#this is the second closest to our design we’ve seen in real life

[lovetogether]

check this guy out

No way.. this guy is crazy, hello there .

[popculturebuffet]

Star Vs The Forces of Evil: Is Another Mystery (Prince of Wishful Thinking) or Wasted Potetial

Happy Valentine’s Day Lucifans! And while I originally intended to cover this along with the much worse Booth Buddies I had too much to say about both to try and clown car both together so here we are. And just in times for V-Day we have a StarTom episode.. that isn’t as focused on thier relationship as I thought because I hadn’t seen this in a while because every time I think of things in this series I think of all the wasted potetial and it gives me a migrane. I’d also like to thank @jess-the-vampire for talking this one over with me as usual, and helping me think through some stuff. And as with last time we’re picking up about where we left off, so no real exposition to get through. Join me under the cut as we solve a mystery and marvel at HOW much potential from this episode the show squandered. 

We open with Marco chasing Glossaryck.. and it’s only now I realize I have not talked about this subplot at all. Or Glossaryck really. As you probably know Glossaryck is the tiny man who lives in the big book of spells, created the magical high comission and is a colossasl assshat whose likeablity plumted this season. For starters his voice actor Jeffery Tambour was outed as a massive creep, making him harder to stomach even if the show had reduced him to stock footage of one line. Speaking of which he came back from the dead... and despite it being revealed he was fully sapient the whole time and just saying Eclipsa’s husbands name without context a twist coming up int he finale that i’ll give out about here as while clever when you first hear it. makes NO sense in hindsight, as Eclipsa might of mentioned it before now especially since Glossaryck was around her quite a few times, had no reason not to, and you’d THINK Star, Marco or Moon, especially the latter two, would be curious why he can only say that and has seemingly been reduced to an infant. It’s an annoying subplot tha’ts just casually part of the series and no one seems to care about despite Glossaryck being a big deal and the spellbook revealing there IS a way to make copies, one that would be used next season. 

But what really just made me HATE him.. is how he contributed to how bad things on Mewni are, by doing nothing. Being omnicent and powerful does not mean you do nothing.. it just means you have to be VERY careful. Power is a responsivity not an excuse to say “Wheelp my kids were a mistake going to just let them overthrow the government, become far more entriched in mewni politics, and boss me around without EVER questioning them or trying to replace them”. His apathy is never really called out by anyone but Marco, and he’s treated with all this undue importance despite not doing anything but train the queens, which even then i’ts questionable how good he was at that. Just an asshole, not the worst character in the series, he’s coming up in a few episodes, but just wholly unlikeable. And I get he’s supposed to be comically douchey but after what we learn about eclipsa it just passes into unforgivable and it’s never brought up or talked about. Which is a trend for this series and I don’t know why i’m even bothering being annoyed at this point when I could easily COUNT the number of potential plot threads the series half finished, dropped or wasted and it’d probably hit 50+. 

So Marco is chasing after Glossarcyk and ends up in Buff Frog’s office. Buff Frog was Ludo’s former second in command, who reformed, and became close with Star and Marco, and who Star gave a position as Royal Monster Expert in order to have an ACTUAL MONSTER doing their job since the previous person was a crazy lady who thought of htem as less than sapient and tried to drown them all for reasons I don’t quite remember. This.. has not come up since and this is the first time we’ve seen his office since and it’s empty. 

Marco finds a note for star but accidently reads it before he can get it to her, and we do get a glimpse of the old Marco as he’s disgraught over “reading someone’s mail without their permission!” I missed this.. I think I blocked out the GOOD times with marco in my brain behind a butter-like wall of all the stupid shit he did this season and the next and the whole resolution to the starco thing that left a taste in my mouth not unlike sardine juice mixed with vinegar, aka what causes Mitch Mconnel’s face to look like delfated and to sound like the ghost of Michgian J Frogs Condederate Uncle. 

Meanwhile Star is with Tom and is distruaght after finding our her life is a lie and feels there’s no one she feels she can talk to about this, and Tom’s face when she says this just...

You can tell the poor guy is just hurt. HIs girlfirend is hurting.. and she dosen’t even CONSIDER talking to him about this or think she can trust him despite him being RIGHT THERE. This expression is only on screen for half a second but it says so much. And another thing it says is that he dosen’t know HOW to help her, as evidenced by the fact his offering to is very awkward and sitlted, that he’s clearly HURT she dosen’t think she can confide in him, but is so awkward in general and out of his depth her ehe dosen’t know how to help he just wants to.  But while Star eventually seems receptive.. Marco busts in and we get a seen of EVERYONE involved being a canoe filed with dicks and old vhs copies of biodome. After of course Marco tells Star, Buff Frog is gone. To wit

Star: Immediately plans to take off with Marco and only Marco despite tom being right there, that he could help even if he has no stake in it, and the fact that cloudy can both grow, and Tom can you know.. FLY. That’s a thing we’ve seen him do a lot. So space isn’t an issue, sh’es just forgetting tom exists. Which WOULD work if it was an intentional issue but is sadly the beggining of Star being a pretty terrible girlfriend to tom. This example is lighter since you know , one of her closest friends and his small children are missing, and this is the day after her entire world got flip turned upside down, so I can forgive her a bit since she’s probably not thinking clearly.. but it’s the start of a LONG pattern fo her forgetting tom exists when it’s not coinvent and not thinking about his feelings.

Marco: When Tom asks to take Marco’s place, Marco says, not that he’s buff frog’s friend or he’s worried again about the fact he has kids that could be in danger but “I’m her squire it’s my job”... BEFORE you know the fact his friend WITH YOUNG CHLIDRNE WHO COULD BE DEAD VIA HATE CRIME, is missing. 

Seriously it says something about how far Marco has fallen by this ponit that even in an episode wher eh’es largely his old self.. he STILL make this about him and star to her boyfriend’s face. HiS FRIEND’S FACE. There will be worse from Marco soon enough, and far worse we won’t be covering, but it does say something that they did him so wrong this season that THIS is minor in comparison to some of the other shit he pulls. 

Tom: The only INTEITONAL one of these, as Star’s neglect feels like it was an accident, as he insists on coming along as her boyfriend despite this being a fairly serious situation and him clearly just wanting alone time. 

OH and if you thought the writers you know ACTUALLY cared about STar’s anguish over finding out her whole life was a lie, her newly found grandma who actually relates to her and treats her with respect unlike her mother isn’t biologically related (Not that blood relation matters but I can see why finding out the one family member besides your dad who was anything like you in recent memory.. isn’t related to you would hurt).. 

This highlights the show’s biggest flaw, and yes folks it’s bigger than the ending with the accidental genocide and the horrible implications. That was bad.. but what really tripped the show up long before that.. is the lack of payoff. Now sure some plots get payoffs, especially the Metora one, it’s one of the series best arcs.. but TONS of other threads are just outright ignored, casually dropped or never really pulled.  Look I know that every show has things we wished they’d done more with, and most of the greats of this generation have stuff they dropped the ball on by dropping it or never really getting into it: She Ra never really had any closure with Catra and Scorpia, despite Catra hurting her the most out of anyone and that could’ve been a good thing for her character developent and Scorpia’s own character development. Ducktales had NO intention of going into Della’s reaction to Scrooge and Donald’s feud and quitely ignored or retconned the fact Scrooge clearly erased Della’s long history from the web and wherever else he could, as why else would the kids have never known. Did they just not use google? Steven Universe, if partially by design as it turns out, skipped over a LOT of things and ignored a lot of intresting characters human and gem. It’s the nature of writing seralized teleivsion: Sometimes you just forget to take care of something or simply don’t have the space to. That is fine.  The problem is star does this.. for major plot points that really CAN’T be ignored. Starting with this season they flat out ignore Star telling Marco how she felt for pretty much the entire season. They only deal with it in booth buddies.... THREE EPISODES before the season finale two parter. Despite it having massive impliciations, doing so IN FRONT OF JACKIE, who was her friend, and Jann who is both Jackie and Star’s friend and is not subtle.  We never get any fallout from this and the show weirdly acts like Marco can’t easily visit home. I mean yes he’s star’s squire but she’s not a heartless monster> The DIazes were her parents for a while too. And that’s not even getting into Marco Junior... “Shudders”. But that part of the cliffhanger was just the start after that the pile just kept getting larger. Before it was basically JUST the monster arm and it possibly being involved with the blood moon. So to prove my point i’m making a list of EVERY dropped plot point or storyline from the series, most of which are from season 3 onward. And naturally I asked jess for help with this after the first 25.. and the list DOUBLED. One or two of these are nitpicky.. but the fact the vast majority AREN’T .. yeah.

1. Jackie’s reactoin to Star’s feelings for Marco 2. Janna’s Reaction to Star’s feelings for Marco 3. Buff Frog being head monster expert 4. Buff Frog and Co fleeing this dimension and where they WENT exactly 5. Tom being a Monster 6. Star not being a Butterfly by blood 7. Moon’s reaction to not being a butterfly by blood 8. Rhombulus feeling guilty 9. Marco’s reaction to hekapoo being a terrible person 10. Marco and Kelly’s Relationship (Technically resovled but done poorly) 11. Tad not being over Kelly 12. Hornanne never getting a horn (I know minor but it bothers me a lot) 13. Eclipsa having to win over the other kingdoms 14. Related, the Johnasons being the hardest one of those to overcome 15. Related to 13 again: Why Tom’s Parent’s didn’t suppport eclipsa 16. What the Jaggy Mountains are or are like at all 17. WHy Glossaryck was worried about Globgor 18. Why Glossaryck faked being feral for a season 19. How Star had a piece of the spell book 20. What Mr. Candle’s Deal is 21. The Pie Folk knowing the true lineage of the queen 22. Was the commission conspiracy ever made public.  23. Meteora possibly having memories from her previous self 24. Lobster Claws 25. River’s reaction to moon’s betrayal 26. Toffee’s Past  and Motivations 27. Marco’s Cheekmarks 28. Any reaction by Star and Janna to said cheekmarks 29. The kingdom’s reaction to the book being stolen is never brought up again 30. The Past Queens (Never brought up in show itself, but Jess feels there was supposed to be more there and I agree) 31. The Septarian Painting in ST.O’s (While i’ts a hint at who meteora is WHY it’s there and why ST. O would even allow it and why it’s of septarians is never explained) 32. Monster Arm 33. Relicor’s Wife 34. Why the dance memory was different 35. How do people in other dimensions get dimensional scissors? 36. How Did Toffee Know of the Whipsering Spell? 37. Where did Toffe, Ludo and Rasticore’s dimensonal scissors/chainsaw come from? 38. Toffee’s Damage to Mewni (Never gets brought up aagain after silver bell) 39. Why Globgor eating Shastacan was “Complicated” 40. Upwards Waterfall Unicorn 41. Star spying on Marco and Jackie 42. Any Explination for Green Magic 43. The photo’s of star and marco’s kiss (To quote jess, into the void they go) 44. How Metora Learned Soulsucking and why she can do that 45. Metora taking Rasticores arm with her.  46. The Neverzone’s weird time dialation 47. Star’s Neglect of Tom 48. The Spiderbites reaction to globgor being freed 49. The “Big Surge of Dark Magic” 50. Eclipsa “gets into your head 51. Star learning wandless magic with no effort 52. Where did Brian Go? 53. Star and Marco Never apologize for the kiss on screen 54. “I know how this all ends 55. Why Lekmet was never Replaced and why reynadlo didsn’t replace him

55 in the span of an hour.. and that’s not even getting into the fact Jess was thinking these up off the top of her head and probbaly coudl’ve kept going, but I didn’t want to overtax her since I was asking a favor of her, and  fifty goddamn three is more than enough to say ya done fucked up. Just.. holy shit. MARVEL has less dropped plotlines than this, and that at least has the caveat of changing writers and some writers being dipshits who don’t CARE about resolving what happened before. The Star team has an excuse for maybe 10 or 20 of these.. but 55! Fifty Goddamn five! And that’s stopping as we could probably have found more and just tying this paragraph we did, hence 55. How much do you have to NOT care about your audience, your plots and your characters to miss this much? The three I mentioned before all have understandable explinations behind them: She-Ra had a set episode count and only so much space and it made more sense story wise to have scorpia be taken over by the horde. Ducktales is on a kids network and Disney isn’t at all supportive of adult plots to the point a courtroom episode was deemd too confusing for kids... which first off , no, and secondly you see what they were dealing with. and Steven Universe again did this slightly intentionally, with things happening offscreen because that’s how life works, sometimes it worked sometimes it didn’t. 

This is just incompetence on a MASSIVE scale that boggles the goddamn mind. I have seen shows do worse, but i’ve never seen a show flush most of i’t spoteital drama nad character development down a goddamn hole again, and again and again in such a consitent manner. There’s no wonder I didn’t see this at the time. This is a level of messed up you have to see from helicopter view! The show just stopped carring about finishing most of it’s storylines and just brought shit up when it was convient and threw it out on a scale that just... just.. 

It sucks. It sucks to see a show that had so much potetial squander it, it sucks the show ended up like this, as only a handful of those are from pre season 3, and it sucks that the clock is ticking on how much good I have to say about the show without having to add the button “And then this was never properly resolved.” Good. Fucking. Grief. And Jess wanted to find MORE, and probably could, but I didn’t want her to dedicate her life to this. It’s monuentally frustrating, and saddening to see waht a waste of potetial this series was by the end. All of this is one big list of what if and most of it shoudl’ve been resolved in some way. “Sigh”.... let’s move on.. for my sanity’s sake. I made myself very sad. 

So with Marco out of the way Tom and Star start investigating and Tom is a bit of a dick about it, suggesting they abandon the search for her friend and his CHLDREN to go get a corn shake and that the monsters just went out grocery shopping.. the former is just horribly out of character, as even if he would WANT to leave he woudln’t be so cavialer about it when sh’es this upset just a few episodes AFTER monster bash, where he learned you know.. not to do that. The other is just ehhh... like you think he’d react to an entire town being missing and Star’s JUSTIFIED fear mina did it , after she easily swatted both of them aside, with more than “eh maybe their doing pesant stuff I don’t know” Thankfully the “Tom is a huge dick and also star is grossed out by him liking monster food revealing she might still be a touch racist without realizing it, which itself is nver touched on, let’s call that number 54″, portion of the episode ends when dark gets a little something on him

Star gets one in her arm, and the two pass out and wake up with sacks over them. We do get the best part of the episdoe where both try to run around blind, and Tom realizes he’s claustrophbic and starts panicking, which results in him falling around and kicking in a circle, while Star takes a guy out and while she can’t see assumes she did something cool. Eventually we find out their kidnappers are related to the buff frog thing and tell her to stop looking and just to be serious are going to break tom’s horns... before Buff Frog arrives wondering what the fuck their thinking and stopping them, and he and his kids are fine. Turns out he’s leaving Mewni and Katrina, his oldest daughter who has giant legs now, wanted to make sure they got to say goodbye, so she left the note in his name knowing Star would come and find them. Before we get into all of that, just a quick aside.. okay so baiscally these monsters who threatened are either fleeing mewni or running some sort of underground railroad to cover up the monster exodus. Which begs the question... why did they tihnk breaking the horns of a crowned prince of one of their allied states and kidnapping and threatning the princess of mewni, who is PUBLICLY pro monster and thus only makes them look worse, was at all a good idea. I get wanting to hdie this but breaking Tom’s horns is only going to lead to a fight at best and two kingdoms coming down at them with their full might, putting innocent people in the crossfire at worst and most likely

But yes the Monsters are leaving.. and this is part of where the episode misteps as the scale is kind of hard to figure in hindsight. On one hand the montser villiage is abandoned , meaning that the episode implies ALL the monsters are leaving.. but not only are some left, once Eclipsa takes over plenty of monsters come back or may of never left, making nit very vauge just how many actually left, especially since the party leaving that we see is just about 10 monsters not including buff frog’s babies.. where did they come from by the way? Ludo just kinda stole them but from where? Jess brought that up but i’m not sure I got it on the list so 55. The show is entirely too vauge on if this is a mass exodus of eveyr monster at long last or just a large migration of them wanting a better life. Instead of explaining any of this when it’s a very intresting and engrossing idea, the monsters leaving the predjuicde outright, the possible hateful reactoins of the commission given how paranoid they are, how star would combat this, a possible divide in monsterkind with one half going back and the other staying put, WHERE they went exactly.. there’s a lot of great questions and stories here.. but as the list the size of my gut should make clear, none of them get answere dbecause this series just didn’t care about it.. and if so then WHY bring it up. That’s why I brought up the list in the first place.. because this is one of MANY times they bring something up and just.. do nothing with it. Then why did you bring it up in the first fucking place?! As I said I can abide by dropping a plot point for time or beacause Disney is kinda dumb or you just want to get to other good stuff and you had to make a cut. And while a portion of the list is that. i’ts mostly things like this: really fascenating stuff.. that’s ignored because htey just stopped caring. 

So before they all can leave despite Star’s best efforts, TOM steps up and calls them cowards.. and admit’s he’s a monster too. And while one.. WEIRD looking guy points out he’s rich, so should he count, Tom counters with the fact that sure he’s rich.. but when he gets in an elevator he’s a monster. He may be part of a diffrent “catageory”.. but to a stranger he’s just the same as them. While it dosen’t feel quite earned by the episode, it is a moral that needs to be taught: prilvage dosen’t insulate you completely from prejudice. You can still be discrminated against no matter how much money you have or how far you get because the system sucks.  And once again this is a waste of potetial: tom technically being a monster and being the son of a human and a demon is never brought up again.. despite you know also being a massively powerful monster child of a monster and a mewman.. like a certain someone who’se the big bad for this half of the season. It just never comes up... and I get it’s a categorical bullshit thing, that the comission werne’t worried about a lucitor doing any of this because “Well demons are okay and we have a treaty and stuff”, but the show had no trouble pointing out categorical bullshit before.. why not now? 

The ending however is good as Buff Frog.. isn’t convinced. HE admit’s tom’s speech is good.. but he’s been dealing with this stuff for too long. It also works because him leaving the job they never focused on.. isn’t framed as him being ungreatful or anything. He’s genuinely appricative of what Star is trying to do and gets her heart is in the right place.. but she doesn’t have the power to fix this. She’s just a kid, and while she has some power her mother has no real intention of making things better for them. And he has to think of a better life for his kids.. so we get some tearful goodbyes as Buff Frog promises to return when she’s in charge.. even though he does because she’s in charge in the season finale and we never see him , 56, and he has to be talked into coming back in the last season... so they leave but Tom promises her it can work out because their a monster and a mewman and they hug and I sigh a little knowing how this relationship ends and the accidental message it sends. 

Final Thoughts: This episode is DECENT on it’s own but in hindsight.. it’s just depressing, bringing up some good ideas.. that end up going nowhere and the ending REALLY isn’t great in hindsight when he leaves star so she can be with another human-type person. Also tom’s charcterization is a bit lopsided starting off worse than ever and being fine in the end, and while that COULD just be that he felt he coudln’t admit he was a monster... it honestly just feels liked they wanted the moral without having to work for it as him being a monster has nothing to do with how he acted earlier. Till the next rainbow... UUGGGGHHHh. 

[honestlyhufflepuff]

Taking a closer look at “Why So Blue”

This episode was a lovely break from Steven’s “baggage,” instead focusing on the growth Lapis has had. It was visually beautiful, with a touching new song from Lapis, and an interesting contrast from gems that remind her of her old self.

However, I feel this episode has been a little neglected in the fandom as far as the things it tells us about Steven and the world around him. Remember, Future is primarily about Steven’s arc and anything revealed about another character is bound to reveal something about him as well. “Why So blue” has been overshadowed by more dramatic episodes that had Steven’s anger and negative feelings at the forefront. This is no surprise, as seeing Steven’s issues manifesting so intensely is still such a new thing for the fans to process. This episode has Steven acting closer to his lighthearted, optimistic “old self” than any other one in SUF, and I wanted to delve into the implications of that. Let’s break down some things the episode establishes…

1. Despite his “outbursts,” Steven is still a Pacifist at heart.

This look was all it took for Lapis to regain control of herself. In this episode- this moment- is when he really seemed the most like “Classic Steven.” He’s not shouting at her to stop, or joining in the fight. He is just believing in Lapis’s growth and giving her the space to come around on her own. I don’t think the Steven we saw in “Guidance” would have done that. Part of this shift is due to his personal growth, but it’s also probably because he is falling back into his old role of pacifying hostile gems, which is what he knows best and what he’s comfortable with. That isn’t healthy, especially considering how much we’ve seen him panic when he doesn’t have someone to fix in later eps. However, it’s still a relief to see that fighting is not his first recourse despite his new “pink” powers making an appearance almost every episode.

2. Our Lapis is far stronger than your average Lapis. It is unclear if she was designed to be this way or if it is a result of her trials. Regardless, the Crystal Gems should be very grateful she’s on their side. She has the potential to rival a Diamond in combat.

She fixin’ to mess y’all up.

3. Steven has had growth over the course of SUF.

I bring this up because I think even though Steven is facing a very real personal crisis regarding his growth, he’s still had positive changes since the original series, and since the start of Future.

Lapis: I wish I hadn’t done that. They just remind me so much of myself. It’s infuriating.

Steven: Give yourself a break. You’ve grown a lot. It’s not your fault they’re stuck in their ways.

Contrast Steven’s attitude in this scene with his attitude towards Jasper back in Little Homeschool, after agonizing about his inability to change her:

Are you just going to sit here…waiting for someone to give you a purpose? Because I’m TRYING to give you one!

There have been obvious parallels between Jasper and Steven in this series, as Jasper is possibly the only character almost as stuck in the past as Steven is. I don’t know if Steven is self aware enough to realize that Jasper set him off so easily because he saw himself in her, like Lapis did in the HW Lapises. What he has realized is that not all gems will change in the way he imagined they should, and that’s ok. Him and Jasper, as far as we know, are not exactly friends, but they have an understanding of each other. Jasper may always be stuck in her ways, and Steven has apparently made peace with the fact that her bitterness is not his burden. He even sees value in the fact that she sees the world differently from him, and wants to learn from her.

This was a huge point of growth for Steven. All he did through the main series was try to fix people, and it’s obviously taken a toll on him. The only problem is now that he’s let go of his need to fix others by leaving Little Homeschool, he doesn’t know how to do anything else.

Steven has moments of self awareness regarding his issues (in between all the repression, avoidance, and denial) throughout SUF. One is in this moment with with Lapis, where he articulates that you can’t blame yourself for someone else not wanting to change and grow. He admitted to the Rose Quartzes that he’s “not fine,” but vehemently says the opposite to anyone else. He admits to Pink Pearl that he has “baggage,” although he won’t elaborate. He admits to Amethyst that his need to control others is a problem. He admits to his friends- under extreme duress and prodding- that he is having a hard time coping with cange. He opens up to “Cactus Steven” more than anyone, but after how that turned out the next time he opens up won’t come very easily.

My point is, Steven is still growing as a person, but it is a slow process due to all the trauma he is processing, compounded with having powers just as volatile as his emotions are.

4. HW gems are having a hard time letting go of the old caste system.

He’s half Diamond. Maybe we should half listen.

If the Lapises were really listening to Steven in the first place, then their primary motivation for listening to him would not be him being “half diamond.” The whole point of him overthrowing the empire was to create an equal society where Diamonds wouldn’t dictate what everyone does anymore.

How can the thing we’ve always done just suddenly be wrong?

Everyone is having trouble adjusting to this new equality in practice, including Steven. This is a massive, ancient, complex dictatorship that is now adjusting to a new government created by a human teenager. A Diamond is the one teaching and leading the new way things work, so of course it’s a mixed message for HW gems who have him telling them everyone is equal, but also that they no longer can do what they want to if it impedes his vision. I certainly wouldn’t want to be in Steven’s position. It would make most people uncomfortable to tell someone that the thing they were created for- that they also take joy and pride in- is now not only obsolete but morally wrong. Hooray for minors dealing with the nuances of cultural sensitivity in their galactic imperialism!

“He’s smaller than I thought.

Funny that this was the same thing said by the Rose Quartzes. It’s probably hard for any gem to imagine a Diamond that is not massive and imposing, but Steven is still pretty small even for a human (and still shorter than Connie). I can imagine this is why Jasper was so quick to reject him as her Diamond. Steven does not project the towering picture of immortal and flawless power as the other Diamonds have, and this is inevitably disappointing to gems that have long valued that image.

You really expect us to dance and sing like Pearls?

Gem society was not lacking in the arts, but they were strictly reserved for the elite and those who served to perform for them.

It’s interesting that Peridot had no idea what music was, and I presume this is because she was in a lower status than Lapis. The problem is not that the HW Lapises were unaware of artistic expression, but that they found it beneath them. The Lapises take pride in being instruments of power and destruction, the opposite of how everyone perceives Pearls. It’s no surprise they perceived such a heartfelt song from a fellow Lapis as “pitiful.”

Despite the fact that Pearls were very close to those in power, they had none of their own, and even Peridot considered herself above them when she first arrived from Homeworld. Pearls were created to be objects. Status symbols. Pretty little ornaments. Music boxes. And gems created for more “practical” purposes than entertaining the elite and opening doors would see anything associated with Pearls as beneath them.

5. Hot take: Lapis’s approach wasn’t totally in the wrong.

Lapis: We’ve just got to force them to stop. They’re not nice like me.

Steven: Ummm *avoids eye contact*

Lapis: Exactly.

The HW Lapises- much like Jasper- valued physical power over other virtues. Lapis beat herself up a lot for her loss of restraint, but communicating a bit with a show of the type of power the Lapises valued was enough to get them to listen. Steven’s approach alone clearly wasn’t working.

Sometimes people think so differently from you that you have to meet them halfway to have any hope of getting through to them. Steven did this when he agreed to fight Jasper.

I think the main reason he feared Lapis taking this approach was because he knew her past. He knew how hard she was to reign in once she got started, and how drastic she could be in confrontation. I mean, that’s why we have the entire Malachite story arc.

Restraint takes strength! Patience takes strength! Ugh, I don’t have the strength to deal with you.

However, Lapis has grown past that stage of her life, where her trauma ruled all her interactions with others. She has friends- like Steven and Peridot- who keep her grounded. She has developed healthy coping skills and outlets for her processing her emotions. This is why is so concerning to see Steven doing the opposite. The more fragile his mental state becomes, the more he distances himself from his closest friends and interests.

Lapis had the self awareness to realize she was slipping into old habits and losing control, and removed herself from the situation to cool down. That is huge for her.

Not every gem is going to want to go to Little Homeschool, and there’s probably a lot of them that still like fighting and destruction- especially if that’s what they were made for. Era 3 is so bent on avoiding violence that there isn’t really an outlet for pent up aggression (which Steven could use as well, btw). I think starting up some kind of gem dojo would be a great alternative instead of just expecting every gem to like the “softer” things like dancing and making meep morp.

Also, just imagine Jasper as a dojo master. Hell yeah.

6. Most people probably do not realize that Steven is struggling.

Wow, Steven. It took you a whole 5 seconds to make a new friend. You’re getting rusty.

I found this quote from Lapis telling. She still sees Steven as being able to make and keep friends effortlessly. In “Room for Ruby,” she was actually relieved to hear Ruby’s immediate love for earth was all an act, laughing and saying “No one could be that well adjusted.” The only exception to this rule for her seems to be Steven. She looks to him for stability, just like she did in the fight with the other Lapises.

In reality, Steven is terrified of his friends moving on and changing, while also being resentful if they don’t recognize he has changed. He has unresolved trauma that is eating away at him and causing him to have emotions he doesn’t know how to handle. However, most people probably see Steven as he presented in “Why So Blue-” gentle, charismatic, and carefree. It is not uncommon with mental illness to be “high functioning” in public and then come undone the moment you are home around your immediate family.

Even after the very public display of his stress in “Little Graduation,” none of his friends were like “dude, you’re scaring me, please go to therapy.” They saw one incident, but not the whole picture, so none of them seemed to really grasp how bad things are going for him. This is because Steven is still pretty adept at putting up a positive front most of the time.

***

Anyways, I just wanted to revisit this episode and give it some love. Feel free to RB and tell me things you noticed about it that I may have missed!

[aspiestvmusings]

My wildest WandaVision Theory

SPOILERS for WandaVision..thoughout season 1 + several MCU films

This is the wildes theory I have had, I think. And I am 99% ertain this cannot be correct. But then again, I expect some surprise twists, so...

In this theory I focus on some things/details/facts from the MCU (and coming films) & some comics details & ignore others. And even though they like to use the comics as the building blocks for their films & shows, they do also change things up, so I do not expect them to follow the “comics canon” hence I’m prepared for surprises:

What we know of the MCU:

Infinity War events takes place in 2018. Wanda & Vision have had a secret relationship for two years by this time. And though many are wondering “when did he/they buy the property & how does that fit into all of their story”, I personally found that those “flashback” memory scenes filled the missing pieces from the puzzle grom past films. And it fits perfectly. With the “what if I don’t go back” scene, etc. I suspect that Vision bought that plot before the events of Infinity War. And Wanda was given the envelope along with other of his belongings after she returned from the Blip. The “love persevering” scene showed us how they connected & fell in love...while watching TV (he learned to be human also through the sitcoms & though her & she learned to not be so afraid of her “weirdness” thanks to him).

Wanda had to kill Vision in 2018, then see Thanos reverse time & bring back Vision only to kill him again...”for good”. Then she got Snapped (dusted).

When she returned “10 seconds later” she learned that 5 years had passed, and it was 2023. She didn’t find Vision next to her. But she had no time to process the Snap, Blip & losing Vision, because she was immediately thrown into the Endgame fight. (where she almost killed Thanos...until Tony used the ultimate “misdirection” trick and helped them defeat Thanos & his army for good.) Then shortly after she went to Tony’s funeral, where she had that lakeside talk with Hawkeye about those they lost (I still say that they were talking about Nat & Vision, because those are the losses that affected them the deepest personally, cause they were the closest to them)

Then a few days/weeks after that (just a few weeks after the Blip/she returned), and after she had been caught up on the 5 years she missed, and she was given his belongings, she went to SWORD to get him back/so that she could bury him (give him a goodbye ceremony). Then she created the hex out of her grief, when she was denied a proper goodbye to her soulmate (that whole things was, no doubt, a show put on by Hayward...that was made obvious in ep 8: and I’m still unsure about the colours: The “just died” Vision in IW turned basically gray, the “taken into parts” Vision on the disply tables was almost normal tone purple”, & the “brought back online” White Vision a week later was all white...with a “Tony’s triangle-shaped arc reactor element” instead of the Mind Stone in his head. The colours & small timeframe confuse me a bit).

Then she has been living in this “fantasy reality” for the past week or so...in real-world-time. Everything we’ve seen in WV has happened during a week or so in real world time. And for her everything from Scotland to WestView has happened in less than a month.

While creating the hex (from her red magic), she also created a Vision 2.0 (we have now been explained that she can create things “out of nothing”, not just transform them as Jimmy-Darcy-Monica suspected) from  her “yellow magic” I might be wrong, but I think the IW blast (and possibly the Sokovia experiment blast) not only awakened & heightened the superpowers in her, but that she was also blasted with the energy of the Mind Stone...the same one that gave vision life originally. So that mindstone energy has been “inside her” ever since & she “transformed it” into the new Vision. The Vision from her memories. and I think that just like her kids, Vision is “real” (how else can Hayward track the vibranium decay signature)...aka she created both Vibranium, and possibly a new Mind Stone even (though it is possibly he is powered by her magic alone & the stone is just accessory), but this Vision in this form cannot survive outside the hex.

We know that they brought up (via Darcy & Visions talk) that Vision is a mixture of many things. Part Jarvis. Part Ultron. Part Mind Stone. Part Tony & Bruce, and not only... We know that Vision has evolved thoughout his existance. And he wants to be/do good, and wants to be more human. But this Vision does not remember anything prior the hex because he was “rebooted”, so he does not have real memories of their time prior this really. And while he acts like her Vision, the hex Vision is not her old Vision either, really. Just one part of what made him him, and that made them connect.

We know that Shuri was able to download some of Vision’s conciousness/memories & would have been able to remove the Time Stone and still have had him live..if she’d had more time.

We know that Hayward has had Vision’s body (physical form) for a while, and he’s been trying to bring him back to life...for the purpose of using him as  weapon against “threats”. We saw that thanks to getting access to Wanda’s magic powers he was able to bring his re-assambled White Vision (colourless, soulless, empty shell...without a soul) back online...to life. What I want to know from finale is how did SWORD got  hold of The Visions body & what is that “iron man” arch reactor (triangle) in his forehead? Cause they have changed the design, a bit. 

Why wasn’t he still in Wakanda (the vibranium he's made of belongs to them), or with Avengers (Tony was gone when he died, but he returned 3 months later & though the team has been busy lately, why was it not with them? I guess V. was transported there sometime during first two years after Snap, when Maria was still running SWORD, cause Tony/Avengers kinda trusted her. And he stayed there even after... Tony was one of the few who saw Vision as “human”, he was kind of one of his “kids”, so I think this is one of the reasons he didn’t want to hold onto the body himself. But he also understood that Vision had evolved, and that Wanda was the his “next of kin”, not him, so he was holding onto the body until she returned, cause I think he was sure/had hope they’d undo the snap. And I guess he trusted Sword/Maria, because he “trusted” Fury, hence he probably decided to let them hold onto the body. Unless Hayward used tricks to get a hold of it once he took over, since Avengers/others were probably focused on “Thanos”, so no time to deal with government baddies. Also, maybe based on the Sokovia accords the vibranium in Vision’s body belongs to the government, not Tony, hence he let them keep the shell? Cause based in Haywards comments they've had the body longer than past weeks... after Tony died. )

And we can be 100% certain that in the Finale the two Visions will fight each other. [sidenote: Paul Bettany is the best! I love his “inside joke” of getting to act with an actor he’s always wanted to have a scene with...himself...as Two different versions of Vision. It’s the best!] The questions remain: will both die...from Wanda’s hands and/or due to the hex collapsing? Will one die (hex-vision) leaving us with just the empty body without the soul (until in some future film they are able to unite the two). Or will they both kinda surive aka will they merge into one, and we will get our old Vision kinda back already?

