#who can just outright *say* something vulnerable/visceral

[melancholy-lute]

G&S + TS: "When a wooer goes a-wooing" + "Hits Different"

"tears that blister" & "feelings fester"/"food for fishes only fitted" 🤝 "threw up on the street" & "my sadness is contagious"/"I slur your name"

I should think of someone newer

But I'm left here feeling bluer

When each memory is truer

It hits different 'cause it's you

(Hits

different

'cause

it's

you...)

[cptn-m]

One Piece chapter 1104 review

If you want evidence of how in-focus Kuma and his family have been in recent months, look at the list of recent chapter titles. Bonney, Kuma (as himself, "daddy," "Kumachi" and describing himself as a pacifist) and Ginny are mentioned in every title since chapter 1096. Characters in chapter titles is by no means a new thing, but so many who are so closely related in so many back to back chapters feels like an outlier.

Kuma opens the chapter with a punch that's well worth the wait, counting both the post-New Years days off and the long flashback build-up to this moment. It's beautifully composed and drawn as well, full of dynamic speed lines that fully emphasise the impact and with incredibly clean panelling that doesn't let anyone or anything distract from a moment that had to be all Kuma's. This is chapter two of 2024 and it's already guaranteed to be a frontrunner for best panel/spread of the year. One thing I'm not seeing much discussion about is the panel on the bottom right, where we see Saturn's eye narrow into a glare even as his face folds around Kuma's fist. Where many are saying Saturn won't be that much of a powerhouse, relying on regeneration rather than defence and durability, this moment of defiance shows that Saturn knows how to take a punch without losing his focus.

Lucky for us, it's an incredibly strong punch that sends him flying even if it doesn't fully break his concentration.

The Marines' lines emphasising the horror of a slave, at the very bottom of the pecking order, attacking a man at the "pinnacle of the world" makes me think of the Emperor Card game in the excellent Kaiji - in which the emperor dominates the citizen cards, who themselves look down at the slave card. But played right, the slave can be the most powerful card in the game, as it has nothing to lose, and can attack the otherwise immune emperor. For a moment here too, the slave stands taller than any free man. Also Kaiji is something everyone should watch because it's great.

The self-destruct reveal is a bit weak. It's not quite the copout I feared when Vegapunk pitched a personality switch in the flashback, but it still feels a little unearned for Vegapunk to have just fooled Saturn so easily after he said he'd check. I wonder if a translation difference could have set the right expectation for how this played out - something like "killswitch" instead of "self-destruct," so that it could be interpreted as as either a killing mechanism for Kuma or an emergency shutdown on a machine, turning Vegapunk's move into more of a semantic deception rather than an outright lie told to the audience.

The hug with Bonney isn't as dramatic as the punch, but it's just as earned and just as cathartic. Like when she debriefed with Vegapunk after the flashback, Bonney becomes a little girl again to emphasise her vulnerability in the moment. It's simple, but it takes the father-daughter reunion to the next level.

Love the visceral detail of Saturn's regeneration. If I had any faith in the anime it's something I'd be excited to see in motion because you could do some cool, messed up things with it. His powers are still hard to pin down. Even with his body full restored, the paralysis has worn off for the main characters and it's not clear what steps it will take from Saturn to set it up again. I did enjoy Sanji and Franky getting to casually land hits on him now that Kuma and Bonney have set the precedent.

Borsalino continues to be an enigma. I'm falling on the side of him holding back and giving the crew breathing room when he can get away with it, then fighting seriously when his boss's eyes are on him. I think he knew, from Kuma's punch, that there'd be no going back and no slipping out of this one anymore, and the line about darker glasses at the end is a very telling piece of dialogue for the character. I kinda wish the illustration packed it up a bit more though. That would have been a good time to reveal some genuine sadness in his eyes, but he retains his trademark neutrality all the way through.

With the advent of the Buster Call, there's no chance of this arc not being in its endgame. The question is, how are we going to distinguish this arc from the last time the Strawhats faced one of these? Perhaps we'll see them mount more of a defence and push back instead of wrapping up their fights and fleeing the burning island. Or maybe the presence of Saturn and Borsalino alone is meant to be this one's defining features.

I'm setting my hopes high for the next few months. Egghead has been on so many levels a breath of fresh air after Wano, and now it just needs to stick the landing to cement its place among the series' best. After proving he's still got it in the flashback department, I've got a lot of faith in Oda to bring this one full circle.

My Wordpress

[catboynecromancy]

Kissing prompts day 3, given to me by the wonderful @creativefiend19. Thank you so much for this one, I loved writing about their first date. 💕 Do I get the extra points for making it in canon verse? 😊

Pynch — An awkward kiss given after a first date.

-

So, how about a date night, Parrish?

This is the question that started it all. Adam had been in the middle of homework for his Interpretation and Application of Mathematics course, unable to hold back his groans and sighs of frustration, while Ronan bounced a Spongebob ball against the wall. At one point in time, Adam would have found this distracting, but now it’s become so commonplace it melts into the background along with the buzzing of his miniature fridge and the ticking of a clock on the wall.

“So,” Ronan says after a while, pausing his incessant fidgeting. “How about a date night, Parrish?”

Adam takes a moment to glare down at the paper, his overworked brain screaming for something to break the monotony and stress building with each passing minute. He’s been at this for hours now and he thinks, if he keeps going, it’ll probably be counterintuitive to getting anything else done.

So.

Date night.

“You want to go on a date? With me?” Adam asks, turning in his old, wobbly wooden chair to glance back at Ronan where he sits on the bed, black, ripped-up jean-covered legs spread out in front of him.

Ronan shrugs, an attempt at being nonchalant but failing miserably. “It’s been weeks since we started dating,” there’s a weird bite to the word when he replies, wiggling his Doc Martens. “We haven’t even been on a real date.”

His mouth opens to respond but Ronan quickly interrupts, “And making out in the BMW doesn’t count, ya horny bastard.”

And promptly snaps shut with an audible click. “Okay,” Adam says, giving a slight nod. “What were you thinking?”

“Dinner. A movie. Taking a long, romantic drive through the countryside,” he continues in a teasing tone, “Promise I’ll get you back at a decent time.”

It doesn’t sound like the most remarkable of ideas, no different from things they would normally do, but something about it changes when the word date is attached. All of a sudden, what they’re doing is too real, no longer just two horny teenagers giving into each other’s visceral desires, and Adam isn’t certain how he feels about this when it crosses the line between physical vulnerability into the emotional side.

But it’s Ronan and there’s no one Adam trusts to hold his heart in their hands more than him, even if he’s loath to admit it.

So he leaves his grueling coursework and they go on a date. Ronan takes him to Nino’s (Really, Lynch?), where they toss fries into each other’s mouths, laughing maniacally every time they miss (which is more often than not, admittedly). They find a dumb action movie to watch at the theater a town over, stuffing their faces with the plethora of sugary snacks Ronan purchases at the concessions stand, laughing more at how inane the film is.

Then, they climb into the BMW, and Ronan puts on an impossibly dark and sultry beat, the bass throbbing in time with Adam’s pulse. The whole atmosphere changes, the creature of wants and needs inside of Adam clawing to get out. He wants Ronan to pull over on the side of the empty street; he needs to crawl on Ronan’s lap and claim every part of him mercilessly, with abandon, until there’s nothing left to give.

Instead, when Ronan pulls over, he hops out before Adam can do anything and demands that he drive them back to St. Agnes. Adam thinks of protesting but, if he can’t have Ronan, the next best thing is getting to drive the BMW. So he does this, making sure to shift gears with careful consideration and intimacy, treating her like he would a lover. Or, well, maybe not, since the way he handles Ronan is often not so cautious with his touch.

They get back after midnight and park in the church lot, climbing out of the car. “Decent time my ass, Lynch,” Adam says. “Wanna come up?”

Ronan shakes his head, stepping around the BMW, edging nearer until they’re so close, Adam feels the warmth pulsing off of him in great contrast to the chilly, autumn air. “Nah. I don’t put out on the first date.”

Adam rolls his eyes but leans in for a kiss. His parted lips hit Ronan’s cheek and he pulls away, blinking, to look at Ronan. He’s turned, dark eyebrows drawn in, uncharacteristically nervous in a moment that should be simple and easy, like all the other times their mouths have met.

What’s so different about this?

“Uh…” It’s Ronan’s turn to try, but Adam’s taken a step back and he misses.

They hesitate, mumble excuses, attempting at the same time only to make it inches away before they both pull back. Adam feels a hot, anxious flush build in his cheeks that crawls up to his ears, and Ronan’s pale features have darkened as well, apparent even with just the flickering streetlight illuminating them in bursts.

“Fuck,” Ronan mutters, “Try again.”

Adam gives himself a moment to consider what is so dissimilar about this from every other time. Maybe, he thinks, it’s more real than the rest. It’s weird, how things change, when feelings are laid bare and actual romance is involved.

This Ronan isn’t the one who just wants to make out endlessly, this is the Ronan who cares, who Adam is pretty sure is in love with him. Who Adam, although still not wholly convinced, thinks he can fall in love with, too. Soon. Maybe sooner than he intends.

“Okay.”

He cups his hands around the sides of Ronan’s throat, brushing a thumb along the very faintly risen skin where pointed, black imagery has been etched in. Ronan takes a hitching, shaky breath, all nerves in the shape of a teenage boy, and Adam pauses to allow them both a second to bask in a rare instance of shared weakness.

When he bridges the distance, pressing chapped lips together in an awkward, chaste kiss, there’s a spark of something that Adam recognizes from the first time they did this in Ronan’s childhood bedroom. The gesture is returned, but just so. Ronan is shaking, or Adam is, or maybe it’s both of them. Heat spills from Ronan’s mouth into his own, lightning courses through Adam’s pumping blood, sending dangerous shocks straight to his heart. All that anchors him to this miniscule, human form is the boy before him.

Adam wants, he needs, and yet he realizes it might be okay to take things slow for both their sakes. He pulls away but not far, jittery with equal parts apprehension and excitement. “Sure you don’t want to come up?”

It’s Ronan who breaks their connection, stepping back to look at the pavement beneath their feet, it's cracks brimming with slowly dying plants. He palms his buzzed scalp, shifting back and forth. “Not tonight,” Ronan says. “I...got some shit I gotta do in the morning.”

He recognizes a Lynch not-lie-not-truth when it's given. Carefully skirting the truth but not outright lying, a compromise that doesn’t betray his earnestness.

“Okay, I’ll seeya later.” Adam doesn’t push, even if a part of him wants to.

“Yeah, later.”

Ronan is almost at the driver’s side door when Adam finally gets the nerve to say what he should have much earlier. “Ronan?”

“Hm?”

“Thanks. For the date. I really needed a break.”

Deep-set, ice blue eyes shift towards Adam, an intensity to them that is quickly broken by a wide and goofy grin. It’s one for Adam’s eyes only, more defenseless than anything else they’ve done this night. “No problem, Parrish. Someone’s gotta keep you from melting your magnificent brain with all that boring homework.”

Adam nods. They leave it at that because there’s nothing left to say. He watches Ronan effortlessly drop into his M6, watches as he caresses the steering wheel in a way Adam wishes was him, watches the red tail lights as they speed out of the St. Agnes lot and down the street, and he watches even once Ronan is long gone and only the memory of him remains painted there, an afterimage of his wants and needs personified.

With a sigh, Adam runs his hand over his face, letting a few curses learned from Ronan spill from his lips.

It had been almost too good of a night.

Maybe love isn’t as far away of a concept as Adam had assumed.

[rsmrymnt-tea]

「 🐳 」

it takes some figuring out and a willingness to maybe be at least a little uncomfortable and very vulnerable.

even more confirmation that dolasach definitely fits the bill for “#1 satan appealer” and “#1 validator of whale anon's TEDthoughts” !(•̀ᴗ•́)و ̑̑

i find that using multiple forms of symbolism to inspire character creation, especially if you take inspiration from animals, makes workshopping feel so much more effortless? too much of it can cause one to spiral and lose sight of who their oc is when they direct their focus molding them into the symbols rather than the other way around. like you, i think it's just so much more easier to let things be instead of forcing myself to fit a status quo.

tbh with you i didn't even mind that you didn't stick with the assignment of only explaining dola's feelings! as someone who is notorious for being able to shamelessly lore dump and engage in oc conversation up to 7 hours on and off it makes me feel a lot more relieved knowing that other people are willing to go above and beyond the assignment they were given 😭 (/pos).

although, this is also my weakness when it comes to sending in anonymous asks ;w;; i want to say so much but i must do it in a way where it's comprehensible and condensed instead of giving you 38924923 paragraphs, which i can only wish i could do.

and i mentioned this before (or maybe it's buried deep in the response im typing up atm..) but it warms my heart that there's also someone who has difficulty explaining their mc in brief terms!!

i often get stuck between “ah, so you only view my mc on a surface level despite all the information i've given you” and “this is a good conversation starter for someone who doesn't know my mc”. the other day i teased someone into telling me who they believe would be the most likely to be romantically paired with my mc, and i had such a visceral reaction to it that i didn't know whether to be offended or to outright laugh .. but i just?? couldn't blame them??? like yeah i get it on paper it seems like my mc would be romantically involved with simeon but holy shit she would not have a good time if that were that case KJNDFKFJS

the way i present her to people is based on what others have told me once they've gotten to know who she is from her youth up until her late twenties (and soon to be, accidental immortality that has been creeping up on her from before the story of the devildom began . . .), is something that i've come to realize really isn't the best course of action skfnkskjf so i'll be using you as my guinea pig i hope you don't mind 🙏

which is why i think it's taking so long for me to respond? i'm trying to present you all the important details in a condensed manner, but even then, it isn't enough (｡•́︿•̀｡) but i'm not one to give up i think it's pretty fun lolol [side eyes my two self-indulgent 40+k fics that are purely for her most important relationships]

back to our beautiful dolasach! the way mc is presented in-game sends sickening chills down my ribs and forms a tight knot in my stomach, so whenever i see issues rising between other mcs and the obm cast i get really giddy! it says so much about them, from how they choose to behave or respond, to how much they choose to say . . . aaa what a dream come true <3 and it's exceptionally rare to find a mc like yours and i mean that sincerely. it's not often you see an author dive into the ugly parts of a character and still make it not inherently beautiful, but rather make it feel bittersweet.

and i really adore how you mention immortality because a while ago i went on a “what does immortality mean for immortals but specifically solomon because i said so and not in the way where he grieves but in the way where his traits have over-ripened and his relationship to trauma has become over-developed” spiel and it reminded me of something i wrote so [gently hands you this]

Is this a flaw of immortality, that everything transient seems so frail by comparison, that you’ve lived so long you’re weighed down by the memory of everything that has passed before, that you find it impossible to just live, to let things be?

and after all of the posts i've stuck around for i don't believe i've pieced together what dolasach's goal would be? there is the situation of separating themself from the identity that is inherently attached to her parents, of becoming satisfied in general, of redemption for herself . . . hm! ＿〆(。。)

also i took a peek at your TEDthought of dolasach's name and all i can say is that hi hello that is a perfect parallel to satan who wishes to separate himself from lucifer and it also makes sense that she'd have another name for when she becomes immortal <33 a start of a new era, one that she will mold herself.

agsjsha Honestly I’d be disappointed in myself if Dola was suddenly not that compatible with Satan after making her just for him 😭

Big agree on having many places to pull inspiration from as something that makes workshopping easier, but not fully relying on them to shape a character. I like to think I take just enough to have some sort of loose guide for where I want Dola to be? Of course my process isn’t perfect since I tend to self-indulge often (like with me being adamant about Dola getting her immortality from Thirteen purely because the original Dolasach is a necromancer with a specialization of reaper) and I can’t really be sure that I’m keeping my own OC 100% in character all the time but you know. Real people aren’t 100% in character all the time either <-personal copium lol

I also think I tend to shift the canon characters’ personalities a little to make things a little easier and more entertaining for myself? But I will defend myself by saying that it’s not like game canon does a stellar job of keeping it’s own characters in character. And also I just take issue with some Choices™️ >.> ehem.

