#unsurprised that most people are having a hard time running it

[unfriendlyamazon]

inzoi dropped their character creator demo i'm very fascinated

[m4ndysk4nkovich]

question, have you written anything about ian's avoidant attachment?? i just dont really see anyone mention it even though its a big part of his character

i’ve said things about it off and on but i’ve never really talked about it in depth, but i’ve been wanting to post more so i’m gonna take this as an opportunity to:)

i do think it’s strange that nobody talks about it because as you said, it is SUCH a big and important part of his character. even in season one minor things like him running upstairs when people tried to help him with his broken nose or bigger things like running away from the chaos at home to go see mickey. the way fiona acted when he left also indicates it’s a common occurrence. ian always runs away. we even hear stories about him running away as a kid, specifically from his foster home with carl (there was probably abuse going on, but still, he runs away from conflict frequently and later on we see he can’t commit).

a lot of ian and mickey’s relationship early on wasn’t like how it ended up being, where ian runs. instead it was mickey always running, and we all know why- fear. i think he was trying so hard to keep mickey because he really was in love with him but also because he was so used to being left or being treated like garbage, and he didn’t want that. then obviously, season three he leaves, and the mania contributes for sure but i definitely think a big part of it is again, his tendency to run away. fiona even says, “he’ll be back when he’s back” (which i hated), but again it kind of proves he runs a lot. this time he just ran further and didn’t return for months.

anyway, ian’s avoidant attachment becomes more prevalent around the season five break up, which i could talk about for days because i feel like ian’s perspective isn’t talked about as often. but one of the reasons that he leaves is because they love each other and he doesn’t want mickey to be stuck with him, he can’t commit to this and he doesn’t want to drag mickey down with him. after this we see his struggles with commitment more often, visiting mickey in prison is a pretty good example, which is also something i’ll never really hate ian for. he tells svetlana that he doesn’t want to go because he’s done with that part of his life, he wants to leave everything behind him. when mickey shows him that he tattooed ian on his chest and asks him to wait years for him, it’s a big commitment, which ian is afraid of. he even states in season ten his parents contributed to this fear. he’s never known much about commitment, his parents could never commit to him, the men he fucked never commited to him, and mickey did, but it scares ian away.

season seven is pretty obvious, also. trevor wants a relationship and that also scares him away, and there were definitely other levels to it, but i’ve always viewed his hesitance for another relationship as a part of that. trevor wants commitment, ian isn’t good at that; and it shows when he runs off with mickey (after saying he’s staying and won’t do that). when ian and mickey talk while stargazing the night before mickey goes over the border, i could tell ian wasn’t going to go with him. mickey asks if ian ever thought of him, and ian says he did, but his demeanor to me always still seemed anxious. he realizes this is a big decision, and while he’s already made a lot of big commitments doing this whole thing with mickey, i feel like that’s when he realized. mickey’s leaving behind nothing, but ian’s leaving behind everything. his family, his job, trevor, probably even his stability. i don’t think i even need to talk about him leaving mickey at the border, because again, it was unsurprising and caused by fear and fear only. love was never a factor, and i think mickey must’ve known that.

there’s other examples within the next two seasons, like how he grieved, him hiding from the cops and running away after dyeing his hair black, but it’s always the most obvious when he’s in a relationship with mickey, because their attachment styles contradict each other. knowing he’s getting released on parole was a big thing, because to me, it was apparent he didn’t want to leave but also couldn’t wait to. his whole thing with mickey where he screams “i wanna be where you are!” and mickey responds with, “you don’t get to be.” was a big thing and showed a change in ian’s relationship with attachment. he was willing to throw his whole parole for mickey. it was growth. the marriage license is a whole other thing.

10x08/10x09 are pretty important episodes to me looking at it from ian’s perspective. he does love mickey and that should never be questioned, in fact, it irritates me when people imply he doesn’t, but he was afraid. the way his hand hovered over the paper was fear, and in 10x09 it all goes back to 5x12. ian’s bipolar, he doesn’t want mickey stuck with him. i think in the courthouse he did a good job of explaining why he didn’t want that. frank and monica had so many weddings and he’s watched so much shit go down, and he’s no stranger to being compared to monica. in season nine he states he doesn’t know who he is anymore, and i feel like he’s struggled with that for a while. he ends up marrying mickey, but there was so much trauma and fear he had to push past to do so. he asks mickey how he knows that he wants to spend the rest of his life with ian and everything that comes with ian, and obviously mickey is fine with all of that, he loves ian, but ian isn’t sure. like i said, he’s been left so many times and he’s seen what his disorder did to his mother, he’s seen frank and monica’s relationship, and he’s scared. debbie even tells him this. that’s why i felt like his whole promise thing made sense, it symbolized commitment, he tells mickey he can commit, but mickey doesn’t buy it (and i don’t blame him). he learns he has to marry mickey, he has to commit, he has to say vows. and he does, and the whole monogamy conversation further proves he’s still learning and trying to overcome everything.

i dont know if i even answered that question or not and just rambled, lol, but i tried😭😭

[slayerchick303]

*SECRET INVASION FINALE SPOILERS*

I just finished Home, and I have some thoughts:

Rhodey was in a hospital gown when he got out of the pod! I swear to all that is holy, if they have him been replaced by a skrull after his injury in Civil War, I will march on Disney headquarters! That would cheapen Tony's death, funeral, and Rhodey's amazing conversation with Sam in Falcon and the Winter Soldier. I said I'd freak out if they made the swap previous to FATWS, and I meant it!

Gravik's human face was a man he killed, so I'm assuming the same is true for G'iah. If she is indeed going to be Abigail Brand as leaks have suggested (meaning Abigail Brand is dead), I'm going to be mad! Like legitimately disappointed. Brand is one of my favorite parts of the Astonishing X-Men comics run. I ship her and Beast so hard.

When was Everett Ross swapped? It has to have been after Black Panther because he would've reverted to his skrull form after being shot and/or Shuri would've noticed while healing him. Has a skrull infiltrated Wakandan leadership?! How many? For how long? Because that's BAD. Imagine the havoc skrulls could wreak with Wakanda's resources.

The CGI in this was pretty good. Especially compared to other recent Disney+ titles. That being said, I hate a lot of how they used it. Giving G'iah a huge Drax arm?! Bad choices in multiple ways: A.) the big Drax arm looked so weird as did other things. B.) do they think Marvel fans are too stupid to get what they were doing if they didn't make her arm huge? They should've kept Emilia's arm the same size, only given her Drax's tattoos and skin color at most. We would've understood. C.) the clothing changed too! How does that make sense?

Is Gravik really dead, though? Is Raava? We don't know if Raava has super skrull powers, but Gravik had like EVERYTHING. That seems like it should make him pretty invincible.

How did people not clock how off Rhodey was? There was like an enormous change in his personality. Raava was a jerk!

So, Fury and Sonya only tranqed those secret service members at the hospital. That wouldn't automatically make them revert, right, or every skrull would be outed when they fell asleep. If all those guards were humans, they were legitimately the worst security detail ever. That one guy literally listened to SkrullRhodey pretty much out herself and did nothing. He didn't even warn the president Rhodey was acting uncharacteristically. Every member of White House personale will have to be tested somehow. Maybe check for purple blood?

I really thought Ritson would die at the end. I guess he's just awful (which is unsurprising). I'm glad he won't be president much longer, as Harrison Ford is taking over the role of President Thaddeus Ross in Captain America: Brave New World. That being said, part of me worries that President Ross might be even worse than Ritson.

I kind of loved Varra and Fury's ending. It redeemed the awful, "I guess we'll never know moment."

****EDIT:**** I didn't think about this at the time, but I saw someone else bring it up. G'iah has Captain Marvel powers now! Doesn't that mean she should be caught up in the entanglement mess Captain Marvel, Photon, and Miss Marvel are dealing with in The Marvels?! That's an ENORMOUS plot hole. Not to mention, G'iah is ridiculously overpowered now. People complain about how powerful Superman is, and G'iah is so much worse.

I enjoyed Secret Invasion, even if it wasn't the best Disney+ show. The comics are still WAY better. Regardless, I'm looking forward to The Marvels even more now.

[aeaean--bliss]

the madonna | chapter one: arrival

summary: It's 1985. The English countryside swells with the day's remains of midsummer heat as you make your way towards the gate, longs strands of grass nipping at your calves.

It's a good time to get away. Old and distant family friends have taken you in against your wildest imagination, following torturous personal circumstances and a recent mental breakdown. Here, where you can live with purpose among people who care about you, you can slowly begin to rest and recover in the secluded privacy of the Burrow.

Now would be a really bad time for you to run into the most traumatic ex-fling of your life, wouldn't it?

pairing: remus lupin x reader

genre: non-magic!AU; farmhand remus!AU

word count: 4k

warnings/tags: blood, injury, mental breakdown, mental health issues (mostly anxiety and depression), shitty parents, alcohol consumption, drunkenness, swearing, mentions of violence, orphanhood, smut (eventually), a lot of self-deprecation, tension, pining, arguing, etc.

author's note: minors DNI! please read the warnings. this series is taking all i have to write, and a lot of it is just me projecting. i hope it resonates with at least some of you.

chapter index

masterlist

chapter one | arrival

The night’s a dewy one; wet and almost, almost , cold, with a fog that hangs heavy around your head.

“Y/N. So good to see you, love.”

She means well. The sincerity in her eyes and the warmth in her smile tells you as much. But there’s something in her voice that sounds a little too much like pity. Her clammy palm cups your cheek, adding to the itchy layer of grime that seems to coat every inch of your skin. 

Still, you smile. 

“Molly.”

She shoves a cup into your hands. She’s gone before you have a chance to thank her. 

Can’t stand this English Breakfast shit.

Placing the cup on the mantle, you wrap an arm around the waist of each twin in the armchair and lift them up before settling in yourself. 

Every joint in your body aches. Your wrists feel weak, like half the blood has drained from your body. The headache that’s been brewing since you got on the train this morning threatens to spark up again, pounding dully against your skull like a speaker pumping underwater. 

It’s just the travel. Travel, and inhaling shit air, and eating shit food, and being all cramped up. You’re not even sure you ate. Hard to tell when each day bleeds into the next and time goes by a million miles an hour and not at all. 

Small feet and hands dig into the flesh of your thighs and stomach. The twins settle either side of your waist, gurgling and babbling to themselves. You sit in silence, staring at a patch of carpet, restless nails picking at frayed threads on the tattered armrest. Someone enters the room, voices speak, but it all sounds muffled. It isn’t until Molly pushes a saucer of biscuits under your nose that you come to, blinking heavily and mumbling disjointedly.

“Thank you.”

Molly glances at the clock on the wall. It’s got nine hands, one for Molly, one for Arthur, and one for each of the children. Does she keep a stack of them in a drawer somewhere, to add one on whenever a new one comes along?

“It’s getting late,” she mutters. 

Is it?

The thought that you might be keeping them up gnaws at you. You’re about to offer to retire for the evening, to apologise and head off, when Arthur stands. He hums, brows furrowed as though in deep thought, and shuffles into the hallway. As the air grows heavy with silence, your gaze rests back on Molly. 

“You know, I might just…”

The words die on your lips. They must have barely been audible, anyway, judging by Molly’s lack of reaction.