I am also almost certain that White Vision in WV finale will be voiced by the same man, who voiced Ultron...that would be such a “shock” to hear. (only RDJ being the voice would be as worthy of an inside joke...cause originaly Paul voiced his/Tony’s AI, Jarvis & now he’d voice Paul’s/Vision’s AI...so opposite, but not as “shocking”)

I do not think both the Twins & Vision will survive. I doubt they’ll give Wanda a happy ending... like the sircoms she watched as a kid. So one has to “die”. Since they made it a big deal to show the twins manifest their powers...at age 10 (10 = X), just like their mom, Wanda did first...at age 10 (X = X gene), and there will definitely be X-men & mutants in the future of MCU, I don’t think they'd get rid of the kids after laying the groundwork (Billy & Tommy will definitely get access to their powers & help mom & dad fight the bad guys), so I’m leaning towards the kids surviving. Because she did not just create them, she gave birth to them, so I’d say they can/will survive outside the hex. As Monica put it: Wanda’s kids are real. And even if the sitcom reality looks fake, everything there is real (as real as possible...she actually created the materials & all)

One possible happy, but sad ending would be that both survive: Twins, who stay with her & Vision, who will not be her Vision anymore, but the empty shell. And since she “can’t feel him” in the new form anymore, that’s the sad part. That even though he, too, survives, he’s not hers anymore.

But there is another possibility...that the Twins won’t make it (and they’ll be reborn somehere later... or Wanda doesn’t know they survived, and re-united with their parents...just like in Parent Trap...). But Vision will survive..either as his old self or as just a shell. And that’s the unhappy ending... she gets Vision back, but not her Vision, not The Vision. And she has to help him evolve... it’ll take time for him to “have emotions”. But the twist will be that Wanda was and is pregnant IRL actually.

I am basing this on the timeline we have.

Because the events of WandaVision take place in 2023 (sometime in summer-autumn) & Spiderman 2: Far From Home takes place 8 months after the Blip & 7-8 months after WandaVision. Now...since it’s literally been just a few weeks since Infinity War for Wanda....what if she is actually pregnant? What if she was prior to the Snap? That would make her story here even more heartbreaking - sad, but also happy. Cause based on FFH we know the world is slowly healing from the events, but it’s not in full chaos, so there has to be a “pause” between now & then. Otherwise...Peter/SpiderMan would probably have been more sure about multiverse & there would be more chaos or something than we see in FFH?

And... the events of Spiderman 3 & Dr. Strange 2 will most likely take place right after FFH, so about 8 months from now, and we saw how everything “glitched” when she was giving birth inside the hex. So what if all hell breaks free when she does that in real reality then? And that’s what sets the multiverse events rolling in the upcoming films? Cause why is it happening 8+ months from the Blip/WV/now, not right away. It seems that she won’t be ripping open the multiverse just yet. If she were, wouldn’t Peter/Spiderman have had inside info of it being certain [he seems to not be in FFH, when he talks to the Fake Mysterio] Why will it happen only about 8 months from now? What’s the delay?

I know...crazy wild theory. But I’m just trying to look at the timeline here. Cause either she’ll just spend the next months recovering and/or practicing her new-found skills (her mom did not teach Agatha, but Dr. Strange will guide Wanda on her journey to learn to understand & use & control her powerful abilities) and hence the “calm before the storm” time. Or there’s another reason. And the timeline would fit. Though it could be 8 months simply because the FFH events had to take place during summr vacation... But the kinda calm state of the universe & the specific 8 months “timejump” in FFH makes me suspicious.

FFH also tells us that to the knowledge of general public the fallen Avengers include Tony, Nat, and Vision. But also Cap. So... either Old Cap dies soon of old age/somehow OR the informtion released to the public is not completely accurate. If it’s the first, then Vision cannot make it alive from WV (but could be resurrected at some future time, cause Wanda can create the soul, SWORD has the original body, and Shuri has some of his old database, so...) If it’s the latter then either it’s not the same Vision anymore, but a different one or they’ll just keep him a secret so that other Hayward’s won’t come after him to use him as a weapon. Until the show started I presumed that Vision is gone, for certain.

 But...he’s not a regualar human, he’s part machine, so he is one of those characters they can bring back...even if in a different form. (question is: will they & would they.. would Wanda/Avengers do that...if it goes against The Visions living will? They could & would, I think..if the fate of the universe depended on it..if they needed him on their team)

Because...as they said in WV...it’s all for/because of the children... 

And I know... he is a synthezoid (essentially a robot/machine). But... that’s the thing. In this magical universe the laws of our regular world don’t seem to appy (or rather: tech is so advanced it seems like magic?) at times. The thing is...he is not juyst a robot, an android. He is part machine, part human. And weve seen he’s evolved...beound what “parents” (Tony & co) thought was possible & what Vision himself thought was possible. He got distracted during a missio, because he developed feelings (at age 2 years or so). He’s been shown to be able to feel, cry (produce tears). So..who knows... maybe he can also procreate... with the help of Wandas magic (who can make anything she wants happen...). Even though logic tells me it’s not possible, and his tears etc are synthetic, and he’s kind of a  different species...then I’ve decided that the laws of the world as I know don’t have to apply exactly...in this world. 

I mean...the MCU has a character whose mother is a human woman & father is a planet (in human form). Hence I’ve accepted that what I know to be impossible could be possible in this MCU fantasy universe. Hence I don’t question how or why could Wanda & Vision have offspring...for real. 

THE END

PS. Once again...this does not fit the comics. This is not the simplest route. But it’s one of the wild theories I’ve had. And I wanted to share it. Even if I don’t think that it could become canon. If it were based on comics, then Billy & Tommy would be reclaimed by Agatha’s master & we’d know how & why all this...

[mirkwoodshewolf]

Legend of the band; AU Ghost! Queen x teen reader

*Author’s note*

Hey guys well this is a story that's been going through my head for a few days. I was originally gonna save this before Halloween but I figure I just go ahead and post this now in case I lost it amongst all my other writings in the near future. So background on this story it takes place in present day and the band members of Queen are ghosts.  Now I want to also put this out, I've inspired the ghosts designs from Guillermo Del Toro's film Crimson Peak. So just type in how the ghosts look and you'll see just why I've made the boys ghosts different colors.

Warnings: Swearing, death, slight attempted of assault (ALWAYS ASK PERMISSION BEFORE YOU TRY TO KISS SOMEONE), some horror elements?, fluff and angst.

*EDIT 7-27-20* NEW PARTS DOWN BELOW!!!

Part 2

Part 3

Taglist:

@plethora-of-things​

@waddles03​

@psychosupernatural​

@ixchel-9275​

@simonedk​

@platawnic​

@geek-and-proud​

@jd-johndeacon-or-jackdaniels​

@queendeakyy​

@queensdivas​

@kairosfreddie​

@eileen-crys​

_________________________________________________________

It started off as a dare-pact that my friends wanted to do.  Every year around Halloween we try to do some sort of Halloween dare together whether it was going to a graveyard, using a Ouija board, or crashing a Halloween party in one of the upper class neighborhoods dressed as monsters and scare the shit out of them.

It was either one person or we would do it as the entire group and this year we decided to do our next Halloween dare as a group.  The ringleader of the group Aaron gathered us up in our private clubhouse (his basement) and we were all gathered around to discuss just what we were going to do.

“Right, I call this meeting of the Halloween dare to order.” Aaron proclaimed.

“So what’s the plan for this year?” asked Brandon.

“How bout we go downtown and scare the little kids at the daycare during their Halloween party?” suggested Jake.

“No that’s just cruel even for us.” Said Amy.

“I agree.” I added. “Besides you just want to do that cause you’re little brother’s gonna be there, right?”

“So what? The little asshole got me into trouble last week. He deserves some payback.” Jake hissed.

“Alright Jake settle down. Okay so we had Amy and Susan do the Ouija board last year.”

“Which I still don’t forgive you guys. I swear I think my house is still haunted.” Susan said.

“Oh I’ve got it!” Proclaimed Brandon.

“Lay it on us Bran.” Aaron said.

“Three words for you guys. Rockfield. Farm. studios.” At that point everyone went silent.

“ARE YOU INSANE!?!?” exclaimed Amy.

“Yeah Brandon do you want to commit suicide or something!? Do you hate life!?” Jake snapped.

“Brandon, why in the fuck would you suggest that?” I asked.

“Oh come on! We’ve done practically the same stupid shit every time. Yeah sure the Ouija board could do some serious things but never have we actually tried to go to a real haunted house. So why not Rockfield farm?”

“Wait, I don’t get it. What’s Rockfield farm?” Susan asked.  Susan was the recent member to join the horror crew when she moved here from Michigan. Almost no one wanted to speak that was until I finally told her the legend.

“Rockfield farm was used as a recording studio a long time ago. Like back in the 70’s. Anyway there was this up and coming band called Queen. You know the ones who made the song Killer Queen?”

“Oh yeah my mom still has her vinyl record of that album.” Susan said.

“Well anyway, in the summer of 1975 they went to record their next record. Legend says it would’ve been their greatest album yet. It could’ve really made them even more famous than they were. But—an accident occurred at that farm.”

“What happened?” she asked.

“Well that’s where the story gets a little iffy. There have been several theories throughout time on what happened.” I explained.

“One theory is that an electrical fire happened while the band was in the studio, and they couldn’t escape in time and ended up being burned alive.” Jake said.

“Another theory is that someone broke into the property and slaughtered the band mates in their sleep.” Amy said.

“A slightly different version to that theory is that it was actually the band’s assistant that killed them in cold blood. Apparently he was in love with the front man. And in rejection he slaughtered the whole band before killing himself.”

“Whichever story you choose to believe in, it is said that the ghosts of the band members still haunt the property to this day. And anyone who has entered inside, is never seen again.” Aaron finished.

“Which is why not even I will go there.” Jake emphasized.

“Oh what’s wrong Jake? Don’t got the balls to make a drive up there and spend the night in the haunted farm?” teased Brandon.

“Shut up arsehole! At least I have balls.” Brandon was just about to pounce on Jake when Amy stopped the two of them by pushing Brandon back onto the floor and I said.

“Look, I thought it was foolish enough to go to the graveyard at night. But this—this is foolishness. No way am I gonna be possessed by a ghost or anything like that.”

“You know what you guys are all chicken!” Brandon exclaimed. “We’ve done almost every single Halloween dare known to man and you lot are scared to go to a little haunted house in the country and spend the night there.”

“He’s right.” Aaron finally spoke up.

“I’m sorry what?” Amy snapped.

“He’s right. We’ve been pulling out the same stuff every year but with different people. There’s no real haunted places here in the city but Rockfield is the closest thing we can get to.”

“Thank you!” Brandon exclaimed.

“Aaron, I swear to god if you make me go to that place we are finished! Do you hear me finished!” Amy snapped as she walked right up towards her boyfriend of 3 years.

“Sorry babe, I’ve made my mind up. We’ll leave in 2 days. Meeting adjourned.” Oh god what has Brandon done?

Later that night I was staring up at the full moon from my window when my nana came in.

“I thought I had told you to go to bed sweetheart. You’ve got school in the morning.”

“Couldn’t sleep nana.” I said solemnly.

“Alright, what’s wrong?” she said as she came up and sat down next to me.

“Just something my friends want me to do.”

“Those troublemakers that always make you trespass on private property? Or crash a party? Honestly (y/n) I don’t know why you hang out with kids like that.”

“They’re my friends nana. They always got my back when I need them.” She sighed and surrendered.

“Alright, alright. But what’s gotten you so rattled up?” now I couldn’t really tell her just what was going on.  She’d never let me go on a road trip to Rockfield farm so I had to think of something.

“They—they suggested going on a trip and…..I don’t like to leave you alone.” She smiled at me and tucked a strand of hair.

“Oh poppet. I maybe old but I’m not frail. How long are you planning on leaving?”

“It’s just for Halloween. We’ll be back the next day.”

“Okay then. Now even though I don’t approve of your friends behavior, I can’t stop you from going out Halloween night. Just promise you’ll stay out of trouble.”

“I will.” That’s a promise that not even I know how to keep. “And you’re sure you’ll be fine?”

“Yes, yes. And don’t worry, your father won’t hear a thing from me.”

“Really?”

“I’m his mother. I don’t have to tell him anything.” She winked at me. “Now go to sleep.” She lectured me before giving me a kiss goodnight and we both told each other I love you.

Two days later it was time.  Right after school, we all piled in Brandon’s RV and we drove the long drive to the country side to Rockfield studios.  Just as the sun was about to set, we finally arrived at the farm.

God it looks even more desolated and frightening than the pictures.  The entire housing was swamped with vines, weeds, and any other ounce that Mother Nature could throw at it.  The bricks at certain spots were chipped away or even rotting away (how that’s possible I don’t know).

We slowly walked up towards the main house and we just stood before it fearfully.

“Whose gonna go in first?” Amy asked.

“I vote our raining president of this idea Brandon.” Jake said.

“I second that.” Amy replied.

“Ditto.” Said Susan.

“Fine I’ll go in first.” Brandon said as he walked up the steps of the deck before standing before the front door.  He just stood there, still as a statue before Jake cried out.

“Well go on smartass and go in already!”

“I’m going I’m going!” Brandon snapped back.  He took the door handle and slowly opened the door which made an eerie creaking sound. He took one small step into the house before he was suddenly pulled in.

“BRANDON!” we all cried out.  Soon we all piled into the house and it was so dark you could barely make out what was in front of you.  The door suddenly slammed loudly behind us which made a few of us jump.

“Come on Brandon, this isn’t funny!” Jake called out.

“Brandon?” Aaron spoke up.

“Brandon seriously if this is a joke it’s not AHHH!!!” Amy spoke before suddenly screaming as something grabbed her.  We all soon began screaming before a laugh rang out.  Coming out from underneath a white sheet was Brandon.

“You guys should’ve seen your faces!” he laughed.

“You sick fuck who does that!?” Amy said as she began to punch him as hard as she could.

“That wasn’t funny Brandon.” I scowled.

“It was pretty funny!”

“Guys I think I found the light’s switch.” Susan said as she then flipped a switch on and soon the lights came on.

“Okay so we’re here now. Why not have a look around?” Brandon suggested.

“Man do you not know your horror film goofs!? If we split up, the ghosts will hunt us down one. By. one. Starting with the good looking comedy relief guy, me!” Jake proclaimed.

“Get a grip Jake! We’ll split up into pairs. Amy and I will go together and take the barn. (Y/n) you and Susan…..”

“Oh hell no. I can’t even stand to be near Brandon right now!”

“Oh what you a wittle scaredy cat Jakey-wakey?” Brandon teased.

“SHUT UP!!!”

“Alright! Jake you and (Y/n) go take the living room, and Susan you and Brandon can take the upstairs.” Aaron said breaking up the fight with the boys.  I rolled my eyes cause I knew Jake was gonna try to flirt around with me (he’s been doing that since the start of secondary school).

“I can dig with that.” Jake said as he came right up beside me.

“Do you seriously hate me Aaron?” I muttered before we finally split up.

Jake and I came to the living room and saw a small piano right there in the middle of the room, and jointed next to the living room was the kitchen.

“Pretty spooky huh? Just imagine if this piano started playing on its own. But no worries (Y/n), if you get scared you can hold onto me and I’ll protect you.”

“My hero.” I muttered sarcastically.  It was then something caught my eye.  I walked towards a table to see what looked like an old photo album.  I blew away the dust and wiped the cover to see the writing say.

PROGRESS ON LATEST ALBUM

“Whatcha got there?” Jake said as he came up to me and shined his phone flashlight down on the photo album.

“It’s an old photo album book.” Jake scoffed.

“Wow. The only person who has stuff like that are my parents. Man thank god we have technology nowadays. Otherwise no one would get to see my handsome face.” Why does this man even exist? Seriously I don’t see why all the girls on the cheer squad go for him?

“And what a shame that would’ve been.” I muttered as I opened the book up.

“I know right?!” I turned the next page and there were a few photos of Queen inside a recording studio of sorts and below it a caption that spelled,

AT HARD WORK WITH THE LADS. R.M.T.

“What does RMT stand for?”

“I don’t know. Could be some sort of acronym or something. Maybe initials for a name.”

“Well you’re an expert on all those old guys that existed back in the Medieval ages. What were the names of the band that died here?”

“It wasn’t the Medieval ages Jake. It was 40 years ago. And I don’t really know their names. I just know them as Queen.” I flipped to the next page to see a man with long black hair at the piano and the caption under that said.

FRED AT PIANO - Bri.

“Fred huh? He doesn’t look like a Fred to me. And who signs off with Bri?” I shook my head and continued to flip through the pages.  Each picture were of the band doing certain things while recording or just being around the farm, and each picture was signed with initials RMT, JD, FM, or BRI.  Finally the last picture was all four of them together.

“Check out the date.” I said.  In the picture it read 8-13-75. “This was taken the day when the band died.”

“Holy shit you’re right. They must’ve taken this picture just before whatever happened, happened.”

“They look so young.” I said solemnly.

“Yeah. But if they had lived they’d be like—our grandparents by now.” Suddenly I heard a voice.

No wait it was—singing.  I looked around trying to find out where the singing was coming from.  It was—beautiful. Hypnotic almost.  It was the most beautiful sound I ever heard.

“(/n). (Y/n)! Oi (Y/n)!” I was snapped out of it by Jake. “Jesus you looked like you were in a trance or something.”

“Was I? Sorry I….”

“No need to apologize. Hell if it was all about me, then maybe I’ll let it slid.” He said as he stroked up my arm.

“Jake! I’ve tried to let you down easy but please for the last time. I don’t like you that way! So stop with the flirting!”

“Oh c’mon (Y/n). What is there about me that you don’t like?” Gee where do I begin? “C’mon just give me a chance.” He walked closer to me but I tried to push him away.

“No Jake stop! Back off!” suddenly the fireplace just a few feet away from us ignited.  The flames reached as high as they could and call my crazy but I thought I could see someone’s face in the fire.  Jake jumped away from me and that’s when we heard the piano being played.

Play video

It was a random play on the keys at a very fast pace on the upper keys while also hitting a couple of the lower keys every now and then.  

“What the f—” the piano then hit a single key for a couple of beats before finally changing tune to that of a marching tune.  Like someone was coming towards you and you could just hear the beat of their footsteps.

Getting freaked out by the piano, Jake ran screaming out of the living room while I was just frozen in place.  The fireplace suddenly turned off but there was still some sort of light.  I slowly turned around and saw a yellow light ball shining right there.  But it wasn’t just some random ball or something.

This was some sort of spiritual ball because I could see smoke slowly dancing around it as it floated before me.  I wanted to run but I was either too scared or stunned by what just happened.  It was then I heard the singing come back, and it was coming from this spiritual matter in front of me.

And I don’t know how or why but—it made me feel safe.  Listening to the singing that came from this ball, it was like being wrapped up tightly in a warm hug.  Or sleeping in your own bed, like the weight of the world has been dropped from you.

I soon found myself walking towards the yellow spirit ball.  It moved backwards as I walked towards it.  It floated towards the fireplace and I wouldn’t have known if I weren’t in my trance-like state once again, but the fireplace opened up to reveal a long corridor.

*3rd Person POV*

As Jake ran on ahead he soon tackled into someone and that someone ended up being Amy.

“What the hell Jake!? Get off me you perv!”

“Guys! Guys! Guys! P-p-p-p-pi….pi-gh…..(y/n)…..”

“Stop your blabbering and tell us what happened!?” Aaron said as he forced Jake off his girlfriend and helped her up.

“Piano……playing itself. Fireplace……flames go up.”

“What’s he blabbering about?” Brandon’s voice soon spoke up as he and Susan came around the hallway.

“Where’s (Y/n)?” Susan asked worriedly.  They all looked at Jake who still had a look of fright on his face.  They quickly raced towards the living room and they all gasped to see (Y/n) just about to turn right of the long corridor that stood them.

“What the hell!”

“Why did you leave her you dumbass!?”

“(Y/n)!” her friends tried to run after her but the fireplace soon closed back up and the flames were once again fully ignited.  Soon coming out of the flames was a pure white figure.

His hair was all curly and long like a poodle.  He wore a few necklaces 2-3 which were wrapped around his neck while the other one draped over his bare chest due to his shirt having a few of the buttons undone. But what had the kids most horrified was that this man was transparent.

Gentle wisps of smoke flowed from his hair, fingers, and even the cut along his cheek which seeped out small amounts of ghost blood.  His eyes which were a pure dark grey stared right at the young teenagers and he let out a haunting whisper.

“She belongs……to us!” at that phrase the teens all screamed and ran off.  The girls ran towards the backway while the boys ran up the stairs.  The girls raced out towards the barn and hid underneath a hay cart.

“Was that a……” Susan started off.

“No! It couldn’t have been! It’s impossible!” Amy exclaimed in denial.

“Oh it’s entirely possible.” A male voice soon spoke up.  They slowly turned their heads and saw another ghost.

Unlike the one they saw earlier, this one was a blue spirit with haunting ocean like eyes.  His hair was long and flowing and he wore a smug grin on his face.  Susan and Amy were in gawk at this ghost. “Now, now ladies I know I’m a looker but there’s no need to stare.”

They then screamed as they tried to get out but just before they could leave the barn, the doors suddenly shut.

“Leaving so soon? Oh that’s not fair. Not before I’ve had the chance to know your names. God it’s been so long since female company have come to this farm.” Susan and Amy were terrified at the point.  They tried to get the doors open but it was all in vain.  

Suddenly they felt themselves being levitated up in the air and the ghost appeared before them and said in a low, haunting tone.

“And the three of us are gonna have such fun together.” Only the piercing, terrified screams of the girls echoed through the barn.

Back in the house, Brandon, Jake and Aaron all headed for the basement in one of the tightest rooms the house had.  They all panted heavily and Aaron said.

“Did—you guys see what I saw?”

“You mean that curly haired ghost that just said (Y/n) belongs to them. No.” Brandon said.

“Same.” Jake said. The room suddenly got colder than it was, so cold in fact that the boys could now see their breath.  It was then Jake suddenly felt something pick him up by his throat.  He squirmed in the grip of the invisible force.

“Jake!” Aaron called out but then suddenly he and Brandon were pushed up against the wall and they couldn’t move.  No matter how much they squirmed, they couldn’t budge an inch.  Suddenly Jake was thrown down onto the small rickety bed and that’s when he appeared.

A fully black ghost with long hair.  He looked younger than the last ghost they saw but there was something about him that felt—angry.  The young black ghost turned to Jake and his voice which was a soft, honey like tone say.

“If I remember, No always means No. No matter who it is.” He slowly crawled on top of Jake pinning his arms down. “But since you can’t seem to understand what it feels like to be in such a vulnerable position, maybe I should show you.” by the end of his statement his voice suddenly got lower, darker.  Almost sinister.

Through Jake’s eyes he saw as this ghost’s face actually morphed into the Devil himself. Burned and scarred with pure red and black eyes.  Jake screamed in pure terror.

*My POV*

I kept following the light as well as the voice.  The beautiful, soulful, most angelic voice.  God it was—almost inhuman of how this voice could sing.  With such gentleness but also control it when he belted out a note or a phrase.

The light ball quickly faded away and had now become a record player with an album that stood right up against it.  I slowly reached out for it and it read.

QUEEN

A NIGHT AT THE OPERA.

As I held it in my hands there was a moment where I heard screaming.  Wait my friends? They were……

“Play the record darling.” The voice soothed me.  I felt a gentle caress under my chin.  I closed my eyes and took out the record and placed it on the record player. “Play it, play it. You know you want to.” The voice continued to coo.  I turned the record on, lifted the needle but just before I could place it at the top the voice whispered to me again, “Lower.”

I adjusted the needle as the voice continued to whisper lower again and again softly in my ear.

“There!” it suddenly hissed out which frightened me and forced me to let go of the needle and soon a quartet of voices soon began to sing with no instrument backup.

Play video

My god. This……this really was Queen.  I mean I’ve only really heard a few of their songs but this was definitely them.  The way their voices melded together in perfect harmony.  The piano soon came in and I sat down by the record player and just took in this song.

I literally felt like my soul was being sucked out as the vocals took me on a trip.  Then the bass picked up as the leading front man started singing the song, the very voice I’ve been hearing from the spirit force earlier.

As the song continued to play and went on a brief instrumental break, I looked at the record to see just what this song was called because I hadn’t heard a single word that stands out except Mama.  I then saw a finger point to the second to last song.  I looked up and shocked to see one of the band member’s ghost right there with me.

His entire ghost form was the same yellow color as the spirit ball from earlier, his wild hair went down to shoulders and he had an overbite but somehow it worked on him. He looked pretty exotic (by that I knew he wasn’t from London, maybe India or something).  He nodded and gestured to the song again.  I looked down at it and read it out loud.

“Bohemian Rhapsody?” he smiled happily and soon a guitar solo came on.  But along with that, I heard the same guitar playing the same notes, almost as if—holy shit!

A curly haired pure white ghost soon held a red guitar and began playing the exact guitar solo right there.  I turned to the ghost beside me who was still smiling devilishly and he gestured for me to look back at the guitarist.  As I watched the white ghost play the guitar, I was amazed and mesmerized by how he played the guitar.

As a Classic Rock fan I’ve seen the greatest guitar players such as Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Alex Lifeson, and Eddie Van Halen, but this guy—this was unlike anything I’ve ever seen a guitarist do or even play.  It was like his guitar was actually singing a solo, instead of just being an instrument.  Like it was a person, and she sang beautifully.

The song then went quiet as the lights went out and only a single piano note was now playing over and over.  Soon the silhouette of the ghost that led me here stood before me as a single spotlight hit him.  And I don’t know whether the vocals suddenly turned off or whatever but I could actually hear singing right there.

Next thing I know, the yellow and white ghosts are now joined up with a soft blue and pure black ghost.  The four of them standing together in like a diamond shape patter with the yellow and white ghost at top and bottom respectively, the blue ghost was on my right while the black was on the left.  

The four of them once again jointed in a quartet harmony before suddenly their voices boomed out like a canon firing.  And I know it sounds crazy but I swear I think they duplicated themselves about a dozen times to get that full powerful choir sound.  The blue ghost then started to sing in a really high falsetto tone while the yellow ghost backed him up on the lower range before making his voice waver.

This pattern continued as the front man sung again softly and then the other three ghosts (or copies) backed him up.  Wow this song it’s—literally unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.  The way it started soft before BAM exploding right in your face. Just like an Opera.

I bopped my head along to the beat softly to the beat and then when the rock out section came on. I’ll admit I banged my head as hard as I could (may come to regret it later but I didn’t care).  The setting soon changed to an actual rock and roll concert stage and I saw all four of them up on the stage.  

The black ghost on bass, the blue playing the drums, the white playing his guitar and the yellow one center stage, well more like everywhere as he strutted around and sung as loudly as he could.

I smiled and stood up and couldn’t help but jump up and down as I rocked out along with them. The yellow ghost soon went back to the piano and began playing it and as the four ghosts vocalized softly, the song slowly died off the hard rock and grew soft once again.  The yellow ghost sang the last verse as the piano solely took over now just before the white ghost played his guitar for the last time.

Then when the soft bang of a gong, the song ended and the room went dark once more.

“That’s it? Oh come on please that can’t be the end of the song!” the lights soon came back on and I now found myself in a recording studio.  The four ghosts all standing there.  The yellow one came up to me with a soft smile and gently touched the center of my forehead with his index and tall fingers and I felt this warmth come over my yet again.

“We’ve got more songs than that dear, believe me. But this is the one we’re most proudest of.” His normal voice spoke to me.  

“It was either that or I’m in love with my car.” The white ghost groaned out.

“I told you before Brian it’s a metaphor!” the blue ghost snapped.

“After all these years Roger it’s still unusual. What exactly are you doing to that car?” the black ghost sassed.

“Ignore him darling. He’s just a little peeved that after all the fussing and locking himself in a cupboard, his song didn’t get the chance to go on the B side to our single. Which is my masterpiece.” The yellow ghost told me.

“Umm…..not to sound cruel but, I mean I know you guys are Queen but uhh—what are your names?”

“Oh yes that. Silly me. You my darling may call me Freddie Mercury.” The yellow ghost introduced himself with a twirl.

“Brian May. Thank you again for giving us a chance to show you our hard work.” The white ghost introduced himself.  Wow he sure was polite.

“Roger Taylor. And I must say my dear, you are quite adorable, especially when you let loose and rock out.” The blue ghost gave me a wink.  Normally I wouldn’t give flirting a second glance, especially after Jake’s insistent flirting, but for some reason I couldn’t help but blush at his compliment.

“Please forgive him. He always goes crazy over a pretty girl. John Deacon it’s lovely to meet you.” The black ghost said as he gave me a greeting bow of his head.  Freddie, Brian, Roger and John, these guys were the men behind Queen.

“It’s—an honor to meet you four. I’m (Y/n). So—all the times people have been coming into the studio, all you wanted was for someone to listen to your album?”

“Yes, but no one would stick around. All because we’re ghosts.” Freddie whined as he pouted and crossed his arms over his chest.

“And you were the only one who had any sense of musical taste.” Roger pointed out my Hendrix shirt.  I rubbed the back of my neck and said.

“Yeah, kinda a music geek. Mostly through classic rock. But none of my friends—oh my god my friends! What did—those screams from earlier. What did you guys do to them?!”

“Take it easy lovie, your friends are safe and unharmed.” Roger assured me.

“Really?”

“Yes. I mean minus the fright we might’ve caused them, they’re completely fine. They’re passed out in that van of yours outside right now.” Brian said.

“Though Deacy dear, I must admit you truly traumatized that one young boy earlier. I could barely keep my hold on (Y/n)’s mind to bring her here cause of the screaming you had that boy doing.” Freddie said.

“Who? You mean Jake?” I asked.

“What he did to you back there. It—wasn’t right. If a woman says no, it means no.” John growled softly.

“Thanks John. I’ve tried telling him for years I never once liked him like that, but any chance we’re alone he tries to come onto me. I was getting sick and tired of it.”

“Well not to worries dear, I think from what John did to him, he’ll never bother you again for a long time.” Roger said as he ruffled John’s hair up.  John pushed his hand off his head and he came up to me and asked.

“You sure he didn’t hurt you?”

“I’m fine, really. I’m okay.” He sighed in relief.

“Hey guys,” they all looked at me giving me their full attention. “I—I don’t mean to get personal with you all. But uhh……How did you guys…..forget it. You don’t have to answer it. It’s probably none of my business.”

“It’s not? Then why so interested?” asked Brian.  He didn’t ask it out of annoyance, I could genuinely hear the concern in his voice.

“Well I was gonna ask, how did you guys—you know……”

“Die?” they all said together.  I nodded.

“Well dear as much as we would like to tell you, we can’t.” Freddie said.

“Yeah I get it. I mean if I were in your shoes I wouldn’t either.”

“It’s not that (Y/n).” John said.  I looked at him confused, “See while we remember some parts of our lives as humans. The day we died—that part’s fuzzy.”

“For decades we’ve tried to remember what had happened but every time we try it just—doesn’t come around.” Brian finished.  Oh wow I never knew that that could happen when you become a ghost.  Not knowing how you die and have to remain here on Earth.

“Tell us dear, what all has been said about our deaths?” Freddie asked me as he leaned sat down on the chair and rest his chin on his hand.

“Well there are several theories. The ones I know about are an electrical fire in this studio and you guys being trapped inside.”

“Sounds boring.” Freddie bluntly stated.  The other three looked at him questioningly.

“What else?” asked Roger.

“Well another theory is that someone snuck in and massacred you guys. Some people even go into detail about the homicide and what happened to each of you. I—I was honestly heartbroken hearing that and cried.”

“Aww you sweet thing.” Freddie and Roger cooed.

“A slight alteration to that theory is that it was a—day to day manager you guys had was the one to kill you guys.”

“Oh him. Well we’re proud to say he’s no longer with us anymore.” Roger said.

“I think I remember that he also died along with us. And if he did, he’s right where he belongs cause we haven’t seen him since our death. Thank god.” said John.  I softly smiled before letting out a soft yawn.

“It’s getting late, you should get some sleep.” Brian said to me.

“Where can I sleep at?” I asked.

“You could pick one of our old rooms.” Roger suggested.

“Just hope you don’t mind sleeping on rickety old beds.” Brian softly laughed.  I softly laughed and said.

“Okay uhh…..John do you mind if I take yours?”

“Not at all. Follow me.” I followed behind him and we walked out of the recording studio and back to the main house.  He walked down the steps to the basement and he said, “Just a word of warning, it’s small and it gets colder than the other rooms. You sure you still want it?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” We came to the bottom of the steps and I saw that it was indeed a tiny room. Kinda reminded me of my childhood room when my parents and I were living in a small flat.

“Again I apologize, I didn’t choose this room. Yet I’m bound to it for all eternity.” He said as he placed his hand on the dresser but it went right through it. “Kinda the price for being the youngest and most forgetful member of the band.”

“I never thought that.” He turned towards me. “From the songs I’ve heard on your three albums, your basslines are unique and easily recognizable. Especially this one song uhh—god it’s been awhile since I listened to it what’s it called…..Lies?”

“Liar?”

“That’s it! That solo is phenomenal.” He softly smiled and thanked me.  I walked towards the small bed and tucked myself in suddenly feeling tired than I was before.

“Thanks again for allowing me to take your room tonight John.”

“Anytime. Sleep well (y/n).” I then shut my eyes and finally fell asleep.

*John’s POV*

I don’t know how to explain it.  Normally I’d never allow anyone to try and sleep in my room.  All the humans that have entered this farm whether on a dare or trying to discover the secrets of this place, I’ve made sure to keep out anyone by frightening them away.

But this young girl there was something—familiar about her.  Was she—no. No that’s impossible.  I’m crazy for even suggesting it, there’s no way that’s possible.  It’s a one in a billion chances.  I sat there in the corner of my room and watched her sleep, while trying to make sense on why I’m feeling this strange pull towards her.

*My POV*

2 weeks after that night, the guys actually gave me the Night at the Opera record and I was just amazed by all the songs it had, but my favorite song will always be Bohemian Rhapsody.  But there was another song called ‘You’re my best friend’ (written by John) that had a special connection with me.

Right now I was helping my nana with some reorganizing in the attic when I came across an old box of stuff.  I opened it up and was first greeted with some dust.  I let out a sneeze as I wiped the dust out of my face before pulling out a beautiful wedding dress.

