#what's weird is I'm actually doing better than at any previous job

[the-most-adorkable-smile]

It's WILD trying to explain to neurotypical ppl how neurodivergence affects me at work

Like

I've had meetings with my manager about why work stresses me out, and I just tell them I don't know because I legitimately don't. I... have no idea why work fucks me up but it does. My two thoughts are:

1) Too many people hnnnng

2) Too much thing hnnng

And they're trying to figure out how they can help me and asking me what I need, and I'm just 🤷‍♂️ idk what to tell you. I just need a break

Like, maybe going 💯 every weekday for two months straight is not a strategy for a healthy workforce?

[popculturebuffet]

Valentine's Comic Wedding Special IV: Archie''s Revenge: Bunnie and Antoine

Happy Valentine's Day all you Happy People! So for those new to this proud tradition, I love a good wedding episode, issue, what have you and so for the past 3 years i've had my patreons each pick one from the massive pile there is in comics, many of which I haven't read, and then you fine folks vote on the winner. In previous years it's been oops all superheroes, but this year I added a few non superhero weddings to the list my patreons, and yours truly could pick from. And this one, like last years Wally and Linda Wedding, was a landslide.

Yes by an overwhelming margin, WeirdKev's pick of Antoine and Bunnie won. It's honestly nice as it not only shows how strong the love for the Archie Sonic comics still is after nearly a decade out of print, beating out marvel, dc and the other archie option. On the bright side archie at least got a sponsorship deal on the wedding

I was pleased with these results: Antoine and Bunnie are some of archie's best characters and some of the main reasons i'm mad Sega won't let anyone what use them because their bitter lemons.

While the happy couple may not be superheroes they do have a history as vast, rich, weird and often exausting as them. Sonic's ongoing lasted for 24 years so it had plenty of time to build up as much continuity, good and chunky, as possible. A few years back I read through EVERY issue of Archie Sonic. It was.. truly exausting for reasons that will become clear as I dive into these two's history, but ultimately worth it. So join me for a deep dive into these two and their nuptials under the cut.

For starters Bunnie and Antoine actually debuted in SATAM, one of two sonic cartoons at the time each taking a diffrent approach. It's sister series Adventures was a wacky looney tunes style series where Sonic foiled Robotnik's wacky schemes and robotnik posed naked or near naked a few times, one of which my friend Mars proudly owns a cell of.

SATAM on the other hand took this shit seriously and took a turn that worked far better than it had any right: In the world of SATAM Robotnik isn't a goofy guy in various contraptions, but a cruel horrifying dictator voiced deftly by Jim Cummings. He still does schemes of the week at times, but instead of stuffing animals into cartoony robots he horrifyingly turns furries into milndless roboticized slaves. The only line between him and total world Domination are the freedom fighters, Sonic and his amazing friends who do daring raids on Robotnik's nightmare city of Robotropolis.

The Freedom Fighters exist because back then sonic's supporting cast was .. just Tails. There were sketches of characters, but with CD and Knuckles only on the horizon, early stuff had to get creative. Hence the freedom fighters: Leader, stratigest supreme, love intrest and princess Sally Acorn, Rotor the tech savy walrus (Tails hadn't picked up that trade yet), and of course Antoine and Bunnie. Bunnie was the muscle of the team, a rabbit who'd been partially roboticized but could use her cursed gift to help others. She wasn't in the show as much as she should've been but was well loved.

Antoine was more prominent.. and also an obnoxious asshat. Antoine was a self important twit who while deftly voiced by Rob Paulsen, pritoitsed trying to get into Sally's non existant pants over their life or death struggles and constantly resented sonic for having her affections and being cooler and actually doing his job. Antoine seemed to be only on the team because shut up. He was a coward, and while it's okay to have fear given the odds their against, he seemed really not cut out for this and given they had a villiage base, should've stayed there. Tails was protrayed as a tagalong kid here but he should've easily taken Antoine's spot as despite being greener, he had far more pasion and bravery than his older counterpart.

So while SATAM and Adventures were in development Archie Comics, they of the never ending love triangle that should really just be a polycule now, came a knockin. They TRIED to get the rights for adventures but instead got SATAM.. and being archie proceded to make a comic that had the premise of SATAM but stuck to their comedy wheelhouse. The comics would evolve past this as they went, largely thanks to MIcheal Gallagher (Who was still good with sticking in gags) and well.. Ken Penders

Who slowly grew to suck , but that's a story for another time.

Back on point the cast was transplanted as was. Antoine fit better here as being the douchey comedic foil works better in a comedy. He still had exactly no shot with Sally. For a while though he mostly stuck around as panicky comic relief and didn't really change much from SATAM, the only big change being he was less obnoxious... apart from his prosecuting sonic for treason, which he turned out to be innocent of. Again story for another time.

Bunnie however got fleshed out a bit. For starters she got a proper origin story, as rather than be with the team from day one with the initial mini or ongoing, she joined in issue 3. Sonic and Rotor got word of use of a portable robtocizer, via Rotor's Little Mermaid Camera, yes really, and found a rabbit farmer being captured by swat bots. Calling them a yankee did nothing and she was chucked in

Exausted for obvious reasons, Sonic ran Bunnie back, not carring if robotnik tracked them: saving someone in distress was more important. Sally agreed and Bunnie joined the team, proving to be an instant asset and the series break out star. While most of the focus was still on Sonic , as you'd expect, Bunnie got a consderable number of backup features. She never got a mini series like Tails and Sally, weirdly enough, but she still got more than enough spotlight to flesh her out and add a new dimension: While her robotic limbs made her super poewrful.. they felt like a curse. She wanted badly to be herself again and even had a nightmare one issue where robotnik hacked her cybernetics to slowly reoboticize her. It was the cornerstone of her character. And if you thinka southern accented hard hitting southren belle who has a tragic condition sounds familiar... your right. Bunnie was made more like Rogue from the x-men with time, even getting a leather jacket in the strips later years.. also a neat cowboy hat.

As the comic went on more twists turned, things got more serious, and as things escalated. And with all this Antoine's jealously MOSTLY disappeared, replaced as Sonic's rivarly by prized asshole and 19 year old Geoffery St John, because 19 was okay for a 15 year old back then as far as fiction was concerned.

Geoffery fucking hated sonic, partly out of jealously and partly because Sonic never gave the prick respect, constantly calling the freedom fighters "Ameturs" as he'd been fighting robotnik longer.. despite them having way more success. If he sounds punchable your extremley correct.. and it's someone acting on that that lead to Antoine's finest moment. After close to 50 issues, he got some character development when the freedom fighters, their allies the wolf pack and Geoffry all had a tense camp out.

Also present was Uncle Chuck, sonic's uncle who had been roboticized but got freed of it earlier in the comic and had since served as their spy on their inside, a kingsman who might let some things slide. Geoffery being nature's biggest dickhead, wasn't convinced Chuck was on the up and up, and figured he was a traitor. Sonic understandably popped the arrogant prick and certified pedophile one, and Geoffery less understandably prepared to kill sonic... till a hero emerged

Not only does Twan stand up to the asshole but he points out his DAD founded the underground Geoffery leads and accuses him of being a traitor. Sadly the skunk isn't but the issue does flesh out Twan considerably. He's revealed to be the son of King Acorn's most loyal soldier, wearing his father's uniform in his honor and actually starting as a hero, having apparnetly saved bunnie in backstory, a retcon I don't hate. His decline is blamed on his crush on Sally: his loyalty turned to love she never reciprocated and the depression over it broke him a little. But clearly seeing his dad's legacy coopted by this prized asshole relit his fire and from here on Antoine is a certified badass and master swordsman and all the better for it.

He's also no longer alone

It's not super sudden either: an earlierr backup had her protecting him when he did a solo missoin, showing off both his growing bravery and hinting at her crush on him. With this the two became a solid couple, the war soon ended and the comic... forgot about them.

The comic largely forgot about Bunnie, Antoine and also Rotor during it's post-robotnik era. Sally's father tried to get her to marry Antoine or give up her crown, yes really he was a right asshole, but when it came to the main plot the two were largely left out. It's a mixed bag: on the one hand seeing two of the series best characters benched, especially since Antoine had just hit his stride as one, is depressing. I didn't realize till writing this review just how little they did between robotnik's fall and the time skip. Their still on the team but Sonic, Sally and to a lesser extent Tails get all the focus.

There were two big developments: We found out what happened to Antoine's father Armand.. he became the evil high shierf while roboticized, terorizing Mercia, a small forest villiage protected by Rob O Hedge, amy's cousin. All stuff I didn't make up. They eventually got him back and eventually his mind was restored like all other robians.

The other was a bit more distressing: in a side story Bunnie found out her cybernetics were no longer working with her nervous system and had a choice: undergo upgrades, or die. She choose, with Antoine's support and love to go through with it. She'd never be free of her limbs, but she accepted them.

This also meant when some random ass aliens deroboticized almost everyone, Bunnie couldn't be, but it's something she accepted.

So yeah not much happened for the two. They were happy, they were stuck playing support in various nonsense overcomplicated plot lines I thankfully don't have to get into, things were good.

Sadly there IS a nonsense overcomplicated plot line I do have to get into. So Mobius what got invaded by starfish aliens and sonic seemingly died but instead spent what felt like a few months but ended up being a year to everyone else making his way back across the galaxy. This lead to a time skip. Which would be a great idea, I love a good time skip and after years of the status quo being kind of wobbly we were back to Eggman having the upper hand and our heroes on the backfoot, which could be seen as regressive but honestly worked.

The problem is most of Boller's other ideas.. didn't. He decided to shake up the main couples and had antoine don an eyepatch and break up with Bunnie, while Sally broke up with sonic because he woudln't stop fighting which she screamed at him for and slapped him.. despite the war being at it's worst again and badly NEEDING him and part of the deep shit they were in was due to his absence. It felt horribly selfish and out of character. Sally was the general for the rebellion previously. She knows the sacrifices needed. Sonic isn't doing this for the thrills like she thinks but because people need him and like a true hero he can't let good people get hurt.

This felt like an excuse to get Sonic and Bunnie which while sadly brief.. actually kinda worked. The two had chemistry before, it created tension and we could eventually find out WHY Antoine broke up with Bunnie. Instead this lasted maybe a second, and instead Bunnie ended up making out with Scourge, sonic's evil alternate universe counterpart who at the time looked just like him. If this sounds fucking gross it was. He made out with a bunch of people while pretending to be sonic. It's gross as it sounds and somehow gets more fucked up as he ended up kissing supporting character fiona fox.. who then started going out with sonic. Whose best friend tails had a crush on her and...

Eventually the comic imploded: Bollers left having trouble working for Ken Penders and Penders was fired for being impossible to work with and kinda nuts.

On his way out though he DID clear up the Bunnie and Antoine thing. And shockingly for Late Stage Ken Penders.. it was suprisingly simple. Antoine had been replaced by his Anti-Counterpart from the same evil universe as Scourge, who wanted the crown and started poisioning people: He poisned antoine's dad then poisoned Sally's dad so he could trick her into marrying him. Thankfulyl Antoine's dad had figured it out, Sonic stopped the wedding and got the real antoine back.

Thankfully after Ken and Karl... came Ian. Ian Flynn, as mentioned is a massive sonic fan, and already loving archie took a similar approach to superhero writers of the time: fix the mess he'd been left with while reminding people whyt hey loved these comics. He spent the first year largely playing clean up, tying up the various tangling threads left by the previous teams. He ended Sonic and Fiona with the whole "She was actually hot for Scourge thing", turned Scourge into scourge in the first place going from a greaser sonic to a real true evil counterpart, refocusing sally's character, and brought tails parents back from space. All mostly done by just.. writing a story around it instead of trying to hastily retcon all the stupid shit.

Naturally that ship writing included Antoine and Bunnie, who were back to being prominent and got a subplot leading to their nuptials. It was a small one and moved fast, but it was nice to give them something, and lead to a full honeymoon arc I already covered some time back . It also implied as hard as an all ages comic could they what did sex to each other

Which let's be fair here: their both hot , their both 18 and over respectively, why not? He knows the fanbase. Their both smokeshows. Let bunnie use those special attachments while Antoine shows off his swordplay. Before we get to the consumation of the marriage we had the marriage itself. The buildup started with a tragedy: Due to all the evil doppleganger shit, Armand died. The story is deeply touching, and seems to be pulled from Flynn's own pain as he dedicated it to his late mother. Armand tells his son how proud he is, not to be ashsamed or blame himself, and to hold onto bunnie. It's a truly wonderful story and a good way to send off the character.

This feels like the big push towards it... though earlier in the story he was already considering it before sonic told him to go to his father. The final push comes after Fiona's betrayal: with a bunch of their enemies loose, one of their own having betrayed them, and things getting more and more dire Antoine decides to do something about it..

After some talking with Sally, who put the two on a mission right away but really just wanted a chance ot talk with Bunnie and apologize for being so distant, the wedding is soon on the issue after the proposal. After all the whole reason he proposed was they don't know how much time they have left. Why wait?

So we've finally come to the actual wedding. Sonic is getting tuxed up in his house, happy to go STAGGGGG after the whole fiona debacle, and heading off to in his words "Go bug the groom". Never change man, never change.

Sonic is going with Tails, who isn't living with his surrogate brother as his parents, as I will never get tired of saying, came back from outer space something the little guy is overjoyed about. He actually likes thier fussing over him like Sonic's Mom does asking him not to run in his nice suit. Maam that's his thing and he has two genuises in his friend group and one for an uncle. If none of them could make fabric that won't roll around at the speed of sound that's on them.

Tails isn't all smiles though as he's still going through some stuff.

Now Fiona and Tails.. is a pretty sad tale all things considered. He fell in love with a robot copy of her.. but that copy was the same age as him. Tails is ten, fiona is 16 and never remotely took his crush seriously, brushing it off when he finds out about her and sonic and when betraying everybody, making sure to hit the poor kid in the face. This is also nice build up for later: Sonic just kinda brushes it off.. and that's part of the problem as Tails is still understandably feeling betrayed his big brother went out with his crush, and this all boils over soon in the excellent house of cards arc. Rather than just milk shit for drama, Ian milks shit for drama.. but couches it in the characters. Sonic SEEMS uncaring because he's laid back and chill and dosen't realize how hurt his friend is or how much tails has grown.

So they go to someone's basement where the Chaotix are trying to help Antoine's nerves.

Why Rotor is absent I have no clue. The Chaotix in this continuity were Knuckles best friends, allies and squad, all coming from angel island themselves.

It is kinda nice vector is trying to help as he's a bit of a playboy in these comics, while Charmy is indeed married. Or at least engaged. It also makes his words here tragic as after this he suffers severe brain damage to put him in line with his child counterpart from heroes.

Espio is absent as he's on a mission, sneaking into the Eggman Empire to find out what he's up to. We'll cut back and forth to him all issue and it's a ncie contrast: the truly happy day at the wedding with everyone in good spirits and reflecting on their own romantic troubles.... while Espio uncovers a terrifying secret: Eggman is gearing up for a massive assault complete with fresh body armor and easily incapacitates him. As our heroes have one of the best days of their lives.. one of the darkest is coming. Again though..

It's one I really want to cove ras the fight between Eggman and Sonic next issue is fucking brutal. Truly fantastic. I honestly might need to cover ian's run after giant days. May have to find someone to sponsor it.

For now though Sonic's bored and goes to the bride to bug them instead. Rosie, Sally's old baby sitter and mother figure while her mom was in a coma tube, decides to use another rose to deal with this

It's a fucking great gag. And yeah Amy at this point is still in her obessive fangirl mode. She's also 12, her body just got what aged up to a teenager. I ship her more with Tails for that reason and because it's always been a ship in my back pocket. NOt against Sonamy mind now she's stopped making stalker rooms or trying to force him into marriage, it just does not work in this continuity. She's too young and he's interested in someone else.

We get some really sweet interactions here as Sally brings up how in her first apperance Bunnie wanted to be her hair stylist. And she will be... it's just now as a side thing for her friend inbetween time with her husband and beating up badniks. They even have a giggle when Rosie and Bunnie tease Sally about Sonic. Sally, like her ex, is happy riding solo for now. Sure hope she dosen't get turned into a robot before anything happens and dosen't get freed because of rights issues> That'd really suck.

It's time for the Wedding as Sonic arrives with Knuckles and runs into Knuckles girlfriend, soulmate and sonic character I dearly miss Julie Su. Julie is a had scrable former soldier and that's why he loves her. She also hates formal wear and how she looks in it, though knuckles he er.. tries to make her feel better

I love this scene, the little banter and the fact neither really want or need to get married. It's neat for a sonic comic of all things to have such a progressive stance for it's time. It's also understandable from a character perspective; both are highly indepent and both's parents had... less than stellar marriages. Knuckles parents divorced while he thought they were dead, with his mom remarying and having another son Kneecaps, and Julie Su's birth parents abandoned her. Her foster parents are doing fine but I get maybe not wanting to get married with all that baggage.. or you know just because you don't want to.