Anyway anyway >.> Semi-rant about game canon aside—

You 🤝🏼 Me -> not being able to keep things short. There is too much I want to say!! And when enabled and given the impression that someone gives a shit I will overdo it lmao >.> I also find that I figure things out better and faster when I’m using someone’s ask to rubber duck. Something about having to actually present my ideas to someone makes it easier to decide on what I want and where things should go, which tends to make my answers really long because I prefer to present everything in the form of actions, feelings, and thoughts more than simple description.

Personally, I don't actually like having to describe Dolasach in single, simple adjectives? Or any character, really, much like how I personally do not enjoy being asked to describe myself in five words during those stupid questionnaires and interviews for school and employment. I don't find it easy to find the right way to describe someone because I think people are too complex to simply leave it at a handful of adjectives, even more so when everyone's perception of a description can end up wildly varying.

So pls omg, don't worry too much about perfectly presenting every single thing about Godtongue to me in the span of one or two asks >.< I will inevitably misunderstand or miss something, which will just have you spend more time clearing things up—it may be better to show me small snippets at a time until I get a solid enough idea of them to work off of. It's impossible to truly condense someone into a few simple paragraphs when you know them insanely well due to having created them dfgkjh and I also don't want to frustrate you when there's things I don't get after you've gone through all the trouble of trying to figure out the perfect way to introduce more of her to me.

Because even then, I feel like because we don't think exactly alike, I'm not going to land on something truly to your satisfaction in just one or two exchanges. Literally every take I have on both Dola and the OM cast has taken a while to reach, and all the times people have told me I've been accurate with guessing what their OC/MC would be like have all been educated guesses that I'm shocked I've gotten right; I am fully expecting and also prepared to be told I'm wrong each time I post something about what someone thinks their character's relationship with Dola would be like tbh and I welcome that fully).

So like!! Don't worry about your response too much nonnie sdfhjkdg I'm not forcing you to rush, take your time; but know that I think that we'll get somewhere faster with getting to know the similarities and differences between Godtongue and Dola if we have a discussion? ;w; Especially if I'm going to be your guinea pig for trying out different way(s) of presenting her, because contrary to what a lot of people seem to think here, I'm not actually that smart when it comes to learning about a character >.>;;

Anyway uh, back to Dola?

I'm honestly so super flattered that you think all that sdhjkd Like it makes me feel like I'm doing something right with writing Dola, y'know? Because whenever I write her I tend to hope that I'm showing people someone very flawed and very human. There is plenty that she struggles with, and I don't want people to think that those struggles are in any way beautiful or to be romanticized. Bittersweet is a nice way to put it, yeah. I think there's something both wonderful and horrific about how she goes about trying to make the most of her life throughout the eras of it because honestly, I don't think she has any major long term goals beyond just trying to have a happy existence.

You mentioned not having pieced together what Dola's goal is, and I'm assuming you mean a long term overarching goal that bears some significance and influence to her actions overall.

The thing is, I think many of her goals fall into place throughout the course of her very long life. She does eventually find an identity separate from her parents both as a person and as an artist—something that becomes easily the more of her life she lives away from them (and also, well, spoilers but they die before she's 40 so she definitely outgrows them in many ways); she eventually becomes a sorcerer of high enough skill to stand alongside Solomon and even excels beyond him in certain fields; she eventually even comes to terms with accepting that allowing oneself to breathe will not undo all the work she's done. Like, she does reach points of satisfaction throughout her life, but it doesn't exactly take very long until there is something else that she wants, something else that grabs her attention and points her to direct her efforts and growth towards whatever it is.

But in immortality, I think she does eventually run out of things to aim for. I mean, the most impossible thing out of everything she wanted to achieve actually turns out to be possible—where does she go from there?

Is this a flaw of immortality, that everything transient seems so frail by comparison, that you’ve lived so long you’re weighed down by the memory of everything that has passed before, that you find it impossible to just live, to let things be?

The lack of anything to aim for does eventually get to Dola. There are definitely times when she struggles, like really struggle, when it comes to dealing with her immortality. But she refuses to call for death and die. She knows there is nothing for her after death (or at least thinks it—I may or may not do something with the demon!Dola AU who knows) and still finds a lot of joy in simply living her life with her found family. There is still plenty to learn, plenty to discover.

In her crisis I think it occurs to her that perhaps she must imagine Sisyphus happy. And it's a strange change, but is enough to keep her sustained in between the times when there is nothing grand to chase.

(Of course, I think there is a goal of some form that she doesn't quite recognize in the form of a devotion to the one other human who understands what she's going through. Like, as much as it feels weird to admit on here, even though she and Satan have been through so much together and well, even though I made her for Satan, in the long run I think it's Solomon who becomes a source of major comfort that Satan just can't offer because immortality is inherent to him and his society. Solomon is human with a much greater capacity for empathy than Dola has, and has been through the some of the worst of immortality already all alone. And when humanity ends and the earth is consumed by what was once the sun, and the Devildom has offered asylum for the two, it just... Bonds them together in such a crazy way. Idk.

I mean, she still loves Satan with all her heart and the two have a special bond that is completely different from what she and Solomon have. But it's hard to deny the differences, and I can see the two tearfully discussing their feelings regarding it in private at some point far down the timeline of Dola's life. Btw I don't think the brothers + royals ever die unless killed. Because I said so.)

Ah, re: her name tho! I don't think it's ever an intentional choice for 'Dolasach' to become the only name she's known by over the years—it just happens. In my head half her family all go by similar single-word aliases when working, and some of them also choose to just introduce themselves as their art alias because they like the sound of it better. Fully think her father's side started the tradition with like, the great-grandmother and then the next generation, then the next, then until Dola and her cousins. I don't think there's any deep reason as to why she started introducing herself as Dolasach either cause I fully believe her father + his siblings all helped pick out possible aliases for her and her cousins to choose from at some point and she thought 'Dolasach' sounded best and started using it everywhere that didn't need her legal/birth name. From there it just stuck as she doesn't really see much difference between her as an artist + her as herself.

Is it weird? Kinda but idk, they're artists that's my their excuse lmao

(Before I end this very long answer, I like to think that this is where Satan and Dola's problems with their identity differ. I think Satan's stems from not wanting to be thought of as a mere fragment of Lucifer and a deep dread of any confirmation that that's all he is, that his efforts are inevitably pointless because his origin means that his life will always revolve around the fact that he was born from Lucifer's wrath; he will always be less, he will always be linked, he will always be questioning whether he is merely the part of Lucifer that loathes himself personified. Dola's issues stem from her knowing she is different and wishing so desperately that people would see and recognize that. That the fruits of her labor stop being attributed to being part of her family that she loathes and dismissed as something inherent to her bloodline. She's also sick of being seen and used as a gateway to accessing her older relatives because it makes her feel like no one gives a shit about what she does.

I guess in short, I think Satan's battle is more with himself because I honestly think he's likely already killed everyone who's so much as whispered about comparing him to Lucifer so mostly, the main voice left belittling him the most is his own (and sometimes the brothers I guess, who seem to endlessly favor Lucifer more despite Satan being considerably nicer and more active in helping them out on the day to day?); Dola's battle, least by the time she's in the Devildom, is more with everyone else, and that's why she was able to help Satan deal with his issues. She's already been through the whole 'am I just them but shitter/what is my inherent worth/who am I without them' ordeal and can help him to some extent, at least.)

[gagmebucky]

His face dips into your shoulder and neck, lips skimming along the slope until he’s brushing your ear. “Just. . . just for added clarity, this isn’t a dream?” He’s genuinely asking, sotto voce and breathy in his wanting disbelief, but never breaking his menacing pace. “This isn’t one of my daily wet dreams about you, and I really have your soft little pussy underneath my fingers right now?”

in which you and steve share the bed. (includes agent!reader x avenger!steve rogers, masturbation, fingering, dirty talk, mild voyeur!bucky.)

do not repost.

—

Though you haven’t thought about it—at least, not before now—you don’t have a nightly routine. Other than the basics, a shower and tying your hair back in a protective style, you’re underneath the covers and it’s lights out. You don’t require anything special nor do you partake in miscellaneous habits.

You like to think that, as a trained operative, you’re grown to be adaptable in the other aspects of your life. The missions, constant moving around and shifting settings, settling down easily is a good skill to have. But there is one thing, which is your occasional insomnia, typically punctuated with a sudden upheaval of arousal. 

It’s just your luck that the hotblooded urge attacks you in the current situation—in the arms of a coworker, several feet shy of another coworker. (A part of you giggles that it’s because you’re in his arms that it’s hitting you and not that it was simply inevitable.)

The job is your run-of-the-mill observe and report but the target you’re gunning for is in the bigger leagues therefore you’re accompanied by two super soldiers who have experience with this particular enemy. But the location has a huge event in the area, and the mission was somewhat out of the blue so all the hotels were booked up. Except for this one, and it only has one room available with two queen beds. 

Agent Barnes, ever the charmer, passed out on the first before you and Agent Rogers even finished checking the place out. And Steve, ever the gentleman, insisted you take the bed and he was fine with the couch. But, you, you and your I’m-totally-cool-and-I-don’t-have-a-crush-on-you facade waved him off, assuring you’re both adults and capable of sleeping in the same bed.

The problem, you now realize, is that while you are an adult and you should be able to sleep soundly next to a coworker-slash-friend, you aren’t. Your libido, it seems, wants to spite you because the second you think you’re tired and ready to succumb to unconsciousness next to the six-foot blond, she awakens. 

Preferring to wash up last, you walked out the bathroom to find that he squished himself on one side. Which you had fondly rolled your eyes at, slipping beneath the duvet then gently tugging his broad mass over. In his sleepy state, he followed your direction seamlessly, and somehow, you two ended up tangled together. 

In the first hour, your mind drifted to very inappropriate places, depraved recollections of those videos you like to watch with one hand down your pants then more personal—but nonetheless perverted—scenarios, authored by you and starring the man beside you. 

The second hour, you registered your amoral thoughts and vehemently worked on denying any further musings as well as the intense throbbing in your nether regions. You hoped to dissuade your feelings with other topics like how you’ll handle the mission tomorrow, and the economical and sociopolitical impact of human Shrek—really, anything not the way he’s nuzzled into you, or the places that could lead.

Right now, well into the third sleepless hour, you’re recognizing how fucked you are (God, you wish you were getting fucked for real). Because you’re so horny it hurts, and there’s no possible way you can sleep until it’s been quelled, and though you’d love to sneak into the bathroom to do the deed—it’ll take you five, ten minutes top—you can’t when Steve is dead asleep and holding you so tight: which, simultaneously, is stroking the fire. Pun intended.

His body coils around yours like a second skin, defined muscular cushion felt through your and his loose shirt, his a tank while yours a tee. He’s a radiator amid an air conditioned room and sheets that aren’t the best insulators. A strong forearm is braced across your partially turned hips, long legs stretched and intertwined with yours.

Quiet breaths inhale and exhale your nape, the tip of his nose nestled against the first ridge of your spine. There’s the intermittent adjustment,  where he snuggles closer, brushing his impossibly soft lips over that spot, mumbling something like, “Don’t. . . don’t go. N - nng, stay,” when you try to slither out of bed, cementing his subconscious grip on you.   

All things considered, you don’t mind it truthfully. In fact, he’s incredibly comfortable, and that those little twitches in his slumber are incredibly cute. You just wish your center would let it be wholesome, and not twist it into something salacious. 

You ponder your options: continue to lie awake until morning, or—or, masturbate there. The position is good, really good for it, now that you think about it. 

You’re halfway on your stomach, one knee hiked high, spread, while the other stretches downward; the corresponding arm is free, though the other is tucked beneath a pillow. 

It wouldn’t take but one movement to sink your hand between that prime spot and satisfy yourself. And, yes, Bucky is snoring with his face aimed toward you, meaning if his eyes flutter open, he might make out what you’re doing in the darkness. 

But, at this point, your need has outweighed your potential embarrassment. 

Your teeth run over your lower lip then you move carefully. With your free wrist, you sink below and flush between your hips, placing the joint of your straightened elbow against his arm. And that contact while you’re doing it should put you on, seriously underline the indecency of your act. 

It doesn’t though. If you’re being honest, there’s a visceral thrill in doing something like this: beneath the nose of two powerful and handsome men, the more vanilla of the duo whose arms you’re in. Your mind echoes something about professionalism but it’s drowned out by a flood of sensations via your fingertips. 

“O - oh,” you whisper inaudibly. The position is good, better than you expected—it’s fucking ace,  you realize, shifting your weight into your fingers, rubbing two of them against your bare clit. You bury your face into the pillow, hoping to muffle your reaction to the relief beginning to course through your veins. 

You’ve always preferred to lay on your back, and to use a silicone helper. (On cases by yourself, or cases where superiors aren’t paired with you, you bring one—a vibe, a pretty color that packs enough of a punch.) But this, right here, oh, it really works. 

Your muscles strain, and your toes curl in their respective positions. That wild throbbing has spiraled into a full-bodied fever, and it’s reaching a fever pitch. You press yourself harder into the pillow, biting down so nothing can escape because here it c— 

“Nng-nng,” Steve’s groan rumbles behind you, a louder uttering than the times before, and your body turns to ice. Rustling, you can feel his long lashes fluttering against the back of your neck, eyebrows furrowing. “Hey.” The grip anchored across your waist tightens, and he breathes in: and your stomach clenches because he has to know, even when he continues groggily, “What are you - what’re you doing?”

“I—” You don’t know what you were going to say but it falls short when he moves. 

His arm lifts so he can follow yours, hands ghosting along until he reaches that spot. He sinks in with you where you’re hot and dripping, and a small choking sound escapes you at the feeling of his rough pads.

It’s then you manage a rasped, “C - can’t sleep.”

“Oh,” he says then his smile tickles your nape, swiping two passes over your slick button, and your moan widens his smile. “Then need some help?”

 Your brain may have short-circuited but you nod, jerky as it may be. “Y - yes,” you speak with a sharp gasp. “That - that would be n - nice.”

Turns out, Captain America is not as vanilla as you previously thought because he doesn’t hesitate to dig right in. His index and ring finger part your sex for his middle to hone in on your clit. Then he’s abusing it in rapid circles that besiege your nerves with stimulation. 

You aren’t expecting him to be so skilled, passionate off the brake of sleep. A high moan tears from your lips, followed by a series of squeaks and whimpers in a lame attempt to quiet yourself. Your body jolts, and your hips careen into his onslaught, encouraging that pressure in your belly. 

His face dips into your shoulder and neck, lips skimming along the slope until he’s brushing your ear. “Just. . . just for added clarity, this isn’t a dream?” He’s genuinely asking, sotto voce and breathy in his wanting disbelief, but never breaking his pace. “This isn’t one of my daily wet dreams about you, and I really have your soft little pussy underneath my fingers right now?” 

“Not - not a dream, Steve!” you gasp, outright writhing into his palm. The fingers you had on yourself are now clawing at the sheets while your frame shakes. “Definitely not a dream.” 

“And those pretty sounds are because of me?” he wonders, a raggedness to his voice that’s mimicked in his merciless fingers. “These f - fucking whimpers and moans you’re makin’. . . trying to muffle so Bucky won’t hear are for me?” 

“God, yes,” you choke, squeezing your eyes shut because his best friend is snoring softly, and you don’t know how but you just know that he’ll know if he awakens now. You rationalize that the embarrassment will be less so long as you don’t see whether his gaze flickers open—which there is a high probability of happening since you’re doing a shit job at being discreet.  

“Okay, good,” he exhales before his teeth latch onto the vulnerable part of your neck, tongue lulling out to soothe the sting, and your entirety is  bucking into him, calling out for the remedy only he has. “Oh, shit - shit. You’re soft—sweet Jesus—you’re soft. I didn’t think someone could be this soft—fuck.”

