#without getting deep into any of it. instead of working with existent depth its creating new lore thats loosely tied to the old one

[ctl-yuejie]

How the diverse world of the addictive tv series “Cherry magic” got made

(interview with scriptwriter Yoshida Erika by Yokogawa Yoshiaki)

沼堕ち続出ドラマ“チェリまほ”の多様な世界はどうやって作られたのか【脚本家・吉田 恵里香さん】2020.12.22  横川 良明

for @howdydowdy because we were talking about what a fantastic character Fujisaki is and the notion of consent when it comes to reading someone’s mind

Currently, societal values continue to change rapidly. On one hand the movement of respecting each other’s diverse individualities and making it easier for each and every one to live in society has become more active, one the other hand it is not a rare occasion to be lost for words when suddenly unconscious discriminatory biases – derived from not being able to cut loose old values that are rooted deep in oneself – raise their heads.

How should we exist within this period of polarization? This series is to create the opportunity to think about this topic by having discussions with the toprunners in the entertainment world. The person I am introducing for the first edition is screenwriter Yoshida Erika.

She is behind the script of “Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?!”, the tv series that has grabbed the first spot on the oricon satisfaction ranking for 4 weeks in a row, and has gained fast popularity despite its late-night spot. The enthusiasm for the show can be attributed to the soft view Ms. Yoshida has on the world.

Yokogawa Yoshiaki (YY): I am happily watching the series. I really liked the original work, however the way it was adapted to a television format has been brilliant. One big thing is the making of the character of Kurosawa played by Machida Keita. By Adachi’s magic (played by Akasouji Eiji), the voice of Kurosawa’s heart spills out, and while the original text had him be quite blatant in his expressions overall, the drama carefully examines them.

Yoshida Erika (YE): That is definitely where there is a difference in depth. The original has the premise of a work in the BL genre, readers are expecting a BL-like development, so they can take such things in stride, but the viewership of the tv series is more varied. Under them there might be people who do not like BL. That is why I was conscious about how different people from different backgrounds might watch this show.

It is not okay to assault someone just because you were invited to their house, kissing or touching without consent is not okay and being of the same or different sex makes no difference in this. Treating such things as okay because it is BL would be rude to the parties concerned. Because we are using the BL genre, we want to specifically protect the “firsts” of the parties concerned. That is something the producer Ms. Honma Kanami and the director agreed about and I therefore paid extra attention to.

YY: Adachi himself, as he is about to step into Kurosawa’s house thinks “Not that I might possibly get assaulted?!”, and is very vigilant, but with some soul-searching realizes that that is rude towards Kurosawa. To say it briefly, you can feel the probity of the creators.

YE: I thought that a main character that thinks that he will get assaulted when he steps into the house of someone will not be loveable. No matter how well received the person is who acts it out, if we cannot love them on a human level, this drama will not work. Adachi’s power to read people’s hearts is also the action of seeing people’s darker sides on his own volition. That’s why a character we cannot love as a person will receive push-back by the viewers.

YY: Just like you said, the act of reading peoples’ hearts includes great violence. That is why I think that when he realizes that Kurosawa has fond feelings for him, unlike the original where he reads Kurosawa’s heart on purpose, the drama treats it as an accidental force. Over the whole series, it is of focal importance that Adachi doesn’t overuse his magic.

YE: That is where we were extremely careful. In the manga easy comprehensiveness is important and that type of suspense is interesting - and we don’t intend to deny that - but if you do it as a drama, I didn’t want to make him into a young man using his powers at ease. That is why, especially in the first half, he decides and tries very hard not to use his powers when possible. The scene where he reads the CEO’s heart appears in the first issue of the original, but in the drama we pushed it back to the 5th episode. We made it a point to illustrate how Adachi is filled with the emotion to help Kurosawa and that is why he uses his powers.

                                                       -

That what I don’t want others to do unto me, I do not want to inflict on characters.

                                                       -

YY: His colleague Fujisaki (Satou Ryo) is a Fujoshi in the original and that premise was cut from the series. If you decided to have a Fujoshi character on a prime time show, did you think that misunderstandings might arise easily?

YE: That was definitely a thought. In BL as a genre it is not an issue that a character exists that takes the same viewpoint as the reader, and I love Fujisaki in the original, but the people who are acting it out in reality are real people. At that point, loudly fawning about someone else’s’ love life is not perceived as good conduct. At the least, I thought that I wouldn’t want to be treated like that.

YY: It is fine to envision fictional characters as romantic partners, but it is different when you make a real acquaintance the target of that.

YE:

A thought we had was that if Adachi and Kurosawa were to really date it would be one thing, but grinning at someone - who might even be heterosexual – because you inflate your own BL adjacent delusion isn’t much different from a man grinning at a woman with big breasts and calling her sexy. I wouldn’t want to get treated that way, so I didn’t want to inflict that on the characters in the story as well.

When it comes to Fujisaki it isn’t like she isn’t a Fujoshi. We do not clearly state it, but I thought there was no reason to show it in the drama. 

YY: You are saying, that it is fine that people might interpret Fujisaki as a Fujoshi when she is smiling at Adachi and Kurosawa.

YE: Yes. That is where you are free to imagine (laughs).

YY: What I thought was very fresh is that instead of proclaiming her to be a Fujoshi, Fujisaki is turned into someone who “is happily living her daily life even without romantic love”. We don’t often get characters like that in Japanese tv series.

Personally, I also like romantic tv series, but while feeling venerated when the main characters have realized their love in the final episode, when trying to build a romantic connection to someone else in real life it might not go well and beyond that, it is not that it never happens that I, who also holds interests in other things than romance, end up feeling empty because of the lonely feeling of having been left behind (when watching a romance on tv unfold).

But with having Fujisaki appear, it felt like I got rescued.

YE: Until now, for several projects I made the suggestion of a character that is not interested in romance, but I wasn’t understood. “Is it necessary to do that?” “Aren’t you overthinking it?” were things I got told often.

But with this production, when I said that I wanted Fujisaki to be asexual or aromantic, no one denied me. From that stage on I thought that this place was a good one, and thanks to the original writer giving her agreement it got turned into reality.

YY: Since this kind of character hasn’t really appeared in a tv series, it felt like people like Fujisaki were assigned to be non-existent in this world. But thanks to you envisioning her like this, seen from a person that like Fujisaki might say “I got used to acting “normal”” and feel a notion of despair when confronted with people not understanding them, it felt like it got emphasized that people like her also exist in our society. Picking such little voices feels like it is one of the purposes of entertainment.

YE: If that could become the case I would be glad about it. 10 to 20 years prior, a “fairytale gay” (describing the flamboyant gay friend, that mentally supports the heroine by giving some harsh but accurate advice) often appeared in tv series from abroad, but this portrayal slowly changed, finally it has reached the point where the view point that being gay isn’t something special has penetrated the public.

So this time, I believe that one of my duties was to tell the story of people that are not interested in romance or people who do not only love one person, not from a standpoint that is convenient for consumption, but to have properly realized characters up to their individual backgrounds.

                                                     -

I hope the time comes where it isn’t necessary to especially say “This is a BL series”

                                                      -

YY: Please let me speak on something that has confused me this far. Prior, when you explained Fujisaki in context of the script, it felt like it wasn’t okay to call her asexual or aromantic because she herself doesn’t use any of those labels. I was somewhat afraid that an outsider would just selfishly declare that “you are asexual, aren’t you!?” in regards to someone who hasn’t professed anything.

YE: There is the point of both of the terms asexual and aromantic not being widely known in Japan as much as compared to overseas and I also think there are people who just wouldn’t use these words. Even when you think you are not interested in romance at the moment, it could also be that you just haven’t found the person that makes you feel that way. That’s why I can understand how labelling someone has a violent notion.

YY: My next question is also relating to that: This applies to Cherry Maho, but generally when I write about over works that feature a lovestory between men I try not to use the word BL.

This is my own opinion but to me it feels like the term BL has too much of a sexual image.

In private I casually use the word BL. However, for the content of an article that is read by an unspecified number of people, I remember stumbling over labelling something as BL. Using BL as an easy genre specifier has the effect that there will be a layer that won’t get looked at. I simply want to have more people enjoy a piece of work. I don’t object to the editor using BL in the title but in the content I write, I try not to use the term BL story but simply “love story between two men” and keep it close to how you’d address it in reality.

YE: I understand that. Obviously, I don’t intend to shame the taste of people that like BL. However, I understand that there are people that feel a sense of resistance towards BL as a genre. That is why I also don’t use the word BL when I promote on twitter. I do think that it would be great to have a new word.