The odd child meanders into the room as you wait for Arthur to return. Bill’s at that age where you pretend you’re an adult, unsurprised and unscared. He barely spares you a second glance as he steps over to his mother, asking for the whereabouts of his book on Britain’s Most Dangerous Deepwater Sea-Creatures. 

Charlie’s not quite there yet, lingering in the hallway and peeking around the doorframe with wide eyes and a long, floppy, pink tongue. It’s the toy in his hands that catches your eye, a bright green dragon with blue spikes and huge eyes. He holds it around its neck so tight it might just pop off. 

You beckon him over. His eyes dart to his mother, then back to you, then back to his mother. Then he steels himself and tiptoes towards you.

“Y/N.”

He blinks. He looks like he’s going to chicken out and back away. 

You pull your hand away from the mouth of a teething George, wiping his saliva off on your sleeve and reaching behind your head. Lifting one of the many pendants from around your neck, you slip the chain onto your finger and hold it out to the seven year old in front of you.

“It’s yours, if you want it,” you say softly.

He eyes it timidly, looking up at you, then down at the pendant, then up at you, then back down at the pendant. The pendant’s a photo coin you bought at a museum gift shop when you were young; it’s got a celtic dragon pressed into its centre and waves decorating the rim.

“Take it,” you whisper. 

He smiles shyly, before snatching the chain with clumsy hands and shuffling away, not taking his eyes off of it for a second. The movement excites the twins, who squeal, and giggle, and squirm in your arms. One of them accidentally slaps you in the face. The other tries to shove their hand in your face, getting their hand stuck in your necklaces. 

“Come here,” you sigh, taking the soft, small, pudgy hand in yours to ease it out of the knot of chains. 

Four heavy knocks pound somewhere in the distance. 

The chains have gotten caught up in your hair, now. The child tugs, and you lurch, dangerously close to getting your fingers tangled up in the mess. 

A door slams in the distance. The bairn pulls his hand back, threatening to take a chunk of your scalp out with it. You grab hold of his hand again, murmuring for him to keep still, to relax, to stop pulling-

Then, from the doorway, with a kind lilt and a Yorkshire accent that makes your blood run cold as ice, comes a soft, deep voice, and surely you must be ill. Surely, you must have caught some fatal, delayed-onset disease, because the fever that burns at your skin, rippling in waves and numbing your wrists, is anything short of natural.

It hurts. It actually hurts. 

“Where’d you like ‘em, Molly?”

You might pass out. Jesus, you can hear your heartbeat squelching in your ears. You can vaguely hear Molly fussing about the time and we were beginning to think you weren’t coming back tonight and- 

Back? 

Soft, small hands slap at your wrists when they notice your attention has drifted. 

What does she mean, back? 

You’re still trying to untangle the knot in your hair, fingertips trying and failing to set you free. You can just about see the lower half of him where you sit, hunched over, with toddler spit trailing down your forearm and a fist in your hair. You can see the way his shirt sleeves have been rolled up to his elbows; see the sprigs of some kind of plant poking out from the handles of one of the plastic bags in his hands. 

He’s grown. Lived. Thrived, even, by the looks of things. 

It’s the smallest thing, but it fucks with your head. You haven’t grown, or lived, or thrived at all. You’re small. Ratty. Shrivelled, even, by the looks of things. 

As you finally detangle the child’s fingers from your hair, you get a proper look at him. He looks like he has friends. But not like he has to make any effort to keep them. Not even that; like it’s effortless for him to keep them. Like he’s got that kind of quiet magnetism. He looks like the type of guy someone else randomly brings to a night out and every friend of a friend tries to chat him up. Like he barely needs to say a word, but everyone still knows who he is and greets him when they see him.

What must he see when he looks at you? 

You feel sick.

You can see the exact moment he sees you because he frowns and cocks his head to the side. He says nothing as Molly’s fusses, eyes fixed on you with his lips barely parted, head half-turned to the side like it wants to tear away but can’t seem to force itself.

You’ve been sat by the fire too long; your face burns from it. Why they’ve lit a fire in mid-june is beyond you. 

“Now,” Molly says, waving you over, “Arthur’s set everything up for you, dear, though I’ve got to warn you, it’s no luxury hotel. That room’s barely been touched since there were farmers here, and that’s about fifty years ago, now…”

When did Arthur come back in?

“And Gideon told you about the plumbing, and the-”

“Yes,” you interject, heart beating in your throat, now, “Yes, thank you. Really, Molly, thank you so much. For everything.”

She carries on, turning to Remus. You feel lightheaded; so lightheaded, and it’s been such a long day and you’re exhausted, and she’s asked you something now, she’s actually asked you something and you can see her lips moving but you can’t hear a thing. 

“Sorry,” you say suddenly. “I’m just- I’m very tired. Could I maybe…?”

Is your voice really loud?

“Of course, dear,” Molly says, prying Arthur’s cup out of his hands. “You must be exhausted, all that travel. Here, Remus’ll walk you down, he’s staying in the other room. It’s no more than fifteen, twenty minutes down the road - will you manage?”

“Yes, I-,” you say, “that’s fine.”

“You’re more than welcome to stay here for the night if you like,” Arthur offers, insistently. “I wouldn’t want you walking down to that old shack at this hour of the night, why don’t-”

“She’s a grown woman, dear,” Molly fusses, reaching over to take Remus’ cup. 

When’d she find time to give him that?

They shoo the boys out and suddenly, in a heartbeat, the room is almost completely empty. 

Time slows way down, with a force that leaves your stomach surging like you’re on a plane taking a dive. This is the split second where Remus’ nonchalant facade breaks, when he first gets a good, up-close look at your face. Where he gets this look, this far-out and distanced look in his eyes, but you can’t make out what it is. And then it flashes before your eyes, dark and pained and sharp and twisted and it’s like you’ve both tapped into the same frequency for the millisecond it takes for the memory to flicker in front of your mind’s eye. 

Can he see the way your eyes gloss over?

“Remus, dear,” Molly’s voice tuts from behind him, “Would you mind? You’re just in the way, love.”

He doesn’t answer, eyes - not wide in surprise like yours, but narrowed; narrowed, unblinking, and concentrated. It fills your stomach with dread. Anything neutral in his surprise has melted away now that he’s had a moment to think and recollect. His forearms flex as he shifts the plastic bag in his hands to readjust the weight, head almost entirely cocked to the side as he stares at you, brows furrowed in something nearing anger and lips parted ever so slightly, like he might want to think about saying something but can’t quite decide what to say.

Surely they must have told him you’d be here?

“Remus?”

He almost jumps then, blinking and tearing his gaze away from you.

“‘course, Molly.”

His voice echoes in the room after he turns to let her through.

“Here,” Molly says, pulling the bag from your hands before you have a chance to hold on, “Remus’ll take that.”

Remus lets out what you can only describe as an affirmative grunt, just about polite enough for it not to be rude in front of Molly, grabbing your duffel by the strap and swinging it onto his shoulder. He’s gone out the door before you can say another word. 

You press a forced smile onto your lips and move to follow.

“What time will you be back tomorrow, dear?”

Molly’s unassuming tone chips away at you for reasons you can’t explain. 

“Not too late, Molly,” you mumble, tearing your eyes away from his back, flashing her what you hope looks like a tired but genuine smile and heading for the door, “Not too late.”

The old farmhouse down the lane from the Burrow is surrounded by overgrown weeds and old rubber tires. Some of the tires are as wide as you are tall, stacked on top of each other with tufts of green and yellow poking through the gaps in the threads.

The walk itself is less than quiet. He stalks in front of you, never closer than about six feet. Doesn’t even look back to check if you’re in tow. Though to be fair, besides actively diving into the brambles and brush that outline the lane, there’s not really anywhere you could go.

Bare wooden planks cover the floors, worn down from decades of use. There’s a simple, wood-burning stove in the corner of the front room, surrounded by stone walls. There are two doors on the back wall, one on the right, and one on the left. Two doors, two bedrooms. 

Two tenants , you remind yourself. 

This is where you live, now. On Gideon’s request, Molly and Arthur have been generous enough to let you stay here free of charge. It’s hard to pay rent when you can’t work. No one’s supposed to know you’re here, either, outside the Prewett-Weasleys.

And Remus Lupin, apparently. 

What the fuck is he doing here? You’ve not heard a word from or about him in years, literal years, and up he pops, like a jack-in-the-box. It’s knocked you for six; you drag your bag across the wooden floor into the room he didn’t stalk into and and sit down on the mattress, and then you just… sit there, staring out into the darkness until your eyes grow used to it and you can begin to see the outline of the handles on the dresser drawers on the opposite side of the room. 

Don’t even know how long it takes you to move, strip, and shuffle under the covers, but by the time you do, your joints are stiff and sore and the first signs of daybreak have begun to push through the thinly woven fabric of the curtains.

Remus must be long gone by the time you wake. It’s unsurprising; judging by how bright the sun is, you’re guessing you’ve slept in. You have a vague memory of almost waking a few hours ago and hearing the sound of rushing water outside. Gideon had mentioned that there wasn’t any indoor plumbing, but the way your nightclothes stick to your skin makes the thought of dousing yourself in a bucket of cold water outside a heavenly fantasy come to life. 

There’s no way to get lost on your way back to the Burrow; the farmhouse is at the end of a dead end, so your feet move on auto pilot. 

There’s shouting in the halls as you step through the open back door, echoing up the stairwells. Moving through the kitchen in shoes you probably should take off, you stick your head through the doorway and almost trip over the two tiny streaks of ginger that run into you as they head around the corner. They land on their bottoms and freeze to a halt with big, brown eyes that peer up at you and just look up, and up, and up until they reach your face. 

You tower over them, a ghastly vision with matted hair and sunken eyes, skin gaunt and discoloured. Moments tick by before you bend down to reach both hands out, one in the direction of either bairn. They blink.

You wiggle your fingers when the bairns don’t move, and something clicks behind their eyes as they heave themselves onto their feet and reach for your hands. Each twin grips two of your fingers tightly as you lead them down the hall, stooped low as they waddle along the tattered carpet in their nappies. You lead the boys through the doorway first, shuffling after them.

Molly stands behind an ironing board, one hand wrapped around a small bundle, the other resting on top of a nearby dresser. Her head darts up when she hears footsteps shuffling along the carpet. 

“Think these belong to you.”

The boys have taken a liking to you. You can’t imagine why. They cling onto your legs the minute you step into the open kitchen door and babble a thousand innocent questions in your direction without cessation.

It’s good. Idle hands make great feeding grounds for nervous breakdowns.

Molly’s got you peeling potatoes by the time Arthur and Remus get back. He’s working as a sort of farmhand, you’ve learned. Though the Weasleys aren’t really farmers, so you’re not sure how that works. But Arthur’s always fancied himself quite the handyman, so odds are he’s got things brewing. Plenty of farmers around these parts anyway, bound to be plenty of work to be done. 

The spuds rest in a net bag in front of you, a muddy brownish colour with green and yellow eyes poking through the gaps in the mesh. Molly’s upstairs trying to give the children a bath. Judging by the shrieks and howls echoing down the stairwell, it’s not going very well.