You swear to God he’s doing his hardest to have you wake up his counterpart because his words are gasoline to a glowing blue fire. His name is a desperate cry on the tip of your tongue, and you’re trying to hold back but between his husky baritone in your ear and swirling caress, it’s becoming impossible. 

“And God, you’re really . . . you’re drenching my fingers and the sheets. How long - how long were you touching yourself in my arms before I woke up? ‘Cause fucking hell, honey.” There’s this almost feral guttural groan he makes on the petname, and it rattles between your thighs.  

“S - Steve—“ you warble, half-whimpered; you’re crossed in warning him about your lack of control and moaning his praise.

“I knew I smelled something sweet, and it’s you. You. You’re sweet, so sweet—“ 

And that’s it. The volcano explodes, and you come crumbling into his hand. In more ways than one because thankfully, he knows you’re going to scream his name and the arm propped beneath the pillow slides under and around to clamp over your vibrating mouth. 

It’s pure euphoria pumping through your blood, lasting far longer than you could have ever caused on your own, possessing you in sporadic tremors until you slump in his arms. Panting, your muscles relax, and he reaffirms his grip on you more comfortably. 

When the stars dissipate and you think you’ve regained your sense, you force yourself to face him because the mortification wants to rear its head, never mind your now sleepy state. Despite the darkness, you can discern some of his handsome features, and it comforts you. 

“T - thanks,” you murmur; you aren’t sure what to say. 

“No, no,” he murmurs back, and his crystal blue eyes are raking over your face. “Thank you. The pleasure was mine. Next time, don’t hesitate to ask ‘cause I - I’ve been thinkin’ about that—thinking about you for awhile now.”

The admission graces a smile on your lips, and you wiggle closer, leaning forward to seal the deal while he does the same. Before you can, however, a voice breaks through the moment: 

“Well, I hope you’re both happy because I’m awake and I’m hard now.”

[coinofstone]

5x12 The Diamond of the Day pt 1

Final two episodes! Big finale! Why am I making myself cry in the middle of the afternoon! Both eps in this post.

I do love that they made Arthur a sore loser

Enter treacherous white woman #2. Srsly it was lazy writing when they did it for Mordred, it's worse now with Gwaine.

I do love the actual Round Table war room discussion but a) why isn't Merlin seated at the round table and b) why does Leon have so much goddamn faith in Camelot's walls? Like??? You literally said the same thing last year and yet Camelot *did* fall when Agravaine brought an army through the tunnels!

Poor Aithusa. Kid's had a rough life.

I do love Arthur responding to Merlin presenting him with all his supplies ready - which he prepared without his magic mind you - with suspicion 😂

But then he calls Merlin a coward and it's sad

Katie has such a great voice. That entire thing in the cave from her taunting to her laughter to the spell, it just just beautifully played.

Whole ass battle to prepare for and Arthur is just walking around moping cuz Merlin isn't there

So, Merlin's father-vision telling him he's magic itself and he just needs to believe in himself to get his magic going again, does this mean he *didn't* need to go to the cave to get it back? Cuz it seems like he needed to recharge in the cave itself, his injuries were healed when he woke up. That seems like magic cave stuff to me.

Also that "always have been and always will be" - I'm taking to mean 'always have been' in the sense that since he's 'magic itself' even before he was born, his magic existed in other, intangible forms, like we are all stardust etc. But now that he is, he will always be, aka he will not die.

Arthur waking up with his wife in his arms and Merlin's name on his lips, jumping out of bed to act on dream-info.

Balinor telling Merlin to trust in what will be.... like bitch that is literally not how this ends.

5x13 The Diamond of the day pt 2

You know that gif of the cat knocking everything off the table? That's literally Merlin shooting lightning at everyone from his perch on the ridge.

I have a lot of snarky things to say about Merlin coming out of the cave in full Dragoon gear and riding a horse instead of teleporting like the other witches but I'ma keep that to myself.

Mordred is a bitch and Aithusa has terrible aim. At least Aithusa's loyalty to Morgana makes sense.

Arthur said oh shit I'm magic - oh wait no it's that old man again

He also straight up "No! Bad dragon!"-ed Aithusa

Y'know, for all I've watched this episode and screamed about Arthur's death, I don't think I've ever focused on the exact moment he gets stabbed before.

Mordred catches him from behind and he meets it, no fault there. But as soon as he realizes his assailant is the knight who turned on him and joined Morgana, what does he do? HE LOWERS HIS FUCKING SWORD

He leaves himself wide fucking open and vulnerable and Mordred seizes the opportunity. I understand wanting the moment of recognition for Arthur, but on what planet is a trained warrior going to drop his sword mid-attack because he recognizes his attacker as a dude who only just recently decided to forsake him? It's soooooo dumb

There was a whole sequence a few episodes back where Mordred and Arthur are sparring, the point of it was to show that Mordred has become a skilled swordsman. So what exactly was the point in having Mordred run Arthur through as soon as Arthur idiotically lets his guard down? This should've been a meticulously choreographed sword fight, with Mordred getting the upper hand and sticking Arthur properly. Not this nonsense. Look at Arthur's FACE! Oh, Mordred... 👉👈 do you maybe wanna be friends again- STAB ... guess not

Uther's been rolling in his grave but he's taking an extra tumble watching Arthur forget all his skills and training in that moment.

I do appreciate Arthur getting Mordred back though. Like that moment of merciless anger followed by the hurt and regret playing on Arthur's face, warring with surety and responsibility. It was good.

I've rewatched the big confession scene about 16 times just now.

I don't quite understand why Merlin took Arthur to the woods to begin with. Instead of bringing him to the med tent in the battlefield or back to Camelot. What was the reason?

Merlin saying it feels strange (to use magic freely in front of Arthur) and him just going 'yeah' completely deadpan makes me laugh every time.

I really feel like Arthur's head should be elevated at a further incline if he's going to be fed.

Gaius refusing to outright expose Merlin as the sorcerer but nonetheless letting Gwen figure it out on her own warms my heart.

My God Arthur is sitting there dying, feeling betrayed about his best friend 'lying' to him, and still he can't stop himself from looking at Merlin's mouth.

Percival summoned MUSCLE POWER

Hey um random but why does Gwaine even know where Merlin and Arthur are headed? Why would Gaius tell him?

Arthur looks at Merlin so lovingly after he's killed Morgana 😭😭

And now he's literally grabbing at the man's hand 😭 "just hold me, please"

That's gotta be the gayest death scene in television history. If you can watch that without thinking Arthur puts his hand on the back of Merlin's head because some part of him wants to bring him down for a kiss, or that "just hold me, please" is in any way shape or form a 'bros' thing, and certainly not at all an intentional mirror/callback to Isolde dying in Tristan's arms, then I'm afraid you are what we professionals refer to as a dumb-as-nails fucknugget, more commonly phrased as 'willfully ignorant'.

"All that you have dreamt of building has come to pass" yeah except for the whole, y'know, magic still being illegal thing.

I've said this before, but, while I'm sure there was a determined intention to have Arthur die in his armor, probably in some kind of attempt to make sure the audience knows he's died a warrior's death, I *really* think it was kinda stupid that Merlin never removed it, despite Arthur being weak, despite the fact that there was something like five days between him getting stabbed and him actually dying, despite that for the duration of that time they were traveling or hiding out. Merlin managed to produce a cloak to put on Arthur, why did he need the full armor on that whole time? Like even if they left the chainmail on, those plates on his shoulder were just getting in the way, and it looked quite uncomfortable.

Also not for nothing but Lancelot got like, every flower in the forest surrounding lush verdant greens in his death boat, Arthur gets a bunch of sticks.

It suddenly occurs to me, watching this now, that the reason Leon/Percival is such a common side pairing in Merthur fics, is because these two motherfuckers are the only original Knights of the Round Table to survive the series. 🤦‍♀️ I dunno how I failed to notice that before now. My stupidity amazes me.

I'm *really* glad they decided to do this scene with Gwen wearing the Pendragon red dress instead of the black mourning dress. Yes she looks fabulous in it but it's more the symbolism than the 'reality' - with Gwen wearing her house's colors it represents a continuation rather than a finality. Camelot will go on, Gwen will undoubtedly end the war on magic and with Morgana dead (and frankly, I think by now she already brought about the death of all the angry incel type rulers in Albion) there stands to reason her reign will begin with a period of peace, possibly longer than Arthur's. We kind of have to assume that the 'time the poets speak of' is, inevitably, Gwen's reign - which only came about through Arthur's death. It's a little bit toooo subtle in my opinion, but at the same time, I understand the need for the focus on Merlin and Arthur - after all, this show was their journey - not leaving much time to focus on Gwen and Camelot in the aftermath of Arthur's death.

I will just say, the first time I watched this that fucking truck scared the ever living shit out of me. I also just immediately, viscerally hated that scene and declared it invalid - but I think it was because the truck made me jump out of my skin. It has since grown on me, particularly once I started reading 'Arthur Returns' fic.

Everything beyond this point is post-series spec and headcanon, so if that's not your jam you can exit safe in the knowledge that as usual, if there's anything worth commenting on in the S5 extras, I will create a separate post!

For those interested, my go-to post-series fic is We Begin Again by katherynefromphilly I fully headcanon this series as the continuation of the series.

I have a lot of thoughts about Gwen and Merlin post-Camlann.

For one, poor fucking Gwen. She's lost her father, her brother, and her husband, all by what, age 30? That's rough. And who knows what happened to her mom, that was pre-series and I don't think it was ever mentioned.

Merlin, dear god poor Merlin. First of all, I just wanna say straight off that my instinctive headcanon about Merlin was that he never returned to Camelot. I couldn't really say why exactly. I just don't think he could stand being there after Arthur's death. But practically speaking, Merlin's still got Aithusa to deal with, that dragon needs some godsdamned house training asap. He's still the last Dragonlord, it's reasonable to assume he'd immediately take that on considering Aithusa is partially responsible for Arthur's death (the sword Mordred killed Arthur with, only succeeded in killing Arthur because it had been forged in Aithusa's fire-breath) so he's either going to attempt to train the bad behaviors out of Aithusa, or...well...

The only thing is, I do not believe Merlin would abandon Gwen, or Gaius. So my hc is inherently flawed. I do think Merlin probably spend a couple months with his mum, and I do think he ultimately settled near lake Avalon waiting for Arthur's return.

But I do wonder, what must their relationship have been like? Gwen, surely, would've sought his guidance in establishing laws governing the use of magic. And surely, peace cannot last indefinitely, so Merlin absolutely would've defended Camelot and protected Gwen. There's just no way he could've completely turned his back on them, but I doubt he could bear living in Camelot. And Gwen is both strong and practical enough to get on without him there 24/7, even though I'm sure she'd miss him.

I also think she would've found love again. Whether with Leon, as many people hc, or someone else not in the series.

ANYWAY.

Thanks to everyone who came on this journey with me. I will post comments on the extras if I have anything worth saying - and I think I'll do a master post linking all these episode posts after I clean them up once I get time to sit at a computer and do so. Until then! 💙💚

(Gif source) (h/t @shut-up-merlin)

[crisisengine]

review: TEENS OF STYLE

Teens of Style was Will Toledo (aka Car Seat Headrest)’s 2015 major label debut. However, rather than being a paradigm shift into new, polished studio-recorded material (which would come on the next record, Teens of Denial), it was instead a laptop-recorded look back at the Will’s lo-fi Bandcamp days, compiling together older songs from different projects (mainly his first non-numbered album My Back is Killing Me Baby and the relentless but captivating breakup record Monomania). Now that Will has a firmly established musical reputation outside of the world of Bandcamp and people are enjoying all his work, both new and old, I thought it would be a good time to explore whether this record holds up in its own right. It is more than just a greatest hits compilation? (short answer: ABSOLUTELY YES!)

I like how the refrain from SUNBURNED SHIRTS closes and opens Car Seat Headrest’s first trilogy of major label albums. It’s cool to see how, on this song and on ‘Twin Fantasy (Those Boys)’, the same words and melodies are used in totally different contexts (though, here, we also get the eargasmic “People here bang on the walls late at night…” part). This one oozes dreamlike, summery vibes. I love the psychedelic sound collage at the start and, from there, it’s a pleasure to watch the song build up into the final rock-out ending. 

The opening riff of THE DRUM is perfectly produced. Whenever it appears, sometimes without warning, I get total chills. The guitar tone cuts through like an ice pick. The verses build on this in a muddier fashion but, by the time the vocals come to a head (“The Drum’s in debt!!) I am absolutely won over. Andrew Katz’s spritely drum fills add a fitting contrast to the breakdown and final verse really does give off a bizarre sense of triumph (“he’s got his flag unfurled or something”). I enjoy how, after the opener has gradually drawn us in, this song feels like a decisive overture, a setting of the scene for the album.

SOMETHING SOON is a brilliantly put-together pop song. The verses’ lyrical vignettes of cabin-fever turn into outright desperation in the chorus. It pinpoints these feelings really accurately. The skittering breaks in the verses release themselves into the crashing choruses and outro.  Each section is bookended by the same repeating electric piano chord. The explosion from this pared down moment into the final burst of energy just seems so right.

Like ‘The Drum,’ NO PASSION also rests on an exquisite moment of production. In the final chorus when Will sings “I” in his high register, it’s like a shot through the heart. The sarcastic image of failure in the verses compliments this so well – a succession of half-formed images that seem to suck away all feeling. The comparative earnestness of “I just needed more money, more time, more love” hits home. Our generation often try to rationalise things through sarcasm when really there is something more deeply lacking in our lives. The line “All my desires are so poorly drawn” also really resonates with me.

TIMES TO DIE adds to this album’s incredibly strong selection of opening moments of tracks. The wandering bassline interlocks with the chug of a delayed guitar followed by a single note. There’s something incredibly satisfying about it, especially when you are aware of the sound bath you are about to enter. The psychedelic vocal and guitar interplay in the verses is a highlight – in the first, they mirror each other but, in the second, the guitar skirts around the vocals, carving out new crevices. Their two melodies collide at the end of said verse, in a really affecting way (“but he just keeps singing this song”). The use of horns and cut-up vocals enlivens the sound palette. It feels like a series of ancient rooms with each section or lyrics (“and when they took him to the temple…”) leading somewhere new. A light seems to shine through as the melodies cascade upwards. The “most of the time” section provides nice segue into the “divine council” part which feels like an explosion, with the “is it harder to speak?” section as its fallout. The intermingling of imagery or religion and the music business (“got to believe in the one above me, got to believe that [Vince]Lombardi [head of Matador records] loves me”) is playful and dreamlike.

PSST TEENAGERS is a fun interlude that adds some more immediate energy into a generally fairly meditative album.

The opening verses of STRANGERS leave you inquisitive as to where the song is heading. All becomes clear when the tension of the exclamatory chorus is released in the lovely, picked instrumental break that follows (again enhanced by some inventive drum rhythms). The second section is the real stunner though, starting off cocoon-like and vulnerable but leading into a volatile crescendo. The line “I won’t last too much longer” and its raw delivery convey a sense of enigmatic fragility that I find very affecting.

The keyboard riff in MAUD GONE swamps the mix in the best way possible. I love its distorted, wet tones. The sax solo at the song’s crescendo provides the perfect counterpoint to it, too. Its muscular, sinewy texture cuts through emphatically in the context of the album’s drenched sound palette. As the notes reach up, the instrument seems to become an incredible, cathartic pressure valve, leeching out a lot of confused unspoken feelings as the notes reach up. The metaphor of “a full moon every night” is enticingly simple but also utterly apt for the feelings it describes.