Just like women have things they don’t want to be subjected to, men also have things they don’t want to be subjected to. This kind of awareness has become more broadly spread bit by bit. However, in order to have it really penetrate society it needs for the voices of the affected people to be heard. But it is also the reality of today’s society that violence is directed at people that raise their voice. That is why I feel like it is the job of the people that create tv shows to speak up instead.

At the least, that is how I want to straightforwardly create the world, so that in 10 years without directly stating “this is a BL series” we have a society that takes it in as a “new cool romantic drama beginning” with “the leads being actor x and actor z” and as nothing unusual.  Now we really have such a transitional period, and as a writer I want to build the steps towards it.  

                                                          -

original article: https://mi-mollet.com/articles/-/27045?page=3&per_page=1

[testingcheats0n]

Detroit Become Human AU where:

-> Tommy is an up-and-coming livestreamer of the retro game Minecraft- forming part of a fledgling community of all-human players of the game. His growth is slow but steady and he has a future in a genre that had fallen out of fashion with the rise of the newest and more immersive VR games on the market. People love to see an actual human that could make mistakes and win against another fellow human fairly. The nostalgia it brought to some people is also undeniably at play.

It's worth noting that Tommy is a very lonely kid, with a non-existent social life since he and his family had to move to America after his father struck a lucrative business deal with his brilliant protege.

-> Wilbur, Tommy's older brother and only guardian after their father, Phil, dedicated his life to the creation of androids with his young but brilliant pupil Elijah Kamski, is a simple busker. It's hard to find a job at 24 with no previous experience or further education, he had to take care of Tommy, after all. True, their economic troubles never ended, and he could barely provide for Tommy, but at least they had each other, even if Wilbur was off to the streets of Detroit more often than not. He has no idea of his younger brother's blooming career in the gaming industry and is very worried about his future. The solution? A very suspicious android his best friend Schlatt offers for very cheap.

-> Phil Watson is a household name together with Elijah Kamski's, they created one of humanity's greatest tools, after all. Nothing suspicious here, they're definitely not hiding any potential deviancies from the code! In any case, his family never saw a dime of the frankly insane amount of money piling up in his bank account. He has an old phone he carries in his pocket every day with Wilbur's phone number, but he never dares to call it despite RN800, his assistant's, insistence that he was only making his own life harder. He is going to dial that phone number someday. Surely.

-> TU880 is an android from an old companion/educational line, discontinued after a few notable bugs and glitches in their core programming. Nothing serious, or life-threatening, but many customers have complained about disturbing behavior that falls straight into the uncanny valley- he's too human. Schlatt, his previous owner, refuses to disclose where he got TU880 from, nor does he have any legal documentation to prove he is his owner. Wilbur, desperate to find a solution for Tommy's perceived loneliness pays the fifty bucks his old pal asks for the android without asking any questions. It's weird for an adult to go around with a teen model created to counsel adolescents and help them with their homework. TU880 had problems with reading his grocery list, anyway.

-> Tommy is a bit weirded out, he thrives in an internet community which openly despises anything android, but his good friend Technoblade has plenty of useful advice, from maitenance to behavior. TU880 is odd, which he discards as kinks and bugs of the older models, but they get along nicely once TU880's programming kicks in. He likes to help Tommy edit his videos and speak about the problems of adolescence, he is oddly fond of bees or anything small and defenceless and likes to tell his 'dreams' of scientists in labcoats and other kids like him stuck in experiments. Tommy listens with half an ear, TU880 is his friend, after all. He thinks nothing of it.

-> It all becomes a bit too much when TU880 accidentally appears on camera during one of Tommy's streams. People assume he's Tommy's brother, and insist on getting an introduction. TU880 is ecstatic, but from what Tommy's told him, revealing his artificial status might harm his friend's career so he greets the chat as Toby, Tommy's older brother. The community goes wild and Tommy has to pretend that TU880 is his brother (which isn't that terrible per-se) and not the house assistant who has a complete psychological profile of him.

-> TU880 begins to feel strange, both regarding Tommy and his own place in the household. Calling Tommy hus brother is easy as calculus and makes his thirium pump skip a few beats, but he's not sure if he should be getting this attached. He's sure he is malfunctioning in some way, but Schlatt always assured him that he is fine. He thinks nothing of it and instead continues to watch over Tommy.

-> Minecraft is fun, and he eventually gets his own account on Wilbur's old (read: ancient) laptop despite possessing an internal processor powerful enough to play the game at its maximum capacity in his mind, and probably in a 3D holoprojector. At this point, he's in too deep and the friends he's making would certainly ask questions if he were to disappear. He has the opportunity to talk about anything at all to his growing audience, and the community is very welcoming in general once one integrates into their culture. He still doesn't feel it's fair to participate in the tournaments and all the other official competitions. People find it odd, but they assume he's not very good at PVP so no one tends to comment on it for now. It's okay though, he and his new friend Ranboo act as commentators during the events and everyone thinks they're pretty funny.

-> Ranboo is fun to be around. He just gets TU880- or as the internet knows him as, Tubbo. They click easily, sometimes the other boy seems just as confused about other people's reactions and behavior as Tubbo is (despite his in-depth knowledge of psychology. He's not quite connected to Cyberlife's database anymore and his learning algorithm is outdated at best.) and they like to spend their afternoons with Tommy, watching movies. The game overtakes their lives and they spend a lot of time playing privately with the best strategies Tubbo's advanced algorithms and Ranboo's sheer brilliancy can create. That's how they meet their friend Fundy, who is more than happy to keep their Technical Minecraft server a secret, as long as he gets to do his own thing with coding and they test it.

-> Tommy is just happy that he can use the cool farms for his own grinding.

-> Technoblade is Tommy's mysterious internet friend and fellow growing streamer. Everyone is sure that he's an android infiltrating the budding community, but after several years of isolated incidents, investigations, and online scandals no one was able to prove anything. Technoblade just never dies. (Tommy is 50% sure his friend is really an android, the older man simply refuses to comment). It is possible to spend months farming digital potatoes, people are just mean and want drama. Technoblade is just vibing. Incidentally, he's also the first one to figure out that Ranboo and Tubbo are androids. He is also the first one to figure out they're deviants. He doesn't mention it until much later though.

-> Jack and Niki Manifold have successfully founded their own mechanic business for android repairs. Cyberlife mumbled and grumbled at the siblings' repair shop, but in the end it was good for PR so they let them be. Tommy and Wilbur become their friends as TU880's frequent malfunctions inevitably bring the pair to the cheapest android repair service in the city. TU880 can't complain, Niki is sweet to him and understands what is wrong with him just by his description, since his diagnostics aren't working entirely and each an every single one of Jack's repairs last loner than every other mechanic he's been to.

-> Gradually, Tommy's fame becomes apparent, and Wilbur has the time to actually rest and spend time with his brother. He's just happy that they can be together. A weight is lifted off his shoulders and for the first time ever he feels like his little family has a future. Not even once does it pass through his mind that TU880 isn't acting like a typical android- he avoided the things on principle. Once, TU880 calls him his brother and he cries.

-> Sam is Cyberlife's very own private investigator. He is in charge of researching and turning in possible deviants that might help the company with developing a solution for the rising problem. In particular, he's been after the trail of a specific line of androids, the first one released by Kamski and Watson dubbed as TU. According to his investigations the line might have contained the code responsible for deviancy. Further research indicated that Kamski's code was based on a group project from the Dutch university for cibernetics.

-> Fundy is just a 21 y/o with a Twitch account and a passing interest in coding. Nothing serious, nothing suspicious. He absolutely wasn't part of the early AI coding trials that Kamski would later on use as the basis for his own code. If someone asks, he has no idea what ra9 means. He is almost sure that his friends are androids, the thought makes him very happy.

-> Puffy is Phil's new psychologist. Need I say more? Eventual Hurt/comfort baby!!!

[saltpepperbeard]

Ravenous ~An Everlark One-Shot~

A/N: Well hello hello again lol! A bit weird, huh? I don’t know why exactly I had a sudden surge of motivation, but quite honestly, I’m not mad at it. While the shot I wrote a few days back was a more original idea of sorts, this one was an “anonymous” suggestion. A rather EYEBROW RAISING SUGGESTION™ if you know what I’m saying ha! But for whatever reason, dialogue and ideas started flowing, and here we are! Just couldn’t help but explore Katniss desiring to Spice Things Up a bit. With that being said shjdkhskdls-

Disclaimer: This fic contains NC-17 related material, but y’all been knew. Y’ALL KNOW WHAT YOU’RE GETTING INTO LMAO.