Molly’s left some record on, some woman warbling out of tune on a track that is ninety-five per cent harp. It’s got you dissociating, hands moving without thought, carving strips of potato skins onto a board in a steady rhythm. Tuber after tuber gets tossed into the pot. The ever-lasting scent of manure from the nearby fields doesn’t agree with your insides yet, and you can taste the bile on your tongue as the smell of starch and water from the skins hit your nose. 

Midsummer months bring heavy air, slick with sweetness and humidity and the type of heat that makes your clothes stick to every crevice and plane of you with sweat. You thought it was just you; just a summer’s day of physical labour in a house with terrible ventilation, but the air that hit your cheeks as you stuck your head out of a window in the stairwell was even warmer than the stale air inside. Right now, in the late evening when the fever breaks and a cool shade begins to descend over the fields, it feels like being let out of a car that’s been left in the sun for too long. Flesh on your cheeks, arms, and legs burning and swollen with warmth, you heave the back door open and inhale deeply through the nose, hand resting on the handle of the door to ground you. 

There’s that smell in the air that you only get in warm, humid places. It settles in your belly and calms your nausea. The bugs don’t even cross your mind. Bugs be damned. The setting sun is painting streaks of orange and pink over the cloudy skies. It feels like a dream, something not quite real, after months of being unable to feel your fingers and toes from piercing frost. For a moment, you feel like the sun could swallow you whole, pick you up and lift you and bring you in on yourself. You’re not sure how long you linger in the doorway; could be a minute, could be half an hour.

Your chores beckon, and you move to sit at the kitchen table. The soft strumming of the harp in the background seems less intrusive now; maybe it’s because the singer hasn’t sung a note in a minute. The pot begins to fill slowly, and your fingers begin to prune. A bead of sweat trickles down your temple but disappears before it can reach your cheek.

“Thought I might find you here.”

Shit. You suck in a sharp breath, droplets of crimson trickling down the crease of your thumb. You stick the throbbing digit in your mouth, wincing at the starch residue from the skins. 

From the corner of your eye, you see him pull a tissue out from a nearby box on the counter. You almost trip on your skirts as you lurch to your feet to grab the handles and heave the pot of potatoes onto the hob, threatening to slosh water all over the chipped tiles in your haste to avoid him trying to give it to you. But he lingers after you, coming up to lean against the counter beside you. 

He’s trying. Somewhere, deep down, you know he’s trying. The fact that he’s even talking to you is something, let alone the tissue hanging limply in his outstretched hand. But you can’t find it in you to pretend that you’re in the mood. Maybe you’re overtired. Maybe… maybe it’s something else. You yank the tissue out of his grasp unceremoniously, avoiding looking at his face and pressing it to your skin after rinsing it in the sink.

“So,” Remus says slowly, quietly feigning nonchalance as you wrap the tissue around your thumb, “what are you doing here, then?”

When he talks, it’s like he’s trying not to speak too loud. Everything sounds like it’s being murmured in your ear. You half expect to feel his breath on your neck. You remind yourself that he’s got some nerve talking to you in the first place. You purse your lips.

“What are you doing here?”

Something changes in Remus’ eyes, then. It’s like you’ve broken some sort of ice.

“If I’ve done something to offend you,” he begins, eyeing you with calculated caution. Like he’s testing the waters. “Or said something…”

“Then I’ll know you haven’t changed,” you supply. 

You can feel his eyes on you as you turn to the kitchen table and he moves, but he doesn’t follow you, instead lingering in the open space of the kitchen floor. He watches as you scrape peelings into the half-full bucket near the stove and grab its handle, almost yanking it off with the force of it. He makes a point of dipping his head slightly and cocking it to the side as you dry your hands aggressively with a fraying kitchen towel so as to better look you straight in the eye. He keeps his eyes on you unapologetically as you pass him, pushing through to the back door to make your way to the garden. 

You can’t tell if he follows you out. You don’t want to turn around to look. You stalk towards the compost heap on the far side of the field, a shabby thing held up by rotting planks of wood, poorly nailed together. Must be Arthur’s handiwork. Everything he lays his hands on begins to tear at the seams as soon as he’s done. He’s got a copy of some DIY manual from 1958 proudly displayed in the sitting room; its spine has almost fully disintegrated and the letters on the front have faded from years opposite a south-facing window, but it remains surrounded by trinkets and charms like a holy book on the mantelpiece. 

Gnats buzz around your ears. You slop the contents of the bucket onto the growing heap and turn, all too quickly, and nearly jump out of your skin when you see him directly in front of you. The bucket clatters dully against the grass as only plastic can, hitting the ground with the edge of its curved lip and bouncing off behind him. 

“Heard you’re living here, now. Permanently”

“Hearing all sorts of things, you are,” you mutter, almost out of breath as you push past him again and stoop to retrieve the bucket. 

He beats you to it, snatching it just out of your reach.

“Something about you needing to get away from something?”

“What do you care.”

Swipe. Miss. 

“Of course I care,” he drawls, walking backwards with quick, hurried steps to stay ahead of you as you move to lunge for the bucket. “What, your folks finally given up on ya?”

“Well you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”

It’s a nasty thing to say. It’s really nasty. So nasty it makes you feel repulsed that you could even formulate such a thought, let alone choose to say it out loud. Because he was at least partly joking, and there’s no way you can spin it so you don’t look like a horrible, horrible person. His feet stumble as his expression falls, face becoming slack. And in that moment he looks every bit the beautiful, tormented twenty-five year old he is. Golden, freckled skin glows in the setting sun; bright green eyes pained and beaten.

Then he pulls himself together. 

“See you haven’t changed either.”

That’s a bit uncalled for. You’ve never had a go at him because of his parents before, and you don’t appreciate the insinuation. It causes you physical pain that he clocked you on the first try, though. It annoys you. Why is he pretending he knows anything about you? Your skin begins to burn again, and your eyes threaten to puff up like you’ve been stung. 

You snatch the bucket out of his hands and stalk back to the main house. 

He doesn’t follow you back in.

© @aeaean–bliss​; do not copy, repost or translate any of my works.

[the-world-annealing]

A thought I commonly see in analyses of Terra Ignota is, loosely paraphrased: "Why would a third of the world population join up with the quasifascist rome larpers when there's a hive that made pokemon real."

Now of course, we're all on the Gay Sex And Pokemon website, there's a bias here and we might be wrong about what the average person is like, but even so the point still stands! What is it about the Masons that attracts people to them over all six to nine alternatives, especially given how little they actually offer except nice architecture and absolutist power structures?

Well, recall how a fact of Terra Ignota's world, one we run into time and time again, is: "Having everyone stop talking about gender and religion did not actually prevent discrimination or end oppression or otherwise solve any problems". Mycroft applies he/him to masons wherever possible, they're led by an emperor-even-when-female, they wear suits, they're powerful, they draw their symbology from supremely patriarchal times and places. It's clear that Masons are gendered more than any hive except the cousins, and one of the few organizations (the only?) to be gendered masculine.

(I think it's relevant to remark how blacklaws could have been presented as masculine tooth-and-claw survivalists, but instead we get chagatai and madame and dominic as the most prominent examples, which don't read very traditionally-masculine to us)

The cousins are explicitly identified as a sort of aggregate of feminine people, but they certainly aren't the sum total of them. And that makes sense; all the stereotypical feminine traits (caring for others, playing diplomat, cooking) are still relevant in the world that Terra Ignota presents; if you care deeply about Performing Feminine Roles you don't have to join the cousins, you can just be a mom friend or the one at the bash who doesn't work and focuses on raising the kids.

But if you care deeply about Performing Masculine Roles, you're a lot more limited in your options! Society is safe and peaceful, physical labor is increasingly rare, and at any rate nobody will depend on your labor to survive; you aren't 'working hard to put food on the table' because the food literally grows on trees!

The most 'masculine' career path remaining is probably policing (and I think it's relevant that the most prominent cop in the story gets gendered male!) but that's hardly an option for everyone.

So everyone who feels like a man, who watches fragmented bits of pop culture and half-forgotten references and constructs this ideal of masculinity out of it, who might meet the definition for gender dysphoria depending on how you look at it, who the text implies is made vulnerable by these unfulfilled desires... yeah, I think such a person would join the Masons in a heartbeat, because the Masons represent one of the few outlets for masculine urges (them and madame's roleplay scenarios). And if that describes a significant fraction of the population, it becomes absolutely unsurprising to see a 33% mason plurality at the start of the series.

[dailyanarchistposts]

E.4.2 Can wilderness survive under laissez-faire capitalism?

No. This conclusion comes naturally from the laissez-faire capitalist defence of private property as expounded by Murray Rothbard. Moreover, ironically, he also destroys his own arguments for ending pollution by privatising water and air.

For Rothbard, labour is the key to turning unowned natural resources into private property. As he put it, “before the homesteader, no one really used and controlled — and hence owned — the land. The pioneer, or homesteader, is the man who first brings the valueless unused natural objects into production and use.” [The Ethics of Liberty, p. 49]

Starting with the question of wilderness (a topic close to many eco-anarchists’ and other ecologists’ hearts) we run into the usual problems and self-contradictions which befalls right-“libertarian” ideology. Rothbard states clearly that “libertarian theory must invalidate [any] claim to ownership” of land that has “never been transformed from its natural state” (he presents an example of an owner who has left a piece of his “legally owned” land untouched). If another person appears who does transform the land, it becomes “justly owned by another” and the original owner cannot stop her (and should the original owner “use violence to prevent another settler from entering this never-used land and transforming it into use” they also become a “criminal aggressor”). Rothbard also stresses that he is not saying that land must continually be in use to be valid property. [Op. Cit., pp. 63–64] This is unsurprising, as that would justify landless workers seizing the land from landowners during a depression and working it themselves and we cannot have that now, can we?

Now, where does that leave wilderness? In response to ecologists who oppose the destruction of the rainforest, many supporters of capitalism suggest that they put their money where their mouth is and buy rainforest land. In this way, it is claimed, rainforest will be protected (see section B.5 for why such arguments are nonsense). As ecologists desire the rainforest because it is wilderness they are unlikely to “transform” it by human labour (its precisely that they want to stop). From Rothbard’s arguments it is fair to ask whether logging companies have a right to “transform” the virgin wilderness owned by ecologists, after all it meets Rothbard’s criteria (it is still wilderness). Perhaps it will be claimed that fencing off land “transforms” it (hardly what you imagine “mixing labour” with to mean, but never mind) — but that allows large companies and rich individuals to hire workers to fence in vast tracks of land (and recreate the land monopoly by a “libertarian” route). But as discussed in section F.4.1, fencing off land does not seem to imply that it becomes property in Rothbard’s theory. And, of course, fencing in areas of rainforest disrupts the local eco-system — animals cannot freely travel, for example — which, again, is what ecologists desire to stop. Would Rothbard have accepted a piece of paper as “transforming” land? We doubt it (after all, in his example the wilderness owner did legally own it) — and so most ecologists will have a hard time in pure capitalism (wilderness is just not an option).