So sonic arrives to meet the royal family. Max, the asshole I mentioned whose left in a wheel chair after the poison, his wife Alicia, and sally's long lost brother I mentiond Elias. I joked about that but while his introduction is needlessly convoluted Elias is a fascinating character and Ian will use him well. He never WANTED the crown, and in fact ran away, finding his wife Megan and soon marrying her and adopting her daughter. He only returned when the kingdom needed him to lead as things got worse with Max, but does a stellar job. He later gets to run my faviorite incarnation of the freedom fighters, the secret freedom fighters.

Despite all the lingering tension... Sonic and Sally still fall back into their old routines.. and the spark is still there.. even if both are.. not exactly ready to reignite it.

We get some omnious setup for a future arc as Tails dad Amedeaus talks about how it's an honor to serve Elias.. and then behind his back admits he soon won't have much more power anyway. This leads to the whole house of cards arc. Seriously while this issue is good it is very hard to talk about a single piece of Ian Flynn's sonic. Like Chris CLaremon'ts x-men it's really one big ongoing story nicely chonked up into arcs and what not.

And so the two are married in a touching ceremony as Espio nearly dies overlaid with it. And we end on.. er Eggman preparing to kill a whole lotta people. See what I mean?

This issue is decent. The sentiment is nice, the sally and bunnie scene are nice and I really do like the contrast between this very happy day.. and the impending doom awaiting our heroes. It's a solid issue with some good moments... but on re-read it's not nearly as good as it was the first time. On Re-Read I noticed just how.. little Antoine and Bunnie play into their own wedding issue: we get a really nice moment of Bunnie and sally.. but Antoine dosen't get anything like that with Sonic, just him being really sweaty while Vector and Charmy of all people try to calm him down. I get their not as close but you could still pull on their long rivarly and it was clear fromt he previous issue just how much Antoine had grown. Instead most of the focus is on Sonic's love tornado, tails depression and setup for later. The setup is damn good.. but it feels like this could've been two issues instead of one but Ian wanted to continue the tradition, upheld to this day, of every 25th issue of sonic being a big deal. A huge story turning point. The resulting story feels great but it rushes the wedding out as a result. There isn't reflection on how they got here, not enough hyjinks.. it just happens really fast and it's over and time for the horror show to start. It's easier to notice in isolation as before i'ts sandwitched betwene Fiona's brutal betryal and the big wham episode that's the next arc.

Thankfully the two would get more spotlight in a tails adventure adaptation of all things, because Ian unlike the writers before him gave a shit about these games and noticed they missed one. The marriage would mostly just be really happy and the two would get used more often.. until tragedy struck and Bunnie was deroboticzed while Antoine was left in a coma, both not resolved as Ken Penders and rights issues meant a reboot came.

Thankfully in the reboot both got plenty of stories, stayed married, and reflected on things, ending the second continuity happy. And we have fan comics to pick up the slack elsewhere. Still this was a nice milestone and with Sega being anti-relationship, I don't see the lemur and wolf wedding we all want and deserve coming anytime soon, so this may be the last sonic wedding. I mean there was that one in Sonic 2 but I don't think traps to catch our heroes count... I mean for these polls they do but we won't be doing that one. Thanks for reading , have a happy valentin'es day and remember, i'm pullin for you, we're all in this together and if you liked this consider checking out the Giant Days retrospective I did yesterday.

[notomys-mordax-blog]

I've let my thoughts marinate for a while after finishing up Dragon Age Veilguard. In the spirit of contributing to a fandom that I love, I'm going to be shouting my general thoughts about the game into the void instead of having the decency to keep them in my head.

TLDR: it's complicated. Better than expected, but still pretty flawed.

Things I liked:

I was initially pretty meh on the toonier direction they took the character art in. It felt like ... knock-off overwatch. However the style really grew on me as I played the game and I found that the character models were really expressive in a fun way.

The environment design was really colorful and fun! One of my biggest critiques of DA:O was how ... brown and ugly the game was. While I think it was probably the right artistic choice to remove the hilariously over the top post-combat blood splatter effects, I do miss it. This game had some really interesting visual design.

Watching Solas's worst memories like episodes of Real Housewives with the crew.

The combat was also more fun than expected. I definitely prefer tactical combat in games, and don't generally enjoy action games, but I had fun with it and felt like it struck (for me) the right balance between difficulty and frustration.

There were some really interesting and subtle things in some of the writing (especially when combined with character expressions). There were little characterization details that I thought were really well done (for example: the fact that Lucanis was obviously the most rattled at weisshaupt) . The prison of regret was a high point in the series.

I really liked a lot of the big lore reveals.

It was fun seeing some of the environments that we've only heard about. in the previous games.

I actually really enjoyed how direct Taash's gender adventure was. There was no room for "well actually, they aren't non-binary, they are this unique fantasy term that isn't actually queer". I also enjoyed how it acted as a vehicle for the other gnc characters in the story to have their moments. Bonus points for also having non-binary characters doing something other than gender with their lives.

The game was functional, complete and ran well on launch! I had to put down BG3 for like two months because it was unplayably buggy when I picked it up, and the ending of DA:I really doesn't have any impact without Tresspasser, which came out much later.

Things I didn't like:

The writing was very uneven and pretty awkward at times. The number of times the phrases "Gods, Rituals and Artifacts" were uttered by different characters, often without any further explanation, really made me itchy. It was really weird to me why the characters kept calling the Evanuris Gods (especially with a non-elven Rook). I also wanted to grab Neve by the shoulders and shake her whenever she talked about the venatori doing a ritual. WHAT KIND OF RITUAL? GIVE ME SOME JUICY LORE TIDBITS BEFORE I CHEW MY ARM OFF.

The venatori and the antaam were straight out of Saturday cartoon villains. Their motivation also made absolutely no sense from a world-building point of view (maybe if they leaned more into the fact that the elven gods were also the Tevinter old gods ...?). This whole conflict really felt ... underbaked.

I can respect the game design choice to want the player to be completely heroic, and frankly -- given that most people don't pick the "evil" path, it makes sense to devote more effort in creating permutations of the good path ... but I do feel like they really could have pushed the themes of "as a leader, sometimes you won't have any good choices" a little bit harder (idk -- I think it would have been interesting if instead of the blight dragon, you would have to chose whether or not you'd ally yourself with the venatori and leave Treviso to the Antaam or vice versa).

DA:I does a good job convincing me that Inky is creating complicated alliances between different powerful factions. DA:V falls flat in this regard. I think they were aiming for the different factions to feel small and scrappy, but with the exception of the Shadow Dragons (and maybe the Lords) ... the Wardens, the Mourn Watch, and the Crows are major political forces ... which feel weirdly small.

All of the companions were pretty ... unobjectionable and straightforward heroes. As someone who personally loved the dynamic between Anders and Fenris in DA:2, I was pretty disappointed by the lack of inter-party conflict. Serious cultural conflicts between characters such as Emmrich and Tassh were resolved .... without much fuss. I didn't feel like any of the conversations about the fact that Lucanis kills people for money had any teeth.

In that vein, I felt like the worldbuilding was also pretty defanged. Topics of racism and religious oppression were very prominent in earlier games. I think it's pretty obvious why having an oppressed racial minorities gods being the main villain would be a bad look. Heck, I can also understand and respect these themes being less fun for the writers to explore in the hellhole that is 2025, but I think this could have been handled in a more elegant way. Instead it felt weird and hand-wavy.

The crows really must've hired a PR team after that whole incident with Zev. My headcanons really had to do some heavy lifting.

We finally get to see Minrathous, the biggest magical city in Thedas ... and the area we explore is just a generic fantasy fishing town? We see the cool floating canons in the intro sequence! Give us more of those.

The game was inconsistent about incorporating bits of Rook's origins into the dialog. For example, the seer in Rivain explaining their relationship with spirits felt really weird with a Lord of Fortune Rook. Another (minor) example, Mourn Watch Rook eats the fish, it would have been neat to have the option for him to be vegetarian (given that this is common in Nevarra).

Romance is my favorite part of dragon age, and I felt like all of the romances were very ... paint by numbers.

Dreadwolf would have been a much better name.

Some of the comments from people involved in the game (specifically the AMA -- but also the whole "this is the most romantic dragon age game ever") had a weird vibe.

Where are Solas's agents? What happened to them?!

We were not betrayed by any of our apostate companions, 0/10 this is an important aspect of any dragon age game.

Rook felt like the boss that nobody wanted to invite to do anything fun. The companions seemed like they had a lot of dynamic with each other, but they never really directly spoke with Rook. It was weird how you couldn't talk to them. You had to awkwardly listen in on their conversations. Pretty much all of the companions have more chemistry with each other than Rook.

I have more thoughts about specific characters and plot points that I may share later, but I needed to expunge this from my mind like an exorcism.

[gogodollie]

Which of the first 3 Emeritus brothers did Sister get along with most/least and why

personally, i think that secondo was sister's favorite for some time. it's not that they exactly get along, she's never tried the buddy-buddy thing with any of nihil's kids because she just doesn't care enough about them outside of work (and also none of them were her special baby copia so that's that). secondo has always come across as the most devout brother to me and i think sister just really fucks with that for obvious reasons. because she's surrounded by losers and clings onto what she can get. it sucks that there wasn't really any videos involving sister during that era because it would've been really cool to see her actually interact with him but whatever🙄🙄 sister doesn't fuck with the obnoxious amount of sex and partying and drugs and gambling that he falls into but she has that beef with every papa because that's just like. part of the job. being a complete and utter tool. so she gets all cold and bitchy to him about it but other than that she does appreciate his work even if he's kind of a dick. also he's kind of old lady (peep the papaganda bedroom) so maybe they play poker online together in their spare time. they don't Like each other but they can stand each other and that's a lot for both of them.

and who she gets along with least? i hate to fall into the anti-imperator fanon but i mean terzo's ass WAS dragged off stage and then later beheaded so i mean it kinda makes sense if there was some lingering resentment there that led to that😭 i think there's a decent deal of similarity there that both of them just. hate. it's literally like when you realize you're into the same shit your mom is except your mom isn't your mom, it's your dad's ex wife/current girlfriend who is also your boss. not really awesome tbh. also there's the whole grammy thing which was cool at first but then she locked in and realized it was kinda bs

i'm just adding primo here too because why not. i think sister appreciates the violent aspect that primo brings. in my beautiful fanon world i built back when i first got into ghost, i had this weird thing about primo being the one that just Knew what sister was up to and who copia actually was and he never does anything with that information because he just doesn't care enough to do anything. but also it's a lingering threat and it makes sister tweak out. i don't really have solid thoughts on primo Now even though i no longer believe the previous hc but i mean the spirit is there. they're in an eternal dick measuring contest about who's better at worshipping satan so naturally that causes a rift

also like @sacred-coffin wrote an awesome fic about the brothers and i think that primo's interactions with sister are just sooooo on point lmao he just does not really fw her even if they're both evil and love murder and violence and satan😭

[greyplainsttrpg]

5e Villain Arc 8

Hey, it's been a while. I was really depressed and broke for a while, and now I am less depressed and in process of being less broke.

Unlike many people who manifest their depression into anger, my anger is the righteous authority of my positive outlook on life. The happier I am, the angrier I am. Happy, at least on a scale of of "uwu sad boi" and "maybe I am not a complete failure." Basically when I'm not a sad boi, I remember that, "you know what, I WAS right all along, I was just too sad to notice it." That's why I then get angry because I feel that my sadness made me capitulate to things I never would have, otherwise.

Anyway, this Villain Arc is about the Bard

The Bard is actually ridiculous. Who fucking thought that this Class made sense. Now, granted, the Bard Class has always been, in my opinion, a bit unessesary. Much of what gives the Bard their identity is not actually that unique: the ability to play/perform music. Any Character can pick up an instrument and learn to sing in most editions of D&D, so the Bard doesn't really have a sole ownership to the "musician" role.

The Bard, instead, is designed to be a "Jack of all Trades, Master of None" Class. Which I do enjoy. Despite my previous statement that they are "unesseasary," I do think Bards are fun and interesting. I have played Bards several times in AD&D 2nd and have found them to be consistent contributers to the adventure. Combining elements from Villain Arcs 4 and 7, an important thing to note about Bards in earlier editions is that they are required to have decent Charisma (15). This means that they will have access to more henchmen than most Characters besides a Paladin (if anyone ever got to be a Paladin) and the Enchanter Specialst Wizard. Henchman are good for reasons stated below. Playing a Bard, you always feel like you are contributing, but that there is someone else in the party who is better than you at whatever you are trying to do. And that's okay. A lot of the time, the party really needs two people doing similar things to solve a problem. More fireball never hurt anybody. They also have the ability to buff Characters around them, and this becomes a staple feature that makes them unique.

The Bard makes a lot of sense in AD&D 2nd in particular because of how Multiclassing works. You could be a half-elf Wizard, Thief, Fighter and approximate a Bard, or you can just be a bard for 1/3 the EXP requirements (it's complicated) and gain some unique features as an upside. And if you are a human, Bard is about the only place for you to be that sort of a multiclass (humans cannot multiclass, only Dual-Class which is different). I could write up a full "how to play guide" for the AD&D 2nd Bard, but I won't. It is worth noting how weird the Bard was in AD&D (1st Edition). If you don't know, you should look it up. Interesting ideas, but ultimately pretty weird.

The point here is that 2nd Edition did a pretty good job defining what a Bard would be. They can do everything (besides heal), and they have a special niche with Charisma and Music, but they are balanced by a lack of potency. 3.5 follows this up with a pretty straightforward adaptation of the Bard. It is exactly what you imagine a Bard would be from 2nd to 3rd. My biggest gripe with the 3.5 Bard is that they get access to healing magic. This breaks a pretty fine balance of spheres of influence on the game that I think the Bard, as a class with a certain identity, can never recover from. Since, obvioulsy, the Bard has spent more time being able to heal than they haven't, it might be reasonable to believe that Bards SHOULD be able to heal. After all, they are a support class! Support = heal! This is a capitulation to video game-logic that I find to be dull and unimaginative. Fitting Dungeons and Dragons, and tabletop roleplaying games, into the framework of DPS, Support, Tank, the baseline archetypes of Roles in many competitive and roleplaying video games, is concerning. While there are parallels, because these video games are often inspired, in some form or another, from D&D, these are not accurate ideas about how a game actually works. The fundamental assumption of designing the game to function in this way is that combat is the default nature of engaging with the world, and this is simply not true in tabletop games. Players have the agency to approach problems however they wish using whatever resources they have access to. Placing Bards into the basket of "support" strips them of their unique identity as "Bards."

This is my biggest critique of 4th Edition. This is a bit of an aside, but I promise we'll get back to the subject soon. It is relavent.

I don't hate 4th Edition.

I am not 4th Edition's #1 hater.

I would rather player 4th Edition than Hasbro's: Wizard's of the Coast's: Dungneons and Dragons (2014 or 2024).

However, 4th Edition is the most "a video game" of a TTRPG in the entire D&D catalogue. That does not make it a "bad" game. I think that much of the actual design of 4th Edition is pretty good at fascilitating the kind of gameplay it is going for. I just don't like that kind of game. And the primary issue is the the four "Roles" system: Stiker, Defender, Controller, Leader. To their credit, it is not the MMO three role system: DPS, Tank, Support, so at least they were being unique within the framework. However, placing the classes like the Bard into the same category as the Cleric is kind of the kiss of death for the Bard, in my opinion. The Bard is no longer an economy multi-class single-class, they are support character through-and-through (with even more emphasis on healing).

Okay, back to Hasbro's: Wizard's of the Coast's: Dungeons and Dragons (2014). As with many elements of this game, Hasbro's: Wizard's of the Coast's: Dungeons and Dragons (2014) took most of its game design philosophy for the Bard from its 3.5 itteration. It is back to being an economy multi-class Class with unique upside. As per the usual (see my other villain arcs), this comes with many instances of jank.

5e Jank That Applies to the Bard

Dexterity: Well well well, if it isn't a returning villain from Villain Arc 4. That's right, Dexterity is one of the primary attributes of the Bard. How cool and exciting. They are ever so slightly throttled by not getting access to longbows immediately, but being an elf should patch that up (with a bonus to Dexterity!)

Charisma Good: Charisma has always been "good" or at least better than expected in most editions of D&D. Being able to influence NPCs is pretty incredible. However, with the shift to so many casters being Charisma-based, it means that min-maxing your Bard is actually very easy (to clarify, this point is about how in older editions, Bards needed to actually have to spread out their Ability Scores to get the most benefit from their full kit).