And without further adoooooo...

Ravenous

It’s happening again. Our bedroom seems to rival that of the setting sun, the two dancing and paralleling. Just as the clouds and sky melt into orange, I too, find myself at its mercy. Just as the sun plunges beneath the horizon, so too, do our pelvises atop each other’s. Just as it sets fire to the grasses and trees as it plummets from sight, so too, do our roaming mouths and hands against each other’s bodies.

And just as the sunset is habitual, expected, so is the explosion within. It’s like clockwork. It’s like the mighty star’s journey across the sky. A soft, inviting, and consistent brightness is maintained throughout the day, before utterly exploding into color and passion as ebony surges forth.

The newness and its subsequent excitement must be why it’s so incredibly enticing, so normal in our schedule. To think, I used to be one with the dawn. The coldness, the solitude, and the call for survival...all were my essence. Now though, do I dance and take pleasure in the dusk, flooding with fiery color before all runs dark.

Not that I’m complaining in the slightest. No, I’m a medley of breathy giggles, mewled moans, and messy kisses. The usual, the expected, and the blissful.

So a subsequent shift in the cycle, in the ecstatic repetition, does indeed throw me when it presents.

Losing myself in Peeta each and every night allows my hunger to break free, spilling forth after being locked up for so long. It gnaws, it feasts, and it satisfies, before settling back to a hush, properly quenched. His initial touches, caresses, and kisses do marvels at igniting the starting flames. His following motions and salacious actions work wonders at surging the fire to a roar. And then his sweetness dampens the blaze into finality, into exhausted ashes.

But tonight...Tonight, it’s different. It feels...wrongfully intense.

I am not hungry- I am ravenous. It roars within me as if it’s never been satiated at all. It howls, screams, gnashing for a deeper satisfaction. The area between my legs aches almost painfully so, and the heat surging through my core snarls that it won’t be bested so easily.

Such a sensation almost feels instinctual, animalistic even. And with that notion crossing my mind, an odd picture presents itself within my subconscious. A symbolic representation? Or is it a solution, a suggestion that the deeper confines of my hankering body has pulled up? Either way, it’s bizarre, and subsequently earns a deep blush to my cheeks.

The image of a stag mounting a doe.

It’s something I’ve seen on rare occasion while hunting, a deeply intimate and almost sacred moment birthed from nature’s way. But translating such an intrusive image into our bedroom, into the current situation, and connecting the dots between the symbolism and the craving...

...Oh.

Oh.

My cheeks flush impossibly more so.

What an oddity. Peeta more than satisfies me. He gives me something no one else could possibly come close to offering. He takes me to realms unthinkable, and charts depths once-unexplored. And yet, does my body yearn.

What a foreign desire. I never could have pictured myself in such a position- or...intensely aching for one, rather. With carnal intimacy being so new to me, to the both of us, I never expected my body to erect anything of the sort. But I suppose, the deeper and deeper we traverse in one another, the more and more we’ll unlock. I guess there are still things to be discovered about each other, and complex layers of intimacy waiting to be unlocked...

“...Katniss?”

As if my cheeks couldn’t grow any more fiery.

I must have been quite disconnected, lost in thought and libidinous imagination. My grey eyes rapidly blink to break from the haze, but the desire still careens within. Venturing out from the fog reveals Peeta once more though, his beautiful, bare, handsome form hovering atop me. He too, is flushed, small beads of sweat glistening atop his scarred skin to compliment the fiery sheen within his darkened eyes.

But where there would be normally be a crooked smile, or an agape expression of pleasure, there instead exists confusion, concern.

When our eyes finally meet with clarity, he reaches to softly cup my cheek.

“Hey...” he murmurs, his voice still husky, breathy, “You alright?”

I cannot help but swallow hard. How the hell am I supposed to vocalize such a thing? Is it too taboo to ask for? The idea of...Peeta...taking me from behind?

I’m a mess, shutting my eyes and turning my face into his hand, as if to hide myself away.

“Hey...” His voice sounds more concerned, and a bit warmer. Some of the huskiness has disappeared too. And subsequently, a spark of desperation alights within me; perhaps because the hunger screeches at me to maintain heat.

“Sweetheart-”

Softening sentiments are cut off by a carnal kiss, my body piloting me to fight the dip. I lace my hands around the back of his head and pull his stunned form closer, breathily moaning through the connection. When I feel his lips begin to part though, when I practically taste the confused question forming on his tongue...

I know I have no choice. I know it’s now or never. And if I could stare the hunger dead on, if I could address its call and dive into vulnerabilities with Peeta before...

Surely I can do this too. Hopefully.

“Peeta?” I quickly interject.

I expect him to remain close, but just as ferocious desire pilots me, so too does compassionate concern steer him. He leans as far back as he can with my hands laced through his hair, staring with those inquisitive, stunning blues.

“...Katniss?”

“I...I...”

Just as the first time we delighted in one another, my throat threatens to lock up from anxiety, from fear of the unknown. Just as before, I find it horribly difficult to vocalize my wants. But in knowing that soft and concerned stare, in understanding the eyes that expectantly wait, and in feeling far fierier than previous times, I find the strength I need to produce a voice.

“...Can we...try something different?”

Nerves drive me to bite my swollen lip, as if Peeta’s going to react poorly or something equivalent. But as truly expected, he blinks the concern away before the tension visibly melts above me.

“Oh! Yeah, uh...sure,” he murmurs, beginning to smile despite lingering bits of confusion still present in his brows, “Is that why you...?”

“Yes...”

“Oh,” he breathes, chuckling softly before leaning back in for another kiss. He nestles close once more, our bare forms pressing and creating small hints of tantalizing friction. Be it the throbbing within, or the very present feeling of his erection between us, I break the kiss with quickened pants.

Unbothered now, and in a better understanding towards my desperation, he moves to kiss and bite at my neck. My hips and eyes both roll, the intense lust leaving me less bothered by the various noises sounding from my throat.

Peeta too, must be quickly getting tugged back; I feel him twitch before he softly grunts into the tender skin of my collar.

“What would you like?” he huskily whispers, topping off the question by tracing my bone with his tongue.

Between nerves and the sensations he’s dizzying me with, I briskly shake my head.

“Don’t make me say it...” I wheeze.

I feel his mouth turn upwards against my skin, and he chuckles before drawing forth artistry, painting his way up my neck and cheeks with brushing lips.

“Alright...” he says thickly, and I think I can feel him quivering slightly, “Show me then?”

I tense, but catching his stare grounds me. Beyond the drippings of ebony lust and fiery coals, I can see that beautiful understanding, that adoration with zero judgement. It’s what drove me to explore initially, and thus, does it fuel me once more.

My hands come to rest upon his muscular chest, quivering ever so slightly as I give a gesturing push. He follows my direction without hesitation, moving until we’re both sitting up on the bed. Another bout of hesitance grips me, but upon seeing the sight of him, heavily engorged and nearly flush against his stomach, I break through once again.

My stare manages to break to a necessity then, gazing upon his amputated leg with another bite of my lip.

“Your prosthetic...”

I can see his breath catch, watching his chest heave as I momentarily avoid his stare.

“...I need it?” he whispers.

I can only nod, and he thankfully doesn’t press, scurrying off to retrieve and reattach it. I’m piloted once more; my body seizes the opportunity to get into position while he’s not looking. Though my heart pounds something terrible, though trembles alight in my limbs, I roll onto my hands and knees, poised and ready for what I crave.

Peeta’s to my backside now, so I cannot see his reaction to what I’m offering. I can certainly hear it though, as well as almost feel it, the room seemingly spiking in temperature the moment he notices.

“O-oh...”

I tremble in both deep anticipation and tension, still unable to look at him. There’s a bit of pause though, and right when I think I’ve made a mistake, I feel the bed shift with the re-introduction of his weight. My thighs clench something terrible at his presence behind me, and I feel my entire lower half quivering.

Made even worse when Peeta groans my name.

“Katniss...”

The amount of lust is incredible. I could almost rocket myself backwards upon him. It’s wild, and hard to imagine how I wound up in such a position. But through the salaciousness, through the smoke clouding my brain, nerves still manage to peek.

“Is...this okay?” I shakily whisper.

“Yeah...” he breathes, and I nearly run woozy at the sensation of his hands ghosting my curves, “Is this...?”

I almost move beyond my own control, thrusting my hips backward and placing myself into his grasp. It’s his turn to tremble, and he groans yet again.