Moreover, Rothbard’s “homesteading” theory actually violates his support for unrestricted property rights. What if a property owner wants part of her land to remain wilderness? Their desires are violated by the “homesteading” theory (unless, of course, fencing things off equals “transforming” them, which it apparently does not). How can companies provide wilderness holidays to people if they have no right to stop settlers (including large companies) “homesteading” that wilderness? Then there is the question of wild animals. Obviously, they can only become owned by either killing them or by domesticating them (the only possible means of “mixing your labour” with them). Does it mean that someone only values, say, a polar bear when they kill it or capture it for a zoo?

At best, it could be argued that wilderness would be allowed if the land was transformed first then allowed to return to the wild. This flows from Rothbard’s argument that there is no requirement that land continue to be used in order for it to continue to be a person’s property. As he stresses, “our libertarian [sic!] theory holds that land needs only be transformed once to pass into private ownership.” [Op. Cit., p. 65] This means that land could be used and then allowed to fall into disuse for the important thing is that once labour is mixed with the natural resources, it remains owned in perpetuity. However, destroying wilderness in order to recreate it is simply an insane position to take as many eco-systems are extremely fragile and will not return to their previous state. Moreover, this process takes a long time during which access to the land will be restricted to all but those the owner consents to.

And, of course, where does Rothbard’s theory leave hunter-gatherer or nomad societies. They use the resources of the wilderness, but they do not “transform” them (in this case you cannot easily tell if virgin land is empty or being used). If a group of nomads find its traditionally used, but natural, oasis appropriated by a homesteader what are they to do? If they ignore the homesteaders claims he can call upon the police (public or private) to stop them — and then, in true Rothbardian fashion, the homesteader can refuse to supply water to them unless they pay for the privilege. And if the history of the United States and other colonies are anything to go by, such people will become “criminal aggressors” and removed from the picture.

As such, it is important to stress the social context of Rothbard’s Lockean principles. As John O’Neill notes, Locke’s labour theory of property was used not only to support enclosing common land in England but also as a justification for stealing the land of indigenous population’s across the world. For example, the “appropriation of America is justified by its being brought into the world of commence and hence cultivation … The Lockean account of the ‘vast wilderness’ of America as land uncultivated and unshaped by the pastoral activities of the indigenous population formed part of the justification of the appropriation of native land.” [Markets, Deliberation and Environment, p. 119] That the native population was using the land was irrelevant as Rothbard himself noted. As he put it, the Indians “laid claim to vast reaches of land which they hunted but which they did not transform by cultivation.” [Conceived in Liberty, vol. 1, p. 187]. This meant that “the bulk of Indian-claimed land was not settled and transformed by the Indians” and so settlers were “at least justified in ignoring vague, abstract claims.” The Indian hunting based claims were “dubious.” [Op. Cit., vol. 2, p. 54 and p. 59] The net outcome, of course, was that the “vague, abstract” Indian claims to hunting lands were meet with the concrete use of force to defend the newly appropriated (i.e. stolen) land (force which quickly reached the level of genocide).

So unless people bestowed some form of transforming labour over the wilderness areas then any claims of ownership are unsubstantiated. At most, tribal people and nomads could claim the wild animals they killed and the trails that they cleared. This is because a person would “have to use the land, to ‘cultivate’ it in some way, before he could be asserted to own it.” This cultivation is not limited to “tilling the soil” but also includes clearing it for a house or pasture or caring for some plots of timber. [Man, Economy, and State, with Power and Market, p. 170] Thus game preserves or wilderness areas could not exist in a pure capitalist society. This has deep ecological implications as it automatically means the replacement of wild, old-growth forests with, at best, managed ones. These are not an equivalent in ecological terms even if they have approximately the same number of trees. As James C. Scott stresses:

“Old-growth forests, polycropping, and agriculture with open-pollinated landraces may not be as productive, in the short run, as single-species forests and fields or identical hybrids. But they are demonstrably more stable, more self-sufficient, and less vulnerable to epidemics and environmental stress … Every time we replace ‘natural capital’ (such as wild fish stocks or old-growth forests) with what might be termed ‘cultivated natural capital’ (such as fish farms or tree plantations), we gain ease of appropriation and in immediate productivity, but at the cost of more maintenance expenses and less ‘redundancy, resiliency, and stability’ … Other things being equal . .. the less diverse the cultivated natural capital, the more vulnerable and nonsustainable it becomes. The problem is that in most economic systems, the external costs (in water or air pollution, for example, or the exhaustion of non-renewable resources, including a reduction in biodiversity) accumulate long before the activity becomes unprofitable in a narrow profit-and-loss sense.” [Seeing like a State, p. 353]

Forests which are planned as a resource are made ecologically simplistic in order to make them economically viable (i.e., to reduce the costs involved in harvesting the crop). They tend to be monocultures of one type of tree and conservationists note that placing all eggs in one basket could prompt an ecological disaster. A palm oil monoculture which replaces rainforest to produce biofuel, for example, would be unable to support the rich diversity of wildlife as well as leaving the environment vulnerable to catastrophic disease. Meanwhile, local people dependent on the crop could be left high and dry if it fell out of favour on the global market.

To summarise, capitalism simply cannot protect wilderness and, by extension, the planet’s ecology. Moreover, it is no friend to the indigenous population who use but do not “transform” their local environment.

It should also be noted that underlying assumption behind this and similar arguments is that other cultures and ways of life, like many eco-systems and species, are simply not worth keeping. While lip-service is made to the notion of cultural diversity, the overwhelming emphasis is on universalising the capitalist model of economic activity, property rights and way of life (and a corresponding ignoring of the role state power played in creating these as well as destroying traditional customs and ways of life). Such a model for development means the replacement of indigenous customs and communitarian-based ethics by a commercial system based on an abstract individualism with a very narrow vision of what constitutes self-interest. These new converts to the international order would be forced, like all others, to survive on the capitalist market. With vast differences in wealth and power such markets have, it is likely that the net result would simply be that new markets would be created out of the natural ‘capital’ in the developing world and these would soon be exploited.

As an aside, we must note that Rothbard fails to realise — and this comes from his worship of capitalism and his “Austrian economics” — is that people value many things which do not, indeed cannot, appear on the market. He claims that wilderness is “valueless unused natural objects” for it people valued them, they would use — i.e. transform — them. But unused things may be of considerable value to people, wilderness being a classic example. And if something cannot be transformed into private property, does that mean people do not value it? For example, people value community, stress-free working environments, meaningful work — if the market cannot provide these, does that mean they do not value them? Of course not (see Juliet Schor’s The Overworked American on how working people’s desire for shorter working hours was not transformed into options on the market).

So it should be remembered that in valuing impacts on nature, there is a difference between use values (i.e. income from commodities produced by a resource) and non-use values (i.e., the value placed on the existence of a species or wilderness). The former are usually well-defined, but often small while the latter are often large, but poorly defined. For example, the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska resulted in losses to people who worked and lived in the affected area of an estimated $300 million. However, the existence value of the area to the American population was $9 billion. In other words, the amount that American households were reportedly willing to pay to prevent a similar oil spill in a similar area was 30 times larger. Yet this non-use value cannot be taken into account in Rothbard’s schema as nature is not considered a value in itself but merely a resource to be exploited.

Which brings us to another key problem with Rothbard’s argument: he simply cannot justify the appropriation of water and atmosphere by means of his own principles. To show why, we need simply consult Rothbard’s own writings on the subject.

Rothbard has a serious problem here. As noted above, he subscribed to a Lockean vision of property. In this schema, property is generated by mixing labour with unowned resources. Yet you simply cannot mix your labour with water or air. In other words, he is left with a system of property rights which cannot, by their very nature, be extended to common goods like water and air. Let us quote Rothbard on this subject:

“it is true that the high seas, in relation to shipping lanes, are probably inappropriable, because of their abundance in relation to shipping routes. This is not true, however, of fishing rights. Fish are definitely not available in unlimited quantities, relatively to human wants. Therefore, they are appropriable … In a free [sic!] society, fishing rights to the appropriate areas of oceans would be owned by the first users of these areas and then useable or saleable to other individuals. Ownership of areas of water that contain fish is directly analogous to private ownership of areas of land or forests that contain animals to be hunted … water can definitely be marked off in terms of latitudes and longitudes. These boundaries, then would circumscribe the area owned by individuals, in the full knowledge that fish and water can move from one person’s property to another.” [Man, Economy, and State, with Power and Market, pp. 173–4]

In a footnote to this surreal passage, he added that it “is rapidly becoming evident that air lanes for planes are becoming scare and, in a free [sic!] society, would be owned by first users.”

So, travellers crossing the sea gain no property rights by doing so but those travelling through the air do. Why this should be the case is hard to explain as, logically, both acts “transform” the commons by “labour” in exactly the same manner (i.e. not at all). Why should fishing result in absolute property rights in oceans, seas, lakes and rivers? Does picking a fruit give you property rights in the tree or the forest it stands in? Surely, at best, it gives you a property right in the fish and fruit? And what happens if area of water is so polluted that there are no fish? Does that mean that this body of water is impossible to appropriate? How does it become owned? Surely it cannot and so it will always remain a dumping ground for waste?

Looking at the issue of land and water, Rothbard asserts that owning water is “directly analogous” to owning land for hunting purposes. Does this mean that the landowner who hunts cannot bar travellers from their land? Or does it mean that the sea-owner can bar travellers from crossing their property? Ironically, as shown above, Rothbard later explicitly rejected the claims of Native Americans to own their land because they hunted animals on it. The same, logically, applies to his arguments that bodies of water can be appropriated.

Given that Rothbard is keen to stress that labour is required to transform land into private property, his arguments are self-contradictory and highly illogical. It should also be stressed that here Rothbard nullifies his criteria for appropriating private property. Originally, only labour being used on the resource can turn it into private property. Now, however, the only criteria is that it is scare. This is understandable, as fishing and travelling through the air cannot remotely be considered “mixing labour” with the resource.

It is easy to see why Rothbard produced such self-contradictory arguments over the years as each one was aimed at justifying and extending the reach of capitalist property rights. Thus the Indians’ hunting claims could be rejected as these allowed the privatising of the land while the logically identical fishing claims could be used to allow the privatisation of bodies of water. Logic need not bother the ideologue when he seeking ways to justify the supremacy of the ideal (capitalist private property, in this case).

Finally, since Rothbard (falsely) claims to be an anarchist, it is useful to compare his arguments to that of Proudhon’s. Significantly, in the founding work of anarchism Proudhon presented an analysis of this issue directly opposite to Rothbard’s. Let us quote the founding father of anarchism on this important matter:

“A man who should be prohibited from walking in the highways, from resting in the fields, from taking shelter in caves, from lighting fires, from picking berries, from gathering herbs and boiling them in a bit of baked clay, — such a man could not live. Consequently the earth — like water, air, and light — is a primary object of necessity which each has a right to use freely, without infringing another’s right. Why, then, is the earth appropriated? … [An economist] assures us that it is because it is not INFINITE. The land is limited in amount. Then … it ought to be appropriated. It would seem, on the contrary, that he ought to say, Then it ought not to be appropriated. Because, no matter how large a quantity of air or light any one appropriates, no one is damaged thereby; there always remains enough for all. With the soil, it is very different. Lay hold who will, or who can, of the sun’s rays, the passing breeze, or the sea’s billows; he has my consent, and my pardon for his bad intentions. But let any living man dare to change his right of territorial possession into the right of property, and I will declare war upon him, and wage it to the death!” [What is Property?, p. 106]

Unlike Locke who at least paid lip-service to the notion that the commons can be enclosed when there is enough and as good left for others to use, Rothbard turn this onto its head. In his “Lockean” schema, a resource can be appropriated only when it is scare (i.e. there is not enough and as good left for others). Perhaps it comes as no surprise that Rothbard rejects the “Lockean proviso” (and essentially argues that Locke was not a consistent Lockean as his work is “riddled with contradictions and inconsistencies” and have been “expanded and purified” by his followers. [The Ethics of Liberty, p. 22]).