Skills Nerfed: Characters, on average, have way less access to Skills in 5e than they used to in older editions. These were also gated behind Intellignce as the bouncer to get in. However, the Bard does not really have to contend with that. It gets the second-most number of Skills off the bat (as if they had a good intelligence score in earlier games), and they get half-proficiency to all other skills they are not proficient in, IN ADDITION to: "Your proficiency is doubled for any ability check you make that uses either of the chosen proficiencies," Expertise.

HP Buffs: The fighter gets to keep their 1d10, but the Bard now gets 1d8. Cool. This means that, on average, a Bard with equal Constitution will have two fewer HP at 1st level and 1 fewer at every level thereafter than a fighter.

Full Caster: The Bard is now a full caster. Sweet jesus.

This all mixes into a perfect storm that makes the Bard an exceptional base-line Class. It gets passive bonuses to its Ability Score-potency relative to the Martials, Clerics, and Druids in all the major categories.

We have talked to length about Dexterity, however I cannot stress how much the bard benefits from the buffs to dexterity in combination with bounded accuracey. The Rapier is a frankly stupid weapon that makes me extremely frustrated both to use and have used against me. It's not medieval, it's actually quite heavy, it's really bad at combating armor, etc etc. S-tier weapon in 5e. There is basically no reason to ever use a longsword. I am amazed that they bothered to only give the Bard access to Hand Crossbows. Anyway, all this together means that, at level 1, the Bard is not considerably worse than the Martials at combat. In fact, they are basically equivalent. Because Carrying Capacity is the way it is, there is no reason to invest into Strength. Ever. Actually, the Bard might be better in combat than a Martial becuase Dexterity factors into Initiative and Strength doesn't.

This game, as well as the Bard in particular, completely cheats the reasons to have a high Intelligence score in other editions. About the Skills in 5e, a clever reader might tell me, "WEL AKSHUALLY, the bard in 3.5 gets 6 Skill Points every level compared to the Rogue's 8 Skill Points, so it is the same ratio!" Okay, now tell me where Jack of All Trades is in the 3.5 Core Guidebook. Where in the Bard section of 3.5 is the feature that gives them bonuses to every skill in addition to that 6 every level? In 3.5-terms, this is like giving the bard 6 + Int (standard) + A BUNCH for free. Exactly what this number is is not worth calculating, but it is more than 2 relative to 8. The result of this is that the Bard is passively benefiting from a high Intelligence as it factored into past games that other classes did not recieve. This is kind of a wonky argument, but I stand by it.

I can see impriving the Rogue's HP. I think the Rogue might be the only class to deserve a bigger hit-die. Why does the Bard get a bonus +2 to Consitution pre-built into their Character? Fucking ridiculous.

Making the Bard a full caster still absolutely baffles me. They get rougue-adjacent (and/or better) skill allocation, they get near-martial level of combat, and they get Wizard Level combination of power and utility in spells. The Bard has the second-best spell-list in the game, and this is supplemented by them being able to pick Spells outside their List with Magical Sectrets. Yes, it loses out on some DPS staples like Lightning Bolt and Fireball, but it makes up for this in still having decent damage spells, HEALING, and utility. Utility spells are really the engine behind reddit cheese strats, and the Bard gets access to basically all of them. Viscious Mokery is a really potent Cantrip for both being able to do damage and throttle most martial enemies at the same time. I hate Viscious Mockery memes so much.

The Result

This is not including all the Bard-specific features that they can provide a party that no one else can. Bardic Inspiration is pretty essential in a game with bounded accuracey as one of the few ways to actually make number go up without instead giving yourself Advantage. Song of Rest is pretty great at low level. The Bard is the best Class in the game, although it does not have the best Archetypes (although they are pretty good). Specifically, being a full caster and getting Extra Attack at 6th Level, while I think is just fundamentally worse than the Lore Bard, is really insulting to Martials. Consider the Beast Master Ranger and the War Bard. What the hell? Also, consider giving the Bard the Moon Druid Archetype. It would clearly be the best Class/Archetype combination in the game, in my opinion. The Moon Druid is, frankly, only held down by its Class being an otherwise okay, full-caster. The Bard has the best overall, average numbers in the game, all things considered.

The Bard being extremely potent means that you are going to see them a lot while playing the game at different tables. I have heard it said that "every party needs a Bard." And god fucking damnit do I hate playing with Bards. Something about being a Bard turns players into the most obnoxious, anti-social, evil gremlins in the world. It's miserable, and it makes playing and running the game a fucking nightmare when everything anyone does is retorted by another fucking quip and a 3-minute jam-session to "oh, this reminds of this song." You liking music is not a personality trait. I'm sorry. That's like saying "needing to eat food" is a personality trait. That's not unique. You liking music is not fundamentally unique or interesting. You are not fundamentally unique or interesting for playing a Bard in Hasbro's: Wizard's of the Coast's: Dungeons and Dragons (2014). You are a power-gamer masquerading as a "roleplay over rollplay" dipshit who waists the time of everyone at the table with your shitty middle-school improv horny-evil fanfic nonsense. And I am tired of the game that promotes the most obnoxious style of play to be front and center because it is attached to the best Class in that game.

----EDIT-----

AND THEY FORCE THEMSELVES INTO THE FRONT OF ALL OF THE ROLEPLAYING. Even out of combat, the Bard is the only one that really gets to play the fucking game. "You should really let me talk to the priest, I have a high Charisma and Charm ^-^ ."

You see, older editions of Bards were actually quite difficult to play. Both during creation and in-session, a Bard-Chararcter is an interesting challenge to balance around the specific pattern of the party. The Bard can fill in multiple gaps the party has or double-over a few specializations when needed. However, this was always difficult and risky because your stats and features were not concentrated to support being good at all those things. You had to be smart and pay attention to when you need to transition from one mode of play to another. The Bard, truly, was a support character for the party. Rarely ever the main character but very useful in many situations (especially for small parties). Now, the Bard can solo an entire campaign by themselves. They can do everything. They do not need help. Anything another Character could provide can better be handled by the Bard with a Scroll or an NPC that is fiercly loyal to the Bard due to either magic or Charm.

Here is my take. I think everyone is playing Bard wrong. I think that optimal Bard performance is Dex + Con. What do you use Charisma for? Spell DCs and Spell Attacks? Hear me out, just don't cast Spells that require saves against monsters that you think are good at those saves and get a bunch more HP instead. Like I've said before about Cantrips: just fucking look at the monster and guess. Bonus to hit isn't even that important because of bounded accuracey. If you plan on using Charisma Skills, just use your "Your proficiency is doubled for any ability check you make that uses either of the chosen proficiencies," Expertise on those Skills. Like, you really don't need Charisma that badly. I mean, you might as well go 8, 15, 15, 8, 8, 15 oonga boonga because it's not like Charisma is hurting you either. I would probably rather go 8, 15, 15, 8, 15, 8 and get a "Your proficiency is doubled for any ability check you make that uses either of the chosen proficiencies," Expertise in Perception and use my spellcasting entirely for healing and support. Yes, I think Perception is more valuable than attack modifiers to spells. Why are you attacking? Just turn invisible and teleport and caste haste (Additional Magical Secrets at 6th level). EZ. Perhaps Hill Dwarf is the optimal Bard build because it boosts con and wis. 8, 14, 15, 8, 14, remainder Hill Dwarf bard. This is a joke, obviously Stout is the best because +2 DEX LET'S GO 8, 14, 14, 8, 15, remainder stout halfling. SO MANY CHOICES I LOVE THIS GAME EVERY CHARACTER IS VERY UNIQUE AND MECHANICALLY DIVERSE.

Previous Villain Arc

[chishiyasbiscuits]

confession! || tatta x reader xo

[2.9k words.] [Warning: Not too mature, just a blow-job, today. Enjoy!]

It wasn't weird. I had the biggest crush on a guy who had never even glanced at me in that way. Was he even capable of human attraction? Every time my eyes graced his body. Traced the features of his face. I'd notice how his gaze was always locked on something else. Something better. More expensive. Shiny, red, has four wheels. A car. It wasn't weird... I was in competition with a vehicle.

"Y/n." Someone somewhat whined. Their voice filled with both annoyance and disappointment. "Y/n?" They repeated. I raised my head from the ground, letting my attention rest on the girl before me. Her hand sat on her hip, while the other pressed an unlit cigarette against her parted lips. She gave me a once over. Looking over my miserable form, as I perched on the edge of a wall. Half empty glass in hand. Silent, alone, and far from the commotion. How I liked it when I was in these moods. "Why aren't you in the party?" Kuina asked, brows creasing with concern as she placed herself beside me.

I inhaled sharply, turning my head as I let out the breath. "I don't feel like it." I stated "Partying." She fell silent. I took this moment to glance at her. Taking in her lost expression, and the way her eyes wandered in search for a way to cheer me up. The edge of my lip rose into a soft smile. Merely at the thought of her caring so much about me. Kuina had been my friend since the day I had stepped foot in this place. We got along well. Being gossip buddies, that is. She knew everything about me, and in return I knew everything about her.

"Is it Tatta." Her voice became quiet and I paused. The name bounced through my mind, igniting a set of feelings I was trying to suppress. My head fell, the hair on my shoulders falling with it. I bit into my lip and nodded, waiting for the girl's bored reply. Weeks I had liked this boy. Far longer than any of my last attractions. I promised the crush would dissipate, yet every second I spent with him, every glance I took at his figure. It resulted in me falling harder. She knew this. How much I liked Tatta, and of course how little he liked me. The boy never bothered with me. It was clear he wasn't interested.

Kuina sighed, taking her unlit cigarette and facing me. She opened her mouth. "Y/n, I can't keep finding you like this because of a boy." Her brows furrowed. "I know I said I wouldn't, but.." She paused, smiling sympathetically as I began to shake my head. "I'm going to have to do something about this."

"Don't you dare." I said sternly. She simply smirked, placing the cigarette back between her lips and standing up. "Y/n, I'm doing you a favour. What if he actually likes you back?" She made a point, tilting her head as I set my glass down beside me and followed her action. I tugged on my swimsuit, fixing the straps before rolling my eyes. "He doesn't. It's obvious."

"You're just negative." She grinned. The smile spreading from ear to ear. I smiled back and averted my gaze. "Fine." I mumbled. My smile edging into a soft smirk.

Kuina widened her eyes, leaning forward and placing her spare hand by her ear. "Sorry, what was that?" She teased.

I held back a laugh. Raising my hand and lightly pushing her bare shoulder. "Kuina." I joked. My face returned to it's previous serious expression. "You can do whatever you were planning to." I spoke, crossing one hand over my stomach and flicking the other one out. Her eyes sparkled. "You won't regret this." Her voice was filled with a mischievous excitement. A somewhat suspicious tone I had decided to shake off. What was she actually going to do? The dark-haired girl then winked. A smirk pressed against her cigarette, where her fingers remained. That's all I saw before she headed off. A gentle spring in her step.

I inhaled, letting the air out from the small gap between my parted lips. "Might as well get another drink." I mumbled to myself, turning to the desolate wall and grabbing the now empty glass. Ice clinked against the sides as I wandered off into the crowds. Sweaty, and heated. Filled with dancing bodies. Rolling, swaying and pressing against each other, like a pack of desperate dogs in heat.

Sound blared about my head, and the lights flashed. It seemed every party at this place was both bigger and better than the last. At this point I wasn't sure whether they were celebrating a survival or celebrating the incoming feeling of doom. Perhaps it was neither and these people had already been embraced by the hands of depression, and drinking, fucking and dancing was the only way to pry these arms away from them.

I blinked away my thoughts and smiled politely as I reached the bar. "Another drink please."

Parties were never really my thing. There was far too much going on, and I was always lost in a problematic fight or argument instead of really experiencing the positives. Kuina did say I was quite negative. She repeats it often, though I find myself to be more positive than most think. I just consistently run into negative situations.

I crossed over my leg, feeling comfortable on the bar stool. In one hand I held my new glass, and with the other I mindlessly stirred the fruity liquid. My head was drifting off, but before I could really think anymore, a voice pulled me away. I raised my head, feeling startled as I saw the proud grin of Kuina. "Y/n!" She exclaimed. "Can you do something for me?"

I frowned. Gently, but slowly dropping and raising my head in a nod. The glass was against my lips. I took a sip and placed the drink on the counter behind me. "What is it?" I asked, turning back. "Can you get my jacket? I think I left it in your room." She asked, doe eyes turning innocent. "It's getting quite cold out here."

"Mmm." I hummed. "Ah, think of it as a thanks for helping you out with Tatta." She spoke, lowering her voice as she came across his name. I narrowed my eyes. "Have you done it yet?"

"Not yet." She replied. "Okay." I nodded, pushing myself from the stool and dropping to my feet. I fixed out my bikini, smiling up at the taller girl. She smiled back. "I'll get your jacket. Be right back."

"Thank you, Y/n." Kuina thanked, bowing her head slightly. I waved off and left her standing by my drink. She was sure to wander off though. Perhaps in the search for Chishiya. I smiled brightly, stepping into the hotel and feeling as a wall of heat melted over me. She was right, it was getting cold out there. I sighed and wandered through the quiet halls until I found my room. The corridors were completely desolate, apart from the usual couples. Making out and shoving their tongues down each other's throats. I would gag, or pull a face of disgust if it wasn't for the fact I would gladly do that to Tatta. A man who had no care for me.

My smile dropped. I'll get the jacket, return it Kuina and then head back to my room. I wasn't particularly needed out there.

I pushed open my door after unlocking it. Expecting nothing but the decorated room, a dresser and the bed. However, as I leant my palm against the wood, and saw further into the building, my chest seized up. My heart dropped, and most of all my breath hitched. A quiet gasp escaped my lips and I pressed one of my hands against my beating chest.

"Tatta.." I breathed out. "What are you doing in my room?" I asked, genuinely confused. From the way he stared back with wide eyes I had figured he was just as puzzled. "Oh." I bit my lip. "Did Kuina do this?"

"What?" The boy blurted out. The confusion evident in his speech. "Oh?" I repeated. Though this time it was quieter, and trailed off. I gently closed the door behind me, letting it click softly. I then walked over to the bed where he had sat. Just on the edge. "Are you...not here to confess?" He asked. His confidence slipping.

I pulled a quick face before spotting the jacket - Kuina's - in the corner of the room. Draped over a nearby chair. "I'm sorry." I hesitated, removing my gaze from the chair and locking my eyes with Tatta. He blinked nervously. An oblivious hint in his eyes. "I'm not sure what's going on, but I think Kuina has something to do with it." My arms folded over my chest. He parted his lips, letting out a soft 'ahh' as his eyes averted. "Wait here." I nodded firmly, arms still crossed. I headed to the door and wrapped my palm around the handle. I pushed forward yet the door didn't budge. "The hell.." I whispered. Trying again, but harder and more frantically. "It's locked." I concluded. "Damn it, Kuina."

"You're not coming out!" A feminine voice sounded from behind the wood. I was about to argue back when the voice continued, making my eyes widen. "Until you confess your feelings for each other!"

"Kuina!" Tatta cried out. Standing up from his place on the bed. He appeared betrayed, a soft sad look across his features. "I told you never to tell her!" His muscles relaxed, until I spun on my heel and connected my gaze with his. Both of our eyes were wide. His filled more with fear. Tatta lowered his head, looking everywhere but me. His hand raised to grab at his cap, and tilt it over his upper face.

"Sorry, Tatta!" Kuina called out. The boy grumbled in return.

"It's uh.." He paused, head still lowered, facing the bed frame. "Just a small attraction."

"Small." He repeated, just for emphasis. "I'm not obsessed with you or anything like that." He sputtered out. "You're a total pervert!" Kuina reiterated. I rolled my eyes and placed my fist against the door, causing a loud knock the both of us could hear.

"Yah, Kuina! Don't make me out to be like that..." He pulled a face and used his hand to scratch the back of his head sheepishly. I smiled, suppressing a giggle by hovering a palm over my lips. "Do you actually like me?" I questioned suddenly. Tatta looked up, terror in his face. "Uh."

"You can be honest." I whispered, stepping closer. He lowered his head, once more pulling his cap down. I pulled up my wrist and removed Tatta's hand from his hat. I then softly took the brim and lifted it so his gentle eyes could meet mine. I smiled reassuringly. "I like you, you know."

"Actually?" He pulled a blank face. Blinking back his disbelief. I hummed as a reply, nodding quickly. "You like someone like me?" He pushed further. "I thought it was impossible."

"Huh?" I scoffed, and he startled. "I thought I had competition with that one car you have the hots for!"

His lips stretched into a smile, and for the first time tonight I saw his genuine happiness. Where his teeth showed and his cheeks raised up to crease his eyes. Tatta chuckled. "A car? Over you?"