“God...Katniss...”

I’m his craft once more. His hands grasp me, knead me, squeezing my voluptuous backside as he would when he prepares dough. And just as the touch readies dough for heat, it too, sets me utterly ablaze.

Unbridled moans and mewls sound from my throat at his massage, my legs spreading wider and my back arching further. There’s barely a connection between anxiety and my ravenous core anymore, hunger almost entirely at the helm.

“God...” Peeta moans again, and such a noise pushes me into raw desperation.

“Peeta...” I whimper in a tone so unlike my own, “Peeta...”

We’re on the same plane. He understands immediately. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s just as hungry as I am, made raw by the sight before him.

So he quickly rectifies the situation. I feel the bed shift, before he brings a shaky hand to grasp one of my hips. I’m barely breathing, barely able to process with such deep anticipation. His following words almost don’t reach me, what with the beautifully torturous feeling of his head just barely brushing betwixt my folds.

“Okay...I love you, Katniss...”

I somehow wheeze, somehow manage, those words landing when nothing else can.

“I love you too- AH!”

I’m no stranger to the feeling of Peeta sheathing himself deep within me, to holding him snuggly and tightly in a space reserved just for him. We’ve danced in it and dazzled in each other so much lately that it’s, in fact, almost become something of a second nature.

So it’s definitely strange that just a mere change can have electrifying, incredible effects.

The cry from his entrance was utterly unavoidable; he feels deeper and heavier than ever before. I’m stunned at how different it feels, at the intensity behind it. He’s within familiar grounds, and yet it feels entirely new.

I’m dazed, but my hunger is utterly elated. It sings at the feeling, rejoices, driving me to slide myself backwards against him, swallowing him impossibly deeper.

His groan intersects beautifully with mine, the both of us likely relishing in the sensations. When I dare to ease my hips forward again, I feel Peeta’s other hand reach to grasp. With his hold complete, he pulls me back as he thrusts deeply.

And I already find that I’m quickly losing control, everything working to utterly unravel me.

The strokes, so deep and reaching, quickly earn a stream of incoherence from my hanging mouth. I moan and whimper and grunt a plenty, weaving a tapestry of pleasured nothings.

“Mmm...Oh, God...Peeta...”

There’s also something about this that strangely seems to amplify, something that makes it the most different from our previous sessions: I cannot see him. I cannot see the beautiful, wrenched effort on his visage, nor can I steal the moans from his lips. I cannot latch myself to his tender neck, nor can I run my fingers through his ashy locks.

It’s just the sensation of him within me. Nothing more but his powerful drives and our precious connection.

No wonder it’s so raw, so animalistic indeed.

But perhaps, not mutual.

Where I would expect Peeta to take off, to drive with reckless abandon, he instead remains...oddly consistent with his glides. They’re heavenly, and reaching, but unamplified. In fact, instead of speeding up as expected, he seemingly slows within me.

Such a turn, a difference in the usual chain of events, is enough to whip my head around. It’s my turn to furrow with confusion and concern, squinting through the intense mindfog to finally lay eyes upon him.

Which ends up being a blessing and a curse; the sight of him in such a position is almost enough to send me reeling further. Seeing him kneeling, grasping my hips, panting with reddened cheeks, and disappearing deep within...

A shiver runs up the length of my spine, exiting through my mouth as my voice just barely manages to quiver his name.

“...P-Peeta?”

“I...Um...”

It’s like we’ve switched places, what with him being apprehensive and me existing in a realm of thirst and confusion. Just as before, a cock of the brow and a building question is what spurs the opposite party into explanation.

“I’m...It’s going to sound...cheesy, okay? But I uh...It’s...Different I guess, not being able to...look at your face. Or kiss you. Or...”

He shifts himself a bit as he reaches for my face with a hand, effectively sending himself inward at a deep, torturous angle. It drives me strangely mad, my eyes rolling and my throat resonating with a squeak. It feels so foreign, to be reduced to this. And in my state, in my heightened desperation, I find myself blurting without much control.

“-Keep going.”

He freezes then, inside and out, looking upon me with widened blues. Such an expression mildly grounds me, offering a pang of guilt and a subsequent apology to follow.

“Sorry...” I wheeze, “I...I didn’t mean...If...you’re not...”

I’m a mess with my attempts to breathily stammer. But just as further guilt begins to bud, just as I fear I’ve forced him into an uncomfortable place, he gives such an unexpected and strong jerk of his hips that I yelp into the tense space.

When the shock leaves my system, when the static clears my brain, I’m able to see him beginning to smile once more, a bit more lecherous than before.

“Hmm...You know, different...might not be so bad then...”

“But-”

Again, he tortuously cuts me off, giving another strong jerk and sending me careening.

“Peeta!” I exclaim, looking at him with widened eyes, trembling legs, and a stunned soul.

“Because...” he grunts, softly squeezing and kneading my hips, “You like this, don’t you?”

He shifts then, focusing on slowly feeding himself into my depths, effectively earning a low grunt from his throat. A noise that’s quickly overpowered by my own, an open-mouthed moan as I squirm against the mattress, against his lovely torment.

“Peeta...”

“Yeah? You like it? Hmm, love?” 

My eyes flash at his darkened vocals, followed by a bite of my lip to hush the rolling whimper. Something is most definitely in the air tonight. The sun surely exploded in its descent. We’ve never really been so...raw with each other, so driven and demanding.

But it seems neither of us have any qualms. Even my worry towards pressuring Peeta into an unfavorable session seems to back away, what with his ebony murmurs and expressions so evident. We seem to be re-aligning, re-joining each other on the same plane of passion.

Thus, do I desperately nod, at his complete disposal. I slide myself backwards then, easing until I’m practically touching his pelvis, panting and gritting at the extent of penetration.

“I’ve forever to kiss you..." he whispers.

Please...Please please.

I’m hardly with it enough to question the strangeness behind the newfound begging, simply squirming and existing entirely within the desperate space.

“...But not long enough to pleasure you so...”

Thus, miraculously, do any last bits of wall come tumbling down.

And I’m no longer in our bedroom. I’m within droves of ardent fire. I’m traversing the very surface of our sun. I’m in a place so foreign, a state so delightfully insane, where none have ever brought me before.

All from the sudden, strong, and intense reaches of him deep within.

Oh, how I fall apart. How I deliciously unravel. Being so pent up, so oddly starving, the hunger gorges and instantly sets me alight. Just as it screamed before, I too, find myself vocalizing with such strength.

It’s a medley, an absolutely chaotic medley of passion. Beyond my cries and his grunts, I can hear his pelvis slapping against my back side again and again. Beyond the flashes and shivers in my vision, I can see our bed hammering from the force he’s inflicting. Beyond the heat and pounding stream of blood, I can feel him hitting places so new and intense.

And it’s everything. I love him. I adore him. And I cherish the connection we have, the way we can send each other directly into the heavens. I never could have imagined. Even mere months ago, I never could have imagined.

“Gggh...Katniss!”

His deep grunt coupled with the groan of my name is enough to break me from my overwhelmed thoughts; the dig of his fingers into my hips is enough to ground me completely. I cannot escape the ungodly pleasure now. I am present, and at its full mercy.

And when a thrust hits just so, when a piece of my glass cracks and threatens to shatter, it’s no wonder that my arms fall instantly gelatinous. I cry and toss my head back, sending a rolling ebony wave before my front half descends. I desperately grip the blankets, knotting the fabric with begging grunts and whines.

But it only continues to build, and build, and build, impossibly faster and impossibly deeper. Our souls are tangled, so very tangled, dancing and intertwining and refusing to let go. Naturally, I start to ascend, faster than I ever have before. The fire licks its way up my belly, caressing my jiggling breasts and-

...No, that’s his hand, reaching beneath to knead and massage, emboldened and salacious. My eyes roll something terrible, my hips even more so, more and more of the glass chipping away. He’s snarling, almost yelling; I know he’s so close too. But somehow, just as he always has, Peeta dashes through the chaos and holds me above all.

His wandering hand suddenly juts backwards, racing down my body before fingers find their prized destination. There’s a subsequent bolt of electricity at my core, followed by a heave of tension as cracks spiderweb throughout. I’m on the cliff, on the edge, writhing and seeing it shatter before me...

“Peet-”

The final note of his name shifts into that of a divine keen, elongated and reaching as my wings outstretch. I feel like I’ve never flown so high before. It feels as if though I breach the very reaches of our atmosphere, everything whited out and flashing with a dazzling array of color.

