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nightbts · 5 years

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through the night | jjk | 03

pairing: jeon jungkook + stylist! reader

word count: 1.8k

genre: fluff, angst + idol! au, friends to lovers! au

parts: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

an: a short filler while i deal with my horrible writer’s block, sorry everyone :”(

listen to this playlist while reading!

best of friends. that’s what you and jungkook were. as their stylist for several years now, you and jungkook got along like no other and over time developed a friendship that was special to the two of you. but what happens when an IU collaboration deal, a jealous childhood-best friend and secret feelings get intertwined with the simple life you thought you were living?

“Shit! Jungkook!?” you heard, as a chorus of colorful language was followed by are you okays? and where does it hurt?

Your head snapped up from the beauty kits you had been given to organize, as your eyes quickly found the boys huddled around Jungkook who was on the ground. His hands gripped his ankle as his face reflected a look of pain you’d never seen on him before.

Running towards the scene, you squeezed yourself through the crowd before settling yourself right next to his side.

“Hey! J-Jungkook! What’s wrong? What happened? Where does it hurt? Are you alright?!” you sputtered, questions spilling out one after the other, your eyes shining with evident concern.

Glancing up at you, Jungkook saw how your eyes trembled as you looked back and forth from his ankle to his face. As he tried to respond a shooting pain ran up his leg, causing him to bend over and hold his ankle only tighter as he groaned, “Shit! I don’t know--I just fell on it. I don’t think I hurt it too bad, but I can’t move it without it hurting like shit.”

“Can you get up Jungkook? You have to try.” Namjoon spoke up softly behind you, “We have to move you backstage so we can get the medic to help you.”

As Jungkook nodded, Namjoon, Jin, and Hoseok tried lifting the boy up to a standing position, but not without Jungkook grimacing in pain, as he felt his ankle throb at an intensity he had never felt before.

“Will he be alright?” a voice asked from behind you, startling you as you pulled your eyes away from Jungkook to Jiho, who was looking at Jungkook with just as much concern in his own eyes.

Biting your lip, you shook your head as you watched the boys move Jungkook backstage, “I-I don’t know Jiho. We have time before the tour starts but, you know how Jungkook is...” you trailed off, both of you understanding exactly what you had meant by that.

In all the years you had known Jungkook, you knew how hard he took fallbacks like this, even the ones he had no control over. You could already tell the pain he was feeling right now came mostly from being unable to practice and perform, rather than his ankle itself.

Cracking the door open, you peered inside the hotel room; the dim light radiating from the table lamp illuminated the entire room with a soft glow as the TV played softly in the background. As your eyes scanned the room you saw him, eyes closed as his back rested against the bed frame while his ankle, that had been wrapped up in a cast, laid atop several pillows. Walking towards him, you set a bag full of drinks and snacks you had got him on his bedside table before taking a seat on the edge of the bed beside him.

Your hand immediately found its way to his hair as you gently brushed his bangs away from his forehead; however, the sensation seemed to pull Jungkook out of his sleep as you watched his nose scrunch, his eyes following as they fluttered open, revealing his soft brown orbs looking straight into yours.

“Y/N....” he muttered as you stood there slightly flustered, quickly pulling your hand away, embarrassed to be caught in the act of something so...intimate.

“H-hey...” you cleared your throat, face still flushed with a gentle shade of pink, “How are you feeling now?”

Seeming to take no notice of your flustered state, Jungkook merely sent a smile your way, his voice filled with groggy enthusiasm, “Mmm, a lot better!”

But you knew better. His forced look of hope. His constricted smile. His fake enthusiasm. You knew better. Raising a brow, you looked at him knowingly before he sighed, the demeanor he held up for you falling down almost immediately.

“It never works on you, does it?” he chuckled softly, although you could see the slight despair in his eyes.

“Do you expect it to?” you countered jokingly, as you gave him a slight punch to the arm, “I know you too well Jeon Jungkook.”

"Oh? That almost sounds like a challenge?”

Leave it to the boy who just woke up to immediately indulge in a competition.

Shaking your head with laughter, you lifted your hand and motioned for him to bring it on.

“Birthday?”

“September 1, 1997.”

“Favorite artist?”

“You’re kidding, right? IU.”

Smiling sheepishly, he accepted, “That was too easy, I admit.”

“Okay, next one. Make it actually hard and not a fact that nearly all of ARMY already knows.”

Thinking silently to himself, his eyes were deep into thought when you saw them suddenly brighten, knowing a question came to him. Jungkook smirked as he knew he’d said this only once when both of you were drunk, and knew there was no way you’d remember it.

Smiling devilishly, he asked, “Fine, how did I confess to my middle school girlfriend?”

“You sang her a song and gave her a rose,” you replied almost immediately, your own lips tilting up into a smirk.

[AN: fyi I totally made that up]

Blinking in surprise, Jungkook abruptly moved from the bed frame towards you as he stuttered, “H-How do you remember that?!”

It was late at night. The moon shined brightly above, the stars twinkling in the distance as you heard the silence of the night interrupted sporadically by the sounds of your local city nightlife. You and Jungkook were sitting on the rooftop of the boys’ dormitory, empty bottles of soju and snack bags surrounding the both of you.

It had been a day, to say the least. And when Jungkook had texted you “Soju?” at 11 pm, despite being on your way back home, you turned around without a second thought and made your way over.

After having several bottles of soju, yelling cheers after every single shot, the two of you laid against the brick wall, completely, utterfuly wasted.

“Truth or dare?” you giggled, as you lazily pointed your empty soju bottle towards Jungkook’s direction.

“Truth or dare? What are we, in elementary school?” Jungkook snorted in return until he turned his head sideways to see you glaring underneath the soju bottle that was still pointed towards him.

Laughing at the way your face contorted into a pout, your lips pursed together, as your cheeks remained flush from the soju, he finally caved in, “Fineeee, I pick truth!”

Breaking out into a wide smile, you pumped your fists in the air as you cheered loudly into the night sky.

“Well, are you going to ask me?”

At that, you slowly let your hands fall to your side. Looking up at him, your lips pursed up again, this time however in concentration as you thought long and hard. However, soon enough your shoulders dropped before you let out a whine, “Wait...I don’t know what to ask...”

“Oh Y/N~” Jungkook cooed, as he brought his hands up to your face, squishing your cheeks together, “You got alllll worked up for that to not even have something to ask me?”

Blinking at him, you felt your cheeks grow hot at the touch of his warm hands against your face. His eyes were just millimeters from your own and you could feel your heart suddenly beating erratically in your chest.

“Jungkook, do you like me?”

Before you could hold back the words that came tumbling past your lips, you had said them out loud -- the very words you’d ask him in your mind, countless times before.

This time, Jungkook stared at you with an unknown look in his eyes, and before you could take back what you said, he replied, “Wait...what did you say?”

Letting out an awkward giggle, you quickly tried to move past the words you said as you grabbed his shoulders, pulling him close to you, “Oh, dummy! Are you deaf? Did the soju make your hearing all wacky?!”

Whispering into his ear, you stumbled through your words, “I-I said! Jungkook, have you ever liked someone?!”

Pulling away from you, his brows furrowed in confusion before saying, “Is that what you said?! I swear, I heard something else-”

“Yes!!” you quickly interrupted, your eyes wide open as you nodded your head excessively, “That is exacTLY what I asked,” you emphasized, reassuring both him and yourself.

Laughing at your frenzied state, he sat back against the brick wall, taking another swig of the remaining soju he had.

“Well, that’s a long story Y/N...” he trailed off, a soft smile appearing on his face as he stared deeply off into the distance as memories of his childhood years danced across his mind.

The rest of the night was spent with both of you going back and forth talking about the endless memories of your childhood romance; the one-sided crushes, the childish relationships, the drama, the theatrics, all of it. And it was nights like this, where you’d wake up the next morning thinking neither of you remembered the night before, that actually became memories of times where the both of you had grown closer together.

“Just because I was drunk doesn’t mean I forget things easily Jungkook,” you grinned as you reached forward to playfully tousle his recently dyed, soft, brown hair.

“Hey!” he whined as he swatted your hands away, trying to fix it back to what it had looked before.

Eventually, the atmosphere of the room fell into a comfortable lull, besides the sounds of the TV playing in the background and the rumbling air conditioner. background.

Until you heard Jungkook whisper with a soft sigh, his head hung low, “You know? This always happens.”

Your eyes fell back on Jungkook just to notice the way he stared straight at his ankle, his lips forming a straight line. Sighing in frustration, he ran his hands back through his hair, “I always fuck it up and get hurt. How am I going to practice with the rest of the boys now? What’s going to happen to the concert? The rest of tour--”

“Hey, slow down there,” you interrupted, before adding sternly, “Jungkook, this is in no way your fault, you hear me?”

Letting out an empty chuckle, his head hung low before he said dejectedly, “I don’t know Y/N...If I had just been a little more careful, If I had not gotten ahead of myself I wouldn’t have slipped--”

Grabbing his hands in your own, the feeling of your soft fingers treading above his knuckles caused him to look up at you in surprise, yet what surprised him more was the look in your eyes: determination.

“I know this sucks right now, believe me. I have been with you guys on countless tours where all of you had something like this happen and I know how shitty you feel right now but tell me, where is that going to get you?”

Your grip on his hands got tighter, as you continued, “You can sit here and wallow all you want. But guess what, your hyungs aren’t going to do that! They’re going to be out there practicing more, harder, longer because they don’t want to let you down. So what are you going to do? Sit here and hate yourself or try to practice for this world tour in ways you are able to? After all, it’s just your ankle! What does that affect? Your dancing? You can still sing. You can still watch and help the rest of the members. You can still coordinate the performances. There’s so much you can still do Jungkook!” you rambled, your breath heavy as your chest rose up and down.

Staring at you with wide eyes, Jungkook went still. As a sudden silence filled the room after your impromptu outburst, Jungkook’s lack of words started to make you slightly nervous, uncomfortable at the least.

“I’m sorry, was that a bit much--?” you winced apologetically before you heard him erupt into laughter.

That little--!

As he bellowed over in laughter, his entire body shaking as his eyes filled up with tears, you stared at him in utter shock before finding yourself hitting the side of his arm, “Hey! Stop laughing so hard, your going to hurt your ankle if you keep moving like that!”

Catching his breath, he tried to suppress his laughter but every time his eyes met your horrified ones, he burst into laughter again.

“Oh my. I give up with you.” you sighed in exasperation before standing up from where you had been sitting, turning around to leave the crackhead you called your best friend.

“Wait, wait, wait, I’m sorry!” Jungkook chuckled softly before grabbing your arm, preventing you from leaving. Turning around you gave him a sour look until he smiled sheepishly at you, motioning for you to sit back down beside him.

“You’re right.” you heard him finally say after his laughter had subsided. Looking back at you, he cocked his head sideways before giving you a wide smile, bunny teeth and all, “How do you always know the right words to say all the time, huh?”

Shrugging, you merely said, “It’s just the truth, that’s all.” Turning to look at him, you added, “You always blame and underestimate yourself Jungkook, you know? You don’t have to do that. You’re a lot stronger than you think.”

Before you could say anything else, you felt his arms wrap around your waist, pulling you closer to him. As his head rested against the crook of your neck, his warm breath fanned your skin as he whispered softly, “Thank you. Thank you so much for being there.”

