maybe check out those colleges my parents wanted me to go to. I do like languages? Maybe I could do something in that direction?” “Are you sure you want to do that, Muffin?” I take a deep breath, placing my knife and fork on my half-empty plate. “It’s better than doing absolutely nothing, you know? I can’t spend my entire life wrapped up in blankets, eating eggs and lasagna and ice cream, and cry. I mean, I can keep dreaming like I’ll live forever but I have to live it. Now or never.” I can’t help but smile at the fact I just quoted the boys’ song and I think Uncle Mitch even noticed it too. “Wise words,” he says with a smirk, “But yeah, I mean, if you really want to do that, then I’m 100% behind you, Muffin. Whatever you need.” The smile on my face widens at this, and it surprises me that my lips can still curl up this far. It feels like I haven’t done that in forever. Mitch’s smile then suddenly vanishes. “Does that then mean you’re going back to your parents’?” he asks. I swallow the lump in my throat. I hadn’t even thought of that. “No,” I reply, “No, I don’t think so… Unless you want me out?” “No! God no! I could never do that to you.” It stings a little hearing him say that since my parents could, apparently. But at the same time, it makes me happy, knowing I have a man who loves me stand on my side for once. “You’re the best, Uncle Mitch, you know that?” The smile reappears on his face, along with a slight blush on his cheeks. “Yeah, I heard that before,” he chuckles, “I love you, Muffin.” He places his plate on the tray again as I do the same with mine, knowing a hug is about to ensue. “I love you too, Mitchy.” I wrap my arms around my uncle’s neck as he wraps his around my waist. A bunch of oxytocin releases in my body, and for the first time in about a week, actually makes me feel happy again.