Rothbard is aware of what is involved in accepting the Lockean Proviso — namely the existence of private property (“Locke’s proviso may lead to the outlawry of all private property of land, since one can always say that the reduction of available land leaves everyone else .. . worse off” [Op. Cit., p. 240]). The Proviso does imply the end of capitalist property rights which is why Rothbard, and other right-“libertarians”, reject it while failing to note that Locke himself simply assumed that the invention of money transcended this limitation. [C.B. MacPherson, The Political Theory of Individualism, pp. 203–20] As we discussed in section B.3.4, it should be stressed that this limitation is considered to be transcended purely in terms of material wealth rather than its impact on individual liberty or dignity which, surely, should be of prime concern for someone claiming to favour “liberty.” What Rothbard failed to understand that Locke’s Proviso of apparently limiting appropriation of land as long as there was enough and as good for others was a ploy to make the destruction of the commons palatable to those with a conscience or some awareness of what liberty involves. This can be seen from the fact this limitation could be transcended at all (in the same way, Locke justified the exploitation of labour by arguing that it was the property of the worker who sold it to their boss — see section B.4.2 for details). By getting rid of the Proviso, Rothbard simply exposes this theft of our common birthright in all its unjust glory.

It is simple. Either you reject the Proviso and embrace capitalist property rights (and so allow one class of people to be dispossessed and another empowered at their expense) or you take it seriously and reject private property in favour of possession and liberty. Anarchists, obviously, favour the latter option. Thus Proudhon:

“Water, air, and light are common things, not because they are inexhaustible, but because they are indispensable; and so indispensable that for that very reason Nature has created them in quantities almost infinite, in order that their plentifulness might prevent their appropriation. Likewise the land is indispensable to our existence, — consequently a common thing, consequently unsusceptible of appropriation; but land is much scarcer than the other elements, therefore its use must be regulated, not for the profit of a few, but in the interest and for the security of all. “In a word, equality of rights is proved by equality of needs. Now, equality of rights, in the case of a commodity which is limited in amount, can be realised only by equality of possession … From whatever point we view this question of property — provided we go to the bottom of it — we reach equality.” [Op. Cit., p. 107]

To conclude, it would be unfair to simply quote Keynes evaluation of one work by von Hayek, another leading “Austrian Economist,” namely that it “is an extraordinary example of how, starting with a mistake, a remorseless logician can end up in bedlam.” This is only partly true as Rothbard’s account of property rights in water and air is hardly logical (although it is remorseless once we consider its impact when applied in an unequal and hierarchical society). That this nonsense is in direct opposition to the anarchist perspective on this issue should not come as a surprise any more than its incoherence. As we discuss in section F, Rothbard’s claims to being an “anarchist” are as baseless as his claim that capitalism will protect the environment.

[bloodgulchblog]

Okay. Alright. Here we fucking go again.

S2E4.

I already have one spoiler I'm completely unsurprised by, let's make it more.

I survive the LAST TIME ON HALO and my increasing desire to not be doing this right now, and am rewarded with one of this show's only endearing qualities: Vannak's ongoing animal guy personality trait. He gets to feed the pigeons for 2 seconds before the explosions start.

Cut to Perez and Jimmy Rings running through the streets while Perez yells about having to get back to her family and Jimmy yells about how they're gone, Perez! (Also sorry I'm going back to calling him Jimmy Rings because I hate having to distinguish him from actual Chief and might as well do it in the most ridiculous way possible.)

Then we immediately jump to Soren and Halsey in the funbox.

Did you know that one of my least favorite things TV shows do is cliffhanger on a situation that could've been interesting, then ~subvert your expectations~ by making it completely uninteresting and resolving nothing?

Yeah.

Gold star, no notes.

Then the power goes out.

Soren just kinda leaves because the security system's off. Bye!!!

Meanwhile again, Perez is very upset for obvious reasons and has a disagreement with Jimmy about what they should be doing. Jimmy wants to go back to FLEETCOM, while Perez wants to start warning everyone to evacuate RIGHT NOW.

Perez this isn't gonna work I'm sorry.

Anyway.

Suddenly Stealth Elite.

Sorry it's so hard to get caps of these guys, I think the sfx people don't want you to look at 'em too close.

On the bright side, Halsey leaving with Soren shows they do have a chance of unlocking the comedy duo power I believed in.

Back again.

They're really trying to speedrun some shit here.

Like, this is so close to being in character (even though it isn't quite) but the problem is that they want to have this character say so much shit when the guy they have been trying so badly to emulate doesn't open up and it feels unearned/not worked up to. The problem with trying to crack open a character like the actual Master Chief is that it requires a ton of space and focus on doing that, and this project is so full of subplots and has scrapped so much of its own first season that it has even LESS time to develop enough rapport for me to not feel like I'm being hit over the head. Like I get it, I write insane shit with Chief trying to figure out how to communicate with people after he's decided he might be okay with it, but this just doesn't work for me.

This could work, but it kinda came in from the factory pre-bungled.

Anyway.

Jimmy Rings walking around this random building they're escaping through while holding a fucking axe he found is so funny to me.

Speaking of the axe, it's apparently an antique!!! And this random building is a shop belonging to a British lady and, suddenly, we are going full WWII stiff-upper-lip blitz speech.

Fuck, hold on, I need another post for full effect-

[thesoulesscollection]

Choc Centered Incorrect Quotes

It's been a while since I've done incorrect quotes from a few cool generators and this is for fun. This is mostly Choc centered, unsurprising I know. I may make more, who knows 

Aidan & Calypso belong to @bluetorchsky (Hope you don't mind this & tagging you. I was anxious this would be ooc. These two especially the first, I feel would be closer-ish with Choc)

Tw: Implied Alcoholism, Implied Reckless Behavior 

Reginald: What is the one thing I told you not to do?

Choc: Burn the house down.

Reginald: And what did you do?

Choc: I made dinner.

Reginald:

Choc:

Reginald:

Choc: And burnt the house down.

*** 

Choc: I'm feeling it! What am I feeling? Death, probably.

*** 

Reginald: Choc has quite the talent for drama

Macbeth: You should have seen them when they were younger

*** 

Choc: My knee just cracked so loudly that I half expect it to glow in the dark tonight.

*** 

Calypso: Are you sober?

Choc: I'm moderately functional

Calypso: I’ll take that as a no

*** 

Calypso: Are you drunk?

Choc: Only in the spirit of Christmas!

Macbeth: And the spirit of whisky.

*** 

Choc: I slept for almost 12 hours but I might still be tired so let's go for 12 more just in case.

Aidan: Choc, that's a coma.

Choc: Sounds festive.

*** 

Aidan: Man, I only ever see you awake, do you ever shut down or stop running?

Choc: Oh, I’m always running

Aidan: The question is from what

*** 

Choc: Okay. I get it. You've had a really hard time lately, you're stressed out, seven people died-

Reginald: Twelve, actually.

Choc: Not the point. Look, they're dead now and really whose fault is that?

Reginald: Yours!

Choc: That's right: no one's.

*** 

Right: This is a mistake

Choc, enthusiastically: A mistake we're going to laugh about one day!

Right: But not today

Choc, still enthusiastic: Oh, no. Today's going to be a mess

*** 

Mr. Macbeth: That's not funny.

Choc: I thought it was funny.

Mr. Macbeth: You don't count. You started laughing in the middle of a funeral because you started thinking of a meme you saw on Facebook.

*** 

Choc: I’ve been sleeping so little the past few nights that when I go to the alarm app, I click on the “power nap” button. I don’t set up alarms, I set up timers, Aidan. 

*** 

Macbeth: My partner must be top of the line, graceful, organized-

Choc: Hey guys! I- *trips*

Macbeth:

Macbeth: I want that one.

*** 

Choc: We have fun, don’t we, Mac?

Macbeth, shaking: I have never been more stressed out in my entire life until now.

*** 

Macbeth: What, you wanted me to say no?

Macbeth: How can you say no to that face?

Macbeth: Look. *Holds a groggy, half awake Choc in front of them*

Macbeth: Try saying no to that face.

Choc: :)

Right, genuinely trying: …

Macbeth: That's what I thought.

*** 

Macbeth: Choc is a perfect cinnamon scone who’s never done anything wrong in their entire life!

Reginald: Never done anything wrong?! They set a city block on FIRE!

*** 

Aidan: What scares you the most?

Everyone else:

Everyone, simultaneously: Choc on caffeine.

Aidan: And Choc...?

Choc: … Me on caffeine?

***

Reginald, talking to Henry: Well Henry, whenever I’m about to do something, I think ‘would Choc do that?’ and if they would, I do not do that thing.

Henry: …

Choc, from the distance: They’re not wrong though!

*** 

Reginald: We lost Choc. Can you track them?

Macbeth: What, do you think I have them microchipped or something? 

Reginald: Well, do you?

Macbeth: Yeah, hold on.

[zombubble]

From In Memory; In Truth ch 19

Eyes on him have Wei Wuxian looking up with a start, and Ling Wen is standing there, leaning against one of her stacks. “Are you planning on spending the night?” she asks. Wei Wuxian looks around. It’s dark, the bulk of the light coming from the candelabra on the desk and his own spiritual fire, hovering above. “Can I?” he asks. She sighs. “No, that was a rhetorical question. Leave the station as-is and I’ll have it here for you tomorrow.” “I won’t even make issues! You’ve barely known I’m here, and you’ll—” “Laozu… This councilmember reminds you it is day six of your seven-day rest enforcement period.” Which means if he pushes, she’ll add days or something. Or tell Pei Ming, and he’ll probably add days, or… He sighs, setting his brush down. “Fine, fine,” he says. “I’ll be back tomorrow, then.” She nods, walking him out. “I’ve sent Taihua-dianxia a copy of your report,” she says. “He’s grateful for your hard work and has distributed it as needed to those helping keep watch. Apparently, such a thing wouldn’t be possible without you.” “I see.” “Lao-Pei told me you disliked such bureaucracy, yet it is important for us all to keep things running without you having to manage every single facet of this.” She looks at him. “Without those reports, we would be floundering in your absence. With them, we are effective and watchful. Even bureaucracy is important, at the end of the day.” “Right,” Wei Wuxian says as they approach the door. It swings open on its own and he turns to Ling Wen and bows. “Thank you,” he says, “for allowing me the use of your resources, and for your advice. Wuxian will try to keep it in mind in the future.” “Please, do,” she says. “Now, go home.” “Right.” A final nod and he’s out the door, unsurprised when it closes immediately behind him. “She sounds fun,” a voice says from behind him. He turns and sees Hua Cheng in his San Lang form, dressed in fairly plain robes. “Do people know you’re skulking around the Heavenly Realm again?” he asks. “Do I care? They can confront me if they wish.” He walks over, falling into step with Wei Wuxian as he heads back to his palace. “Gege said you needed to speak to me.”