“Nana! What’s this?” she climbed up the stairs and when she saw me, her face grew solemn. She walked up towards me and knelt down beside me.

“Now this is something I haven’t seen in years. This—was my wedding dress.”

“It’s beautiful.” I said as I stroked through the fabric.

“Yeah. But oh did I look like a balloon in it. I was pregnant with your father at the time I got married.” She went through the box and soon pulled out a photo album and opened it up. “See, this was me on my wedding day with—with your grandfather.” I looked down and I was shocked.

There was her and John standing together.  The two of them smiling as the picture was being taken.  Her back to John’s chest and his arms wrapped around her pregnant stomach.

“It was a surprise, the pregnancy. And we were incredibly young but—John praised about becoming a father. But then…….” She stopped and wiped away her tears.

“Nana are—are you okay?” she sniffled and dabbed her eyes and said.

“Yes. Yes poppet I’ll be okay. Sorry. It’s just—so hard, even after over 40 years. He was my best friend, the love of my life. I wish your father talked more about your grandfather to you. Oh he would’ve loved you soo much dear. Spoiled you rotten probably.”

Oh if only she knew. Wow so—my grandfather is John Deacon. Wow that’s—not everyone can say something like that.

“What….what was grandfather like?” I asked her.

“Well, we met way back in 1974 at a Disco club. My friends and I were out for a girls night out when—” she then proceeded to tell me the entire story of how she and granddad met and fell in love.

Hearing it from her own voice, it was like something out of a fairytale.  She and John really did love each other and it seemed like they would’ve stayed together forever had what happened to Queen not occurred.

“Did—the police ever tell you what happened?” I asked her.

“For years I tried to get them to give me an answer. But the case went cold and they just ruled it as accidental. I had to live with that heartbreak ever since. So I raised your father as a single parent because there wasn’t anyone like John Richard Deacon.” I leaned against her shoulder nuzzling her arm.

She wrapped her arm around my head and gave me a soft kiss to my head.  Together the two of us sat there and she told me as many stories as she could remember between her and John.

[aion-rsa]

Superman & Lois Episode 3 Review: The Perks of Not Being a Wallflower

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This Superman & Lois review contains spoilers.

Superman and Lois Episode 3

“Morrissey’s a xenophobic has-been.”

This one line, delivered with deadpan perfection by Alex Garfin’s Jordan Kent pretty much sums up why Superman & Lois episode 3 is so good. Wait, really? Yes, stay with me for a minute…

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I loved the first two episodes of Superman & Lois. There’s no question about that. But there was a very slight nagging feeling in the back of my mind, that maybe this show was going to be a little too serious for its own good. That maybe in the process of making Jonathan and Jordan Kent as believable as possible, and as “relatable” (god, I hate that word) to young audiences as they needed to be, that the show would end up trying just a little too hard, get a little more wrapped up in its “family drama, but with Superman” high concept than it strictly needed to, and maybe forget to lighten up every now and then. I could excuse it in those first two episodes, which play like one feature length pilot when watched together, and which had a lot of work to do to get us to buy this very different take on the Man of Steel, but I wasn’t sure if the tone would sustain over a longer stretch of episodes.

And then along comes “The Perks of Not Being a Wallflower” to put those fears at ease. To be absolutely clear, this is absolutely not a drastic change in tone from what has come before. But now that we’ve gotten to know the Kents and their neighbors and classmates, and that the Smallville setting feels very much like the natural setting of the show, there’s a little more fun to be had. No, this isn’t suddenly The Flash and STAR Labs with a team of folks cracking wise at every opportunity, and it’s certainly not my beloved Legends of Tomorrow, but the humor is here, it’s subtle, and it works at every opportunity.

The opening scene with the family trying to paint the old Kent home is a charmer, a moment broken by Clark hearing a bridge collapsing in China which he speeds off to save. It’s another near-cinematic action sequence for this show, but the special effects aren’t really what sell this scene, it’s the moment of terror to relief to pure joy of a single fisherman as he realizes he’s witnessing Superman hold up a bridge…and Superman’s wordless interaction with him is equally joyful. This is something that simply hasn’t been done in live action interpretations of Superman since the Christopher Reeve years, and I honestly rank those few seconds with Supes and the fisherman as one of the best screen moments in the character’s history.

This episode is full of moments like that, even though Tyler Hoechlin once again spends most of his screentime as Clark rather than Superman. But even there, this is certainly Hoechlin’s finest performance as the character so far, bouncing effortlessly between Man of Steel to “Clark the superpowered dad dealing with problems new even to him” to “Clark who has to act like there’s nothing special about him.”

I worry slightly that Elizabeth Tulloch’s Lois Lane still doesn’t quite have enough to do as they build her Morgan Edge investigation through the Smallville Gazette. In every other aspect, moving the family to Smallville has worked, particular in regards to exploring completely new facets of the Clark/Superman dynamic, but Lois so far feels a little out of place. On the other hand, I should probably be thankful that they aren’t trying to “do a journalism” the way it’s so often been portrayed on Supergirl or The Flash, and maybe the slow burn is the more prudent move here. Anyway, it doesn’t change the fact that Tulloch is a delight in every scene, and she is quickly becoming the definitive screen Lois for me.

But the real highlights for this episode come in the form of Jonathan and Jordan, the two characters I was most skeptical about going into this show. I’ll confess, despite some terrific comics by the likes of Peter Tomasi, Patrick Gleason, Dan Jurgens, Brian Michael Bendis, Ivan Reis, and others in recent years, I’ve never been the biggest fan of the “Superman as dad” concept. I tend to like my Superman stories a little more unencumbered (or some might say traditional, but whatever). But Jordan Elsass’ Jonathan and Alex Garfin’s Jordan are just so darn likeable, and the story being written for them so compelling, that I can’t really complain.

The idea that Jordan would try out for the football team despite his burgeoning powers seems a ridiculous one, and I honestly thought that sequence was going to be revealed as a daydream (similar to Clark’s in the first episode of Smallville). But it’s real, and it doesn’t go quite where I thought it would. Jordan excels at football…as it turns out, he’s a bit more powered up than Jor-El suspected last episode. You’d naturally expect this to lead to friction with Jonathan, who has yet to get the hang of his new team, and for a brief period it does, but then the show does something unexpected.

This isn’t about football going to Jordan’s head or even about him “getting even” with the guys who have been bullying him. Instead, it’s the first time he’s felt part of something. After absolutely leveling Sarah Cushing’s boyfriend (well…ex-boyfriend now) on the field, he offers his hand and apologizes for that awkward kiss at the Shuster Mines. Jonathan, meanwhile, sees the good the team is doing for his brother and advocates for him with a Clark who is understandably annoyed that his son is using his powers to gain an advantage on the football field.

Read more

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I know, I know, this all sounds far weightier than the Morrissey joke I quoted at the start of this, but it all unfolds with a little charm, and some surprisingly light touches here and there. Jonathan and Jordan reacting to an incredibly awkward moment with Sarah and Lana, Clark overdoing his “dorky, eager dad” routine, and other little touches just make this feel like the show is settling into a rhythm with these characters and getting more comfortable being playful.

It’s perhaps a little worrisome that Wolé  Parks’ mysterious Captain Luthor is nowhere to be seen this episode, with the only superhuman punch-up coming in the form of guest star Daniel Cudmore’s mysterious, nameless goon who makes the mistake of trying to take out Lois during her investigation. That leads to a really sharp (but quick) punch-up between him and Superman, with a terrific sequence where Superman freezes him with super-breath before delivering a perfect uppercut that would look right at home in a comic panel. If this show continues to work out creative ways to use Superman’s powers the way they have with Barry on The Flash, I think we’re gonna have some real fun in the coming episodes.

But then there’s that ending. As Lois asks, why DOES Morgan Edge have someone with super powers working for him? More than one, apparently, as Cudmore’s mysterious baddie is vaporized by a woman with heat vision named…Larr. So far, the formula for Superman & Lois seems to be to give us a family drama heavy episode, punctuated by moments of cinematic action, and then to close with a mind-bendingly cool reveal. Well, if they insist, who am I to argue?

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There’s not a ton of DC or Superman Easter eggs this episode, so I don’t think it’s necessarily worth its own post. But, here’s what I’ve got…

The bridge collapse scene does faintly call to mind Superman saving the Golden Gate Bridge during the earthquake in Superman: The Movie.

Jonathan telling Clark that “if you’re not actually allowed to be special” etc feels like a subtle nod to teenage Clark telling Jonathan Kent in Superman: The Movie that he could excel on the football field if he wanted to, which Jonathan forbids, saying that Clark isn’t here to “show off.” But that Clark’s answer was a philosophical “is a bird showing off when he flies?”

Cudmore’s nameless character is apparently “Subjekt-11” a designation which calls to mind “Subjekt-17” an alien raised by the Soviets to make Superman’s life miserable in Kurt Busiek and Carlos Pacheco’s incredibly underrated run on the Superman comics.

Sharon Powell may not be a character from the comics, but the folks at Kryptonsite used their X-Ray vision to point out that the actress who plays her, Jill Teed, was known for portraying Maggie Sawyer on Smallville!

Tyler Hoechlin finally gets to talk a little baseball on this show. Before going into acting, he was a baseball prodigy.

It seems that’s Morgan Edge’s right hand woman, “Leslie Larr” vaporizing our mysterious baddie. The closest I can find to her is a “Lesla Larr” who was an obscure Supergirl villain. THAT version of Larr hailed from Kandor (post shrinking) and she made Supergirl’s life miserable from time to time. I don’t expect this version of the character to have too much in common with her comics counterpart, but it seems like “evil Kryptonians” are definitely gonna be a thing on this show going forward.

The post Superman & Lois Episode 3 Review: The Perks of Not Being a Wallflower appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[teshknowledgenotes]

THE E-MYTH REVISITED NOTES

WHY?

A lot of successful people recommend this book and the concepts in this book about businesses should benefit my life, whether it's stocks or starting my own business.

NOTES

The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything either as a blessing or a curse, then I am as guilty of being an ordinary man as the next guy, and on occasion have ascended to the warrior state.

In the 25 years of life, I have experienced near financial and business disaster as well as incredible victories, have created new companies to expand my dream, vision, purpose and mission beyond what is included in this book, have seen my marriage collapse and with it lost control over my company, without even a glimpse of what is going on wit it. At the same time, I discovered what power I do possess, why it is important, and why in the end, everything depends upon my determination to live my life authentically, to pursue my vision unceasingly, and to live it to the fullest of my being.

My experience has shown me that the people who are exceptionally good in business aren't so because of what they know but because if their insatiable need to know more.

The problem with most failing businesses I've encountered is not that their owners don't know enough about finance, marketing, management, and operations they don't, but those things are easy enough to learn, but that they spend their time and energy defending what they think they know. The greatest business people I've met are determined to get it right no matter what the cost.

Chapter 1: The Entrepreneurial Myth

Picture the typical entrepreneur and Herculean pictures come to mind: a man or woman standing alone, wind blown against the elements, bravely defying insurmountable odds, climbing sheer faces of treacherous rock all to realize the dream of creating a business of one's own.

The legend reeks of nobility, of loft, extra human efforts, of a prodigious commitment to larger than life ideals. Well there are such people, my experience tells me they are rare. Of the thousands of business people I have had the opportunity to know and work with over the past two decades, few were real entrepreneurs when I met them. The vision was all but gone in most. The zest for the climb had turned into a terror of heights. The face of the rock had become something to cling to rather than to scale. Exhaustion was common, exhilaration rare. But hadn't all of them once been entrepreneurs? After all, they had started their own business. There must have been some dream that drove them to take such a risk. But if so where was the dream now? Why had it faded? Where was the entrepreneur who had started the business?

To understand the E-Myth and the misunderstanding at it's core, let's take a closer look at the person who goes into business. Not after he goes into business, but before.

For that matter, where were you before you started your business? And if you're thinking about going into business, where are you know?

Well, if you're like most of the people I've known, you were working for somebody else.

What were you doing? Probably technical work, like almost everybody who goes into business.

You were a carpenter, a mechanic or a machinist.

You were a bookkeeper or a poodle clipper, a drafts person or a hair dresser, a barber or a computer programmer, a doctor or a technical writer, a graphic artist or an accountant, an interior design or a plumber or a salesperson. But whatever you were, you were doing technical work. And you were probably good at it. But you were doing it for somebody else. The one day for no apparent reason something happened, it might have been a feeling that your boss didn't really appreciate your contribution to the success of his business.

Inside your mind it sounded something like this: “What am I doing this for? Why am I working for this guy? Hell, I know as much about this business as he does. If it weren't for me, he wouldn't have a business. And dummy can run a business, I'm working for one.”

The thought of independence followed you everywhere. The idea of being your own boss, doing your own thing, singing your own song, became obsessively irresistible.

Once you were stricken with an Entrepreneurial Seizure, there was no relief. You couldn't get rid of it. You had to start your own business.

In the throes of your Entrepreneurial Seizure you fell victim to the most disastrous assumption anyone can make about going into business. The fatal assumption is: if you understand the technical work of a business, you understand a business that does that technical work. And the reason it's fatal is that it just isn't true. In fact it's the root cause of most small business failures! The technical work of a business and a business that does the technical work are two totally different things! But the technician who starts a business fails to see this. To the technician suffering from an Entrepreneurial Seizure a business is not a business but a place to go to work.

The real tragedy is that when the technician falls prey to the Fatal Assumption, the business that was supposed to free him from the limitations of working for somebody else actually enslaves him. Suddenly the job he knew how to do so well becomes one job he knows how to do plus a dozen others he doesn't know how to do at all. Because although the Entrepreneurial Seizure started the business, it's the technician who goes to work.

And suddenly, an entrepreneurial dream turns into a technician's nightmare.

The technician suffering from an Entrepreneurial Seizure takes the work he loves to do and turns it into a job. The work that was born out of love becomes a chore, among a welter of other less familiar and less pleasant chores. Rather than maintaining its specialness, representing the unique skill the technician possesses and upon which he started the business, the work becomes trivialized, something to get through in order to make room for everything else that must be done. Every technician suffering from an Entrepreneurial Seizure experiences exactly the same thing. First, exhilaration, second terror, third exhaustion, and finally despair. A terrible sense of loss not only the loss of what was closest to them, their special relationship with their work, but the loss of purpose, the loss of self.

Chapter 2: The Entrepreneur, The Manager, and The Technician

No, The Technician isn't the only problem. The problem is more complicated than that. The problem is that everybody who goes into business is actually three-people-in-one: The Entrepreneur, The Manager, and The Technician. And the problem is compounded by the fact that while each of these personalities wants to be the boss, none of them want to have a boss. So they start a business together in order to get rid of the boss. And the conflict begins. To show you how the problem manifests itself in all of us, let's examine the way our various internal personalities interact. Let's take a look at two personalities we're all familiar with: The Fat Guy & The Skinny Guy.

Have you ever decided to go on a diet?

You're sitting in front of the television set one Saturday afternoon, watching an athletic competition, awed by the athletes' stamina and dexterity.

You're eating a sandwich, your second since you sat down to watch the event two hours before.

You're feeling sluggish in the face of all the action on the screen when, suddenly somebody wakes up in you and says “What are you doing? Look at yourself, You're Fat! You're out of shape! Do something about it!”

It has happened to us all. Somebody wakes up inside us with a totally different picture of who we should be and what we should be doing. In this case, let's call him The Skinny Guy.

Who's The Skinny Guy? He's the one who uses words like discipline, exercise, organization. The Skinny Guy in intolerant, self righteous, a stickler for detail, a compulsive tyrant.

The Skinny Guy abhors fat people. Can't stand sitting around. Needs to be on the move. Lives for action. The Skinny Guy has just taken over. Watch out things are going to change.

You have a new lease on life and by Monday night, you've lost two pounds. Tuesday night you get on the scale another pound gone.

On Wednesday you can't wait to get on the scale. You strip down to your bare skin, shivering in the bathroom, filled with expectation of what your scale is going to tell you. You step lightly onto it and look down. What you see is nothing. You haven't lost an ounce. You're exactly the same as you were on Tuesday.

Dejection creeps in. You begin to feel a slight twinge of resentment “After all that work? After all that sweat and effort? And then nothing? It isn't fair” But you shrug it off. After all, tomorrow's another day. You go to bed, vowing to work harder on Thursday. But somehow something has changed.

You don't know what's changed until Thursday morning. It's raining. The room is cold. Something feels different. What is it? For a minute or two you can't quite put your finger on it. And then you get it: somebody else is in your body. It's The Fat Guy! He's Back! And he doesn't want to run. As a matter of fact, he doesn't even want to get out of bed it's cold outside.

All of a sudden you find yourself in front of the refrigerator. Food is now your major interest. The marathon is gone, the lean machine is gone, the sweats and barbells and running shoes are gone. The Fat Guy is back. He's running the show again. It happens to all of us, time and time again. Because we've been deluded into thinking we're really one person.

And so when The Skinny Guy decides to change things we actually believe that it's I who's making that decision. And when The Fat Guy wakes up and changes it all back again, we think it's I who's making that decision too. But it isn't I. It's we.

The Skinny Guy and The Fat Guy are two totally different personalities, with different needs, different interests, and different lifestyles.

That's why they don't like each other. They each want totally different things.

When you're The Skinny Guy you're always making promises for The Fat Guy to keep. And when you're The Fat Guy, you're always making promises for the Skinny Guy to keep. It's not that we're indecisive or unreliable, it's that each and every one of us is a whole set of different personalities, each with his own interests and way of doing things. Asking any one of them to defer to any of the others is inviting a battle or even a full scale war.

Well this is the kind of war going on inside the owner of every small business. But it's a three way battle between The Entrepreneur, The Manager, and The Technician. Unfortunately it's a battle no one can win.

The entrepreneurial personality turns the most trivial condition into an exceptional opportunity. The Entrepreneur is the visionary in us. The dreamer. The energy behind every human activity. The imagination that sparks the fire of the future. The catalyst for change.

The Entrepreneur lives in the future, never in the past, rarely in the present. He's happiest when left free to construct images of “what-if” and “if-when”.

The Entrepreneur is our creative personality always at its best dealing with the unknown, prodding the future, creating probabilities out of possibilities, engineering chaos into harmony.

Every strong entrepreneurial personality has an extraordinary need for control. Living as he does in the visionary world of the future, he needs control of people and events in the present so that he can concentrate on his dreams.

The managerial personality is pragmatic. Without The Manager there would be no planning, no order, no predictability. The Manager is the part of that goes to Sears and buys stacking plastic boxes, takes them back to the garage, and systematically stores all the various sized nuts, bolts, and screws in their own carefully identified drawer.

If The Entrepreneur lives in the future, The Manager lives in the past. Where the entrepreneur craves control, The Manager craves order.

Where The Entrepreneur thrives on change, The Manager compulsively clings to the status quo. Where The Entrepreneur invariable sees the opportunity in events, The Manager invariably sees the problems. The Manager builds a house and then lives in it, forever. The Entrepreneur builds a house and the instant it's done begin planning the next one. Without The Manager there could be no business, no society. Without The Entrepreneur, there would be no innovation.

The Technician is the doer. “If you want it done right do it yourself” is The Technician's credo.

The Technician loves to tinker. Things are to be taken apart and put back together again. Things aren't supposed to be dreamed about, they're supposed to be done.

If The Entrepreneur lives in the future and The Manager lives in the past, The Technician lives in the present. He loves the feel of things and the fact that things can get done.

As long as The Technician is working, he is happy, but only one thing at a time. He knows that two things can't get done simultaneously, only a fool would try. So he works steadily and is happiest when he is in control of the work flow.

As a result, The Technician mistrusts those he works for, because they are always trying to get more work done than is either possible or necessary.

To The Technician, thinking is unproductive unless it's thinking about the work that needs to be done.

As a result, he is suspicious of lofty ideas or abstractions. Thinking isn't work, it gets in the way of work. The Technician isn't interested in ideas, he's interested in “how to do it”. To The Technician knows that if it weren't for him, the world would be in more trouble than it already is. Nothing would get done, but lots of people would be thinking about it.

Put another way, while The Entrepreneur dreams, The Manager frets, and The Technician ruminates.

The Technician is a resolute individualist, standing his ground, producing today's bread to eat at tonight's dinner. He is the backbone of every cultural tradition, but most importantly of ours. If The Technician didn't do it, it wouldn't get done.

Everyone gets in the Technician's way. The Entrepreneur is always throwing a monkey wrench into his day with the creation of yet another “great new idea”

On the other hand, The Entrepreneur is always creating new and interesting work for The Technician to do, thus establishing a potentially symbiotic relationship. Unfortunately it rarely works out that way. Since most entrepreneurial ideas don't work in the real world.

The Manager is also a problem to The Technician because he is determined to impose order on The Technician's work, to reduce him to a part of “the system”. But being a rugged individualist, The Technician can't stand being treated that way. To The Technician “the system” is dehumanizing, cold, antiseptic, and impersonal. It violates his individuality.

The fact of the matter is that we all have an Entrepreneur, Manager, and Technician inside us. And if they were equally balanced, we'd be describing an incredibly competent individual.

The Entrepreneur would be free to forge ahead into new areas of interest, The Manager would be solidifying the base of operations, and The Technician would be doing the technical work.

Unfortunately out experience shows us that few people who go into business are blessed with such a balance. Instead, the typical small business owner is only 10 percent Entrepreneur, 20 percent Manager, and 70 percent Technician.

If it's that within each businessperson there are three personalities, rather than just one, can you imagine what a mess that makes? If one of you wants this, and another of you wants that, and a third wants something entirely different, can you imagine the confusion that causes in our lives? And it's not only the personalities inside each of one of us that confuse us but all the others we come in to contact with as well: in our customers, in our parents, in our friends, in our spouses, in our lovers. If this is true, and all you need to do is discover whether it is or not is to take a look at yourself from day to day, as though from above, as though from someone else, to observe yourself as you go through the day you would see the different parts come out. You would see them playing their respective games. You would see how they fight for their own space and the sapce of all the others and sabotage each other as best they can. In your business you would see how one part of you craves a sense of order, while another part of you dreams about the future. You would see how another part of you can't stand being idle, and jumps in to bake, and to clean up, and to wait on customers, the part of you who feels guilty if she isn't doing something all the time.

In short you would see how the Entrepreneur in you dreams and schemes, The Manager in you is constantly attempting to keep things as they are, and The Technician in you drives the other two crazy. You would see that it not only matters that your personalities are not in a balanced relationship with each other but that your life depends on gaining that balance. That until you do, it's a war! And it's a war no one can win.

You would also see that on of your personalities is the strongest of the three (or four, or five, or six), and that she walways manages to control the others. In fact, if you watch long enough, you'll being to understand how devastating the tyranny of your strongest personality is to your life. And you'll see that without balance, without all three of these personalities being given the opportunitiy, the freedom, the nourishment they each need to grow, your business cannot help but mirror your own lopsidedness.

So it is that an entrepreneurial business, without a Manager to give it order and without a Technician to put it to work, is doomed to suffer an early, and probably very dramatic, death. And what a Manager-driven business, without an Entrepreneur or a Technician to play their absolutely critical roles, will put things into little gray boxes over and over again, only to realize too late that there's no reason for the things or the boxes she put them into! Such a business will die very neatly.

And that in the Technician driven business, without the Entrepreneur to lead her and The Manager to supervise her, The Technician will work until she drops, only to wake up the next morning to go to work even harder, and the next, and the next. Only to discover, long after it's too late, that while she was working someone moved a freeway through the store!

An entrepreneur does the work of envisioning the business as something apart from you, the owner. The work of asking all the right questions about why this business, as opposed to that business? Why a pie baking business rather than a body shop? If you are a baker of pies, it's easy for you to decide to open up a pie baking business. But that's just the point. If you are a baker of pies and are determined to do entrepreneurial work, you would leave your pie baking experience behind you and engage in the internal dialogue with which every truly entrepreneurial personality is wonderfully familiar.

You would begin to say to yourself, it's time for me to create a new life. It's time for me to challenge my imagination and to begin the process of shaping an entirely new life. And the best way to do that anywhere in this whole wide opportunity filled world is to create an exciting new business. One that can give me everything I want, one that doesn't require me to be there all the time, one that has the potential to be stunningly unique, one that people will talk about long after having shopping in it the very first time, and as a result of that delightful experience, will come back to shop there again because it has such a special flavour to it. I wonder what that business would be?

So the work of an Entrepreneur is to wonder, to imagine and to dream. To see with as much of herself as she can muster the possibilities that waft about in midair someplace there above her head and within her heart. Not in the past but in the future. That's the work the entrepreneurial personality does at the outset of her business and at each and every stage along the way. I wonder. I wonder. Just as every inventor must. Just as every composer must. Just as every artist, or every craftsperson, or every physicist must. Just as every baker of pies must. I call it Future Work. I wonder is the true work of the entrepreneurial personality.

CHAPTER 3: INFANCY: THE TECHNICIAN'S PHASE

It is self evident that businesses, like people, are supposed to grow and with growth comes change.

Unfortunately most businesses are not run according to principle. Instead most businesses are operated according to what the owner wants as opposed to what the business needs.

And what the Technician who runs the company wants is not growth or change but exactly the opposite. He wants a place to go to work, free to do what he wants, when he wants, free from the contrainsts of working for The Boss. Unfortunately, what The Technician wants dooms his business before it even begins.

To understand why, let's take a look at the three phases of business's growth: Infancy, Adolescence, and Maturity.

Understanding each phase, and what goes on in the business owner's mind during each of them, is critical to discovering why most small businesses don't thrive and ensuring that yours does.

The boss is dead and you, The Technician are free at last. Finally you can do your own thing in your own business. Hope runs high. The air is electric with possibility. It's like being let out of school for the summer. Your newfound freedom is intoxicating.

In the beginning nothing is too much for your business to ask. As The Technician, you're accustomed to "paying your dues" So the hours devoted to the business during Infancy are not spend grudgingly but optimistically. There's work to be done and that's what you're all about. After all your middle name is Work.

And so you work. Ten, twelve, fourteen hours a day. Seven days a week. Even when you're at home, you're at work. All your thoughts, all your feelings, revolve around your new business. You can't get it out of your mind. You're consumed by it, totally invested in doing whatever is necessary to keep it alive. But now you're doing not only the work you know how to do but the work you don't know how to do as well .You're not only making it but you're also buying it, selling it, and shipping it. During Infancy, you're a Master Juggler, keeping all the balls in the air.

It's easy to spot a business in Infancy, the owner and the business are one and the same thing.

If you removed the owner from an Infancy business, there would be no business left.

It's even named after you Joe's Place, Tommy's Joint, Mary's Fine Foods so the customer won't forget you're The Boss.

And soon if you're lucky all of the sweat, worry and work begin to pay off. You're good. You work hard. The customers don't forget. They're coming back. They're sending in friends. Their friends have friends. They're all about Joe, Tommy and Mary. They're all talking about you.

If you can believe what your customers are saying, there's never been anyone like Joe, Tommy, and Mary. Joe, Tommy, and Mary are just like old friends. They work hard for their money. And they do good work. Joe is the best barber I ever went to. Tommy is the best printer I ever used. Mary makes the best corned beef sandwich I ever ate. Your customers are crazy about you. They keep coming, in droves.

And you love it!

But then it changes. Subtly at first, but gradually it becomes obvious. You're falling behind. There's more work to do than you can possibly get done. The customers are relentless. They want you they need you. You've spoiled them for anyone else. You're working at breakneck speed.

And then the inevitable happens. You, the Master Juggler, begin to drop some of the balls!

It can't be helped. No matter how hard you try, you simply can't catch them all. Your entusiasm for working with the customer wanes. Deliveries, once early are now late. The product begins to show the wear and tear. Nothing seems to work the way it did at first.

Joe's haircuts don't look the way they used to. "I said short in the back, not on the sides" "My name's Fred, that's my brother and I never had a crewcut!". Glitches start showing up in Tommy's printing, typos, ink smudges, wrong colors, wrong paper. "I didn't order business cards, I ordered catalog covers" "Pink? I said brown!"

Mary's best tasting biggest stack of corned beef in the world suddenly looks like pastrami? Another irritated voice calls out: "Where's my pastrami sandwich? This is corned beef!" And yet another "What are these garbanzo beans doing in my meatloaf?"

What do you do? You stretch. You work harder. You put in more time, more energy.

If you put in twelve hours before, you now put in fourteen.

If you put in fourteen hours before, you now put in sixteen.

If you put in sixteen hours before, now you put in twenty. But the balls keep dropping!

All of a sudden, Joe, Tommy, and Mary wish their names weren't on the sign.

All of a sudden, they want to hide.

All of a sudden, you find yourself at the end of an unbelievably hectic week, late on a Saturday night, poring over the books, trying to make some sense out of the mess, thinking about all of the work you didn't get done this week, and all of the work waiting for you next week. And you suddenly realize it simply isn't going to get done. There's simply no way in the world you can do all that work yourself! In a flash, you realize that you business has become The Boss you thought you left behind. There's not getting rid of The Boss!

Infancy ends when the owner realizes that the business cannot continue to run the way it has been, that in order for it to survive, it will have to change. What that happens when the reality sinks in, most business failures occur. When that happens, most of The Technicians lock their doors behind them and walk away.

The rest go on to Adolescence.

When a Technician turned business owner is suddenly confronted with the reality of her situation, a sense of hopelessness can set in. The challenge can seem overwhelming.

There's nothing wrong with being A Technician. There's only something wrong with being a A Technician who also owns a business! Because as a Technician turned business owner, your focus is upside down. You see the world from the bottom up rather than from the top down. You have a tactical view rather than a strategic view. You see the work that has to get done, and because of the way you're built, you immediately jump to do it! You believe that a business is nothing more than an aggregate of the various types of work done in it, when in fact it is much more than that.

If you want to work in a business, get a job in somebody else's business! But don't go to work in your own. Because while you're working, while you're answering the telephone, while you're baking pies, while you're cleaning the windows and the floors, while you're doing it, doing it, doing it, there's something much more important that isn't getting done. And it's the work you're not doing, the strategic work, the entrepreneurial work, that will lead your business forward, that will give you the life you've not known yet.

There's nothing wrong with technical work, it is, it can be, pure joy. It's only a problem when The Technician consumes all the other personalities. When The Technician fills your day with work. When The Technician avoids the challenge of learning how to grow a business. When The Technician shrinks from the entrepreneurial role so necessary to the lifeblood, the momentum, of a truly extraordinary small business, and from the managerial role so critical to the operational balance or grounding of a small business on a day to day basis. To be a great Technician is simply insufficient to the task of building a great small business.

If your business depends on you, you don't own a business you have a job. And it's the worst job in the world because you're working for a lunatic! The purpose of going into business is to get free of a job so you can create jobs for other people.

The purpose of going into business is to expand beyond your existing horizons. So you can invent something that satisfies a need in the marketplace that has never been satisfied before. So you can live an expanded, stimulating new life. You can't have a business and just expect to do the technical work. You can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't ignore the financial accountabilities, the marketing accountabilities, the sales and administrative accountabilities. You can't ignore your future employees' need for leadership, for purpose, for responsible management, for effective communication, for something more than just a job in which their sol purpose is to support you doing your job. Let alone what your business needs from you if it's to thrive: that you understand the way a business works, that you understand the dynamics of a business, cash flow, growth, customer sensitivity, competitive sensitivity, and so forth.

If all you want from a business of your own is the opportunity to do what you did before you started your business, get paid more for it, and have more freedom to come and go, your greed - I know that soudns harsh but that's what it is your self-indulgence will eventually consume both you and your business. The exciting thing is that once you let go of your Technician side, once you make room for the rest of you to flourish, the game becomes more rewarding than you can possibly imagine at this point in your business's life.

CHAPTER 4: ADOLESCENCE GETTING SOME HELP

Adolescence begins at the point in the life of your business when you decide to get some help.

There's no telling how soon this will happen. But it always happens, precipitated by a criss in the Infancy stage.

Every business that lasts must grow in to the Adolescent phase. Every small business owner who survives seeks help.

What kind of help do you, the overloaded Technician, go out to get? The answer is as easy as it is inevitable: technical help. Someone with experience. Someone with experience in your kind of business.

When things get crazy at your business and you run around like a lunatic/mad man. You're hopelessly, helplessly at a loss. For you to behave differently you would need to awaken the personalities who have been asleep within you for a long time- The Entrepreneur and The Manager - and then help them to developer the skills only they can add to you business.

But The Technician in you won't stop long enough for that to happen.

The Technician in you has got to go to work!

The Technician in you has got to catch the balls!

The Technician in you has got to keep busy. The Technician in you has just reached the limits of his Comfort Zone.

CHAPTER 5: BEYOND THE COMFORT ZONE

Every adolescent business reaches a point where it pushes beyond its owner's 

Comfort Zone - the boundary within which he feels secure in his ability to control his environment, and outside of which he begins to lose that control.

The Technician's boundary is determined by how much he can do himself.

The Manager's is defined by how many technicians he can supervise effectively or how many subordinate managers he can organize in a productive effort. The Entrepreneur's boundary is a function of how many managers he can engage in pursuit of his vision.

As a business grows, it invariably exceeds its owner's ability to control it - to touch, feel, and see the work that needs to be done, and to inspect its progress personally as every technician needs to do.

As the business grows beyond the owner's Comfort Zone as the tailspin accelerates, there are only three courses of action to be taken, only three ways the business can turn. It can return to Infancy. It can go for broke. Or it can hang on for dear life. Let's take a look at each.

Getting Small Again.

One of the most consistent predictable reactions of The Technician turned business owner to Adolescent chaos is the decision to "get small" again. If you can't control the chaos, get rid of it.

Go back to the way is it used to be when you did everything yourself, when you didn't have people to about, or too many customers, or too many unpayable payables and unreceivable receivables or too much inventory.

In short, go back to the time when business was simple, back to Infancy. And thousands upon thousands of technicians do just that. They get rid of their people, get rid of their inventory, wrap up their payables in a large bag, rent a smaller facility, put the machine in the middle, put the telephone by the machine, and go back to doing it all by themselves again.

They go back to being the owner, sole properietor, chief cook and bottle washer, doing everything that needs to be done, all alone, but comfortable with the feeling of regained control.