“I hate the way you talk to me, And the way you cut your hair. I hate the way you drive my car, I hate it when you stare. I hate your big, dumb combat boots, And the way you read my mind. I hate you so much it makes me sick, it even makes me rhyme. I hate the way you’re always right, I hate it when you lie. I hate it when you make me laugh, Even worse when you make me cry. I hate it when you’re not around, and the fact you didn’t call. But mostly I hate the way I don’t hate you, Not even close, Not even a little bit, Not even at all.” I recite the poem along with Kat as Mitch and I sob. This movie always makes me cry, no matter how many times I watch it. It’s such a feel-good sad movie, perfect for the situation. My phone rings then, and after having blown my nose and wiped my tears, I pick it up. Ash’s name flashes on the screen. “Hey, Ash,” I greet with a slight quiver of my voice. “Have you been crying?” she asks, her voice instantly filled with worry. “Yeah, Mitch and I are watching 10 Things I Hate About You.” I glance over at Mitch, who’s sniffling in his tissues. “Ah,” Ash says, “The poem.” “Yah, the poem,” I whisper. In the background, I hear a couple of faint voices. She’s probably at the store, handling some customers. “So, anyway, I’m calling to see if you would like to come help me out a little. I asked my brother the last couple of days to fill in for you, but he can’t, and I really don’t have anyone else…” The voices in the background come through again. One of them faintly sounds like Owen, but I could be wrong. “It’s fine if you’re not up for it… I just really could use your help.” I draw in a deep breath. “I’ll come,” I say, which makes Mitch snap his head towards me in surprise. “Really?” Ash asks, not expecting me to say ‘yes’. “Yeah, I could use some distraction, I guess,” I tell her, and rise from the couch. “I’m going to get showered and dressed and then I’ll come, okay?” I hear the voices in the background again. I swear I hear Owen and Jeremy now. “Yeah, perfect! Thank you, Emily!” She sounds relieved. “No problem, Ash. See you in a bit.” “See you.” We both hang up and I start making my way upstairs. “What’s happening?” Mitch asks me before I get to the stairs. “Ash asked if I wanted to come help,” I tell him nonchalantly and rush up the stairs. I quickly take a shower, put some jeans and a top on, add a light layer of makeup and we’re done and ready to go. “You’re leaving the house?” Mitch asks, following after me as I grab my stuff. “On purpose?” “Yes, I am. It might do me some good,” I tell him with a simple shrug. “Okay… I’ll see you tonight then?” I’ve never seen my uncle this confused. “Yes, see you tonight,” I kiss him on the cheek and run out of the house, grabbing my bike to get to the store as fast as possible. It sounded kind of urgent when Ash called me. Plus, if those voices really were Owen and Jeremy, I might still catch a glimpse of them. The store is completely empty when I arrive. Ash is behind the counter, reading a book. “I’ve never seen it this quiet,” I tell her as I drop my bag onto the counter, making Ash jump. “Hey, Emily!” She says louder than necessary. “Hey, thanks for doing this! Uhm, my girlfriend kind of needs me, so…” She pats my shoulder before grabbing her bag and leaving the store in a hurry. I start sorting through invoices, wishing Charlie were here to do it for me because Ash’s handwriting has gotten gradually worse. As if on cue, I hear guitar strumming. Is this in my head? No, it’s actually happening. There’s no Charlie to be seen, only his voice to be heard. “First things first We start the scene in reverse All of the lines rehearsed Disappeared from my mind” He now appears from behind the wall and into my eyesight, an apologetic smile on his face. “When things got loud One of us running out I should have turned around But I had too much pride” I swallow the lump forming in my throat. I can’t move a muscle. I’m completely frozen. “No time for goodbyes Didn't get to apologize Pieces of a clock that lies broken” My heart beats faster at the sound of his voice. He sounds incredibly sad and remorseful. “If I could take us back If I could just do that And write in every empty space The words I love you in replace Then maybe time would not erase me” My breath hitches in my throat, and I can feel the tears pricking in my eyes, getting ready to escape. I thought all my tears had dried up. “If you could only know I never let you go And the words I most regret Are the ones I never meant to leave Unsaid Emily” Finally, my legs start moving and I walk towards the grand piano where the boys make me jump by starting to play their perspective instruments. Charlie follows me and takes his place behind the microphone, the volume of his voice increasing along with the impact of his words. “Silent days Mysteries and mistakes Who'd be the first to break Guess we're alike that way” My legs give out now, and I drop down onto the piano’s stool. “He said, she said Conversations in my head And that's just where they're gonna stay forever” Tears are now rushing down my cheeks as if they have a race to win. All the while Charlie’s voice gets more and more vulnerable. “If I could take us back If I could just do that And write in every empty space The words I love you in replace Then maybe time would not erase me” I missed this boy with all of my heart. How did I even survive days without him? “If you could only know I never let you go And the words I most regret Are the ones I never meant to leave Unsaid Emily” The boys take a musical intermezzo, just singing out ‘aah’s while Charlie walks up to me. He holds my gaze, his eyes teary and filled with absolute sadness that breaks my heart into pieces. I can tell he’s missed me too. I can tell he’s trying to make amends using the only medium he knows so well. His voice now gets lower, and he’s singing the bridge to me with only his guitar guiding him. “If I could take us back If I could just do that And write in every empty space The words I love you in replace Then maybe time would not erase me” The boys now pick it back up too, making my heart swell and feel heavier and heavier with sadness. Sadness Charlie feels and resonates with me through his music. “If you could only know I never let you go And the words I most regret Are the ones I never meant to leave Unsaid Emily” He finishes off with a couple more chords on his guitar before completely stopping. “Charlie…” I sniffle, wiping my tears with the back of my hand, but he shakes his head. “Please, Emily, let me talk?” I nod my head to give him permission. “The boys and I, we’re really sorry for ruining your chance with the Music Academy. We tried, but we couldn’t get you a new audition. But we realized, all of us realized, that we didn’t want to be a band without you. We just couldn’t do it. You’re so important to all of us, you’ve changed all our lives for the better. There’s no way we could go on, knowing you were angry at us. So, I wrote this song for you since that’s the only way I seem to be able to convey how I feel…” I chuckle airily, making him chuckle too. “Please, Emily… I can’t not have you in my life.” “Can I talk?” He nods his head. “These past days have been really difficult for me. The Music Academy was my dream and to see that go up in flames, I don’t know, I felt like I couldn’t go on. But I realized that just because that one dream didn’t turn out as planned, I shouldn’t give up. I’m not saying I’m going to beg for another audition, because I am not. I considered it a sign that maybe that school isn’t for me,” the three boys are listening to me intently. “So, I though this morning, if I don’t have the Music Academy and I don’t have the band, I might as well just go to a parents-approved college.” Charlie glances at the rest of the band. “I mean, you do still have the band though?” Owen chimes in with a shy smile. “We can’t be Emily and The Foxes without Emily.” “Yeah, we’d just be The Foxes,” Jeremy adds with a light-hearted chuckle. I shake my head at him, a smile tugging at my lips. “I missed you guys,” I say. Charlie kneels down in front of me now. “So, what do you say, Emily? Will you join the band again?” he asks, which makes it look like he’s proposing to me. “Please?” He looks up at me with those puppy-dog eyes that I just cannot resist. Even Owen and Jeremy stare at me with hopeful eyes. “Hey, Jere,” I turn to the bassist, “I think there’s a jam you can play now.” He looks confused, but Charlie gets it and starts playing the chords to This Band is Back. “Come on, Jeremy!” Charlie counts us in, and Jeremy starts singing, placing his bass back in its stand to move freely while Owen moves away from the drums, tapping his body again. “Can you, can you hear me?” “Yep! Loud and clear!” I shout happily, jumping up from the stool. “Gotta get, gotta get ready” “'Cause it's been weeks!” I smile at Charlie’s lyric change. “Oh, this band is back,” Jeremy sings alone, grabbing my hand and twirling me around. “Oh, this band is back,” Owen, Charlie and I harmonize. We dance around the grand piano together, singing along loudly. “Whoo, ooh, ooh, ooh Whoo, ooh, ooh, ooh Whoo, ooh, ooh, ooh This band is back!” Jeremy then grabs me by the waist and puts me on top of the piano, then jumping on himself. We all burst into a fit of laughter, and when we die down, I find Charlie staring at me with an endeared smile on his face. He tugs at the guitar strap, so his guitar is on his back instead. Jeremy and Owen take this as their cue to leave after both having kissed my cheeks. “So, now that the band is back… What about us?” he asks carefully. I take a deep breath. I haven’t given that a thought yet. “I don’t know, Charlie…”  he looks like a hurt puppy. “I love you, but I just want to focus on the band and figuring out what I want to do with my life…” I bite the inside of my lip awaiting his response. It makes me wonder if he can hear my heartbeat. “That’s fair,” he says with a half-hearted smile, “Let’s focus on the band and become better friends instead.” His face lights up when my mouth curls upwards. “I’d like that,” I say, and hop off the piano to embrace him. “And, thanks for that song, by the way. It’s so beautiful! Definite Emily And The Foxes vibes,” I wiggle my eyebrows before walking up to Owen and Jeremy and hugging each of them. “I missed you so much!” Jeremy grunts into my ear as he picks me up from the floor. “I missed you guys too.” So much.