Even as a god, Wei Wuxian doesn't have access to a 24-hour library so really, what even is the point?

I imagine he and Ling Wen get along surprisingly well, even though she, like many, finds him incredibly annoying. Unlike most people, she can hold up a document she thinks he'd like and it'll shut him up for at least ten minutes. If she's lucky. If not, she has access to plenty more.

I also think their biggest bone of contention is Wei Wuxian constantly itching to redo her organization, and her constantly having to get him to stay in his lane.

Interestingly, Ling Wen's library is the second-best resource in the three realms for guidao (and modao) and Wei Wuxian's methods of cultivation. The first-best is Wei Wuxian's private library, where he's rewritten/reconstructed his manuscripts (13 years is a long time!! He got bored!!!) and organized them.

(He was nice enough to let Ling Wen obtain copies.)

Thank you for reading!!! I'll see you next week with more.

[uroboros-if]

Im sure this has already been asked, but which RO does the mcs fathers like best? and what would be their favorite and least favorite thing about each of them?

Hi Anon! There's been a similar ask, but I feel that it is now outdated, as they've evolved in characterization in my mind!

A very long answer, as this has both their opinions on the ROs in general, and how they feel about the ROs being with the MC because I misread your ask first and answered that question instead! 💕😭

SALVATORE.

NERO generally somewhat does not like Salvatore, but that's actually quite flattering, as Nero very much dislikes most people. They treat their child nicely; it's only that he feels Salvatore is an extension of Ellera, and that is not an exaggeration. He knows Salvatore would do anything she asks, and for that, they have wildly different ideologies. Being in a relationship with them, he would be both surprised and unsurprised. Salvatore has always been kind to you, unlike the rest of the deities, but they have always been held back by the many expectations placed on them. He does not imagine Ellera would be happy with this union, and admittedly, he's not thrilled about having to share another connection with her, either. He treats them cautiously, but he is not unfriendly; rather, he is wary of what may come from this.

Likes: They've always been nice to you.

Dislikes: Ellera.

RAFAELE is on the same wavelength as Salvatore! They both have a love for mortals, and whenever they have a chance to speak, they would happily gush about them with each other. They both love to be busy, too, so they're pretty much best work friends! They're both too busy to find time to spend time together, though, and Rafaele pretty much invests all of his time and energy into you and Nero when he does find leisure time. If he finds out you're with them, he would be thrilled. He sees this as an opportunity, not only for Nero and Ellera to reconcile, but also to get MC accepted! Oh, and of course he is happy that MC is with someone who sees them just the way he sees their child. Salvatore reminds him of himself; someone who's willing to give others a chance, in spite of their reputation. They've always had such a charitable opinion of MC.

Likes: Reminds him of himself.

Dislikes: Conscious of other people's opinions, which spells trouble for MC, but this issue may have gotten better by the time you're together.

LUCIEL.

NERO enjoys a tentative friendship with them. As they are both reserved and unwilling to involve themselves too deeply with divine affairs, they have mutual respect for each other, and are probably each other's only friends. Nero does not make friends easily, and neither does Luciel, so this friendship is miraculous. If you are with Luciel, however... admittedly, he would be somewhat unhappy. He does not doubt they would make for a wonderful partner, someone who is kind and patient, but—oh, it's too weird to think of being (tentative) friends with them now! Nero has always been a proponent of giving MC freedom, but he's always been secretly protective of them, too, as one of the few people he holds dear. Now that Luciel, his friend, is taking MC from him, it almost feels like... betrayal. Who knew Luciel would be the one to take MC from him? Maybe he should have, though—you two are a natural fit for each other, working together.

Likes: Patient and gentle.

Dislikes: Traitor.

RAFAELE thinks Luciel is the nicest person ever! It's hard to find people who understand and appreciate his child, so he's happy to find an ally amid a sea of dissent. Moreover, Luciel has always put him at ease, as boisterous as he can be. It makes him happy and peaceful, almost the same way Nero can. So being in a relationship with MC is great! They already know Luciel's character, so they already trust them. Oh, and it's so sweet how they both run Lucidio together, working in harmony in a slice of heaven... he'd sigh dreamily at that. He thinks you two are practically made for each other!

Likes: A great listener!

Dislikes: Can be emotionally distant.

CIOCANA.

NERO respects Ciocana, as they are both loners and hardly like to be held down by Ellera's strict rules. They both can be quite cynical, but they are still motivated by their wishes to aid mortals. However, Ciocana thinks humans are quite interesting, while Nero thinks they are worthy of living, as all living things are—though he does not hold them in the highest regard. If only because he does not favor much at all, anyway. In a relationship with them, hypocritically, he's wary of them. Of course he is similar to them, but that is all the more reason to be suspicious of them. If Ciocana is anything like him, MC would have to dedicate a lot of emotional investment to get anything meaningful from Ciocana, and from experience... it would also be painful for MC to experience even more alienation due to their union, as he has seen for Rafaele. Rafaele has always loved socializing, and it has gotten much better with time, but being with Nero does not make forming friendships easy.

Likes: Clever, witty, and shares similar ideologies.

Dislikes: They remind him of himself.

RAFAELE would be wary. He's usually quite understanding of people like Ciocana, as someone who's in a union with a brooder like your father, but Ciocana's presence is unsettling to him. Like his husband, they possess great kindness within; of course, they are both charming and intelligent as well. Yet unlike Nero, there is... something strange about them. He's warned you against them, and now you bring them to him and Nero. He wants to be supportive and open; he knows how hard he fought to have others understand what he and Nero had. Yet it will take time to be completely comfortable with them, if only because he worries so much for you, and would not want to see you fall into the wrong hands. You are his most precious cargo, and he's unwilling to let you go to anyone less than fitting in his eyes. Once he warms up to them, he will be in full support of you.

Likes: He thinks they are kind inside.

Dislikes: He has an odd feeling about them.

ALESSI.

NERO initially does not think of Alessi, but once he knows of them throughout the course of the plot... he will think that they are doing the right thing. I'll refrain from elaborating for spoilers. As for being with them, he would be unhappy with this. Mortals are best left to their devices; mixing deities and mortals together have never worked. This comes from someone who works closely with mortals. He looks after them, but he will never go so far as to trespass on the sacred, unspoken rule that a union between mortal and deity would only lead to heartbreak and despair. Alessi is but mortal flesh and bone, and you will never die. He does not want to subject you to an eternity of loneliness, and deities are... quite stubborn, by design. They do not move on so easily.

Likes: Down-to-earth and responsible.

Dislikes: They are mortal.

RAFAELE also did not know of Alessi, but as the plot unfolds... he will think that they are doing the wrong thing. I'll refrain from elaborating for spoilers. He would be similarly unhappy as Nero. He would try to plead with you to rethink your decision! Though he often delights in reading and hearing of forbidden romances, this is not fiction for MC. The pain of being a deity is everlasting and on-going, and he does not want to add to your burdens as it is, pining for someone who you will outlast by centuries, perhaps milennias. He knows he would for Nero; he does not want this for you. Moreover, consorting with someone who wishes for the divinity to collapse is...

Likes: Super handy and cool mortal stuff.

Dislikes: They are comitting treason.

༺═──────────────

I think this is a lot more developed and polished than my previous answer for them, as I was still tentative on the character of both the ROs and fathers. Of course, this is still up for evolution—and that's so exciting! It just goes to show how far this IF has come!

Thank you so much for a lovely ask! 💕💕

[ephemeral--dreams]

burning the candle

Wataru Hibiki/Reader

Rating: G

Word count: 762

Notes: local clown comforts you

☆ ☾ ☆ ──────────────────

When he finds you, it's been about two days since you have slept. Wataru picks up on this immediately, by how dark the circles under your eyes are, how frazzled you look, the tense, tired line of your frame.

But most of all, it's the way you burst into tears when he appears with another form to pile on top of what looks to be a rather daunting stack of them already on your desk.

Ah. Well, whatever Eichi had wanted you to sign off on could wait…

"There, there… have you taken a single break today?" A careful hand reaches out to wipe away the tears. Even that much has you leaning into his touch like a creature starved for comfort and reassurance. Hm. Definitely in need of sleep. And some attention that wasn't work-related.

"I haven't had time for that. Everyone has things they need from me, and there's multiple events that need planning, and one of the other producers is out sick so I've taken his work too-"

That wouldn't do at all. Wataru frowns. It's an unusual expression on him.

(He has stood by and watched someone shatter apart from the same type of weight once before, unable to do a thing to stop it. He will not make that same mistake with you.)

"Come along," his tone is light, coaxing you following along with him. "I believe it's time you take a little rest, yes?"

"No, I… There's too much to do, I can't," even swaying on your feet, tears still in your eyes, you argue. Stubborn. But Wataru is quite used to dealing with stubborn people.

"It will be here when you return. I'll even aid you in finishing it later on, how does that sound? I will not be taking no for an answer, of course."

And he doesn't. Before you can get a single word in, he's swept you up, carrying you along far away from the office. You could struggle out of his arms if you tried hard enough, but you clearly don't want to despite your complaints about needing to work. You're not the first difficult, overworked person he's dealt with and you certainly won't be the last.

He takes you to the dorms after a brief debate with himself, placing you on the couch in his own room with a kiss to your forehead. Thankfully, his roommates were all out. No disturbances. Wataru can't imagine the noise they would make would be helpful to getting you to relax…

☆

"Drink this," he tells you, placing a cup that he's pulled from heaven-knows-where into your hands. The steam curls gently, the tea the perfect temperature as you sip at it. It's only now that you realize you'd been rather dehydrated as well… Whatever is in it seems to make you feel even sleepier. Or maybe that's the tiredness fully kicking in now that you finally have a moment to take a breath. Either way, the cup is empty and gone as quickly as it appeared soon enough.

For all his usual wild, chaotic displays, Wataru can be surprisingly calm when the situation calls for it. There's no tricks or shouting as he tends to you. As guilty as you feel for not busying yourself with work, it's… It's nice to let him pamper you.

"I don't imagine I could convince you to simply sleep for a good eight hours?"

You shake your head stubbornly. Wataru seems entirely unsurprised.

"No, of course not. Well, then," He takes a seat next to you, gaze expectant, "-you can lay here while I look over some of my own work. I need to keep an eye on you to make sure you don't disappear on me, after all, so we must remain close~"

You hesitate for a moment. This little break has already been longer than you should've taken, so you should really… Ah, but it's so tempting. And he's been so sweet with you…. So…

You allow yourself to give in, resting your head in his lap and letting your eyes fall closed as he runs a hand through your hair. He lets out a pleased little him.

You're reminded of just how exhausted you are as you lay there. Days of work and stress finally catch up to you. Your body feels heavy, your eyes even heavier. With nothing but the quiet flipping of pages as Wataru reads a script, and with what a comfortable pillow he makes, you drift off before you can think to shake yourself awake.

Above your sleeping form, Wataru smiles.