Surely I’m screaming. Surely I’m crying out with such forceful contractions wracking my system. But I can barely breathe, barely process. There’s nothing but this. Nothing but him.

Him- somewhere below, I can hear his desperate groans. He too, yelps like he’s attempting to hold on to the Earth, to stop such a rapid ascent into space. But with a distant, cracking yell, and with another push that drives me even higher, I welcome him into my flying embrace.

I hold onto him so tightly. I fly and dance and marvel in the closeness, in the connection we share. I soar hand in hand, his softness rivaling that of the cloud we pass. Before eventually, inevitability, we must return to a realm more frequented.

I land hard. My form essentially evaporates upon impact. The moment Peeta breaks our connection, the moment he releases my hips, I fall into a heap atop the blankets. It’s no surprise that I’m shivering, nor that I’m weeping, overwhelmed to the warmest, highest degree. I remain on my stomach, limbs sprawled every which way, continuing to pant and ride through the occasional aftershocks.

When the sound of my pounding heart departs from my ears, when I become more aware of my surroundings, I can hear Peeta on the bed behind me, heavily panting all the while. Surely he’s sitting back, likely riding the same lingering effects as I. 

But I need him. After almost selfishly delighting in such pleasures, I miss him. So I turn my head against the blankets, attempting to look in his direction as I reach with a hand.

“P-Peeta?”

Unsurprisingly, he understands. In mere seconds, he heaves himself beside me, flopping down atop the mattress. Though I’m utterly exhausted, and akin to jelly, I hoist myself onto my side and into his arms, our bodies as close as possible without the added element of fire.

And there, I snuggle, I caress, I kiss. I make up for the missed touches. He of course, reciprocates, the both of us tiredly offering all the affection we can muster between our shaking breaths. Soon enough, falling back into our usual patterns, we begin to smile. Then breathlessly giggle. Then speak and whisper sweet nothings through our exhausted exchanges.

“Oh...my God...Oh God...” I wheeze into one of our many kisses.

Peeta snickers a bit then, his hands beginning to softly rub circles against my bare back.

“I don’t...I don’t know what happened...what came over me...” I whisper, shying away to nestle my cheek against his.

He laughs more then, somehow managing to tug me even closer.

“Hooo, well...Whatever it was...I’m glad...I’m glad it did...”

I feel myself blushing, somewhat...shocked by the intensity of my actions. And in considering my behavior, in considering how ferocious the hunger was, it unsurprisingly reminds me of the likely sacrifice Peeta had to make in order to appease. I flush even harder, moving to hide my face against his perspiring shoulder.

“I’m sorry...” I murmur against his sweet skin.

“Hun?”

“I didn’t mean to- I mean, I didn’t...”

I of course, struggle through my words, through my explanation. I’ve never been good at saying something. But my love patiently waits, expectantly waits, continuing to softly rub me through the silence. As usual, his understanding anchors me, and I whimper the truth rather sheepishly.

“It just felt so good, Peeta...”

To my relief, he gives a hard, handsome laugh, rattling our tangled forms.

“That’s all I could ever hope for, sweetheart...” he replies with lingering chuckles, pressing his gentle lips to my dampened hair.

I sigh at the tender contact, but continue to push myself.

“Really though...I’m sorry...I didn’t...want to make you uncomfortable...”

“You didn’t.”

When I huff against his shoulder, he softly tugs me backwards, allowing our stares to connect once more.

“You didn’t, love. Clearly.” He chuckles a bit more, before falling back into his earnest tone. “Like I said, it was just...different, that’s all. I marvel in your beauty, you know.” 

When I scowl at him, at the compliment, he grins even wider.

“And yes, I’m used to seeing your face in this. But thankfully, every inch of you happens to be stunning.”

“Peeta...” I groan, feeling my cheeks flush something terrible beneath his onslaught of tender eloquence. Once more, he laughs, before leaning in to give me a quick kiss.

“I just got to address the less...frequented places,” he continues with a smirk, “Which after tonight, won’t stay that way for long, I’m sure.”

I huff, which again, earns another snicker coupled with a kiss. When we break away however, I find myself staring into those sparkling, warm blues. His expression shifts into something more gentle, more awed, surely catching the earnestness behind my stare. My hands reach up to cup his face, stroking my thumbs against his scarred yet softened skin.

“I did miss this, you know...” I whisper, topping my words off with a kiss to his nose.

“Well, I did say we have forever,” he replies with a growing, crooked grin.

“That’s not long enough for this either...”

I pull him into perhaps the softest, tenderest kiss of the night, one more fitting for the day than the dusk. It’s one I pour all my adoration into, of course having to verbally proclaim it all the same.

“I love you so much...” I murmur against his lips.

Once more, the connection breaks from the strength of his smile, delightfully warming body and soul before the sentiments are returned.

“And I love you...”

There we remain for numerous comfortable beats, continuing to lazily kiss and caress until the last of the sunlight disappears from the night sky. I find myself contemplating what lead to such an explosion, what lead to my desire firing off to such an extreme degree. Of course Peeta would be on the same wavelength, though the grinning question that breaks the silence gets me laughing and shoving his chest.

“You don’t...happen to have further tricks up your sleeve, do you?”

[nanaminokanojo]

Play the Game | Nanami Kento X You | Part 4/8

CHARACTERS: Nanami Kento X You (fem!reader | PLEASE READ THE NOTES BELOW*) | Gojo Satoru | Geto Suguru | Shoko Ieiri | Utahime Iori | other JJK Characters CHAPTER COUNT: 4/8 WORD COUNT: 3,900+ GENRE: romance | fluff | slight angst | smut | ooc depictions | female reader with described appearance* | modern au | rich people au | aged up characters CHAPTER TRIGGER WARNING: profanity | age gap | strong/mature/suggestive language | mentions and use of drugs | smut/mature sexual content SPOILERS: n/a

collection masterlist

one - two - three - four - five - six - seven - eight

"Play the Game" Masterlist

Nanami let out a deep breath, feeling the stiffness on his back. Pulling the almost dried up towel that was draped over his eyes. He doesn’t remember putting it there although he recalled resting on the couch on the study to rest for a bit some time at dawn, thinking he would wake up in time to move to the bedroom. As it turned out, he wasn’t able to manage that anymore and slept on that same spot until morning.

Sitting up, he saw that his files had been tidied up and there was a note on top which said, “You work too much,” in a familiar handwriting. He smiled to himself, realizing who it was from. There was no mistaking that ugly handwriting – one of your supposed flaws yet he found it very endearing that you were highly dexterous in giving life to still scenes but never really gotten around making your writing legible.

How you stumbled upon him in the dead of night when you were supposedly out camping in the woods with your pals was something beyond him, but he was thankful, holding onto the towel that you had left for him a little while longer before he started with his morning routine. He had every plan to stay indoors for the rest of the morning, probably catch up on some sleep, but while he was dressing up, he happened to catch a glimpse of you by the lakeshore, partly concealed by the trees.

Sleep could wait, he thought, hurriedly throwing on a round-neck, navy blue shirt to match his dark sweats and setting out despite his blond locks still damp from the shower. He jogged his way down the hill, looking for the exact spot where he saw you from the manor, finding you by the clearing near the massive oak tree with low-hanging branches that extended over the crystal water of the lake.

There you were, standing in front of a canvass ensconced on an easel. You appeared like a nymph under newly-risen sun with your long, white tresses braided to the side and hanging over your right shoulder. Breathtaking. There wasn’t another word that would describe how you looked like even with your back to him, dressed in a white, halter, crop top and a long, hippie skirt of the same color that had a slit going up your thigh, exposing the length of your legs.

Nanami had to consciously slow his steps towards you and tell himself to be still when he was near enough, keeping his hands inside the pockets of his pants to stop himself from recklessly reaching out and touching you for fear that the mirage before him will disappear. Except that you were real, existing in the same domain he was in, so near yet also so far.

You acknowledged his presence with a succinct nod, but your focus was on your work. For a while, he just stood behind you, watching the canvass fill with color, reflecting the orange and pink marmalade splashes of light in the morning sky. It was like watching a slow replay of what the heavens had been as the colors dissipated faster in reality while you immortalized it in oil paint, each detail prominent and not a single brush stroke amiss.

You were beautiful and you created beautiful things. And he wanted you. He wanted you so badly, but he didn’t have the heart to wrench you away from what you were doing.

"Why are you up so early?" you asked without turning around to look at him, your hand stopping mid-stroke with your paintbrush suspended from the canvass by a few millimeters. "You should be getting some shut eye after working so late."