Melting into his touch as you always do, your hands found the back of his head, running your fingers through his hair as you whispered back, “Always. Even when you don’t want my annoying ass to be there.”

Chuckling, you could feel the vibrations of his chest rumble against yours before he added, “Trust me, I’ll always want your annoying ass no matter what.”

Heart skipping a beat at his words, you felt butterflies erupt in your stomach like you were some middle-school girl. However, the smile that appeared on your face quickly faded away, as you realized he didn't mean it any way that meant more than the long friendship the two of you shared.

#bts #bts scenarios #bts drabbles #bts fluff #bts angst #bts jungkook #jungkook fluff #jungkook angst #jungkook scenarios #jungkook drabbles #jungkook imagines #jungkook #jeon jungkook #kim taehyung #park jimin #jung hoseok #kim namjoon #min yoongi #kim seokjin

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tough-bit-of-fluff · 4 years

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"Self-Reflection on My Self's Reflection or, Do Foxes Tire of Time-Worn Tropes?"

“Pink...everything is...pink. By. The. Twelve. Has all the world….gone pink!?”

Aly flipped her hair out of her face, laughing in her normal voice instead of the overly-theatrical faux-masculine one she had used a moment before. Glancing in the mirror and seeing her attempts at styling were already mussed beyond easy repair, she scrabbled at her hair with both hands, to tease it up into further heights of disordered fluffitude. Pink strands tinged with light blue now stood out in all directions from her head, the points of her long, furry ears barely visible above the mass.

“Okay, Fetch.” She crouched down to address the fox sitting primly on the floor of the small, slightly ramshackle airship, The Four Winds, beside her. “Remember to make a wish, before you blow the seeds off this unusual but strangely alluring pink dandelion, and scatter its seeds alllll across Eorzea.” She pointed at her recently-enfloofened hair, and gestured broadly with an open palm to indicate, no, really, ALL across Eorzea.

“Just imagine, little me’s sprouting up in every city-state. It’ll be the cutest AND most combat-ready invasive species!” She laughed again, imagining the potential mayhem. “Unless you somehow managed to like. Send out fox-spores or whatever. Then that one wins, hands-down. No one will suspect the lethality and sheer cunning of the adorable fox-weeds until it’s toooo late! All of Eorzea will be within the grasp of your many slender snoots!”

Fetch lifted aforementioned snoot slightly, perhaps to watch a moth fluttering past the hanging lantern, or perhaps to affect a more majestic air befitting a conqueror. Whatever the motivation, the effect was achieved nevertheless.

Alyona grinned wide and tossed Fetch a hearty thumbs-up, before bouncing up out of her crouch, stretching her arms and tail as far as they would go, arching and flexing her back, and then turning to look in the mirror.

“I know you don’t need my approval, Fetchie, but I need yours,” she said, raking her fingers this way and that in an attempt to tame the fluffy pink mane. “Do you like my hair parted on the left side? Or the right?”

The fox tilted her head in apparent consideration, and then began scratching her left ear with her hind paw.

“Left side, got it! Your advice is invaluable as always.” Aly wasn’t sure where Kail Gerrad, the tough old pirate who was Fetch’s person, had wandered off to, or why the fox was roaming around the airship on her own, but she was glad of what company the oddly attentive animal could provide.

The miqo’te leaned forward to examine her reflection more closely, tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth as she struggled to open a barrette with a resin paissa affixed to it. Her eyebrows raised in realization, and her mouth opened in a wide grin, showing her fangs.

“Oh! This is that part of the story where the heroine examines herself in the mirror, so the readers can know what she looks like and what is on her mind. It’s a well-worn literary device, Fetch. Some might say TOO well-worn, but you know what? I say it’s a classic for a reason!”

Aly clipped her hair into place and gave an “eh, good enough” shrug at her reflection. “Here’s the important question, Fetch: what IS on my mind?”

The fox paused her scratching to give a huff that sounded almost scornful. “If you don’t know, woman, how on earth am I, a fox, supposed to?” is what it seemed to Aly to convey.

“Ha, fair enough, Fetchie, fair enough,” Aly said, as though replying to an actual statement the fox had made.

“Well, let’s start with the appearance then! Okay so. I have these big ol’ gray eyes, which are great at noticing things. They’re not shrewd gray eyes, or flinty gray eyes, so that tells you something about the nature of my character. They’re,” she paused to make a series of increasingly bizarre faces in the mirror, furrowing her brow, arching one eyebrow, opening her eyes so wide it looked like they might disengage from the rest of her head.

“Soft,” she wrinkled her nose, dissatisfied with what character traits that might denote, “And curious,” she nodded. “These eyes say to the onlooker, this person does not NECESSARILY know what is going on. But, she is canny enough to *know* she doesn’t know, and savvy enough to try and find out.”

Aly gave another thumbs-up and a grin. “Yeah! We’re doin’ it, Fetch! Introspection Experts Beg Protagonists To Identify Their Defining Traits With This One Weird Trick.”

“Umm, what else. Rounded cheeks, perhaps denoting my youthful enthusiasm?” She smooshed a finger into the soft curve. “Or at least my enthusiasm for like, cheesecake?” She shrugged.

“And a cute little chin signifying,” she paused a moment, frowning. The chin, what did it signify? Was a chin sometimes just a chin? “Oh! That I am agreeable but can be very decisive when necessary!”

Aly beamed and pumped her fist in the air. “Man, I am a natural at this! I should open a consulting business, telling people what character traits they have, based on my assessment of their appearance!” Aly sat with that idea for a moment, arms folding across her chest. She shifted from foot to foot.

The woman grimaced, and scratched the back of her neck. She looked chagrined. “I….should NOT open such a business, for reasons that should have been immediately clear to me, but, now revealed, are better left unsaid.”

She waved away her embarrassment. “That’s not how these scenes work anyway! They have to emerge organically. You can’t force someone to undergo character growth,” she laughed.

She narrowed her eyes and growled into the mirror dramatically, “Though by the Twelve I try.” She slapped her fist into her palm for emphasis.

Aly beamed again at the fun she was having, and her tail waved merrily behind her. “What next. Ears? I have pretty ears. They’re real soft. Though not as pretty and soft as yours, Fetch, no no no, I would never suggest! What inner complexities do you find that they reveal to the perceptive, Fetchie? Or has anyone even taken notice? Don’t worry, the right ones will come along,” she reassured the animal, nodding. The fox’s tongue lolled from the corner of its mouth. Fetch’s face was not that of a forest creature who was overly concerned.

Aly turned her head at various angles, watching the shifts in light and shadow on her face. Her hand wandered up to stroke the edge of one of her own ears. A goofy grin spread across her face, in both recognition and enjoyment of the absurd gesture.

“Mmm,” she said, closing her eyes and smiling. “It actually is pretty nice, even this way. Though still not the same.” She opened her eyes and tapped her cheek thoughtfully. “Oh! The takeaway here is perhaps that I am the kind of person who is aware that her ears are soft and pretty, and cares which way the light falls on her face to create the desired dramatic effect. I am surprisingly filled with artifice!” she observed cheerily.

She held up a finger, adding, “AND self-awareness! And and, winning! I am full of winning, Fetch.”

Fetch gave the woman a flat look that indicated she was certainly full of something.

“I can’t see what look you’re giving me right now so I’ll have to assume it’s more of that approval,” said Aly, who, with the mirror, absolutely could see that was not the case.

“Of course,” she said, lifting up her shirt, “This callback serves not only to point out my delightful cheeky sarcasm,” (the shirt covered Aly’s face at this moment, so she could not see Fetch’s reaction to this declaration) “But to recognize that I am not entirely kidding about craving recognition and even acceptance from a fox, which really calls into question a number of my other judgment calls.”

“Oh well!” She chirped, casting her blouse to the floor. “Now we get to see how many paragraphs we spend discussing the appearance of my br-” Aly broke off, tilting her head curiously, and running her fingers over a spot on her side.

“Huh,” she said. “I have a scar there. A small, cute scar. But totally a scar.” She used her thumb and forefinger to measure its size, then brought the measurement up in front of her face. Her eyes crossed a little as she looked at it.

Aly pursed her lips, then reached down to her thigh-high boot. She pulled out a knife, which she held up first to her fingers, then to the old wound.

“Oh, yeah. I definitely got stabbed,” Aly asserted, nodding confidently. Sheathing her knife, she pressed her fingers into her side with her left hand to feel her ribs, and put the palm of her right hand flat against her chest, over her heart. “I almost got stabbed to death!” The miqo’te’s level of enthusiasm for this macabre revelation might have seemed to Fetch to be entirely out of proportion, had the fox not been absorbed with the pressing task of worrying at her svelte right haunch with her tiny teeth.

Aly was ready to move on with her whimsical self-assessment, but her fingers kept wandering back to the scar. Probing it, examining it. Imagining what it must have felt like. She frowned slightly. Well of course she’d been stabbed before, there was nothing significant about that. She’d been injured in combat multiple times in the past month alone. Scrapes, bruises, cuts. That desperate Ala Mhigan’s spear had taken a while to heal from. But the fact was that she had healed. She was fast to recover, and not prone to developing lasting, visible scar tissue. Not prone to taking a hit someplace so vulnerable, someplace she would have rolled and twisted and fought to protect in combat.

She moistened her dry lips. “I think,” she said slowly, “I wasn’t stabbed in combat.” She took a moment to mull over what that might mean.

“They said I was a spy, Fetch,” she said, crouching down to retrieve her discarded blouse. “In those folders and files we found at the secret base. Dossiers! That’s the word. It, it was the Garleans! It could have been a trick, or just plain wrong. But…” Aly twisted the fabric in her hands. Fetch yawn-whined, and padded to Alyona’s side, resting her tawny chin on the girl’s thigh.

Aly had already averted her gaze from the mirror, but it was too late to stop the tide of unbidden reflection, as ever more stories about herself came flooding into her mind. You’re the kind of person who can’t tell friend from foe. You’re the kind of person who lets her guard down even when it doesn’t make sense to do it. Someone tricked you into believing you were safe with them. You probably tricked other people into thinking they were safe with you, too. You’re the kind of person who tells lies and gets lied to, do you even know which of your stories are true? You’re the kind of person who can’t leave well enough alone. You refuse to look at what’s in front of you, and when you finally do, you won’t look at anything else. How many people are going to get hurt before-

Fetch whined again, and Aly absently stroked the fox’s head. The feel of the fur against her fingers grounded her, interrupted her racing thoughts. Impulsively, she hugged the creature, an act which the elegant fox bore stoically. Fetch gave the miqo’te an appraising look, as if to say, “Well? What have we concluded?”

Aly rose to her feet, and pulled the now-wrinkled blouse back over her head. “We’ve concluded,” she answered the imagined question, “That I’m the kind of person who almost got killed, maybe in combat, maybe by someone close to me, but, that’s not going to stop me from fighting. That’s not going to stop me from getting close to people! I love people, I will never stop that!” She stamped her foot for emphasis, and her booted heel thudded against the wood of the floorboards. She liked the dramatic sound it made, so she did it again.