And all of a sudden you are struck with the reality of your condition. You realized something you've avoided all these years. You come fact to face with the unavoidable truth: You don't own a business, you own a job! What's more, it's the worst job in the world! You can't close it when you want to, because when you leave there's nobody there to do the work.

You can't sell it when you want to, because who wants to buy a job?

Your dream is gone, the only thing left is work. The day-to-day grind of purposeless activity.

Finally, you close the doors. There's nothing to keep you there anymore.

According to the Small Business Administration, more than 600,000 such businesses close their doors in the United States every year.

The true question is not how small a business should be but how big. How big can your business naturally become, with the operative word being naturally?

Because whatever that size is, any limitation you place on its growth is unnatural, shaped not by the market or by your lack of capital even though that may play a part but by your own personal limitations. Your lack of skill, knowledge, and experience, and most of all, passion for growing a healthy functionally dynamic extraordinary business.

In this regard getting small is, rather than an intentional act, a reaction to the pain and fear induced by uncontrolled and uncontrollable growth, both of which could have been aniticipated provided the owner had been prepared to facilitate the growth in a balanced, healthy, proactive way.

So if the natural disposition of every business is to either grow or contract, and it is, there is no denying that then 'getting small again' is the natural inclination of the Technician turned owner to shrink from the unknown, to shrink from the business she has created, to contrain the business from creating demands on her to which she feels hopelessly inadequate to respond appropriately. In short businesses that get small again die. They literally implode upon themselves.

Your job is to prepare yourself and your business for growth.

To educate yourself sufficiently so that, as your business grows the business's foundation and structure can carry the additional weight. And as awesome a responsibility as that may seem to you, you have no other choice, if your business is to thrive that is.

It's up to you to dictate your business's rate of growth as best you can by understanding the key processes that need to be performed, the key objectives that need to be achieved, the key position you are aiming your business to hold in the marketplace.

By asking the right questions, such as: Where do I wish to be? When do I wish to be there? How much capital will that take? How many people, doing what work, and how? What technology will be required? How large a space will be needed, at Benchmark One, at Benchmark Two, at Benchmark Three? Will you be wrong at times? Will you make mistakes? Will you change your mind? Of course you will! More often than not. But, done right, you will also have contingency plans in place. Best case, worst case. And somtimes you will simply fly by the seat of your pants, you will go with the flow, follow your intuition.

But all the while even while you're guessing, the key is to plan, envision, and articulate what you see in the future both for yourself and for your employees. 

Because if you don't articulate it, I mean, write it down clearly, so others can understand it, you don't own it! And do you know that in all the years I've been doing this work with small business owners, out of the thousands upon thousands we've met, there have only been a few who had any plan at all! 

Nothing written, nothing committed to paper, nothing concrete at all.

Any plan is better than no plan, because in the process of defining the future, the plan begins to shape itself to reality, both the reality of the world out there and the reality you are able to create in here.

And as those two realities merge, they form a new reality, call it your reality, call it the unique invention that is uniquely yours, the reality of your mind and your heart uniting with all the elements of your business, and your business with the world, shaping, designing, collaborating, to form something that never existed before in exactly that way.

And that is the sign of a Mature company. A Mature company is started differently than all the rest. A Mature company is founded on a broader perspective, an entrepreneurial perspective, a more intelligent point of view. About building a busienss that works not because of you but without you.

CHAPTER 6: MATURITY AND THE ENTREPRENEURIAL PERSPECTIVE

Maturity the third phase of a company's growth is exemplified by the best business in the world. Businesses such as McDonald's, Federal Express and Disney.

A Mature business knows how it got to be where it is and what it must do to get where it wants to go.

Therefore, Maturity is not an ineveitable result of the first two phases. It is not the end product of a serial process beginning with Infancy and moving through Adolescence.

Companies like McDonald's, Federal Express, and Disney didn't end up as Mature companies. They started out that way! The people who started them had a totally different perspective about what a business is and why it works.

The person who launches his business as a Mature company must also go through Infancy and Adolescence. He simply goes through them in an entirely different way.

It's his perspective that makes the difference.

His Entrepreneurial Perspective.

A Technician's Perspective differs from the Entrepreneurial Perspective in the following ways:

1) The Entrepreneurial Perspective asks the question: "How must the business work?" The Technician's Perspective asks "What work has to be done?

2) The Entrepreneurial Perspective sees the business as a system for producing outside results for the customer resulting in profits. The Technician's Perspective sees the business as a place in which people work to produce inside results, for The Technician producing income.

3) The Entrepreneurial Perspective starts with a picture of a well defined future, and then comes back to the present with the intention of changing it to match the vision. The Technician's Perspective starts with the present, and then looks forward to an uncertain future with the hope of keeping it much like the present.

4) The Entrepreneurial Perspective  envisions the business in its entirety, from which is derived its parts. The Technician's Perspective envisions the business in parts, from which is constructed the whole.

5) The Entrepreneurial Perspective  is an integrated vision of the world. The Technician's Perspective is a fragmented vision of the world.

6) To The Entrepreneur, the present day world is modeled after his vision. To The Technician the future is modeled after the present day world. The Entrepreneurial Perspective  adopts a wider, more expansive scale. It views the business as a network of seamlessly integrated components, each contributing to some larger pattern that comes together in such a way as to produce a specifically planned result, a systematic way of doing business.

With the Technician's perspective, however the scale is narrower, more inhibited, confined principally to the work being done.

As a result, The Technician's business becomes increasingly oppresive, less exhilarating, closed off from the larger world outside.

His business is reduced to stes that fail to take him anywhere other than to the next step, itself nothing more than a replica of the one before it.

Routine becomes the order of the day.

Work is done for work's sake alone, forsaking any higher purpose, any meaning for what needs to be done other than the need to just do it. The Technician sees no connection between where his business is doing and where it is now.

Lacking the grander scale and visionary guidance manifest in the 

Entrepreneurial Model, The Technician is left to construct a model each step of the way.

But the only model from which to construct it is the model of past experience, the model of work. Exactly the opposite of what he neds if the business is to free him of the work he's grown accustomed to doing.

THE ENTREPRENEURIAL MODEL

The Entrepreneurial Model is a model of a business that fulfills the perceived needs a specific segment of customers in an innovative way.

The Entrepreneurial Model looks at a business as if it were a product, sitting on a shelf and competing for the customer's attention against a whole shelf of compeiting products (or businesses).

Said another way, the Entrepreneurial Model has less to do with what's done in a business and more to do with how it's done. The commodity isn't what's important the it's delivered is.

When the Entrepeneur creates the model, he surveys the world and asks "Where is the opportunity?" Having identified it, he then goes back to the drawing board and constructs a solution to the frustrations he finds among a certain group of customers. A solution in the form of a business that looks and acts in a very specific way, the way the customer needs it to look and act, not The Entrepreneur.

"How will my business look to the customer?" The Entrepreneur asks. "How will my business stand out from all the rest?" Thus, the Entrepreneurial Model does not start with a picture of the business to be created but of the customer for whom the business is to be created. It understands that without a clear picture of that customer, no business can succeed.

The Technician on the other hand, looks inwardly, to define his skills, and only looks outwardly afterward to ask, "How can I sell them?" The resulting business almost inevitably focuses on the thing it sells rather than the way the business goes about it or the customer to who it's to be sold. Such a business is designed to satify The Technician who created it, not the customer.

To The Entrepreneur, the business is the product.

To The Technician, the product is what he delivers to the customer.

To The Technician, the customer is always a problem. Because the customer never seems to want what The Technician has to offer at the price at which he offers it.

To The Entrepreneur, however the customer is always an opportunity. Because The Entrepreneur knows that within the customer is a continuing parade of changing wants begging to be satisfied. All The Entrepreneur has to do is find out what those wants are and what they will be in the future. As a result, the world is a continuing surprise, a treasure hunt to The Entrepreneur.

To The Technician, however the world is a place that never seems to let him do what he wants to do, it rarely applauds his efforts, it rarely appreciates his work, it rarely if ever appreciates him. To The Technician the world always wants something he doesn't know how to give it.

The question then becomes, how can we introduce the entrepreneurial model to 

The Technician in such a way that he can understand it and utilize it?

The answer is unfortunately we can't.

The Technician isn't interested.

The Technician has other things to do.

If we are to be succesful at this, what we must do, instead is to give the undeveloped Entrepreneur in each of us the information he needs to grow beyong the limitations of The Technician's Comfort Zone so as to experience a vision of a business that works.

What we must do instead is to provide out inner entrepeneur with a model of a business that works, a model that is so exciting that it stimulates our entrepreneurial personality, out innovative side to break free of The Technician's bonds once and for all.

What we must do, instead is to discover a model that sparks the entrepreneurial imagination in each of us with such a resounding shock that by the time The Technician wakes up to the fact it will be too late, The Entrepreneur will be well on his way.

But at the same time, if the model is to work, if the model is to awaken The Entrepreneur within each of us to begin to rebuild our businesses around the Entrepreneurial Perspective they so desperately need to flourish, The Manager and The Technician need their own models.

Because if the Entrepreneurial drives the business, the Manager must make certain it has the necessary fuel for sustenance, and that the engine and chassis are in a good state of repair.

If The Technician is to be satisfied, on the other hand, there must be a model that provides him with work that satisfied his need for direct interaction with every nut and bolt.

In short, for this business model of ours to work, it must be balanced and inclusive so that The Entrepreneurial, The Manager, and The Technician all find their natural place within it, so that they all find the right work to do.

CHAPTER 6: THE FRANCHISE PROTOTYPE

The success of the Business Format Franchise is withotu question the most important news in business.

Over the course of one year, Business Format Francises have reported a success rate of 95% in contrast to the 50 plus percent failure rate of new independently owned businesses. Where 80% of all businesses fail in the first five years, 75% of all Business Format Franchises suceed! The reason for that success is the Franchise Protoype.

The Franchise Prototype is the place where all assumptions are put to the test to see how well they work before becoming operational in the business. Without it the franchise would be an impossible dream, as chaotic and undisciplined as any business.

The Prototype acts as a buffer between hypothesis and action. Putting ideas to the test in the real world rather than the world of competing ideas. The only criterion of value becomes the answer to the ultimate question "Does it work?". In the Franchise Prototype the system becomes the solution to the problems that have beset all businesses and all human organizations since time immemorial. The system integrates all the elements required to make a business work. It transforms a business into a machine or more accurately because it is so alive, into an organism, driven by the integrity of its parts, all working in concert toward a realized objective. And, with its Prototype as its progenitor, it works like nothing else before it.

At Ray Kroc's McDonald's, every possible detail of the business system was first tested in the Prototype, and then controlled to a degree never before possible in a people intensive business.

The french fries were left in the warming bin for no more than seven minutes to prevent sogginess. A soggy french fry is not a McDonald's french fry. Hamburgers were removed from the hot trays in no more than ten minutes to retain the proper moisture.

The frozen meat patties, precisely identical in size and weight, were turned at exactly the same time on the griddle.

Pickles were placed by hand in a set patter that prevented them from sliding out and landing in the customer's lap.

Food was served to the customer in sixty seconds or less. Discipline, standardization and order were the watchwords. Cleanliness was enforced with meticulous attention to the most seemingly trivial detail.

Ray Kroc was determined that the customer would not equate inexpensive with inattentive or cheap. Nowhere had a business ever paid so much attention to the little things, to the system that guaranteed the customer that her expectations would be fulfilled in exactly the same way every time. The Franchise Prototype is the answer to the perpetual question "How do I give my customer what he wants while maintaining control of the business that's giving it to him?

To The Entrepreneur, the Franchise Prototype is the medium through which his vision takes form in the real world.

To The Manager, the Franchise Prototype provides the order, the predictability, the system so important to his life.

To The Technician, the Prototype is a place in which he is free to do the things he loves to do, technical work.

The Franchise Prototype is the model you've been looking for. The Franchise 

Prototype is the model of a business that works. The balanced model that will satisfy The Entrepreneur, The Manager, and The Technician all at once. It is being used at McDonald's, Federal Express, Disney Land etc.

CHAPTER 9: WORKING ON YOUR BUSINESS, NOT IN IT

It is critical that you understand the point I'm about to make. For if you do, neither your business nor your life will ever be the same. The point is: your business is not your life. Your business and your life are two totally seperate things. At its best, your business is something apart from you, rather than a part of you, with its own rules and it own purposes. An organism, you might say, that will live or die according to how well it performs its sole function: to find and keep customers.

Once you recognize that the purpose of your life is not to serve your business, but that the primary purpose of your business is to serve your life, you can then go to work on your business, rather than in it, with a full understanding of why it is absolutely neccessary for you to do so.

Think of your business as something apart from yourself, as a world of its own, as a product of your efforts, as a machine designed to fulfill a very specific need, as a mechanism for giving you more life, as a system of interconnecting parts, as a package of cereal, as a can of beans, as something created to satisfy your consumers deeply held perceived needs, as a place that acts distinctly different from all other places, as a solution to somebody else's problem.

Think of your business as anything but a job!

Go to work on your business rather than in it, and ask yourself the following questions:

How can I get my business to work, but without me?

How can I get my people to work, but without my contanst interference?

How can I systematize my business in such a way that it could be replicated 5000 times, so the 5000th unit would run as smoothly as the first?

How can I own my  business, and still be free of it?

How can I spend my time doing the work I love to do rather than the work I have to do?

If you ask yourself these questions, you'll eventually come face to face with the real problem: that you don't know the answers!

And that's been the problem along!

But now it should be different. Because now you know what you don't know. 

Now you are ready to look the problem squarely in the face.

The problem isn't your business it never has been.

The problem is you!

It has always been you and will always be you. Until you change, that is.

Until you change your perspective about what a business is and how one works.

Until you begin to think about business in a totally new way.

Until you accept the undeniable fact that business, even a very small business like yours, is both an art and science.

To successfully develop a serious business you need a process, a practice, by which to obtain that information and, once obtained, a method with which to put that information to use in your business productively.

[ghostmartyr]

SnK 121 Thoughts

Where’s the clip... someone had to have clipped it. Or I could just not interfere with my tentatively obligatory aesthetic and do this the less fun way. Less fun  does  indeed sound like me, so

There’s this DragonBall Z Abridged line.

From one of the Bardock specials.

You know. Bardock.

He can see the future.

He has a line about all the conveniences this ability causes his life.

-ahem-

USELESS ASS PSYCHIC POWERS.

Do I even need to write this? Can it just be a chorus of what the fuck over and over? Because sincerely, what the fuck? What the fuck? What the fuck what the fuck what the fuuuuuuuuck.

That doesn’t even have a tune. I sort of imagined one in my head, but I’m sort of caught up on how this makes everything worse, better, and changes absolutely nothing because it’s still Eren and Zeke being on the most disastrous family trip this world has ever seen.

Let’s review.

In the way that Angelica reviews Alexander Hamilton’s quality choices in the musical.

So we’ve got Eren, who is basically dying after his epic war games decision (good grief I haven’t even read War Games, but is he Stephanie Brown in this analogy? is that what we’re dealing with? is he somehow both Stephanie Brown and Batman?) that was intending to lead into him holding his brother’s hand.

His head is shot off.

Lest we forget.

Zeke caught it.

Because he’s a Good Big Brother.

That quality pro-genocide big brothering.

Brought to you by Dad.

Yeah so. Zeke and Eren,  down  memory lane. In an Inception of their own making, only like. Actually Inception. I am going to make this post take nine times longer than it has to because I’m going to keep making pop references  instead of dealing with the content.

Inception is a movie where the plot is for a heist team to go in and plant an idea inside someone’s head so that it grows into a genuine change for the world, breaking up a giant monopoly of power and slowing human civilization’s speedy erosion. #Spoilers, I guess.

...The things I bring up in these posts are always keenly relevant, good fuck.

So that we continue to all be caught up, Eren is playing out the part of the first time this is done, where the main character plants an idea in his wife’s head that leads to the destruction of his life and her death.

With his dad playing the part of wife.

Anyway, Zeke and Eren are having an Inception.

In the real world, Zeke is holding his little brother’s decapitated head while Paradis is attacked by Marley (soon to be the entire world) due entirely to Eren and Zeke’s choices. The objective of which, for each of them, was holding hands.

Eren’s aim for that is unknown, while Zeke is shooting for a passive genocide  that the narrative is making look like the more reasonable decision based on the fuckery that has become of the unscrewed nuts and bolts inside Eren’s head.

To be clear, neither one is being reasonable.

This is a trash fire of bad decisions.

Where the person rooting for genocide mostly just has the edge of probably being the same person throughout the entire chapter, as well as his life history, while the person with the unknown aims is looking like a really good case of Inside Eren Yeager, Titan Attack You.

That was funnier in my head.

The joke is that the Attack Titan ate Eren.

Is in the process of eating Eren?

Is periodically nomming on Eren.

Results may vary.

V original theory do not steal.

Ahem.

Going back to our plot summary!

Eren and Zeke, being the quality brothers they  are,  want to hold  hands,  and being the quality human beings they are,  start a massive war  of death and  trauma  on their way to holding hands,  then they fail to  hold hands because the natural  result of the quality of their quality  is  that Eren’s head  got blown  off, so  they’re settling  for Zeke holding  Eren’s  head.

Eren is presently cast as the clear antagonist, Zeke’s idea is still awful, and they’re locked in an extradimensional space where no one else has the power to point out that their main achievement so far is being useless dumbasses.

On top of a field of bodies.

Boys.

What in the fuck.

Forget what they want to do.

By all evidence, even in the midst of other horrifying details coming to light, all that needed to happen was them making contact. That’s it. Whatever massive plan is ongoing, they just needed to hold hands.

Cue a bunch of people dying. Including probably Eren.

This is a bad plan.

I’m okay with that.

It is still one of the most insanely complicated monuments  to a zero sum game that I have ever read, and it becomes very obvious that the reason these characters have Titan powers is because if they didn’t, they would be dead the first chapter they showed up, lacking the good sense to not be dead.

First volume, sorry.

This is not a complaint. I would happily eat mountains of popcorn to the tune of canon agreeing that yes, letting Zeke and Eren come up with their own original ideas is maybe bad. It is hilarious. They are not good at this.

I realize Zeke didn’t have hands back then, but at this point both of you have to be considering that maybe you should have just bumped shoulders on the plane.

I’m sort of on the fence for how to react outside of heavy amusement, though. The downside of Zeke and Eren being so bad at this is that literally nothing is going well. Paradis is on fire again, Marley exists yet remains to let the members of its cast who sort of have morals die shocking deaths, and the fate of the world is being decided in the split second before Eren’s death between two people who should be in charge of absolutely nothing.

The rest of the cast, barring the inevitable reveal of what the fuck Eren’s got up his  sleeve, has no power over any of this.

It’s. I guess it’s what you would call appalling.

Yelena’s point of view is really the closest anyone in canon has come to understanding the situation, and boy is that telling. She sees these two men as gods. She believes in their ability to remake the world. All that falls to her is  facilitating their union.

She might have her battle lines a bit crossed, but yeah. Once Eren and Zeke make contact, all the rest of the world can do to discover its fate is wait.

That is a key Epic style plot, only it’s drawn out by Eren and Zeke both clearly not being gods. Zeke is a broken child who has made all of his decisions from a belief that the world is too cruel to be worth living in.

Eren is.

...

Eren, I’m coming back to you.

For now, let’s just dub him a disaster.

So you have the storyline of gods clashing while the mortals sit back with bated breath, but the scale of it is stomped all over because mortals who should not be making these decisions are still  making them, and neither one seems  entirely sane.

Locking Eren and Zeke in a bubble has been a source of grand entertainment, but as a story feature, the idea of these circumstances determining anything is something of a letdown.

Eren’s known for years what he’s wanted to do, and he still ends up with his head shot off while he runs too slow to stop his brother from initiating the death of their people.

Something has to give for this to feel like it matters, because right now the prevailing feeling is that these people should be as far away from power as humanly possible.

The darkness of this story is often, I feel, exaggerated. Sometimes by the author. It is a story where horrific things happen,  and are  attempted, but the hearts of all the characters we’re invited to sympathize with have always been crystal clear. There has never been a question that Zeke’s plan is wrong. There has never been a question of genocide in all its forms being inexcusable.

Reiner breaks down a wall. Bertolt breaks down a wall. Annie calls monsters to the broken wall.

Thousands of people die because children were handed power and thrown into a situation they had no hopes of understanding.

All three of the traitor kids end up traumatized. Reiner’s mind splits, Bertolt retreats so far into himself he barely engages with the world, and Annie literally crystallizes herself through the desperate desire to make it home.

There is no question that they could have been something besides murderers. They probably all would have preferred that.

This is not a grimdark series where everyone has forgotten what good things look like. Hange can design trains with prisoners of war. Niccolo can learn to care for people he’s been taught to hate. Children can be protected regardless of side.

Where the darkness comes from is not from the absence of light, but the deterioration of faith in that light.

Annie wants to go home. Bertolt and Zeke want it to end. Reiner doesn’t know right and wrong, but he’ll fulfill his duty and extend sympathy to a fellow victim  of chaos he’s not equipped to understand.

They stop seeing their fight as something that has true meaning. The most proactive hearts come from Bertolt and Zeke, who share the same mind of simply ending things, not forging a new beginning.

That’s where things get sticky with Eren and Zeke.

This chapter paints Eren in such a dark light it’s hard to hope he succeeds in whatever he’s doing, but Zeke’s wish is still something that can’t be allowed to  happen.

The scenario presented is one where the light has gone out, and the person who was counted on the be its champion has lost something essential in his humanity.

Obviously that doesn’t mean this is over, but every time the immediate entertainment of Zeke and Eren being  the worst strategists to ever live  passes, the question of what’s being fought for here comes up, and there’s no clear answer. Not with this version of Eren.

Cultivated distrust in the protagonist is nothing new, but the extent of this is impressive.

Trying to put this the simplest way I can, for the chapter, I like how this is going.

For the story, the only two people who seem to have power over changing the  state of the world are people who should have that power taken away as soon as possible.

If this weren’t all happening while Eren’s head was still falling to the ground, it would bother me less. But as things stand, nothing anyone else is doing has any impact on the story, and Eren and Zeke are impossible to root for.

That it’s probably by design doesn’t do much to make it more palatable.

Leading us into the only part of this post anyone is actually here for.

Eren.

The fuck.

I feel like it’s a fair thing to say that this might not be good.

Outside the usual realm of not good.

Also, now obligatory monthly mention that Eren looks a hell of a lot like Frieda and I want more to be done with that besides the current holder of Frieda’s memories murdering actual Frieda.

He fucking looks like Frieda.

This is why people thought Geographia was a female Eren. Even before his hair choices. Fight me.

As referenced earlier, I think a good chunk of Eren’s problem is that we’re finally dealing with the Attack Titan. Features include an immunity to the First King and the ability to see into the future.

With mixed conclusions about mindless raging.

Funny story about that! Your sons think differently. Have corpses receipts, can verify

...Hell, sorry about your life, Grisha.

(Side note, I’m pretty sure this panel is Frieda. Why? Because Isayama went to the trouble of making one of the long-haired Founders have their ears showing. That is literally the only way I can tell, and even then I’m only sure because Eren comes with a lot more extra shadow this chapter and the very next page.)

Okay, so. Uh.

Here’s where I wonder if I have the right caps for this comparison. I’m pretty sure I don’t yet. This noted time gap brought to you by me typing while I think even though no one reading this would ever know the difference.

The first thing that occurs to me is Mikasa, and cue the rabbit hole about her inheriting the Attack Titan and saying goodbye to Eren in their memories. Add in some bonus flavor about how in Trost, Mikasa’s vocalized motivation for living was being able to remember Eren. The Attack Titan is looking like a very good fit for her.

As for why Mikasa occurs, well!

Note that the key difference in these scenes is that Mikasa is encouraging Eren to transform so fewer of them will die. Eren is encouraging Grisha to transform so the Reiss family absolutely will die.

Sorry, ‘encouraging.’

I feel like I’m more at peace with some of Grisha’s interactions with Eren the last night of his life. As well as the display involved in killing the Reiss family. That’s always been one of the bloodier massacres we’ve played witness to. I passed it off as Grisha being unhinged by how badly everything was going and how it was all his fault, but...

T-tatakae?

-scrolls through images-

Hey so anyone else have fond memories of chapter 63? You know, back when Historia’s allegiance was in question because she was siding with her father and being a very generous-minded child about why Eren was strung up in chains and gagged?

Remember how she got all her memories of Frieda back and glared at Eren even though his father was the one who killed off her beloved older sister, and it was an amusing moment of irrationality in a sea of Historia having a low wisdom score?

Look at her glaring at the last person who deserves to be glared at over the massacre of the only family who treated her kindly!

...

Yikes?

Like, I don’t think she knows, because as tolerant as Historia is of people committing atrocities, Frieda is a sore point, but I think at this point, Isayama probably knew what actually went down with the bloodbath.

Easter eggs. Fun for the whole fandom.

In other fun news, I’ve made the comment several times that one of the sad points of Historia’s situation is Eren is her best friend, given how the story has limited her contact so thoroughly with the other people she cares about.

My brotp has seen better days.

The effect of Historia’s hand coming out of the darkness, Historia herself completely shrouded in the shadows as Eren takes it and discovers the worst moments of his life he hasn’t lived through yet...

Hell, the layout of this chapter is beautiful. All of it, including the very obvious descent into Eren being not quite right.

He’s unlocked the Attack Titan’s powers, and with it, I think a will that is more indomitable than anything Eren the person would have been okay with. Really, I don’t know how much of this is Attack Titan brain sickness, and how much is that Eren already saw himself doing all of this crap, so how bad was doing it one more time?

He’s lived through betraying his friends. He’s killed children. He’s killed the entire family of a friend who saved his life.

What’s doing it twice?

In the grand scheme of all Eren has seen, how bad is anything he’s done recently? Civilians are dead, but bad people are too. People who would hold power the wrong way.

I want to say that Eren’s choices are a result of the Attack Titan having a mind of its own, and between that and the other memories in Eren’s head, his intentions have been corrupted, but that’s mostly me trying to find a way for Eren, as he has been, to survive.

Eren looks at the Reiss family, sees his father hesitating, and takes the lead himself.

The Attack Titan can travel the Paths through time, and Eren, the character most angry about cages, decides that the way things were is the way things should be, even if what happened was wrong.

I realize it’s partly my priorities with the series which keeps the thread of fate so active a plot point in my mind. I’m always going to see Ymir demanding to know  why Kristoria’s strength hasn’t turned into trying to change her own fate as a key theme of the series.

Eren had choices.

Maybe something catastrophic would have happened, but nothing forced him to make his father murder the Reisses. Going by his expressions, he’s not entirely okay with it, and the second they step into that cavern he knows that he’s at the hard part...

But he still does it.

He chooses to let the story play out as he knows it instead of allowing his father’s kindness to change the world.

I don’t know what Eren plans to do with the Founder’s power. Evidence points to him still wanting a better world for the people born into it. He disdains Zeke’s plan.

Nothing about this screams that this is what he wants. There’s a person in Eren still, recognizable as the young boy who wrapped a scarf around a cold girl’s neck.

Eren’s eyes are firmly on Mikasa and Armin when he walks his memories of them. He’s ignoring Zeke completely to stare at the warmth of his childhood. That isn’t someone who’s completely lost.

Yet he still pulls the trigger on this.

This isn’t what the Eren we’re familiar with would call freedom; adhering to what happened in the past just because it already happened.

Fight. If you don’t fight, you can’t win.

Zeke isn’t fighting, for all he’s holding back Eren.

Eren’s fighting something, but holding to the path already plotted instead of changing it.

I can’t imagine what Eren saw to push him this far. He’s not happy. He’s not winning. Not even over Zeke. He’s lost the love and confidence of everyone who has ever cared for him

Frieda only transforms after Grisha does. She waits for him. She waits to see if peace wins out.

The Attack Titan, as ever, has other ideas.

Not good ones. Just. You know. Different ones.

In conclusion Eren is a Billie Eilish fan.

[flying-elliska]

I’m still not over it, so here’s a drabble about what happens after…well, after. (not really expl*cit, more like *metaphorical* lol)

VENDREDI 19 : 24

The world is an explosion of colors.

And it’s theirs, all theirs. Shock and need and giddy pleasure mixing and thrown all around them in a joyful mess, marking the world wherever they touch.

The moment he felt the cold brush of paint touch his nose, something let loose in Lucas, and now he’s got Eliott pressed up against the wall, looking at him like he’s a work of art. It’s intoxicating. Every second is a frantic rush and yet Eliott’s eyes seem to hold eternity.

Neither of them hesitated before chucking off their clothes, Eliott only stopping  to grab two condoms in his pocket and it hits Lucas he came prepared and he thinks the nerve and also thank god because he really, really would not have thought about it in his current state of mind. He just needs them to be closer, closer, closer.

…

The first thing he does when they let go of each other and sink down to the ground is laugh.

He cannot believe what they just did. Eliott looks at him, mischievous, so loving it would completely overwhelm his heart if it hadn’t just tripled in size, and they laugh together.

As he lets the endorphine high course through his body, awareness of how sticky and slippery everything is starts to break through the haze. Also, he’s got paint in his mouth. Ugh. He spits on the floor.

Eliott makes a smacking noise with his lips.

“Hm, I’ve tasted worse, as far as paint goes. I mean, it probably doesn’t bode well for the longevity of our masterpiece, but you chose well.”

“Oh yeah, that’s totally what I had in mind when we picked these. Which ones are going to look and taste the best on my boyfriend’s butt.”

Eliott raises his eyebrows, and his smile is the brightest thing in the room flooded by the evening sunlight.

Lucas realizes what he just said.

“I mean…”

Eliott grabs one of their shirts off the floor and leans towards Lucas, using the spotless inner side of it to tenderly wipe off the worst of the paint of Lucas’ face .

“Good call, boyfriend.”

Lucas feels like the happiness is going to lift him off the ground, and he can’t help but draw Eliott to him and kiss him, and mix their colors together all over again.

…

Eventually, they manage to get dressed. They’re an absolute mess, there’s no avoiding it. Lucas’ whole shirt is half-orange, and then there’s the paint under his clothes, which is starting to dry and flake. Eliott looks like he crawled through mud on an alien planet, his cheeks muddy brown and hair shot through with electric blue. It’s going to be absolute hell trying to explain this to anybody. Especially as they turn towards the wall, and well.

It’s pretty damn obvious what happened there. Their ‘masterpiece’ doesn’t even begin to cover the old design, except in the center. Where it definitely looks like two people throwing themselves at a wall covered in paint while naked. Is that a butt print ? Lucas is going to absolutely die if anyone sees this. Well, he would definitely get a few high fives from at least Emma and Basile, but it isn’t worth it.

Eliott sees him having a crisis and grabs one of the largest brushes, dips it in a rest of red paint on the ground, and starts swiping it haphazardly over the worst of the offending marks.

“It’s like an explosion started here.” He wiggles his eyebrows. “It’s a metaphor, see ? Deviating a bit from the abstract theme, sorry, but I think we’ve thrown all the liquids we can at this poor wall.”

They didn’t even…well this style of painting is…anyway. Forget orange, Lucas is turning bright red. But he loves this. He loves how wild and carefree being around Eliott makes him. Like they could repaint the whole world in their own colors.

…

They manage to make it to the bathroom and clean off their faces and hands. But there’s no two ways about it - the fresque is probably uglier than before, and the room is a mess. They might have to come back early on Monday to clean it. He’s got no cell in his body inclined to do it now. Before he leaves, though, he snaps a picture of the paint-covered floor, empty paint buckets and two very visible, ah, remains of their activities. He’s in a bragging mood.

They walk out of the school, thankfully avoiding meeting anyone. There’s no way they’re going to get into public transport looking like this, so they walk the rest of the way home - to Lucas’ appartment, the closest to school.

Eliott’s hand keeps brushing against Lucas’s.

He wants to grab it. He really wants to. He isn’t there yet.

But he feels like he might be, soon.

As he walks, he posts the painting picture on his insta. He has been avoiding it for a while and he didn’t check his notifications when he posted the picture with the boys earlier, but he sees he has a new follower who has tagged him in a picture. The lettersoup name makes it sound like a bot, but hey, you never know.

The picture is Jackson Pollock, and the caption is a row of rainbow hearts. He looks up at Eliott.

“Aha, you found me !”

“You tagged me, that’s not very subtle, dude. Is your whole profile full of pretentious artsy references ?”

“I don’t know, why don’t you tell me ?”  

Lucas is readying a smart-ass comment but when he actually clicks on srodulv’s page, his heart kind of stops, and so does he, right there in the middle of the sidewalk.

The drawing of rain drops, dated. February 16. The night of their first kiss. “Not afraid.”Quotes in English about stars. The piano, god. That video of Eliott listening to rock in the exact same manner Lucas had put dubstep in his ears for days.

Some of the drawings are pretty dark. He’s starting to understand that Eliott’s a bit of a troubled soul, and maybe it explains a little bit of the rollercoaster they’ve been on. He’s messed up recently, he can understand. All he really wants to know is that Eliott really cares. And - from this ? Well, he really really does.

The f*cking chocolate bar - the very first day they met. Chelou, their first inside joke.

Fuck being timid and fuck shame. Before he knows what he’s doing, he’s kissing his man in the middle of the street, right in view of the whole world.

And then he follows him back on insta, of course.

…

When they arrive to the appartment, the first thing Lucas does is knock on Manon’s door.

“Hey, I need the room.”

Manon’s smile is the biggest he’s ever seen in someone who’s basically just been s*xiled.

“Of course, but wash up first okay ? You’d better not leave any weird stains. Hello, Eliott, nice to see you.”

Eliott greets her back, and Lucas is suddenly afraid she’s going to give him the shovel talk, so he pushes them both to the bathroom.

…

It takes them a long time to get clean, both because paint is difficult to wash off and because they can’t seem to keep their hands off each other. And well, it’s a small shower.

Eliott is so beautiful, and Lucas can’t get over being able to see and touch all of him, wherever he wants. As the pigment washes off with the water, he leaves new marks, more permanent, deep pink blossoming under his teeth and lips.

He wants the whole world to know. Eliott said he was the only one that mattered.

When they’re done, the shower stall looks like they murdered a clown in there. But they’ll have time to be fussy tomorrow.

…

They dry off and burrow under the covers together, skin against skin, cosy and clean and the closest thing to a holy experience Lucas’ ever known.  