LOS BARRACHOS has an infectious opening synth lick. As it bubbles under the verses, I’m just waiting for it to return with its full force. The wry but combative tone of the song’s opening (“let’s […] crush the grapes beneath our feet/ like some heartbroken Bacchus”) reflects Will’s desperate attempt to rekindle this relationship, to change his situation, to turn sadness into hedonism. These illusions can’t last, however. The riff does not return. Instead the song melts into a kind of broken, abject despair. “I miss you.” The disintegration of the song’s subtitle to just “Don’t have any hope left” is heart-breaking. It’s the most visceral portrait of a breakdown I’ve ever heard.

BAD ROLE MODELS, OLD IDOLS EXHUMED is my favourite song title ever. The track (the only new song written for Teens of Style) feels like a self-aware reflection on the nature of this album. The images of a figure from the past who once meant a lot but is now insignificant in the life of the narrator seem to tally somewhat with the way in which the album is made up of songs taken from previous projects. Past relationships, and the hurt they have caused, are dismissed and rationalised into triviality and insignificance. The horns and the final refrain make for a strangely celebratory ending, like a forced annulment of regrets (“You probably looked like an idiot in that hat!”) in the face of a resolve to move forward. This forced, performative break with the past, however, seems only to emphasise how the wounds are still very much open, just as the songs here, despite their pre-dating of the album itself, lose none of their emotional potency.

The chorus of OH, STARVING! is deliberately contradictory but also feels very comprehensible. The boredom of a life that seems superficially better as, opposed to a past delineated by clear highs and lows, is a recognisable feeling. Sometimes things being superficially ‘ok’ just makes you painfully aware of how far away you are from the things you really want in life, while impending pressures can obscure this, making any brief moments of solace much sweeter. In the context of the album, this also seems to imply a sense of nostalgia with regard to the events and feelings laid out in these songs. Even though this album deals with confusion, depression and heartbreak, in hindsight, the potency and simplicity of these feelings (given the separation of time between the writing and re-recording of these tracks) could almost seem preferable to the confused present. Yet, by the end of the song, Will seems to finally be able to let go. Saying “goodbye” to all his “secret files” seems almost ritualistic, like he is purging himself of the confusions of the past and moving on. I like this version of the song best because of the moment, at the very end, when the delicate piano chords and doo-wop harmonies are replaced by raw, shredding guitars and a single voice singing “goodbye” so distortedly the word is almost incomprehensible. The raw power of this moment seems to work up a head of steam, like an exorcism of the kinks and bruises of the past, in favour of something.

There isn’t Car Seat Headrest album I’ve heard that I don’t love. However, I think Teens of Style undoubtedly ranks among the best of them. It might just be one of my favourite albums of all time. It does lack the conceptual charge that powers Twin Fantasy, Monomania, Teens of Denial and even, to some extent, How to Leave Town. However, despite their lack of a heavy overarching theme, these songs flow together really well. The album feels cohesive thanks to its spring-reverbed production aesthetic (which reminds me of being indoors on a hot summer day) and the smaller themes that recur throughout (resentment of the past, confusion in the present, getting signed to a major indie label). The tweaks to the lyrics of many of these songs make the creative intent yet more apparent.

I also think this album definitely does not negate the albums from which these songs are taken. I love Monomania and My Back is Killing Me Baby and, if you haven’t listened to them you should definitely do so right now! There are bunch of essential songs on both albums that are not on this one (‘father, flesh in rags,’ ‘Souls,’ ‘happy news for sadness,’ ‘Sleeping with Strangers,’ I could go on…). However, for me, the songs on this album benefit from being recontextualised and, in certain cases, from being rerecorded. It’s great to be able to experience the stronger standalone songs from these previous records in the context of album that lets them breathe a little more, outside of context. 

The most obvious example is ‘Los Barrachos’ which I think works amazingly well as the climactic track for this album. On Monomania, placed somewhere in the middle, it felt more like a just another rung in the downward spiral of heartbreak. On Teens of Style, it has room to breathe and can finally reach its full potential. Similarly, ‘Maud Gone’ benefits hugely from its re-recording. The crisp yet bedraggled sound palette of the new version feels much more fitting than the original and, in the context of a more emotionally diverse album, the catharsis it brings is more powerful (especially coming after ‘Strangers’).

Teens of Style might be made up moments from the past, but it more than proves its worth as a cohesive album that is great in its own right.

[ravencromwell]

Daniel Lavery on the Inherent Conflict of Queerness while growing up evangelical

[reposting from DW, cause I think this'll be immensely powerful to a lot of my followers on here, regardless of religion. Sorry to anyone seeing this on both platforms. :) ]

So, I'm still feverish enough there's no way I can do this justice. With that disclaimer on the table: Chris Hayes is a generally center-left American news host. Not ultra-progressive, but good enough on most issues that his "Why Is This Happening" podcast has been on my radar for a while. Especially since the hour-long podcast interview format gives him a lot more room to shine on one particular subject than does a news broadcast, where he's necessarily skipping from topic to topic.

Being on day two of a raging fever that made sleep impossible, last night seemed an excellent time to listen. (in retrospect, I'm surprised I could understand more than one word in ten, but on the scale of fever-induced oddities it def could've been worse.) The first episode that came up was an interview with Daniel M. Lavery. I had no idea who this Daniel person was, but did remember Amal El Mohtar retweeting a Grave Lavery, who had some insanely insightful comments about being on the gender nonconforming spectrum, and muzzily wondered if they were related. They are, as it happens, in that they're married, and Daniel recently took her last name, for reasons both deeply loving and viscerally difficult that get explained in-show.

As it transpired, Daniel had recently released a memoir, called something like: Something that May Shock and Discredit You, which I intend to try and read soonish. And much of the focus of the show was growing up queer in the evangelical church, and fuck it was a funhouse mirror in which I recognized more of my own life than I think I ever have from a queer writer. With the fever, it was enough of both catharsis and gut-punch I was weepy. Everything from:

the getting saved to please your parents! because there was this sorta inevitability, even if you couldn't articulate it, that well. this is what's gonna happen and everyone expects it to happen. it's supposed to bring so much joy and relief and I want that, and it'll make them so happy

the church not wanting to seem outright homophobic so just being deeply deeply sad about queerness and saying that we should be kind to gay people, the way we should be piteously kind to anyone with an affliction

the slow evolution of queerness. from realizing you were lesbian to realizing it went slightly sideways from that onto the gender-nonconforming spectrum

the fear that doing anything about those feelings will only result in regret, and the terror because no one has any easy answers for you; you just gotta walk the path (I'm still really struggling with this, and hearing it articulated, seeing Daniel's joy after resolving those fears, gave me such peace. No answers--and answers won't really come till I'm a little further away from the familial nest and pursestrings, but such peace that I can just. take small steps and see how they feel. that there's a way to gently ease into possible transition if I find that being nonbinary isn't quite right. And that so much of this is just. doing a thing until you feel out its shape and if that shape is right for you.

And related to this: that it's ok not to have figured this out when you were a kid, or in your early adulthood, even. That if you're doing this in your thirties, you're not the oldest creature to've ever dragged yourself over the finish line, as Lavery hilariously put it. Queer communities are as vulnerable to the youth culture as any other, and it felt deeply validating for Lavery to address this.

And the immense difficulty of familial relationships when it's not so much rage but devastation. As though your queerness has blighted their crops. My interactions aren't as hard as Daniel's, but they're still. really fucking hard. And we hear a lot about families who rage at their queer children, but not so much families where it's just. immense disappointment and vast devastation.

The whole interview is so worth a listen. (had a very hard time finding a screen-reader friendly version, but if Google Podcasts doesn't work in your part of the world, it's available on all the usual suspects from spotify to apple.) But there's one bit that felt deeply revolutionary for me: it was a quote by Daniel's friend that he passed along. God made trans people for the same reason he made wheat and grapes, but not bread and wine. So we, too, could be part of his marvelous creative process, just as we are when we change grapes into wine and wheat into bread; so we can prove that we don't just inhabit our bodies but can sculpt them.

My feelings on faith are more agnostic than anything these days, but my God, if I'd had someone to say that to me as a struggling Christian kid, it might've changed the entire course of my life, and made it so much less complicated, and I'm so grateful there're people making a path for queer folk within religion.

[birdsy-purplefishes]

I have MANY thoughts and feelings about Midsommar.

Okay I saw Midsommar last night and it was an experience. So this post is probably going to be long and rambling and it is definitely 100% for-sure going to contain some spoilers. I’m gonna put a whole lot of it behind a Read More.

First, though, I want to say that while I thought this film was great it is definitely one of the most disturbing things I have ever seen. I went into it knowing almost nothing--and honestly I wouldn’t have been prepared even if I had read spoilers--and that was the ideal way to see it for me but there are many triggering things and some very problematic things in this film. I’m gonna try to be vague as possible but you might not not to watch this one if anything from the following list is something you can’t handle. That said: I am very easily disturbed by a lot of things and I found that this film was so bizarre that I never really felt like I couldn’t finish it. It’s... kind of weirdly selective about which gruesome stuff it shows and what it doesn’t. The most terrifying things to me were implied things and I didn’t realize them until after it had ended. Somehow... miraculously... this film didn’t come across as gore/torture-p*rn to me. So Trigger Warning / Content Warnings for this movie: Violence, blood, gore, horrible suffering. Sex, nudity. Mental illness and stigmatization/perpetuation of harmful myths about mentally ill people. Suicide. Ableism. Racism. A rape scene that I think most people didn’t even realize was a rape scene because it’s bizarre and left somewhat ambiguous. Emetophobia triggers. Body horror. A whole lot of drugs. Squicky grossout stuff. Emotional, psychological, and religious abuse. 

There’s probably other stuff I forgot. Basically everything horrible is in this movie. It was definitely worth it but it’s a hard watch.

Okay, now for spoilery stuff.

The backstory shown in the first few minutes is incredibly disturbing. Dani’s bipolar sister murders their parents and kills herself. It’s graphic. It’s disturbing. It definitely portrays suicide in a negative light, which is pretty much good, but: can horror movies stop perpetuating myths about mentally ill people?! This stuff is damaging! It makes mentally ill people out to be monsters and then ignorant people treat them worse. It makes mentally ill people feel like there isn’t any hope for them! This part sucked a lot. The only interpretation of this that isn’t awful is the fan theory that there are clues in the background that suggest that the cult may have actually framed Dani’s sister but that’s kind of a stretch. None of the other foreshadowing in the film is as subtle as the supposed hints that the cult fabricated the whole thing so I doubt it.

The foreshadowing is actually super obvious. It’s the typical horror film where the characters have no idea what’s going on & you’re like “DUDE GET OUT OF THERE!” the whole time. People on the subreddit are pointing out all kinds of foreshadowing and even the tapestry at the beginning shows you who all of the characters are and like 90% of the story.

Dani’s boyfriend, Christian, sucks. His friends suck. There’s a lot of macho bullshit and they’re just cold and dismissive. And the boyfriend’s a manipulative little leech. You hate him so much! I found myself hoping that she’d kill them all except maybe the cute friendly Swede. Basically the entire movie he’s gaslighting and dismissing her and his friends talk shit about her constantly. It’s the typical “oh, women are irrational and over sensitive” macho bullshit. Like to the extent that all of them know about the murder-suicide of her entire family but none of them try to fucking shield her from seeing the suicide ritual. Not even the guys who know damn well what it is going into it!

The fact that they’re all anthropology majors and they go into it with a sense of cold detachment and an insistence on cultural relativism (or utter obliviousness) and it makes them total assholes wasn’t lost on me and I’m glad that someone went into detail: https://slate.com/culture/2019/07/midsommar-graduate-students-villains-ari-aster.html 

The bros say something about him dumping her and finding somebody who “actually likes sex” and there’s a lot of interpretations to that, none of which are less than horrible. Like does he try to pressure her into doing stuff she doesn’t want to? Probably! Like whether she has emotional or physical sexual dysfunction isn’t discussed and that’s kind of brilliant because even if she does have issues it’s not her fault at all and the dudes are g a r b a g e for even suggesting it.

The cute friendly Swedish dude (Pelle) who was the only one to be kind to Dani at all was actually the worst manipulator of all! He’s totally luring her in! He’s love-bombing and manipulating her! He literally “draws” her in. He does some forced-teaming shared-trauma bullshit. I gotta say though: I fell for it! I wanted her to dump the guy for him! I’m almost surprised that she didn’t fall for it. I think it’s more due to the fact that she’s traumatized and grieving than anything.

The most disturbing thing about the guy, though, is that I can’t decide if he does all of this because he’s evil or because he’s genuinely a true believer and believes with all his heart that he’s doing good things. That will haunt me forever tbh. Just... always watch out for guys who want to “save” you. They are the scariest fucking abusers.

The whole cult is love-bombing her, actually. The whole film is like Cult Tactics 101. They find a vulnerable young woman who’s lost everything. She doesn’t feel a sense of love and belonging anywhere. She has no support system unless you count her garbage basically-sociopathic-but-aloof boyfriend who really doesn’t count. Pelle hand-selected her because she’s the ideal cult brainwashing candidate. He’s seen firsthand just how much shit she takes from Christian and how she’s constantly falling for his gaslighting and tolerating him mistreating her. I was actually kind of disturbed at how many women I saw online reacting to the cult saying it was empowering or matriarchal. It’s not at all! The first elder we see leading things is female but the ones handling the book and enforcing the rules are men. I can only recall two women elders who do much of anything and they’re both just prominent parts of ceremonies. They’re announcers/performers. They’re definitely complicit but the men are behind the scenes controlling it. And look at the sex ritual! There’s no real emphasis on female pleasure and it’s all being a good little brood mare. It’s a performance. And small babies are kept away from their mothers to be raised communally. They send the mothers away from their babies! Even the May Queen role sucks if you think about it for even a second. The whole “we’re a family” thing is just creepy as hell. There’s even a lot of foreshadowing to it that I missed, like the guy who greets her shaking the mens’ hands but saying “welcome home” to her. Said guy also calls his traditional garb “girly” when Dani compliments it, btw! And of course the division of labor is patriarchal. The clothing is patriarchal too.

The mental health ableism stuff is bad but there’s ableism based on physical disability as well. Arguably it’s supposed to condemn the cult for fetishizing disabled people and promoting incest to deliberately create disabled people but... it still comes across as “look at this deformed kid” and it’s fucked up.

I can’t tell if the movie is trying to show us that the cult is racist or if the movie itself is racist. They kill off the three non-white outsiders pretty quick. Was that classic horror movie “the black guy dies first” bullshit or was that supposed to be like “look, these seemingly peaceful and loving people are xenophobic and racist and there’s a reason why all of them are super duper white despite bringing in outsiders”. Like I came out of the film definitely convinced that it’s no coincidence that the blue-eyed blonde chick gets singled out as special by these people.

It made me really uncomfortable to realize that the sex ritual is technically a rape scene. We get clues that Christian goes into it voluntarily to some extent, sure. When he knows that girl (and she does look like a young girl!) is trying to seduce him we don’t really see his reaction but he doesn’t seem to refuse outright. He seems ambivalent until he's offered the drugs but then he hears that they’ll make him lose his inhibitions, looks at the girl, and gulps the liquid. He saw it as an excuse to get away with cheating and he took it. But that doesn’t change the fact that he’s drugged when he actually agrees to the sex. He’s tripping the whole time. He’s being pressured and prodded and even literally physically manipulated. He’s out of it. The girl seems kind of out of it too. It’s really fucked up. But like it’s so weird and you’re so mad at him for everything shitty he’s done to Dani that you’re just like what?! But when you think about the fact that he’s drugged and you see the way he’s horrified after he realizes what he’s done... it’s horrific. He was violated.

I like that we see just how viscerally traumatic it is to be cheated on. Dani vomits, collapses and wails. And our sympathies are with her.

The cultists imitation of their members’ suffering is actually deeply disturbing and a huge aspect of the love-bombing thing, especially for Dani. She goes from being barely held by her expressionless piece-of-shit boyfriend while she wails to having a whole bunch of women replicate and act out her suffering. They do this too at the botched suicide and the final scene. They even kind of do it when she fails to eat the fish. It kind of looks communal and empathetic but it’s a feigned empathy. It’s another way that people in the cult lose their own personal identities. Nothing is yours there! Not even your suffering is yours.