Taglist: @parkeret​​ @lukeys-giggle​ @gingerxarmy​ @lovesanimals​ @hannahhistorian92​ @marinettepotterandplagg​ @thequirkybookaholic​ @ashleyleblancx​ @calamitykaty​ @lolychu​ @bookdealer5​ @tenaciousperfectionunknown​ @hemmingsness​ @siennanoelle01​ @iainttakingshitfromnobody​ @ifilwtmfc​ @luckylouiebug​ @kiss-themoongoodbye​ @camiladelrio98​ @myfriendscallmebeans​ @thedarkqueenofavalon​ @caitsymichelle13​

[the-working-class-guide-to-films]

Tenet-No Spoilers

I am a massive Christopher Nolan fan. I’m a fanboy, I’ll admit. Nolan, for me, is the goat. I don’t think there’s a director out there today that can create movies like he does, the way he does it. The mix of pure spectacle, blockbuster action using real effects, combined with interesting characters and personal, real stories is something that is rarely achieved in the film industry today. 

John David Washington is The Protagonist, who after a mission goes wrong is recruited by a secret organisation, Tenet, to prevent the end of the world. He learns that there is a technology in the future that allows objects to be reversed through time and that people are buying these and selling them on the black market. Objects such as inverted bullets that cause much more damage than regular ones.

There has been criticism of Tenet that it is too complicated and confusing. And yes, this is definitely the most complex Nolan film to date. The inverted/reverse time business is quite bizarre and takes a while to get your head round but towards the end it certainly becomes a little easier to understand. The plot itself however is more complicated. All Nolan films are complex and there are always clues throughout that you won’t notice on the first watch that you will on the second. But the plots aren’t as difficult to understand than Tenet. With Tenet, I think the second watch will be to understand what you didn’t from the first one, and then on the third viewing it will click. Maybe, maybe some people got it straightaway, maybe some people won’t get it on the third. I think the film, and this isn’t just a criticism of Tenet, but of most films, is that the dialogue at times was difficult to understand. It’s hard to get your head round this in the first place, never mind when you can’t make out what they are saying. During the more exposition scenes it was hard to make out what was going on, and Tenet needed these scenes to be clear in order for the viewers to maybe get a better understanding of the plot. My biggest criticism of Tenet however is that it lacks the human side of his films, especially in comparison to his other films. Not that I went in over-hyped because I never think that is a good idea. And maybe the film was his homage to the spy genre where it wasn’t intending us to care as much about the characters. But in all his films, and however epic the scenes we always care about the character, that I feel is the main part of the film, it is what we are drawn to. Whether that be magicians in the Victorian era, a caped crusader, three layers deep in a dream or floating through space; it is the human element that always keeps the film grounded. I felt that Tenet didn’t strike that balance. And that’s not to say that John David Washington wasn’t good, because he was fantastic, but I didn’t necessarily care about his character because he didn’t have anything personal for us to relate to. In Inception and Interstellar, the two main characters are fighting to see their children again. It’s personal, it shows the human side. Washington’s character didn’t have that, it was him saving the world, and yes that’s brave and courageous, but why, why did he care? What was HE fighting for? And that was what disappointed me the most about Tenet because that side of Nolan is I think the most under appreciated. I LOVE the set pieces, the action, the mind-boggling plot, but the human side is what brings it all home. I was blown away during Interstellar with the visual side of it, the black hole, the waves, all of that. But it is when Matthew McConaughey’s character breaks down seeing his grown up daughter via a TV or reuniting with her at the end of the movie that overshadows everything else. Tenet didn’t have these personal moments and that was a real shame.