God, he loved your voice, the sound cutting through the stillness like windchimes. Nanami distanced himself, satisfying himself with your divided attention and sat on the grass just under the ancient tree, leaning his back on the rough trunk. You were right about that. He was sleep-deprived, but he couldn't seem to rest easy without seeing you first thing in the morning. He closed his eyes, evening his breath out. "Since when were you so strict about sleep schedules?" he teased, knowing how you had such irregular schedules where proper rest was concerned.

"Since I found you still dressed up with your shoes on, sleeping on the goddamn couch at three in the morning," you sallied. “How you have energy to be walking around the grounds at this hour is just plain bizarre.”

He scoffed. “I could say the same for you, sweetheart. I don’t understand how you are up and about, painting no less, when you’ve been prowling around the study at dawn.”

At that, you laughed, leaning close to the canvass as you painted in more details into your picture. “I wasn’t prowling around as you’ve put it. It got all smoky around our campsite when the fire went out so we decided to sleep in the house instead.” You glanced over your shoulder at him. “I just happened to see that the study lights were still on and found you.”

Nanami met your gaze although it was short-lived since you turned back to your work. “Thank you.”

“I should have woken you up. Your back must hurt from sleeping like that.” You placed your brush on the cup hanging on the easel in time to see him eyeing you quizzically about your statement. “You tend to lean in favor of your left shoulder when your back is bothering you.”

He couldn’t help but chuckle at your response. “I have to give it to you and Satoru. Your observation skills are beyond normal.”

“It’s annoying at best when you’re programmed to see every little thing,” you stated, walking over to the edge of the water to dip a washcloth which you then used to wipe paint off of your hands. “But it also plays to our advantage, I guess. For instance, it’s easy to read through you when I notice everything like that.”

“You mean it’s easier to play your games with me when you observe me like you do?”

“Hey now, I’m being genuinely concerned here for once.” You snickered, tossing the washcloth on the pile underneath your easel before walking up to him and bending down slightly to his seated form. “Go back to the manor and get some sleep.”

Nanami clucked his tongue, inhaling the air slowly, savoring your smell as it entered his lungs, intoxicating him. “I find it hard to go back to bed the moment I’ve decided to leave it. I won’t be able to sleep much anyway.”

You pouted at that. “Then just take a nap if you can’t sleep much.”

He grinned at you then. “I’ll take a nap now if you’ll do it with me.”

“I’m not sleepy, but I’ll stay –”

“Then no.”

You shot him a disparaging look. “Are you being serious right now?”

Nanami had to suppress the laughter bubbling in his throat at the look of disbelief on your face, and before you could recover, he hooked a muscular arm over your waist, pulling you down so that you were seated between his outstretched legs with your back against his chest. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Seeing as you didn’t have any choice about that matter, you adjusted your position, fiddling with your skirt so it was shielding your bare skin from the grass. Nanami reveled at the fact that you did not seem bothered that he had his arm around your torso, the warmth of your skin directly touching his. You even went as far as leaning against him, your form slotting onto his perfectly like a puzzle piece.

He closed his eyes, pulling you closer as he leaned against the tree, letting his senses be filled with everything that was you from the feel of your warmth crashing against him to the smell of your hair and your even breaths, seemingly in sync with his. He knew he could live a life with no regrets if he gets to hold you like that every single day.

Giving in to his exhaustion, he breathed out, letting the gentle wind and the soft sounds of nature lull him to sleep. He didn’t know for how long he stayed that way with you, but it was already bright when he opened his eyes, coming to consciousness when he felt smaller fingers threading between his, followed by the faint sound of a giggle. Another hand reached over, landing on the side of his face. Unconsciously, he leaned against your palm, luxuriating in its supple smoothness against his cheek.

“Awake already?” you asked.

He looked down over your bare shoulder, feeling himself stir alive from the inside at the sight of your intertwined hands sitting on your lap. It was like a spark lit a fire in him, radiating from his chest and spreading wildly and searing every fiber of his being. Placing a hand over your hand which was touching his face, he started planting butterfly kisses onto your palm, your wrist.

A gasp left your lips when he lowered his head against your shoulder, nuzzling your bare skin in slow progression until he got to the junction of your neck where he latched his mouth, his gentle ministrations turning possessive and urgent as he peppered your shoulder and neck with kisses. He smiled against your skin when you felt your breath hitch while your grip on his hand tightened.

His other hand made its way up your chin, making you turn your head so he could look into your eyes, letting their blue depths consume him, finding his cue when they flicked to his waiting mouth. You weren’t fighting him, and in your own accord, you leaned in and met his lips with yours, kissing him with ardor, your fingers tangling in his hair as you pulled him closer to you. Your chest heaved, your breasts rising with the action, only restricted by your tight top, tempting his hands.

“I want to touch you,” he murmured into the kiss. “God, I want you.” He let go of your lips, opting to place open-mouthed kisses all over your neck, lingering on the hollow of throat. “Tell me you want it as much as I do,” he rasped, biting onto your collarbone.

“Yes,” you keened, releasing your grip on his hand. “Touch me.”

That was all the encouragement he needed, swooping down once more to claim your lips with his while his large hands leisurely caressed their way up your waist, tracing the contours of your sides, your flesh pliant under the pressure of his touches as the clouds were submissive to the wind. They made their way up to the full swells of your breasts, coveting the succulent flesh from over the fabric of your top, gently squeezing.

Nanami let out an unsteady breath when you moaned softly in his ear, still unable to believe that you were there with him, openly accepting him and melting under his touch. He couldn’t remember the way he saw you before, the fact that you were his best friend’s younger sister, that at one point, he also viewed you the same way, as your lips melded and your tongues mingled. At that moment, you were your own person, the one kissing him back and awakening the heat in his flesh, the one he has his mouth and hands on in outright intimacy…the woman he is utterly and immutably in love with.

He continued to shower attention to your lips while his other hand, slid down to your thighs, finding the slit of your skirt, blindly pushing the garment aside. His rough palm brushed against the inner flesh of your thigh, tenderly stroking. He took possession of your knee, gently lifting your leg so that is was hanging over his, making you spread open.

You pulled away from him, startled when you felt his hand sliding up your thigh. “Nanamin…” you panted, eyes wide as you regarded him, trying to grope for words but none came out.

He hooked a finger onto your lace underwear, leaning close to you as he whispered, “Kento. Call me Kento,” his breath hot and wet on the shell of your ear.

“K-kento,” you repeated. “What –” Your intended question was cut short by a sharp moan when he snaked his hand into your panties, and inserted his finger into you, the action made easy by the slick that had pooled at the apex of your thighs, causing you to arch your back, fingers tangling with the fabric of his sweats.

“You were saying?” he asked with a chuckle before placing kisses on your shoulders again, your hips bucking upwards when he started rubbing your sensitive nub with his thumb while he added yet another one of his fingers to thrust inside you, their length finding your sweet spot repeatedly until all you could think of was him pleasuring you, his ministrations making you see stars.

“Oh god…Ken…” you let out breathily, your hand finding purchase on the grass beside his thigh. “Right there.”

He hummed in response and curled his fingers inside you when he felt your walls clench around them. He started moving at a faster pace. “That’s it, my love. Cum for me.” His tongue lapped on your neck, making you shudder as you reached your high, making beautiful sounds for him as your juices dripped out into his hand. He pulled his fingers from between your legs, glistening with your essence which he licked off with his tongue, eventually placing his fingers into his mouth and sucking them clean.

“You taste so fucking good,” he said, bending down so he could kiss you again.

You were a shivering, panting mess when Nanami finally let go, your chest heaving up and down as you slowed your breath, leaning against him. A thin sheen of perspiration covered your exposed skin, glimmering under the rays of light that shone through the canopy of leaves above you. Nanami marveled at the hazy look about your eyes as you looked back at him in wonder as if he was the only one you could perceive at the moment, your flushed cheeks and your pink lips, raw and slightly parted as you respired.

Unable to help himself, he held you tight against him, resting his chin on your shoulder, just watching you come down from your high, the high he brought you to. If this was what he would see every single time he made love to you, he didn’t think he would ever come to terms of ever letting you go or getting enough of you.

When you finally composed yourself, you started chuckling, closing your eyes and placing a hand over them.

“What’s so funny?” he asked, fingers tracing patterns on the back of your hand.

“Us?”

“Hmm? Why is that?”

You finally opened your eyes and looked at him. “I mean this. You, me. I mean, am I imagining –”

Nanami rolled his eyes and cut you short, kissing you briefly. “Did that feel imagined to you?”