His words made me blush, and I covered the faint dusting of pink with a quick smile.

"I really like you." Tatta confirmed. The same smile still etched onto his features. "You're hotter than any car I've ever seen." He added, and the sudden noise from behind the door made me chuckle. "That's the weirdest pickup line."

A muffled talking could be heard from behind the door. I had figured someone, maybe Chishiya, had seen Kuina. The talking then stopped, and suddenly it was replaced with silence.

My head turned back to Tatta, and I noticed my hand was still on his hat. I dropped it slightly and watched as his face lit up with a certain confusion. A hint of excitement still dwelled within his twitching smile though. He let his eyes wander across my face. Taking in my features, before letting his attention drop down my neck. I trailed my hand across his jaw. Holding it with such a care you would believe his skin was china. My fingers worked and traced over his jaw to his chin and then below his bottom lip. My eyes focused on his lips. Glistening with saliva from the way his tongue swiped out, just as my eyes were drawn to them.

"Can I.." He paused, his voice a low whisper, as well as raspy. "Can I kiss you?"

I attempted to think. To let my mind decide in a smart manner, when instead the urge took over. A hot desperation. Perhaps a mix of adrenaline and the two drinks I had downed just minutes before. My body was almost thrown in his direction as I snaked my arms around his neck. Grabbing the back of his head and pushing him down so I could reach his mouth and slam my lips against his. It was passionate, harsh, and quick. Hands grasping at his hair, and his fingers tugging at my bikini. We pushed our bodies together, my chest against his, in an attempt to be as close as possible.

It was what you expected. From two people who were intensely attracted to each other. Two people who had kept their feelings in the back of their head for weeks.

It was a build up of sexual desire. A lust for each other that spiralled out as soon as our lips pressed together. Now I was licking at his bottom lip, just to get into his mouth. Just to shove my tongue down his throat. Press it against his, like how my hand was pressed against his ever-growing erection. I felt him throb beneath me. He was so desperate, but so was I.

His hands fell against my hips, where he shakily held my skin. Firmly keeping my body against his, pulling me closer, so that his bulge could brush against my inner thighs.

"Y/n." He whimpered, pulling away with puffy lips. I licked mine and succumbed to his soft noise by holding onto his knees and lowering myself between his legs. He was already shaking. Biting into his lower lip to suppress any unwanted sounds. I peered up, tilting my head back to flick my gaze over his dazed expression. My lips formed a soft smirk. I then hastily took the rim of his swim shorts and pulled them to reveal his hard cock. He whined at the cold contact, and as I placed my palm against his base he held back a small moan. His eyes squeezed shut.

I glanced up through my lashes, taking his dick and placing the tip in my mouth. I flicked my tongue across the sensitive body part before slowly sinking my mouth down on his entire length. Or at least most of it. He was just slightly above average.

I began to suck, and bob my head up and down on his cock. I adored the feeling as he twitched against my throat. How he was so desperate, he pulled against my hair. Using his hands to form my locks into a ponytail. Small strands crossed over my eyes as I continued to peer up, and watch as his lips parted, and his mouth made that perfect 'o' shape. Tatta cried out, the moans now slipping from his throat, just as how my tongue was slipping across the base of his cock. He hummed in pleasure, grunting as he soon became close.

I continued to watch his watery eyes roll. Those pretty eyes that fucked me without touching me. They undressed me, and showed truly how needy he was. I watched as his cheeks turned red and his pleasured face spurred me on.

"Y/n, I'm-" Tatta exclaimed. Desperation in his voice, as well as concern. The poor boy couldn't even finish his sentence before bursting down my throat. Releasing his cum with a string of loud moans. "I'm sorry." He apologised, his hands shaky as they removed themselves from my hair. The strands fell back into place and framed my face, where a strong smirk was evident.

I pulled my mouth from his dick and fixed my swimsuit before standing up. "Don't be sorry." I spoke, smiling at his flustered expression.

"I'm back!" A voice caught me off guard. I gave Tatta a quick look, which he returned, before facing the door. The wooden frame shook before opening and revealing the tall girl that had trapped us in here. "I hope you lovebirds have finally confessed." She stated, hand on hip.

I glanced at Tatta and he smirked. The small smile met mine. Only for a second, before he became awkward and dropped his head to the floor. I held back a laugh and Kuina raised a single brow. "Mkay. What's going on?" She questioned, raising a cigarette to her lips.

"Nothing." I lied, slipping my hand into Tatta's. He jumped slightly, looking down before looking up with a wide, dorky smile. He squeezed my hand, interlocking our fingers. "Ehh, maybe I shouldn't have gotten you two together." Kuina joked, pulling a face. I laughed and dragged Tatta toward the door. "Thanks anyway." I winked at her blank, blinking face on the way out. Brushing past her shoulder, as she stood there in simple awe. 

[stargazer-sims]

Journal Entry #22

previous // next // story index

__________

Victor

Worst. Day. Ever.

I should’ve known it was gonna be bad when I woke up feeling all weird and achy, with pressure in my nose and face like I was developing a cold. I was in a grumpy mood because I hate it when I'm not feeling good. Plus, I was annoyed because the first snowboarding competition of the season is only a couple months away and I didn’t want something inconvenient like a cold to interfere with my training. Priorities, you know?

Yuri got up before I did, which was odd enough, but then I somehow dozed off for a minute in the middle of getting dressed. A short time later, Yuri had to prompt me to finish my breakfast and that was super unusual. I love grilled cheese, especially with tomato and bacon, but this morning even my favourite sandwich wasn’t all that exciting.

Yuri drove me to work so I wouldn’t be late. We were both disappointed that I couldn’t kiss him goodbye before I got out of the car, but I was apprehensive in case I really was getting sick. Because of all the medication he has to take, his immune system is so weak that if he caught a cold, he wouldn’t just get a runny nose and feel uncomfortable and tired for a few days like I would. He’d be seriously ill, and I didn’t want to be the one responsible for doing that to him.

He blew me a kiss before he drove off, and as I watched our little red Toyota disappear down the street, I was having major second thoughts about my decision to go to work. Lying in my bed and keeping the bedroom door open so I could see Yuri in his workspace, listening to music, and playing games on my Switch sounded like a way better option than using up what little energy I had, teaching wealthy middle-aged ladies how not to hurt themselves lifting anything heavier than a credit card.

The biggest challenge in working at a fitness centre that caters to a lot of rich people is… rich people. Don’t get me wrong; the majority of my clients are nice, even if some of them like to flaunt their wealth.

When I say rich people, I’m not talking about the ladies who love to show off their newest designer yoga outfits or the people who casually mention their expensive stuff or the fancy places they’ve been to on vacation. I mean the rich people who act like their money and position in society make them better than the rest of us. I mean the people who look down on others based on nothing more than their circumstances in life. To them, people like me are worthless. That’s a huge barrier to overcome, and it makes my job — not to mention my life in general in the posh neighbourhood of Kiyosaka — harder than it should be.

In hindsight, I really should have called in sick. I could’ve avoided this train wreck of a day if I had.

The exact moment my day went from bad to completely disastrous was when I logged into our scheduling system to check my appointments. Yesterday before I logged out, I was sure my first session for today would be with one of my ongoing clients, an older lady by the very English-sounding name of Alice, who’s recovering from knee surgery. She’s adorable, and she calls me ‘darling’ in English, because pet names aren’t really a thing in Japanese. She’s already gifted me a hat that she knitted herself, which I’ve promised to wear to my first competition this year. I had to explain to her that I’ll have to switch it for my helmet when I’m actually competing, and she laughed as if I were silly for assuming she wouldn't already know that.

But I was telling you about the schedule. I frowned hard at the computer when I saw Alice’s name was not in my first appointment block any more. Someone had changed it. Now, in the block at the top of my calendar was a name that made me cringe.

Ren Kitagawa.

Ren was the last person I wanted to see today. Although he’s typically polite to me, things have changed from my perspective since the last time we spoke to one another, and I was not feeling kindly disposed toward him. Since I found out that he’s Yuri’s ex, I haven’t been able to think of him in the same way I had before. Where he used to be an unctuous and slightly annoying acquaintance, now he's the person who’d callously and deliberately harmed the man I love. It's hard to be positive in the face of that.

Still, this was my job, and I had to be professional no matter who the client was. I put on my game face as I stepped into the training room assigned to me. Ren was already in there, sitting casually on the weight machine as if it were a throne and the training room was his domain.

“Hello, Victor,” he said, as I closed the door behind me. “It’s been a while."

It’d actually only been a few days since I’d last seen him, since he trains with his coach and his personal trainer here all the time. We hadn’t talked though, not that I’d wanted to.

“Hello, Ren.”

“We should get started. I have something important to do," he said

“Your trainer’s here today,” I remarked. “Shouldn’t you and your coach be with him?”

“Ichiro isn’t with me this time," he informed me. "Oh, and just so you know, I asked for you specifically.”

“That’s not how this works. I have regular clients. One of my ladies is missing her session for you.”

“I know that.” He smirked. “That particular one of your ladies, as you call them, used to be my nanny. I asked her for a favour.”

I felt myself deflate. “Oh.”

“Don’t you want to know why?”

“Not particularly,” I said. “Are you working on your arms and back today? I don’t know your training schedule.”

“Never mind my training schedule,” Ren said. “I don’t need you to supervise my workout. All I want to do is talk to you.”

“Okay,” I said, immediately uneasy. “About what?”

“Why have you been calling my girlfriend?”

I started at him.“Your… who?”

“Hana.”

“Hana Okamoto? Yuri’s sister?” I said. "I didn't realize she was your girlfriend. I thought it was just, you know... a hookup situation."

“Yes, Hana is my girlfriend,” he said, sounding offended. “She told me that you’ve been calling her and leaving harassing messages, and I want to know why.”

“I called her three times in the past couple of weeks,” I told him. “I left one message, and it was basically like, ‘This is Victor. Please call me’. Not sure how that’s harassment.”

“Why were you calling her in the first place?” he questioned.

“Why does it matter?” I countered.

“It matters because she’s upset about it, and I don’t like it when Hana is upset.”

I felt a surge of irritation, remembering how legitimately distraught Yuri had been after his last conversation with Hana. It would be too mild to say I hadn't liked that. If anyone had a right to be angry about someone upsetting their partner, it was me. “Somehow I doubt she’s all that bothered."

Ren glared. “You don’t get to make that judgment, white boy,” he said. “And you still haven’t answered my question.”

“Fine,” I said. “I was calling her because I needed to talk to her about you.”

“What about me?”

“I wanted to know why she told Yuri that you want to see him.”

“Perhaps because I do," he said.

“Why?”

Ren smiled in a way that made the muscles along my spine contract involuntarily. “Nostalgia.”

“What?” I blurted. "What nostalgia? The way I understand it, there aren't that many happy memories to be nostalgic about."

"You weren't there. You wouldn't know."

"Cut the crap, Ren. Why did you tell Hana you want to see Yuri?"

"Because I need something interesting to do,” he said. “Yuri was never boring. Hana told me that he said he misses me, and when I think about it, I miss him too. I thought it might be fun to catch up.”

“Yuri doesn’t want to see you,” I told him flatly.

“Is that what he said? He always did play hard to get, but once you do catch him…” Ren’s face looked exactly as if he’d just tasted something sweet and he wanted more. “I guess you know what a treat he is though, don’t you?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, even though I did.

He got up from the weight training machine and stepped so close to me that he was in my personal space. I wanted to back up, but the training room is small and there wasn’t anywhere to go. I couldn’t even leave because he was between me and the door.

“Does he still like it rough?” Ren asked.

“I wouldn’t know. I’m never rough with him.”

“He used to cry and pretend he was frightened when I’d hold him against the wall, and he’d beg me not to touch him, as if he didn’t want my hands and mouth all over every part of his body. I think he knew that got me excited. That’s what I miss.”

I recalled the morning of Yuri’s birthday, how I’d carried him from the bath to my room and laid him carefully on the bed, and how he’d let me caress him all over with my hands and mouth. He’d been playful and happy and completely unafraid. Any place he didn’t want me to touch, I didn’t touch, and when he told me to stop, I did. It was horrifying to imagine my sweet boy having to plead for someone to respect a physical boundary that they already knew existed; abhorrent to think that anyone would deny that no actually meant no.

I have never once held Yuri against a wall, or against any other solid surface for that matter. He’d hate that, and even if he wouldn’t hate it, I’d be too worried I’d hurt him. Ren apparently hadn’t been so considerate. The mental image of this disgusting person pinning my gentle, delicate Yuri against a wall and trapping him there till he cried and begged to be let go filled me with so much rage that the intensity of it shocked and terrified me.

I realized I was shaking, and it took all my willpower to keep my voice level. “You stay away from Yuri. You’ve hurt him enough.”

“What about how he hurt me?” Ren retorted. “He left me without so much as an explanation. Even after all this time, I’d still like to know.”

“As if you don’t already know,” I said. “As if you think forcing him to do things you knew he didn’t want to do wasn’t reason enough.”

“I didn’t force him. We never did anything he didn’t agree to. He’s a self-centered, manipulative little thing, and he’ll tell you whatever he thinks you want to hear to make the situation work to his advantage. So, whatever he said to you about me, it’s probably only half true.”

“I think it’s all true.”

“Believe what you want,” he said. “You might have a different opinion when he suddenly leaves you and then tries to ruin your reputation by telling everyone you abused him.”

“That’s not going to happen,” I said.

"You don't think?"

"I know for certain it won't. And you didn’t need Yuri to ruin your reputation, and you did abuse him. Why else would he be afraid of you? People aren’t scared of people who are kind and respectful to them.”

“I doubt he’s as scared of me as he’d like you to believe.”

“It doesn’t matter, because it’s not a question of degree,” I said. “If he says he's scared, I believe him. He doesn't need to meet some kind of fear benchmark or something for his feelings to be valid."

"According to him."

"Yeah, because they're his feelings," I said. "Look, he doesn’t want to see you, and that’s all there is to it. If I find out that you’ve been anywhere near him, I'll—“

"You’ll what?” Quicker than I could react, Ren grabbed the front of my shirt and spun me around. He pushed me backwards until I felt my back making forceful contact with the training room’s mirrored wall. “Tell me what you’re going to do, tough guy. I know you’re strong, but trust me, you don’t want to take me on. I’d make a mess of you that it’d take forever to clean up. I wonder what our Yuri would think of that?”

“Don’t call him that,” I said. “He’s not yours.”

It was taking all the strength of will I possessed to not react physically. My heart was racing, and I’m not ashamed to admit I was scared, but I was also incredibly angry and I didn’t trust myself to be able to get back any measure of control if I lost it. Besides, I was at work, and I didn’t want to do something stupid that’d cost me my job. Not only that, Ren was right. I don’t know how to fight. I’m strong, but I hate the very idea of fighting and I honestly have no clue what I’d do other than flail around like an idiot.

He tightened his grip on the front of my shirt, yanked me forward roughly and then gave me another hard shove against the mirror. “You still haven’t told me what you’d do. I’m waiting.”

"You know this room has cameras,” I reminded him quietly. “I’d let go, if I were you.”

“You think I give a fuck about that?” Ren said.

“You should, if you ever want to come back here.”

“I don’t care about that either.” He leaned in close to my face and clenched his hand so tightly around my collar that the fabric was drawn taut against my throat. “The way I see it, you have something that I really wanted and never got over losing. I don’t like losing, especially to people like you.”

"This isn’t a competition,” I said. “And people aren’t possessions. If Yuri is mine, it’s because that’s what he wants. Anyway, up until a couple weeks ago I had no idea you’d been together, so there’s no way you can say it’s personal.”

“It’s personal to me.”

“Why do you even care? You're with Hana now.”

“So?”

“So, maybe she’d like to know how you really feel. You don’t give a crap about her, do you? This is just about your screwed up obsession with someone who doesn’t even want to see your obnoxious face.”

“You don’t know anything about me and Hana," Ren growled.

“I think I know all I need to,” I said. “Using her like that is gross. She’s not my favourite person, but she doesn’t deserve to be hurt by you any more than Yuri did. If you’re not going to be honest with her, then you should leave her alone.”

“For your information, she chose me,” Ren said, “And she thinks what Yuri did to me is despicable.”

"You're despicable. Yuri didn’t do anything to you.”

“Yuri humiliated me. He told anyone who’d listen that I’m a terrible person and made everybody judge me, and of course they believed him. Innocent, fragile little Yuri, who everyone protects and feels sorry for. He uses that to get whatever he wants, and it pisses me off.”

“This isn’t really about Yuri, is it?" I realized. "It's not about Hana or me either. It’s about your ego.”

“It’s about the truth, and setting the record straight, and it’s about settling things with people who’ve done me wrong.”

“It’s been five years," I said. "You should let it go.”