To be honest... I went to see this film ‘cause a lot of the reactions to it were women gleefully enjoying seeing a shitty boyfriend suffer a horrible fate. I’m always down for misandry and cinematography! BUT... this was just excessive. The boyfriend is a total bastard. He did kinda need to die tbh. But he basically gets tortured to death. It’s made pretty explicitly clear that it’s horrific. They make no effort to mercy kill him like they did to the elderly guy whose jump failed to kill him. And like... the actor even gets it. The guy’s a scumbag and he doesn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. He even backstabs Chidi From The Good Place! But what happened to him is just awful.

The director and the lead actor actually disagree about the ending! Ari Aster says that Dani knows what she’s doing when she condemns Christian to die. Florence Pugh says she’s out of it.

I say it doesn’t actually matter whether Dani chose to kill Christian or not or what her motive was. Honestly it might have been a mercy killing given the state that he was in! Like maybe it was revenge for her and maybe the cult did it to make her feel empowered but it sucks being forced to choose who lives and dies. It sucks that some creepy cultist basically stole her man. It’s the whole “a pedestal is the same as a cage” thing for sure.

Last thing I can think of for now: I’m very surprised and more than a little distressed at all the people--especially women--who see this as a happy ending for Dani. Sure, it’s kind of a dark fairy tale revenge fantasy. But she’s objectively worse off than she is at the beginning of the film! She’s brainwashed and trapped! Like... I forgot where I read this now but basically Aster says that she goes from with one gaslighter to being with an entire cult of gaslighters! What do you think is gonna happen to her in the future?! She’s gonna have to live with her dead boyfriend’s baby that he had with some rando chick if that fertility ritual worked! She’s gonna have to live in a shitty commune. She’s gonna have PTSD 5ever from everything that happened. It’s honestly a tragic and horrible ending.

I’m... still processing this. I know I’m gonna end up adding to this. Feel free to chime in and discuss it with me! This movie was just Intense. BONUS LINKSPAM: Good Takes And Shit!

https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2474518/jordan-peele-says-midsommar-has-the-most-atrociously-disturbing-imagery-hes-ever-seen

https://themuse.jezebel.com/boy-problems-whos-got-em-midsommar-does-1835878652

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/alisonwillmore/midsommar-ari-aster-florence-pugh

https://www.vulture.com/2019/07/the-end-of-midsommar-ari-asters-last-minutes-explained.html

https://www.vulture.com/2019/07/the-end-of-midsommar-ari-asters-last-minutes-explained.html

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/03/738422258/midsommar-shines-a-solstice-nightmare-unfolds-in-broad-daylight

EDIT: Also!!! This film?! Somehow is a comedy! It’s funny as fuck and I’m definitely going to hell for laughing!

[lj-writes]

Is Finn immune to the Force?

It still bothers me that Kylo Ren never used the Force against Finn. I mean, we’re talking about the guy who's been shown doing this

and this

and this

also this

and so much more to his enemies and even people who just kind of annoyed him in the moment. The dude has oodles of Force power and is not at all shy about throwing it around. Other Force users are not immune, as shown with Rey who is even more powerful than he is.

So why, in his fight against Finn at the end of TFA, did Ren never even try to use the Force? Finn went running to an unconscious Rey after Ren knocked her out. Finn had even thrown his blaster aside, not that blasters work against Ren as Poe found out at the start of the movie. Why didn’t Ren throw Finn against a tree, too, or lift him into the air and choke him? That’s more like the guy’s usual MO.

Instead Ren not only dueled Finn but even resorted to punching him after disarming him, which had viewers commenting that his animosity against Finn seemed very raw and personal. It is true that Ren seems to have a personal beef against Finn (link), but again, the new Supreme Leader of the First Order has never been hesitant to use Force power against people regardless of how well he knew them or how strongly he felt about them. He revels in making people, from total strangers to hated rivals, helpless with his power. So why not Finn?

My hypothesis is that there’s another layer to Ren’s animosity against Finn beyond the usually-discussed ones of Finn defecting and making the opposite choices he did, and Ren’s hatred being the manifestation of his regrets. That’s a valid point and I have argued it myself (link), but what if there’s something more immediate and visceral going on?

Let’s go back to that moment in the village near the beginning of TFA, when Ren stared for a long moment at Finn before he turned away. He then unfreezes Poe’s blaster beam to strike a pole Finn was standing near, startling him and showering him with sparks.

What exactly prompted the staring and the intimidation here? There have been many speculations, from his realizing that Finn had not fired at the villagers to sensing Finn’s Force sensitivity. These are sound possibilities, but what if there’s something else? What if this scene is key to their interactions throughout the movie, and ties into the abovementioned duel scene at the end?

Let me propose an alternate scenario: Kylo Ren, having ordered the slaughter of unarmed prisoners, senses a disturbance in the Force--or rather, a lack of disturbance where there should be one. Remember what Chirrut said in Rogue One: “The Force moves darkly around a creature that is about to kill.” Given that the Force is the connection between living beings, I can imagine that this dark movement of the Force would persist for at least a little while afterward.

So let’s say Kylo Ren senses that there is no dark movement of the Force around Finn that indicates he had killed or intended to kill someone. He turns and stares directly at that point of light amid the darkened swirls in the Force.

Now, this alone could be enough to annoy him and he might find it reason enough to bully Finn. But what if his stare was about more than sensing the Force around Finn and realizing this Trooper had not obeyed his orders? Wouldn’t you be at least a little curious at such an anomaly, maybe try and see if the Trooper had simply lost his nerve or if something more was going on? 

What if the intensity of Kylo Ren’s stare indicated that he was trying to skim the surface of Finn’s mind, something the target might not even feel unlike a full mind probe? Just enough to tell what thoughts and emotions were going through the Trooper’s mind?

What if it didn’t work?

Imagine the turmoil, even embarrassment Kylo Ren would have felt in this scenario. His entire life was defined for better and for worse by being a powerful Force user. It was the source of his self-worth, the reason for his perceived superiority, the means by which he dominated others. Then to have something so simple as a mind scan fail to work on a lowly Stormtrooper, as though he had been walled off? Imagine his astonishment, then fury.

At this point it is entirely in character for Ren to unfreeze the blaster beam in a pique, intimidating Finn and reasserting control over the situation in his own mind. It was a reassurance to himself that his Force powers were still as potent as ever--the blaster beam hovering obediently in the air was proof enough!--and still worked on even the aberrant Stormtrooper, if not directly. Ren would have soothed himself with the thought that he could have killed the Trooper if he had wanted. He was still in control. Still powerful. Still Kylo Ren.

He could tell no one. He couldn’t even kill the Trooper, at least not outright, because it would raise too many questions. He had to figure out what had happened, who that Trooper was, and fix this situation before Snoke or Hux had any clue of what had happened.

A lot of Ren’s fixations with Finn start to make sense under this scenario. When Hux said they were searching the registers for the Stormtrooper that had sprung the Resistance pilot and escaped, Ren’s mind immediately went to Finn. Why? Because he had been reading that particular Trooper’s file himself, combing it for clues. He thought this Trooper could very well have run away to preserve whatever his secret was.

Even Ren’s mention of the clone program to Hux takes on a new meaning in this light. He may have realized in a panic that it might not be just Finn--the entire Stormtrooper program might be a danger. All those multitudes of humans taken in and trained with no idea of their Force potential. How many others like that escaped Trooper were out there, right in the Order’s ranks? How could he prevent it from ever happening again?

To him, the clones would have seemed a promise of full control. With a single, known template he would know exactly what he was getting. Obviously there’s no saying that whatever made Finn special was genetic in nature, but to someone like Kylo Ren, who believes so strongly in the supremacy of his heritage, that would have seemed the paramount factor.

As the movie progresses Ren certainly gains more and more reasons to hate Finn. But the hatred he has for Finn seems different from what he feels for the many others who oppose him, as though Finn touched on his rawest nerves and his very existence is an insult. Again, there are other perfectly valid explanations for this hatred. But then we return to the first question: why not use the Force on Finn? Not during combat, and not even when he finally has Finn helpless and under his power?

This may have been another reason for Ren’s interest in Rey. His cover was that the scavenger could give him the map to Luke Skywalker just like the droid could, but another key point about her was that she had traveled with Finn and might be able to provide information about him that a droid could not. Ren must have had a wealth of information from mechanical scans of Finn, which likely revealed nothing, but what he didn’t have was the impression of an organic being who had cared enough to interact on a personal level with him and so provide vital clues.

Besides, it wasn’t like he could conduct in-depth interviews of First Order personnel without drawing suspicion, not that he trusted any of them in the first place. The scavenger on the other hand was a prisoner from whom he could, as he put it, take whatever he wanted. It would also explain why he would take her as his personal prisoner and interrogated her himself from the start rather than leave her to Stormtroopers and droids. The information about Luke Skywalker he might share with the First Order, but he could not afford to let anyone else know about Finn’s mysterious qualities should the prisoner give up any salient details. The discovery of Rey’s Force abilities and her ability to push him out of her mind would have thrown a wrench in the works, obviously.

The next time Kylo Ren sees Finn it’s at the oscillator on Starkiller Base after Han’s death, and he is enraged for so many different reasons at this point. Is there also some fear behind that anger, though? Is there a reason he’s focused so specifically on Finn over Rey, whose Force powers have proven even greater than Ren’s? If Finn represents a vulnerability for Ren that not even Rey does, the idea that Ren’s power itself might have holes and might not work, that would go a long way toward explaining the intensity of his reaction.

When Finn and Rey escape, Ren tracks them down personally despite his injury and is waiting for them. “We’re not done yet.” Of course he’s not done with Rey, he wants her on his side and is under orders to take her to Snoke, but what if he’s also addressing Finn? Finn is still a riddle he has to solve, and if that is not possible a threat to eliminate.

Now let’s go into the leadup to Finn and Ren’s duel. One point I found interesting is that Finn and Rey were standing very close together, within what looks like 4-5 inches apart, when Ren knocked Rey into a tree. They were standing close together in the first place, having instinctively closed ranks on seeing Ren. 

See how Finn’s left shoulder and Rey’s right actually overlap while she calls Ren a monster:

So my question is: Why was only Rey pushed, and not Finn? We know it’s possible to Force push several opponents at once if they’re close to each other, it happened frequently in The Clone Wars for instance. See, for instance, Asajj Vetress pushing two mooks at once (all Clone Wars gifs are from a Force push compilation on YouTube, and have been very slightly slowed down):

Or two Force users in close quarters being pushed away together:

Jedi get this treatment, too.

So do droids.

Compare the above to Finn and Rey in the woods when Ren used the Force push:

Does this seem incongruent to you as well? Finn and Rey were standing as close to each other as any of the Force pushees in The Clone Wars examples, likely closer together than any of them in fact, yet only Rey is blown back and Finn is not affected at all.

Sure, maybe Ren was immediately focused on Rey because she was the more immediate threat with the blaster, and maybe he wanted to concentrate the push to send her particularly far. If these other examples are any indication, though, it seems at the very least unusual for someone who was standing so close to the intended target to be so entirely unaffected by even a byblow.

And speaking of focusing on Rey, there’s another thing about the Force push that always bothered me. Anti reylos have pointed out, correctly, that throwing Rey that high against a tree could have killed her. Yet, to me, that doesn’t fit what Ren was trying to achieve. He was intrigued by this girl’s powers and was thinking about recruiting her, why would he try to kill her? Throw off her blaster beam, sure. Gain an advantage in the fight with the aim of capturing her, yes. But throw her so high and hard he ran the risk of killing her? That doesn’t make sense, not because he’s any less evil but because it’s not in his self-interest.

Unless... what if he didn’t mean to push her that high? What if he had been aiming at both Finn and Rey and had meant to achieve something much like the Clone Wars examples above, pushing them both to distract them and throw them off? Except the Force push, having met an immovable object in Finn, channeled around to hit Rey and Rey alone, hitting her with far more power than Ren intended?

If it’s true that Ren was aiming at both Finn and Rey, or at least pushed in a way that would normally have affected both, he would have gained yet more confirmation that Finn was, as Phasma put it in a different context, a “bug in the system.” Beyond being his opposite in every way Finn was something that shouldn’t exist, that reminded Ren that he could not control everyone and everything.

Finn is far from invulnerable, of course, as Ren himself took great lengths to prove. Yet he did so entirely by physical means, in contrast to his usual style of throwing his Force powers around especially on people who can’t defend themselves. Viewers interpret this as a choice on Ren’s part, a physical expression of his grudge against Finn. What if he had no choice because physical means were the only ones that worked?

And what does Ren do once he has wounded and incapacitated Finn? Instead of finishing off his enemy he reaches immediately for Anakin’s lightsaber, calling to it through the Force. It’s like he has something to prove, especially after the sight of Finn holding it and using it against him.

In sum, I think there’s a case for saying that Ren never used the Force against Finn because it doesn’t work against him, and that this discovery early in TFA was the driver behind his and Finn’s tension throughout the movie. This means that Finn has a unique Force power, something Ren finds more threatening than even a powerful Force user like Rey. Such a reveal would have tremendous implications for the ongoing story and the nature of the Force itself.

Of course, it’s also possible the whole thing was simply an oversight on the filmmakers’ part, but if so I find it an interesting speculation to fill the gap.

[koalas-koalas-everywhere]

The question of Peter’s choices in Civil War...

Everyone and their mother will agree that Peter’s choice to unmask publicly was out of character. Anyone with any understanding of the character (and the concept of vigilantes and heroes, I mean, really, assault is written into the genre’s very core) will also agree that while he tries to respect the law as much as he can, he will break it and allow it to be broken when it comes into conflict with what’s right. 

Here’s the thing, though. There were ameliorating circumstances, of which being out of character was only a small part, which made his actions more understandable: one was his faith in Tony and the other was the fact that he didn’t have a choice.

Before Peter unmasks, heck, before Civil War even starts, Tony gives him the Iron Spider Suit (IRS) and, when Peter questions him for ulterior motives, admits that he wants his help with something big that’s coming, but he won’t tell him what until he swears that he’ll support him and back him up no matter what, and that he won’t tell anyone else what’s goin on. Peter goes so far as to call it a blood oath, and Tony agrees. In return, Tony would make him his second, his protegé, someone allowed to be at his side as the events unfold and learn, see and hear everything he himself sees and hears.* Peter, thinking he’s doing nothing more than agreeing to help a friend, gives him his oath. (ASM #529) They go to Washington, where Tony had been summoned to testify before the Senate Metahuman Investigation Committee. 

On the plane over, Tony tells Peter what they’ll be discussing: the SHRA, and they both agree that it would be a bad thing and that they’ll have to convince the Committee not to go forward with it. Once there, they argue against it before the court and Tony even hires a super-powered mercenary to fake an assassination attempt which Peter (who didn’t know it was fake, and to whom Tony didn’t reveal it was fake even when he asked) would prevent, in hopes that Spider-Man’s intervention and the mercenary’s speech about how the government’s intolerance of super-heroes would lead to their erradication and the country’s vulnerability (all of this conviniently recorded by the IRS) would tide the Committee’s opinion over to their side. (ASM #531)

I repeat: Tony had been shown to be against the Act.

It would not be such a stretch to think that, when he backed up the Government when it decided to go through with it after Stamford, it was so he’d be better able to do damage control. He (and Reed and Pym) put themselves in charge of how the Act would be carried out, and parts of it were reasonable and downright smart. I mean, yeah, train people so they won’t do harm disproportionate to the good they set out to do. (This is not to say that I agree with the Act in it entirety, of course.)