“No,” you answered promptly, stopping him when he leaned close again, causing him to laugh, the action reverberating on his solid chest. You sat up, putting distance between them, cradling your head between your hands. “Seriously, quit frying my brain so early in the morning.”

He squeezed you on the hips, making you yelp and motion to stand up, but he didn’t let you. “So,” he grinned cheekily at you, “I fry your brain now?”

“You know you do.” It was your turn to catch him off guard by kissing him on the cheek before you finally stood up. He was such a sucker for the small things you do to him. You cocked your head to the direction of the lake, hands proffered for him to take. “Take a dip with me?”

Nanami took your hand, standing up as well. How can he resist? “Okay.”

**

My, my. Geto Suguru glanced at Gojo. The groom-to-be was seated opposite him at the balcony that overlooked the gardens and most of the estate grounds, his back to the view. He was completely oblivious to what was going on around him, that much the former has figured. The estate was always refreshing and breathtaking, probably more of a home than any of the houses he owned, but it wasn’t as interesting as what he was witnessing unfold down the hill.

He just arrived, his head hurting from jetlag. Honestly, he was looking forward to resting after meeting Gojo and the family. He was particularly looking forward to meeting you as someone whom he shared a close relationship with, but lunch had come and gone and you haven’t showed up yet. He was told that Nanami was most likely sleeping in after working late, fucking workaholic, he thought, but now, it was evident that his host didn’t know shit about what he was saying where the other male was concerned.

From the walkway going up the hill, he saw you with none other than Nanami Kento. You two of you were walking on the grass, your respective shoes on your hands. You were carrying a covered canvass, a leather bag slung across your shoulder which Geto figured were your art implements while your companion was carrying your easel. By the looks of it, the pair of you came from the lake, took a swim judging from your damp hair and clothes. Definitely a spur-of-the-moment decision considering the glaring lack of the usual bath stuff that the family and guests alike brought to the lake on the occasion that they went for a dip.

It was puzzling to see Nanami being carefree enough to actually be engaging in a spontaneous activity. And was the bastard laughing? Geto scoffed, chuckling at the sight before him. Gojo was still clueless, but Shoko, who had a clear view of you, was nodding her head as she exchanged looks with Geto. “It’s happening,” she murmured.

“Yes, it is.” He grinned. “This will be fun.”

“What is?” Gojo asked, narrowing his eyes at his best friend.

Geto removed his sunglasses, arching a brow at Gojo. “Are you sure I’m the one who had been overseas all this time?”

Utahime snickered, already aware of what they were talking about, much to Gojo’s chagrin. “What are you talking about?”

Before anyone could answer, the sound of your laughter echoed from the main hall, evidently in the middle of a playful banter with Nanami who was evidently running out patience as he countered your every statement with clipped responses. At odds to that, however, was the fact that, when you were within view of the others through the glass doors, you were holding onto his hand above you as you twirled, your smile wide while Nanami looked on in open amusement.

He was the first one to notice the four pairs of eyes who were on the two of you, holding onto your shoulder to stop you from continuing on your way deeper into the mansion.

“What?” you asked him, turning and taking a step back so you were standing less than a foot away from him. Too close to anyone who was seeing you interact, the psychological space between you obviously gone.

“Hi, princess,” Geto called out, noticing how everyone was eyeing you both, their jaws slack, even Shoko who has always been in the know where you and their friend were involved.

You turned your head towards him, the surprise on your face turning into full-blown delight at the sight of him. “Suguru!”

Ah, he thought. Just the greeting he was looking forward to hearing. Mirroring your expressions, he opened his arms wide, waiting for you to come to him, and as expected, you bolted from where you were standing beside Nanami, throwing all your limbs around Geto, hugging him tightly.

“Hello, beautiful. It’s been a while,” he said, returning the gesture with as much fervor, one of his hands coming up your thigh to support your weight. He prided himself with the fact that he was the closest to you apart from Yuuji, and that he was the only one among your brother’s friends who could elicit such a profound, unfiltered reaction from you.

It was further proven by the fact that Gojo had a sulky look while Nanami was pretty much breaking at the seams as he pointedly stared at Geto’s hands on you.

“I missed you!” Your fondness for the man was unmistakable and he reveled in it. “You could always bet I missed you more, baby girl. You’ve gotten prettier since the last time I saw you.” He put you down on the ground and immediately took possession of your hands, intertwining his fingers with yours.

“You think so?” You were positively glowing at the compliment.

Geto smirked. He was also the only one whose compliments you were not immune to. “Satoru better be guarding you well enough to keep your admirers at bay.” He tucked your hair behind your ear before straightening up and looking at Nanami who was standing behind you. He may be a few a steps away from you but the possessive stance he had as he looked at Geto radiated from him.

“Oi, Kento. I wasn’t expecting you to be here.” He greeted, clapping said male on the shoulder.

The blond just nodded. “I was free for the whole week.”

Gojo butted in, his eyes momentarily lingering on you, but he regarded Geto in disdain. “You’ve got guts showing up here three days later than Kento and acting all lovey-dovey with my baby sister!”

“You know why. I’m here now, darling, so shut it.” He always used the sarcastic endearment for Gojo whenever he was sulking like a brat.

He lunged at Geto, placing him in a headlock, giving him no choice but to let go of you although he wanted to annoy Nanami further. He still had tricks up his sleeve to rile the blond though. "Let's catch up later, baby girl. Your baby brother wants attention."

"You're stealing my sister from me. She doesn't even say she misses me."

"I can hear you, Satoru," you muttered under your breath, rolling your eyes.

"See! You've corrupted her against me."

Geto chuckled, turning tables on him. "You're the only one who's ruining your image to your own sister."

“Cut it out, you two,” you stated then turned towards Nanami, and to everyone’s stupefaction, you said, “I’m going to shower. You coming?”

“What do you need Kento in the shower for?!” Gojo, overacting as always, demanded from you.

Shoko laughed, unable to suppress it while Geto whistled.

You flashed Gojo a scathing look then. “For someone who’s supposed to be my brother, you’re kind of a moron. You know what I mean.”

“You’re gonna shower together,” Geto chimed in, adding fuel to the fire.

“I need someone to scrub my back for me, right?”

Gojo looked horrified. “Are you crazy?”

You shrugged, dragging Nanami with you. “Yeah, maybe. Wanna join?”

“Don’t even think about it, Kento!” Gojo warned.

Nanami didn’t say anything, following behind you.

Geto could just smile slyly as he watched the pair disappear into the house again. He has just arrived but things were already taking an interesting turn. It will be a fun week indeed.

-end of part 4-

*I used “you” here, but since my character is Gojo’s little sister who is established to be his female clone for reasons essential to the plot, she possesses the same blue eyes and white hair. I did not exactly want to create an OC (although technically, I did by describing Y/N), but I opted for the best of both worlds in this fic, leaning more towards the literary aspect of it as opposed to it just being reader/you-oriented. I hope this isn’t iffy to anyone, and yeah, i’m not being exclusive or whatever.

Thank you so much for reading. Likes, comments and reblogs are deeply appreciated! Hope you enjoyed it.

© ORIGINAL WORK BY nanaminokanojo. CHARACTERS ARE INSPIRED BY GEGE AKUTAMI'S “JUJUTSU KAISEN.” [20210724]

PHOTO/IMAGE/GIF/FANART CREDITS TO THE RESPECTIVE OWNERS.

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Roman Holiday: A Review

Hello, everyone, and welcome to my review of RWBY: Roman Holiday by E.C. Myers! Given my tendency to discuss this franchise at great length, I thought I'd start with a tl;dr section for those who might just want my general takeaway, not a deep dive into some of the novel's specific flaws and strengths. So with that in mind... 

Did you like the book?

I did! Let me put it like this. I'm incredibly critical of any RWBY material nowadays, I haven't had the energy to read #realbooks for a while, and I still managed to finish this in five days, even while stopping every few pages to take notes. So it was entertaining enough to hold my attention, unlike Before the Dawn. Is it a perfect novel worthy of nothing but endless praise? No and I'll delve into the many problems below. But is it also one of the better RWBY installments I've engaged with lately, including recent Volumes of the webseries? Yeah. If you're still emotionally attached to the show or these characters, I recommend giving it a try for the sake of nostalgia. 

But isn't there a bunch of creepy stuff in it? Didn't Myers turn Roman into a pedophile? 