No doubt about it, Tenet is the biggest Nolan film to date. It is honestly huge. No matter how confused you may, or may not get, you won’t be bored. It’s a lot of fun. In most action films you’d expect to see maybe 2 or 3 small action sequences followed by the big kick ass action sequence at the end. Tenet has 4 or 5 big kick ass action sequences. The opening of previous Nolan films, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises really set the standard for opening sequences in action movies, Tenet follows suit and kicks off from there without skipping a beat. A lot of the scenes involve the inverted time structure, where the object is going backwards in time (I think that’s how it works), it’s incredible to watch.

It’s absolute madness. I don’t think I’ve seen something like it before. If I have, not to this extent. It’s barmy, but it is fantastic. Technically it’s a delight. The whole plane scene has been talked about, how Nolan bought a real plane to crash instead of just using visual effects. That’s the standard that action films should be aiming for. Yes, visual effects are a work of art, there is no denying it and I certainly won’t be shitting on it that some people do. I am incredibly envious of the skill. But there is something magical about watching real effects, and it’s become part of Nolan’s signature. 

Away from the jaw-dropping action scenes and the incredible technical ability on show the acting is fantastic. John David Washington is superb in this and should hopefully cement his name as an A-list. His character has it all, cool, scary, witty, he captures all of this. And it isn’t just his acting that is top notch but it is a very physically demanding role which as you might expect from a former American Football player, you might expect. I don’t think there are many actors who could have struck the balance quite like JDW did. Sure, an actor like Daniel Day-Lewis could do the acting, but he couldn’t do the physical side. Dwayne Johnson could do the physical side, but he can’t act. Washington achieves both terrifically. There is a huge, and brilliant supporting cast in Tenet, most notably Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki and Kenneth Branagh who each bring something different and exciting. Nolan comes under criticism for portrayals of women in his films which is something I don’t necessarily agree with but in this Debicki’s character is the one who we probably care about the most and it is her character that brings the humanity to the story. 

4/5 Now I’ve had a day to digest it, and now I have written this review, I’m really excited to watch it again. If it wasn’t for COVID I would probably watch it about 4 times. Maybe on subsequent showings I could give it slightly lower (although I’ve tried to be impartial) maybe I’ll think it is better once I understand it more. Yes it is a shame that the human side of the film is lacking slightly, but the technical ability on showing will blow you away. No matter how confused you are, you won’t be bored.

p.s There has been criticisms from some corners of the film industry saying that Nolan, and the studios, are irresponsible for releasing Tenet as the film to bring cinema-goers back, especially when the film is complex. Why would the audience want to watch a film they can’t understand? Now I have an issue with this. Critics slam the Fast and Furious franchise because it is over the top, silly, action fuelled, spectacle garbage. Critics will also jizz over films such as Midsommar, The Shining, The Lighthouse for their complex and interesting storylines. Now I love these films, but what exactly are those films about, and would you know directly coming out of the cinema. Would the link between Greek Mythology, Prometheus and giving knowledge to civilisation be known to you when you came out of The Lighthouse? Probably not. Isn’t there like a whole documentary on The Shining because there are so many fan theories? That film is weird af. I’ve always found an issue of classism within the film industry, especially when reviewing certain films. Action films are seen as dumb, lowest common denominator garbage, and yet odd artsy stuff is seen as the pinnacle of film. Nolan somehow manages to get these both together and yet now they criticism him when this complex stuff is the shit they love. Now critics want a film like Fast and Furious to bring people back, but you know they’d shit on it at any other point. Maybe Nolan can do no right, people have called his films obnoxious because they are too smart. Well maybe these people mistake the intelligence of the general viewer? Who knows, I’m just mad the Nolan hasn’t won a Best Director award, or hasn’t even got a knighthood when people like Ed Sheeran or Phillip Green have?

[oz-corp-uplink-t]

Good evening. I figured it would be a good idea to describe our area in detail, both the one we're in now and the one from whence we came. This will be in chronological order, from first discovered to most recently discovered. I hope you all don't mind the formality. This is simply how I normally converse, and I do not see any reason to be any more or less formal than normal.

--Homeworld: GemsGoldia--

Our Homeworld was a unique one, compared to the more Earthly planets of most other universes. It was an entire planet made of crystals and gems, and the general climate of an area depended on the gemstone that comprised the most of an area. Green Emerald areas were usually perfectly warm, red Ruby areas were much hotter and had a tendency to contain magma geysers, blue Sapphire areas were more or less frozen wastes, and a few other, more unnatural climates, such as constant lighting storms over yellow variants of gemstones, and complete and utter darkness in Obsidian areas.

When I first appeared here, I was the only one. I saw the Creator soon after, and he told me what I should do. The Creator's form in our worlds is quite odd, actually. He's two hands and a head, and he tends to change size often, though he's always bigger than me. His hands have white gloves, and I'm certain I've seen they are connected to his head by fishing line or puppet strings. His head is just a black sphere with extremely triangular teeth and large, red eyes. It's more intimidating than it sounds.