“Don’t tell me what I should do!” he shouted.

Before I even realized what was happening, I found myself on the floor, flat on my back. I landed shoulder-first, and the pain of the impact shot through my entire arm. I gasped.

“Ren! What the hell…?”

“Shut up!”

He planted one foot on my stomach and pushed down with all the strength of his competitive figure skater’s legs. I felt like the air had completely left my body and for a second the edges of my vision went all grey and fuzzy, like I was going to pass out.

“Why—“ I began, but then I got scared that I didn’t have enough oxygen to breathe and talk at the same time.

“Because I can,” he said. “Because I’ve got to be better than you at something.”

“You… you’re crazy,” I said. “Dangerous and crazy.”

“You’ve got it half right,” he said. “I’m not crazy.”

“Get out of here, Ren. Leave now, and I might consider not telling anyone about this.”

“You’re not going to tell anyone,” he said. “Want to know why I think that?”

“Not really interested in what you think.”

“You should be.”

“Not. Interested.”

“Too bad, because here it is,” Ren said. “You won’t tell anyone, because thanks to Hana, I know exactly where you live and I know our little Yuri is home alone all day, every day you’re here.”

“You wouldn’t—“

“You don’t know what I would or wouldn’t do."

"I swear to God, if you so much as breathe the same air as Yuri, I'll find a way to make you regret it."

"Ooh... big talk," Ren mocked. He thrust his foot against my belly again, and leered down at me. "You're not going to do a damn thing other than what I tell you to do. Got it?"

"I'll never do what you—"

Another downward thrust. "I said, got it?"

"Bastard."

"Now, listen," he said. "I know that nobody watches the tapes from the cameras around here unless there’s a report, but there’s not going to be a report, is there, Victor?”

“No,” I whispered.

“That’s the correct answer. And you're not going to tell Yuri or Mr. and Mrs. Okamoto or your friends about our chat, are you?"

I shook my head.

"Good, he said. He took his foot off me, but when I started to get up, he aimed a kick at me that landed just below my ribs. He made a disapproving clicking noise. “Not so fast. You can get up after I leave the room.”

“Damn you,” I groaned.

Ren turned toward the door. “Have a nice day, Victor. When you get home, tell our Yuri I said hello.”

My shoulder and side were throbbing as I struggled to my feet. I’m an athlete, so you know I’m really fit, but not even the most in-shape person is going to be jumping right up after getting the wind kicked out of them multiple times. I was sure Ren had missed my ribs, but I tried to examine them anyway. Not that it would make a difference if I could determine whether any of them were cracked, because there’s literally nothing anyone can do for a cracked rib other than painkillers and rest, but I still felt the need to check.

I glanced at the time on my fitness tracker; twenty-five minutes until my next scheduled session. It wasn’t much time, but I estimated it’d be enough for me to pull myself together, at least. I was going to have to get through the rest of the day somehow, after all.

I hobbled to one of the staff restrooms and locked myself in, praying that nobody who saw me on the way noticed how painfully I was moving. Once I was in there, I took off my uniform so I could inspect the damage. I had to stand with my back to the mirror and try to look behind me so I could see what kind of state my shoulder was in, and to my absolute horror it was a wreck.

To be fair, I bruise pretty easily, but this bruise was already forming and it was massive and angry-looking. I knew if I didn’t ice it right away, I probably wouldn’t be able to raise my arm in the morning. The problem was, I couldn’t exactly go to the physiotherapist or sports medicine nurse on staff and ask for an ice pack for an injury that, according to the official story, never happened.

So much for my training, I thought. And I was worried about my cold getting in the way of it.

Alone in the bathroom, the full realization of what had happened suddenly hit me. I wasn’t just walking around with a banged-up shoulder and sore ribs. I had been assaulted by another person who may or may not have conspired to get me alone for that very purpose, for a reason I couldn’t understand. And the worst part was, I couldn’t tell anyone.

I was trembling so badly that I had to hang onto the sink so I didn’t fall over, and then I had to hang onto the wall for a minute as I turned around because I didn’t want to throw up in the sink. Convinced my stomach was literally turning itself inside out, I heaved until I thought I was going to faint, and then, in what I can say was likely the most undignified moment of my nearly twenty-six years of life, I laid on the cool tile floor in front of the toilet and cried.

When I came out of the bathroom, I probably looked as awful as I felt, but I’d washed my face and finger-combed my hair and made the best effort I could to be professional and presentable. If anybody noticed anything out of place, they didn’t comment on it.

For the rest of the day, I kept doing surreptitious shoulder exercises, in the hope that things wouldn’t end up as bad as I expected. Thankfully, I didn’t have any swimming lessons to teach, because I would’ve had a hell of a time explaining my disfigured shoulder to anyone who saw me with my shirt off.

At last, congratulating myself on having survived the rest of the work day with no one the wiser, I made my escape at half-past four

Walking home, I spent most of the journey attempting to figure out what I was going to say to Yuri. There was no way I was going to tell him about my encounter with Ren. I don’t like keeping stuff from him, but I felt this was something it was better he didn’t know. I decided I’d say that I’d accidentally struck my shoulder on something while working with a difficult client. That was true, if vague, so at least I wouldn’t be lying to him.

The fact that I was now certain I was coming down with a cold oddly felt like a saving grace. It would give me a convenient excuse not to sleep or bathe with Yuri for a few days, so he wouldn’t see the bruises until they’d faded a bit. I couldn’t stand to think of his reaction if he saw my shoulder now. He gets upset if I take a spill into a snow fence up on the mountain or if I burn my finger while making dinner. As mean as this is going to sound, this time I really didn’t feel like consoling him when I was the one who was injured.

Of course, I should’ve realized I couldn’t hide the day’s events from him completely. I mean, the bruises were covered, but the instant I walked in the door and he hurried into the entryway to meet me, he knew straight away that something wasn’t right.

Usually I'm greeted with a hug and a kiss and "Welcome home.” Today, however, he kept distance between us and immediately demanded. “What happened?”

“Nothing much,” I said. “I’m tired, that’s all.”

“Bad day at work?”

“You could say that.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.

“No,” I said. “I’m not feeling well. I’m going to lie down for a while. Do you think you can manage getting yourself something to eat for dinner?”

“I guess I can make some instant noodles,” he said.

Despite the state I was in, I smiled at that. “No, Yuri. Something with protein. Try again.”

“Yogurt?”

“Better, but you’ll be hungry later if that’s all you eat.”

“What were you going to cook?” he asked. “Fish and steamed vegetables? I can try to cook that, so there’ll be something for you if you’re hungry later.”

I nodded. “Well done. Eventually you’ll be deciding stuff like that about food without me having to remind you.”

“Maybe,” he said. “Are you sure you can’t cook, though?”

“Sorry,” I said. “I’m really not feeling up to it. You can do it. I need to crash for a couple of hours.”

“Okay. Do you need anything?”

“No.”

He chewed his lower lip. “All right, but… you’d tell me if you did need something, wouldn't you?”

“Come here,” I said, holding out my arms to him. He was there in an instant, and I hugged him lightly and kissed the top of his head. “I’ll be fine. Don’t worry. Come up and check on me in a couple of hours, if you want, but don’t wake me up if I’m asleep, okay?”

“Okay. Can I sleep in your bed tonight?”

“Better not, just in case. I don’t want you to catch what I’ve got.”

“Please?” He pouted in a way that I normally find irresistible, but at that moment only made me feel frustrated.

“No,” I said. “Doing that thing where you look all cute and sad isn’t going to change my mind either. I don’t want you getting sick. If we can do anything to avoid it, we should, because I don’t want you to end up in the hospital with pneumonia or something.”

This time, his pout was real. "You’re no fun, you know. I might’ve really been in the mood for cuddles.”

“Sorry, but I think you’ll survive a night or two in your own bed. You know, somebody’s got to make responsible decisions around here.”

“Since you’re not feeling well, I’ll excuse the fact that you just called me irresponsible,” he said. “Go to your room. I’ll bring you some tea later, and you can tell me what’s actually going on.”

“I really don’t feel good,” I said. “That’s what’s going on.”

“Yes, I believe you, but I also know there’s something else.”

“I’m going to bed,” I said.

In my room, I changed out of my uniform and put on my favourite, most comfortable sweatpants and my Canada Winter Games warmup jacket. My ‘security jacket’ as my mom calls it. My other comfort items are a white fuzzy blanket that I've had since childhood and my blue monster plush, Munch, who I've had since I was three. I doubt most men my age still have their favourite childhood toy, but I can't see me ever giving mine up. Judge if you want, but Munch has been with me through everything. His fur has caught a flood of my tears.

I took Munch down form the shelf above my dresser, climbed onto my bed and pulled my white blanket around myself. I tried to lie down, but my shoulder was hurting too much for me to get comfortable, and my stuffed-up nose felt even more blocked when I didn’t hold my head upright. I needed to take some ibuprofen or something, but the thought of leaving my room was too much.

Maybe I’ll never leave it again, I thought.

Yes, I knew that was completely irrational. Obviously I would come out of my room eventually, but just then the idea of disappearing from human society forever didn’t seem like a bad one. I decided that people were too horrible, social interaction was too complicated and messy, and I was emotionally unprepared for the complexities of adulthood. I didn’t want to deal with any of it. I only wanted to be alone in a safe little bubble of my own design, where I would never have to cope with anything that was scary or difficult, and where no one could ever hurt me.

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #439

I decided that today is for resting. So that is what I did. I spent most of it playing Hades. I think I've gotten pretty far along in a short span of time. The challenge of getting a victory on the first run of a fresh save has definitely made me a better player.

It was also a day for tasty snacks. Yesterday was kinda stressful, and right now people seem kinda too scary to really wanna interact with, because a non-trivial number of them either don't tell the truth, aren't capable of stating their needs and boundaries calmly and rationally, or mismanage their trauma to such an extent that they act abusively whenever their anxieties weave a story for them that isn't true.

I wish more people practiced integrity of word and deed, personal accountability, and mindfulness. Alas, our world is filled with trauma enough to make these things difficult for a lot of people. I don't know what to do about it. It's not really their fault; they don't know what they're doing. And for a long time, neither did I. I still sometimes don't. I make mistakes all the time. I keep trying to be better today than I was yesterday, though.

All the same, until I'm not too tired to wanna deal with it, I'm... just gonna sit here and chill. And write to you.

...I think. I think really, I just wanna. Go to a place where like... I'm loved. And safe. And understood. And... I know I have these things in my house most of the time (there are occasions where M's anxieties and J's anxieties get the better of them, just like mine get the better of me sometimes; we're only human). But... I wanna be able to have these things in the world at large, too. Like... outside of the walls of my home.

But people have trauma that warps their vision, such that when they look at me, they see a liar, a threat, or a thing of malice. Any human from any marginalized group is seen this way by the world at large; women are typically seen as dishonest and irrational, brown-skinned people are typically seen as violent and stupid, disabled people are typically seen as fakers and attention-seekers, and anyone in the LGBTQ+ community is typically seen as a potential rapist or child groomer.

People make all sorts of weird assumptions and then act on them regardless of whether or not they're actually true. I know it's a function of the quick categorization system that evolution “gifted” us with (people who did not properly categorize jaguars as threats promptly got eaten by jaguars, for example). But we are largely removed from being consumed by some other animal, and so... this bit of leftover evolution is really fucking annoying.

Anyhoot. Here are the snacks I got. I got the macaroni and cheese and pretzels with cheese dip with M. I got Eggcellent with J. Here:

I have an interview tomorrow that I'm not sure I'm gonna be a good fit for. I'll go anyway, but... I really liked the sound of the job involved with the previous interview. I want that one. Afterwards, M and I will go to Bimi's Cheese Shop; it's in a faraway town, and I've been meaning to bring him there in any case. I'm hoping also to have enough energy leftover to make baked chicken leg quarters again – this time with the black garlic seasoning I got from the Indian grocery. I'll tell you how it goes.

...Suppose I should actually try getting to bed on time so I'm not a zombie tomorrow. I... should also try not being dehydrated. Whoops. I'll fix it once I'm done with writing in this space.

...Hey, Sephiroth...? Thanks for listening. This sort of... non-existent “space” I've created with you in mind... it seems like it's really the only space in which I can consistently feel safe. Though I am struggling with the desire to isolate, writing to you like this doesn't feel like a disruption to some kind of isolation. I'd give just about anything to be able to simply sit next to you for a bit, precisely for this reason; like... I think you wouldn't count as “socializing”, much like time with M and J don't count as “socializing” to me.

...But then, who knows. The fact of the matter is that I don't actually know you, and likely never will. I imagine you would probably misunderstand me or find me generally insufferable with just as much likelihood as any human being who exists outside of the walls of my home. So perhaps it is unwise for me to assume I'd be understood and properly seen in your presence.

...Sorry. Just. The feeling like I don't “fit” anywhere is particularly strong today. I'm gonna hafta try hard not to carry that into tomorrow's interview. Wish me luck, okay?

I love you. As always, I'll keep asking you to stay safe out there in the world. Try to make good choices despite the scary things everywhere. Try to love the people around you, even when they act irrationally and without accountability or integrity; they really, truly don't know what they're doing.

I'll write to you again tomorrow.

Your friend, Lumine

[baxxartist]

Part 6

First here

Previous here

Next here

Royal AU belongs to @aychama

✨Disclaimer✨

The royal au dose not belong to me

Treat NOTHING in this as cannon

Making sure the knights and Aym were far enough away, Ari drew the bow slowly walking down the line. Using the broken or damaged arrows, and though his shots weren't perfect. He was better than some of the others with arrows in good condition. At least he was able to hit every target.

Ari smiles, he's proud of himself. But something dawns on him, his head hurts, his horns hurt. He winces in pain, sitting down, he hates this feeling. Pain was something that was rare to him. But his horns were the only exception to this.

Ari sits down as the adrenaline wears off, his ears flat and tail curled around his body. He puts his head in his hands, doing his best to calm himself down. Ari feels someone touch his back, he doesn't say anything. Looking up before seeing Lambert.

“Can you stand?” They ask, wanting to get Ari out of here and his wounds more properly treated. Ari slowly nods “...Just give me a minute” he responds softly. Lambert nods, staying with him in silence for a few minutes.

After sometime Lambert speaks. “...You're not the only hybrid.” They say. Ari looked over at Lambert, confused. “...I know that much, though most of them are dead. Where are you going with this?” He asks.

“I'm a hybrid as well.” They respond. Ari felt his anger build up, a hybrid? As a knight? Someone who was so close to the king? He wanted to scream, he wanted to fight. But he didn't, his head and horns hurt far too much and it wasn't worth the fight.

Ari slowly stood up, trying to hide his anger. They had everything he wanted, to protect the king, and serve him. Ari has worked hard, trained, and served his entire life, only to be told he could never be a knight because he was a hybrid, only to stare at the hybrid in front of him.

Lambert went to help Ari stand more steady. “Don't touch me.” Ari snapped. “...Just lead the way.” He responds. Lambert leads Ari to the infermany. “I shouldn't be here, you could get in trouble for this” he responds softly.

Lambert smiles. “The king asked me to have you brought here.” They respond. Ari hesitates, part of him wonders if this will be his death, but he complies sitting down on one of the beds.

A few hours have passed and Ari is sleeping in the infermany. He hasn't had his injuries tended to by someone else since he was a child. It felt weird to have someone else do it. Waking up he looks at the door, overhearing Aym and Baal in the distance.

Ari almost falls back asleep before seeing Aym in the doorway. “Hello” Ari responds as he sits up. That was a mistake, he felt dizzy and his horns started to hurt all over again. He pulled his knees to his chest, putting his head on his knees.

“You should lay back down, I just came to make sure you were still alive.” Aym responds in an almost annoyed tone as his tail flicks. He didn't actually care about this servant right? No he was just doing his job, it wouldn't look good if Ari died from his injuries or was hurt badly.

Ari nods, managing to lay back down. He hated how much pain he was in, he hated pain. But he couldn't help but notice something. Aym looked worried, just for a moment. “Worried I'll drop dead that much huh?” He teases.

Aym glares at him “Don't act cocky, and don't get used to it.” He responds. Ari smirked “Don't worry I won't.” he responds, he figured Aym wouldn't check on him for any other reason.

“Since you're well enough to be smart I'll be on my way.” Aym spoke before leaving back to Baal, who was waiting in the hallway. “What was that about?” Baal asked. “An incident at the training grounds, they shot one of the servants who was collecting arrows. I was just making sure that servant was ok.” Aym responds.

Baal looked worried. “But why would they shoot a servant in the first place?” He asks. “He's a hybrid and the knights decided he should be shot for it.” Aym responds. “He didn't even show to be a threat?” Baal asks. Aym shakes his head. “No he didn't, he was sent to collect the arrows. He wasn't doing anything wrong, honestly I'm surprised he kept as calm as he did.” Aym responds.