It feels like a whole age since they were last here, like this. He feels like a whole different person. It’s been gruelling, but it was the kind of change he needed, to love Eliott wholly. There’s nothing holding him back now.

There’s still a shiver of fear. That he will go to sleep and Eliott won’t be there tomorrow, that he will find another sad drawing about how they can only be together in parallel universes.

But he has learned to step away from fear. And as Eliott whispers sweet nothings in the crook of his neck, as they move against each other again and again and the pleasure builds like waves of warmth breaking together, the reality of it sinks deeper and deeper.

This here is real, and it’s his life, right here and now.

[destiny-smasher]

I used to be close friends with one of the composers for Steven Universe. I watched them rise from a YouTube remixer living in a cramped bedroom in a shared apartment with nothing but a mattress on the floor and a keyboard beside it to owning a house, happily married with a whole backyard garden and a cat because they found success working on one of the biggest cartoon shows I’ve known. But they broke off that friendship earlier this year and it’s made my biased love for Steven Universe become very difficult to grasp with. Understanding how and why we weren’t friends anymore was likewise difficult to grasp, even after hours of us trying to hash things out and resolve it. And while we DID resolve things amicably (I hope) and peacefully, it wasn’t until Steven Universe: The Movie that I was really able to feel like I could see the forest from the trees and ‘get’ what happened. This will be a kind of review of the movie, but mostly it became more of a personal ramble relating my real life experiences with Aivi to those of characters within SU, especially the antagonist of the Movie. This is lifted from this Twitter thread, so it was originally written stream of consciousness and I’m sharing it here to keep it more readable and archived. This is a bit of a read so tucking it behind a ‘read more.’

--

"You keep on turning pages for people who don't care about you And still it takes you ages to see that no one's there Everyone's gone on without you"

Time to finally talk about the #StevenUniverse Movie. Strap in 'cause this gon' get personal.

It should go without saying BUT I am gonna be talking about the movie! Dunno how in detail per se but I can't properly say what I wanna say without diving into some of the important plotty stuff. So yea.

Don't read this thread if ya don't want #spoilers #sumovie 

First off, I wanna talk about what this movie does well. Going in, I had heard it was framed like a musical. And I wasn't sure how I felt about that idea, though it wasn't surprising. After all, the 'musical' style episodes tend to resonate quite a lot. 

I think they work great when it's one song in a 10 minute episode, but an hour and a half of songs? I wasn't sure how well that would go. Turns out, pretty well. This is due to many factors but primarily the variety of song styles and art styles used throughout. Basically every scene has a primary song that drives it home, and basically all of them have a different genre/tone as well as visual presentation style. A lot of work went into getting it all to work together and feel cohesive. TBH for me personally the main highlight of the movie was honestly the animation. Average TV goers might just see "yup sure looks like a cartoon" but on the whole, on average, the movie is CLEARLY animated and framed with much more dynamism and detail than the majority of SU. Getting to see these characters we've gotten to know over the past few years a couple years in the future, generally at peace with things, but animated with more detail than ever, THAT is the true highlight of the film for me. Naturally, there was a lot of bits of comedy, often relying on knowledge of what the characters have been through, and I felt a lot of bittersweet smiles throughout as this felt like a good send off for Steven and his Space Moms. It managed to work in cameos from basically everyone you'd expect, some of which...didn't work out as well as others (specifically, the Diamonds bookending the movie was a bit forced and weird IMO but they ARE important to the lore even if I find them boring tbh) It was nice getting to 'catch up' with everyone, and the plot itself uses a generic 'gotta save the world again' thing (bleh) in a creative way, at least -- it all becomes an excuse to "re-live" the four primary heroes' stories through song. Cool enough. Something the movie inadvertently highlights, however, is the fact that SU as a series really started spinning its wheels a lot for its second half, in particular. Much has been said about how and why and why or not this doesn't matter, etc. etc. I was just along for the ride. I've repeatedly expressed my personal bias in the series' favor for a long time, and now? I kinda don't really have that personal bias anymore. I still love the show, I still think it's one of the best cartoons I've ever seen. But those rose-tinted glasses are off now. Taking said glasses off and actually listening to and looking up what critics of the show had to say kind of unearthed a bunch of things I had kept sweeping under the rug for the sake of personal bias/support of someone I loved and cared for a lot. We'll get back to that. I say all of this because the movie ironically failed to do much of anything NEW, something the series itself kind of struggled with for a while until it finally got around to the conclusion of Steven's story arc. The film ultimately kind of ends with "yeah Steven can change!" Which, um yea? Obviously. He's a completely different person than he was in S1. But he's kiiiiinda been the same person for....some while now. The weird irony of SU as a series is that about halfway through the narrative, the protag has essentially grown up, done. The last half or third or so of SU's narrative was basically Steven having to cheer everyone around him up and help them deal with their shit, and...kinda just going about that essentially the same way every time. The power of love, the friends we made along the way, etc. To be clear, there's nothing BAD about this, and in fact it's what sets Steven apart from most every other narrative of this type. The protag is almost always forced to change in ways they don't want, do things they don't want to do, etc. But when you put it side by side with something like Avatar or Gravity Falls, those series saw everyone growing alongside each other. There are clear arcs for everyone, almost all of which get resolved in ways fitting each character. It's imperfect but it's varied. SU has a tendency to just...hammer everyone's character flaws and arcs with ONE option: just love yourself and be nice, and everyyyyyyythinggggg 'll work out in the end! Which is fine, but when a story does it for so long, over and over, always the same, it gets a bit weird. I specifically LIKED in the film, at the end, that Steven actually does have to fight, because THAT is what Spinel needed to do. She needed to let out all of that anger, and that violence was her own way of doing it. 'you can't just sing a song to make everything go away' etc. It's typical, perhaps, for protagonists to have to tackle problems in different ways because that's LIFE. The fact is, Steven's approach will NOT save everyone. Lapis stilllll kinda stands as an example of this but an as of yet unresolved one. I liked that at the end of things, Spinel still doesn't come into the same fold as everyone else. Basically "sorry, I already fucked this up too much, I can't really deal with this," and that is IMPORTANT and I really liked it. Before really digging into the personal angle, I want to bring up how fascinating it is that the movie essentially had a real BUDGET and so they deliberately seemed to design an antagonist that would take full advantage of that animation budget. EASILY, by far, Spinel is the most interesting-to-watch antag in the whole series imo, in terms of how she moves and fights, etc. They really just wanted to flex and they did it, but like any SU antag there's (somewhat predictable) motives. This gets back at what I was saying before -- how the series spins its wheels a lot -- but Spinel's motivation/back story isssss kiiiinnndaaaa a lot like many many characters' issues and, like, I get it. We get it. Steven's Mom was Not The Best does that have to be the basis behind kinda EVERYONE who goes against Steven? Or the Gems? Lapis, Bismuth, and Peridot all offered more varied motivations, and even THEN, Bismuth was still essentially in the same boat? Anyway, I digress. I DO appreciate the way the series set up Rose as this wondrous lovely lady and has severely dissected and broken that down to the point where I really do not like Rose, in any of her ID's, as a character or a fictional person, and it did so gradually. A lot of what the movie did was kind of expected. Right? Songs, singing, check. Steven going about things the same way, check. Re-living/celebrating how far he and his moms have come, check. What I didn't expect was -- OK, well, there WAS that one fusion...which, um

But the actual thing that really latched onto me was how much I conncted with Spinel. As is the case with any story that has well presented characters, you can attach to SOME part of just about all of them. I associate most closely with Pearl overall but can relate with just about anyone prominent. I see parts of me and Jenny in Steven/Connie, in Ruby/Sapphire, in Peridot/Lapis. I see what kind of woman I might've become in Amethyst (and sometimes am). Spinel, though, is a really weird case because I see my adolescent self in her SO MUCH and yet fairly recent events in my life -- directly tied TO the show itself, mind you -- make that connection weirdly poignant and present. For some context, I used to be good friends with Aivi, one of the musicians who works on the series with their husband. Spring 2018, Aivi and I vocalized to each other that we considered one another one of the closest friends in each other's lives. We're no longer friends. To make sure this is clear, I think Aivi is a wonderful person, and our breaking apart wasn't violent or dramatic or anything, Aivi just...decided they weren't interested in the relationship anymore. And neglected to tell me this until like a year later. The context is of course not at ALL as severe or dramatic as Spinel/Pink, so please don't assume there's some one-to-one there. But OOF are there some harsh similarities and it really made Spinel's backstory sting in a very confusing way. I say 'confusing' because, as I mentioned, I see my adolescent self in Spinel. The way I was going about making friends matches her 'happy' self. The way I acted in my senior year of college matches her 'angry' self. There was no single person that created any of that, though. In high school, I was like Starfire, in college, I tried to nurture that, play to my strengths. I failed miserably. And what I feel is a big part of why is inherently tied to my transitioning (which is, still, something I feel I am failing miserably at). By the end of college I was more like Raven, and there I remained through the duration of my first long-term romance, into a very weird and atypical marriage and breakup, and then I moved to CA and started changing. Fittingly, my current self can't quite ID with any single Teen Titan. I'm not a teen anymore, after all. Throughout a lot of my friendship with Aivi, they really seemed to fixate on comparing me to Pearl. It sometimes made me uncomfortable the particular ways they did, though. I strongly identified with Pearl's flaws and strengths in personality (though we're obviously different people), and so seeing Pearl go through redemption via self-love and self-acceptance meant a lot to me. "It's Over, Isn't It?" I was IN THE ROOM listening to Aivi and their husband work on the chorus to that song. Obviously they couldn't talk about it but I knew damn well what it was about, and anticipated that piece for a long time. Now it's even more weirdly painful. I met Aivi because they made Mario arrangements they put on YouTube and they happened to live a few blocks away when I was subletting my first summer in CA. They seemed very kind and caring and eager to Be Nice and at the time I really needed that at a very vulnerable and fragile time in my life so I latched onto that. -In The Garden- The week when the LiS terfs freaked out on me and that Bad Spinel side of me lashed back, and I found myself suffering from being gaslit and facing the fact that the worst part of myself that Trigon in Raven's mind that Angry Spinel was still THERE was still ME It was too much For the first (and thankfully, only) time in my life, I experienced suicidal thoughts. And Aivi REACTED to that shit. Strongly. In a way no one ever had for me before, ever. They drove across the Bay to my house, picked me up, had me over, and helped me process it. And in the months to come, as I was healing and coming to terms with how That Worst Part of Me That I Wanted to BE RID OF was still THERE and apparently could just fucking show up, through all of that, Aivi helped me work through things, and we really bonded. In retrospect, though, it's SO damned hard for me to tell if Aivi and I became so close because of mutual respect or pity or just conditioned behavior to Be Nice and Keep Up Appearances. I dunno. What I know NOW is that apparently Cost More than I would've thought. I'm not Aivi so I don't want to really dig into 'dirt' (again, Aivi is a great person who works very hard and that's WHY their work is so good) but looking back, it's wild to see their progression into SUCCESS and fame while I just stood by, floundering The thing is, Aivi was a super busy person. We barely got to spend time together -- when we DID, it was a multi-hour affair and apart from like, Jenny, Aivi is prolly the person I've had the deepest, most vulnerable conversations with. They were next to me when I realized 'oh huh I'm maybe trans??' because they were there when I was at one of the lowest points in my life. I never ASKED them to be there, to Be So Nice and as it turns out, Being So Nice is harder than it looks. So to kind of loop this back to the movie, I wasn't some Skullgirls Peacock Cuphead grinny goof or anything like that but I AM WILLING to bet that from Aivi's POV the way Happy Spinel acts toward Steven is prolly how I felt in Aivi's life at points, at the least. The irony is that we would go weeks, months, barely interacting. But looking back, the way Aivi talked about things, the same phrase keeps dominating my mind: Aivi got bored of me. I wasn't 'useful' to them anymore. Aivi said that day in spring 2018 was like 'the climax' of our friendship, or something like that. Way they talked about it was like...the finale of a season of TV. Our character arc together was over. Even though we TALKED about it, came to mutual understandimng of The Logic behind Aivi's decision to cut ties, I don't think it ever REALLY made sense to me, how Aivi must've felt about our friendship, until Spinel. By spring of 2019, my role in Aivi's life -- from what they have told me, from what I can perceive -- was more like I existed in a separate space from the rest of their life. I was that one interesting person always waiting in The Garden for them to visit when they felt like it Because while Aivi had gotten BIG, gotten MARRIED, gotten a HOUSE, found legitimate SUCCESS in their creative field I was still poor still stuck in retail still unable to find an audience still unable to understand the pressures of Success And OOOOFFF in those last couple years, interacting became more and more strained for both of us, from opposite ends of things. Aivi had responsibilities, PEOPLE vying for their attention, people wanting to hire them, projects to complete, a house, a spouse, etc etc My life was (and kiiiinda still is?) nothing like that, and as our Mutual Creatives Struggling to MAKE THINGS and Get By transforming into Yep I Am Still Here but you are SUCCESSFUL I think that really put a lot of strain on things I never accepted until Spinel. After Aivi hit it big with SU, in particular, they gradually started...acting differently. Acting in ways that made less and less sense to me. They were a Diamond now. And I was still just what I was. When drawing comparisons to characters on the show, Aivi persistently compared me to Pearl. A fact I once took pride in. They repeatedly compared themself to Garnet. Which...always kind of didn't make sense to me. Aivi wasn't really like Garnet. They are more NOW, though? In the sense of how they act, I suppose. Specifically, one of the last things Aivi said to me was that trying to be friends with me had started feeling like Pearl trying to force Garnet to fuse with her. This was problematic because from my POV nothing of the sort was happening. All I was looking for was occasionally hanging out a few times a year. Like. Ya know. Actually a lot less than what I was looking for with basically all of my other friends. And that was still Too Much? But when I start looking at things like Pink Diamond and Spinel instead of Pearl and Garnet, somehow things make a lot more sense. I was probably too clingy, too exciteable, and what amusement or relief I could provide eventually stopped being useful. Aivi eventually didn't even want to spend time with friends to just...spend time with them. Everything had to have some kind of practical Purpose to it, it had to be contributing to a Goal. I still don't get that, tbh. But I'm also not A Diamond. I'm not Successful. The most responsibility I have right now is fucking hanging up the laundry to dry. I have college loans that have and continue to feel pointless to try and repay. I have severe dental problems I haven't been able to fix. My body fell out of shape because of retail hell, and what energy I’ve had to spare from that always ends up going into the people I love, and trying to keep Making Things. Let's not forget The Complications of coming out and wanting to transition but not possessing the resources to do so. (Aivi was actually super supportive of this btw and was the first person to make me feel comfortable wearing feminine things so yea) Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that MY LIFE is not together. My personality is? I feel like I am finally Myself in terms of mental/emotional stability. And that is largely because Jenny helped me get there. But Aivi helped a lot with that, too. But I think Aivi got to a point where Success was more of a measure of how Grown Up and Healthy one was because despite my behavior, my personality, my mood, what I was asking for, and what I was giving, all changing DRASTICALLY after being with Jenny, I think Aivi still...looked at me the way Pink Diamond looked at Spinel during that song. Like, "yeeeaaaa ok kiddo it's time for me to go now, kinda done here" This is what's so confusing about all of this metaphor/etc. I'm not...like Spinel anymore? My current, post-coming-out self doesn't really relate with Happy OR Angry Spinel. It's almost like Aivi couldn't see me for who I became, and could only see me for who I had been. And maybe that's like why Spinel can't be friends with Steven at the end. It's too painful. I used to take pride in being associated with Pearl because "I'm enough" and "being strong in the REAL way" but now it's more like "oh you just think I'm still hung up and needy and clingy?" which uh don't feel so great a comparison. I can't help but wonder if while working on the movie, Aivi saw some of themself in Pink. Because I'm not the only person who apparently wasn't 'useful' to them anymore. And I'm not saying we should've kept forcing something that wasn't working. Not at all. What we had was good for both us, but it also entailed a lot of patience on my part and effort on theirs. And unlike any of my other long term friends, I often ended up waiting weeks, months, "Happily wondering night after night, Is this how it works? Am I doing it right?"

Years and years of broken friendships, one after the other, most lasting merely 6 months, MAYBE a year at most, with a handful that have lasted since middle school (but which are so much harder to maintain) took a toll on my Adult Self until Jenny, anyway. For quite a long time - the majority of my life, currently - I assumed I just was Too Different and that was why my friendships didn't seem to last, didn't seem to extend to the depths I was looking for. That's perhaps one critical difference between Spinel and I: she's looking for FUN, for smiling faces, for attention, for creating smiles, I just want some fucking consistency. At this point, I'm not even sure WHY I still reach out to people. I don't NEED friendships in that desperate way I used to, back in the Happy/Angry Spinel times. And I've come to terms with that Other Max part of myself and integrated it, accepted it. My worst parts are still me and instead of suppressing them (often by relying on bids of deep friendship with others) I just have to let them EXIST and let them do their thing once in a while. This is ALL why Celeste hit me as hard as it did. Because even if I'm not actually much like Spinel anymore, and Aivi's not really like Pink Diamond, even if I don't actually share much in common with Madeline (other than the subtle 'I drink sometimes to deal with my problems' thing, which I don't anymore) I still comprehend and resonate so much with that concept of just needing to accept the worst parts of yourself and work with them rather than trying to keep them caged up and then they escape and rampage every 5-10 years or so and ruin your life As I felt myself coming to all of these Good Feelings I FINALLY felt like I could help Aivi in the ways they had helped me. That I finally had something to offer I didn't before. Turns out, I didn't, apparently. Aivi had More Important Things to do than visit me in The Garden. And I couldn't blame them. Not a bit. Especially if they had gotten bored of visiting me. I didn't like feeling like a burden on them, either. Can't really argue with that. During the last time we talked, Aivi didn't use the WORDS, didn't literally say them, but I finally could see it: I wasn't Useful anymore. I couldn't Understand, either, because I wasn't Successful. Our friendship was rewarding, but because it required effort. And that effort was still worth it to me, but no longer to them. I was no longer worth it. And despite that, despite starting to feel those hunches, I spent those final months -- as had been the case before, they were afraid to hurt me so avoided actually confronting the problem -- I remained "Happy to listen, Happy to stay Happily watching her drift away" I have no idea if any aspect of our friendship impacted anything Aivi had worked on creatively. TBH Aivi seemed to approach even relationships themselves with more of a logical, pragmatic style -- it was entirely unique compared to anyone I had ever connected with. But if you've read @lis-allwounds then it might not surprise you to know that a lot of what I expressed through Stella and Max, as well as Other Max and Another Stella, channels a lot of these things. I even quoted Aivi directly in the story's end (perhaps foolishly optimistic) And yes, that epilogue moment of sorts is gonna be entirely different if I ever do finish the visual novel. The fact is that we were ALWAYS very different people and our friendship was weird and complicated and hard for one or both of us throughout its, what, 8 year duration? Ironically, I think I took away the opposite 'Character Arc Lesson' they did from all this. But that's just the thing, nothing is permanent for a Human Being. We aren't Gems, we don't actually fuse, we can't just change our appearances when we feel like it, or project ourselves to look how we want to look, or exist for thousands of years. But we DO all have different needs, different ways of understanding those needs, and different ways of needing to adjust or change ourselves or our environments in order to pursue what we want to pursue with the limited time we have here. We tried, hard, and it lasted long enough. If I'm not useful, I'm not useful, I guess? I don't have any ill will toward Aivi, I loved them as a friend and I know they loved me, too, and were better at showing it than most any friends I ever have had. If I'd been better at reciprocating in ways that were actually useful, that would've been good -- but then maybe we wouldn't have become friends in the first place if I hadn't needed 'saving' in the first place, I don't fuckin' know. And I hope my saying all of these things doesn't make anyone think any less of Aivi because your relationship with them is, very likely, not at all personal like mine is. And you know as well as I do how good they are at what they do. Aivi took the time to ease me out of things. Aivi did NOT suddenly up and vanish for thousands of years. While the dynamics of the situation might bare sharp points of similarity, Aivi is not like Pink Diamond and I'm not like Spinel -- not in the present, anyway. Stories help us because they share THREADS with reality but it's always important to recognize those threads for what they are and not confuse them for ropes. And me ranting and tossing all of this out there is something part of me has wanted to do for months but needed to take the time to grieve and process and accept. And maybe it's selfish to be posting all of this, I don't know. But it helps me accept myself and them a lot more. "Finally something finally news about how the story ends" Aivi likely has brand new friends, better ones than me, and I'm willing to bet some of them worked on this movie. And it turned out pretty good, all things considered, probably in part because Aivi was able to focus on it That person I became friends with, she doesn't exist anymore. Just like how who I used to be when Aivi first me, he doesn't exist anymore, either. We both changed, and grew in opposite directions, I guess. We've found happiness and growth and relief in different ways. In the end the Movie helped me come to terms with all of this in a way Angry Spinel younger me couldn't have still hurts yo

"Isn't that lovely?

Isn't that cool?

Isn't that cruel?

And aren't I a fool

to have happily listened,

happy to stay,

happily watching her drift away"

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S3 Ep 18: Noah’s Dad Decides he Doesn’t Love His Son Anymore When Noah Gets Way Too Into Petz Hexing

I was hanging out with Bro and he made me look at a lot of bad Yugi wigs that were 600 dollars each, and because only like...4 good Yugi wigs exist in the world, I decided to help him get out that Yugi itch in a healthier way, by copy editing these posts and fixing the way I spell Gozaburo wrong about 400 more times before this arc ends.

So last we left off, Noah decided to reference that one part of the Bible he knows.

He’s gonna change the playing field to kind of run through the history of the Earth, showing us that in every period of history his outfit was never acceptable.

Also he got the history a...little bit wrong. You had to have people before Noah’s ark but...whatever. I took astrology, there’s a lot about planet formation we’re still kind of guessing on, so do whatever you feel like, Yugioh. It’s not like any kids watching this got real pissy about how Noah was totally botching the Archean period.

He also decides to dump on us how he got so smart. See, Kaiba got smart by studying a lot, surrounding himself with people way dumber than him, and then just bossing everyone around him until they agreed with him that he was very smart. In Noah’s case, it’s because he’s literally a computer.

I’m really glad I get to find another anime that’s all ham about this tree. In this case just slapping it on there for a few seconds, long enough for me to say “WHAT THE HELL, KIDS SHOW?” before it vanishes again.

Good on you, Noah. You just...casually slipped that in there.

Ah, but unfortunately, the AI who is like...not even human and is *pretty sure* He’s Noah Kaiba is still kind of attached to his Dad. Maybe it was a part of his core code that he couldn’t reject his Father? I dunno, just seems weird that he achieved enlightenment and was like “So uh...I guess I’ll play cards and take over a mindless corporation. Good use of my time.”

(read more under the cut)

Kaiba’s reaction to hearing that his brother stores all of human knowledge was “well, it can’t possibly be that difficult. I’ve done way more than that. I have a homeschool degree and half a high school diploma so go to Hell, bro.”

Yo how many people would sit down, turn to their computer, and just start shouting at their core processor about how they’re waaaay smarter than it? Remember that during this entire conversation, Kaiba is shouting at a literal computer.

So anyway, we finally get to see why they bothered showing us spider room a few episodes back. Youknow, that room with the baby in it? Turns out...there was never a baby in this room, since Noah was a kid when he first woke up here.

Before it was covered in spiders, it was covered in blue and off white. This is a very boring Martha Stewart room in different shades of robin eggshell. You can tell this kid is a Kaiba because oh boy that is a...really boring 50 yo housewife look, ain’t it?

I’m sure it’s symbolic for the fact he is hella dead and innocent at this point but like...every time we see Kaiba interior design it’s just the last type of design you expect from this high octane family.

Anyway, Noah’s kind of surprised to be awake because, last he remembers, he was very much hit by a car.

Ya, I mean, if you have to tell your son you Frankenstiened him into a horrible crime against humanity, might as well tell him as quickly and bluntly as possible, I guess.

Anyway, because Noah existing breaks the most basic moral human laws in every country on Earth, they kinda can’t let him go anywhere, which means that to prevent the loneliness, Kaiba gives him...a pet?

So Noah and the dogcat decide to travel through Domino and realized very quickly that there were only like...five NPC’s. There’s like an ice cream girl, and like a couple walking people, and that’s about it.

Noah’s words were something like “man this place is full of glitches!” because his dogcat wouldn’t stop barking and he threw a rock at it and it didn’t care. Glitches.

I guess it’s one way to look at it?

It feels like Noah got somewhat cursed like Pharaoh did, just a little bit. Like not completely it’s just that I can’t help but notice both are trapped in some sort of basic geometry shape--Pharaoh’s is a pyramid and Noah’s is an orb, and both have untold superpowers matched with some heavy depression that goes with having said superpowers. Not to mention, both have a host body all set up for possession, it’s just Kaiba is a little bit youknow...unwilling to participate. They’re very different obviously it’s just...way to trap your characters in shapes.

Anyway, last episode I felt like maybe Noah liked being an orb, this episode he’s made it a little more clear that it is kind of not great being an orb...but only because he can’t throw any rocks at dogs or have real conversations with anyone but his own Dad.

Anyway, Noah got a little bored. So his Dad sent him to virtual Mars.

And now Noah only finds joy in hacking his digital pet. Relatable.

Now I know a good chunk of you are my age--that good Jenna Marbles age--and will know exactly what I am referring to, as for the rest of you, turning your digital pet into a hell creation was just a thing we all did in year 2000ish. All of us did this.

And I was like “I bet you, that someone out there has made a robot Hex, I guarantee” because I spent...I want to say 2 years of my life downloading modded breedz of Catz 4? I even tried to do it myself but I wasn’t any good at it because I was super young and bad at computers, I never actually got Robbie William’s Millennium as a Catz meow (though trust me, I did try. It was my life’s dream when I was small.)

But the closest I found to a Robot Petz was this?

Dang. Look at that thing. This one is actually pretty good because it does resemble an animal. I admire it a lot. Trust me, I spent like days moving my bunniez feet around trying to make a dragon and just ended up downloading someone else's dragon.

And then, from the same page I saw this gem right above it.

HELL YES........

....I freakin love this period of the internet so freakin much. I was only ever really a part of a couple of fandoms as a child and the Petz fandom will forever hold a little part of my heart. I mean, look at this. What’s not to love?

Like, Catz is probably number 3 on my list of best games ever made. Not so much because the game was any good, but because none of the files were protected in any way so even kids like me could hack in there and make the weirdest abominations and post them all to their Angelfire pages.

Well, other kids could, I was so baby that I was still using my Mom’s email address and did not know how to put a damn thing on my webpage. Which I did have. But it had like...only frames. It had like 3 words and just me splitting the page into 50 frames because I did not know what I was doing.

I apologize to all the kids in the room who have never seen a web page covered in ugly ass frames. You lucky bastards.

....but Petz...Noah was into PETZ. I can respect him for that.

I still think he’s a little creep-o, but knowing that he hacked his pet has given me a lot of appreciation for his work.

Anyway, it was after Noah changed the boring ass simpleton dog into a much better dog that Gozoboro decided “I have made a monster, I am abandoning my boy.” Which uh...this was the thing?

This?

I mean as far as body horror goes, Litterbox up there is way worse. As far as body horror goes, we also have, Jinzo over here, but the digital dog with a cute robot head was the thing that made Gozoboro say “What have I done!?” The dog is digital, it’s not even alive.

Especially since I feel like the follow up question Noah made was like way more frightening than the dog thing?

Kaiba glazes right over this entire conversation. Like full stop, he didn’t even seem to blink. No part of this story even slightly surprised him, although I will admit, at least Seto has decided that Noah...exists and might in fact be a robot his Father made once. This in itself is a big deal for Kaiba, who has a goldfish memory and denial wider than the sea he’s trapped under.

First of all, congrats to the storyboarder/animator for drawing a hand in that angle, mad respect.

Second of all, this is pretty close to the actual line from the show, Kaiba legit thinks that his Dad wanted Kaiba to be the president, after he knows full well that his Dad was like “Don’t Take Over My Company, You Little Twerp” and then like tried to even send Seto back to the orphanage whence he came. Kaiba’s pretty sure that his Dad wanted that whole thing to happen exactly the way it happened. No regrets. Just family being family.

And Moki’s still chilling on the Moki couch, just kinda taking this all in before he’s summoned unto the field like a playing card.

Ah, yet another person who is like “KILL MEEE” on this show. It’s been kind of a while. Like, who’s left that hasn’t stood in front of a loaded card-gun like this? Duke? Is Duke the only one who hasn’t sacrificed his body for the greater card-good at this point? Is this why Duke is our amoral Chaotic Neutral? Is this why Duke is still the only one who hasn’t died yet (and I’m crossing my fingers still that he’s gonna be our death 169, it can happen, I can believe)?

I feel like this is the season of weird hugs. Like everyone on this show that has hugged has gotten a little weird. The only not-weird hug was when Yugi attempted to hug Joey once and then Joey dodged the hug and wrestled him into an arm-distanced noogie instead--which is technically still not a hug, but the closest we’ve gotten to something a human would do. It is so lucky for our art team that all the huggers are supposed to be hella weird anyway.

Anyway, next episode we get to find out if Noah also had an AIM username or got really into Jelly pens. I can see him getting suuuper into Jelly pens, with hair like that.

Anyway, here’s a link to Season 1 Ep 1 to read in Chrono order, in case you just got here and you’re looking for that.

[your-modern-shakespeare]

A Little Too Real (9)

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 4.5, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 7.5, Part 8 

Summary: RealityTV!AU- You are a wardrobe supervisor for a popular TV network. The show is planning a reality TV show like the bachelor and Bucky is the newest contestant. But as the competition starts he realizes that he doesn’t like any of the girls…on the show anyway.

Pairing: Bucky x Reader (eventual)

Word Count: 15,622 (I give up guys!)

A/N: I’m sorry this took so long, as you could imagine it takes quiet a bit of time to write something this long. That and I’ve been doing a lot of job stuff recently since it’s about to hit the summer season which is usually the busiest for theatre folk (that is at night). I’m not completely sure if you’re going to love or hate this but either way I hope the wait is worth it and I love you guys! Enjoy! PLEASE pay attention to POV indicators 

Warnings: angst, fluff, implied and mentions of sexy time, mention of nudity? (both of these are not what you’re thinking), kissing, mentions of cheating, mentions of someone dying (not main character), mention of pregnancy, wedding talk, PTSD type situations?

Week 6

Y/N’S POV

The problem with living alone was that it was pretty...lonely.

I tired to spend Sunday alone but really only made it halfway through the day before I gave up and went over to Bucky’s to hang out.  

I knocked on the door of his apartment and waited a couple of seconds for him to answer. When he opened I tried not to react too noticeably to his bare chest and water soaked hair, wearing nothing but a towel.

“Y/N, hey!” He said, now obviously flustered.

“You weren’t expecting me were you?” He waved me in and closed the door behind me.

“No offense or anything, I just kind of assumed you were Steve, but it’s fine, you’re welcome any time. ”

“Is Steve supposed to come over, I don’t mean to intrude?”

“No, no. Um...just give me a second and I’ll fill you in?” He said, gesturing to his nakedness.

“Of course, yeah.” He walked back to his room and got changed and I made myself comfortable on the couch. It didn’t take long for him to join me on the couch...now completely dressed.

Now, I had seen a man before, I had dressed men before, I had seen Bucky without clothes on before, but seeing him in nothing but a towel did not help the thoughts that had already been going through my head.

“So…”

“So...Peggy’s parents are in town. They’re these rich Brits who want to get over involved in the wedding and Steve called and told me that my apartment had been deemed his escape.”

“So you thought that he was already going insane?”

“Yeah.”

“And you don’t mind having Steve around when you’re wearing nothing but a towel?”

“We grew up together, we’ve been through everything together. I don’t think there’s really anything that could phase either of us.”

“So going back to Peggy’s parents, what are they like?”

“Well they’re really nice and they love Steve; they really took him in after his mom died. And they worship their children, they gave them the world, and didn’t stop there. And now they’re both so successful: Peggy’s getting married and has a great career and you haven’t met her brother yet, but you would like him, he worked in theatre for a bit and he’s done a lot of traveling. But anyway, they just really want to be a part of the wedding planning since they live so far away and they’ll be gone for a long time after the party this week.”

“Party this week?”

“Peggy didn't ask you?”

“No.”

“Her parents are throwing this big fancy engagement party on Thursday, of course she’s going to want you there.”

“How fancy are we talking?”

“Well, most of her family will be there, and her parents may be rich but that’s an understatement with the rest of her family; so It’ll be pretty fancy, black tie. We plan on doing something a little more casual for Steve once they go back, but I suppose you’ll be able to crack out that second dress for the party.”

“Oh, I’m not sure it’ll be that fancy.”

“Well what does it look like?”

“It’s a ballgown.”

“And?”

“That I designed for a red carpet event.”

“Yeah. The party is more like...like something in Downton Abbey. They’ll get all dressed up, lounge around a big house, eat small food, drink tea, maybe do some dancing.”

“So more like a fancy cocktail party.”

“Yeah, but a little more British. The women can wear whatever they want, as long as it’s appropriate. Men have to wear tails or a really nice suit.”

“Please tell my you’re going to wear tails! I love a good tailcoat.”

“Well, I’m not wearing tails to the engagement party, I haven’t had the time to go to a tailor, but I am to the wedding. You should definitely come to the fitting.”

“I would love to come to the fitting. You know in school my final project was constructing a suit for Intimate Apparel. Everyone else had these beautiful corsets and they trusted me with the most difficult piece, but it was also the only male piece that we constructed, which made it really special.”

“So then you’ll know if it looks good on me.”

“Well I don’t think anything could look bad on you, but I’ll know what the tailor’s doing and I can explain things to you.”

“I would like to have you there.”

“Well, I will be there.”

Bucky and I lounged around, watching Downton Abbey and eating take out food, nothing too far away from what we had been doing before; besides the fact that we weren’t living together anymore. And of course, we got to the most dramatic part of our episode when I received a call.

YN: Hello?

PC: I’m kidnapping you and Wanda tomorrow to go dress shopping.

Y/N: Why would we need new dresses Peggy?

I said looking over at Bucky with a smile on my face. He smiled too.

PC: Come on. I know you’re with Bucky and I know that he knows about the engagement party which means that you know.

YN: How do you know I’m with him?