“The girl smiled,” Aly narrated aloud, breaking into a grin on her own command. She didn’t turn to look at it in the mirror, however. “She didn’t know a lot about who she had been, but, little by little, she was finding out, who she is.”

Aly nodded in satisfaction. “Well? Whatcha think, Fetch? Would you read a book about this character? Or is she consigned to the discount bin?”

The fox was nowhere in sight. Perhaps the stomping had scared her away, or perhaps she had found the scene too self-indulgent by half.

Aly heaved an exaggerated sigh. “Everyone’s a critic,” she lamented, but she said no more about it. This time, she was not even talking to a fox. @teahousetales @erstwhile25

#ffxiv #ffxiv character #aly #Final Fantasy XIV #miqote #fox #ffxiv writing #teahousetales

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radramblog · 3 years

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Elder Dragon Highlander

Commander is a format of Magic the Gathering that has become almost completely detached from its original premise. Much of what the format is is built upon the concept of Elder Dragon Highlander- 21 Commander damage is lethal because that’s 3 hits from an Elder Dragon, the slow grindy format built to accommodate the original 5’s heavy mana investment and limited effects.

But that was a long time ago, and the designers at WoTC have opted to attach the moniker of Elder Dragon to a number of additional cards. 21 total cards hold the name, 4 cycles of 5 apiece with one straggler at the back.

What is considered “elder” is largely to do with lore, I think, but due to its association with such iconic cards, it’s interesting to see how and what the label is attached to.

I’ll, uh….do cube something next week? I dunno. But this is the Elder Dragons.

The original 5

The first elder dragon cycle is kind of iconic of Magic in general. Released in Legends, they were the first tricoloured cards in the entire game, were I believe the biggest and most expensive cards of the time, and all represented characters from the comics that I think just about everyone forgets existed.

They do not even remotely resemble modern design. Clunky is one thing, but the quintuplets are almost aberrant to what would be considered attractive Magic cards. A monstrous investment of mana in multiple colours that has a continuous upkeep of more mana, all for an arguably understatted flying creature with one extra ability. Chromium gets Rampage, a keyword that started in Legends, ended in Mirage, and doesn’t have reminder text despite being arguably confusing. Palladia-Mors gets Trample, making it arguably one of the best ones. Vaevictis Asmadi gets Firebreathing in all 3 of its colours, in case 8+3+3+3… wasn’t enough mana-shaped eggs in one basket for you. Arcades gets a bonus ability in toughness-breathing, to make up for it’s deliberately mediocre ability- the “oh cool I can use this with vigilance” eureka/fun brain moment quashed by its pointless limitation.

And then, of course, there’s Nicol Bolas. Somehow one of the game’s most iconic characters, in an art rendition that makes a powerful villain look like a gentle draconic geriatric. (EDITORS NOTE: still Rad here but I just now noticed this mf has a fucking dragon nipple, wtf?) I suppose Bolas becoming so well known was inevitable, if only because it was the only one of the most popular cycles with an actually cool and powerful ability. There are currently 210 more Bolas decks than any other member of this cycle, and that difference also happens to be twice what the other four have combined.

Bolas is arguably the only one that stood the test of time, the only one to ever show up independently of the other 4. I suppose we’ll see if any of the rest do the same, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up.

(Elder) Dragons of Tarkir

The titular Dragons of Tarkir’s third set (Dragons of Tarkir) were a set I was excited to see as the cards were being spoiled. The lore of the plane was interesting, with Magic stepping into a plot with time travel and finally showing us what Ugin looked like after almost 10 years of curiosity. The dragons that would become the Clan leaders had appeared previously in Fate Reforged, and the editions that we’d see as Elders- 10,000 years older and in some cases even wiser- presented a powerful and exciting cycle. Unlike with the Legends dragons, I’m pretty sure all of these saw play somewhere.

Ironically, though, I’m pretty sure these were deliberately tuned for Standard rather than the format named after their typeline. Even outside of Kolaghan’s line of text that….doesn’t do a whole lot in the format, Ojutai and Silumgar were pretty obviously built to be the finishers in the Esper Dragons deck that ran them, Atarka a clear top-end for Gruul Monsters (and, eventually, Eldrazi Ramp), and Dromoka a potential menace in Dromoka’s Command-backed Midrange lists. These cards are all quite powerful, but they’re built for a different kind of game.

That’s I suppose the biggest issue with the Dragons of Dragons of Tarkir, they were underwhelming. The set as a whole was fairly middling, though I did truly enjoy the draft format. I’m pretty sure the most played card in the set is fucking Collected Company, one I kind of despise, followed with Kolaghan’s Command which is just a traumatic experience for me. And while 3 of these 5 are seeing more play than their past counterparts, including Dragonlord Ojutai being literally 10 times more commonly seen than Soul of Winter, that difference is largely a matter of power (or lack thereof), the Mythic Dragonlords being obviously stronger than their Rare originals. The rare ones are arguably more fun, though, and that’s what matters to me.

Legends…2! (aka core set 2019)

Part of the theme of Core Set 2019 was the story (read: retcon so the ending of War of the Spark makes more sense) of Bolas and Ugin in their youth, which meant that we got to get updated, modern designs of the original Elder Dragons (not Ugin tho lmao). And by Modern, I kind of mean postmodern, because we’re at the point where Commander cards start getting absurd All The Time.

Each of the Elder Dragons of Core 2019 (copyright WoTC 2018) have the benefits of updated design practices with 24 extra years of experience, as well as not having to have a million words on them for silly reasons like extra mana sacrifice triggers. Even Palladia-Mors, probably the weakest of them (and still pretty threatening!), gets to have flavour text hinting at a potential return (which hasn’t happened yet).

When you’re designing cards like these, though, it’s inevitable that some are going to be overshadowed by others. Baby Bolas, of course, was one of the flagship cards for the set, being a transforming Planeswalker with lots of abilities that wins the game in just the most classy way I’ve seen in a minute. And Arcades took a fun niche deck people liked and blew it wide open, making Defenders into one of the most disgusting Offensive decks in a minute.

But then there’s Chromium, a fairly powerful Voltron/Control finisher but not one that leads you in any particular direction. Vaevictis does lead in fun directions, but would then be completely dwarfed by the absurdity that is Lord Windgrace the same year and Korvold the next one.

Outside of a few, this cycle feels like it got kind of lost in the shuffle, and I think that’s not really that much a reflection of the cards (except maybe Palladia, the Naya Problem rearing its ugly head again), and more the greater issue with Magic as a whole just shitting out cards constantly faster than most can catch up.

Welcome to Strixhaven School of Magecraft and Sideboardary

Our final cycle is the new kids on the block, the Strixhaven dragons. I suppose one way to make the definitely not Hogwarts Houses (they’re colleges, Clearly) seem important is attach a giant Fuckoff Dragon next to them.

A thing I like a lot about Strixhaven as a set is how it was introducing a new Thing for each of the enemy colour pairs to do- Golgari Lifegain, Boros Graveyard, Izzet Spells But Big Ones Instead Also Treasures?. The set came with loads and loads of cards supporting each of these themes, and having Commander 2021 alongside it and associated with it means they’re well supported by that as well. But, and this is the important part, the Elder Dragons aren’t as overshadowed because they too are doing something different, even if its rather slight in some cases, on their own- but each supporting or being supported by the Dragon in question.

Beledros is a Big Mana Golgari commander (normally seen in Mono-Green or Gruul) whose huge life cost is assisted by the Lifegain cards Witherbloom got. Galazeth helps ramp into the giant spells associated with Prismari while also making the alternate discard into treasure option some of those spells have a lot better. Tanazir doubles the power of Quandrix’s Fractal tokens, and makes them even more huge when attacking due to then natively being 0/0s. And I don’t really know what the idea in Silverquill is other than “Politics”, but Shadrix looks fucking cool and probably plays really nicely. It’s just a really fucking solid cycle.

It’s not really possible to tell how these 5 are going to play out- Strixhaven is still the latest Standard Set to release at time of writing. But I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the most successful Elder Dragon cycle as a whole assuming you’re looking at, like, mean Decks.

And then there’s The Other One

As part of Modern Horizons 2, cards for a set of characters from alllll the way back from those Legends stories were created- a new Dakkon, a Geyadrone Dihada, and the Elder Dragon that showed up in their story- Piru.

Piru is, obviously, a reference to the original cycle of Elder Dragons, but in a Wedge colour rather than a Shard. And with an extra keyword, which is something I missed, because it makes all the difference. I had written this card off, until I realised that Lifelink triggered from the death trigger, and when this thing dies it isn’t too hard to gain dozens of life points. That’s a lot and combined with clearing the board it’s not too hard to get virtually unkillable. I love leaning into the downside from the original dragons by adding a powerful death trigger like this.

Piru released very recently, and already has 112 decks to her name. I wouldn’t be surprised if that plateaus, but it’s still rather promising. 8 mana is a lot in non-green colours, but I like Piru, and I’d be happy to see her see lots and lots of play going forward.

While 2021 has so far had more Elder Dragons than any other year, they’ve been a very promising cadre with a lot of interesting ideas going on. With that said, I’m not sure that I want the trend to continue, because the more they make (the more Elders in general, really), the less special they get. But for now at least, it looks like we’re finally getting to a good place for Elder Dragons. Only took us 27 years.

#ramble #mtg #edh #commander #elder dragon highlander

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Troy Calypso’s very nice good time

Accidentally wrote a 6.5k comfort fic with actual nice sibling moment mentions because that’s what they deserved.

( Thank you so much @lazulizard and @artisthicc-nikyri for the feedback and motivation on the initial draft that was 2k that pushed it into this nonsense )

The pile of furs and blankets on the huge bed shifted slowly, messy black hair beginning to peak out from underneath, complete silence of the inky Pandoran night broken by a stuttering yawn as the God King shifted his head out from under the covers enough to nuzzle his face into a pillow.

“Mmmm… You’re a damn genius Troy-boy..”, he muffled sleepily as he breathed into it. The heavy fur blankets were still pulled mostly over his head, and the plush down cushions he usually slept with were comfortably pressed along his bare body under the warm weight. Bliss.

Spending the bit of extra time before going to sleep to fully remove his bracer?

Worth every second of effort.

It was still pitch black out and the middle of the night, but that was fine. He loved the deep night on Pandora, and that was the best few hours sleep he’d had in months. Tyreen should go off world without him more often… He made a mental note to off handedly congratulate her on a job well done when she got back from this merger trip, maybe he could have few more of these in the future.

Reaching up to gently scratch at the uncovered neuro-port at the base of his skull, he inhaled deeply into the cushy warmth of the pillow, enjoying how loose his normally stiff joints felt, feeling a grin creep across his face.

Fresh laundered sheets. He loved that smell, and it was alllll his tonight, unlike the times there would be that nasty lingering odor of whatever faceless COV fanatic he’d slaked his baser urges with beforehand, all sour and grimy.

His ship, Sanctum, was fully tailored to his tastes and needs, and the custom made bed had been a galaxy-brain move he congratulated himself on. Big enough that he could sleep comfortably without having to curl up to fit his massive 6"7 height onto the mattress like he had always had to do with regular beds, and being able to stretch out lengthwise like this? That was the kind of luxurious shit a God deserved, even if the God in question currently had an atrocious case of bed hair and yesterday’s eyeliner smudged down his cheeks.