Anyway, the factory/research lab we started with was already built when I showed up, along with quite a few houses, all made of the Emerald the ground was made of, and there were exactly enough for those that would appear soon after. There was an unfathomably gigantic generator in a basement within the factory, which I was told created an artificial atmosphere around the entire planet. Evidently, this was true, as it was destroyed in the destruction of the planet, and we have recorded several corpses of beings that need an atmosphere to survive.

--A strange new land: Mirrold--

I had escaped the destruction of GemsGoldia, and I had to find my way back alone. I went through several places, most of which seemed familiar and sparked... Memories, of past versions of myself. My first iteration looked similar to the creator, but I had a pale skin tone, my eyes were humanoid, my hair was green, and I had some nasty claws. I was a throwaway, used to add plot to a normal 'roleplay' (Which, as he told me, simply describes writing a story with more than one person, which I find to be an interesting concept) between good friends. I was to stop a wedding by killing the bride or groom, the bride being an original creation, from his friend, and the groom being another one of those... Skeleton characters. I think they called them Blueberry. I mortally wounded them, and was destroyed in revenge.

My next iteration was similar to the 000 model. I can't remember what I did as them, but I do remember that the Creator and his friend made fictional children for fictional versions of themselves. Apparently, this was my longest running form.

Then, we're at what I am now. A product of His creativity, depression from a long-passed break-up, of which he has told me was his own doing, and fantasies of escaping His world, and coming to ours. His mental state has left our world in ruin, and it seems like he may want this one to have a similar fate...

...Oh, right. I need to be talking about Mirrold. Forgive me, I tend to get far off-topic if I think about our home...

Mirrold is a mirror world, which I found in an apparently magical mirror in the ruins of GemsGoldia, which acted as a portal to here. This place consists of four islands and a deep pit under them, which we call Lower Mirrold.

--The glass shatters: Shatternia--

Shatternia is the only entrance to Mirrold that we know of. After you enter the mirror, you come out onto a catwalk suspended above Lower Mirrold, which looks like pitch blackness. This catwalk ends at a concrete building, where the Brokem, Ozwald, and Cordial base models reside. This is at the southernmost area of the island. To the west of this, there is a thick forest with various weak monsters within. The foliage on this island is always colored in a mix of reds and blues instead of the normal green you'd expect. To the north of the building, there is a toxic lake, and a bridge leading to a canyon with a large gate at the end, leading to the only town in the area, Shardini. If you go east from the building, there is a tram station, which connects to the next island over, and allows for transport between them. North of this is a mansion under constant snowfall, which is reminiscent of the home the Creator had imagined being in when with their friend. The Creator put a copy of his past self, specifically from the period of major depression over his relationship, in Mirrold, and they occasionally show up at this mansion and cry to themselves. They are hostile to any trespassers, but reminders of this failed relationship will stop them in their tracks.

I do recall, now that I think of it, there was another skeleton who became partially Corrupt, but never fully turned, and who lived with the models in the concrete building. Actually, they may have been an alternate version of Blueberry. I think the models that live there called them "Grape".

--A major downgrade: Junkedville--

It's much larger than Shatternia, but it's mostly empty desert. There is an exception: Salvagius. This is the one town in Junkedville, near the northern edge. Our factory rests at the northernmost point, and the rest of the place is houses and establishments made of sheet metal. The pub here is highly popular, mainly because it's impossible to die from overdrinking, as they add special ingredients that prevent death or impairments from extreme amounts, without lessening the actual enjoyment of it, including the drunkenness. This isn't completely effective, unfortunately, as you can tell from my entire workforce being in alchohol comas.

I did say that Shatternia was the only entrance, but that isn't completely true. In the factory, we are very capable of transporting people using the multiversal portals we have. We also considered opening them up to other creations for this uplink, but we aren't sure if it matters much anyway.

--Eternal war: Magicant--

Magicant is a small place, and there's not much left by now. Mages populated this place quite heavily before the Corruption followed us here. They have allied with us for the destruction of the Corruption, but they have blown half their island out of the sky trying to fight. There isn't much left to speak of...

--Mixed up anomaly: Lower Mirrold--

Lower Mirrold is... Difficult to understand. It's split into five sectors. These five sectors change randomly into portions of different worlds, bringing buildings, landscapes, and people with them into our own. This has caused many visitors to suddenly show up without intending to, and many strange scenarios where multiple characters and worlds combine in strange ways, causing strange situations. One we have documented in particular is still in progress, and the events until now are as follows.

1: Subject A ( Short/overweight/male, generally known as a thief, wears yellow and purple clothes, a cap with his first initial on it, and cyan eyeliner) receives a message from Subject B (Literally a fucking sponge) that proposes an exchange for taking B's job for a day in exchange for a stockpile of treasure. Subject A accepts, drives into ocean and finds Subject B's workplace.

It should be noted these two should not have known each other at all.

2: Subject A falls asleep on the job, establishment burns down. Subject A flees and finds stockpile. Subject B fires a nuclear bomb at his neighbor to threaten the arsonist who burned down the establishment. Subject A is transported to an unknown location for approximately 7 hours, before Lower Mirrold shifts again and any further events cease.