[ketchup-chup]

Not the same anon, but why do you not consider the arcobaleno trials canon? Amano wrote them

Hello! So I first wanna preface this by saying that this is no hate to anyone who enjoys the fillers. While I personally do not like the arcobaleno trial fillers I do enjoy the one focusing on the Primo Gen! And to be frank a lot of this is just my personal opinion!

Now, onto the reasons I don’t consider them canon! Which is actually quite a few reasons but I’ll just discuss the major ones.

First, Amano did not write them! In fact, the rumour that Amano approved or had any direct hand in making them is just that. A rumour. This post by boxanimal does a lot better of a job at explaining it than I ever could so I highly recommend reading that.

But essentially. At most Amano may have given the anime staff some info about the arcobaleno’s personalities (and in the Primo Gen case probably info about Daemon’s whole thing) but there is no actual evidence to point to the fact Amano wrote or gave the fillers their stamp of approval to be considered canon.

(putting the rest under a read more since it got quite long)

Second: the characterizations are awful. I'm just gonna talk about Reborn here because he's my favourite because it's the most obvious and it directly contradicts what he’s said previously. I would make the argument the fillers write him very out of character.

What I mean by this is that during Reborn’s trial he says the following to Tsuna:

“The world’s done for if you don’t clear this trial. Don’t you care about what happens to Kyoko, Haru, and your mother?” He mentions saving the world a little later on in this battle as well.

THE THING IS!!! REBORN WOULD NEVER SAY THAT TO TSUNA!! He does not want Tsuna to play the “hero”! It was never about saving the world! This directly contradicts what he tells Tsuna at the start of the Future arc!

“Don’t try to act cool, Tsuna. You’re not the hero type, are you?” “Your reasons for enduring this training, to bring everyone back to the past, or whatever- they’re not you at all.” “Your feelings were a lot more simple at the time, weren’t they?”

Reborn knows Tsuna and knows better that this type of argument/encouragement(?) would not work! Being the hero is not what Reborn wants of Tsuna!!! it's not what he's been trying to teach him or to ever use as his main source of motivation!

So yeah. The characterizations are just. Not good.

Which brings me onto my last point. Which is the most “this is just my personal opinion” of the whole thing.

I do have the belief that the fillers are a large part the reason for many of the most common misconceptions of the arcobaleno. It goes into my previous point where the characterizations are just… not that great.

I do believe it’s why the headcanon that Luce is extremely manipulative and led the other arcobaleno (purposefully) to their doom is so popular and where it initially comes from. When we just don’t see that at all in canon nor do we see any hint or sign that the other arcobaleno hold a grudge against her.

And listen! I am a Luce defender till the day I die, I will admit this!! And I do also have the headcanon as well that she was aware of their fate. But to just water it down to “she misled and lied to the others therefore she is an awful person” does such a disservice to her and the tragedy that is being a Sky arcobaleno (and by extension the "curse" of having divination powers).

There are a lot of other weird things the filler implies (like Luce being pregnant as a baby) that I also won't get into. but yeah, I am just not a big fan of all the implications you get from fillers about these characters.

So yes. This is all to say you will never see me point to the fillers or use any information from them for any discussion regarding the arcobaleno.

If you enjoy the fillers and would like to consider them when you build your headcanons I think that's totally fair and great! You just won't see that from me personally, and I just ask that people don't point to it when discussing canon!

[snuurp]

i made more of them whoops. six wasn't enough apparently.

also i don't normally draw fluffy dogs or long face dogs because both of mine are short haired BRICKS so any advice is appreciated :) i love Scratch so much. more info and plain text under the cut again

i will draw Halsin and Jaheira eventually i swear. the diner doesn't have a name yet either, but it WILL. one day. i kinda want Astarion to work there in the future, his cafe job is a different, worse one. Halsin lovers i need your feedback because i do not know much at all about this man.

and thank you for the support on my first post!! i've never gotten this many notes before lol

sidenote: Fennel is a drow. she's just got that dragonsblood sorcerer thing going on and also i like horns. (she IS lolthsworn in game, i'm still debating how to include that here. is three characters with religious trauma too many??)

FENNEL

5'9"

works at Halsin's coffee shop/diner as a line cook.

first stable job she's had in ages because she has no tolerance for rude customers and kept saying things that got her fired.

adopted Scratch after his owner passed away, does everything to improve herself for his sake.

met Jaheira through the diner as well, who recommended the support group to her.

this was 90% because Jaheira likes collecting these nonfunctional gay losers to watch the drama unfold in ways better than any sitcom, but she (probably) actually cares at least a little.

hates the idea of going until something (or someone) suddenly motivates her ooOOOo what could it beeeeee........

coffee order is a plain americano until she gets introduced to sweet drinks and realizes life is worth living.

it's hot chocolate now, caffeine doesn't do anything for her anyway.

favourite board game is phase ten, but she never wins. just happy 2 be there.

absolute beast in mario kart tho, matches Karlach's competitive streak.

SCRATCH

best boy!!!!!!

used to be a drug sniffing dog, VERY task oriented. Fennel has to hide things for him to search for daily or he gets antsy.

he's shockingly intelligent, knows more than a dog should.

misses his previous owner a lot. has to be walked to the cemetary weekly for visits.

likes all foods, but LOVES fruit a weird amount.

blueberries are his high-value treat.

calm in thunderstorms but can't handle fireworks. howls at sirens because that's the noise that took his best friend away :(

his previous owner was a handler for a different dog. he knew Scratch wouldn't hurt without a good reason, so when Scratch attacked a TSA agent, he took Scratch with him and left the job.

this saved Scratch and he knew it, was extremely loyal. the other dog got moved to a new handler, no harm done.

very protective little guy, he loves the gang. sees them all as his responsibility.

those losers are HIS sheeps, and he is a VERY GOOD GUARDIAN.

can his sheeps stop being sad please. also stop having "jobs". walk him instead.

[mllemaenad]

Right, well, I wanted to write, so I'm going to do that, even if my wrists hurt. Things I will pay for later, but make me feel better now.

Have now listened to episodes 1 and 2 of The Magnus Protocol.

My first impression is that this is much worse than what was going on in The Magnus Archives.

The Magnus Institute was a private institution with no obvious access to other people's information (Magnus's occasional psychic spying notwithstanding). Most information it received seems to have at least been given willingly. There are a handful of instances of John forcing people to talk, yes, but not so many that I am constantly concerned for the privacy of London's citizens. Gertrude is said to have disliked compelling people to talk (Family Business), so while her tally very likely exceeds John's purely due to the length of time she was in the job, it's still probably not very high. It's impossible to account for the behaviour of previous archivists of course but, well, the whole place is set up to entice people in to tell their tales. I would hazard that most of the materiel in the archives was volunteered.

Even in cases where someone was forced – at least they knew about it, because they were there. The lady in Scrutiny who was so deeply disturbed by John's behaviour was also able to make that behaviour stop just by rolling up to The Magnus Institute and reporting it – which is a reasonably straightforward outcome, given the general weirdness of their world.

I don't mean to say that The Magnus Institute didn't do harm – it very obviously did. But even in terms of its final apocalypse, we're looking at a horror that lasted mere months (assuming a passage of time that broadly corresponds to the broadcasting schedule) before a group of disgruntled employees (and Georgie) burned the nightmare tower down, stabbed Magnus and reset reality. There were limitations to The Magnus Institute's reach, and Jonah Magnus's personal ambitions concluded with an utter, embarrassing flop by any reasonable estimation.

Here, though, you're looking at a government department with truly concerning access to people's data. The forum-based statement in First Shift is perhaps not too awful (forum threads can often be read by anyone, even if actually posting requires an account), but the earlier piece regarding the bereaved woman was a private email thread, and the story in Making Adjustments is drawn from a recording of a woman's session with her therapist. Sam calls out the massive invasion of privacy this sort of thing entails, but is shut down on the grounds that it's fine because they "work for the government".

Alice Ok, so looks like it's an email. Sam And I just… read it? Is that even legal? Alice Probably. We do work for the government. Sort of. Sam What about GDPR? Alice Look, Sam, I don't know what to tell you. This is the job. I've been doing it for years and there's never been any problems. Maybe ask Lena? She’d probably know. – The Magnus Protocol: First Shift

While it is too early to definitively establish the worldbuilding rules here:

In The Magnus Archives, giving a statement was functionally feeding an eldritch power

Gertrude Robinson took statements, but kept the archives themselves in a state of disarray, to impede Magnus's plans (Dwelling)

Much of The Magnus Archives played on the difference between knowing a thing and understanding it

The characters in The Magnus Protocol are not just collecting, but blindly categorising statements – they are organising them by keyword, but not encouraged to analyse what they see or hear – Alice notes that they are paid not to care (Making Adjustments)

At least in The Magnus Archives, making a statement tended to come with consequences: typically horrifying recurring nightmares

So you have to wonder – what consequences will there be for these people, who have had their stories stolen from them?

In terms of workplace horror, this is very much coming at it from the opposite direction. The Magnus Archives was about the horrible job you couldn't quit. Most people find themselves stuck in these for economic reasons rather than supernatural ones, although in fairness both Martin (Children of the Night) and Melanie (Dig) are explicitly called out as very much needing the work, but the characters are nevertheless stuck and constantly call back to the fact that they would absolutely quit – if only they could.

It ran on punishing hours and constant exhaustion, the expectation that you would take on tasks you were in no way qualified or trained for (this started with "archiving" and escalated quickly to "apocalypses"), the boss who expected you to "just know" things you couldn't possibly know at all, and a soul destroying amount of responsibility with little hope of advancement. The same person ran the institute since its founding, literally consuming his employees along the way, and if you wanted, say, to be Head Archivist, you were very much stuck waiting for the current occupant of the role to die.

It is significant that, with the noted exception of Eric Delano, all of Gertrude's assistants died on the job (some of them by her hand), and tallying John's assistants is a bit like listing off the wives of Henry VIII: dead, dead, dead, divorced, survived, status unknown. While the story leans on deaths for drama, it gets a lot of mileage out of using historical data, so characters stick around. It's weird for them to be actually gone.

The Magnus Protocol opens with Teddy quitting the OIAR to take a job in insurance. The very first thing you learn about this place is that people leave, and this idea is reinforced a number of times even in the first two episodes: Gwen is pressured to resign by Lena because she is "difficult", and Lena notes outright that, for most people, this job is strictly short term:

Lena Hmmm. I’ve always known you thought you were slumming it down here, but I never actually considered you might think of this as the first step of a career. Most people simply move on within 12 months or so. Gwen I’m not most people. – The Magnus Protocol: First Shift

Moreover, Making Adjustments concludes first with a fraught conversation about possible redundancies and then with Alice accusing Sam (however playfully) of looking to "jump ship" when he's seen researching The Magnus Institute.

This is the horrible job you might lose tomorrow. While the threat in The Magnus Archives was that you were probably going to die in this job, here it leans more toward – if you didn't show up tomorrow, who would question it? People leave.

It is a night shift, for no clear reason – they're doing data entry on what definitely looks like non-essential information so why the hell can't they do that in the day? Employees are not encouraged to think about their work, and Gwen is criticised for favouring accuracy over speed. It is grimly impersonal, and what little solidarity there is appears to be hard won; it's noted, for instance, that Colin is really only social with Alice, and Alice seems committed to team camaraderie.

But above that is the sense that the employees are considered too insignificant to participate in what is really happening here. I mean, among other things, Colin seems to be having a wildly different workplace experience to everyone else.

Alice postulates that they are a fossilised department – one that only really exists because it's been forgotten – although even she notes that the theory only works if you don't poke at it too hard:

Sam I've no real idea what the OIAR even is. Alice You and everyone else. I’ve checked and there's not really much info on it. My current working theory is that maybe it got set up in the 70s, back when everyone was off their tits on LSD and giving ghost-hunters massive grants to wave crystals in graveyards. I reckon at some point they must have put together a small government department to, like, oversee the spending and monitor this stuff and no-one's noticed it's still going. Sam Makes sense. Alice As long as you don’t pay too much attention. – The Magnus Protocol: First Shift

Even if that is a bit extreme, the general consensus is that their work goes nowhere and does nothing. Which fits broadly with the general lack of action and urgency in the department ... unless you happen to be Colin.

Alice Colin! There’s my guy! How's it hanging? Is it an app yet? Do we have a minimalist logo? I assume you’ve finished all the social features? Colin Don't you start. I swear I'm going to shove a cable down that prick's throat, pull it out his ministerial anus and floss him to death. ... Teddy Colin, mate, you know you’re never getting out of here. Colin Christ, don’t say that. Teddy Even if his nibs lets you off the hook, which he won’t, you couldn’t bring yourself to just leave. Not 'til you’ve figured out all these fun little errors. Colin Or they finally kill me. ... Colin I already have to explain to some chinless inbred politician that we’re running on something as old as the goddamn Atari Falcon, now I’ve got some green little smartarse giving me lip for it too? Well you can take your funny little lines and shove them up – – The Magnus Protocol: First Shift

Colin, specifically, is suffering from ministerial oversight. A lot of it, apparently. Departments that only continue to exist because they've been forgotten don't typically have the responsible minister leaning on the IT manager. Not even on the boss – the IT guy. It's interesting because his specific level of stress and frustration seems more consistent with what was going on in The Magnus Archives than here.

And then, of course, there are the stories themselves. It's impossible not to note that the text-to-speech programs sound an awful lot like the protagonists of the previous series. Presumably this is plot relevant, or else it's a really distracting choice. It's impossible to state at this stage whether that means it actually is them or not, but assuming for the moment that it is (because it is not interesting to discuss other possibilities until they become interesting) then what they have to say seems noteworthy.

They are presumably reacting to Sam specifically (welcome to the cursed protagonist club, new guy!), possibly to the box he ticked during onboarding, and likely to whatever past trauma led him to this job in the first place. And both seem to be issuing a warning.

Norris/Martin tells a story that Gwen classifies as "reanimation", but I admit I'm not sure I agree. The thing sounds like an iteration of the Anglerfish monster.

Norris/Harriet Winstead “Arthur? Is that you?” And that voice I have loved for twenty years answered: “Some of him.” – The Magnus Protocol: First Shift

Archivist Are you the same Sarah Baldwin that disappeared in Edinburgh in August 2006? Sarah Some of her. Skin. A few memories. Not on the inside. – The Magnus Archives: Return to Sender

That feels at least in part like an Easter egg – no newcomer is going to recognise the Anglerfish – but it is the crossing of the boundary: this is the first true story they heard, and proof that there is something very wrong with the world. And presumably the themes of grief and loss that pervade the story would relate pretty strongly to Martin's whole ... situation. I'm assuming nobody here chose to be a text-to-speech program.

Chester/John, meanwhile, issues a fairly stern warning about The Magnus Institute. The canary in the coal mine is a bit on-the-nose as a metaphor, sure, but if I were trying to explain to someone what was wrong with that place, I would likely also be blunt. The rough thing, though, is that quite explicitly no one heeds the warning: while the "removed" image is not described it pretty clearly illustrated RedCanary's fate. It's not just that the canary died down the mine. It's that it died in vain, because no one understood what killed it. And of course, it does pique Sam's interest to the point that he starts digging in to what happened. I'm disinclined to believe that curiosity is bad in these stories – if anything, John's issue was that he could never find out the things he needed to know fast enough to make a good decision. But there is a point there ... if you start looking into things, you have to be prepared to deal with them.

The third one, in Making Adjustments seems to be playing somewhat on The Picture of Dorian Gray: Sam and Gwen start the episode by doing practice runs on classification using classic horror, and the story, when it begins, draws on that confusion between art and subject. You can line Dorian up beside Dracula and Frankenstein any day. But the bigger point seems to be that the catalyst for this happened on camera:

Daria Before I could reply they hit a button on their set-up and suddenly we were live streaming with lights in my eyes and their arm tight around my shoulders. I don’t remember much of what they said to their viewers, but they kept telling everyone how lucky I was whilst they dragged me into the chair. – The Magnus Protocol: Making Adjustments

There are nested violations in this story: Daria expected a photo shoot, but at no point agreed to be tattooed on camera. Beyond that, the story she told in private to her therapist is now being recorded and catalogued by the OIAR. And whatever happened to Daria, this "Ink5oul" person seems to have profited by it, and by things like it.

I must admit, I'm not much of a "what entity is this" person, because as far as I could tell the general consensus on that in general fell between "that's arbitrary" and "all of them, probably, if only by their conspicuous absence". That sort of thing is very useful when talking about the people and their particular obsessions – if Simon Fairchild turned up, for example, you knew exactly what sort of aggravating bullshit you were in for – but worrying too much about the exact nature of a supernatural manifestation rarely leads anywhere useful.