No Ty meant no live appearances today. No live appearances meant being able to queue today’s Let’s Flays and Sermon uploads last night, automate his outgoing reports and mark himself on “Holy Respite” on the clergy’s internal echo network.

There would be no high priests organising meetings with him, no sacrifices or tithes to attend, no data to compile or reports to work on, it was all taken care of already. The only light in the room was the slow red pulse his arm’s custom built charging dock integrated in the wall opposite the bed gave off, and he let his eyes adjust to it, enjoying the complete quiet of the Pandoran night bar the gentle whirs and thunks of his homemade fleet of service junkbots running their chores outside his bedroom door.

Just him, his pajamas, gross food, and whatever the hell he wanted to do today. Or this morning. Or.. night? Whatever. Didn’t matter.

He turned onto his back and stretched languidly, pushing the furs down his torso and savoring how free his bare right side felt without the grounding weight of the bracer. A pleasant shiver crept up his spine as he ran his palm down the goosebumped skin of his lower ribs and stomach before letting it rest on the jut of his left hip, smiling to himself as he puffed a breath into the thick black hair that had fallen over his eyes.

It was gonna be awesome.

Shimmying his legs to the side of the bed, he swung them over the edge, then slowly sat up, yawning so wide he felt both cheek clips click as the face mods they held together strained to split open, letting his eyes adjust to the additional slight glow of light the red markings running down his left thigh and calf added. The ship’s auto temperature system kept the dark comfort of his bedroom cool during the night the way he liked, but you got cold quick in it. Judging the distance between where he sat and the doorway in the opposite corner of the quarters that led into the washroom, he rubbed at his eyes and lifted the top fur covering of the bed over his back and head like a shroud, wrapping it around his naked body as he stood up out of the warm blankets.

As soon as he rose, the room sensors automatically lit the paper lantern lights that crisscrossed the low ceiling on long trailing ropes, keeping them dimmed to fill the shadowy darkness of the room with pools of cosy multicoloured light.

He was gross right now. No wash before bed last night, no -time- for one considering all the work he’d stayed up doing to make sure today would be prepared for, and his hair was a state. Still full of styling products and pointing haphazardly in every direction, he tried to run a hand through it and felt his fingers catch in the waxy mess.

“..Bleh…” he groaned, rolling his tongue out to emphasise how nasty this was. “OK.. seriously, fucking shower time you nasty little shit, heh.”

Stumbling over to the black felted wall facing the bed, he tapped a hand to the panel that extended his inbuilt dresser from the recess it was hidden within, rooting inside it for some chillout clothes as one of his personal playlists began to play over the ship’s audio system.

How long had he had these things now he wondered, picking up a long dark pair of sweats and matching tank, poking a finger through a hole near one of the ankles as he slowly waddled towards the washroom. Years probably. One of the first things they had done once they had started making donation income on Pandora was buy clothing and get out of their ancient patched up hand-me-downs, like shedding the skin of your former self and emerging a new being… and he tended to hang on to stuff he found comfortable. Not a crime, right? I mean sure he could replace them, he could afford to replace anything, but you couldn’t buy that feeling of well worn, broken in comfort clothing. You had to earn that.

The whole “Trash-punk Deity” aesthetic he’d designed for himself and Tyreen was based around looking effortlessly sexy in its thrown together accidental style, but it was fucking hard work in reality. That shit was uncomfortable most of the time, so wiggling out of 20 belts and piles of chains and into the comfort of indoor clothes like these had almost become a cathartic ritual once he closed the door to the rest of the world behind him and entered his ship quarters.

He let the fur slip to the ground as he rounded the doorway’s corner and stepped into the washroom, feeling a shiver shoot up his back as his feet touched the cool floor. It was exactly how he had requested when detailing the ship, dark and moodlit like the majority of Sanctum’s décor, tiled from top to bottom in deep grey slate with wall integrated storage and commodities, recessed night lighting set to a gentle soft glow skirting around the inner edges of the ceiling, open shower wall set to match his height, and a floor length mirror surrounded by panels that stored his cosmetics and toiletries.

Dropping the balled up clothing to the floor near the mirror, he leaned forward to reach and switch the wall mounted faucet on, and turned towards the mirror as he waited for the high pressured blast of water that roared forth to begin to heat.

Stepping onto the scale panel on the floor in front of the mirror, he blew a deep breath out and stared at his reflection, looking anywhere but the numbers flickering under his feet, taking in his naked form. All long, lean lines of rich brown skin and dark tattoo work, decorated by the Siren markings that ran like filligree up his left leg and arm, ending where they emerged from the mess of his pitch black hair and curled around his left eye.

He looked ok… didn’t he? His ribs were still clear, shifting under thin skin, but there was some meat on his chest and the faintest hint of defined vascularity across his shoulder and bicep now, and that was a good thing, right?

He didn’t look like he had lost any since last time, he mulled, worrying his lower lip between his teeth as he pinched the taut skin of his lower stomach between his thumb and fingers, measuring the thickness. He felt ok, he hadn’t been too tired recently, he hadn’t waited longer than he should have between top ups from Tyreen and made sure to eat on schedule, even if he had lost a little it would be fine anyway, right? He always bounced back even if it took a little while, and he’d been feeling ok recently. He’d been ok..

He closed his eyes and shrugged the tension out of his shoulder, inhaling and exhaling deeply before looking down at the scale readout.

“Oh..”

“No wait, whoah!”

2 pounds up from his last goal point? This was the heaviest he had ever been in his life! He gasped out a shocked laugh, looking back up at his reflection in the mirror and grinning as he failed to swipe his rat-nest of waxed hair back into something remotely respectable, blushing furiously under the streaks of black smeared down his cheeks.

“Holy shit, good job man, look at you! All buff n’ shit.” He boasted, puffing out his narrow chest and aiming a toothy grin at himself through the steam now filling the room.

“You only half look like a teenage girl who got dumped last night, fuckin su-perb.”

Barking out a genuine laugh, he turned and stepped into the blast of piping hot water, squinting his eyes shut as it cascaded down his face and over his torso. He’d have to tell Ty as soon as she got back about the weight gain. She’d totally call him a fatass, she was gonna be so happy too.

Shit like this was exactly what made it all worth it, he thought, watching the water swirl down the drain near his feet with a dreamy smile.

Hot water, any time you wanted, not having to bath in tepid river water because “heating it wastes energy, and ya don’t need it do ya kid, this is fine”. Clothes that weren’t threadbare and sewn from rags that constantly felt grimy because the only soap you had was that awful smelling shit Grouse used to make from animal fat. Food whenever you needed it, never being hungry or too sick and tired to be able to forage. All things you had to have not had once, to fully appreciate having whenever you wanted now. He appreciated everything, he thought. Eyes closed and face directly under the water. He didn’t have anyone to tell, but he appreciated everything.

Opening his mouth and gargling the hot water, he laughed as it spurted out over his chest, then wiped it out of his eyes with his forearm and began to scrub at his scalp with a shampoo bar from the small toiletry storage panel he’d slid open next to the wall mounted faucet. Feeling the caked in styling wax begin to give way felt so good. No need to put more of that shit in today and spend an hour styling his hair, or sit and work on a smokey eye, or make any effort at all with his appearance. He could just be a slob. A clean slob who was gonna go eat his weight in junk food after he finished scrubbing the rest of his body with the soapy suds rolling down his shoulders.

Raising his face into the stream for the last time and letting it finish rinsing him off, he enjoyed one more pleasant shiver under the incredible heat, then turned off the faucet and reached for the body sized towel hanging on a wall hook within arms distance, carefully dabbing it over the sensitive puckered scar and thin skin along his right shoulder and ribs, before vigorously drying his body and hair after.

Tossing the towel into the corner (the bots would sort it out later when they changed his bedding and tidied the room), he hopped one leg at a time onto the soft sweatpants and left them low hung over his jutting hips, pulling the drawstring taut. Walking in bare feet towards the doorway, he tossed the tank over his head and maneuvered his arm in, then flipped his jet black wet hair backwards and over the nape of his neck as he rounded the bathroom entrance and padded across the bedroom’s plush carpeting towards the mag-locked door that led into the ship’s main living chamber.

He could still hear the quiet whirring and beeps of his little “projects” through it even over the ship’s music stream, and felt his eyes crinkle at the edges as he smirked in anticipation, eager to see how they were faring with their custom programed household tasks as he raised his palm to the wall mounted reader and the door began to slide open.

Taking in the organised chaos it revealed, he leaned his lithe frame against the doorway, crossing his legs as he rubbed absentmindedly at his empty shoulder joint, smirk splitting into a wide grin.

“Heyyyy boys, how’s it going this fine night, huh? Miss me?”

A half dozen clunky, pieced together droids of various sizes stopped their assigned tasks and swizzled on junky wheels and mismatched clobbered together legs to beep and screech at him in welcome. Grating chorus quietening down as they returned one by one to their cleaning and maintenance chores, while he walked down the couple of steps that led out of his bed chambers and into the eclectic nonsense that was his home.

Pausing for a moment to let a tiny rat-sized box droid covered in charging ports that wobbled past his feet on rickety wheels, he turned into the small open kitchen on his right. Like the other included luxury ship components, he’d not changed it at all since Sanctum was finished 4 years ago, a fully integrated chrome and glossy black iron kitchenette fitted for his height, underlighting glowing softly around the curved shapes of the wall mounted sleeper cabinets above. All he’d done was… accessorised it a bit with extra features.

The left wall was covered in a grid of hanging potted herbs the droids took care of, having them on hand had proven extremely useful in the last few years. Something you could brew or smoke for joint pain relief was pretty useful for someone in his physical condition, and anything that helped him sleep and wasn’t the cocktail of chemicals he usually had to rely on was welcome. Great shit for seasoning food too, not that he’d brag.

The kitchen itself would be sleek as hell if he hadn’t Troy’d it to shit as Ty would say, but hey, what did she know. The scraps of paper print outs of their first big follower count milestones stuck to the front of the smooth black refrigerator door? That was part of the aesthetic. That homemade automated coffee machine made of of scrap metal and visible wiring? That absolutely fit in with the black glass stovetop it sat next to, she just had no eye for style.

Why would be go buy one anyway, he mused as he poured some of the fresh brew that had been triggered when he got out of bed into the chipped mug printed with a faded “Best Bro” he kept on top of the coffee machine, this one worked fine. The shocks you sometimes got when grabbing the pot? That was a feature!

Ty just didn’t get it, he reasoned to himself, nodding sagely as he sipped the smokey black coffee from the mug, eyes closed, savoring the taste. This worked fine, no reason to junk it just because it wasn’t as she would put it, “classy” or “functional” or “safe to be around without risk of explosion”.

Turning and resting his lower back against the edge of the counter top, he slowly looked around the rest of the living quarters as he continued to sip at the drink.

Sanctum had been fully internally tailored to his tastes and needs straight off the factory conveyors. Twinned to Tyreen’s personal ship and only a digit apart in their serials, it was a luxury cruise vessel with jump capabilities and an array of offensive and defensive addons. Money hadn’t been a factor, even years ago when they had originally commissioned their ships, the twins had infinite funding and nothing had been out of the question. Their personal Sanctums were large enough to give them their own private living spaces, while still small enough to be able to dock together on either side of most of their larger basilica’s cloisters. That configuration allowed them to share the cloister’s internal quarters, while still having the option to return to their ships when needed. Loving his twin didn’t mean he could avoid wanting to wring her bratty little neck 3 times a day, so this arrangement had been a life saver… probably quite literally at this point.