[alovelyburn]

Is griffguts popular? Does Miura knew about the shippers? Was he shocked? You always have sources

It's kind of hard to gage what is and is not popular, especially when you're talking about a community of people that mostly stay away from the main body of Berserk fandom, but here's my general experience and understanding of things.

-In the Western fandom, the vast majority of active fans have what I'd call the western standard perspective: Griffith is a sociopath who may or may not have cared about Guts but if so he still didn't care about anyone else, Guts and Casca are soulmates and he lives for her and hates Griffith, the end.

Now I say active fans because my personal experience with running into people who like Berserk in the wild has been that many of them were fans of Griffith/Guts but unwilling to engage with the fandom at all because, well, of what I just described up there. But of course this is going to vary depending on where you go. In media fandom circles, like artists and writers and such, it's more popular than with say random people on a general anime discussion board.

In more recent years, since the OVAs I guess, there has been more movement around the relationship vs. say when I was in the fandom the first time when there were active efforts to drive fans of the relationship (or even just of Griffith as a character) out of the fandom entirely.

-In the Japanese fandom, there's a much wider variety of views on Berserk in general, and I notice a lot of I guess casual acceptance of Griffith and Guts as potentially a romantic connection. Even just in random threads on 2chan or whatever or replies to news posts you'll see references to it. And if you say go to pixiv or something, or look at doujinshi or whatever, the G/G fans are by far the most active of any pairing fandom, in any case.

And when I talk about things like the casual acceptance even by people who aren't really like pairing fans as such, I'm including things like... how the OVA scriptwriter directly referred to them as having romantic feelings for each other (among other feelings). The writer probably wasn't there pumping his fist and rooting for them to get together, but it was just a thing he knew and understood about the characters. This is kind of unsurprising because Guts and Griffith do have a particular kind of relationship dynamic, and honestly particular kinds of visual design, that are often used in manga or anime to evoke homoerotic relationships. And manga and anime in general has a lot more like subtle or casual homoeroticism than say random western stories anyway.

All of that said, the main takeaway I get from Japanese fandom is that they don't talk about romance nearly as much as English fandom does, and that applies to Griffith and Guts or Guts and Casca or anyone else. Couldn't tell you why.

As for Miura, that's an interesting question. That one 30 page article from the shojo studies book that was the source of the quotes that recently hit the fandom had been partially pseudo-translated before by a fan who said Miura had said he didn't like that interpretation, but they also said they had a hard time with that line, so I've never been sure whether that's actually what he said. At the time that I was told this I was surprised (for reasons I'm about to get into), but also not surprised (for reasons I will also get into).

But the matter became more muddled when Kojion@twitter began posting translations of the same article because there was nothing in there about not liking them to be interpreted romantically... but there was one line that seemed to correlate to what the fan had said that Miura said about Griiffith and Guts (that he didn't like it and liked relationships like rivals), but like, he was talking about his taste in movies at the time? Because he said he liked movies about men's relationships, and then clarified that he meant rivalries and such. So I kind of wondered if they misunderstood the context since they were having a hard time with the line anyway. Can't be sure though, since I don't have the book itself yet.

And now, the reason I was surprised when I first heard that:

-there's literally a line in an interview about how Griffith was designed after people he knew who can't love women and focus on men (romantically or platonically) instead.

-there's also this line where he refers to Griffith as not being one to "fall in personal relationships" with Guts being the exception which like, I understand that he's not saying anything directly, but you've gotta understand the word he used for "fall" is 落っこちる, which is commonly used to mean "fall in love" (actually it is the second dictionary definition, and the first means physically fall off a roof or fail an exam, so you know).

-he spoke openly many times about his interest in gender and sexuality, stated that he felt like androgynous characters should have both male and female love interests, that most androgynous characters in manga fall in love with men, and that he felt like he had to be ready to commit to that if he was going to write an androgynous character (he was discussing the lead of Duranki to be clear. But it's interesting, if you... look at Griffith at all).

-he also listed many lgbtq stories as major influences in his creation of Berserk, including Devilman (one of his biggest influences which is extremely obvious), Guin Saga (which helped create the BL genre and which he has stated was his single biggest influence), Rose of Versailles and Kaze to Ki No Uta (which is literally a classic boylove manga).

-but mostly just because he... wrote the manga. Which I'm bringing up because there are moments that are very difficult to read nonromantically, including a panel where the BoD heavily implies that Guts is in love with Griffith.

The reason I wasn't surprised:

Because it was a 20+ year old interview and he seemed a lot less comfortable with the topic than he eventually became.

One thing I noticed during my time tracking this manga and also obsessing over Miura interviews is that the early interviews are more conservative with his influences and intentions whereas as time went on he started saying yes Berserk is a shojo and then yes, I was influenced by "Go Nagai's style" and then "yes, I was influenced by Devilman specifically."

Basically by 2019 he was out there talking about reading BL manga and such. So even if he had said it, which I'm not sure he did because of the movie thing, I would probably attribute it to not having become comfortable with the topic yet.

Anyway, did he know about it, I'm sure he did.

Was he shocked, probably not given all of the above. He's the one who chose of his own free will to modify the meaning of 渇望 (thirsting/craving) with furigana that says こがれ (crave because you're in love with) in that BoD scene.

No one told him to do it. He knew what the words meant.

[sablesides-writing-corner]

Serpent's Fangs (Pt.1)

-------------------------

There was a thick suffocating fog resting over the village of Adderborough, though this was an unsurprising development, as there had been a thick fog over the area for quite a few years now.

Roman just wished it wasn't accompanied with the frankly mind numbing cold front that sat like a burial shroud over the area.

It wasn't that he didn't like winter, but when that winter had been going on for seven years, it got a little irritating. Especially when one was a nearly twenty-five year old eligible bachelor who was quite frankly running out of options. Nobody wanted to marry in conditions like this, nobody wanted to do anything in conditions like this.

And the weather was hardly the worst of it- the woods around Adderborough were full of all sorts of nasty little creatures, creatures that had been picking off the villagers one by one, given how most of their food sources were either dying of hypothermia or hibernating.

Or, it was because the prey the creatures were looking for was distinctly human in nature.

Roman had heard tale of all manner of things living in the woods, werewolves, faefolk, kelpies, but none more prevalent than the stories of vampires lurking amongst the trees.

In fact, many members of the village were under the impression that it was a vampire lord that was responsible for the troubles that plagued them now.

Well, except Roman's brother-in-law.

Logan Duke-Prince was the husband of Roman's older brother Remus, and he was also the village's biggest skeptic.

It was ironic, Roman thought, that a man who tried to logic his way out of a completely abnormal weather event had married into a family that was so well known for their witch blood.

Logan always said it was because magic was just a less studied form of science, but Roman thought it was just his way of justifying the fact that his viewpoint made no sense.

“Roman! D'you think I could convince you to go into market? We're out of bread!” Remus called from downstairs.

“I'll be down in a minute!” Roman called back, setting his quill back in its ink pot and shoving the scripts he'd been working on into a desk drawer.

“Anything else we need?” Roman asked, securing the clasps on his messenger bag.

“Nope, just bread,” Remus replied, roughing up the hair Roman had only just managed to comb into submission.

“Right- well, I'll be back soon,” Roman said, missing the slightly dismayed look on his brother's face as he walked out the door.

The cold was absolutely biting that morning, which would've explained the lack of any children playing in the snow.

The children had been excited at first, when the snow started, Adderborough didn't get that kind of weather every winter.

But when they realized it wasn't going away any time soon, and they wouldn't be able to do their usual favorite activities, the abnormal weather had lost its spark.

“Good morning Mr. Daniels, two loaves please,” Roman said as he approached the portly old man.

“Afternoon Mister Duke-Prince, I'll have those right up for you,” Mr. Daniels replied, taking the payment Roman had set on the countertop.

Roman collected the bread loaves and situated them in the satchel, giving Mr. Daniels a short wave on his way out the door.

He picked some flowers up from the nearby florist, taking a short detour to the nearby graveyard.

“Mom, mama, I'm sorry I haven't figured out how to reverse the winter yet- I'm sorry I- I couldn't figure it out before it got to you-” Roman sat in front of two graves with iron cages overtop of the caskets, wrapping the flowers around the bars.

“I- I'll figure it out eventually- uhm- it's just- it's just a little hard right now, it's getting harder to find people in town willing to do any business with us- I think Mr. Davis might be the only one left. . .” The tears burned as they fell down his cheeks, the bitter cold reaching to freeze them to Roman's frigid skin.

“I can't stay to long today, have some stuff to get back to Remus and Logan- I uh- I haven't found a husband- yet- but- but I'm working on it! Honest!” There was a poignant pause after that, punctuated with Roman's sniffling as he tried not to produce anymore tears, the first few had already stuck to his cheeks.

“I uh- I'll come back- soon-” Roman said, standing up to leave.

Only to get knocked back down by some great sweeping thing that had evidently been coming up behind him. Roman let out a yelp as his elbow hit the iron bars on one of the graves. He looked around frantically, searching for what could've caused him to fall, and found nothing. Though he couldn't shake the feeling that he was now being watched.

A few seconds of nothing, and Roman decided it was safe to head back home.

“Roman? Are you alright, did someone hurt you in town?” Logan was situated in front of the fireplace, a book propped up in his right hand, it looked like something about the various uses of different mushrooms.

“I uh- n-no- I just- I think I ran into something when I went to visit the graveyard-” Roman said, Logan's face softened.

“Just- set the bread in the kitchen, you said you're working on a new screenplay idea right? Why don't you go upstairs and keep that up,” Logan said quietly, Roman just nodded and dropped off the loaves.

Though when he got to his room, he didn't pull his stuff back put. Instead, he dropped his body onto the soft sheets of his bed, staring up at the ceiling and searching the back of his mind for any sign of what that thing in the graveyard might have been.

[i-used-to-wear-the-fedora]

Be My Little Baby

Eddie Munson had a crush on Steve Harrington since early sophomore year. He wasn't sure why...other than the obvious reasons. By all means, he should not have liked Steve "The Hair" Harrington. The other teen was the antithesis of everything he held dear. When they were in school together, the most they ever interacted with each other was when Harrington and his buddies wanted some pot. Otherwise, he seemed completely oblivious to the metalhead's existence. So it was just a weird, unrequited crush that he could ignore most of the time. Then Chrissy Cunningham died and everything went to hell.

Turns out there was this whole other world underneath them with monsters and a crazy evil wizard that wanted to kill everyone. The only thing that stood between him and Hawkins was a psychic little girl and her preteen friends. Eddie getting dragged into the mess, and once again, running into Steve Harrington himself. Steve "The Hair" Harrington was a bad ass. Eddie remembered watching him bite the God damn head off a demobat and he'd never been more in love with anyone than at that moment. Even as he lay on the ground dying and his vision started to cloud over, Eddie could see the other teen's face before darkness finally claimed him.

Waking up had been a surprise. He came to inside a hospital room with Red in the bed opposite him and his uncle asleep on the chair next to him. They lived. Hawkins was...mostly still in one piece. There had been a small earthquake when Red's heart stopped. No one died. Not even Jason Carver. Unsurprising as he could never be so lucky. But he was alive. And still in love with Steve Harrington of all people. The other boy coming over all the time to visit him and Max with the rest of the party. Eddie barely contained himself when Steve sat on the edge of his hospital bed and rested a hand on the goth's knee.