PC: Am I wrong?

YN: No.

PC: Then Steve and I will pick the both of you up in the morning

YN: You know that...that I’m not staying with Bucky anymore right? I was cleared by the doctor, so I went home.

PC: Oh. I mean—we can still pick you up, you know just from your place.

YN: Yeah I would appreciate that

PC: Good so we’ll still pick up the both of you before we go shopping

YN: Okay. See you tomorrow.

PC: Bye

YN: Bye

PEGGY’S POV

“So what did Y/N say to you kidnapping her?” Steve walked out of the bathroom with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist.

“Did you know that she moved out of Bucky’s apartment?”

“What? No.”

“Apparently the doctor told her that she was good to go home and she did.”

“Really?”

“Well I didn’t get much information about what happened, but don’t think that I won’t interrogate her when I see her.”

“I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

“I just don’t understand. I thought they were getting closer to each other.”

“I thought so too.”

“Then why would she move out?”

“I don’t know.”

“There has to be something that we missed.”

“Well she did almost get kidnapped by her ex husband, maybe that has something to do with it.”

“What?!”

“Did she not tell you?”

“We haven’t spoken since the lunch. What happened?”

So Steve sat down on the bed beside me and explained everything that Bucky had told him. And after he finished I completely understood why she hadn’t said anything to me. The whole thing was crazy, but she hadn’t even known that any of it had happened, not before Bucky told her.

“I know why she left.” I said afterward.

“You do?”

“Bucky put himself in danger for her. And her whole life she has had to be so strong and yet that changed when she met Bucky. He made her vulnerable and in a way that she hadn’t been since her ex was in the picture. So with Bucky being there for her and her ex being around too…”

“She left to put her feelings back in check.”

“Exactly.”

“Which means we are further away from getting those two together.”

“Unfortunately.”

“What do we do next?”

“I’ll talk to her tomorrow during shopping.”

“I’ll do the same with Bucky.”

“Good.” He leaned over to give me a quick kiss which turned into a not so short kiss too quickly. I pulled him down closer to me, kissing him deeper, but he pulled away.

“Do we have time before we go pick up your parents?”

“If we don’t do it now we won’t be able to until they leave.”

“We could—”

“We are not going to escape to Bucky’s to have sex.”

“I’m just saying, if we asked he would go over to Y/N’s and give us some privacy.”

“Really, he said that?”

“No, but I’m sure he would say yes.”

“Just shut up and kiss me.”

We had to rush to the airport after that, but ultimately we made it in time to pick up my parents from their flight. They had been so excited to see us and when we drove them to our apartment they easily settled in to the guest bedroom.

The following morning we made a traditional English breakfast before we headed out to pick up everyone up for a day of shopping. We went to Wanda’s place first seeing that she lived the closest to us, next we went to Bucky’s and last we stopped by Y/N’s.

Bucky, always the gentlemen, especially when it came to Y/N, got out of the car and ran up the steps to help her down, opening the door for her before she climbed in.

“Hey guys!” She said and Bucky climbed in closing the door behind him.

Steve started driving towards the city and we all made small talk, mostly talking about what my family was like and what the party would be like and even talked a little about Bucky’s time in London right after his accident.

And then the boys dropped us off in front of a nice boutique before they headed off to get suits for themselves.

Now I just needed to find out what was going on with Y/N.

Y/N’S POV

Peggy had made an appointment previously for the three of us to find dresses, letting us know that this would be a good place to find something classy and English enough for Americans to wear to a fancy British engagement party.

The staff immediately greeted us as we walked in and as soon as we confirmed our appointment they eagerly gave us free reign to shop. The woman helping us was very fond of showing us dresses that were way too expensive, even though Peggy offered to pay for the dresses. So instead we picked out some of the less expensive dresses (still pretty pricey in my book) and had the woman helping us place them in the dressing rooms. When we reached the limit on how many dresses we could have in the room, we were shown to our respective dressing room and we put on our first options.

When we were all dressed we went to stand out in front of the mirror, all three not obvious or serious picks but fun nonetheless

“So...I’ve been dying to ask you—” Peggy started to say to me.

“Well this can’t be good.” I said in response. She turned to look at me giving me a serious look.

“Why did you move out of Bucky’s?”

“I knew this wouldn’t be good.”

“You moved out of Bucky’s?” Wanda asked.

“Why is this such a big deal?”

“Why is this not a big deal?” Peggy asked.

“It’s not a big deal because staying with Bucky was nothing more than for medical precaution advised by my doctor. Bucky talked to the doctor and told him I could go home, so I did.”

“But things were going so good.”

“I don’t know what you mean by that.”

“We just mean that everything seemed really great between you two, so why mess it up?”

“Everything's still fine between us, nothing has changed.”

“But you left.”

“I couldn’t have stayed there forever.”

“Who says you couldn’t.”

“Now you guys are just messing with me.” I turned away from them and headed back to the dressing room to put on the next option. My next dress was a much better option, one I would have actually bought for myself if I had the money.

When I came out the second time I was the first one out of the room, so I sat in one of the chairs and waited for Wanda and Peggy to join me before I said anything to them.

“Okay. I’m going to say one thing and then we are going to drop this conversation.”

“Okay.”

“I left Bucky’s because I was getting too close to him. It was getting harder and harder to keep everything down.”

“Then why do it?” Wanda asked.

“I’m not talking about this anymore.”

“No, she’s right. Why are you trying so hard to push everything down? You love him, you won’t admit it but you do.” Peggy argued.

“You know I get berated every time I go out with you guys and honestly I don’t like it. I came here to hang out with you so please stop questioning me like I’m a murderer.”

“Well if Wanda had a love interest we would be doing the same thing with her.”

“Is that so?”

“But I don’t have anyone.” She said. 

“Or do you?” I asked, hoping to direct attention away from myself.

“No one serious.”

“No one serious?!” Peggy and I both asked at the same time.

“What? We’ve only been out on one date.”

“What’s his name?” I asked.

“Well his real name is Jarvis but everyone calls him Vision.”

“Vision?”  

“He works for Tony on his security detail, an upper level man. He got the nickname because he knows everything that happens, he’s the eyes and ears for Tony.”

“Pretty clever.” Peggy said.

“Yeah.”

“And you like him?”

“It was...a really good first date.”

“You going to see him again?”

“I think so yeah.”

“See, now we can just grill Wanda for fun details.”

“No. Wanda has a date, she is actively seeing someone. You are ignoring your feelings and shoving aside the love of your life. It’s not the same.”

“Well anyway let's talk about something else. What about these dresses?” I stood from the chair and went to go stand beside them, fixing the dress as I did.

“Well you look amazing and should totally get this dress.” Peggy said to me.

“Yeah you look hot, Bucky wouldn’t be able to keep his hands off you.” Wanda added.

They both laughed.

“This is not what I meant by you telling me what you thought of this dress.”

“Just being honest.” Peggy said.

“Well if I look ‘hot’ than it’s not right for a proper English engagement party.”

“But it’s perfect for showing Bucky what you got.”

“This Party is not about that.”

“I could just buy it for you anyway, you could wear it out on a date with him, let him take it off you at the end of the night...” I glared at her and they both just laughed at me.

“I am not getting this dress and to think I was going to give you a compliment on yours.”

“Well jokes on you I’m getting this dress because I think I look ‘hot’ in it and I know Steve will like it on...and off me.”

“You do look really good...even though I’m mad at you.”

“You can’t be mad at me, I just want you to be happy and I feel like that dress could help you get really happy.”

“Well the ‘happy’ you’re talking about is not happening with Bucky.”

“Maybe not now, but I have a pretty good feeling.”

“Whatever. I’m going to go put on the next dress.”

Peggy sat out in one of the chairs in her dress as Wanda and I put on our next dress. I decided on the third dress that I tried on which made me look good but was a little more covered and more formal than the last one I had on, despite how much I liked it. Wanda ended up picking the fourth dress she tried on and then we met the boys down the street for lunch before Steve and Peggy drove all of us to work. They dropped Wanda and Bucky off at the house and then went back and dropped me off at the studio so that I could get some work done before I would make my way back to the them. 

Today was technically my first day back at work and boy was I happy. I started at the wardrobe room finally being able to catch up on the work that I had had to push off because of my medical leave. I had been working so long that I didn’t even notice the time and tried to get to the house for filming, but with crutches and a slow going taxi I was definitely late.

I made my way over to the director’s area where Wanda was sitting and we sat and watched the show until we finally got to a break. Bucky came out of the house first and walked over to me.

“You’re late.” He said with a smile on his face.

“I’m a cripple.”

“A late cripple.”

“Got me there.” He laughed at me.

“So how’s your first day back?”

“Good so far.”

“Yeah? Good.”

“Definitely not lacking on the work I’ve got to do.”

“You’ll catch up soon enough.”

“I hope so.”

So as the night came to a close and as we drew later into the week, I worked on everything I needed to to catch up on, helped Peggy pick out a few things for the party, meeting her mom along the way, and spent a lot of time with Bucky.

He was an open book this week, despite not having been the week before. He told me every single doubt and thought he had about the four remaining girls: Ulani, Gabriella, Kristy, and Malia. I sat there for hours listening to what he thought about these girls, which I had to admit hurt quite a bit. But despite everything I listened to what he had to say, listening to things I didn’t even know he was thinking of.

Wednesday night, after a long night of filming, we laid on his bed facing each other. I had planned on going home but he looked like he had had a rough date, a double date with Kristy and Gabriella.

From everything I had seen, which is a lot more than Bucky, these two had it out for each other. It made for a pretty hostile date and a handsomely defeated Bucky.

“That was bad wasn’t it?” He asked.

“Yeah…”

“You want to know the worst part about it?”

“What?”

“I felt like I was on a date with Nat again.”

“Really?” I said in shock.

“When I was in the hospital I had a lot of time to think about what happened with Nat. And I just realized how exhausting the whole relationship had been. I must have had better patience back then because I honestly have no idea how I put up with her for so long. But I was sitting there while they both fought for my attention demanding to be heard and expecting me to care.”

“You don’t?”

“It’s not that I don’t, it’s just that they were both trying so hard to impress me, to make themselves seem more appealing. I just feel that when you meet someone and start dating them you either feel it or you don’t. It shouldn’t have to be about selling yourself to someone or trying to make them believe that you’re a certain way when that may not be the case. Its fake. They were being fake and that’s honestly the best way to describe Nat.”

“So does that mean you know who you’re getting rid of this week?”

“Honestly…?”

“What?”

“I feel like I’ve just wasted everyone’s time.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I don’t think I’m going to end up choosing any of them.”

“What?”

BUCKY’S POV

“What?” She just looked at me like I was crazy. “What do you mean? Can you do that?”

“I don’t know. I have a lawyer looking into it.”

“Peggy?”

“Yeah.”

“I bet she got a kick out of that.”

“What?”

“Looking at your contract to see if you have to pick someone on the show. I'm sure her imagination is running wild with reasons for why.”

“Yeah, her and Steve and probably conspiring against us.”

“Yeah...What are you going to do until then?”

“Keep playing it out until I know for sure.”

“And what happens if you have to choose someone?”

“I'll tell her the truth and make it look good for the cameras.”

“And you think she’ll go along with it?”

“I don’t know. I tend to hope for the best with these girls and get screwed by them at the same time.”

“We’ll figure it out.” She grabbed my hand and held it in hers giving me a hopeful look.

That night Y/N stayed over. We stayed up way too late talking and when the morning came she went back to her apartment to get ready for the day and check on any last things that Peggy needed help with.

Having Y/N there again, even if it was just one night didn’t make things any easier for me. Ever since I kissed Y/N it had been pretty much impossible to think of anything else and when those thoughts started it didn’t take much for my imagination to run wild. So how was I supposed to tell anyone that the reason for Peggy’s evaluation of my contract was so that I could choose Y/N, that I could finally tell her the way that I felt.

So instead of trying to find some way to hang out with Y/N again today, I opted to distract Steve from the over zealous in-laws-to-be. I walked into the big mansion that Peggy’s parents had rented out for the day, with the garment bag holding my suit slung over my shoulder, looking for Steve.

There were countless workers moving about the house, setting up flowers and tables and everything you would actually imagine for a wedding except for the fact that this was an engagement party. I walked around the mansion, asking anyone I could about his whereabouts until I found him upstairs in one of the bedrooms.

“Hey. What are you doing here so early?” He asked. 

“Well you did ask me to come early.”

“I thought it would be like thirty minutes.”

“I’m just awesome like that. But I thought that I would come and help you out, keep you from going insane.”

“Yeah? And what’s the real reason?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Come on, give me a little credit. I think I know when you want something from me.”

“Well it’s not really needing something more than just wanting to get away as well.”

“From?”

“Y/N.”

“Why?”

“It’s not because I want to be away from her, but because I have to.”

“What?”

“When she told me she was moving out I was honestly sad to see her go. And I honestly hate living alone now but I think it was good that she left.”

“Why’s that?”

“While she was there I felt like I could cross any personal line that I wanted to and it would be okay. I let myself believe that she was there because she wanted to be with me not because the doctor was forcing her to be there. And I just left my heart on my sleeve and let it feel everything it wanted to about her. Her leaving made me put things back into perspective.”

“You know that she probably left for the same reason right?”

“I don’t know, she seemed pretty excited to go home.”

“What did she say?”

“That she should let me have my apartment back so that I can get back to my ‘bachelor ways’”

“Yeah doesn’t really sound like she left because she wanted to. You should have stopped her. God knows she has enough trouble getting down those stairs. If anything it’s a safety hazard for her to be back at her place.”

“I did try to stop her, she practically ran out of my apartment at the end of the day.”

“Not because she was excited to go home, but because she needed space from you. She obviously felt the same way and needed the space to put herself back into the right headspace.”

“Anyway...I came here to escape my women problems, so let’s do something else or talk about something other than me.”

“Okay. One last thing, because you’re trying so hard to bury your feelings for her and I wouldn’t want to keep you from that. But you do know that you’ll be stuck with her in Moscow for two weeks, right?”

“Wait what?”

“You didn’t know?”

“Well they told me that some of the crew were coming with us but I just figured they wouldn’t send the head of the department.”

“They thought that because she has some background with other tech departments and she can speak Russian fluently, that she would be a useful asset to have in Moscow.”

“Well I wasn’t planning for that.”

“Which means you probably just need to tell her how you feel.”

“Or I just need to shove down my feelings even further.” I hadn’t even told Steve about the kiss and God if that didn’t make me feel ten times more for Y/N than I had before. “I’ll figure out what to do but right now I need you to take my mind off of it. So what can I do to help?”

Steve and I moved around the huge house working on whatever Peggy’s mother assigned to us and occupying every second we could until it was time to go get ready for the party.

Putting on my suit, I stared at myself in the mirror, taking deep breaths and once again trying my hardest to get Y/N out of my mind. But when I couldn’t seem to find a good reason to hide out in the room any longer I went next door to Steve’s room where he was supposed to be getting ready.

I went to the door and hearing the noise beyond, I decided not to intrude, figuring that Peggy had found him before I could whisk him away.

So I was playing wingman now, doing absolutely everything I could to keep anyone from going up there to find them. I was walking downstairs when I bumped into Peggy’s mother.

“Hello Bucky.”

“Amanda.”

“Have you seen Steve around?”

“Oh, he asked for a few more minutes to get ready. I am all yours though, what can I do?” I held out my arm for her and she laced her arm through mine as I led her back downstairs.

She had a whole list of things apparently that still needed to be done. So like I volunteered, she put me to work.

It was maybe twenty minutes later that Steve walked downstairs, his hair a little ruffled but nonetheless looking good in his new suit. He walked over to me first.

“Have fun?” I asked with a smirk on my face.

“You heard?”

“I’ve been covering for you, Amanda is looking for you.”

“You’re the best.”

“Well I figured you needed it after having Peggy’s whole family in that apartment of yours all week.”

“Yeah. Thanks, It felt like I hadn’t seen her all week.”

“Just a couple more days and they’ll be gone and then we can have a real party.”

“Yeah, I love them but man they can get crazy when it comes to all of this stuff. I just want to marry Peggy.”

“And you will, but it may be a painful process.”

“Yeah, we’ll see.”

We both worked until the first guests arrived, giving Peggy her cue to show up and attached herself to Steve’s side. They greeted everyone who came in and I tried to stay near the food and drinks.

Somewhere amongst my hiding, Steve made his way back over to me grabbing a drink for himself and Peggy.

“I see you found a hiding place for the night.”

“Unintentionally.”

“You can’t hide from Y/N. She’s going to find you.”

“I’m just preparing myself.”

“Peggy says that she looks stunning.”

“She’s always beautiful.”

“Then why are you hiding, make a move.” Steve handed me one of his drinks and then grabbed my arm, pulling me back into the room where Peggy and her family were.

“Steve, wait. There’s something I didn’t tell you earlier.” I stopped him before we could get too close to anyone, but in perfect sight of the front door.  

“Okay?”

“I messed up.”

“You may have to be more specific.”

“You can’t judge me.”

“No judgement here.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it. But um...I kissed Y/N.”

“What? That’s awesome man. I’m so happy for you.”

“N-no. How do I say this? She was asleep.”

“She was asleep?”

“It was the day after Jackson and her grandmother got arrested. And I called her doctor and he said that she would be good to use crutches which meant that she didn’t have to stay with me anymore. I thought it would be the last night that she would be with me and I just saw her laying there and I was thinking about all of the good times we had together and I kissed her, thinking it was my only chance.”

“And the problem?”

“I can’t—I can’t stop thinking about it.

“And you spend all of your time with her.”

“It was stupid.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty stupid.”

“Steve—”

“I—I want to help you I do, but this has gone on too long. You love her, just go and tell her.”

“I—” I looked over at the front door, having heard it open, to see Y/N, Wanda, and her date walk through. I went to turn back to Steve but did a double take when I saw what she looked like, my jaw hit the floor. I stared at how beautiful she was, the way her eyes sparkled, the way her body looked in that dress, the lipstick that made it hard to look anywhere else...

“You’re in way more trouble than you think.” He said, patting my shoulder before leaving me to face Y/N alone.

STEVE’S POV

I walked back over to Peggy, not even thinking for a second that Bucky saw me go. She was talking to some relative that I knew she didn’t know, from the look on her face alone, and politely excused the two of us before I tugged her off to somewhere more private.

“Thanks for that, I had no idea what he was talking about.” She said with a smile on her face.

“We need to tell them...tonight.” Was the only thing I could say.

“What?”

“Y/N and Bucky. We need to tell them that they kissed at my birthday party.”

“I thought we weren’t getting involved.”

“I’ve been trying not to but I can’t do this anymore. Bucky kissed Y/N.”

“What?”

“While she was asleep. The last night she stayed with him he kissed her and he says that he can’t stop thinking about it.” We both looked back through the doorway to the room, spying on Bucky and Y/N.

“And they’re practically drooling over each other.”

“Well that was always there, but even more so tonight.”

“You did good, Bucky looks good in that suit.”

“Just like you said, Y/N likes a navy suit.”

“Well, I did have a better dress for Y/N but we unintentionally teased her out of getting it. It may have been a little too sexy for this party anyway, but he would have eaten it up.”

“She looks good though.”

“I bought her the other dress anyway, I plan on giving it to her later so that she can wear it out on a date with him.”

“Which is why we need to tell them, give them the push they need.”

“They need a shove.”

“Yeah and this should do it.”

“I’ll take Y/N as soon as she’s done talking to him.”

“Good, I’ll take Bucky.”

Y/N’S POV

“Hi.” I said to him, staring a little too long at the man of walking sin.

“Hi. You look…” He paused for an uncomfortable amount of time, trying to find the right word.

“Good?”

“Beautiful.”

“Thank you.” I smiled real big, taking the complement to heart. I stared at him for just a moment before I turned around to face Wanda and Vision.

“Bucky, this is Wanda’s date Jarvis. Vision, Bucky.”

“Please call me Vision, my friends do.” They shook hands..

“It’s nice too meet you Vision. Wanda, you look incredible.” Bucky said, trying to break up some of the awkward tension.

“Thank you.”

“Peggy and Steve were just here and would love to see you guys. As you can probably see we have quite a large party here, so they may be difficult to find at first but if you do find find them feel free to rescue them from a relative.”

“That bad huh?” I asked and he laughed.

“There’s a lot of people here that I don’t even think her parent’s know.”

“I know quite a few English families just as big, it can be overwhelming.” Vision added.

“Yeah, but anyway we have refreshments through that door and waiters are walking around with flutes of champagne, so feel free to eat and drink as much as you want.”

Right as he said that a waiter passed by us and we took the remaining four flutes from him.

We started some small talk and were actually talking about Tony when Steve and Peggy rejoined us.

“You must be Vision.” Peggy stated. “Wanda has told us a lot about you.”

“Thank you for inviting me.” He said.

“I’m Peggy and this is Steve, my fiance.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you. Well I hope you guys are enjoying the party so far, but I am stealing these two ladies away for a bit, you boys may have them back once I have received the secrets I am in search of.”

“I swear if she’s not a lawyer, she’s a spy.” Steve commented and we all chuckled. Vision moved down to kiss Wanda on the cheek before Peggy whisked Wanda and I off to some secluded part of the huge house.

BUCKY’S POV

“I’m pretty sure she is a spy and you her willing accomplice.” I said as soon as the girls were out of earshot.

“More like stockholm syndromed captive.”

“Ooh.” I said, laughing.

“Kidding. I love Peggy. So Vision it looks like you may get in on the action tonight as a new member of the get-Y/N-and-Bucky-together club.”

“Come on, it’s not actually a club.” I tried to interrupt, just taking whatever he had to say at this point.

“Fine, it’s me, Peggy, Wanda and now you and our mission is for us to get these two stubborn heads together. But just a quick recap, if Wanda hasn’t already explained, Bucky here is in love with Y/N and we’re pretty sure it vice versa as well. Bucky here though, won’t admit his feeling for her because he’s on a reality TV show to fall in love with someone else. But I threw a Fourth of July party, also my birthday, freshly into their friendship in which the two don’t remember that they kissed.”

“Wait what?” I said, stopping him from saying anything else.

“Yeah...the girl you made out with, I remembered very clearly that it was Y/N, I just didn’t know how to tell you.”

“So why are you telling me now?”

“Because I’m hoping that it’ll give you the courage to tell her how you feel.”

“Mr. Stark and Wanda both speak very highly of Y/N, you would be very lucky to have her.” Vision said.

“I know, I am. I just don’t...I don’t really know what’s holding me back, not when I feel the way that I do.”

“This is about Nat.”

“No it’s not.”

“Nat is his ex who cheated on him while he was living in Russia. He lost his arm in a freak accident and she never showed to see if he was okay. He later found of she had been with another guy pretty much the whole time he was there.” Steve explained to Vision.

“I don’t know much about Y/N but she doesn’t seem like the person to do something like that.” He said in response.

“I know she wouldn’t.” I said.

“Then you’re just scared. You’re scared that she’ll turn you down, even though anyone with eyes could see that she’s just as much in love with you as you are with her.” Steve placed a hand on my shoulder, giving me a serious look.

“You won’t know unless you ask her.” Vision said with a small smile on his face.

“I’ll talk to her tonight.” I finally caved.

“Good.” Steve looked very pleased with himself. I just needed the girls to come back.

Y/N’S POV

We didn’t venture too far from the party scene, just far enough away to get a little privacy.

“You are pretty good at kidnapping us and in broad daylight no less.” I commented.

“The sun is going down, correction, and yes I am.” Peggy said.

“So what is it you wanted to talk to us about?” Wanda asked.

“Not so much as ask you anything, more like I need to tell Y/N something.”

“This can’t be good.” I said.

“It’s pretty good, we’re going to like it anyway.”

“Great.”

“You remember the fourth of July party that we threw for Steve?”

“I would use that term loosely for that night, don’t remember really anything other than the fact that it happened.”

“Something happened at the party.”

“Okay.”

“You and Bucky kissed that night.”

“What?” Wanda asked.

“Really?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Oh thank god!” I had never felt so relieved in my life.

“What?” They both said.

“I thought I was going crazy.”

“You remembered?”

“Not exactly.”

“What do you mean?”

“First things first, you’re going to try and say I told you so and you guys going to get all weird but I don’t need that, I need you to be serious.”

“Okay.” They both replied.

“Ever since the accident I’ve been in this really weird place. I remember everything about the crash, I even remember the feeling of them cutting into me, piecing me back together. I don’t know how but I do. I used to close my eyes and see it over and over again and then after I finished that nightmare, the ones with Jackson started. It became this terrible loop and I felt it draining the life from me. I stayed close to Bucky because he made me feel normal, he reminded me that I’m a good person and that I’m not going crazy. And even though he couldn’t always keep the nightmares away, when I jolted awake, scared out of my mind, I had someone to grab onto, someone to root me back down. He reminded me that that wasn’t real. And the truth is I can’t imagine my life without him. And I know that puts me in a hard place because he’s on the show and I’m his friend, but um….I had this dream. And you can’t judge me for it, but I saw a glimpse of me and him. It was a kiss, a really good kiss but it was...everything. And even though the kiss was a dream it somehow felt real. I mean I know it wasn’t, Bucky and I had never kissed before, but in the dream it felt familiar, like we had before. And I’m not going crazy because it did happen. I just didn’t remember.”

“So what are you going to do now?” Wanda asked.

“I don’t know. Obviously he doesn’t remember either, otherwise he would have said something.”

“But what if he didn’t?”

“Just because I know I’m not crazy anymore, is not going to change the situation that we’re in now.”

“It changes everything. You had a dream of being with him and it was trying to remind you that you had kissed him before. Just walk over to him and do it again.”

“No. The only thing that changes is that I shouldn’t get drunk around him.”

“Come on. People don’t have sex dreams about their best friend and just stay best friends.”

“It wasn’t a sex dream, it was one kiss.” I lied.

“Either way, this confirms that you have feelings for him, ones that he needs to know about.”

“Do you love him?” Peggy said, her first time chiming in. She looked like she understood what I was thinking but at the same time she had this look in her eyes that made me want to tell her yes, to scream it so that everyone could know.

“I—” I had planned on telling both of them how much I was in love with Bucky, that was until I saw a very familiar face, one that I hadn’t seen in a long time.

“Ladies, I come baring drinks.” The man said carrying four chutes of champagne.

My jaw hit the floor. He passed a drink to Peggy first and then Wanda, saving his last glance for me.

“Y/N?” He looked just as surprised as I was.

“Michael.”

“Y/N.” Then he did the unexpected. He moved the few feet, that had been the only thing between us, grabbed me in his arms, as best as he could, and kissed me just as passionately as he did when we had been together…eight years ago.

I pulled away from him first, completely startled by the fact that the first man who I had ever loved was kissing me again.  

“Michael.” I whispered, having a sudden flash of everything that we had had and of course our eventual break up.

“What are you doing here?” He asked me.

“Hold on! How does my brother know who you are?” Peggy asked me.

“Your brother?!”

“How do you know Peggy?” He asked.

“I...I thought I would never see you again.”

“Yeah.”

“Excuse me.” I whispered and hurried off as fast as my crutches would take me.

BUCKY’S POV

I walked in right as Michael kissed Y/N. Not only was I completely shocked but the confidence I had just had was completely gone.

I had no idea how Y/N knew Michael, I had no idea if this was something new or something old or something that had been going on for a while, but she looked pretty startled when she pulled away from him.

There were a lot of confused faces and questions being thrown around to each other as Y/N just looked like she wanted to burst into tears. Suddenly she started to walk away from the group, going as fast as her crutches would take her. I watched as she went, knowing that she would need someone to talk to, just like I had needed when I saw Nat again that first day of filming. So I pushed everything else aside and would try my hardest to be there for Y/N because that was what she needed right now...a friend.

YN’S POV/ MICHAEL’S POV (Bolded)

The plus side to having an engagement party in a mansion was the fact that this mansion had a pool, which was on the opposite side of where the party was happening.

So I took off my one shoe and moved my dress out of the way before I placed my foot in the cold water, needing the distraction to ease my mind.

Not only was it too crazy that I almost admitted out loud that I was in love with Bucky, which was something I’m sure I couldn’t take back, but Michael was here.

“Hey.” I heard and turned around to see bucky. He moved to sit on the ground next to me, unbuttoning his jacket, removing his socks and shoes and rolling up the legs of his pants so that he could put his feet in the water too.

“Hey.”

“I saw you rush out of there.”

“Yeah.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“Just something else to add to the crazy.”

“How crazy are we talking?”

“Michael...he was the first boyfriend I had after my marriage.”

“Michael Carter?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow.” I looked at him, glared at him really.

“Is that all you can say?”

“Honestly, it’s not that crazy.”

“To you maybe. He was the first man I ever loved.”

“What happened?”

“I’m only going to ask one more time, how do you know Y/N?” Peggy asked. She was the little sister and yet she always knew how to make me feel small.

Y/N had just stormed out of the house and honestly I felt bad for kissing her. I had no idea if she was seeing anyone or if she even wanted to see me again. God knows she had the right to be angry with me.

“What happened Michael?” She asked again.

“I left New York behind...you know, after Jackson and my grandmother. The plan had been to move to LA and try to figure things out. I started school at UCLA and worked on my Costume Design degree as long as I could...but I just couldn’t do it. I honestly hated living in LA, which is crazy now, but I hated it before. So I transferred without telling Asa and my dad.”

“To UT Austin right?”

“Yeah. And even though Austin was a crowded city it was so much better than LA. I think the biggest part was that maybe LA, so soon after living in New York, reminded me too much of them. So I lived in Austin all throughout college and somewhere in between I got this incredible job on campus dressing for the touring shows that came in to use the campus’ performance hall.”

“Well you know that I moved to Austin to be with my girlfriend and I got a job working at this theatre on the UT campus. I was exploring the other side of sound design and thought that working the touring shows would finally help me break through the design block I was in. So I would help these touring crews load in there sound equipment and I would program the board and help them put on mics during the show. And then my girlfriend broke up with me, leaving me alone in Austin at a job that I found surprisingly great but far away from home.”

“So I went to class and then went to work, finally doing something that I loved; Wardrobe. It wasn’t that I hated Costume Design, but I don’t guess I liked either. After I started this job I told my advisers that I didn’t want to do anything else. And so they made sure to give me more jobs with the touring shows, hoping that the people I would meet would give me opportunities to do exactly what I loved. I was working Next to Normal, super small show, but that’s where I met Michael.”

“2010, Next to Normal, that’s where I saw Y/N for the first time. She was in all black and honestly the most beautiful person I had ever seen. She was working with there Wardrobe Supervisor at the gondolas, which is where they keep all the clothes, and I was plugging in the power strips to light them. We hadn’t had the chance to put the curtains up yet to make the changing area private but she didn’t see me and ran into me when she walked out.”

“I was collecting laundry from the gondolas, that’s where they keep the costumes when they travel, and I was walking out of area and he bumped into me while he was plugging in the powers strips. I dropped the clothes that I had in my arms and he helped me pick everything up and then I rushed away from him.”

“You ran away from him?”

“I was nervous, he made me nervous.”

“But she ran away from me after I helped her pick up the clothes she had dropped.”

“She ran away from you?”

“Yeah. But anyway, after that we didn’t really speak to each other. We both worked the next couple of shows but I just was under the impression that she didn’t like me because every time I tried to talk to her she ran away.”

“We did work the next couple of shows together which made things super awkward, but with everything that had happened with Jackson I just got worried when he kept popping up and trying to talk to me.”

“So I stopped trying to go after her. I needed the job more than anything, so I focused on that.”

“He stopped trying to talk to me, and honestly I needed the job and the experience so I forgot about him.”

“Until the Summer…”

“Until the Summer…”

“The theatre I had been working at, usually didn’t do things over the summer, so I started looking into other theaters around the area, knowing that I didn’t have the option but to fulfill the rest of my lease period. So I started working at Zilker Hillside Theatre. They do a couple of shows in the park over the summer and eventually it would roll over past the summer and give me a shot at doing some work for ACL, Austin City Limits, you know one of the big music festivals.”

“I was taking a few classes over the summer to help make up what hadn’t transferred and decided to do something really fun so I started working at this outdoor theatre at Zilker Park. And I don’t know if it was fate or just coincidence, but he was there working the same shows, again.”

“And somehow she was there, again. So this time instead of pushing it off I went up to her and said what I had wanted to say before.”

“He walked up to me and started saying all of these things to me, things that I didn’t even know that he was thinking about. I mean we had really only met once and he ran into me, it didn’t give occasion to conversation. So I listened to what he had to say and honestly I was surprised. He was talking about how beautiful I looked that first day and how frustrating I had been every other time.”

“I may have said some nasty things. She was just so frustrating.”

“But then he asked me out.”

“But I still asked her out.”

“And surprisingly enough...I said yes.”

“And by some miracle, she said yes.”

“So we had lunch, because work usually went late and everything closed by the time we were done for the night. He took me to get street tacos and we sat at a picnic table and talked. It wasn’t super romantic or anything too out there for a date, but it was nice getting to know him.”

“I took her to a food truck to get street tacos. I know it's not the most romantic thing but I really just wanted a chance to get to know her better. So we sat at a picnic table and talked until it was time for us to go to work that night. And honestly it was surprising to me, how much I liked her.”

“He drove me to work later that night and honestly despite the way that I felt about him, I wasn’t sure about seeing him again. And I told him that the next time I saw him.”

“Only she had doubts. She told me that she liked me but she was nervous and standoffish the next time we saw each other. So I came up with a plan to show her that I was serious about seeing her again.”

“I didn’t think that he would do anything. I guess at that point in my life, with no family around and really no friends, my accent was still pretty strong back then, I was so terrified of everything that happened with Jackson that I didn’t want to get involved with him. But he didn’t take no for an answer. He was convinced that he could get me out on a second date, it only took me a week to say yes to him.”

“Everyday for the next week I gave her some sort of present, some way to show her that I was serious about taking her out again. I bought her flowers, chocolates, authentic Russian foods, I even bought her a new flashlight because hers was just terrible.  And after a week of trying to convince her to say yes to a second date, she finally said yes.”

“I tried to say no to him, thinking it would be easier that way, I figured my past would always be too much for anyone. But then he started doing all of these sweet things for me, bringing me presents, food on the late nights, even a new flashlight because he said mine sucked. But, I don’t know, I guess that because he was willing to do so much for me, he convinced me that he deserved a second chance. So at the end of the week I finally said yes.”