While both ships had the exact same internal layout, the twins had customised their own over time to the point where it would be hard to notice the ships matched perfectly originally.

Troy’s decorative tastes were.. jumbled, he’d guess would be a fair description. Life on Nekro had been relentlessly uncomfortable. Nothing was soft, everything was hard, rough. Sleeping on anything there chafed your skin or bruised delicate ribs. It made sense in a way now that he loved comfort so much. If he spotted a really nice piece of textile in a returning war party’s haul, looted antique wall tapestries or lush woven rugs, they had a habit of vanishing from the offerings and -somehow- ending up on this ship. Almost every inch of floor was covered in overlapping thick rugs, some of which he was pretty sure were probably treasures of some lost civilisation, but hey, they were nice on the feet.

Patterend textiles in various colours hung in sheets across the ceiling, giving the illusion of the ship being some kind of huge tent structure, sometimes with the odd resting bot perched in a hanging loop.

He tended to pick shit up too, much to Tyreen’s constant disgust. Pandora just had some really cool skulls laying around, was it really such a big deal to want to hang them around above doorways? Alpha skag skulls were so his vibe! Why waste ‘em by leaving them out in the desert. Same could be said for all his “project” droids. Tyreen gave him the stink eye every time he found a new busted piece of junk he was sure he could fix up, so he’d been sneaking them home for years now. If they were too far gone, no problem, meant spare parts he could use for the others later.

Most of the wall space that wasn’t hanging textile was covered in shelving he’d tacked up across the ship, and he loved to hoard nostalgia. The wall shelves around the living quarters were covered in things he attributed memories to, like plants from different planets they’d sat through hours of boring merger meetings on with the usual designer suit-clad pissants who looked down their noses at the twins while simultaneously trying to kiss their asses, crystal rocks he’d found on the long cross Pandoran trips required for attending various COV districts and bestowing their holy grace upon the rabid swarms of their followers, photos of him and Ty on their very first visits to different regions, all of which were so old now he noted, shrugging off the quick pang of sadness that shot through his throat. Spaces between the shelves were filled with sketches of things he had no captures of, like landscapes they remembered from Nekrotafeyo, Mom, or Eridian architecture he still glanced at times in dreams of a childhood long gone.

Finishing off the coffee, he took in a deep breath through his nose, pressed the mug against his stomach, and leaned his head back against a wall mounted cabinet behind him, letting his eyes flutter shut. The ship smelled of everything that always relaxed him, fresh oil from the workroom on the other side of the herb wall where he focused on his tech projects like his arm rig, bots, and more stupid shit to put around the ship and annoy Tyreen with. Remnants of spray paint fumes from the art station in the corner across from his kitchen where he worked on propaganda wall art pieces on huge canvases, splashes of colour smeared across the walls and floor surrounding it, and the homemade sheet metal shelving next to it that stored his cans and supplies. The warm spicy scent of the herbs currently being watered awkwardly by a Hyperion vacuum droid teetering on shaking, mismatched legs he’d made it when he couldn’t find the right parts to fix its internal rotor, it all merged together into a scent completely unique to where he lived. His home.

Opening his eyes again, he glanced down at the mug and absently ran his thumb along the slightly raised Best Bro print on the side, Tyreen had got him this as a joke on their birthday at least 6 years ago now, and he’d managed to keep it intact since. Without her knowing of course, that would be embarrassing, she’d never let him live it down.

He wondered how she was faring, and lifted his head to take in the huge curved window facing out the front of the ship, the Pandoran night skyline twinkling through it. The ship’s small cockpit and pilot seat was suspended above the recessed recreation area that faced the glass, railless spiraling steel stairs leading to it from just behind the semi circular couch that curved around the piles of blankets and cushions that covered the rec area’s floor. He should check up on her, just to be sure, just to know she was ok. Had to earn that title of Best Bro afterall.

Carefully returning the mug to the top of the coffee machine, he started to slowly walk towards the window, stopping to curl his toes in a particularly plush rug’s pile and consider his sister. Twins, despite total bullshit others had told him his whole life, were -not- psychic. He had no “magical link” to Tyreen’s mind, no super mystical sense that would kick in if something was very wrong, so when they were apart there was always the slight fear in either’s belly. Was he unwell? Was she in danger? Was he hurt? Was she upset? There wasn’t a secret twin power that allowed them to know, even though everyone else seemed to think there was. So, they had come up with more functional ways to reassure each other, and as he resumed walking towards the rec area, he reminded himself he could use one of those systems right now.

Dropping a hand to the edge of the recessed couch, he vaulted over the edge and onto the seat cushions, immediately jolting up straight backed with a wince as he landed on a sharp crumpled up beer can lodged in the recess of one.

“Oh COME ON guys!” He yelled over his shoulder in the vague direction of where he could hear the bots still working behind him, leaning to the side as he rubbed his ass.

“Hhhhhf.. ow. Mannn.. you have to pay more attention on cleanup duty, fuck, that could have cut.”

Pulling the can out from underneath him, he tossed it backwards over his head and into the waiting little clamp hands of his earlier version of C.H.A.7, janky old H.8.N.K. Watching it sputter away on a shaky thruster and float towards the work room behind him to recyc the can brought a flicker of warmth to his chest.

H.8.N.K was nearly 7 years old now, one of the first bots he’d made himself, and still had its uses, even if a bit slow nowadays. That reminded him actually, he’d need to do a bit of work on the prosthetic tonight.

Turning back to face the window, he lifted his arm and gently pressed fingers into the recess of his missing shoulder, hitching in a quick sharp breath as he brushed across a pain point, eyes unfocused and trained on the floor in front of him.

That piston in the bicep’s inner side had been too tight for a while now and had been causing the weight to sit incorrectly, putting extra strain through his bracer and onto the shoulder edge.

Leaning forward slowly, he continued to press into the pain, now dry hair falling past his shoulders and brushing along the right side of his face. The tightness around his eyes loosened as he breathed out, carefully rubbing across the spot in a circle with his thumb, pain beginning to ebb away. He had all of tonight and today, he could get that fixed up fast, nice bit of tinkering to look forward to later!

Now to check on Tyreen, the window control tablet was right next to him but he heeded his.. where were they?

Leaning back into the plush couch pillow behind him, he rooted his hand around in the recesses of the seat cushions, tongue peeking out the corner of his mouth in concentration as he swapped his hand from the recess on the right side to the left.

“Where.. are.. those fuckin.. Ah!”

Pulling out his prize, he flicked his wrist forward to open the square glasses’s arms, then fitted them over his ears carefully, straightening the frames on his nose. Not going to get a headache from looking at the screen without these tonight of all nights, not when he had so much relaxing to look forward to.

Reaching down to the control tablet next to his left thigh, he muttered under his breath while tapping command panels that popped into life on the tablet display.

“Okayyy.. showtime.”

The massive curved window he was facing flicked from the inky black view of the Pandoran night outside, to a solidly opaque monitor view of cascading analytical data. A live feed of current viewer numbers on streams, finance reports organised into a sidebar overlay, and on the bottom right next to rows of app thumbnails, a small portrait icon of Tyreen.

Tapping the tablet rapidly to move the selection across to her icon, he smiled at the picture. No makeup, back when her hair was still deep brown and before she started bleaching it her iconic white on top, tongue out and giving the camera the peace sign. He remembered taking that, it had been her reaction to being called a little bitch after she’d asked him for a hand with setting up their stream gear. That same fucking joke she made at least once a week and that had never at any point been remotely funny.

“Bet you aren’t laughing now Ty-die, stuck in a merger meeting with a a shower of assholes while I enjoy myself, hehhhhh”

His momentary gloat was interrupted by the Hyperion Vacuum droid tapping his left knee with its front panel, drawing his immediate attention to the 6 pack of Bandit Brew balanced on its flat top, spindly little scrap legs shaking under the weight.

“Oh! BRO!” he barked out with a laugh, leaning quickly to scoop the cans against his chest with his arm and relieve it of the weight.

“Awww haha, thanks pal. Great timing!”

It made a distorted chirp in response and turned to waddle away, while he dropped the cans to the couch by his side. Tapping the tablet once more and waiting for the app to open on screen, he placed a can between his knees and then popped the tab with his thumb and forefinger, jumping slightly when it sprayed pressurised foam over his hand and arm.

Bot must have shaken these up a bit while bringing them over, not that he’d berate it he thought, eyes still on the main screen while he licked the foam off his forearm and fingers.

Not its fault he’d only been able to retrofit legs for it instead of a new rotor.

Wrinkling his nose at the awful taste of the beer, he started reading through the display Ty’s app was now showing on screen, lifing the can from between his legs to chug it in the hopes of not having to let his tongue touch it too long.

Heartrate calm, vitals all fine, no chem spikes, safe and sound off at her merger. Not asleep, so his guess was right, probably bored shitless in a meeting right now. Great, can scratch that little itch from his mind now and focus on him, Best Bro responsibilities met.

Reaching down and dropping the empty can near his feet, he grabbed a couple of the blankets strewn across the floor within reach and pulled them up and to his side, then reached for another brew and popped it open between his knees again.

This shit was vile. Awful stuff, like piss and vinegar, but they had an unlimited supply of it and it got you wasted fast. Some licensing deal he’d organised a couple of years ago, and a pretty decent one he figured considering how successful the sales were, raising the can to give a cheers to the massive split-jawed Skag skull that sat above the window monitor before chugging it and dropping the can next to the first by his feet.

Ok, right, so what was he going to watch.

Tapping the tablet again to cancel out of Ty’s app, he selected the the media streaming icon from the app list and started scrolling through what was up.

Man, there were at least 5 series he was behind on right now that had had updates, and the lengths he’d gone to to avoid spoilers were a joke. Know how hard it is to not see any when your entire existence was based around being on the echonet 24/7? There were followers who had been executed over not correctly spoiler warning before posting on public social media.

Clicking through the updates, he started to queue some into today’s playlist. “Ancient secrets of Eridian science” nice. “Murder he yote” real life serial murderer documentary slash comedy? Perfect.

He paused on the icon for that terrible romcom Ty liked, 2 new episodes unwatched. Glancing down, he clicked the option to bookmark it on the tablet for her. He hated romcom’s, found them intensely cringe, but Tyreen.. well. She had her reasons for enjoying them so much, he knew. He never complained if she wanted to watch one with him. He got it. He got why. He was probably the only person she knew who did.

Just two cans into this crap and he was starting to feel it, he puffed a deep breath out as he leaned back and pressed his hand into the solid line of his lower belly. Time to actually eat something, or his stomach was going to start kicking his ass if he kept drinking. Turning his head to the side, he yelled back in the direction of the kitchen while still watching the monitor and the show descriptions he was scrolling through.

“Yo, guys, any of you, can you reheat that pizza in the fridge from the other night?”

Concerned beeping came in response.

“Nah, n-no it’s fiiiiiine, it’s only a couple days old, just reheat it!”

A single long, resigned beep in reply.