We have reason to believe whatever's been happening here is still happening now, but we have been too occupied with everything else we can't be certain.

--Core of Corruption: Corrupti--

Not much is known of Corrupti, other than Sally currently resides there and controls the Corrupted from it's core. It rose from Lower Mirrold some time after the event above had ceased. We don't know what to do about it, all we know is that it's ruining everything we worked so hard to achieve, and that we must end it... But we do not know how.

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

A few closing statements...

Firstly, I have been informed the Creator has documented the Lower Mirrold events mentioned above. I haven't been told where, though. Just that it's "On my tube", or something. If you happen to figure something out there, that would be helpful.

Second, I'm not completely certain the Creator has fully gotten over what happened with his relationship. I don't know if that's why he seems to be reluctant to help us, but either way I'm sure he'll figure himself out sooner or later. I hope, anyway.

Good night to you all. I hope you haven't forgotten us.

Oh, and to those of you in bad times, (lookingatyourox) just know your pain doesn't last forever, and all wounds can be healed with help and time. Also, do not try to end your pain early. It will only spreas your pain to others, and, if there is a place after life, give you a worse pain in your ghost.

...Sorry, if I'm being a bit too grim here. I'm in quite a grim mood, unfortunately. I think the Creator is, too.

[buzzdixonwriter]

The Purple Monster Strikes

Recently in an online discussion of 1950s sci-fi films, the old Republic serial The Purple Monster Strikes came up.

Why is came up I’ll mention later, but first let’s note it: 

was made in 1945 

was the last 15 chapter Republic serial

is awful

Not eyeball gouging / brain melting / soul scorching awful the way The Lost City or Gene Autry And The Phantom Empire or Captain Video are awful, but awful enough…

…yet at the same time, worthy of comment (as we’ll soon note).

1945 is a crucial year.  Despite the Nazis last ditch Battle of the Bulge, WWII is clearly winding down to an Allied victory in both Europe and the Pacific. 

American audiences feel tired of the war wand want something else in their entertainment, even low brow / low rent entertainment like movie serials.

Republic produced three serials that year:  Federal Operator 99 proved surprisingly good, Manhunt Of Mystery Island (their next to last 15 chapter serial) tried some new ideas that while interesting didn’t prove interesting enough to be tried again, and The Purple Monster Strikes brought interplanetary thrills back to the theaters, only this time instead of visiting Mars, Mars (at least two of ‘em) came to Earth.

As noted in my overview of Federal Operator 99, Republic serials of that year looked…inexpensive.* 

This is especially true of The Purple Monster Strikes which really needed a bigger budget, a better script, and adequate production time for the type of story it was trying to tell.

That story?

In a nutshell:   The Purple Monster is a one-Martian invasion come to steal the secret of the “jet plane” (the script uses the term interchangeably with “rocketship”) from Earth and take it to Mars where it can be mass produced and used to attack our world (Why?  WTF knows or cares?).  To achieve this The Purple Monster bumps off the scientist in charge of the project, physically possesses his corpse by turning into a ghost-like entity, and tries to kill a nosy investigator and the late scientist’s niece.  In the end The Purple Monster tries to escape Earth only to get blowed up real good (Did I mention this is silly, stooped, and trite?  I did?  Good).

So why am I interested in The Purple Monster Strikes?  Well, for two reasons, the second and more important one we’ll save for the end, the first is that when watched with fully informed eyes, it’s a testament to the single greatest contribution the serials made to filmmaking:  The production board.

Lemme ‘splain what that is.

In the old days of movie making it was a folder with slots for narrow strips of colored cardboard to be slid in.  The strips were color coded for interior or exterior scenes, night or day, specific locations, second unit or special effects, etc.

These strips were grouped together on the production board so all the exterior day shots at one location could be filmed back-to-back, followed by all the night shots there before moving on to a new location.

The colored carboard strips were further broken down to match production numbers in the shooting script (“Scene 37:  The bandits take the town”), key props and costumes, stunt work, but most importantly actors / characters in the scene.

You want all your most important / expensive / difficult stuff grouped together…but you also need to figure out what you didn’t need so you could pare down your budget.

For example, if you need someone to play a policeman in Scene 1 and in Scene 12 but those scenes are shot two seeks apart, maybe it’s cheaper to have two different actors playing two different policemen for one day each than keep one actor on call for two weeks.

Likewise, if you’ve got an actor in a key supporting role, put all his scenes together.

This necessitates shooting out of sequence, but shooting out of sequence is now pretty much the industry norm for any filmed or taped production.

The serials invented the production board and the rest of the industry speedily glommed onto it.

Once you know what to look for in The Purple Monster Strikes, you can pretty much break down which scenes were shot when.

Case in point: Masked heroes and villains aside, serial characters rarely change costume except to match stock footage from earlier productions.  It’s not especially notable for male characters but females typically wear The Same Damn Dress in Every Damn Scene.