“And it was as if things...clicked. She so easily became the center of my world.”

“We spent all of our time together after that. We just got so wrapped up in each other, it was truly a whirlwind summer romance.”

“It didn’t take me long to fall in love with her…”

“It didn’t take me long to fall in love with him…”

“We made it three months before everything changed.”

“And then everything changed.”

“You called me and told me that Bucky had been in that terrible accident. So I picked up everything and moved back to London just like mom had asked.”

“He said that a friend of his had been in a terrible accident and that he had to go back home.”

“Of course, I told her that I would stay in touch and that I would see her again.”

“He told me that he would stay in touch and that I would see him again.”

“But life caught up with me. Once Bucky moved in with us, it just became too easy with the time difference and the new job and all the new life in the house to forget about Austin and about Y/N.”

“He stopped talking to me, stopped trying to make it work and eventually we just stopped all together. Didn’t really need a break-up because it didn’t even last a week after he left. We never spoke again.”

“We didn’t make it a week long distance. I never spoke to her again.”

“I did love him, but there was always this creeping suspicion that it wasn’t going to last. Maybe it was the fact that he was my first boyfriend, despite the fact that I had been married before, or maybe it was because we weren’t in love as much as I thought we were.”

“I did love her, and I really did think that we were going to last. Maybe if I had stayed and kept us in our small little bubble, we would have lasted. Seeing her here makes me wonder why I ever left her. It’s like fate brought us back together.”

“How do you feel now?” Bucky asked me.

“Honestly, it’s nice to see him…”

“But?”

“But when he kissed me…”

“Nothing?”

“Not like it was before. Eight years too late I guess.”

“Eight years…”

“Yeah...why?”

“Oh my god.”

“What?”

“I’m the reason you guys broke up.”

“What?”

“Eight years ago...that’s when my accident happened.”

“Eight years ago?” I was thinking about everything that I knew and there were some things that weren’t adding up.

“Yeah...that’s when it happened. I stayed in London for a few years, went to a clinic for my depression and once I was mentally healthy I started having these ideas for prosthestics. I went to New York first to try to find someone to develop my idea and when that didn’t happen I moved to the next major city, working my way west until I stopped in LA. I met Tony and started developing the idea and halfway through the project he told me that I needed to go to physical therapy to build up the muscles in what was left of my shoulder. I met Luna the first time about six years after the accident, she was about four, and the rest is history.”

“Sorry, the way you talk about it makes it seem like…”

“Like it just happened?”

“Like your recovery was a lot faster.”

“I wish it had been. The past eight years have been really hard and it took me a long time to get here. You know that’s why I auditioned for the show, though.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I wanted a quick way to meet people outside of the hospitals and the labs and have someone who hadn’t or wasn’t currently working with my family or friends to make me normal again. That and the girls in real life didn’t want to date a man with a metal arm.”

“Bucky, you are normal. Just because you have a metal arm doesn’t make you any less normal. And they’re stupid for not seeing how amazing you are.”

Having a second to look at each other, now noticing just how close we were sitting, I turned to look at him, seeing that he was already looking at me. Our faces couldn’t have been but a few inches away from each other and I tried to take in a breath without him noticing.

I thought about what Peggy had said, the fact that we had kissed, which meant that I wasn’t crazy, which meant that my dream meant that I wanted to kiss him again? Now I was overthinking.

The truth of it all was that he was inches from me and I wanted to kiss him and it almost seemed like he did too. I moved forward just a bit and he did too.

“Y/N, I need to tell you something…”

“Okay.” We didn’t move away from each other, he took in a breath, licked his lips and opened his mouth to say what he needed to…

“I—”

“Y/N?”

The whole world stopped.

That voice hadn’t been Bucky’s and I really didn’t want to leave this moment, but…

I pulled away first, the curiosity getting the better of me, and looked over to see Michael looking at me, hopefully not seeing what almost happened since we were at such a weird angel.

“Michael.”

“If you have a second I would love to talk to you.”

“Sure. Give me a second.” I looked over at Bucky before I moved to stand. “You were going to say something?”

He opened his mouth to say something but closed his mouth before he, I think, could say what he actually wanted to say. Instead he said, “You really do look incredible...just stunning.”

“Thank you. You look very handsome too. I’m a sucker for a navy suit.”

“Thanks.”

“Yeah.” Was all I could think of to say back.

So instead of the both of us saying what we wanted to say, I moved my foot out of the pool and did what I could to dry off my foot before I put my shoe back on. Bucky pulled his feet out but stood and moved to help me up before he even thought about his shoes. He grabbed my crutches and held them out for me, being the perfect gentlemen and friend, once again helping me.

“Thanks.”

“I’ll see you inside.” He said, before he bent down and tried his best to dry his feet off.

I moved across the backyard area to Michael, mine and Bucky’s moment officially having died.

BUCKY’S POV

As soon as I was able to get my feet dried off I put my shoes back on and went back inside to the party.

I felt like an idiot.

I should have said something to her while I had the chance and yet here I was putting my wet feet into dry socks, admitedly the worst feeling, and walking back into the crowded room while Y/N was probably laughing it up and falling back in love with Michael Carter.

I walked over to Steve whose smiling face fell when he saw my expression.

“That doesn’t look like the face of a man who finally admitted to the girl he loved that he loved her. You froze, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t freeze...I was interrupted.”

“Sure.”

“I was...by Michael.”

“By Michael? Carter?”

“Yeah, apparently Michael was Y/N’s first love while he was living in Austin. She was in school and they both worked for the same theatre.”

“This is a sign.”

“What that she belongs with him? You’re supposed to be on my side, just because you’re marrying Peggy—“

“No, if they were together while he was in Austin that also means that he left her behind in Austin when he came back home to help us out with you.”

“I’m not getting a point here.”

“She wasn’t meant to be with him. If it was meant to work out it would have worked out. But instead he forgot all about her.”

“I’m still not getting the ‘sign.’”

“Not a sign for him, a sign for you, to tell her.”

“She doesn’t like him like that anymore.”

“But can you say that he doesn’t like her?”

“She doesn’t want to get back with him.”

“That’s never stopped him before.”

Then I thought about the way he made her say yes to a second date, how she hadn’t wanted to pursue him and yet she still managed to say yes to him.

I had to do something, but I didn’t know what.

I stayed close to Steve and Peggy as the party continued, waiting for Y/N and Michael to come back from wherever they were talking. And when she did, she didn’t look happy. She headed straight for the champagne.

I walked over to her and I saw relief flash over her face when she saw that it was me, but nothing but worry grew on my face when I saw the tears that were threatening to spill over.

I placed my hand on her back and led her to stand behind a wall that would shield us from the wondering eyes of Peggy’s family. I had my back against the wall and I wrapped her in my arms letting her head come to rest against my chest and her just taking in deep breaths.

“Thanks for stealing me away.” She said after sometime.

“It looked like you needed someone to hide with.” And then she laughed. It was the most magnificent sound.

“God, I’m a mess aren’t I?”

“A beautiful mess.”

“Thanks.”

“No, but seriously, it’s just been a rough couple of weeks, it’ll get better.”

“I’m not so sure about that one.”

“Michael isn’t a big problem, not after Jackson.”

“Yeah.”

“Just tell him exactly what you feel, tell him whether or not you want to see him again—”

“I don’t.”

“Then tell him to leave you alone.”

“But he’s Peggy’s brother, she’s my best friend, I feel I should be a little nicer than that.”

“Then tell him that you don’t want to see him in a romantic way again. It’s been eight years, he can’t just expect you to have waited for him.”

“You’re right.”

“Maybe just this once. Ready to go back?”

“Sure…”

“That didn’t sound very sure.”

“Just take me back before I change my mind.”

So we walked back into the room and joined Peggy and Steve, who were later joined by Wanda and Vision.

And just like that, the night went on.

Once Peggy’s parents saw that Steve and Peggy stayed in the room long enough to do the things that they wanted, the more official part of the party started. Her parents talked about what Peggy was like as a kid and how from a very young age she always showed signs of becoming a lawyer. They talked about there love for Steve and how he had already become part of the family and they told everyone how excited they were to have him officially in the family.

Then it was my turn.

They finished there speech with a toast, everyone taking a sip from there champagne glasses. I met them up at the front of the room where they both greeted me before I took over.

“For those of you who don’t know me, my name is James Barnes. I have known Steve my whole life and I figured that I should probably say something on behalf of his side of the family. But yeah...growing up with this kid, I thought I had been good to go on this whole best man speech deal, but I will say that Steve did ask me not to bring up any embarrassing stories, any ex-girlfriends, or really anything else that I had originally planned on talking about. So that really left me with nothing. Instead I need the extra time to come up with something as mind blowing as a best man speech so until then I just have something quick to read. So…”

I pulled a piece of paper out of my jacket, something I had been holding on to for a very long time.

“‘To my son,

I’m sorry I couldn’t be here today, God knows I wanted to. There were so many things that I never got to do with you, so many things that I never got to say, but no matter, what you were always my pride and joy. When I found out I was pregnant with you I couldn’t remember a happier day, I remember the smile on your father’s face when I finally told him and I remember all the plans that we had for you, even before you were bigger than a peach. But the realization that you were actually coming hadn’t hit me until I lost your father. I was so terrified by the thought of raising you alone, heartbroken and alone, and yet that all changed the second I met you. There had been no instruction manual, no one to tell me how to raise a child, and yet somehow I didn’t completely mess it up. I know that I made mistakes with you, I know that there were times that you hated me and that just came with the territory of being a mom. But everything I ever did was because I loved you.

But there will come a day when you decide that you want to spend the rest of your life with someone and I know I won’t be there for you. I know it will be hard and I know that it won’t seem fair that I couldn’t stick around, but just know that I am always with you. And because I know you, I know that Peggy will be your wife someday. And if she is anything like you describe than I know that you’ll be okay. (Bucky, if he doesn’t end up with her please don’t read that)’” I stopped and everyone laughed.

“She was always smart and probably knew well before they did that they would get married one day. But anyway back to the letter. ‘So don’t worry about messing up or worry about the little things that make life seemingly hard. That’s what you have each other for and at the end of the day, no matter what happens, everything will be alright. So love each other, grow together, enjoy the life you have together, because at the end of the day all that matters is the life that you spend with her.

So make every moment count. I know I did.

I will always love you,

You mother’”

There was clapping after I finished the letter and I had to wipe away a tear before it had the chance to fall down my face.

“Steve, you mother gave me that letter the last time I saw her. She said that I would read this to you when I thought the time was right and I guess if and when you decided to get married to Peggy. So Steve and Peggy, not only has it been the greatest privilege getting to be your friends but it has been an honor getting to watch the two of you fall in love with each other. From friends, to more than friends, and soon as husband and wife. You two are proof that two people can love each other so deeply that words just can’t describe it; soulmates as close as it would get. I know that your mother wanted to be here, she would have loved to see you marrying Peggy, and as fate would have it, your mother somehow thought I would be the best person for all of this.” The room laughed. “So I promise to be there for you guys in any way you could need me and I promise to keep your mother’s memory alive as best as I can.” I lifted my champagne flute towards the ceiling.

“To Steve and Peggy.” Everyone repeated after me and took a sip from their flutes. I moved away from the front of the room and walked over to Steve. He immediately grabbed me in a big hug.

“Thank you.” He said, with tears running down his face.

“Don’t thank me, this was all her.”

“God I miss her.”

“I do too.”

He pulled away from me and Peggy’s mom went back up to announce that cake would be served now and that the rest of the night would consist of dancing and mingling. Of course Steve and Peggy had a few presents to open, leaving the four of us to fend for ourselves again.

Wanda and Vision went to the makeshift dance area, leaving me with Y/N.

“Your speech was really great.”

“Thank you. I had to wait a long time for those two to get together.”

“Really?”

“You want to dance?”

“Are you going to explain to me what happened?”

“Let’s dance.”

“Okay.” I grabbed her crutches, propping them up against the wall and lead her over to where everyone else was dancing, holding up most of her weight as we moved. I wrapped my left arm around her waist, holding her off her bad foot, and held her hand in mine. She moved her empty hand to my neck. “So?”

“Steve has always been in love with Peggy. When we were in high school, Peggy’s father moved the family to New York to help the family business. We were just starting our freshman year of high school and then she walks in, it was almost automatic that they became best friends. She so easily joined our little pack and it was the three of us all throughout high school. Of course she didn’t know that he was in love with her, but we would later find out that she was in love with him too. Nothing ever happened though, until our senior year and Steve finally got the balls to ask her to prom. That’s when it changed, they came back from that dance as boyfriend and girlfriend and the rest is history. All three of us ended up moving to California and her family left New York and went back to the UK and you know the rest.”

“I understand now.”

“Understand what?”

“Why they’re pushing us together.”

“I guess it would make sense, given how long it took them.”

“Yeah.”

It got awkward after that, I didn’t know if I should tell her now, that I loved her, or if it was just poor timing because of the Michael thing. But we just danced and I thought about what I should do and subsequently went through every single outcome of me finally telling her.

“Can we interrupt?” Peggy asked followed by Steve.

“Sure.” I said. I placed Y/N completely back on the ground and let Steve grab her before I started to dance with Peggy.

“So…?” She asked.

“What?”

“Steve told me you were going to tell her tonight.”

“That was before Michael.”

“Leave it to Michael to ruin everything.”

“I wanted to tell her.”

“Then just do it. Drive her home and tell her everything.”

“Did you finish going through the contract?”

“Not yet, I want to make sure I go through everything with a fine toothed comb. So far it’s looking good though.”

“Good, maybe I’ll just tell her once we know for sure. She seemed pretty upset earlier about something Michael said.”

“The most important part is that you tell her.”

“I plan on it, I do.”

“Good...and Bucky?”

“Yeah.”

“Your speech was perfect.”

“You know if people keep telling me that, I’m not going to be able to make an even better speech at the wedding.”

“You better get started now.”

“Sorry I’m going to steal my fiance back now.” Steve said, tapping on my shoulder.

“Where’s Y/N?” He just nodded over in her direction as she danced with Michael.

“I’m going to get a drink.”

Y/N’S POV

I was dancing with Steve, perfectly happy and talking about his mom, when Michael walked up to us.

“Can I cut in?”

“I don’t have anything else to say to you.”

“Please Y/N?” I took a second and looked at Bucky before I looked back at Michael. I just wanted to be done with him.

“Fine.”

So Steve left me alone with him and Michael wrapped me in his arms, the two of us slowly swaying to the music.

“I know you’re mad at me.”

“What gave it away?”

“I know that what I did was wrong, but I feel like it can’t be a coincidence that we’re both here tonight.”

“It is. Peggy is my best friend and the only reason I am talking to you is because I look forward to my friendship with her. Which means that you and I are going to have to be civil towards each other.”

“So this is about Peggy?”

“Of course it is.”

“And what’s happening with you and Bucky?”

“That‘s not what this is about.”

“So you admit that there’s something there.”

“No, I admit that there’s nothing here between us.”

“How can you say that? We loved each other.”

“Loved...past tense.”

“Anyway, I didn’t come over here to argue with you. If you’re willing to to try and make it work between us, non-romantically, than so am I.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I also came to ask a favor.”

“Okay?”

“A lot of my family is staying with Peggy and Steve at their apartment, but the rest of the family is staying at a hotel nearby. Because I flew in so late I wasn’t able to get a room and I was wondering if I could sleep on your couch and maybe we could talk a little bit more about how to make this work.”

“You’re not going to try and make a move on me are you?”

“I would never do that.”

“I have to ask because you always had some move to play against me.”

“I wouldn’t call that a play...more like a romantic gesture.”

“Well now I would call it a play.”

“And like I said I would never do that to you.”

“Fine I guess you can stay over...for Peggy’s sake.”

“I’m leaving town tomorrow, so I’ll try not to be a bother.”

“Okay.”

I looked behind me over at Bucky and waved him over. He came over to me and I put an arm around him so he could move me back over to where my crutches were.

“Thanks.” I said to him.

“Everything okay?”

“Talking to him, just opens up so much that I buried. I thought that everything with Jackson was done and then Michael is related to my best friend and he helped me through a lot of that but I’m so mad at what he did, I don’t even want to look at him. But he’s Peggy’s brother and I can’t ignore him for the rest of my life.”

“Yeah that would be kind of hard.”

“I swear it’s like I’m trying so hard to move on and every other aspect of my life wants me to stay behind.”

“Okay, well Jackson is gone, you don’t plan on seeing Michael again, so you just need to make it through the rest of the week.”

“Just tonight actually, Michael said he’s leaving town tomorrow.”

“Good, you’ll be done with him in time for filming.”

“I guess I can make it one more day.”

“You’re the strongest woman I know.”

“Thanks.”

We went through the rest of the party, couldn’t have been but an hour more, talking to Steve, Peggy, Wanda, Vision and her parents about some of the planning things that needed to be done. They talked about her dress and about finding a venue, whether or not it was going to be in London or in LA, and of course the budget.

Talking about the budget was insane. I knew that Peggy was rich but when it came to her parents paying for the wedding I swear that they must have thought that this was a royal wedding. Peggy tried to keep the budget low, not wanting to do something too big, but her parents ended up saying that they would just “see how it went.” They told Peggy not to worry about price that her and Steve could have anything they wanted.

Which was the perfect way to end that conversation and for Peggy to steal Wanda and I away for a moment.

She brought us into one of the bedrooms downstairs where there were two presents sitting on the bed.

She handed me the flat rectangular one and Wanda the small bag.

“At the same time ladies.”

So I opened the box and inside the box was the second dress that I tried on, the one that they so heavily teased me about. I took the dress out of the box and saw a note card underneath it. It read: I can’t tie the knot without you. Will you be my Maids of Honor?

I looked over at Wanda who had the same notecard as me and we both smiled back at Peggy.

“Of course.” I said first.

“I would love to.” Wanda said after me.

We both stepped forward and brought Peggy into a group hug.

“So what do you think of your presents?”

I held up the dress and held it up against me.

“No matter what you guys said about it, this was always a great dress. Thank you. What did you get Wanda?”

“Well I got movie vouchers, a gift card for a very fancy restaurant and a gift card for a lingerie store.”

“Third date essentials.”

“Oh my god.” She said with a laugh.

“It would seem that someone is more concerned with getting us laid than anything else.”

“Well it wouldn’t hurt.”

“You’re crazy.” I said, folding the dress back up and neatly putting it in the box.

“Crazy about you guys...my maids of honor.”

“This is going to be a long wedding.” I said to Wanda and we both laughed.

“I haven’t even had the chance to practice my bridezilla mode, yet.”

“Let’s hope that side doesn’t come out.” Wanda said. 

“We still have a long time before the big day.”

“I just can’t see you as a bridezilla.” I commented. 

“Honestly me either, but I think I should at least do it once...for the experience.”

“Let’s go back to the party.” Wanda and I just laughed at her and then made our way back over to the boys with gifts in hand.

“Hey.” Steve said to Peggy.

“Well now that the girls are back and your mom has released me from my duties for the night, I am going to head home. I’ve got to be up for filming super early because they cancelled the scenes I was supposed to shoot for the party.” Bucky said to the group.

“Well thanks for being here, I know it was hard to move around your schedule.” Steve said giving him a hug and then Bucky moved to Peggy, giving her one too.

“I wouldn’t have missed it.” Then he turned to Vision and Wanda. “Vision it was nice to meet you and Wanda, I’ll see you tomorrow.” He shook Vision’s hand again and gave Wanda a hug.

“Bright and Early.” She said. Then he turned to me. He wrapped his arms around me and kissed the side of my head.

“I will also see you tomorrow.” He said to me.

“Not bright and early though, because I will be at the studio.”

“Still tomorrow.”

“Yeah.”

Bucky left after that and it didn’t take long for Wanda, Vision and I to want to duck out too. I was hugging Steve goodbye when Michael walked over to us, clearly waiting to follow me home.

Peggy looked at my strangely and came over to me as Wanda and Vision said goodbye to Steve.

“You know that dress, the one that you look hot in?”

“You gave it to me.”

“If I find out you wore that for my brother, I’m never going to talk to you again.”

“I don’t plan on it.”

“Good, because that is strictly for you and Bucky to enjoy.”

“Whatever you say.”

“It is my life goal to see the two of you together.”

“That’s low, you’re a top rated lawyer and your number one goal is getting me—”

“I was being sarcastic...mostly.”

“Shut up.” I pulled her into my arms and gave her a hug before the three of us started to walk away, Michael following close behind us.

I turned to Michael as I climbed into the car.

“You can just follow us.”

“Okay.” He walked over to his car leaving me alone with Wanda and Vision.

“What are you doing?” Wanda asked as soon as we were alone and driving.

“At the moment? Sitting in your car.”

“No...I mean with Michael.”

“There is nothing going on there. He needs a couch to sleep on and he asked me if he could sleep on mine. And in the interest of continuing my friendship with Peggy I have decided to curb my hatred for him to try to be civil, for Peggy’s sake.”

“You hate him?”

“Of course I hate him! God, he broke my heart. I loved him and he disappeared. I tried for days to hear from him to get any sign that he was even alive and despite the time difference he could have at least texted and told me that he landed or made it home or really anything. I can’t even tell you the amount of times I just assumed that Jackson had gotten to him. It finally got so bad that I called Asa and told him everything. That I left UCLA, moved to Austin, and everything about Michael. I was so paranoid that I begged Asa to find something to make sure that Jackson hadn’t done anything to him.  You want to know what it took to make sure he was okay?”

“What?”

“One phone call, to his mother. That was all it took to verify that he was alive and that I had gone crazy.”

“Y/N, you didn’t go crazy. I mean you were married to a psychopath, I probably would have assumed that he had something to do with it too.”

“I spent so much time after he left trying to come up with scenarios that he was ok. I even blamed myself thinking I had said something in my texts or in my voicemails but I couldn’t come to terms with the fact that he just stopped talking to me. That’s what my grandparents and Jackson did to me, they made me second guess everything. So yes I hate him for reminding me of exactly what happened to me and for making me fall in love with him when I never wanted to and for being Peggy’s brother. I have to relive everything when I see him, so don’t think for one second that this is something that I want to do. This is something I have to do to be friends with Peggy.”

“I’m sorry.” She said. “Do you want me to stay with you tonight?”

“No, I feel like yelling and I know my neighbors wouldn’t appreciate that so I’m just going to go to bed and hope for the best tomorrow. And you have to be at work early.”

“You’re my best friend and if you need me I’m there.”

“Unfortunately I think I need to do this alone.”

“Ok. But I’m bringing you coffee in the morning.”

“Well I won’t stop you from doing that.” Her and Vision both laughed at me.

They dropped me off in front of my apartment after I let Clyde know that I had someone sleeping over tonight. I got out of the car and waved goodbye before they drove away. I started making my way up the stairs as Michael parked his rental; he quickly came up behind me.

“Let me help you.” He put his hands on my arms, but I pulled away from him.

“I’m fine.”

“Okay.”

He stayed behind me as I made my way upstairs and waited for me to unlock the door. I immediately walked into my bedroom and grabbed some spare sheets and a pillow for him, placing them on the couch.

“I know that you’re mad at me but I would really like—”

“I don’t want to talk right now. I am exhausted and there are a lot of things that have to be said, so I’m going to wait to do this in the morning where I am less likely to get the cops called on me.”

“Okay.”

Then I left him alone in the living room, closing the door behind me. I got undressed, putting on the coziest pajamas I owned, and wiped off my makeup before I climbed into bed. I grabbed my phone and looked at it, wanting to talk to Bucky, just to feel less mad, but decided against texting him because he was probably asleep.

I plugged it in and set it down on my bedside table but picked it back up when it buzzed.

BUCKY: You awake?

YN: Unfortunately

BUCKY: Just wanted to make sure you got home okay I smiled at the text before I responded, automatically feeling better.

YN: I did. Thanks

BUCKY: Are you in bed?

YN: Yeah. Trying to calm myself down, the whole Michael thing has me pretty mad.

BUCKY: I’m sorry.

YN: It’s not your fault he’s an idiot

BUCKY: I bet I can distract you

YN: Can you?

BUCKY: What are you wearing? 😏

I stared at the text for a long time. He didn’t mean what I thought he meant by that, right? He couldn’t possibly think that sexting me was going to distract me or make me feel any better.

BUCKY: Y/N?

BUCKY: Hey I was just kidding. Just trying to be funny. I obviously took it too far. I’m sorry.

YN: It’s okay. I’m just going to go to bed. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

BUCKY: Goodnight Y/N

YN: Goodnight Bucky

I put my phone back on the bedside table and turned away from it, opting to not answer any more texts.

I woke up to my alarm and hesitantly picked up the smell of food being cooked...in my kitchen. I climbed out of bed and walked out into the living room, seeing that Michael wasn’t sleeping but in my kitchen cooking food.

“Good morning.” He called out. I walked over to him.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m cooking you breakfast. I was hoping to get done before you woke up so I could bring it to you, but since you’re already here, grab a seat and I’ll serve you.”

“No.”

“Y/N, you sure do make it hard for a man to woo you.”

“Woo me? Letting you stay with me was nothing more than me being nice. This was never about you getting the opportunity to wiggle your way back into my life.”

“I know that you’re mad at me, but I came here to win you back. To show you that I’m different now and I can be better than I was before. I just need you to give me—”

“No. I hate you! You don’t get to just show up after eight years and find me waiting for you. You left and never talked to me again. I thought you were dead, I thought my ex-husband had killed you, I thought so many things trying to come up with some explanation for why you would completely give up on something good. And I never got one!”

“There were things happening—”

“No! That’s not an excuse for not letting someone you love know that you were okay! And the fact that you would ever think that I would give you another chance is absolutely ridiculous.”

“It’s not that ridiculous. What we had was good. We loved each other and I know I messed up, but I still love you and if you could give me a second chance I feel that I could prove to you that you can love me again too.” He reached out to hold my face in his hands but I pulled away.

“No. No, I...I can’t. You broke my heart and every time I see you I think of everything that I’ve ever been through. You were the first person that I loved after the nightmare that my ex-husband made me live. I will always be grateful that you helped me through that, even though you had no idea, but I never want to see you again. And I know that’s not possible because we are both a part of Peggy’s life, but dating you again would be a mistake. If the boy I loved is still in there than I know that you deserve to be happy but I’m the last person who could ever make you happy.”

“I just don’t believe that.”

“Well you’re going to have to.”

“What can I do to convince you?”

“There’s nothing you can do!”

“I still love you!”

“I’m in love with someone else!”

I took in a deep breath. I just said that out loud. And God if it wasn’t the best feeling in the world. I felt like everything had just amplified to even a higher level. I felt like there was nothing in the world that could bring me down. I tried my hardest to hide the smile that came to my lips.

“Is it Barnes?”

“You don’t get to know. You have no right to my life anymore and you need to leave.”

“So that’s it? You’re going to give up on what we had?” I ushered him back to the living room where he started to collect his things.

“That’s it. And I’m pretty sure you did that.”

“Yeah but I made a mistake.”

“Yeah you did because I’m awesome and you have to live with the fact that you lost something amazing. And now I am in love with someone else and he is...incredible and everything I could ever want.”

“That’s great.” He mumbled.

“And I need you to leave so that I can get ready for work.”

“Right.”

He gathered his things in his bag and headed for the door, I following him. He opened the front door of the apartment and I held the door as he turned around to look at me one last time.

“I’m never going to forget you.”

“My advice...please do. I was serious before and even though I hate you, you do deserve to be happy. So forget about me and find someone who can actually do that for you, because it’s not me.”

“Goodbye Y/N.”

“Goodbye Michael.”

Then I closed the door behind him, physically and metaphorically. What a great way to start the morning.

BUCKY’S POV

I pulled up to Y/N’s apartment with two cups of coffee in the drink holders and a practiced apology in my head.

Before I sent that text I knew it had been a bad idea and yet I had still sent it. But I figured at the very least I could bring her a cup of coffee and try to make it right, knowing that we both had a long day ahead of us and knowing that I felt so bad about that text that I barely slept.

I pulled up to an empty parking spot opposite of where I saw Y/N’s car parked and climbed out, reaching for the cups of coffee. But I heard voices coming from one of the apartments and looked up instead of grabbing the coffees. I saw Y/N in her pajamas talking to someone with a bag slung over there shoulder, door opened, as if the two were saying goodbye. She turned back and went inside, closing the door behind her. When the man turned around you could say I was pretty upset?

What was Michael doing at Y/N’s apartment?

PART TEN 

Tell Me What You Think Here

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[notesfromcenter]

I am changing my mind.

@spreinke Steve Reinke

“When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” - Maya Angelou

“You can`t understand it? Then fuck you.” - Ol’ Dirty Bastard

Despite having written much over the past couple of years about a devastating turn in my life, I have not shared that writing. My body has decided on this opportunity to demonstrate a marked indifference to the compulsive clamoring of the mind’s narrative.  The body insists upon trauma and it’s own temporal mandates: I am not healed.

Sometimes, on the other hand, the head knows what the heart still refuses to metabolize. The disjunction between the knowledge that true sanction lies within, and the invincible and contraindicated desire to share, causes me shame. I’ve failed to reconcile these internal mechanics, limping around like a simulated human from some dystopian future, not yet able to integrate different parts, to achieve credible likeness through human fluidity.

As I attempt to parse this conflict, shame emerges, thematic. The more I consider my reluctance to share, the memories of shameful experiences proliferate. Feelings of shame have been, for me, less terrifying than an alternative where those closest to me could not be counted on for comfort or connection. I have learned not to trust my own emotions, and have been unable to use them as a compass for living.  I preferred the thought that I was the cause of my own distress,that my abnormality, my wrong-ness was to blame for feeling so alone.

PART 1

Katrien De Blauwer

Dark scenes 63 (2014)

After my divorce, there were people who never spoke to me again. One, a man I’d known for almost 15 years, someone I’d invited into my home after his own divorce when he needed a place to rebuild. The same man who delivered a reading from Wendell Berry at my wedding: “Marriage is a perilous and fearful effort, it seems to me… . It creates pain that it is the only cure for.” A particularized problem so complex and inextricable from our selves, so inexorable as to produce countless impasses for the imagination (the human tool possessed most fully of infinitude) that to evade that rhizomatic nest is simply to bury that self along with epigenetic hopes for future peace.  

I thought back to one of the final exchanges I had with this man. He spent the night at the house I shared with my then-husband. He, firmly middle-aged, had recently started seeing a woman considerably younger than himself, a pattern that unfolded in the typical manner: he grew older, the women stayed the same age. This particular woman had apparently been through a series of sexual traumas, a topic he broached with us, his close friends, in a serious and avuncular tone. He, in his consummate sensitivity and gentleness would save her from this history. His manner approached fetishistic - he the guide to this young woman, a savior from the damage of sexual predators past.  (Attempting to disavow any connection to a gendered power dynamic, he self-described as lesbian.) He elaborated tales of this young woman’s trauma, which, although undoubtedly trauma, he characterized as assault: In high school, she had given a blow job she did not want to give to a young man because he was “popular”, “black”, and “on the football team.”

Admittedly, I was rather blunt in my attack of this disclosure. Insensitive.

Lest the description of my dismay topple into the well-worn grooves the media and cultural discussion have handed us in order to properly analyze and divide over this kind of story, I’ve searched for the impasse. I’ll proffer a suggestion at bypass: There is the culture, or community, on the one hand, and individuals, on the other. #MeToo has taken highly personal stories and reflected them into a cultural narrative. We have not recognized that the equation, from one to many, is unidirectional. While appropriate to generalize from a pool of specifics, not so to reflect the general back onto an individual. We expand culture by adding elaborately specific stories, not by taking the average of those stories and waging it on the imagination of those who’ve yet to create their own.

In the case of #MeToo, the culture has given us two possible reactions to individual stories. On the one hand, you can blame the individual (she was drunk, she wore the wrong clothing, was too subtle, too unsubtle) and on the other, you can validate the victim (it was not her fault). Ostensibly different, there is common ground: Women are always victimized. If not by some outside force, then by the narrative that invokes her personal, often ethical, failure.

There is actually a third, and most powerful option: Just keep telling stories. True stories are like the body, like the heart, they demonstrate, in aggregate, that same indifference to the compulsions of analysis, in favor of something a lot more resistant to digestion. True stories quite literally don’t make sense in the way we like to think of it, unless we omit the nagging suspicions and fleeting glances that would never hold up in court. Making these omissions too shameful to report. They destroy our coherence, and women, most especially, are rendered powerless through an image of incoherence.

I suggested to my friend that a woman whose history was scarred by repeated incidents of unwanted sexual encounters hinging upon murky wagers of sexuality bore some self-examination. Perhaps the more accurate language would have been: “Your story about these events scares me in it’s implications about my own ability to consent, and therefore, the possibility of any personal integrity or cultural agency.”

I am not blind or unfeeling to the traumatic effect of such encounters, nor to the deep rooted structural inequity eroding the foundation on which all sexual encounters are predicated, however, I shudder to recast all regretful sexual encounters as assault. I do not know where the self resides in that narrative. The self that is the consciousness of thoughts and feelings, not their subject. I shudder at the implicit bias: the explicit designation of the perpetrator as “black” in the retelling of this story.  

Should we outlaw sex between men and women? After all, we are so far from social equality, the existing power differential does not admit consent in any case.

My now ex-husband used to joke, “all heterosexual sex is rape.” Just one in a series of memories provoking waves of shame as I flinchingly contemplate my complicity.  

My friend’s account of his young girlfriend’s story was pre-#MeToo. There was no cultural resurgence of Monica Lewinsky and Caitlin Moran had not yet written How to Tell the Bad Men From the Good Men; there was no conversation around Aziz Ansari’s behavior or that of his accuser. (A conversation which simply vacillates between the two aforementioned channels of prescribed thought: blame the victim or validate the victim.)