Great. Food on the way he thought, smirking and turning to face the screen again. Time to check the Echonet fan uploads while he waited, tabbing out of the stream app and into the Echonet, quickly searching for anything tagged COV. This stuff was always hilarious.

The very first result broke him into a snorting laugh, a vid titled CALYPSO LOVELIFE UPDATE: NOT SINGLE??, the thumbnail a terrible edit of Ty’s face looking shocked, surrounding by crying bandits. He hovered his finger over the bookmark option again, then thought better of it when he felt a slight pang of remorse for laughing. That would actually just upset her, he realised, making a mental note to run a takedown request on it soon as he was finished with the shows.

It didn’t count as work if it was to make sure Ty didn’t see something that would hurt her, even if she would be furious with him for assuming (correctly) it would, so he’d get it done tonight.

The squeaks of nearby wheels broke the negative mood, and he turned so his left with excitement as good old Janky clunked awkwardly into view, pizza box held in front of it haphazardly on its single kitbashed spindly arm.

“I got it, hold on!” He laughed, reaching to take the box from the droid as it angrily grumbled at him in crackling honks, single red lens eye set into it’s sleek black box body flashing in irritation as the mismatched wheels he’d found for it snagged on the rug underneath.

Rustling in the box on his lap, he pulled out a slice of pizza, some kind of spicy sausage thing, covered in mixed herbs and slices of vegetables he didn’t know the name of. Tasted great, but he wasn’t too sure he wanted to find out what that meat actually was, he decided, shoving the whole slice into his mouth and wiping the grease from his fingers onto his pant legs before realising the angry Vladov bot was still stuck on the rug.

“Hold on, heh, c'mon Jank, it’s not that bad!” Troy reassured as he leaned forward to press a palm against the smooth front of its box body and push it past the snag its front wheel was spinning on, irritated beeping and honking growing louder.

“Ah man, look I’m sorry about the wheels, but at least you can move! Not perfect I know but excuuuuuse me for not having replacement leg parts specifically for a.. freaking… junked ”Prototype Vladov steward-bot “ in stock.” he gestured towards the grumbling bot’s welded on chassis and tripod wheels with the second pizza slice he’d just grabbed.

“I know this ain’t like, what you were made for but fuck it dude, you work right?”. The bot let out a conceding soft honk as it pivoted in place, then trundled away awkwardly on the mismatched set of wheels.

Troy twisted to face the screen again, reaching for the 3rd can of piss-ale and slamming it between his knees with more force than was needed, angrily snapping the tab open as he muttered under his breath.

“.. Fucking ungrateful really. Wish someone had cared half as much about trying to fix me.”

He wasn’t enjoying the gut feeling that interaction had left him with, unpleasant memories stirring in the back of his head as he slowly slid down the back of the couch, legs stretching further out across the floor as he finished the third can and dropped it with the others.

Screw it.

More beer, plenty of pizza to shovel into his face, and trash to watch. Speaking of which…

Tapping the control tablet again, the screen flicked into the start of the latest episode of some semi fictional biographical series on Handsome Jack. It could be completely factual honestly, some of the shit Jack supposedly got up to sounded like it had been written by a complete moron, but had actual real life witnesses to attest. What had happened in the last episode, something about killing a guy with a spoon? He should take notes honestly, Troy thought with a smirk, shaking the lingering feelings of self pity out of his head.

He was slouched low enough for his chin to touch his chest now, alternating between pushing whole slices of pizza into his mouth and sipping on the 4th can of swill he’d just opened, hair having fallen mostly over the right side of his face as he slowly sank down, and too comfortable now to bother fixing it.

The ridiculously over the top actor playing Jack was currently loading a group of.. scientists? Into an airlock while monologuing about the dangers of trusting others in a corporate setting. Bit out of Troy’s lane, but the campy energy the actor was throwing into the scene was enough to keep him snorting out laughter between swallows of pizza.

Rummaging his hand around the box far down his lap for the last slice, he absentmindedly clicked apart his face mods, letting the split maw fall open as he lathed the elongated prehensile tongue out across the bare skin of his chest to mop up the crumbs it was covered in, retracting it and resetting his jaw without even moving his eyes from the screen as his fingers hit the last slice and dragged it out of the box and into his mouth. Complete normalcy, well, for Troy.

It was starting to catch up with him now, he realised as each blink felt like it was starting to take longer and longer. He’d only had a few hours of sleep and the comfortable weight of food and beer in his belly was making it hard to keep his focus on the show. He could just shut them for a bit, this scene was fucking boring now anyway, Jack sure did seem to really get off on talking shit about himself for far too long..

He didn’t open them again, breathing evening out as his head tilted to the side and knees leaned together, glasses slipping off his nose as the show continuing to play on the monitor. Jack singlehandedly massacred his way through camps of filthy bandits while Troy dozed.

The tiny squeaks of Jank’s wheels didn’t wake him as it carefully removed the pizza box from his lap and pulled one of the blankets by his side over his lap, then muted the monitor as it trundled away as quietly as possible.

Let him sleep. He can wake up when he’s ready, the whole day is his.

#troy calypso #tyreen calypso #calypso twins #borderlands #borderlands 3 #bl3 #my hcs #My hcs #My writing

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onlyhereforangst · 5 years

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WWR

Ok so maybe I shouldn’t call this Weekly Wednesday Reflections anymore since I’m terrible at writing it in time 🤷🏻‍♀️ granted it is Wednesday...just a week late 😅

I’m pretty sure this is my new favorite Ellick episode. After rewatching it, I’m just so- happy with it. From exploring Ellie’s range of emotions and character depth to the progress we saw in their relationship just 🥰

The opening scene already gives us SO MUCH. First, they jog as the cutest freaking married couple I’ve ever seen and this certainly is a routine because they knew to target him here. But Nick teasing her by sprinting, her struggling to keep up but giggling with each other because clearly it’s not the first time he does that little speed up thing & she’s working on getting faster because she used to hate training for marathons like- can you NOT. My heart can’t take the implications, ALSO Gibbs & McGee didn’t bat an eye that they just so happened to be jogging together in the early morning (everyone was only just leaving their house on their morning commute) so they know it’s their routine too and don’t even question it. GAH.

Flashforward to hospital scene with Ellie breaking my heart slowly. She’s clearly been crying by the red rimmed eyes, and yet also trying to hold it together to be strong for Nick & so she does the only thing she knows how to do since feelings scare her and the love of her life Nick just got hit. Ellie’s logical brain takes over as she does best (see 16x18 for reference) - when she’s dealing with emotions, all she can do is her job, it’s all that makes sense in the monsoon of feelings. She’s going to analyze every last bit of the hit & run and immediately parrot it back so that *something* can be done right away and she can find justice for Nick. She doesn’t care about her own health- just justice for Nick. And in that same vein, she doesn’t want to eat, she doesn’t want to rest, she doesn’t want to sit down until she knows Nick is okay (I’m sorry but to have a CODE NAME from the nurses because they feel the need to run from you- can you say “Crazy Worried Wife™️”??)

Kasie is our new captain, it has been decided. (I think this was already decided but I’m making an official decree) Her probing McGee to see his reaction because girl knows why Bishop is taking it harder, please. Then laughing it off for McGee, “we all gon need therapy if those two ever hook up” while thinking *boy you better stop denying because you KNOW they hooking up after this shit* is just 🙌🏼 the outright addressing of Ellick by the show- thank youuuuu.

Ok and now begins the Ellie show. Excuse me, the BADASS BISHOP SHOW. (Also why I’m partial to this being my fave ep). First- girl does not know how to holster her gun. Ellie: “you say there’s a tiny lead” *cocks gun* “let’s go” I’m herrrrrre for it. She’s blunt with everyone, she doesn’t care when Gibbs gives her the look, she don’t take no SHIT in interrogation. “You’d have to be [creative]” had me cry-ing 😭😭😭 AND THEN her equivalent of cursing out Vance over Nick, followed up by freaking out in the bullpen had me breaking on my couch. YES ELLIE GET IT is what I believe I chanted. The stare off, oh lordy. Y’all I was sweating I was pissed for her. Just the raw emotion in her eyes, the constant holding back tears and tears I just- 😭💔 and emojis don’t do it justice. I wanted soooo bad for her to land a sweet, sweet punch like she did with Victor, but knowing a second offense unprovoked wouldn’t go over too well, she held back. But aaaahh that scene was SO heartbreaking. And then, and THEN Ellie standing there gazing at his desk- oof. Her body language was key- her crossed arms, holding herself literally together so she doesn’t break?? She wants to break, y’all. She wants to break. Staying strong for Nick is the only thing getting her through.

When Gibbs sends her to be at the hospital because THE WHOLE DAMN TEAM KNOWS, I did a happy dance. McGee encouraging her but almost pulse-checking Gibbs after was very very intriguing. Gibbs’ “He’s a fighter” followed by McGee’s pulse-check, “so is Bishop...” and Gibbs’ exasperated look off towards the elevator and admission of agreement says SO MUCH. First- McGee is worried about not only Nick, but his sister, Ellie. He knows how much Qasim’s death hurt her, knows what she went through after- WHICH TIME OUT. For anyone saying this episode was OOC for Ellie? Sit the hell down and go watch 14x16. Then come back. Then continue reading. Ok resume WWR- McGee also knows how much more Torres means to her, he may try to deny it, but he knows. Implying Bishop is a fighter, obviously not about her health because *she’s fine* but more about what she’d do out of revenge. (And the man doesn’t even know Bishop is about to say she’s gonna kill him) Gibbs’ already sees himself a little in her, recognizing the same feeling he experienced with Shannon many years ago- hence the completive look on his face & heavy sigh. He knows he’ll have to revisit Rule 12 soon (but also in his mind he’s basically already burned it like Rule 10).

Speaking of Ellie saying she’s going to kill him, please see this excerpt from my notes during the ep: “FUCK YES BISHOP - the emotions!!!!!!!” That basically sums up how I felt the entire scene & commercial break afterward 🤷🏻‍♀️😂😂 My reaction when it came back? KILL HIM. But like in all seriousness, her face- holy shit going from on the verge of tears when they rolled Nick away to calculating her next move as McGee’s talking to her to making up her mind that she will be committing murder (please, girl already planned it & is just deciding which lipstick to wear during it at this point). Emily Wickersham is an amazing actress and I don’t care what you have to say. And yes, McGee trying to calm her down in a big brother way is adorable, but Ellie not having it is great. “Torres doesn’t get a say” is such a Nick thing to do of her 😭 Remember Luis going off on his own, yeah- this is Ellie’s version because she wants to & her husband is rubbing off on her. Oh also, the office she refers to? Totally means Ziva’s office at Odette’s - “if we missed something, I’ll find it there.” Hmmmm sounds eerily similar to *why* Ziva had that office in the first place, doesn’t it 🤔 also explains the lack of her on HQ’s logs and her “going home” excuse— which by the way, her shrugging them all off? Suspect Bishop, suspect. Her trying to play it all off with a wry laugh, not gonna lie, I love it. Her “too late” to Gibbs is quite interesting though- she sees herself going down that path any way, because she killed him? Or because she triggered a chain of events that will lead to it? Or because she may not have killed him, but lord knows she wanted to & planned it down to every last detail? Like I said, interesting.