So when heroine Linda Sterling gets dunked in a water tank midway through The Purple Monster Strikes, you can bet that was her last day of filming since they were no longer worried about ruining her costume.

Likewise when a female reinforcement from Mars arrives, the exact same location right down to the same car parked in the same spot are used even though the female Martian doesn’t arrive until 2/3rds of the way into the story.

You wouldn’t notice this week to week in a movie theater, but they’re painfully obvious when bingewatching.

Case in point: There are never more than four characters onscreen at any time; this was all the production could afford on any given day.  If a fifth character showed up, one of the others needed to be knocked unconscious (if they were lucky) shot and fall off camera (if they were unlucky), or disintegrated (if they were really unlucky).

For example, the hero and heroine could be talking to a scientist (day 1 / shot 1) when three baddies show up at the door (day 2 / shot 1).  The first baddie shoots the scientist, who falls off camera then enters the frame and knocks out the heroine, who conveniently falls behind a counter (day 1 / shot 2).  The other two baddies enter and a huge brawl erupts (day 2 / shot 2).  The heroine revives (day 1 / shot 3) and shouts a warning at the hero.  The hero blasts a minor baddie who falls off camera as the other two baddies flee the scene (day 2 / shot 3), then the heroine rejoins the hero (day 1 / shot 4).

Binge watching also reveals a lot of sets and props reused again and again.  The same footstool is used as a weapon more than once, a prop valve in one chapter serves an entirely different function in another, and while serials frequently reused stock special effects shots, The Purple Monster Strikes doesn’t just use the same exploding car shot twice in the same serial, not just twice in the same chapter, but twice in the same car chase!

(Speaking of which, whenever they get in Linda Sterling’s car you know the odds are 50-50 it’s going off a cliff in a big flaming fireball.  The Purple Monster Strikes has her going through so many identical make automobiles you’d think she owned stock in a car dealership.)

Anybody familiar with Republic serials is going to find a lot of reused sets and props here.  Having seen Manhunt Of Mystery Island recently, I immediately recognized their ubiquitous warehouse set, the Republic Studios loading dock doubles as two different factory exteriors, and having lived in Chatsworth several years I can practically name each and every rock in the exterior scenes.**

On the plus side, bonus points for some impressive looking props, including a rocket test engine that provides the explosive cliffhanger for the first chapter, a double-barrel disintegrator that looks like a giant set of binoculars (I wonder if it was originally a military surplus training aid), and a spaceship seen under construction for most of the serial that proves to be the most striking design the redoubtable Lydecker brothers ever created (a pity it’s glimpsed only briefly before being blown up in the last chapter; Republic should have reused it for their later sci-fi serials instead of the dull unimaginative designs they went with).

Fun factoid: Mi amigo Donald F. Glut, filmmaker / NYTimes bestselling author / film historian, knew The Purple Monster hizzownsef, Roy Barcroft, and reports Barcroft had the wardrobe department sew a secret pocket in his costume for his cigarettes! 

Speaking of Barcroft, he’s the best thing in this serial and he ain’t that good.  A perennial bad guy in serials and B-Westerns, he normally turned in a satisfying performance, but the script for The Purple Monster Strikes gives him nothing to work with.

I mentioned previously how Federal Operator 99’s script works more often than not and gives its characters something the actors can work with, but The Purple Monster Strikes?  Nada.

Every line is a clunky flat declarative sentence exposition dump of the “I’ll take this strange medallion we discovered to Harvey the metallurgist to analyze” variety.

Even Linda Sterling can’t do anything with this though she tries to find an appropriate facial expression for whatever scene she’s thrown in.

As for nominal star Dennis Moore, I won’t say he’s wooden but in one of the innumerable fight scenes Barcroft hurls a coatrack at him and for that brief moment the coatrack delivers a far more memorable performance.

Sidebar on the fight scenes: They are choreographed expertly, among some of the best Republic ever staged, but directors Spencer Gordon Bennet and Fred C. Brannon -- both serial veterans who could do much, much better -- really dropped the ball in shooting them.  They’re shot almost entirely in wide angle longshots using slightly sped up photography instead of intercutting to keep the pacing fast.

The rest of the cast consists mostly of stuntmen carefully enunciating their one line before the fists start flying, or older male actors who deliver surprisingly good performances compared to everyone else.

But that script -- oh, lordie, that script!  This was made in 1945 and they’ve got a damn organ grinder in it!  Organ grinders vanished from the public sphere with the damn of movies; by the 1940s they were found only in comic books and animated cartoons; in other words, kid stuff.***

It’s clear the writers on The Purple Monster Strikes (Royal Cole, Albert DeMond, Basil Dickey, Lynn Perkins, Joseph Poland, and Barney Sarecky) considered this mere juvenile pablum, not worthy of even the smattering of sophistication they sprinkled on Federal Operator 99.

An adult can watch Federal Operator 99 and at least feel the story makes some kind of sense and the characters, however imperfectly enacted, at least offer adult motives and behaviors, but The Purple Monster Strikes is just insulting to the intelligence (I mean, they call the female Martian invader Marsha.  Seriously?).