I should give a bit of context: the nature of conversations with this friend tended to the personal, but always through an intellectual lens, often making use of books or various theories to consider the topic at hand. Our conversations were explicit, probing, critical, contemplative, speculative, abstract, analytical. They weren’t shy. It’s likely I would not have suggested my qualms at the accounting had it been told by the woman herself, and I’m sure the first-hand account would’ve differed from the retelling. I did not know her, nor would I want to hurt her, blame her, or denigrate her experience. My observations reside now, as then, at the level of using these personal stories to contemplate my own integrity, my own consciousness, my own ability to consent. Hearing her stories (admittedly secondhand and through the mouthpiece of a new, male lover), my stomach immediately turned at the implications. Myself being the figure standing in for all of those implicated by the cultural exigencies created in these private mythologies. After all, we tend to tell stories that sound like the ones we already know. We can’t see things that we’ve never seen before. In these tales, we find palliatives for difficult feelings and we’re taught that our feelings are our truth. They’re not. They are metabolic flotsam to be witnessed for transience. We’re not comfortable living with mystery, and quite often agency treads too closely to responsibility to inspire our full enthusiasm.

This friend took a liberty in telling his girlfriend’s story. He was appalled at my reaction and vowed to protect his girlfriend from me. He would never bring her around me. I was dangerous in my cruelty. He would fix her with his compassion and would tailor his love-making strategy to her recovery.

I apologized profusely. I felt ashamed.

This man stopped speaking to me after my divorce. He preferred the friendship of my ex-husband. This makes a bit more sense in light of the details. Suffice it to say, my middle-aged husband also found a young woman to analyze, encouraging her to share her erotic dreams so that he could examine them. Let’s not forget, too, I am cruel. And insensitive.

PART 2

During this same time period, my young friend who would become my husband’s second wife, was engaged. She was quite aimless at the time, floating from barista job to bartender job, fantasizing about being a midwife, but mostly creating drama in her romantic relationships to avoid facing the deadening ennui. She would break up, get back together, muse on the boredom once things had settled into a routine, shake things back up again with suggestions of moving in together, or moving out, or drunkenly kissing other men at bars. Generally, provoking feelings to mask the malaise and avoiding the work that would create meaning. In one such fit of impulsivity, she convinced her boyfriend to marry her. He was complacent, too, and agreed on one condition. They would not be married “for real.” They would not file paperwork. They argued: “It’s only a piece of paper.”  

Her engagement announcement was met by a small group of friends with some measure of surprise. As the conversation tended towards diffusing the awkward reaction, she managed to back peddle away from anything that looked like an engagement or subsequent marriage. As it turned out the promise would culminate in a potluck dance party in her own honor, affording the opportunity to dress up and be center of attention under fraudulent pretenses while not actually committing to anything.

I suggested she take a closer look at what she meant by marriage, that perhaps there was more at stake in the piece of paper than she thought, in invoking the sanction and support of a community. After all, I told her, gay people are fighting too hard to get married so you can have your sham wedding.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m more in the “ban marriage for everyone” camp, than a subscriber to the “marriage equality” oxymoron, but what can I say, I find words meaningful, alchemical even. It’s another case of the complex boundaries between individual cases and the larger culture. Ultimately, a case of connectivity, perhaps of meaning at all.

I’m an asshole, it’s a theme. She cried, of course she did. She pouted and insisted, indignantly and self-righteously that her perspective was well-considered. I was being elitist with my ideas about what a wedding should be. Not everyone must be so rigid in relation to ideas. She sobbed.

Here’s the refrain: I apologized profusely. I felt ashamed.

Please indulge my addition of the final chapter to that engagement: It fell apart when she, after months of sending her sex dreams to my husband, staying up with him late at night, decided to put his penis in her mouth while I was out of town.

Remember when I apologized to her for second guessing the triviality with which she faced her engagement? I suppose she proved her case. She instantiated a reality simultaneously selfish and nihilistic.

I’d made a fundamental mistake in these cases. I took these conversations to be about ideas, to be the general case. I wasn’t sensitive to the reality that most people don’t want to test their personal stories against some Kantian imperative. Everything tends to get a little too not-in-my-backyard feeling when we have to consider a reality where we live with others, truly connected to others. After all what is the American self if not exceptional?

Harriet Lee Merrion

PART 3

Let me tell you about one more friend. She and her husband are still in touch with my ex-husband, although admittedly they’re not so fond of him. Or rather, they describe him as self-serving, duplicitous, and deeply narcissistic. However, they know that according to popular culture you shouldn’t have to take sides in a divorce. In fact, it is much more deserving of dignity to be able to remain a kind of neutral party. This husband, he’s never thought much of me. He once wrote a short story depicting me (thinly veiled of course, only animals don’t invoke plausible deniability) as a cruel woman, albeit in a position of power, who would “spit” at her assistants and who demeaned her husband with her “roving eye.” He once gave me a book titled something like, Decor for Dictators. It made him “think of me”.  I don’t behave as he thinks a woman should. I saw my friend, this man’s wife, recently and I told her I’d be interested in her thoughts on some articles I was reading about #MeToo and #TimesUp. She characteristically wrinkled her nose, “I don’t know what I’ll think about that. I’m pretty regressive when it comes to these issues”, she warned. When I shared my writing with her about the dissolution of my marriage, she was quiet. I felt ashamed.

When people show you who they are, believe them.

Self-publishing my stories feels like another form of shame. As if the stories represent something abhorrent about me, something defective. It feels as though these kind of stories need authoritative sanction, an aegis.

On the other hand.

[aion-rsa]

Does Silent Hill 2 Have a True Ending?

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Silent Hill 2’s legacy has only grown in the 20 years since its release. While Konami’s follow-up to one of the best horror games of the PS1 era was a critical hit out of the gate, it’s taken years for people to fully grasp the brilliance of Silent Hill 2’s atmosphere, characters, and story. 

Silent Hill 2 casts players in the role of James Sunderland: a mysterious man who receives a letter from his deceased wife that asks him to come and find her in the town of Silent Hill. What follows is a haunting trip through the town itself that eventually leads us to one of the most shocking revelations in video game history: most of Silent Hill’s horrors are manifestations of James’ psyche born from his guilt over killing his sick wife.

How that story ends is really up to the player. There are six endings in Silent Hill 2, and which one you see is determined by your actions in the game and how they supposedly reflect James’ mentality. It’s a brilliant storytelling device that not only intelligently weaves the title’s gameplay into the narrative but suggests that players ultimately receive the ending they “deserve” based on their actions. 

However, fans have often wondered whether or not Silent Hill 2 has a “canonical” ending. While it’s fantastic that the game is open to so many interpretations, the fact that Silent Hill 2 is also the second entry in a beloved horror franchise has triggered a 20-year debate over which of the game’s six conclusions truly belong to the canon. 

Officially, Silent Hill 2 has no canonical ending. Writer Hiroyuki Owaku and other members of the team have either not answered questions regarding SIlent Hill 2’s canonical conclusion, or they’ve “dodged” the question by suggesting the canonical ending is the one you see.

Yet, a closer look at Silent Hill 2’s various finales reveals that the debate over the game’s canonical ending is less about needing a definitive answer to this question and is more about celebrating the various ways that so many of these endings offer distinctly different, yet equally satisfying, possible answers to the question “What became of James Sunderland?”

Silent Hill 2’s “Dog” and “UFO” Endings Are Just Fun Jokes

Silent Hill 2’s two “joke” endings are pretty easy to dismiss in any discussion of possible canonical conclusions. 

The “Dog” ending suggests that a dog has been controlling pretty much everything that happens to James in Silent Hill 2, while the UFO ending sees James abducted by aliens (with help from the original Silent Hill’s protagonist, Harry Mason). They’re really little more than Easter eggs meant to reward extremely dedicated players.

Granted, a UFO ending was also featured in the original Silent Hill, but given that this ending wasn’t even added to the sequel until subsequent ports and re-releases, there’s really no way it should be considered anything but a gag.

Silent Hill 2’s “Rebirth” Ending Offers a Haunting Possibility Straight Out of a Stephen King Novel

Silent Hill 2’s “Rebirth” ending sees James kill the mutated form of his wife Mary and then take Mary’s body to the Church of Rebirth at the center of a lake. This ending is triggered by beating the game once and finding four special items during your next playthrough. 

The ending itself is narratively fascinating. On a very basic level, it suggests that the items James found convinced him that it’s possible to bring his wife back to life. Given how resurrection typically works in horror (and considering that one of the books James finds as part of this ending bears a striking resemblance to Pet Semetary’s lore), we can only assume that this resurrection went terribly wrong (if it worked at all).

However, the bigger takeaway from this ending has less to do with the idea that James might actually resurrect Mary and more to do with the idea that James himself has essentially succumbed to madness. Whether or not Mary is brought back to life and whether or not James finds his way back from the church is seemingly less important than the idea that James’ decision to go to the church in the first place means he is lost and hasn’t really learned the right lessons from his time in the town.

So far as the canon goes, “Rebirth” is kind of a tough sell. Silent Hill’s “original” three endings (the ones you can see during your first playthrough) are all based on the player’s gameplay actions and what they tell us about James’ psyche. From that standpoint, it’s difficult to say what the idea of “beating” the game is supposed to represent and what the narrative explanation for these new items being added to the game during a second playthrough really is.

While some games hide their “true” or complete endings behind requirements such as beating the game once, this particular conclusion feels closer to a “What if?” scenario designed to be seen by dedicated fans rather than the ending you’re necessarily meant to find in order to see how the game really ends.

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Silent Hill 2’s “Maria” Ending Offers the Game’s Most Ambiguous Conclusion

Silent Hill 2’s “Maria” ending is the first of the endings we’ll talk about that can actually be seen during your initial playthrough. It’s also one of the game’s strangest and most complicated conclusions. 

To see Silent Hill 2’s “Maria” ending, you have to be very nice to Maria (a character you find in the town who looks a lot like James’ wife and even has some of her memories) throughout the game. Along with performing specific actions at specific times (such as visiting Maria in the hospital as many times as possible) you also have to make sure that you don’t lead Maria astray for long or allow her to take excessive damage. 

Do everything right, and your “reward” is an ending that sees James and Maria meet after the final boss battle. Maria gives James a letter from Mary in which Mary essentially acknowledges how her illness has damaged their relationship and expresses her complex feeling regarding that fracture. James and Maria then decide to leave the town together, but Maria starts coughing in a way that strongly suggests that she has the same disease that Mary had when she died. 

This is…a weird one. The simplest read suggests that the player’s actions towards Maria are intended to convey James’ growing feelings (obsession?) towards her and that this ending shows that the two finally get together. The cough could be interpreted as a bad thing (James has to watch someone he loves suffer again and may end up killing her), but maybe this is actually James getting a second chance to do the right thing and find redemption and forgiveness for himself by better handling this hardship. 

However, that theory is complicated by the fact it’s strongly suggested Maria isn’t actually “real” and is instead a manifestation of James’ conscious (like so many other things in the town). That interpretation is admittedly further complicated by the game’s supplementary “Born From A Wish” chapter which shows Maria on her own adventure without James, but there is still enough evidence to support the general idea that the Maria we know is not just an entirely “normal” person in the physical sense. 

As such, it seems more likely that this ending is indeed meant to convey how James has not moved on from what happened to Mary and will continue to punish himself by either going through it yet again or leaving with the knowledge he will never, could never, and perhaps should never forgive himself for what he did. That interpretation is supported by Maria’s generally villainous nature and the idea that she, in some way, is less of a version of Mary waiting to be saved and more of a representation of James’ guilt over Mary’s death combined with his repressed sexual urges that make her more symbolic of James’ desire for Mary as he wants to remember her rather than the person she necessarily was (especially at the end).  

This ending does fit the grander ideas of Silent Hill 2’s narrative and gameplay/storytelling relationship, so it’s not quite as easy to dismiss it outright like we can with the other conclusions we’ve discussed so far. At the same time, this ending’s incredibly ambiguous nature (from both a thematic and narrative standpoint) raises serious questions and what happens next and how our perception of those events is intended to affect our perception of future Silent Hill games. 

While that ambiguity makes this one of the game’s most memorable endings (and the ending itself is a satisfying overall conclusion to the game in a lot of ways), it is interesting to see how the next two finales offer something that feels slightly more definitive. 

Silent Hill 2’s “Leave” Ending Is The Closest This Game Comes to a Traditional Happy Ending

Silent Hill 2’s “Leave” ending can be seen by doing all you can to demonstrate a will to live and desire to come to terms with what James did. That means you have to keep your health high, avoid becoming obsessed with Maria, and take time to pay Mary the proper respect through acknowledging her pain as well as your own. 

If you make the right decisions, you’ll eventually encounter a figure you believe to be Mary who is actually Maria. Soon thereafter, Maria literally turns into a monster who James must kill. After doing so, James “meets” Mary again and the two have a pretty nuanced conversation about what James did and whether or not he should continue to live his life burdened by the incredible guilt of it. We then cut to a cemetery, listen to Mary narrate the letter she left James, and watch as James and Laura (a girl he met in Silent Hill) walk through a cemetery.

For all intents and purposes, this is Silent Hill 2’s “good” ending, which is noteworthy not only because it’s the game’s only clear good ending (depending on your interpretations) but because other Silent Hill game’s “canonical” endings are typically variations of their good endings. 

It’s also very much worth noting that there are hints throughout Silent Hill 2 that suggest James is not somehow “doomed” to be punished for the rest of his life. Indeed, there are multiple points in the game where it’s strongly implied that James is indeed seeking redemption and can achieve it if he is able to find a way to forgive himself while still demonstrating atonement and a will to live. Well, that’s what the player must do to trigger this ending. 

The Laura factor is also interesting. A popular theory suggests that Laura is one of the only “real” people in Silent Hill 2 and that she doesn’t view the town as a punishment. Indeed, it’s implied that she doesn’t see any of the horrors in the town and may instead see it as a joyful, rewarding place. If Laura is a manifestation of James’ psyche, then it’s strongly implied that she could be seen as the daughter that he and Mary never had. In either case, Laura seems to represent innocence, possibilities, and the start of something new. 

Furthermore, it’s been said that Elee from Silent Hill: Homecoming was originally supposed to be an older version of Laura who was going to wear James’ jacket. That would tend to suggest that the Homecoming team may have considered building upon the ending in which Laura and James escaped (though that isn’t the only possibility that would help explain how Laura got the jacket). 

Speaking of sequels, it should also be noted that Silent Hill 4 features a brief scene with Frank Sunderland (James’ father) who says that his son “disappeared in Silent Hill a few years back.” While it’s possible that James never went to see his dad again following the events of Silent Hill 2, a more popular interpretation of that statement suggests that James simply never made it out of the town. That brings us to the game’s final ending…

Silent Hill 2’s “In Water” Ending is The Most Commonly Accepted Canonical Conclusion

Silent Hill 2’s In Water ending is reserved for players who quite simply demonstrate self-destructive tendencies. If you don’t try to heal yourself quickly, consistently take massive amounts of damage, and generally fail to exhibit the desire to achieve forgiveness, then you’ll be “treated” to a haunting ending in which James essentially remembers that he came to Silent Hill to kill himself. He then drowns himself in the lake in the hopes of rejoining his wife in the afterlife.

Let’s not beat around the bush: there are numerous pieces of evidence that suggest this is the strongest contender for Silent Hill 2’s “canonical ending.” Here are just a few:

The novelization of Silent Hill 2 uses the “In Water” ending (though there is some debate regarding how much the author knew about the project’s development and what Silent Hill 2‘s writers intended). 

“In Water” is the only ending that features a shot of James carrying Mary that is prominently featured in Silent Hill 2’s instruction manual and promo art.

Members of the Silent Hill 2 team (including designer Masahiro Ito and James’ voice actor Guy Chi) have previously indicated that they view this as the true (or at least their prefered) ending. 

Pyramid Head was reportedly designed with the context of the “In Water” ending in mind.

Water is featured prominently throughout the game as both a form of punishment and escape/”redemption.”

It’s been suggested that James’ took Mary’s body to Silent Hill with him and intended to commit the act of Shinjū (a ritualistic form of double suicide).

This ending explains why James’ father says he never returned from Silent Hill.

This is the ending that many players see their first time playing the game and is therefore the ending that many people associate with the game if they didn’t intentionally try to acquire additional/alternative endings. 

Put it all together, and you really start to see why so many people have suggested that “In Water” is the most logical Silent Hill 2 ending even if it isn’t necessarily the ending that has been officially adopted as canonical. Nearly everything about it from a narrative and thematic standpoint mesh with the events of the game, Harry’s psychological state, and what few direct connections Silent Hill 2 has to the rest of the series.

Furthermore, there is evidence that suggests the team didn’t necessarily see this as an entirely sad ending. That’s a very fine line to walk given that I do not want to glorify James’ decision to kill himself, but what we know about the creative motivation behind this ending strongly implies that this idea was based less on the belief that the town defeated James and more on the thought that this was simply a fitting conclusion to what James had just gone through.

At the same time, I do find it interesting that it’s suggested James drove to Silent Hill to commit suicide but James actually says during the game that he doesn’t believe in suicide. He could have been lying, forgot why he came, or simply changed his mind due to his experiences/mental state, but it is one of those factors that complicates the idea that this ending offers a clean explanation for everything that happens before.

Which Silent Hill 2 Ending is Canonical?

If it comes down to it, I would also have to agree that “In Water” feels like Silent Hill 2’s most appropriate, complete, and overall fascinating ending. If you were going to make an argument for which ending fits into the canon most cleanly, that and “Leave” would probably be the easiest to support.

At the same time, it’s very much worth emphasizing that the game’s lack of a canonical ending in the traditional sense of the term has always been intentional. Most of Silent Hill 2’s endings are based on the choices you make as James and how those choices supposedly represent your own psychology as well as your character’s psychology. While the unique post-game nature of the Dog/UFO and “Rebirth” endings arguably make them harder to accept as canonical for that reason, “In Water,” “Maria,” and “Leave” all offer fascinating interpretations of what happens to James based on your actions and decisions. 

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Of course, it is also interesting to think that so many people seem to remember getting the “In Water” ending the first time they played the game. While that probably has something to do with how closely that ending is related to taking damage and performing more obvious actions (things that you can expect to happen in survival horror games) maybe the fact that “In Water” seems to be one of the easiest endings to “accidentally” get tells us something about how the developers suspected our Silent Hill 2 journey would end. 

The post Does Silent Hill 2 Have a True Ending? appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[smokeybrand]

Smokey brand Movie Reviews: The Air That I Breathe

Today is the day! Finally, I get to see Goji x Monke and I am so goddamn hype! If you've been around these parts long enough, I am a massive Goji shill. That franchise is a pillar in the trinity of my childhood and I hold those films truly dear. When Legendary dropped their version of Godzilla seven years ago, I was dumb impressed. Hell, I even liked Skull Island and I kind of hate Kong. Even the overly long King of the Monster was a good time for me so I was definitely looking forward to this one. And then f*cking Wuha happened and we all lost a year of our lives here in the States to abject stupidity. It's absurd that it's been a whole f*cking year and we're still seeing spikes in cases, man. Half the world has got this sh*t under control enough to actually see this thing in a theater but the US, the richest, most powerful country in the world, is still on restriction because idiots are idiots. I would have loved to see this in a theater but I couldn't. Had to settle for my home theater. Even so, this was a f*cking great time.

The Good

Goji x Monke is f*cking gorgeous to look at, man. Like, desperately, effortlessly, beautiful. It’s been almost a decade since us Yanks have had our go at the Goji mythos and this is, by far, is the best looking one. It is f*cking stunning. And a lot of it is in the daylight. Like, you can SEE the stunning without having it mired in swampy atmosphere to hide some of the “fake” CG.

This cast smacks the hardest! The caliber of talent in this film has no right to be this good. Like, none. Rebecca Hall, Alexander Skarsgard, Eiza Gonzalez, Shun Oguri, Kyle Chandler, and Lance f*cking Reddick, are all massive gets for this flick, even if the overall star power pales in comparison to the first two forms in this franchise. Kind of hard to beat Sam Jackson, John Goodman, Brie larson, Tom Hiddleston, John C. Reilly, Elizabeth Olsen, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, John Goodman, Bryan Cranston, Juliette Binoche and Ken Watanabe. I don’t care what you say, those casts, between two films, is going to be dumb hard to top, especially considering the nature of this franchise. That said, there are standouts.

Brian Tyree Henry is the best thing about this movie, outside of the decadent effects. His paranoid conspiracy theorist, Bernie Hayes, is a true delight and an incredible pivot from the usually stoic, classically heroic, protagonists we’ve had so far in the franchise. I can’t say he’s a “main character” but he gives the best performance like he should be one. I’m glad dude is getting so much work lately. He’s an excellent actor and deserves all of the shine. If you haven’t seen it, definitely check him out in Atlanta. That’s probably the best performance you’ll ever see him give.

Millie Bobby Brown returns as Madison Russel and, once again, i genuinely enjoyed her character in this, just like i did in KotM. Brown is never intrusive but it’s kind of weird that she gets to find all of the stuff. I imagine that was installed in her contract or whatever but it's not like she cant handle it. Brown is dope in this role and i kind of hope they give her that third shot in a few years with Henry and Dennison in tow. Their chemistry together is so goddamn tasty, it has to be fattening.

Julian Dennison was a surprise. I don’t generally like the “kid sidekick” characters in these flicks but his Josh Valentine was pretty okay. I just mentioned this but it needs to be repeated; I really liked the chemistry he had with Henry and Brown. Dude fit that whole Goonies dynamic they had going, taking up the straight man role while still being kind of hilarious in his own right. Kind of hope that, if this franchise gets another sequel, we can have a bit more of these characters together. Give them their own goddamn movie!

The pacing in this is TIGHT! Like, you get right into it and sh*t never let’s up. This is probably the best, most even, showing of Kaiju content in all four films and I'm kind of in love. It’s weird to say because Goji x Monke has the lowest run-time among all the films, but it gets you to where you need to be with no fat, whatsoever. One could say they trimmed a little too much off but that's what Extended and Director's cuts are for.

The direction in this movie is on point. You can tell that, the guy behind the camera, guiding this narrative, is a real life fan of Goji. Adam Wingard has always said his movie would be a love letter to Goji and Kong, in every interview, every appearance, and he wasn’t lying. This movie feels like it fits right in with those old Showa Goji showings but stands perfectly in the modern blockbuster age. Wingard poured all of that passion and enthusiasm he has for Gigantis, the Fire Lizard into this movie. Goji x Monke is a labor of love and you acutely feel it.

The homages and easter eggs littered within this thing are a Godzilla fan's wet dream. From Goji destroying that APEX plant in the beginning, calling back to MechaGoji destroying that refinery in Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, to the way they transported Kong to the Hollow Earth entrance mimicking the balloon drop from King Kong versus Godzilla, or that high ass, modulated hiss from Apex MechaGoji; As a Godzilla fan, this is my paradise and i am LOVING all of it. I was crying from happiness this entire movie. If this is truly the swan song for the MonsterVerse, it’s a damn high note for a curtain call. Bro, they even have kind of a Super X fleet and i can’t even!

Legendary’s original Kaiju have all been kind of whack. Like, the Skullcrawlers are garbage. Straight up fodder for Monke and the MUTOs were completely uninspired. The others who showed up in KotM were a joke, too. None of them fit the Toho Kaiju at all and I'd hate to see a movie starring any of them. But the few introduced here? I like these. They make sense. They feel organic to the world. They feel threatening. They feel like proper antagonists and not just sacrifices to main Kaiju development.

This is the most we’ve seen of Legendary’s Goji and the clearest look yet. Like, this Godzilla is arguably one of the best designs so finally getting a real, proper, gander at all of it’s atomic powered glory has been dope as f*ck. Again, you can tell Wingard has a favorite of the two and it ain’t Kong. Monke definitely gets more screen time, but what little we get of Goji is jam-packed with aggression and Atomic Breath and it kind of sh*t all over the Monke scenes.

MechaGoji is my all-time favorite Kaiju. I was a little worried that Legendary blew their load too soon with Ghidorah but nope! MechaG is every bit as threatening, arguably more so. Like, this giant, robot, asshole is not to be f*cked wit. Dude is a problem and it makes that known immediately. Now, this MechaGoji isn’t the the autonomous robot of old. Legendary decided to go the piloted route we’ve seen since Heisei. I’m not mad, Kiryu is my second favorite version of the Big MechaG, but the twist feels real Godzilla x Mechagodzilla and Tokyo SOS. Again, not mad, but kind of hoped for a little space ridiculousness, you know. Maybe later? Hopefully later? Please let there be a later...

I even like Kong in this. I f*cking hate Kong, man. Of all his films, I've only like two; Skull Island and the Peter Jackson remake. The latter more so because you can tell Jackson loves Kong and his movie is a legit labor of love, much like Wingard and this one. These guys made Kong compelling. They made him more than a White Fear allegory and i kind of dig it. A lot of my love for Skull Island can be accredited to Sam Jackson, John C. Reilly, and John Goodman, but I legit left the theater thinking Kong's flick was a good time.

Goji over Monke, two to one. Like i said. There’s no way Monke steals the crown, not from this version of Godzilla. Scrap was f*cking epic, though. Like, outside of MechaG just throttling the both of them, Monke was the closest to snaking that crown. Closer even than f*cking Ghidorah and i don’t really know how i feel about that. That said...

That tag team against MechaG is the best Kaiju scrap in the entire goddamn franchise so far. Sh*t is f*cking brutal, grandiose as f*ck, and takes place in the daylight so you can actually f*cking SEE it. F*CK!!

The Bad

The writing is real weak in this. It’s arguably the worst thing about this movie. I actually wrote a whole essay about how you can’t judge these films like you’d judge a proper, emotionally stimulating, thought provoking, exercise in cinema but even brain-dead Kaiju fights should have some semblance of plot to string them together. Goji 2014, Skull Island, and King of the Monsters, all had a decent narrative to string together the necessary conflicts presented in their films but Goji x Monke is easily the worst of these films in that department. It isn’t as bad as Michael Bay or as pedestrian as Zack Snyder but the writing just smacks of Roland Emmerich. This is a movie that he would have definitely made in his Nineties heyday of excess and spectacle.

The plot contrivances are kind of corny. I’m not going to point all of them out but i will say this; Mark Russel starts this movie in the exact same place he started KotM and it’s ridiculous. They need Russel back at his skeptical self as a way to sideline him from this narrative as he's now  the man in the big chair over at Monarch so he kind of sidesteps his daughter’s very real observation. All because the plot demands it of his character. It’s a boner and i hate it. I hate the many, many, others, too.

Look, i love Rebecca Hall. I’ve been a fan of hers for years. She’s in a ton of sh*t that i genuinely love. Same thing with Alexander Skarsgard. I had t let that be known because their characters in this are f*cking useless. Like, they’re the main characters and they have less agency that the Goonies trio in this thing. It’s f*cking dumb. You couldn’t work more plot relevance into the characters that we are clearly supposed to spend the most time with? They’re supposed to be the emotional anchor for this flick and i found myself attached to the supporting crew. What a way to waste great actors.

The Verdict

Godzilla vs. Kong is a fun ass ride. This is the Avengers of Legendary’s MonsterVerse and it pulls out all of the stops. Goji x Monke is lousy with fan service and easter eggs, but sprinkled in restraint throughout, giving fans of the Big G tons of sh*t to get us in tizzy. Like, there is SO much here for a fan to latch on to but, even if you’re not, this flick has a ton of worth aside from that. The direction is on point, you really feel like this is a Goji film, and the action is the absolute best in the franchise. There is weight and realism to how these massive creatures move, the effects doing overtime conveying what a giant, radioactive, lizard and a skyscraper sized ape can really do. In broad daylight. Without looking fake or corny. You can tell that the director, Adam Wingard, knew his sh*t and really loved making this movie. Goji x Monke is easily the best looking in the entire goddamn franchise, hands down. i cannot stress that enough.

Also, as kind of a bonus but not really, this movie has some of the strongest human characters in the entire franchise. Millie Bobby Brown does her thing, as always, and newcomer Julian Dennison does his thing, but Brian Tyree Henry is the absolute standout. I can see this being a star-turning performance for him if it had hit theaters properly but we’ll see. This thing did gangbusters in China with Henry taking a principal position in the narrative and China hates the Darkies so that’s saying a lot. Of course, there are the usual issues with these types of films; pedestrian writing, superfluous human conflict, tons of plot conveniences but those are basically tropes of this genre. It’s hard to have a Kaiju story without them. You just have to suspend your disbelief and let some of this sh*t rude, you know? If you can do that, i promise you that you’ll have a fantastic time. I can’t say it’s my favorite, that title still rests with Goji 2014, but Godzilla vs. Kong is definitely a contender for second best. If you have HBO max, it’s definitely worth a watch. If you’re willing to brave a pandemic theater, it is definitely better on the big screen.

[acsversace-news]

Because of the backwards narrative style, the entire second season of American Crime Story has been one big origin story for Andrew Cunanan, his relationships, and the motives that eventually led to his string of murders. The seventh episode, titled “Ascent”, was the episode that we’ve been leading up to all along to fully get a changing point in Andrew’s life.

Last week’s episode (titled “Descent”, in parallels that were evident throughout) was about Andrew losing everything he built for himself. This week we get a peek into how he started putting it together...

Episode 7: “Ascent”

1992, Milan. The episode opens with Donatella Versace, which is always a welcome change. The the further we go back in time, the more the Versace appearances are more thematic tie-ins to Andrew’s journey than a look into their personal lives. But Penelope Cruz in a platinum blonde wig is always a vision to behold.

Donatella is anxious that she can’t seem to design a dress by himself. Gianni can see the potential and talent in his younger sister, and decides to guide her; he proposes they design a dress together. He will show her the ropes. Learning to adapt to your environment will be a big theme of the episode.

We then go to a San Diego pharmacy, where Andrew is working as a cashier. Every week, we see Andrew being stripped more and more of the egocentric, glamorized monster of the first episodes. He’s slightly less delusional, less hurt, less polished; somehow more human, which is reinforces the weird moral statement the show is making out about a murderer.

The Andrew we meet this week is an Andrew that is fueled by dreams. This is something that has always pushed him forward (and what eventually pushed him over the edge), but here we see someone who has yet to accomplish what he set out to do. He’s just a cashier reading a Vogue magazine.

We also see more of the relationship with his mother, who was first introduced last week. In real life, this woman was severely mentally ill, which the show hints at in small, hardly overt ways. We see a tremendous dependency she has not only on her son, but on her son’s success. His value under her eyes is measured on how much he can accomplish.

“You can tell lies, but you either have money or you don’t”, a man at his regular dive bar tells Andrew, perhaps pulling the final trigger inside him to activate him and make him go pursue his dream life. For Andrew, this naturally means to join an escort service. After all, he is well-versed, can carry a conversation, and older guys are keen on him.

The following scene, where Andrew interviews for an escort position, is the only scene so far in the series in which Andrew’s Asian-American identity takes a hard toll on him. “I can’t sell a smartass Filipino,” the escort manager tells him, after she’s asked him to put himself in every box the potential clients might check. “Then I will sell myself.” The idea of not being desired or wanted is something that will chase him for life.

Andrew insinuates himself into the life of Lincoln Ascot, an older millionaire, by charming him and his group of wealthy gays in an opera playhouse. Soon, they have reached an arrangement; he will get monthly allowances, expense credits, and travel benefits, in exchange for redecorating Lincoln’s house and social life. A bargain that benefits both of them.

And then we finally witness the fated encounter between Andrew and David Madson in San Francisco; the night that has been hinted to since David’s introduction in episode four, and that would define the rest of their lives. What starts as Andrew buying a drink for the lonely blond gentlemen at the bar, ends as one of those nights; a night of endless conversation and opening yourself completely. Andrew is hooked. The way Cody Fern portrays David as a wide-eyed dreamer, talking endlessly about his goals, is so much painful and traffic knowing his end. The show has been very effective in highlighting the theme of hope and lost dreams via the backwards narrative.

But Lincoln is not pleased with Andrew taking in new lovers, and breaks off the arrangement. That very same night, he picks up a straight-identified man at a bar, perhaps for the sake of company and drowning his sorrows. But this man, terrified of Lincoln but more terrified at himself, freaks out at the slight touch of Lincoln’s hand, bashes his head, and brutally murders him. “An act of self-defense.” Andrew witnesses this from afar.

While this murder actually took place in reality (and the man later confessed to it to committing it out of gay panic), there is no evidence of Andrew ever being there, but his placement in the room makes for an interesting addition. It allowed Andrew to be a passive bystander for something that he would later commit himself more than once. He would also use this to underline the fatality of not being able to speak up as a gay man against a crime. We all had it coming; it’s always our fault.

Andrew mourns Lincoln with Norman, one of his closest friends and (because we’ve seen last week’s episode), the next man he will be kept under. As they work through their grief on a beach, Andrew offers Norman what he had with Lincoln. A dream that he can build for them.

But he’s not telling his mom he’s become a kept boy. He’s telling her that he’s going after a bigger dream; he’s travelling the world with Gianni Versace as his costuming assistant. His mother assumes that she’s coming along with them. But Andrew has to shed everything from his previous identity, including her. In what has now become the peak trope for selfish behavior, he ends up hurting his own mother, pushing her away and making her fracture her shoulder blade. But she still thinks he’s such a good boy. Andrew cries at this. He will never be a good boy again.

In between Andrew’s titular ascent, segments of the Versaces are peppered throughout. Donatella takes the red carpet spotlight for the first time and becomes a public face for the company. Gianni goes deeper into an illness he will never be cured off, and eventually has to leave Milan for Miami, and Donatella takes over the day-to-day operations. “If we are not talked about, we are nothing,” she says to her new employees after Gianni’s departure. This is another reminder that the Versace’s presence has mostly been used for thematic underlining.

There are two episodes of this season left. According to early critical coverage, next week’s episode we will go back in time one last time, to fully understand Andrew’s life motivation to social climb his way towards murder. And as much as I’ve enjoyed the backwards narrative and the emotional places it takes the audience, I hope the finale puts us back where the premiere left off, with Andrew after the last murder. There needs to be a conclusion to Andrew’s life, as he ended it shortly after.

It’s been a bittersweet journey to explore the lives of people whose fates we already know. I’m enjoying the deep exploration of their characters, but also question them. I get the necessity (and, in a way, the debt) to humanize the victims that have become footnotes in a larger story. I get the necessity of painting the world of prejudice around them, and the decisions that led them to meet and need this man. I thank that we’ve gotten to explores the themes of isolation, longing for connection, and community in the gay sphere that still permeate today. It’s almost a pity, though, that in the way we are also getting a human, almost relatable portrait of a killer. But I guess if there was a way to do it, taking all factors around it into consideration was the way to go.