Another thing Tony had been shown to be was savvy when it came to politics and a capable person in general, so between all this and his promise to always back him up, Peter could have stayed on his side on the hope that he would fix it, either improve the pubilc’s opinion of heroes so everything would be back to normal or work out the worst parts of the Act so that everyone could be happy with it. What we have to accept is that, while the relationship was horribly built, they were friends and, according to JMS, had a sort of father/son relationship (so can we be really surprised when it went to shit?).  It’s not so much that he agrees with everything the Act proposes, but that he trusts his friends and, particularly, Tony, to look after their interests. 

So, we’ve got a reason for why he’d make the decision to be on Tony’s side, and we’re going by this chronologically, so we’re on the ride over to the airport so Peter can fly to New York, so he doesn’t know a lot of stuff, yet. But, we’ve still got to go over how they could justify Peter unmasking on TV.

When Tony asks him to do this, Peter refuses. Tony makes it clear that if he doesn’t, he’ll be a criminal, and he leaves him to think it over on the flight to NY. During it, Peter calls his bank to ask the amount of money he has saved and if he can withdraw it. Once home, he talks it over with Mary Jane and Aunt May, saying that if he unmasks, they get to choose and the decision has to be unanimous.

During the course of this conversation, we see that Peter and MJ reach the conclusion that he's damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t, because his secret identity is compromised already (they only talk about whether Tony can be trusted not to tell on him, but SHIELD knew who he was, too - heck, it was practically common knowledge fuck you Bendis) and Peter seems to make the decision to go on the run, on his own, because taking Aunt May and Mary Jane with him could lead to their arrest. 

Then... Aunt May tells him to unmask (which, okay, might not be too weird for someone whose only experiance with being attacked because people knew who Peter is was when she got kidnapped and promptly drugged until she was saved, so she might not have been able to process the danger beyond the intellectual) and... Mary Jane agrees (which is shit) and still Peter wanted to go on the run, until Aunt May corners him and implies not only that Uncle Ben would have wanted him to unmask, but that it would be the responsible thing to do because she ties it to accountability. 

Now, I can’t actually argue that unmasking, even under all this pressure, was in character. I just can’t. The best thing I can do with all these little facts is No Prize it.

First of all, I’ll talk about a thought I had while writing this. Like I said, there would have been little point in Peter unmasking, even just to the Governemt, because SHIELD and others already knew his id. In fact, he had already made a comment about how he didn’t trust their capability or willingness to prevent leaks, so, in his mind, for all intents and purposes, his secret identity was already shot. So, that being a non-issue, why was he still about to leave? I mean, besides an impulse that by this point was more instictual and visceral than logical to protect his id (which would have been more than fair). I think, when he and MJ started talking about what might be asked of him if he stayed and registered, he realized that he wasn’t willing to compromise that much, but maybe he didn’t want to face the fact that he’d break his promise to Tony that easily, so he stuck with the “I don’t want to unmask” excuse. Truth be told, I think that, at least at first, if he had actually left, he’d have gone Ben’s route and gone to Canada to stay out of it, instead of joining Cap’s team from the start - especially since he’d be leaving his family in the tender mercies of whoever got their hands on his secret id and wanted to make something of it, he might want to be on his best (possible) behaviour.

But why did he stay, then? The clinch was clearly when Aunt May talked to him the morning he was about to slip away, which amounted to “own up to what you’ve, done it’s the responsible thing to do and what your Uncle would have wanted”. So that might have combined with his guilt over breaking his promise to Tony when it was possible that he’d be fighting to make the Act better for supers and in a moment of hysteria he might have gone “you know what? It’s already going to go public. The Government will find out and sooner than later there will be a leak and everyone else will find out too, might as well cooperate and skip the middle man so I can keep some kind of control over it.” Unmasking publicly would also be a show of support to Tony, who did the same thing (at this point, people didn’t know he was Iron Man, although it was heavily suspected, since he’d unmasked before).

So, to summarize: Peter was the proverbial frog boiling over low fire. He started with a promise of support ot a friend, who then asked him for his help in convincing the Government to at least postpone the Act. When the SHRA came to fruition, he might have had the idea that Tony would still be fighting against it, but in a position that might allow him to do it from within, so he might have seen the sides as the one which was willing to compromise and negotiate and the one which refused to give quarter even when some of it made sense, instead of outright pro vs against. It has to be noted, too, that Tony didn’t ask him whether he wanted to be part of the strike team who went after the heroes who didn’t register, and that he fonud out about that with everyone else, through a TV press conference when he had already given up his secret identity.

As for his unmasking, he had plenty of reason to believe that everyone he’d be required to tell his identity to would find out anyway from SHIELD and/or Tony (or any of the inmates who recognized him from the time he was unmasked in Ryker’s, I mean, Bendis was polite enough to include and name The Foolkiller specifically, who had been a student and friend of Peter’s, see his face god Bendis fall off a cliff), and didn’t think they’d be able/willing to keep the secret, so he might have decided to skip the middle man and unmask himself so at least he’d get points for cooperating and to have some control over the narrative. He was also sorta kinda guilt tripped into it by Aunt May. Still something you’d have to suspend your disbelief for, but all in all, that and a little bit of freaking out-induced irrationality might do the trick enough that we can justify it and accept it without going into the territory of “it was in character”.

Now, I’ve also heard people say that going on the run was out of character. That, at the very least, he shouldn’t have taken Mary Jane and Aunt May with him.

I’ll start with the scenario of him going on the run with his family because it’s the easier one. Yes, it was dumb, and you can tell it was ooc because he didn’t want to do it in the first place. He took them out of the tower because he didn’t trust Tony with them (am I the only one who thought “As long as they’re with me, they’re safe.” (ASM #535) as “as long as you behave, they’re safe”? At the very least, it’s what a scared and disillusioned Peter might have thought), but after that he wanted them to take their money and go away, probably even leave the country. Then May (goddamit May!) convinced him to “let” them stay with him. I mean, it’s not like he could actually make them do anything, it’s not as easy as “Peter should have sent them away”. It’s still out of character, but also understandable. We learn later that Peter didn't want to stay with the outlaw heroes so he wouldn't bring trouble to them (it wouldn’t be a stretch to think that Tony might have some way to trace him even without the suit), so if they left, he’d be looking at the life he described to Mary Jane (”on the run [...], going from one dive to another, using different names... The stress will be enormous” ASM #536)... on his own. Certainly not the most attractive prospect. So May’s message of hope would be attractive to him, and he could justify it by saying that at least this way he can keep an eye on them and actively protect them.** 

I’ve also heard it said that he should have stayed with Tony but report back to the other team, to which I have to say... you complain that Peter was out of character for unmasking and then you suggest this? He’s not the cloak and dagger kind. Not only is it not his style, I don’t think he’s cut out for it. I mean, can you imagine Peter as Black Widow 2.0? Would it have been smart? Yes. Would it have been in character? Hell, no. And while I think he’s a better liar than most people are willing to give him credit for, he’d be caught 5 minutes in. People were already thinking he looked suspicious during Bill Foster’s funeral, and everything (except my reding list, ig) points out to that being before the failed transfer attempt in ASM #534, where he was still so committed that he rejected Cap’s offer (and request) to switch sides and fought him. By escaping, at least he put some distance between his family and the repercussions of being a double-agent.

Also to consider is that, the moment he starts thinking of jumping ship, Tony tells him that he wants him in LA the next day, so he’d lose all of his usefulness as a spy. Even if he had managed to stay in NY and close to Tony, it was clear that he wasn’t trusted anymore. It was just not an option. Quite like it wouldn’t have been an option to just contact Cap’s team and offer to report to them because they wouldn’t have trusted them. We know this because they didn’t immediately trust him when Frank took him all beaten up to their hide out and at least Sam still didn’t trust him after he made his speech exposing the pro side’s ruthless and immoral measures (although then he was shown to be appreciative of him in the CW mag, so idk).

So, he was on Tony’s side not so much because he agreed with the Act but because he trusted Tony to try to make the best of it and maybe even change it, he unmasked because the important people already knew who he was and he didn’t trust him to keep the secret, so that combined with his promise to support Tony, Aunt May’s sorta guilt trip and a bit of being out of character that we’ll call “being under a lot of stress for a long time now ang going through a bit of hysteria at just the wrong time” led to that decision. Getting Mary Jane and Aunt May out of the Avengers Tower was alright because he had already seen the measures Tony would go to to ensure a win and doesn’t trust him, but letting them come along with him while he fought the SHRA instead of insisting that they leave was out of character and dumb to boot. While staying on Tony’s team to spy on them would have been smart, it would have been ooc, too, and not an option since by the time he decided to change sides not even Tony trusted him.

*I didn’t mean for that to be so close to an actual quote, but I checked the issue and that’s almost exactly what he says, so go me and my subconcious memory, I guess.

** Now, why would he be willing to endanger his family and not the other heores... yeah, out of character. But also... well, I guess this is my own personal view of the character and the narrative it fits in, but Peter Parker needs family, friends and good things in his life to function. I mean, all humans do, but Peter needs them for the sake of his story, the counterpoint light to the darkness. He can be exposed to all the evil of the world and fight it, but he needs its goodness, too. The tragedy/hope (and even death/birth) dichotomy is at the core of the character: Uncle Ben dies/Spider-Man the hero is born, Gwen Stacy dies/his relationship with Mary Jane starts off, everything goes to shit right before the second Clone Saga/Mary Jane gets pregnant, May dies/she reveals she knew Peter was Spider-Man and is proud of him. The last one is especially important because Norman intended that revelation to drive Peter to despair, but it actually gives him hope. It’s about being open to hope in the worst of times. It’s part of the reason why I hate the “Peter is a loser with a fucked up life whose punchline is that he can never be happy” ideology (besides it being categorically untrue...)

[dilldaydreamer-blog]

Crystal Clear

((In which PI has a meeting with Droog about Aradia’s Death.  Starring @talldarkloathsome​ @undertakinggraveshift​ ))

Your name is Pembrooke, and you're currently sitting at a table in Moreli's Diner at 5th.  The diner is fairly empty around your area...a detail most likely because you pulled badge and rank and told the staff you wanted it so.  It's a very surreal feeling, having enough authority to be able to pull moves like that.  You almost can see why the mobsters love it so, it is certainly thrilling. Your morail is with you, as you may have flung him into the car the second you got the reply so you could get there pronto.  The last thing you wanted to be was late.  And the earlier the arrived, the more likey you could get your anxious social speaking bees under control.  The pressure was on, this was not a simple casual meet n greet and not even close to the D&D game you had just a month prior been chattering to Droog about running. In the back of your head you are already re-arranging that because that may be off the table depending on how things go. You sit, and wait. Unsure if you really have the means to stop a mob from tearing the city apart but also ready to do what you can to prevent this city you love from turning into a pile of ash.

Death

Good thing Death was already dressed in his Sunday best, because to him, appearances were important no matter the situation. He was meeting a grieving mobster after all, and the situation required looking professional. An apology was given to the staff as they were vacated, and Death did his best to assure everyone that everything was okay, meeting with the manager even to exchange information to let them know when it was fine to come back. Patting Pembrooke on the shoulder and giving him a smile, Death settled near the door to the diner instead, waiting to meet Droog there so that he could open the door for him and lead him to the chosen table once the mobster had arrived.

DD

You arrive, for once in your life, underdressed compared to those around you.  You trudge in from the snow without so much as a coat or a scarf, though you do not look the least bit cold.  The tie Slick had brought for you hangs loose about your unsecured collar.  Your hair, air dried, has not been brushed, and looks it.  No jewelry, no expensive color to announce your presence three feet ahead of you. Just you.  Hands shoved deep in your pockets, cigarette hanging from your lip, looking the very picture of a man who has not slept in nearly three days. When you enter, your deadened eyes look to Death with something that cannot be called mild interest.  A blip in your line of vision, seen once, and then fading from view.  You nod to him, and you say nothing.

PI

You look up, see him, and immediately know this meeting is going to be short.  You had taken the time to have coffee prepared at the table but even this you expect won't get touched.   At least the staff will not be busy.  It doesn't go past your notice that this is perhaps the most raw and perhaps even vulnerable you've ever seen Droog...and that is saying something considering you were there at the Festival when his arm was removed. The script you had planned was already crumbling as you realize you are not going to be talking to the proverbial Dignitary...the savvy silver-tongued business man who once even according to history smooth talked his way to the Prospitian Court and turned the tides of a war.  You're talking to a man who lost something more precious than any wealth this city could provide and has the means to make this city pay for his loss in blood. Your posture stiffens, you give him a nod.

"Afternoon.  Thank you for your time and this meeting." The tone of your voice is unwavering, a small miracle you will thank later after you have your customary 'oh god social speaking heebidy jeebidy' anxiety release dance.  It is best to just keep things to the point, you have no doubt he cares nothing right now for condolences from you.

Death

Death nodded to the man who looked the part of death more than Death himself. His expression was sympathetic and with a motion of your hand after waiting for Droog to slip inside so  Death doesn't unceremonially slam the door on his ass, the coroner lead him to the table for him to take a seat. He settled in beside Pembrooke after, feeling it best to take a seat rather than loom over the two.

DD

You slide into your seat unceremoniously as well, a lackluster thump of flesh on lacquered wood than a graceful slide one might expect from the former Dignitary himself.  You do not give the men before you the courtesy before taking a cigarette from your breast pocket and lightly it with a flick of your prosthetic fingers together.  The end of the black pill glows purple. At least you blow the smoke toward the ceiling and not toward them.  But you don't talk yet, not even to return the greeting.  Even as you drag the ash tray across the table toward yourself, you simply stare, blankly but not without something distinctly sour drawing across your brow, between the two men. For a long moment, the silence grows in the air.  And then you say, with a voice uncharacteristically gruff, "Gentlemen." As good of a 'Out with it without being outright rude' as they were going to get.

PI

You watch the man quietly, taking in the details and memorizing what you can of his bodylanguage.  The hairs on the back of your neck prickle, a sensation that even after over a decade in this form still feels like a surreal novelty at times.  The combination of disheveled without regard concerns you.  Droog had always been a man of composure, a creature who had always tried to strive for a flawless demeanor.  To be in such a state yet uncaring who seems him... Your posture straightens and you clear your throat as the smoke drifts upwards.    "I'll cut to the chase.  You and I both know whoever did this is a dead man.  Even if my men were somehow to arrest him, put him in the farthest cell on another planet...I have little to no doubt you and yours would get ahold of them.  Which isn't to say I condone the action, but I'm not a fool." Exhale, inhale.  "What I am though is concerned you and yours are going to tear this city apart  trying to track down whoever was responsible.  And I'd like to avoid a witch hunt or a riot where innocent people get caught in the middle. So I'm asking for some kind of way to help sort this with minimal casualties.  What happened was and is deplorable, and I do want to see the ones responsible paying for their deeds. But I don't want this city to burn over the actions of one man.  We want to help, but I have no doubt that the biggest leads to what happened are yours to give."

Death

This is about what Death had expected. He had seen what this man was capable of time and time again- he had seen what all of what Droog and the Crew were capable of, but at the end of the day, they were still people who felt love and pain as anyone else. Why would Droog act any differently than any other parent at the news of their child's death... especially something so... outrageously brutal. And to be the one to carry her... Death had definitely lingered as the flames had been lit. He continued his silence, lacing his fingers together on the table. If the time called for it, Death would have praised Pembrooke's way of handling the matter, but that would be for another time.

DD

You listen, or at least do a passable job of pretending you're listening, with all the world still stifled and distant as it had been that night in the snow.  Deadened.  You can't even make a show of looking at him; distracted as you are, your eyes have drifted off to the grey skies and the snow drifting down onto the blanketed cars and the streets run a disgusting grey with dirty slush. After the Inspector lapses in his speech, the silence creeps in once more.  It coils about the lazily circling ceiling fan as the smoke does and descends between the lot of you.  You can't stop thinking of the freezer. You shift, after some time, opening your suit jacket to pull out your cell phone.  It is certainly nicer than regulation allows, but the image gallery you pull up and hold out to show to them now are far more pressing.  There is so, so much red.  Wordlessly, you flip through the photos:  the trail and the rose petals, the photo strips in the blood, the writing on the wall. Aradia, as she was displayed for you. Lingering there on that last photo, you turn the phone away from them at last, staring down upon it.  It's all you've done for over two days.  You say, around the filter of the cigarette chewed into a nasty mess between your teeth, "All due respect, I already know who did it.  But it isn't just the actions of one man that lead to this moment, and I think you know that full well."