Ok side note: Jack suggesting taking her off duty kinda pisses me off - with the spiraling comment too. She got to spiral when that guy from her past came & it screwed with her psyche, why the f can’t Bishop? It just rubbed me the wrong way, but I don’t hate Jack (don’t @ me, people.)

Back to Badass Bishop Show. She literally always has her gun out now. Just walking to the penthouse again where they didn’t try anything last time, *cocks gun.* When Gibbs comes up and tells her Nick is away 😩 Her relief though in the fact that he’s asking about her and he’s hungry (Ellie rubbing off on him, you can’t tell me I’m wrong) to go to the kicking down the door because that’s what her baby does so therefore she kicks down doors now- the parallels & the influence 😭😭

THE BATHROOM SCENE. McGee like seriously? You actually killed him?? And Gibbs like “oh fuck here we go again.” And then Jimmy had me dyinggggg. Theory alert: I really think Ellie (maybe Gibbs went with her & they’re helping each other with alibis/cover up??) went to kill him but got there after it had happened, that’s why she’s a little cagey about it- not that she *actually* killed the guy. BUT reference 14x16 again, I wouldn’t put it past her.

The final hospital bed scene has my heart. Ellie is so relieved and just so happy and open (but also a little nervous about what happens next so she hides a touch of her emotions, can’t let him see alllll of her heart now can we)- going back to their teasing ways, “worst pretend sleeper”, “next time jump out of the way” - UGH so cute. Side note, they use last names here almost similarly to the submarine episode. When shit gets scary real for them, it’s their way of grounding themselves almost, trying to hide just how much that incident actually affected them. They both do it & yes, it frustrates the hell out of me, but at the same time shows me just how much they care for the other 😭 BUT this time!! Nick made it take a serious turn, and I think Ziva finally got through to him- that sentence “cause you know I risked my life to save yours” is more him openly saying like oh shit I really did that 1. to himself and 2. to finally take that next baby step in their relationship. The emotion behind it showing her it wasn’t just because they’re partners- he wanted her to know that for sure, to make sure he didn’t just make light of it & glaze over it. He needed it out there in the universe that he Nicholas Torres, of sixteen different identities & no family, nothing to live for anymore, would rather DIE- than see Ellie in harms way. He needed it to be tangible for himself AND for her. Because this is growth, this is not what most people think of when they think of him.

And Ellie’s response: the look, hesitation building up courage, and making that first move of physical touch speaks VOLUMES about Ellie at this point. Not only does she take hold of his hand, but she rubs it in a soothing gesture. As if she needs to confirm for herself he’s really there, he’s really alive. The struggle she went through, the turmoil- wasn’t all for not. It’s her saying “I know” not just to the fact that she was joking earlier, she knows he risked his life & she’s grateful for that, but she knows it was more than because they’re just partners, more than just best friends even. That first move is her saying “I know” and “I might be ready to open up & let you in to the walls that surround my heart because the last time I was in a hospital staring at someone I loved, it didn’t turn out the same. Except this time, it took the hospital trip to really bring that into focus, and I know I can’t let that happen again.” Aaaaaaand catch me sobbing in the corner, it’s fine. I’m fine.

Nick’s reaction speaks volumes from him too, his slight shock to Ellie reciprocating & making that first move with his soft smile that is hinted at across his face to show he knows she’s letting him peak in, just a little, and that’s a start. A start people!!!

Last notes: Gibbs being such a dad and defending Nick liking his fireplace is the cutest. Vance was eager to get out of there at the end- his contacts are very very suspicious... And on that note, I really do not think it was Gibbs. I think Gibbs and Bishop may have gotten there after it happened with the purpose of doing something, so now they’re covering for each other, but I do not think it was either of them.

Pretty sure this is officially my longest review to date, WHOOPS. If you made it this far, congrats & thanks for staying with my inner ramblings 🙃 Like I said- my favorite episode so farrrrrr (now let’s see if we get anything AFTER this episode......lol I got jokes 😅).

#WWR #ncis #ellick #torres x bishop #s17 #17x14

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steve0discusses · 5 years

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Yugioh S4 Ep10 pt 1: Yugioh Predicted the California Drought

Ah, my break is officially over, and it’s a new year, and so far, this year kind of sucks so lets get distracted and watch some TV. IF ONLY we could solve the world’s issues with a bunch of lost children from Japan carrying magical paper cards, amiright?

Anyway, Seto reflects on these cards that he came alllll the way to California to learn about, only to learn about them, and then decide “Yeah I didn’t really want to know that, Yugi.”

I just want to remind everyone that last episode I said “and now Kaiba has joined the party” and it lasted like less than one conversation with Yugi before Seto was like “oh hell no” and just walked out in that purple ball gown, trailing behind him like a complete diva.

Yugi needs to curse his friends to like him more often, is what I’m saying.

(read more under the cut)

So, staring at the fallout of their rekindled friendship with Kaiba that lasted less than a minute, Joey makes an observation.

And then Yugi just wonders “the hell is this plot supposed to go if a Kaiba isn’t here to abduct my family/tell me what to do/get abducted themselves?”

So they decide to reach out to the only other person on this show with a degree than Seto Kaiba.

(And TBH, Seto probably just decided to buy a new degree in graphic design from Devry so he wouldn’t have to finish public school and spend another millisecond in the same room as Joey Wheeler.)

And I have to give Yugi credit for finally deciding to visit the only adult he knows in America. Way to finally find an adult, Yugi. Took 4 season’s but you’ve finally done it. Gonna go visit Arthur Hawkins and dance awkwardly around this Rebecca situation that I guess Tea is fine with now. She used to be jealous, but I think Tea genuinely enjoys spending time with Rebecca now. The jealousy kind of disappeared once the plot picked up.

And Kaiba just takes off in the most wasteful plane ever invented, off to destroy precious fossil fuels on some other side of the planet.

Kind of weird that Tea would rather fly in that asshole dragon plane than Duke Devlin’s sweet retro car, but youknow...I’ve mentioned before that Tea is secretly just a Kaiba-lite without the cards. Of course she’d prefer an asshole dragon jet.

And Yugi would be able to fit in the suit-case compartment of the dragon jet. Just put the suitcase on Mokuba’s lap, and then stuff Yugi into that little slot, he’d be fine.

And honestly Kaiba made the correct choice, because what these guys had to go through is absolutely ridiculous. First off, Duke is like “Oh, this is really close to here” (remember they are in the Financial District of SF) and he just turns directly off of 101 and blows through some bird sanctuary somewhere.

Like y’all, everywhere that doesn’t have a house or a cow field on it in the Bay Area is a protected bird sanctuary, weird fact about the Bay Area, and Duke killed so many birds this episode. The South Bay is SO DEVELOPED.

Course, that is again assuming that the art staff knew that they were drawing the Bay Area, which they SUPER DID NOT.

Now this rock structure, I’m sure, is there to mimic the next shot with the giant ass building--it helps make pleasing screen transitions. But...at what cost?

AT WHAT COST?

Just....

Like I am starting to think the landscapers only knew how to draw one type of mountain and that was it. Square mesas only. They were just unprepared for hills. And like...we only have wild grass that is green like this for like...2 months of the year. That’s it. That’s what my Winter looks like, it’s when the grass is alive.

How did this happen?

Anyway, Mai is alive, and really upset about it. Will she at all reflect on her behavior, and realize that if the main mini-bosses are telling you to knock it the hell off, then maybe there is something wrong with you? Like these are two people who I assume harvested a ton of souls off screen like actual serial killers and they’re like “Girl. You’re like being hella mean right now and need to tone it down.”

I mean, if Mai gets better, than that basically gives Joey absolutely nothing to do in this season so, gotta keep Mai completely bonkers. There she goes. On a motorcycle.

And if you thought Yugioh was done throwing recreational and vintage vehicles in your face, well don’t worry, they even got the OG vintage vehicle, check this one out:

A freakin horse.

And I have to tell you...horses are hard to draw and animate and Yugioh doesn’t do a great job and it is wonderful. I love seeing this horse kind of awkwardly stumble around. It’s very good stuff. Like clearly these artists do not love horses as much as they love one of these:

Of course, get allllll the vehicles in this episode, Yugioh, bring back Marik on his yacht, I dare you.

And then...this very bizarre set of things happen in succession. I’ll just show you.

NICE.

WOW.

That entire house just exploded.

Not just a part of it--but the entire freakin house.

They were there for like less than 30 seconds, and just demolished that entire house like it was Independence Day the movie.

And like that whole house situation was pretty bonkers anyway, not sure why they need a planetarium when they research undersea structures, but youknow what? Arthur Hawkins would.

And don’t you dare do the math and think about how much a house with a planetarium and a horse stable in it would cost in Silicon Valley. It’s way too depressing, trust me.

And yes, that probably exists. Lots of horse people in Los Altos, and it makes me wonder if maybe they based Rebecca’s home on Stanford University? Maybe? I feel like these animators think Stanford is in San Fransisco. That one seems likely to me.

Also, kudos to the horse that it got blasted 50 ft away by an explosion and not only is the horse completely OK, but so is all of her groceries. That is one power horse, right here. I mean the groceries are still covered in so much horse ass smell, but youknow, Rebecca’s 12 so it’s not the horse’s or Rebecca’s fault that she has no idea how groceries work. We should just be glad that she bought vegetables when she went to the store and not just 8 cartons of pop tarts.

So, hours pass, no police show up, and Yugi and co walk into this bleak situation.

Fortunately, the massive explosion did not explode the truck-led RV outside.

A truck that...could’ve been used to go and get the damn groceries, may I add. If Arthur Hawkins used the TRUCK and done his own job without sending his granddaughter into a modern town on a horse, then he would have been at the grocery store and his house would never have exploded. This one is on Arthur, honestly. Then again, he seems like he kinda has the parenting skills of Yugi’s family, who just kinda...delivered him to San Fransisco un-aided and was like “have fun storming the castle”

This ship is kind of hilarious in action, not gonna lie. Yugi’s here with a grandpa who came back from the dead and is like “They don’t really need your grandpa, so he’s probably fine” and it’s like wtf. That’s terrible advice, Yugi.

Anyway, they apparently needed the Oricalchos necklace that Yugi handed off to Arthur back in like the first episode. So Yugi didn’t exactly mean for this to happen, but yet again, because Yugi and Pharaoh can’t be bothered to keep track of their own magical items themselves, someone else goes off with them and gets super screwed. Again. At least Arthur isn’t totally evil (although he still might and go rogue like Marik, and we all know that would be a very funny hairstyle if it happened)

So Rebecca happens to have this necklace just on your person (WTF, ARTHUR THAT’S YOUR GRANDDAUGHTER) and she gives it back to Yugi, where it should have stayed in the first place since he’s haunted by powerful ghost powers and is the only one here that can handle all these haunted Mordor rings. (just remembered he left Bakura’s ring in Japan. I’m sure that’s not going to be a problem later.)

So, that’s all for Part One. As you can see, I’m a little behind schedule, but youknow, I got lazy over the break, and then I drew Joey Wheeler a bunch when I planned to be typing, and it was overall a really great use of my time. No regrets.

And if you just got here this is a link to read the Yugioh recaps from the start. One of these days I’ll put the link into seasons but that does mean I have to retag stuff.