Okay, so why do I think this is worth writing about?

Because The Purple Monster Strikes is the bridge between WWII and the Cold War.

Most of the major tropes of 1950s sci-fi are reactions to Cold War anxieties, and those anxieties are transplanted WWII anxieties.

Before WWII, American moneyed interests waged a relentless PR campaign against communism, socialism, and labor unions (sound familiar?).

Forced to make peace with the Soviets during WWII, these moneyed interests -- now heavily invested in what Dwight D. Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex -- bit their lips as US pop culture portrayed the Russians as gallant allies against fascism (and they were; credit where credit is due).

As soon as the war ended, however, and in fact, even a little before the end (see The Best Years Of Our Lives; great movie), they were already recasting the Russians as treacherous authoritarian atheists out to conquer the world.

As noted earlier, American audiences felt weary of a relentless diet of war related entertainment and in the waning days of the war turned eagerly to non-war related stories. 

Likewise studios, not wanting to get caught with rapidly dating WWII related material nobody wanted to see began actively developing different kinds of stories.

After four years of intense anxiety, the country needed to come down but couldn’t go cold turkey.  Science fiction (and hardboiled mysteries and spy thrillers) provided safe decompression.

1945 marks a significant sea change in Republic serial production.  Sci-fi would become a more predominant theme, infiltrating other genres such as the ever popular masked mastermind (viz. The Crimson Ghost).

Federal Operator 99 would be the last highwater mark for more plausible serial stories, but crime and undercover espionage remained serial staples to the bitter end.

Only Manhunt Of Mystery Island seemed a misfire and even in that case it only meant the masked mastermind returned to more traditional origins instead of the inventive backstory created for Captain Mephisto.  

What The Purple Monster Strikes did was take a very familiar set of WWII cliches and stereotypes then recast them in a (relatively) safe science fictional context.

The closest prototype to The Purple Monster Strikes is Republic’s G-Men Vs. The Black Dragon, as racially offensive as you could hope to imagine, and turn the inscrutable “yellow” villains into malevolent purple ones (later green when colorization was added).

By making the literally other worldly alien the “other”, 1950s sci-fi sidestepped the worst implications of their own themes:  

Invasion 

Subversion 

Fifth columns 

Loss of soul / identity / individuality (personified in bodily possession by alien intellects)

Paranoia

The Purple Monster Strikes lacks the wit and wherewithal to fully exploit these ideas, but it sure could hold them up for everyone to get a quick glimpse.

As childish and as inane as the plot may be, by the end when hero and heroine realize there is literally no one they can trust, The Purple Monster Strikes dropped a depth charge into preteen psyches fated to go off six years later with the arrival of The Thing From Another World and countless other sci-fi films and TV episodes afterwards.

Did The Purple Monster Strikes create this trend?  No, of course not – but as Stephen King pointed out in Danse Macabre regarding the incredibly inane The Horror Of Party Beach’s selection of nuclear waste dumping as their raison d'être for their monsters:

“I’m sure it was one of the least important points in their preproduction discussions and for that reason it becomes very important.”

King’s point is by not giving the matter much thought, The Horror Of Party Beach’s producers simply tapped into a subconscious gestalt already running through the culture and said, “Yeah, nuclear waste, wuddup widdat?”

Likewise, The Purple Monster Strikes’ producers / directors / writers didn’t sit themselves down to analyze Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four but rather picked up on the forever war current already moving through the American body politic.

War without end, war without ceasing.

And if we can’t define an enemy by name or place, so much the better!  The war on crime, the war on poverty, the war on drugs…

The war on terror.

The forever war thrives on the faceless unknowable enemy with the unknown but clearly malevolent anti-American agenda.

“Them”…against…U.S.

As an artistic achievement, The Purple Monster Strikes is sadly lacking in nearly all aspects, but as a cultural artifact, it’s still a clear warning.

Only not about “them” but about…us.

  © Buzz Dixon 

  *  read “cheap”

** Republic’s low budget backed them into an overlapping series of sci-fi serials, loosely referred to as the Rocket Man / Martian invasion serials by fans.  The Purple Monster Strikes’ costume was reused for Flying Disc Man From Mars (which featured a semi-circular flying wing already featured in Spy Smasher and King Of The Mounties) and again for Zombies Of The Stratosphere, but between those two serials the wholly unrelated King Of The Rocket Men was released.  Zombies… is a sequel to both Flying Disc Man… and King Of The Rocket Men but Radar Men From The Moon introduces a new character -- Commando Cody -- who wears the same rocket pack as the heroes of King… and Zombies… but faces a lunar, not Martian menace then he spins off to become Commando Cody:  Sky Marshall Of The Universe in a quasi-serial (i.e., no cliff-hangers, each chapter a complete adventure) fighting a third alien invasion!

***  Or the works of Bertolt Brecht, but that ain’t what Republic’s going for here.