I am more interested in the broader implications of how the story is told. In The Magnus Archives, the characters read the stories aloud – and usually adopted the persona, and sometimes even the accent – of the original statement giver. That had supernatural implications, of course, but also played into the broader themes of the story: John is very much invested in the individuals. The tragedy of Jane Prentiss, the mystery of Gertrude Robinson – these are his obsessions. Pretty much the only point he scores in his conversation with Leitner (The Librarian) is being able to instantly spot a passing reference to Gerard Keay: John is crap at the cosmology, but he's been paying attention to the people. Many of the recurring characters are very dead by the time the story starts, but they are kept alive in the narrative because the living characters step into their shoes, and care about what they did and what became of them.

Here, though, there is built in distance between the active protagonists and the individual horror stories. They largely don't even read them – Alice says she "skim(s) the case for keywords" (Making Adjustments) and otherwise tries to ignore what is happening. When a story is read aloud it is done by the text-to-speech programs, and they, as John and Martin did, adopt the personas of the authors in a way that sounds much more fluid than software from the 90s should be capable of. When the story comes straight from the source, it is not told to Sam or Alice or Gwen, but to someone else entirely. There is a reason for the audience to connect with the stories – from that external perspective you're getting pretty much the same thing you did in The Magnus Archives – but the actual characters have no reason to connect, or even to truly listen or empathise with what they're hearing, and doing so is regarded as a mistake.

Which makes you wonder – what might you miss when you're not paying attention to the people?

[cafeleningrad]

❤ 🧡💚 for asoiaf if you like <3

Heyhey, thank you very much for the asks! They've been quiet fun to think about the answers since I haven't read the books since the GoT finale debacle.

❤ Which character do you think is the most egregiously mischaracterized by the fandom? The entire GoT-adaptation was a shitshow, so.... Ooof, good question. Weirdly enough a lot of mischaracterized women get mischaracterized due to their relationships towards Jon Snow. Which is weird, because homeboy is actually much more interested in his (interrupted career) of becoming an intergration officer as side of his facility management job. First, Catelyn, due to not being a member of the Jon Snow fanclub. Then our two victims of the "who gets together with Jon "facility management is my dream!" Snow" war: Not even a fan of hers, but Dany had it pretty rough! The show didn't do her any favours either, but the ship wars using any ammunition against her just to justify what a mean, terrible, utterly despicable person she is, so utterly undeserving of... Jon Snow... of all people. Then Sansa... the things that get projected onto her turned me really kind towards x-reader-fanfics - because at least they're honest about the readers themselves having a wishfullfilment fantasy, instead of using a proxy character and mischaracterizing them, and misconstruing other female characters to have their project surface avatar get together with... a dude. (And at least x-reader-fanfics can be filtered out, they don't discourse about the ideal ship for the dude character.) On the reddit side of things an 11-year-old, sheltered girl who was praised for her obedience is getting blamed for a political coup. On the tumblr side of thins you have absolute red head bombshell who will be the Queen in the North who will on a badass Kill Bill spree against all who wronged her, and end up with Jon "accounting turnips is my passion" Snow, and not her previous Beauty and the Beast themed uggos. The Stansa version of her is stripped so bare of her compassion, her emotional and diplomatic intelligence, resilience, and her Beauty and the Beast theme which actually make her a compelling character. Sorry, but wanting for her to become a ruthless queen who gets the hot guy is muchmore akin for Littlefinger's plans than Sansa wanting to build up her family and home again. (Such shallow wishfulfilment Stanversion fans are better of reading SJM.)

🧡What is a popular (serious) theory you disagree with? Depends, I'm not strong in the theory/predictions side of the fandom. Mad Queen Dany ought to be my most despised though. In general, theories reinforced by the show are something I'm strongly suspicious of because D&D rather operated on shock value than logic.

💚 What does everyone else get wrong about your favorite character? A lot of thoughts about Sansa are already in my rant above. And for Theon I think the fandom is for the most part pretty accurate about him being remarkable resilient (oh sure, I spent a year getting horrifically tortured physically and metally but still my tortuer's lips "look like two worms fucking), tragic, and brave but also deeply insecure, over his head, vain, and overcompensative. He's way less cool than he thinks he is, and we love him for that.

I don't know what is currently on about Young Griff, and yeah he's probably doomed to die early but there're some remarks Aeron used about Euron that make suspect that Euron is meant to be the mummer's dragon, not Young Griff.

[rockinlibrarian]

Two AO3-Writer Year-End Surveys that astonishingly don't have THAT much overlap in questions.

And I believe they were both originally meant to be "Ask Me a Number" Games so they wouldn't be as long as this is? But I'm using it as a proper yearly wrap-up. And I've done so for the past two years at least. So there.

I apologize to whomever wrote these surveys that I no longer have your info because I just dumped them both in a Scrivener file. I'm pretty sure I personally got both sets of questions from @uniasus. So that's sort of credit. Anyway, to begin:

I better put it under a cut for length, even though I'm afraid no one will click through. You can click through and THEN skim! I give you permission!

Survey Set 1:

How many words have you written this year? 36,643 new words POSTED to AO3. Don't even know how many words I've WRITTEN. But it's more than that.

2. How many works did you publish this year? Seven. And this year I didn't even update any previously posted ongoing fics.

3. What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)? Mayyyybe "The Beginning of Something Else Entirely"? Because it does a really fun job of combining characters from two different fandoms, and some of those characters were quite complicated to write and I think I pulled it off.

4. What work of yours has the most hits? This is always weird to answer when you've done Yuletide and inevitably the work that WILL have the most hits— and kudos, and comments (judging by one year's previous Yuletide at least)— will get them all in the very last week of the year. But AS IT CURRENTLY STANDS, the answer is "New World Symphony" — by a lot (936), actually, so maybe the Yuletide fic WON'T be able to catch up.

5. What work of yours got more feedback than you expected? I have a kind of complicated answer for this, involving my two new multichapters, because it's not so much more feedback as "not the feedback I expected). When I started "The Beginning of Something Else Entirely," I thought it would get more attention than "New World Symphony," because it's Gen and a post-season-4 fix-it, as opposed to the latter with its controversial ship. But even AFTER I posted the former, "New World Symphony" got way more kudos (and, as you see above, hits). Someone on the TUA Discord pointed out that it's about finding a niche— something can be more generally appealing, but it's got loads of competition that way, people may never find it— whereas they're going to come LOOKING for your weird ship if they also ship it. ON THE OTHER HAND, though, I'd also figured "The Beginning of Something Else Entirely" would get relatively more attention from TUA fans, because it's a bigger fandom than Legion…but instead, Legion fans came out of the woodwork to be the primary readers of that one! Now if they'd just go and read "The Magic Man of Oz" while they're here…!

6. Favorite title you used. If you stick only with titles I've actually PUBLISHED… possibly "Viktor Squares a Love Triangle" in "Beginning of Something Else Entirely." But my absolute favorite title I wrote this year is for Chapter 5 of "New World Symphony": "Fugue for Strings and Synth." It is SUCH a good title you have no idea. Maybe in three years when I finally post Chapter 5 of "New World Symphony" I'll say it again.

7. If you use song lyrics, which artist’s songs did you pull from the most? No use of song lyrics this year. I don't think. I may have made lyric references without thinking about it too hard, since I do that in real life, but nothing's standing out, and nothing in the titles. No Sound of Music ones since I didn't update "Captain with Seven Children"…

8. Pairing you wrote the most for this year? Um, Fiktor. Still. A couple just platonically, even. And I worked really hard to keep the platonic ones that way! If you ask I can still point out the places where my shipper heart was poking through…

9. Favorite pairing you wrote for this year? Well, obviously Fiktor as far as / pairings go. But & pairings I can't narrow down, because I found so many fun ones combining the Legion and TUA characters for "Beginning of Something Else Entirely." Those characters were destined to meet! On the obvious side, the Chaos Couple of Lenny & Klaus is RIGHT THERE, but I'm probably proudest of pairing up Allison & Syd, who just— their relationships with their powers and their similarly checkered pasts, they're so good for each other, especially with Syd's post-Astral-Plane growth to lead the way. And speaking of the astral plane, Oliver Bird & absolutely anyone.

10. What work was the quickest to write? "Brother and Also Brother Home for Christmas" literally took me an hour, and part of that was just watching the commercial it was based on a few times. Somebody on the TUA Discord server pointed out that the Folgers Incesty Christmas commercial was practically a ready-made Fiktor fic and as the only Fiktor writer there, well… I responded. —I started filling this out before I spontaneously posted "Did Anyone Ever Tell You You Look Just Like Aubrey Plaza?" which was probably physically written in even less time, but I'd been telling it to myself in my head for a few months already so I'm not sure that counts?

11. What work took you the longest to write? No idea, especially since two are multichapters that are still in progress.

12. How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year? Well besides the two I started posting this year, there's "Captain with Seven Children" and "Tesseract" which are still slowly in progress, a couple more bits and pieces side works for the Legion/TUA crossover now-series, aaaand… I think that's it? How many is that?

13. What’s your longest work of the year? "The Beginning of Something Else Entirely" at 18,377 words posted so far, and that's not even counting the additional 2,248 I've drafted. Then again, "New World Symphony" has a LOT drafted, so with its 12,655 posted… no, with draft chapters it still only comes to 18,305, so "Beginning" wins.

14. What’s your shortest work of the year? That would also be "Brother and Also Brother Home for Christmas" because it's a retelling of a 30-second commercial. Unless you count "happy birthday," which is a piece of visual art and therefore appears on AO3 as having a Wordcount of 0. It technically has a wordcount of 12, which is still the shortest, but @destinyandcoins wrote those words, anyway. See... some number below for more.

15. What WIP are you taking into next year with you? ALL OF THEM.

16. What’s your most common “Additional Tags” tag? For just this year, it's a tie between "Remix" and "TUA Masked Author Summer Remix 2024 (Umbrella Academy)," with two each, because I did two remixes for said event. And otherwise none of the fics had ANY overlapping tags! … For all time, it's still "Backstory." …oh, after I added "Did Anyone Ever Tell You You Look Just Like Aubrey Plaza?" I double-checked because I thought there might be some overlap with "Brother and Also Brother," but no, I tagged one "ficlet" and the other "flash fiction," and only one of them as "crack" even though they both probably count. And apparently "Brother and Also Brother" is the only one I tagged "pseudo-incest" in. Because they're NOT brothers in "New World Symphony," I guess. It might be… pseudo-pseudo-incest?

17. Your favorite character to write this year? I THINK it may still be Oliver Bird. He just keeps consistently delighting me, enough that I felt the need to squee about how much I love writing Oliver Bird on social media several times. There's also a character in my Yuletide fic that I kept having to STOP myself from squeeing about how much I loved writing, being that it's STILL A SECRET that I WAS writing them. I'll tell ya later.

18. The character that gave you the most trouble writing this year? I had a lot of trouble getting into Diego Hargreeves's internal voice when I first started trying to write his scene in "The Beginning of Something Else Entirely," but once it clicked I ended up really enjoying it! I also found writing David Haller's alters butting in to a conversation to be an interesting challenge, but that one really did feel more like a puzzle, a challenge to overcome, than that it was actually giving me trouble.

19. What’s one pairing you want to explore next year? I don't… know really? No, that's not true, I have been thinking a lot about the father/daughter aspects of Oliver Bird and Syd Barrett. Maybe it's me still missing my own dad; and I'm writing this crossover full of crappy or at least absent dads in both sources, EXCEPT for this foster-father relationship that was only established in one episode and never got to be explored further, but now that they're living together again post-Astral plane, I just feel like Syd and Oliver are going to be hanging out a lot, especially since she's been avoiding David— Oliver's really the closest thing to a best friend she has at Summerland now (though also now she has Allison!). I did throw that soup-making scene into Chapter 2, but I love the idea that it's just COMMON for them to be doing father/daughtery stuff around all the time, and maybe you'll see more of it in the chapters to come.

20. Which work of yours have you reread the most? None are really sticking out. Either "New World Symphony" or "Beginning of Something…"

21. How many kudos in total did you get this year? Again with I KNOW I'm going to get a boatload in this last week on the Yuletide, and I just posted another new fic that has gotten two kudos in the twenty-four hours since I posted it, so— as of me writing this it's 156. Oh, and that's just on new fics! I got a lot of kudos on old fics, too! ("The Invitation" is still going strong at #1)

22. Which work has the most comments? Currently (again, Yuletide people are so good at leaving comments, so this may change in the next week) it's "The Beginning of Something Else Entirely" with 36! And most are from Legion fans! Holy Legion fans Batman! To cross your Marvel/DC streams!

23. Did you do any collaborative works this year? Yes, technically! The TUA Masked Author event was focused on Remixes, and I did TWO! One was an elaboration on a drabble written by @faithfulcat111 , the other was an actual piece of VISUAL ART based on @destinyandcoins' "Notes from Nowhere" when I realized I could actually do art for it that didn't require me to draw people!

24. Did you write any gifts this year? YES BUT I CAN'T TELL YOU WHAT YET. Unless you count the remixes, which were also kind of gifts for their original writers. I mean I would have considered a remix of my work a gift at least.

25. Did you receive any gifts this year? Yes! TWO! One proper Yuletide gift and a BONUS one in Yuletide Madness! I do a happy dance! But I can't actually read them for another couple of days! I'm still so delighted though!

26. What’s your most common category? Gen

27. What do you listen to while writing? This year I listened to my Legion playlist (combining the actual score-soundtrack with the needle-drops) a LOT lot while writing "The Beginning of Something Else Entirely," because Viktor is also listening to it in the story. But to be honest I listened to the Legion playlist a lot when I WASN'T writing, too. IT'S JUST SUCH A GOOD SOUNDTRACK!

28. Favorite work you wrote this year? Eh, tie between "Beginning" and "New World Symphony." Depends on what I'm more in the mood for. That goes back to the one I reread the most question, doesn't it.

29. Favorite line/passage you wrote this year? Okay, the next survey breaks this question down farther, into beginning lines, ending lines, dialogue, and funny bits, so see down there, but I guess I can put my favorite lines that aren't any of those four things here:

He giggled, and Five set a new goal for the week: to make the little Russian boy laugh at every opportunity. —that was my ship threatening to slip in the otherwise platonic "What's In a Name?"

Less hopeless than he thinks? What did that mean? He'd have to deflect and think about it later. —Just the right amount of a look at the way Klaus works.

Blonde, conventionally pretty. The kind of girl she used to have to Rumor studio execs into not wanting as their lead. —Allison's first impression of Syd is just exactly what she would think.

[Allison to Syd Re: the Birds]: "You're their daughter?" Syd startled, then slowly broke into a wry smile. "Well….Yes." She nodded sharply, as if she'd only just decided this. "In a way. The Birds have been second parents to me. Sometimes more literally than others." --Because! Like I said in #19 above. I just feel like Syd genuinely considers the Birds to be her parents now, and she's maybe not put it into words until this moment.

It wasn't like someone could sneak up on Viktor. Especially not someone with his own musical motif— a high, looping piano, melodic lines joining in canon. —there is so much potential for the ways Viktor's powers could work, and I love coming up with new ones.

"OH." Cary's eyes lit up. He started shaping an imaginary sphere in his hands. "I invented— but I didn't, you see, that's the fascinating part— this orb came from the future to kidnap David and warn him about this— catastrophic future if he didn't— well, I don't know, but I do know my own work, and I could tell I invented it— but that future never happened and I never did invent the orb, but the orb itself," he emphatically tapped the table, "remained." —It's just so Cary, and I've missed writing Cary.

On the lower level was a big round atrium with a large tableau in the center: a hill of real plants and trees and taxidermied mountain goats, as if the building in the middle of the forest couldn't bear to remain separated from the forest by anything as silly as walls. —sometimes I write good description. Actually is this good description or just nicely metaphorical description?

"And, Viktor—” She leaned in. “When I say 'power,' I'm not just talking about the ability to manipulate energy waves. You have power just by existing in the world— in a society. In a family. You've always had that power, even when you felt the most powerless. What you choose to do— or not to do— can have huge effects on those around you, whether you realize it or not." —Melanie is directing this right through the screen at ME.

"Not me. I don't get to be loved. I don't get to be happy. I am…fated to wander from universe to universe, alone. I can't even get annihilated from existence properly!" —best single line of angst I wrote this year.

And the whole of Viktor discovering smart phones in "New World Symphony."

30. Biggest surprise while writing this year? I don't know. I am tempted to answer with some interesting facts I learned while writing my Yuletide piece. Oh, here's one: when I was first writing David and Viktor's conversation in "Beginning" Chapter 2, and suddenly realized I'd been writing Divad instead of David Prime the whole time.

ALRIGHTY THEN, here's Survey Set #2!