PI

Since this whole ordeal began, there had been a pit in your stomach. Like a small seed evergrowing and tilling the soil as more information became relevant and the clues started falling into place.  As the phone is pulled out and you see the visceral montage, you can feel the pit in your stomach blossom as it churns your insides and you aren't able to hide the expressions that cross your face.

Some people say that it gets easier, seeing death or the scenes of the crime.  Perhaps they were just lucky, as it had never been the case for you.  Never been the case seeing the face of those who came across the scene and would never be the same.  Seeing what some of the sickest minds sometimes do in this city. As the phone turns away, you close your eyes and turn away for a moment as you process this information. Damnit. This was about as much as you expected but also more than you wanted.  Nevermind the fact Droog has technically destroyed an entire crime spree and did public property damage. Or the fact he has all the evidence on his person.  There has and likely never will be a way to ask a grieving father for well...that. You remove your glasses to set them on the table as you rub the bridge of your nose. "I..." You inhale deep and look back to him. "I'm not going to make a fool of myself giving some lecture about justice to one such as yourself.  But I am going to ask if there is anything we can do to keep blood from spilling on the streets.  What has happened is deplorable. And I and my fellow officers do want to not leave this deed unpunished.  But what we can or cannot do depends on you and yours.  Right now you do have the law on your side Mister Spektor. But if you take things into your own hands..." You put your glasses back on, trying your best to not think about how you'd feel if this had been Jude in those photos. Or Elliot.  "Mister Spektor. Please believe me when I say I genuinely want to help."

Death

Death knitted his brows, and for a moment it took him a second to figure out what to do from there. He saw this, handled his reaction then... mentally and mostly focusing on Aradia's spirit. What would be a normal response now? In the end, he decided it was better to keep a controlled look of pained sympathy rather than retching. However, he did want to reach out and take Droog's hand. He also refrained from that too. He gently bumped the side of Pembroke's thigh to Pem's own. You're okay.

DD

Help. The word brings a small breath of laughter to your mouth, but the sound falls flat as it trips over your tongue.  You sniff once, palming at your mouth, as you swallow the sick that's been ever-present in your throat since that day.  You've already gotten all of that out, Diamonds.  You can't be doing this shit again, especially not here in front of these guys. Swallow it all down, and sigh deeply. "You're good people, Ingleton.  For as much shit as I give you, you really do have my deepest respects, for a law man."  The cigarette is smoldering between your fingers, and you ash it.  "And for what it's worth, I appreciate the kindness you are extending me.  So I'll extend a kindness to you in turn, by telling you this:" You stand from the chair and you lean forward over the table, palms spread and splayed across the table.  You're close enough to see yourself in his eyes. "Pursuing this is going to get you hurt, Ingleton, and it ain't gonna be me doing the hurting.  Those green motherfuckers are too fucking stupid to realize that you putting that salt-encrusted shit-for-brains in the clink for life would be in his best interest.  Because when I finally get my hands on him, he's gonna wish he'd been given the chair, cuz that's gonna be quicker and less painful than what I intend to do with him and all the rest of his sorry fucking organization." You straighten yourself once more.  "Are we clear, Inspector?"

PI

Some say this city has a way of changing people, and you cannot even argue it.  Here you are, a far cry from your first few months on Derse as a bright eyed bushy tailed investigator.  You're quite certain your former self would have withered on the spot being in this situation, face to face with one of the biggest crimelords as he says all the things you both dreaded and expected. He's right.  In all of it.  And you're almost upset at how true that will all play out.  That despite this kindess extended, you and he both know you're still going to try anyways. And fail. And get hurt. Scratch that, you are rather upset. No almost about it.  The temptation bubbles up to through out all pleasantries.  Bring up how Droog's fire destroyed so much evidence. That him holding onto Aradia's body and those photos could count as obstructing justice and tampering with evidence.  Hold him accountable to arson....just something to momentarily pretend this situation isn't so far out of your hands. But instead your face is emotionless, not even a nod given as you respond. "Clear as diamonds....Droog."

[aion-rsa]

Resident Evil vs. Silent Hill: Which Franchise is Scarier?

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The release of Resident Evil Village and the always persistent rumors of a Silent Hill revival seem to have these two famous franchises on the minds of more horror fans than ever. Then again, these two franchises tend to live rent free in the minds of most gamers most of the time due to the simple fact that they feature some of the greatest scares in video game history.

“Scare” is the key word here. Maybe you have an opinion on which games are better, more memorable, or more fun, but at the end of the day, which franchise do you think is scarier: Resident Evil or Silent Hill?

Instead of trying to answer that question today, we’ll instead present an argument for each franchise’s status as the scariest and leave the honor of settling this debate up to you.

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Resident Evil vs. Silent Hill: Why Resident Evil is Scarier

The thing that impresses me most about the Resident Evil series after all this time isn’t just how scary it has consistently been but how the series has evolved to scare us in different ways over the last 25 years.

The original Resident Evil game used a combination of limited resources, cumbersome controls, and limited defensive options to make the player feel helpless. While some say that those early RE titles were only as scary as they were because they were more “difficult,” that’s kind of an odd sentiment considering that Resident Evil was trying to prove that horror games could be as scary as films while trying to also make the most of a particularly rough era for 3D game design. That fact that Resident Evil was even that playable has to be considered a minor technological miracle.

Besides, can you honestly say you can play through Resident Evil or its remake and not still feel a little scared? There’s something about the first game’s blend of intimate, almost claustrophobic design and expertly timed scares that has aged shockingly well. We may now know that a dog is going to jump through that hallway window, but it’s almost impossible to not feel your body tense up in the moments leading up to even the game’s most iconic frights.

As their respective remakes showed, Resident Evil 2 and 3 were such well designed pieces of horror that their basic ideas and best moments still managed to terrify players even when you remove their more restrictive design elements. Granted, it didn’t hurt that both games successfully utilized the classic “a giant monster is chasing you, run away as fast as you can right now” concept, but as those still clamoring for a Resident Evil – Code: Veronica remake will probably tell you, these classic Resident Evil games balanced quick “jump” scares and lingering dread in such innovative and unique ways that it’s almost hard to expect modern developers to replicate their magic.

Some will argue that the Resident Evil series sacrificed scares for action with Resident Evil 4-6, but that too feels like a bit of an extreme take on the matter. While I’d also argue that those three games suffer from some diminishing returns in terms of their scares (especially compared to the original RE games), they represent a time when Capcom clearly experimented with how they could make the scariest action games possible. While some titles gave them a run for their money (Alan Wake and The Suffering come to mind), those Resident Evil sequels remained some of the scariest on the market at another time in gaming history when people were questioning whether or not gaming horror was even viable.

Besides, Resident Evil 7 once again showed that when the RE team just wants to scare the hell out of you, they’re arguably still the best at doing it. After titles like Amnesia and Outlast set a new bar for scary video games, Resident Evil came out swinging at the very idea that anyone would dare come after their crown. It may have borrowed from some of the other games of that era, but Resident Evil 7 managed to tie so many ideas from so many different styles of horror together so cleanly that it’s only after you stopped screaming that you probably appreciated it the scope of the soft revival’s accomplishments. Of course, those who played the game in VR are probably still screaming.

With Resident Evil Village, Capcom continues to find ways to keep the Resident Evil franchise scary even at a time when others in the industry cling to the narrative that the public doesn’t want games like scary, short, narrative-driven titles like Resident Evil Village. We’ve seen so many horror franchises lose their bite after only a couple installments, but Resident Evil has been scaring and entertaining us in shockingly equal measures for over 25 years now. At its best, it’s the source of some of gaming’s greatest scares ever.

Resident Evil vs. Silent Hill: Why Silent Hill is Scarier

When I think of Silent Hill, I think of fog. That’s not exactly a mind-blowing reveal given that fog is arguably this series’ trademark visual element, but Silent Hill‘s fog also perfectly represents the almost oppressive feeling of terror that these games surround you with.

Thanks largely to the contributions of the brilliant Silent Hill 2, this franchise is best known as one of gaming’s greatest sources of psychological horror. It’s a reputation that’s more than earned. While it’s always a little tricky to outright condemn the idea of the “jump scare” and stick by that argument, many horror fans will at least begrudgingly agree that shocking someone is often easier than scaring them in a way that truly scars them.

Yet, Silent Hill games have this way of getting under your skin and still terrifying you hours after you’ve walked away from actually playing them. Again, Silent Hill 2‘s personal Hell narrative and incredible character moments are arguably the best examples of that quality, but Silent Hill Homecoming‘s way of performing subtle psychotically tests on the player and then projecting their true fears onto the screen may just be one of the most impressive feats in horror game design history. As for Silent Hill 4: The Room…well, after 2020, most of us can probably attest to the terror of being locked away in a room because you’re terrified of what’s outside.

What Silent Hill sometimes doesn’t get credit for, though, are the more visceral elements of its horror. The Silent Hill series boasts some of the greatest monster designs in horror game history, and the games have this way of throwing them at you when you’re at your most emotionally vulnerable. Silent Hill may not be best known for its jump scares, but when the games want to go that route, they do it better than anyone.

Of course, how do you talk about Silent Hill without talking about P.T. It may have just been a demo for a Silent Hill game that never got made, but in just a couple of hours of gameplay, P.T. managed to establish itself as one of the scariest experiences ever. You could argue whether or not Silent Hills would have been able to maintain P.T.‘s adrenaline shot of terror across an entire game, but at the very least, P.T. showed that when Silent Hill games are firing on all cylinders, there is nothing quite like them.

On that note, it feels necessary to mention that the Silent Hill series has had some pretty low moments. Titles like Homecoming and Origins largely seemed to feel that this franchise’s trademark elements are enough to make any Silent Hill game scary, but those two titles proved that this is not an easy style of horror and that there are no expressways that run through Silent Hill. The series has also historically never been a best-seller despite including some of the most critically acclaimed games of all-time.

When you’re talking about what separates Silent Hill games from other horror titles in terms of scares, though, I think the word that you’re looking for is intimidation. Maybe that intimidation factor is part of the reason why these games have never really sold as well as others, but you almost have to respect how they often seem unconcerned with whether or not you’re enjoying them.

So, which franchise is scarier? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

The post Resident Evil vs. Silent Hill: Which Franchise is Scarier? appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[ganymedesclock]

In general what do you hope to see with Lotor and his parents? AJ once said that the fun thing about Lotor and his father is that Lotor is seeing how Zarkon's system falls apart and then leaves it at that, plus Montgomery saying there's a rivalry to them.

I recall one of the writers saying, in terms of voice direction, that Lotor is carrying a lot that he doesn’t necessarily want to talk about.

I think there’s a deep and very serious rift between Lotor and Zarkon. Not surprising, since in DotU, Zarkon basically continuously verbally abused and disparaged Lotor- like, literally, he can’t string a sentence together without calling Lotor awful or a failure or a disappointment or telling Lotor he has no feelings- literally to shut down Lotor disagreeing with him.

I doubt that’s what we’re going to see in VLD because VLD is very good at doing something with narration where they will often show the emotional impact of something rather than the moment of it hitting. We don’t see more than tiny out-of-context snippets of what happened to Shiro in captivity, but his responses, his reactions, what we see him respond to- tells us things.

We don’t see Shiro wrestled to a table awake and screaming while his arm is hacked off in a spurt of blood because that would just make the audience unnecessarily uncomfortable without actually telling us anything important. What we have is that Ulaz as a spy knows that “I want him to be awake enough to feel what I’m going to do to him” is a good excuse to have Shiro only partially sedated and one the guards won’t bat an eye at. We know Shiro sharply accuses an imperial surgeon of “taking” his arm which tells us it was not a relatively innocuous injury that necessitated that amputation.

We don’t see the exact moment Keith tells the team about his galra heritage- but we see how everyone’s dealing with it hours later and that’s arguably more telling than their visceral short-term responses. We don’t see the exact moment the team pulls half-dead Shiro out of the fighter in s3e5 but we see the way Keith cautiously tries to coax Shiro into getting out and talking to everyone once he’s recovered.

And I think that’s something going on with Lotor, Zarkon, and Haggar. I don’t think we’ll see much obvious onscreen abuse. But I think the aftershocks are already there for us to see.

The main skills Lotor has cultivated are dodging and parrying. He’s profoundly scornful of aggression. He is far kinder towards strangers that have lived under imperial colonization than he is to imperial soldiers.

Many of Lotor’s strategies hinge on the assumption that his enemies hate him and will take every conceivable opportunity to hurt him, over tactical sense. The trap in s3e3 literally relies on the assumption that the paladins will chase him right into the storm without stopping to consider their surroundings because they want him dead that badly.

Consider that Lotor also banks on the fact that the paladins are honorable people who care about others, and will answer an Altean distress beacon even if it’s profoundly suspicious or dangerous because they can’t pass up the possibility there’s some kind of survivor there.

Haggar blatantly considers it her right to know everything Lotor is doing and to make older, well-armed people follow him. When confronted on this she remains patronizingly indifferent to Lotor- who is the angriest and most hostile we’ve ever seen him, and practically spits at Haggar suggesting he’s anything like Zarkon.

Zarkon in this continuity alone has a track record. With the Black Lion, with Alfor, with the galra categorically- anyone who’s connected to him somehow Zarkon is possessive of. He makes decisions and expects to be obeyed, and when they disagree with him, when they argue back, he either turns manipulative (with Alfor) or he just outright denies they’re a person with free will and sets out to force his will onto them (Black).

Consider how much hatred and scorn Lotor has for belligerent tactics. Consider how Lotor sets his strategies to punish people who act the way that Zarkon does- single-minded, aggressive, dominating, with no acceptance for failure.

Consider how despite being part of the royal family, Lotor appears to avoid the main fleet and its flagship as much as he possibly can. Consider how when they were getting odd radar blips that could be nothing Lotor’s first suspicion is someone who knows their protocols- which Acxa points out wouldn’t be anyone but the empire- and he phrases it as “I want to know who’s after me.” Consider how at this point Lotor hasn’t done anything the empire knows of that they’d take serious issue with and his assumption is still that they’re hunting him.

And once again- Lotor’s entire modus operandi hinges on the assumption that his enemies are bigger than him, stronger than him, and want to hurt him.

I think there’s basically no other way to read Lotor’s behavior and especially his talk with Haggar in s3e5, how uncharacteristically aggressive and tense that is for him, how there’s no smoothness or certainty or calm, and how even when he’s trying to posture about how much he has power over this situation he’s the one who rapidly turns away and withdraws from Haggar’s presence, while Haggar herself doesn’t so much as bat an eye when he literally throws a severed prosthetic at her.

Lotor’s been abused. By either Zarkon or Haggar, with the other turning a blind eye, or more likely, by both of them. His boundaries have not been respected, and his worldview is tinted heavily with an incredible sense of vulnerability- that he’s only safe on his terms around the people he’s chosen, and he trusts strangers as far as he can throw them.

In contrast to Zarkon, who is so obstinately assured in his own immortality that he basically couldn’t admit that he can no longer influence the Black Lion even when it point-blank blasted him in the face without Shiro’s input- Lotor? Lotor turns tail and runs as soon as he doesn’t like a situation. If he can’t fight or maneuver at full capacity- one of the wings is frozen? It’s time to run.

Lotor feels the need to constantly evaluate and reevaluate his surroundings to tell what is going to try and hurt him next and where it’s coming from.

And that’s not the attitude of someone who has a good home life and felt safe and happy as a child. It’s not the attitude of someone who trusts his parents.