He was almost relieved to be discharged home where he could hide away from the rest of the world. Or maybe just Steve. The other boy had literally saved his life, according to Dustin. If he didn't perform CPR, there was a good chance he might've drowned in his own blood. Could you blame someone for non-stop thinking about the guy? All that considered, what happened next shouldn't have been too much of a surprise.

It was a Saturday when Eddie woke to the sounds of distant crying. Blearily, the teen sat up and winced at the harsh sunlight that poured through his bedroom window. Glancing over at his bedside clock, Eddie saw it was seven thirty-two. Wayne was already at work. So what the hell was that noise? The teen reluctantly stood up. He winced at the pain from his still healing wounds. Making a mental note to change the bandages later as he followed the sound. Walking out to the living room, Eddie paused when he realized it was coming from just outside the front door.

Opening the door, Eddie was greeted by a small wicker basket resting at the top of the steps. In a pile of green and yellow blankets was the source of the crying. A tiny, wailing baby with curly brown hair. The kid was flailing their arms around, begging for attention.

"What the hell?" Eddie asked out loud. He looked around for who might have left the baby behind as he picked the kid up. Thankfully, the child stopped crying the instant Eddie picked them up. Struggling to properly hold the baby the way he was taught in health class. Cradling the kid's head up as he bounced the child a few times. "Hey, hey, it's okay. You don't have to cry." Who the hell left a baby on his doorstep? There was no way in hell he got a girl pregnant. And it had been almost a year since he dated a guy, so that possibility was ruled out. As his mind raced through the possibilities, he froze when he remembered an article he read a while ago.

Wish baby. They weren't common by any means. But studies showed that lately, there had been a rise in incidents of immaculate conception. One or two people wishing hard enough to have a kid of their own and poof. Baby on the doorstep. There had been some weird scientific explanation behind the phenomenon, but Eddie stopped reading the second they started using graphs. Two large brown eyes, just like his own, stared back at the young man. Their hair was a curly light brown. Not quite his shade. But if you looked at Steve Harrington....

"...shit."

[ponycycle]

Stellar Blade: Less Than The Sum Of Its Parts

Stellar Blade is a "character action game" that has some great stuff, some good stuff, some bad stuff, and some terrible stuff. The writing that follows is going to assume that you already are familiar with what it is (at least on a surface level). Also, if you somehow didn't know, this game is uh... heavily inspired by Nier: Automata. Basically a copy (not necessarily a bad thing on its own!)

Great:

-Excellent, varied cinematic soundtrack. I'm looking at a tracklist right now that has 97!!! entries on it. Flavours are all over the place in a good way - NieR, Ace Combat, Detroit(???). But** (see below) -Pretty game. I dunno if I feel like it's necessarily pushing the PS5 to its limits or not, but it does look good and they do make good use of the high resolution available (UI, composition of some scenes). -Main gameplay loop is pretty good. It's like a more involved version of the combat in FF16? It's not as deep as a Platinum game (but combat is much more complex than it was in NieR: Automata). Success in combat is satisfying. Timing felt a little weird to me sometimes, but maybe it's just because I'm old. -I did like the vast amount of collectible cosmetic items, all of which are pretty detailed and there are basically only two joke items.

Good:

-This is a simple thing, but the way Stellar Blade handles ladders is excellent: if you run into a ladder from the wrong side, Eve will simply do a little flourish and swing around to the correct side. I'm going to be thinking about this forever now any time I ever run into the back of a ladder in any other game. -Eve has a snazzy animation for activating a checkpoint that managed to not wear out for me the entire game -Fast travel is generally pretty snappy inside of a zone. Going between zones is a little clunky, and warping around zones without an overworld map can be confusing, but considering how many game fumble fast travel still today I'm willing to call this a good one. -The way the game will let you optionally warp directly to a quest giver to hand in a quest is nice -Enemy designs are all good. All visually distinct, yet they all feel related

Bad:

-Suffers a little bit from FF16's problem of excessive sidequests, except in this game there's even less things to spend regular money on (the most common quest reward). -The gun is clunky and not very useful in normal combat. It feels like they put in a lot of work just getting it to where it already is, but it still doesn't flow very well with regular attacks. Why does it break target lock??? -As good as ladders are, ropes are kinda bad, ESPECIALLY trying to grab one to descend. -There are a couple of Tomb Raider/Uncharted run sequences and they are all bad. -This game did not need TWO desert zones!!! One was enough! -There is also a skateboarding sequence that is really bad. If they just yanked it entirely the game would be better for it.

Terrible: -So I'm not going to be the first person to say that the writing in Stellar Blade is bad, but... it's usually presented that it has a bad "story", and that doesn't cover how big the problem is. Horizon Zero Dawn is a game with a great story but only a couple of good characters. Nier: Automata is a game with a plot that is arguably kinda stupid but with GOOD characters that you give a shit about. Stellar Blade is a game with an unsurprising plot that doesn't have a single character in it that I give a shit about. Not a single one!!! And there's SO MUCH TALKING being done by these people I don't care about, about things I don't care about. And the writing is weird! You can't get through one conversation without getting whiplash from non-sequiturs. The writing is easily both the single worst part of this game and the DEFINING characteristic of it. -**The bad writing unfortunately means that most of the time, the soundtrack is wasted. Nothing is emotionally connecting because there are no emotions to connect to. It's trying so very hard to carry the game the whole way from start to finish, but it can't. It's impossible. -Also related to the bad writing: there are so many delayed UI interactions in this game!!! What the fuck!!! If you die in the game, a respawn prompt will appear but remains uninteractable for a good second or two. You can mash through some dialogue (thank GOD) but only after the first two seconds of each line comes out. There is no visual distinction between skippable and unskippable dialogue. When a cutscene ends, or there is a transition between non-combat animations, Eve has to stand there stupidly a second or two before she starts responding to player inputs. If you want to buy something at a shop, you have to mash through inane dialogue first, EVERY TIME, then you get the OPTION to open the shop menu. -There are unskippable cutscenes. I probably changed the shape of my PS5 controller trying to futilely skip through many cutscenes on NG+. I was not surprised at all to see by the end of the game that the credits themselves were unskippable (you can SLIGHTLY speed them up) -There is a sequence where you're supposed to run from cover to cover while turrets are firing at you that I very quickly gave up on. If you turn the game difficulty to easy for that sequence, you can just run through in one shot. Would highly recommend you do the same.

So would I call Stellar Blade a good game or a bad game? I don't know. It's a finished game - there are no signs of rushed development visible to me here. This is the game they wanted to make. I bought it on physical media, so I could sell it off if I wanted to. I don't think I do though.

Hey you know what? Here is a good video review by Sphere Hunter you should probably watch if you haven't yet:

[goldenfreddys]

september ‘04, cont.— ndn summer, babe!

A batch of frybread didn't take much: just flour, oil, water and a little bit of baking powder. Simple, easy, difficult to mess up. Most vitally, Nadia liked it. She liked it when she was sad, when she was sick, and even when she seemed to have lost her appetite completely.

Jeremy had one of his mixtapes playing quietly from an old stereo on the counter as he cooked. The dough had been largely trial and error, given measuring spoons weren't exactly on the top of the priority list when it came to getting stuff for their apartment, but it looked good nonetheless.

He flinched hard as a sudden knock came on the door. The puck of dough he was holding hit the oil with a tad too much force, sending small, hot droplets onto his hands.

Jeremy swore quietly and rushed to run some cold tap water over his skin. Another string of knocks.

“Can y'all hold your horses for a minute?!”

He heard a muffled apology from outside. After a couple seconds, he turned off the tap and dried his hands. He twisted the knob on the stove to low heat then headed over to open the door.

Two people stood outside.

“Hey, cousin!” The girl with straight brown hair and long, beaded tassel earrings greeted him.

Jeremy started quickly adding up her features in his head.

“... Chantelle?”

“And Tate. We brought food.” Her older brother added, holding out a foil covered dish.

Both of them were taller than Jeremy remembered, though that was unsurprising given how long ago he last saw them in person. He vaguely remembered spending a summer—maybe sophomore year—with his uncle and cousins, helping them work the trapline. The mosquitos were thick as a veil that year.

Jeremy let them in, then went back to the stove to finish cooking the frybread, nodding along as Chantelle chattered.

“So where are you workin’ now, Remy?”

“Stuck doing graveyard shifts as a security guard.” he said, far more focused on trying to flip the frybread with a fork against the side of the pan without splashing more oil on himself.

“She asked where.” Tate interjected flatly.

The dough sizzled. He managed to get the bottom side perfectly fried, which was a rare feat to accomplish on the first piece— usually, you had to poke around a bit with the stove temperature and cooking time as you went.

“Sorry, uh... One sec.”

Jeremy grabbed a paper plate from the cupboard and put it down by the stove before continuing hesitantly, “... The new pizza place.”

“Freddy’s? Say sike,” Chantelle groaned.

“I told you not to go promising auntie we’d look out for his dumb ass. Doomed from the start.”

“My bad. I assumed most people wouldn't wanna work at the murder arcade.”

Though Chantelle was flippant about it, the way she spoke had a weight to it that surpassed the mere superstition that had surrounded the pizzeria for years. He felt like he might have missed a community notice from the municipality reminding him that the animatronics at the local Freddy’s Pizza, for reasons unknown, become lethally aggressive at night.

Jeremy sighed, “It- uh, gets worse. I’m only making 6.75 an hour, too.”

“My friend’s brother worked there for a while. They haven’t seen him in weeks, but someone found his car in the lake a few days ago.” Chantelle stated, “Not like the cops are gonna do anything, though. They’re fuckin’ allergic to the place.”

“I know. It’s temporary.”

“That’s what everyone says! Then they get killed or get real fucked up, like that Afton guy.”

“Said I know.” Jeremy repeated, though it came out much harsher than he wanted, “... Sorry. I-I just gotta make rent until I hear back from somewhere else, okay?”

He piled hot frybread onto the paper plate and set it down on the beat-up dinner table Nadia had snagged off the side of the road. The room was in desperate need of a subject change.

“You gonna tell me what you brought?”

“Rabbit roast. Dad cut off the head so you wouldn't act like a baby about it.” Tate nudged him teasingly.

“Tell him I said thanks.”

Jeremy felt deep in his gut that this was going to be a phenomenal mistake; though, in his head, he felt a fresh wave of nauseating pain shooting through his temples.

Eventually, his cousins went on their way. Jeremy switched the stereo off, then sighed.

Though he’d spent the duration of their visit waiting for them to leave, a feeling of dread began to pool in his chest. Dimly, thick-fingered beams of light reached through the partially drawn blinds above the sink.

He forced himself to step away from the counter. The pills Dr. Miller gave him were still in his bag, which was on a chair by the door. He took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then exhaled. The bottle was orange with a child resistant cap—fairly standard affair—though entirely unlabelled. No instructions on dosage, nor how and when to take them. Hesitantly, he opened the bottle and took one of the round tablets out. Light purple, round, no imprint number, scored on one side.

The taste of coppery tap water lingered in his mouth with something oddly sweet after he swallowed the tablet.