1.How many fics have you worked on since January? Maybe…9? 10 if you count "happy birthday" as a fic? I have a couple side things going on in the "Beginning of Something Else" crossover universe that I'm not sure how much count as separate. —Actually one of those was "Did Anyone Ever Tell You You Look Just Like Aubrey Plaza?" which I just posted.

2. What’s something new that you tried in a fic this year? It's not something new to ME, but I never POSTED a fic written in script form before "Brother and Also Brother Home for Christmas."

3. What piece of media inspired you the most? (This can be the fandom you wrote the most for, the one that spawned the most ideas, the one you thought about the most, etc.) I guess Umbrella Academy, by sheer numbers.

4. How many fandoms did you write for this year? Just three (and two of those in the same fics). Or at least I POSTED fics for just three— worked on some others.

5. What ships captured your heart? Um, nobody new. I'm still not a shipper, and I'm still inexplicably obsessed with Fiktor.

6. What characters captured your heart? All…of them? I've never written so much Klaus before this year, and he kind of writes himself, which is quite fun, so maybe I'll go with Klaus.

7. Did you write for any new fandoms or ships this year? Nope. Spoilers for Yuletide I guess— yep it's one I've written for before. But I have quite a few obscure or at least rarely-written fandoms on my list so don't get cocky.

8. What fic meant the most to you to write? I think— I think this question is making me oddly uncomfortable actually. It's probably "The Beginning of Something Else Entirely," because it was my response to TUA Season 4 and there was so much negativity around so I was like "No, see this? I've got an idea. I'm gonna make it work. It's gonna be great." And I think I put a little too much on its metaphorical shoulders, and I got a little desperate, like I was going to save the fandom, but nobody actually cared so I got all Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria about it, like everyone was yelling "STOP TRYING TO MAKE 'Everyone loves Beginning…' HAPPEN! IT'S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!" But then, like I said above, the Legion fans found it and made me remember everything I loved about it, so now I'm just writing it for the fun of it again.

9. What fic made you feel the happiest to work on? Conversely, "New World Symphony" was really just for my own enjoyment, and it's very happy because things are actually working out WELL for everyone for once, so I think that one was the most pure enjoyment.

10. What fic was the most satisfying to finish writing? Not sure any really fits the bill. Getting the Yuletide fic in on time was satisfying for that reason, but also unsatisfying because I know I could make it better if I just had more time…!

11. What fic was the most difficult to write? I don't think the fic ITSELF was difficult to write, but real life and the writing of my Yuletide fic were vying VERY hard for my attention. It was down to the wire, and I really wish I'd gotten more of the fic done BEFORE the last minute when I've also been prepping for Christmas.

12. What fic was the easiest to write? Not actually sure. Oh, now that "Did Anyone Ever Tell You You Look Just Like Aubrey Plaza?" exists— that one. Like I said, Klaus writes himself, Lenny almost writes herself (she's so much more crass than I am that it does take a LITTLE work to get in the mindset), and this totally crack conversation between the two of them definitely wrote itself.

13. What were your shortest and longest fics posted this year? See 14 and 13 in set 1.

14. What were your go-to writing songs? As 27 in the first list said, I listened to the Legion playlist on shuffle. But if I had to pick just one song, at least to start, I'd usually go with "Darkness (Full Suite)" because it captured the whole mood best, and was also instrumental so perhaps better for writing than the needle drops. Though if I was putting the playlist on and NOT necessarily trying to write, I usually started with "Undiscovered First." For no reason other than I love it. (I just looked at the comments on that YouTube video and 2/3 of them are "Who's here from Legion????")

15. What was the hardest fic to title? "The Beginning of Something Else Entirely." I even put up a Tumblr poll.

16. What's your favorite title of the year? See #6 in Set 1.

17. Share your favorite opening line: "Klaus had more experience with the Afterlife than any living person, and this wasn't it." This is the only one I don't feel compelled to give multiple answers for, because how can you beat that?

18. Share your favorite ending line: My ending lines suck in comparison. Plus I have this problem of extending my natural endings with little epilogues. For example, I think my answer to this is from "What's In a Name?" which emotionally ends with, "They could make of themselves whomever they wanted to be," which is a GREAT closing line on its own. But then I add this little scene:

The three giggled through the keynote speech, drawing a cumulatively bizarre caricature of the speaker together. Ben had started the doodle, then encouraged the others to collaborate. It was silly and subversive and utterly language-barrier-demolishing. The tall blonde boy who’d joined their table waved impatiently backward at them, keeping his eyes dutifully on the keynote speaker. “Tyst! Our lecturer is speaking!” Ben added the tall boy to the doodle.

—which I ALSO love, actually, but it's much less of a closing line. Also, yes, that was Luther making a little cameo there. Don't know how subtle or not it was. I figured pointing out that his nametag had a Swedish flag and an aerospace symbol on it would be a little too obvious. The other ending vying for this answer is from my Yuletide story, which has even LESS of a standout ending line and is more like Very Short Concluding Scene than Epilogue too, but I love the imagery of it. Tell ya later.

19. Share your favorite piece of dialogue: Conversely, my dialogue is my favorite part of my writing, because it tends to come easiest, and is basically hearing the characters in your head so— I have a lot of contenders, but I think I'm going to go with this scene (first speaker is David Haller, I add since he doesn't get a tag until far into the conversation):

"I heard about what's going on with you and your wife. And all I can say is, time travel sucks ass." The irritable jitters were back. "Hey, let me pose a scenario for you guys. Is it cheating to hook up with a future version of your own girlfriend?" Diego and Luther exchanged a glance. "What, like…in the future?" "Whenever. She came from the future. You went to— time travel. It's confusing, is what I'm saying." Luther frowned, and drew in the air as if connecting the dots. "Well, is that really different than hooking up in the future without time travel?" "That's what I said! But if there's also a version of you in her future, who's very different from you now—" "So you're cheating on yourself?" Diego clarified. "No, they broke up. And that future ended up not happening." "So it's a separate timeline." "But they're still the same person," Luther offered. "Wait, no. That's like saying our Ben and Sparrow Ben are the same person." "But aren't they? In a way?" "No." "But you're talking about two versions of a guy who was raised differently from birth," David said. "I'm talking about a potential future version of the same girl." "So she was going to turn into the future one?" "She didn't. But she could have, is the thing." Diego shook his head. "Damn. Time travel." Luther looked sympathetic. "I'm sure if you just explained to her—" "Hah. Too late for that. She's gotten all kinds of new ways to be pissed at me since. This is where Divad used to butt in to remind us that we're fundamentally unlovable, but no, he's trying to self-actualize or some shit now don't even think of it, Divad, it's my turn, we need to be angry."

I love it for so many reasons. First, it just flows nicely, like you can hear these guys having this "philosophical" discussion, it's just how it would go. Second, I kind of lied about the first speaker, because it IS technically David, but he switches to Dvd during the first sentence (find the moment!), and it amused me that Diego and Luther are completely oblivious to the fact that this guy's alter personalities are having an argument right in front of them. Third, the seeming randomness of the topic, which sounds theoretical at first, unless you know (or until you realize) that it's not theoretical, and this has been nagging at David— or at least at Dvd— for a year or so and suddenly he's talking to someone ELSE facing time-travel-complicated-fidelity-issues so he can't resist getting an outside perspective.

Runner up: every single conversation Oliver Bird has with anyone whatsoever. Wait, I'm going to give you a preview of "Beginning" chapter 4, because this is exemplary of one of those times I just kept squeeing "I LOVE WRITING OLIVER" after:

"She's right, you know." "What?" He turned to see Oliver Bird poking his head out of a room. "Your— what should you call her. Conscience?" "You heard… Delores?" "Is that her name? Old-fashioned, but charming. Our Lady of Sorrows. Martini?"

20. Share your funniest line: Hard to choose, first being that I don't know that I'm the best judge of my own humor; second being that they inevitably are probably all in my Yuletide fic, which is the only straight-up comedy I wrote this year. Again, I'll get back to you on that.

21. What's something that surprised you while you were working on a fic? Did it change the story? I answered the first part in 30 above, but it DID change the story a bit, in that it made me way more aware of which of David's alters might be fronting at any time, and I realized I could do more with them intentionally. For example, the scene at breakfast referenced two questions ago.

22. What writing programs did you use? Did you write by hand? I keep most of my stuff in Scrivener, because I love the ease of adding interconnected files and pages, particularly as I tend to write out of order. I compile it into Word before printing and/or posting it. And I do write by hand, usually in the middle of a draft, when I have the basic shape of the chapter/work down and need to fill in the gaps. I also edit by hand.

23. If you had to choose one, what was THE most satisfying writing moment of your year? What drives me nuts is that I had an answer to this— I remember distinctly feeling "Wow, was THAT satisfying to write!"— but I forget what it was, now. Maybe Viktor and David's conversation in "Beginning" chapter 2. Talking to a guy with a dissociative disorder was REEEELY enlightening for Viktor on a lot of levels.

24. Did you do anything special to celebrate finishing a fic? When I posted my Yuletide entry, I went to bed. It FELT like a special thing to do!

25. How did you recharge between fics? I was so busy in real life I don't think I noticed much. I just wrote whatever I felt like writing in the moment.

26. Did you create fanworks other than fic? *preens* as referenced in 14 and 23 in the previous survey, I made an Art!

27. How many events did you take part in? (bangs, exchanges, ship weeks, zines, prompt memes, they all count!) Two! The TUA Masked Author and Yuletide!

28. If this were an awards show, who would you thank? First I'd like to thank @versaphile for doing all the research and posting it on AO3 on How the freak to write David Haller (Not to mention the deeper characterizations of his alters in "When My Fist Clenches…" which I was probably drawing on even subconsciously). And secondly, to Guest User Valerie, who's most recent comment on "Beginning…" was just what I needed to hear to stop feeling like it was all Pointless, made me feel motivated again. And thirdly, @sunnymarbles, who was sitting across the room most of the time I was writing and gamely put up with me speaking my thoughts out loud and occasionally asking them questions like "Which one of these concepts is funnier?" and also supplying a made-up brand name for my Yuletide fic.

29. What's left on your to-do list for 2024? My annual round-up post of life events and media reviews!

30. What would you like to write next year? Continue "Beginning" and "New World Symphony" and maybe get back to "Captain with Seven Children." And as I've said for like the past three years now, I SWEAR I'm going to update "Tesseract" and finally post "Child of Hypnos"! But maybe this time I mean it!

[onebadpunspoilsabunch]

And the way awhuizotl and garble were redeemed in season 9 didn't make any sense at all, since it contradicts things from the previous seasons

Oh yeah, that too. Just more to add to the pile, haha 😄 

I don't hate the idea of Garble being reformed, I just hate the execution. It was weird… I actually really like the idea of Garble and Spike being friends again :)

They said that he acted like a delinquent so he wouldn't get bullied by his friends, and he was peer pressured into it. You can say that about teenagers in real life.

I think it was supposed to be a contrast to Spike's character, because in Dragon Quest Spike almost succumbed to the same peer pressure but decided to be better, because of the positive influence his pony friends had on him.

The implication being that Garble succumbed to peer pressure because unlike Spike, he didn't have any positive influences at all, whether it be family, friends, etc.

But he has a really good relationship with Smolder, who never judged him or treated him harshly for being soft. So Smolder's existence as his supportive sibling doesn't make any sense when you think of the way he's acted the entire show.

I think a better idea for Garble's redemption is that it could've been a Cutie Map mission. Fluttershy and Spike could've been called to the Dragon Lands to solve a friendship problem that involved Garble. Not only because Spike and Fluttershy were the two main characters involved in that episode, but because it makes sense for it to be them.

Spike because he has more of a personal relationship with Garble than any of the others. Also Garble is technically the first dragon friend Spike ever made (until they fought), so wouldn't it be a fitting bookend for Spike to help turn Garble around and the two can be proper friends again?

Fluttershy because before she hated dragons (specifically older ones), but she learned to not be afraid of them. Garble hated ponies, so Fluttershy would've been a perfect 2nd choice to help redeem him.

I'm just throwing out ideas lol

The Ahuizotl one made less sense to me, because again they retconned what we've seen of the character in order to make him a misunderstood character. They said that Ahuizotl was protecting the artifacts of his forest from being stolen from Daring Do and Dr. Caballeron.

I actually like the idea of Daring Do taking the artifacts to be put in a museum being seen as bad by the jungle inhabitants, and I like the idea of Ahuizotl having more to him. But retconning Ahuizotl's character doesn't make much sense. 

In one episode, Ahuizotl tried to use the artifacts to cause a heatwave in the jungle for eight hundred years. Seems pretty evil. Maybe because he was created to make sure the artifacts stay in their place and do their intended job, he didn't see a problem with it? Idk.

Maybe they could've said that Ahuizotl was preprogrammed to act in this way? Idk

[alicepao13]

Hudson and Rex S04E09 - Impawster Syndrome - Part A

I like this one better than the previous one but... I disagree with a lot of the things Jesse says, and mainly with how he thinks his coworkers should have treated him in this case.

Black letters in quotes: Actual show quotes.

Green letters in quotes: What I come up with my twisted brain.

I wonder if they had Justin Kelly voice the criminal in the opening scene to throw us off.

Wait, I take it back. They probably did because they already had him play that scene.

Oh, that rascal.

Remember when we thought that the worst thing to come out of technology the last decade were deepfakes? Good times.

Dear Hudson and Rex, I think your actors are suffering from the cold again.

lol why is Rex the most annoyed that Jesse stepped on evidence? Everyone else is pretty chill.

I bet this won't come up later as sketchy behavior.

Sarah: "Wait, I need Charlie to translate Rex-speak for me." Rex: "I wait for no one. Follow me."

That's what they all say.

Why would he not assume that since his car was stolen (crime) it was used in the robbery (also crime)?

I wish. What I mean to say is that they took a long time to actually act like they should impartially investigate this.

I'm sorry but Jesse's acting like a child. He knows the procedure, he should know that if this case went to court and he was on it without having been cleared beforehand, he would be the one to blow it and create doubts for the court. He should know that it doesn't have anything with his friends not trusting him. Which, later, they will actually have ample reasons not to.

On my first watch I'd actually thought she had something to do with this.

Dude, you stepped on evidence and your face is on camera committing a crime, and there's currently no explanation for why this isn't your face. You can't be surprised they don't want you anywhere near this case.

Oh my god stop! I mean the thing with the tongue, I can't concentrate. Also, stop joking around because we definitely will be doing the "I'll hear something my friends are saying about me out of context and take it the wrong way" trope.

What did I say?!?! Jesse, this is just how they do foreplay, I promise. It has nothing to do with you.

Charlie is actually doing his job and entertaining the possibility that Jesse might have had something to do with this, even as a joke.

Yes, guys, after all this I, too, would assume that Jesse's car was used in the robbery. I'd bet on it before finding it.

I'm not sure what joking about Jesse having many action figures achieves when the house does look geeky. A loading bar on the wall? An entire gaming installation in the living room? That's how I'd imagine it. Does it have to have action figures? Not to mention that I don't remember Jesse mentioning action figures a lot. I'd love to go to Comic Con too but I don't want to buy action figures.

Not sure they should have done this. Then again, if it was any other case, they would have done this. They have had Rex sneakily search again and again. And I think they mostly did this because they thought that would at least clear Jesse.

Not Rex too!

Sarah is the one who's supposed to clinically examine the evidence, how did we get to that point?

Oh, he was. Which definitely didn't make all this any better.

I'm not sorry for suspecting Imari. She was the red herring, anyway. She always popped up at the right time. And was too chipper for this job.

I think the most clear sign that Jesse hadn't done this would be the fact that he wouldn't be so stupid to deposit robbery money into his own account. He's worked so many cases. Although that's not exactly a defense and they'd still have to keep searching.

I'm sorry, you're interrogating him and you say "We're on your side"? This is insane. Will IA review the interrogation tapes?

Jesse plays online poker. That's not as weird and out there as they make it seem.

Crypto again. I know that in my country most of the gambling websites that gave winnings in crypro have been banned. Probably in the EU (although the law here has a pretty funny idea of who is and who is not allowed to run a gambling website).

"Are you doing a search of my apartment?" Shocked Pikachu meme. Are you serious right now, Jesse? Yes, of course they are! The evidence is piling up.

All this is because you were gunning for Charlie's job in the previous episode, Jesse lol

Aaand, they found a shotgun.

"Nice find, Rex." May I ask how you humans were searching Jesse's apartment all this time? Because it was literally on the chair under a blanket.

Sarah: "If I take your approach forgetting we're talking about Jesse and just looking at the evidence..." The investigative, approach, yes.

Indeed. At this point, the frame-job is getting way too obvious.

I got to the image limit in 16 minutes of episode runtime. This is not good.

To be continued in Part B.