And given we see that Lotor is capable of trust and closeness with people- to me, that suggests that if Lotor doesn’t trust Zarkon and Haggar, then it’s because Zarkon and Haggar did something to break that trust. 

[jefferyryanlong]

Fresh Listen - Linus, White Marks on a White Wall (2010, LINUS!) & Psychobabble (2016, LINUS!)

(Some pieces of recorded music operate more like organisms than records. They live, they breathe, they reproduce. Fresh Listen is a periodic review of recently and not-so-recently released albums that crawl among us like radioactive spiders, gifting us with superpowers from their stingers.)

The template for rock and roll music is crude and simplistic. Musicians who wish to abide by the genre and still retain a shred of creative integrity are required to make sacrifices. They must offset precision with just enough slop. They must sublimate their truest expression to the conventions of electric guitar chords and riffs. They must cleverly dumb things down. They must revivify the corpse of a retrograde and, for the most part, passe aesthetic with a contemporary feel, making sure not to stray too far from the primitive yawp and drum beat of the ancient past. 

Most importantly, a credible rock outfit must not only internalize the sum of their influences, they must transcend them, just as Ezra Pound threatened to supersede Walt Whitman (but never did). Just as Bob Dylan sprouted from the fertilizer Woody Guthrie threw into the Heartland, and Ray Charles emerged from the seed germinated by Nat King Cole, and the Ramones tore out, Alien-style, from the abdomens of The Beach Boys and The Trashmen. There are plenty of serviceable bands who’ve made attractive rackets while comfortably nestled in the grooves of their forbears (The Red Walls and Natural Child come to mind), but the rock band that can grow, branch out from its myriad influences, will age with dignity, and is less likely to wither because of stagnation or redundancy.

Linus was/is a local Hawai‘i rock band who, like most Hawai‘i rock bands, surrendered dreams of magazine covers, record deals, and stardom for the harder-earned, more secure institutions of professional work and family. In my time on the scene--Honolulu in the early 2000′s--they were much beloved, even over the swampier rock group The Haunted Pines, which had dug itself out of the grave of Kite Festival. Dynamic, tight, tuneful, and equipped with a seemingly endless catalogue of memorable Indie (with a capital “I”) rock songs that were played better, and sounded better, than anything on the radio back then, they humbly and unofficially reigned over less stellar lights--The Persephone Myth, terodactyl, Life in the Iron Lung. The singer could actually sing, and was an even better guitar player. The bassist interacted with his instrument as organically as if it was a third appendage hung from his shoulder, and injected a muscular bounce into each song.

Misguided production marred the band’s first long release on 2005 of The Construction. Unnecessary electronics were overused, especially on singer-songwriter David Neely’s vocals, smothering them, as John Lennon would have put it, in ketchup. (Demos and live recordings of the band around the time, easily available, provide joyously stripped down versions of The Construction’s setlist). Maybe they were overly infatuated with the technology of the recording studio, but The Construction emerged as a stiff, oddly detached aspect of Linus. They weren’t able to successfully bottle the magic of their interplay until 2010′s White Marks on a White Wall.

Key to that magic, and arguably equally important to Neely’s songs and guitar work, is the springy fretwork, busy and miraculous, of Niklaus Daubert, which elevates Linus’s sound from chunky hard rock to groovable dance music in which a Twist, a shimmy, or even a skank wouldn’t be remiss. Though I would have preferred the bass turned up even louder on White Marks on a White Wall, the instrument is recorded effectively--less melodic than percussive, thundering out deep sensations--I hesitate to call them “notes”--between, and in-and-out of, somewhat straightforward drum beats.

White Marks begins with the mellow, melodic guitar riffage at which Neely excels. “Hold On Hold On” is evocative of the of indie-rock sensibility of the latter half of this century’s first decade, and brings to light key aspects of Neely’s songwriting. While Neely crafts indestructible verses and bridges in his songs, he is averse to outright choruses, preferring a carefully placed refrain here and there, often unexpectedly.

The band evokes the urgency of “Reptilia”-era Strokes on “Listen Up!,” featuring some of Neely’s most impassioned vocals of the album. A strangely dismissive 2010 capsule review of White Marks in Honolulu Magazine wrote, “Lead Singer David Neely is still sometimes pitchy, but the band’s best songs--’SoSo’ for example--build hooky guitar riffs to an irresistible crescendo.” As someone who has heard Linus from their early performances, I believe that Neely’s “pitchiness” has always been the point to his singing performances. From “Sad to Say” (one of their early favorites) to “Girlfriend,” Neely has experimented with warping his authoritative baritone toward something like vulnerability. Throwing his voice out of whack for the high notes is another way of singing how he feels.

“Holiday” and “Sasha” are emotive beach rock, and I don’t mean that pejoratively. They are both sad rages against the dying of the light, what one says when a love affair is over and the summer is gone. “I Left Home” has more structure than it needs, the pretensions of Wolf Parade evoked through Eighties pop metal.

True rock bombast, with its winking theatrics, leads into “Hobby Hunter,” though Neely first undercuts the heaviness with an intro ripped straight from Spinal Tap’s “Big Bottom,” before a signature Neely riff carries another set of sensitive lyrics. While the slinky interplay between the guitar and Daubert’s bass is the stuff to build a classic in “Honey and Buttercup,” there is something limp in the sentiment, though it is probably the most technically ambitious track on the record. 

It’s a shame that White Marks’s final stop is “Kentucky Woman,” a fake-out that, on paper, evokes Neil Diamond’s pop hit of the same name. In actuality, it is a jumpy but soggy kiss-off tune. It probably works better in live performance. I could imagine the wordless instrumental sections providing that last squirt of gas to a sweaty audience nearly all played out, driving them to spasm the rest of their energy away on the closing song of the night.

Preceding “Kentucky Woman” are two tracks that have become canon in the catalogue of Linus, and would be proud moments on any band’s playlist. First “SoSo,” which means nothing when you put the lyrics together--it is a open-hearted example of rock posturing, a whole bunch of cliches and nonsense strung together in perfect combinations, like in “Be Bop A Lula” or “Twist and Shout.” “You Talk Too Much” is, to lack a better description, simply the essence of Linus’s whole thing (pointed bass line, driving guitar crunch with overhanging jangle, and above all swinging so hard it kills) and the best of Neely’s songwriting: a melody line just outside the range of his voice (consciously so), a carefully constructed build-up with an inevitable, visceral, and almost primitively satisfying release.

By 2016, the band had incorporated fire diverse influences into its evolving expression, some more gracefully than others. On their album Psychobabble, Neely, now occasionally sharing vocal responsibilities with Jun Yoshimura, inhabited his voice with a new confidence, the gruff brown twangs all smoothed over. From the first track, Psychobabble is a minor-key experience, sonically more compelling and more emotionally complex.

The ballad “Nakameguro,” about the dissolution of a relationship at the beginning of a vacation, evokes the helplessness of a traveler trapped with someone for whom they no longer have love. The production is grown-up, the memorable riffs replaced by an adult contemporary arrangement, a muted piano suiting the sentiment of the words.

The guitar is not dead, though, on Psychobabble--it has simply transmogrified. “Waikiki” and “Unbreakable” both leap away from Vampire Weekend’s West African guitar styles, and Neely shows that he can adapt to the trickier timing fluidly. “1991″ is the bittersweet story of every teenager who dreams of filling Madison Square Garden or seeing their name in parentheses under a song title on a 45, but instead finds themselves behind a desk the majority of their days. The song is affecting in both the simplicity of the lyric and the arrangement.

There are some wonderfully minimalist Korg synth sounds on “Shoots” and “Indian Summer,” the latter co-sung by Jun Yoshimura. “Indian Summer” is a departure for the band--the listener is no longer solely directed by Neely’s distinctive voice. The chorus, one of the true choruses on either of these albums, is both cringeworthy and cathartic. “Forever let us be / together you and me” Neely and Yoshimura chant, but with such conviction that you buy into it wholeheartedly. This is not a songwriting strategy that Neely has mapped out. This is instinctual music making, a pre-conscous awareness of how to put the pieces, those inspirational missives that strike from the void, together into resonant expression.

The album concludes with “Red Thread,” a Middle-Eastern vibe married to to beat of Jonathan Richman’s “I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar.” Like on White Marks, the last track seems almost an addendum, a detour from where the band had been leading us all along.

Which is, after all, the story of Linus--a constant detour, from the music they were inspired by, from the music they played, from the music they made available to the people who loved them. There is no reason Linus shouldn’t be adored by millions, written about in publications far more prestigious than this blog, spoken about in the same breath as Spoon or the New Pornographers. But they took a left turn into an alley and never arrived at the town square. Despite the universality of their sound, they took active steps to deconstruct formula indie-rock, seemingly always above the genre, or just to the side of it, but never totally sucked into it. I’d like to think they walked the path with their eyes open, making the noise they wanted to make, stopping when they didn’t have anything else to say. 

[cerastes]

Writing question out of curiosity: How would you approach a compulsion in a first-person sense? As in, the perspective character is under a magical compulsion, and being forced to do things. I'm personally torn between 'it's a sudden need to x thing', 'your body does x thing, regardless of your feelings', and 'you suffer negative effects every time you aren't getting ready to do x thing'.

Compulsion/any form of forceful manipulation of the POV character in a first person narrative is always one of the most fun things to write since it lets you play with the medium in a way that is exclusive to this particular combination of sequence and narrative style. The first person narrative excels in showcasing the inner world of the character in addition to their surroundings, which, when played with, can result in fun cases of unreliable narrator: Because the character maybe doesn’t understand the situations around them fully and thus gives misleading information to the reader, or because the character is outright lying, such as when a character is in denial. All in all, it can be just as stiff a narrative as it can be a playful one. It wholly depends on the craftsman’s hand and their experience with the pen.

As such, compulsion may be utilized to showcase something downright eerie: Loss of control. Loss of control is terrifying on an instinctive level: It’s why animals get so nervous when you hug them (you are taking away their mobility and thus they feel viscerally vulnerable, hence why dogs dislike hugs), and it’s why being strapped or tied still against our will adds such an element of distress on top of whatever the context around us is: It’s on a genetic level. We like freedom, and we like being able to be in control of our thoughts, moves, and actions. Compulsion chucks those preferences right out of the window.

Why did I write that whole thing? Because if you want to write compulsion, play on this primal fear to bring excitement and thrill to your reader. Here’s how I would do this:

“And so the axe swung back and forth, hastily making short work of the dilapidated wooden door in front of me. A couple of rather colorful expletives were hurled, most at me, and they scrambled once again, a couple jumping right out of the window, others kicking down the back door and making a run for it towards the back stables. Sadly, I kept pursuing them, the pitter patter of their feet, nervous, terrified, and infuriatingly loud, giving away their escape route. If they were at their limit from this senseless pursuit already, imagine how damn tired I was after doing this the whole blasted day. My legs suddenly came to a full stop, and I could only wonder what my puppeteer was thinking. 

Something in my peripheral vision inched away and unsubtly slithered away as soon as it noticed we were looking. Ah, so one of them was hiding, huh. My hands tightened their grip around the handle of the axe with far more strength than I possess, the wood creaking just slightly louder than my bones, sound that perfectly masked the ripping flesh on the palm of my hand. It would have hurt, were my hands not numb already from the immensely powerful swings I had been throwing all day against doors, swings with strength I never knew my body could muster, strength that tore apart steel doors and made my arms feel like they were breaking with each impact. My legs began moving again, feeling as awkward as ever as they do under the control of a master that doesn’t really understand how they usually move. Is this what neglected puppets feel when they find a new and unskilled owner in a curious child who was merely checking a dumpster for scraps of food? Poor things, no wonder they’d rather turn into vengeful spirits.

It didn’t take long until we cornered the child. She looked at me with pleading eyes, hateful eyes, confused eyes. Why was I doing this? Kid, I wish I could stop it, but puppets follow the strings, not their will, and my strings, hell, you could say they run deep. I lifted the axe with foreign glee that I could not understand, and right as I was going to stain the beautiful carpet red some more, I made my very damn best to stop my arms. Whatever sound my tearing muscles made remains a mystery to me, because I was too busy screaming in pain. Every single motion I defied was one I felt to the very core of my being, my nerves pulsating, throbbing with pain. As my body convulsed awkwardly between my pain-brought spasms and my strings trying to get me to axe a damn kid, said damn kid managed to get away safely. I managed at least that much.

Then, a flower bloomed on my left forearm, once again redefining what I thought was “the most painful thing I’ve felt” for like the tenth time this day.

“Hrrr…! G-god damn…!” I finally yelled out loud, trying to move my hand towards my wound, yet my body remaining obedient to the interloper.

“You want more o’ those? I can make you into fuckin’ garden right now, you piece of shit. I can make all the seeds bloom right this fuckin’ second and turn you into a real damn fine bouquet.”

“Sorry, my bad. I had an itch just at that moment. I’ve been moving all day, and I could really use a nice lunch break right n–”

My right hand turned into a fist and socked me right across the face. I never knew I had such a good straight punch.

“Thorry, mah buhd!” mocked the druid. “One more time, bitch, one more time, and you a flower bed, y’hear? And for every dumbass comment you make, that’s another flower. Since ya just decided to be funny, here’s number two.”

As she said that, another flower bloomed and sprouted on my body, this time on my neck, making me almost hurl from the pain. Wordlessly, she returned to the shadows, skillfully controlling the roots she planted all across my nervous and muscular systems to move me like a crude meat marionette. I never, ever want to say “crude meat marionette” ever again, and I would shower, if I didn’t have invasive parasite plants in my body at the moment. I wonder what’d happen if I requested a 15 minute break for a quick shower? That’d probably be like three more flowers, so I better not. For someone with a mouth like that, she sure as hell was thorough with her work, though. If I moved an inch differently from what the roots wanted again today, I doubted pain was going to be the only repercussion. I was not even sure if I’d be able to move again, even if the roots were removed, considering how tightly wrapped around my entire muscular and nervous systems they were. Honestly, I was as good as a pawn at that moment, and there wasn’t a god damn thing I could do about it. Without any more strength to defy the roots, my sore, numb, broken arms once again picked up the axe, preparing to continue this lamentable hunt once more, a front seat I didn’t like to a show I didn’t want to see.”

Basically, what I think is that you gotta make it clear that the character is not in control, and find engaging, but not overly complicated, ways of saying “I don’t wanna do that but I am doing it due to forces outside my comprehension and god damn this sucks”, basically. After you get in the right mentality, ask yourself the questions you’d want the answers to when it comes to how it’d feel and how it’d play to have someone’s body being controlled:

Is it manual compulsion, like in the example above, where another character is forcing moves physically from within the subject’s body?

Or is it a more magical compulsion, something along the lines of clouded judgment and absolute obedience?

Maybe it’s magical, but you are conscious about what’s happening throughout the whole thing, with your body following orders of someone or something else.

Now that you have the origin of the compulsion, how does it feel? Does it push your body far beyond their usual limits, thus causing extreme wear on the vessel, or is it like moving normally, just outside of your control?

How much control can the user exercise if they try their fullest? Are there consequences, physical or otherwise, to doing so?

Even if movement and power output is normal, maybe it feels weird simply because whatever is controlling you has a different way of carrying itself, so you end up doing a lot of moves that feel weird, run with a form that isn’t yours and thus cramp up, make moves you are not used to and thus it feels taxing. What does the compulsion entail, basically?

The more answers you have to the logistics and mechanics behind any given situation, no matter how magical or fantastic, the better and richer you will be able to write it! After all, there’s a difference between “it’s magic, I don’t have to explain” and “it’s magic, it works under the principle of tricking the user’s perception into seeing their ideal world within reach, and whatever it is you make them do appears to them as the last few steps necessary to attain it, thus, you have complete control over the victim, so you could say it’s just very advanced illusion magecraft”. It’s not answers or considerations you need to share in the narrative verbatim, just things that you, as the author, must keep in mind and show, not tell, through your narrative.