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deathvsthemaiden · 4 years

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Tagged by @kashilascorner to answer these writing questions! I’m not really a writer myself but her answers were v interesting+I know some other writers whose answers to these questions I wouldn’t mind seeing 👀 (I’m going stir crazy courtesy of quarantine+am nosy 🤗) warning/disclaimer/run while you still can alert: bc these qs are aimed at writers and I’m not one these answers aren’t going to “make sense” or “fit” per say, apologies in advance ✌🏽 I draw for fun though so my answers reflect that :P

1. When did you start writing?

I remember in elementary and middle school...I used to draw all sorts of random people in intricate outfits, and would get super into it, and through middle school to early high school especially I was a serial doodler who got in trouble alllll the time (I hold some petty, bitter grudges against a handful of teachers still.) (My eyes may have been on paper instead of on you but I was listening jerkwad! 😑) and like...fantasy was the 1st genre I fell in love with so I would try to come up with stories and whatnot for them but I was (am) so easily distracted and hapless that it went nowhere but I didn’t super mind. I just wanted to draw pretty outfits and the numerous (numerous) other images in my head and....still do. Writing stories requires a little more consistency and commitment than I’m willing to give 🤭😳 To sum up: I am flighty and can’t write for fun so I’ve never honest and to god began 🤷🏽‍♀️

2. Is there any special method that helps you getting to write?

(This is abt academic writing bc aside from texts it’s what I do most) I’m a mostly stationary lump of flesh and time is my catapult. I wait till deadlines are too close for comfort, pump myself full of caffeine, listen to music non stop and suffer suffer suffer.

Or on increasingly less rare (thank god) occasions when I am almost on top of things, I listen to music and pace around my room, typing in the google docs app on my phone while I type out garbled stream-of-consciousness notes-to-self, while considering the prompt, so future me has /something/ to work with. With the pacing it takes longer to write than when I’m at a desk but like. It’s less painful and I barely notice.

3. Do you listen to certain types of music to set the mood?

I have low tolerance for any slow/sad/soulful/hypnotic/crying songs so anything upbeat works and also I NEED lyrics most of the time, I have an almost as low tolerance for instrumentals. Like they’re fine but I also find myself sitting there waiting for something to “happen” (I’m sorry shcjfnfn) I listen to music while doing most things and, like pacing, I think it elongates tasks but also makes them less painful so!

4. Drawing, moodboards, character makers, music lists or none of those options?

All of those are fun, usually music and other people’s art is what inspires me to draw most though.

5. Would you prefer a big Hollywoodesque adaptation, a smaller project coming from the heart or no adaptation at all?

I usually have medium to major gripes with the most popular/big adaptations of books I feel strongly about so the 2nd option ✌🏽

6. Do you have any taboos or topics you try to actively avoid?

I’ll answer this as a reader. I have my limits to how much suffering I can read child characters in particular go through like I’ve dropped a book or two before for disturbing me too much in that regard. They weren’t bad!! I just personally didn’t wanna weather through that so I didn’t. I dropped Arundathi Roy’s The God of Small Things because of this, even though I loveddd the prose! :( I might try out her other book (books?) one day though. Stories dealing with such dark topics are important when done right etc. I just can’t stomach them 8/10 times

7. Are you in favor or against spoilers?

If the opportunity to experience whatever is being spoiled myself is unlikely/a long time coming/difficult to attain (because it has to be translated, localized, I need to wait a while to get my hands on a copy etc) I’m probably really really eager for spoilers and will search them out/ask people. If it’s something that consistently thrills me I /definitely/ do not want spoilers though!

Trying to get spoilers from me for things I love and have recommended is usually difficult, like I’ll do it you just have to show me you reallllly are sure you want this splendiddddd story ruineD for you! D:< (I joke. Spoilers don’t ruin good stories, not completely anyway)

8. Have you ever written something to appease or spite somebody else?

To appease? That’s my whole academic “”career”” lollll *shot* not to spite no! Sounds painstaking....like you need to make eff*rt 🥴 or smth.... 😬 mad and sincere respect to anyone out there with the drive to do that though! I’m just not that kind of gal......... I’m more than open to like. Proposing alternative versions of stuff that’s dissatisfied me when talking to friends (like x SUCKED it would’ve been so much better if y and z and t and v! Don’t u agree?) and I’ve drawn a few fan arts before where I like, edit character designs that infuriate me for being tasteless.

9. Being given the options “Candy Valley of the Lollipop” or “Cliff of Despair and Looming”, which one would you say approximates better to your WIP’s general aesthetic?

Hmm. Probs candy valley, Most of my ideas for drawing are like sunny in terms of mood, if that makes any sense. I love my fiction (as in the stuff I consume, not make) on the darker side though as long as it’s not like, pointless and obnoxious about it.

10. A media you weren’t expecting to inspire you, but does.

Hmm. Realistic fiction is nice but I can’t subsist on it, I need fantasy and magical realism and whatnot to stay sane, but sometimes I read a realistic fiction book and I have such crystal clear images of the scenes in my head and it impacts me so strongly that I really, really (really) am inspired to draw them (The Overstory by Richard Powers and The Little Friend by Donna Tartt come to mind)

Tagging: @howaboutswords @pinkafropuffs @adorakeys and anyone who sees this and would like to answer these questions totally should!! Tag me! 🏷

#ty for the tag+apologies for the delay!✨#tagged in #this is a lot of rambling shxjdndnnd

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disappearinginq · 4 years

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The Electric Boogaloo

This is a very rare political (sort of) post for me, so feel free to scroll on by. I don’t know how many people in the US know what the phrase “electric boogaloo”, but it’s a reference to an expected (and some believe impending) civil war. It’s kinda terrifying, but I am a dark humor sort of person, and I must share with people who may not be keeping up on the current state of affairs with our military versus our president.

Here’s the deal: everyone knows that the President of the US in the head honcho of the military. What most people don’t know is that there is a serious rift growing between the US Navy and the federal government, and it reads like a goddamn soap opera, and I must share because it’s my former ship leading the charge and I am so proud of those little shits.

Set the stage: COVID-19 has disabled a huge chunk of the world. It’s not a secret, every news cast is about how more people are sick and more people are dead and the general seagull death spiral of society on a whole. Reports are in about how the Theodore Roosevelt has cases onboard, and they’re docking in Guam. No secrets, public knowledge.

Several days go by and a letter from the CO, Captain Crozier, is shown to the media openly begging for Big Navy to do something in support or sailors will die unnecessarily. It reveals nothing of things that aren’t already widely known. He asks that the sick be allowed to get off the boat to do an actual quarantine in the empty hotels on the island so that they limit the spread of the virus because on a Navy vessel, you’re lucky to have six inches of personal space, never mind the 6 feet. These ships can have up to 5000 people on them, with three doctors (and that’s pushing it). There are no beds in medical. You serve sick time in your own bed, surrounded by 50 of your shipmates at any given time. Big Navy has decided to take their sweet ass time with a rapidly spreading virus, and basically tells him “we’re looking into available options” and then crickets.

Thanks to the media getting a hold of it, Big Navy is shamed into providing aid. In less than a day after the letter finds it’s way to the media and the American people, POOF. The sick are offloaded, quarantined, and given medical help. The majority of the crew remains onboard.

Cue the Electric Boogaloo lead in: First reports are Big Navy (the bureaucratic long arm of the Navy that decides morale is low and therefore forbids sailors to grow beards, and discharges anyone with a skin condition that prevents them from shaving every day, but separate issue) says that while they were unhappy that Crozier went outside the chain of command, likely nothing will happen to him. Next thing we know, Crozier is relieved of duty, in the dead of night. Every crew member onboard the boat meets him as he is departing, some in uniform, some in civvies, all standing at attention until he departs the boat, where he is saluted off and literally cheered by hundreds of men and women while they chant his name. This video also makes it’s way on to social media. Social media is trending with #IstandwithCaptainCrozier. Big Navy sends a fucking Admiral to the boat to take over - this is 1) either that Admiral done fucked up hard or 2) they need that level of pull to hush everything up and Big Navy things extra stars = more obedience.

So now the shit show really begins. The Secretary of the Navy - SECNAV - is a newly appointed Trump crony who has a whopping total of 7 years in the Navy back in the 80′s and has literally been a pencil pusher since then. He flied alllll the way down to Guam to deliver an absolutely inspiring speech where he basically calls all the sailors onboard a bunch of whiny bitches, curses them out multiple times, and calls Crozier - remember, their beloved CO - too naive or too stupid to be in charge of a carrier. If you would like to listen to it, here is the link (I love listening to the crew’s reactions).

https://taskandpurpose.com/news/modly-theodore-roosevelt-audio

The SECNAV stayed on the boat for less than 30 minutes, 15 of which was spent reaming out the crew, and then left without addressing a single concern.

Shocker of shockers, the audio gets uploaded to the media. The outcry is amazing. Anyone who defended him before is stunned into silence that this man, who looks like the villain from Billy Madison, has the balls to go to a warship and bitch them out - not about violating OPSEC - but for embarrassing him. The awkward position they put him in having to actually do his job. Congress and Senate members comment “I’ll be surprised if he lasts the night” - I have no idea if they meant he was gonna get lynched (which, to be honest, I would not have been surprised at) or fired.

The course of Monday and the SECNAV’s defense is better told in bullet points:

- “I stand by every word, even the swears”

- “I didn’t call him stupid or naive, I meant he purposely leaked the letter”

- “I have the highest regard for Captain Crozier, am I am sorry for the hurt that my words have caused”

- “Please stop sending death threats”

- “I quit”

Yo, this bitch was straight up online bullied into quitting and he was supposed to be charge of one of the largest military branches the United States has.

Now, one might think this is the end of it. Nope! So here’s the shit leading up to this - the secretary of defense retires - a man named Mad Dog Mattis, who’s famously quoted “be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet” (amongst others) left his position with a public letter denouncing Trump’s treatment of our long standing allies. Yeah. The guy who talked about having plans to kill people quits over morality. The SECNAV before Modly (guy who just got bullied out by online harassment and public calls for his death) was fired because he refused to back Trump’s order to pardon the war criminal Eddie Gallagher, a former SEAL who was turned in by his own guys and called ‘evil’.

So this is fun now, right? Modly fires Crozier because he’s mad that he was embarrassed in front of the President and the country (Trump says he wouldn’t have fired Modly if he hadn’t resigned, because he didn’t think he was in the wrong), going against the Navy’s Top Brass (the top Admiral Gilday who is the CNO, and miltary’s top general, Milley, chairman of JCOS). Trump’s administration overturns the Navy’s conviction of Gallagher because “he’s a good guy”.

“Mr. Modly has become a vehicle for the president. He basically has completely undermined, throughout the TR [the Theodore Roosevelt] situation, the uniformed leadership of the Navy and military leadership in general.” - Admiral Milley in a NYT article concerning Modly’s address to the crew.

The article concludes with “The Trump Administration’s handling of the crisis aboard the Roosevelt reflects a growing divide between senior uniformed commanders and their civilian bosses.”

The conclusion I draw in this HYAH!SHITSHOW: I can’t believe the lynchpin for the revolution is my old goddamn boat, and I miss it by a scant few years.

And, just in case you don’t believe me about the Billy Madison comparison:

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