No, he didn't. As I suspected, the rumors that we've been hearing lately probably came about from taking certain moments out of context, or by blowing up some pretty minor implications, or by straight up reading interactions between an adult and a minor in very bad faith. Purity culture and a desire to drag RWBY combining to create an argument that, frankly, isn't supported by the text. Are there jokes and interactions that some readers might find uncomfortable? Yes, but it’s no worse than what RWBY has already established as a canonical part of their world and writing style. See: Yang's interactions with Junior in her Yellow Trailer. If you're a fan of Roman and have held off only because you're convinced the novel ruined his character, I personally don't think that's the case. Breathe easy. 

I'm still worried about how the novel treats disability though. Specifically Neo's muteness. 

I was too, but I'm happy to report it's a pretty tame portrayal. If anything, I have more to say about the intersection between Neo's semblance and her sense of identity. Suffice to say though, Neo never speaks in the novel, there's no ridiculous reason why she can't speak (no reason is given at all, it’s simply a part of her), and only the bad guys pressure her into talking. Meaning, the bad guys from her and Roman’s perspective. Obviously she and Roman are both villains in the RWBY world, but when it comes to respecting each other's needs they're definitely, comparatively better than the rest of the cast. 

So there were no problems? 

Oh no, there are definitely problems lol. Let's just say they're not offensive enough to bother the average RWBY fan. At least, most of them (probably) aren't. If you're not neck deep in the franchise's struggles and actively thinking about how this novel does (or does not) fit into the larger RWBY-mythos, there's a very good chance you'll like the book, passing over everything I’m about to mention without a backwards glance. Hell, even if you're looking for problems there's a good chance you'll enjoy a lot of other aspects, just like I did. So I recommend taking a chance on the book far more than I recommend steering clear on principal alone. 

Okay, with that out of the way it's time to dive into the nitty-gritty!  

FYI I'm pulling my quotations from the paperback edition and, as is probably already obvious, this is not a spoiler free review. So tread carefully!  

Part One: An Imbalance of Protagonists

Would you like RWBY: Roman Holiday? Well, that might depend largely on which of its main characters you're most interested in. If it's Roman, you may be disappointed, despite the fact that the book is evenly divided between his and Neo's perspectives. This is, fundamentally, a book about Neo. She is the one undergoing all the character development. She is the one who is driving the plot. Roman just sort of exists within a criminal status quo until he bumps into her — almost exactly halfway through the novel's 308 pages — and then becomes caught up in her training, her desire to concoct new schemes, and eventually her family's problems. I don't want to make it sound like Roman is unimportant to the book, he's obviously there and he does things, but we're not given the same level of insight into him like we are Neo.  Frankly, I can think of only two significant revelations, both of which we might have easily guessed based on Roman's established characteristics: his mother abandoned him when he was a kid and he once worked for one of the main crime bosses in Mistrial, specifically Lil' Miss Malachite. Otherwise, everything Roman does and experiences is precisely the sort of stuff we saw him do and experience in the webseries. He commits petty crimes, fights people with his cane, and does it all with a dramatic flare which, notably, Myers writes quite well. 

This lack of impact on the story seems to stem from two decisions. First, Myers never jumps forward or backwards in time (with the exception of two small scenes that explain how characters got to a point we saw in the last scene/chapter). Though this definitely helps to keep things from getting confusing, it means that we never go farther back than Neo at 8 years of age and we're always looking at what both characters are up to at the same point in time. Given that Roman is a decade older than Neo, this means that, unlike her, we never get peek into his childhood. When she's 8 he's 18, already an adult and committing crimes in Mistral. A lot of Neo's development is inevitable, just by virtue of starting her story so young. She has to mature, develop her semblance, go to school, try various ways of being independent for the first time... Roman gets none of that. He's an adult when we meet him, his character fully formed and, since we already know that character from the webseries, we're given no new insight into him or how he developed that identity, just a reconfirmation that it exists. 

More of an issue though is that Roman isn't allowed an arc over the course of the novel. The man we meet on page 9 is precisely the same man we end with on page 308 — with the minor exception that he now has a partner in Neo and that, sadly, is a lesson he learns instantaneously. For the first half of the book, Myers sets up the expectation that learning to trust and, specifically, learning to trust someone like Neo is the great conflict that Roman will have to work though. He's very cynical in his own head, as we might expect: “On the streets, on your own. You only watched out for yourself. Anything else was a weakness. Anyone else was a liability” (14). No sooner is this perspective established than Roman is meeting people who challenge it. While babysitting the Malachite girls, they provide advice on how to improve his chances of pulling off heists: 

Melanie and Miltia, simultaneously: “You just need the right partner.” 

Roman: “Maybe. I just don’t believe anyone is going to watch out for me as much as I will” (41). 

After betraying Lil' Miss and fending off his peer Chameleon, she sadly announces that "you might have gotten what you wanted after all if you hadn’t been in it only for yourself. If you had allowed yourself to trust someone” (87). Myers isn't subtle about the theme here. 

Yet when Roman meets Neo, that trust is immediate, despite spending his entire life rejecting the idea of a partner, despite the viewer having just read about numerous other people who Roman spent years fighting beside and still didn't come to trust, Neo forms an instant, powerful connection with him — one that can't be explained by her saving his life when they first meet. Even Roman himself acknowledges that it's just another debt to repay. They simply click, with no explanation as to how that occurred, or even a serious acknowledgement that this is out of character for them both (what with Neo never having had a friend). Neo gives him the name "Neopolitan," knowing it's her true name now and, thus, a more personal offering than her birth name "Trivia." Roman gives her his entire life story during their first meal together. Roman also spends all of his money on Neo's modified parasol and at the novel's end continually offers to sacrifice himself so that Neo can escape. Neo thinks a lot about how Roman is the only one who can understand her through body language alone which, kudos to Myers again, he does describe her movements with enough clarity to sell that understanding (even if Roman does sometimes make leaps in logic that feel a little unlikely). “She really missed Roman. Most of the time she didn’t need to say anything and he knew exactly what she was thinking” (249). It's heartwarming. As someone who enjoyed their relationship in the webseires, this is likewise a joy to read. It's just that it... kinda came out of nowhere. 

Far from this just being an issue of Roman trusting when he's never trusted before, Myers sets up a conflict of loyalties in Neo that is then immediately dropped. She finds herself surprised by Lady Beat — the headmistress of the academy Neo attends — unexpectedly liking her insights and, in exchange for privacy and a more in-depth curriculum, agrees to help her capture Roman. Prior to this agreement, Neo considers helping the Malachite twins take Roman out when they corner him because then they might be Neo's friends instead of her bullies. That motivation makes perfect sense to me. Of course Neo would be more interested in assisting the two girls who attend school with her and improving her daily life over helping the random guy on the street, even if Roman's vulnerability (that's what Neo latches onto: a moment where his mask slips and he shows true fear) sways her towards helping him in the end. When she reunites with Roman later, he requests that she help him spy on Lady Beat... and Neo turns him down. So there's a very clear precedent here of Neo being out for herself, looking to improve her relationship with the other high society ladies she's spending most of her time with. The road to favoring Roman over them will be a long one. What will convince Neo to switch sides? 

Nothing. Soon after Neo thinks about how she's duping both Lady Beat and Roman (the reasoning there is never really explained) and from then on her focus is entirely on Roman, with likewise no explanation as to why she chose him in the end. “Roman clearly had some trust issues to work out, but Neo was going to prove to him that he could count on her” (219). Why this sudden desire to prove herself to Roman? No idea. The novel skips over the majority of their bonding. Yes, there are a few key scenes — Neo saving him, Roman giving her the parasol, etc. — but a single sentence reveals that Neo has been training with him for months now, bypassing the slow development of trust and Neo's changing thought process about what side she should choose. 

Or rather, there are explanations for Neo's decision, but they all occur after Neo has already chosen Roman. There are two major revelations that we're only told about much later in the novel: that Neo is suddenly dissatisfied with her life at school — “Neopolitan was having second thoughts. As much as life at the school had improved, more and more it felt like it wasn’t giving her what she needed” — and that Lady Beat is the head of a major spying conspiracy across all of Remnant (more on that later). Either one of these could have been the catalyst for Neo giving more attention to Roman and, eventually, growing quite close to him. A general dissatisfaction with her life, the revelation that Lady Beat isn't the kind of criminal Neo wants to support...either would work. As it is, her devotion to Roman seems to immerge randomly, fully formed and unshakable, with these ‘I guess the school and Lady Beat weren't that great after all’ justifications tacked on much later and, thus, presented as incidental to Neo's devotion. “[Roman] was basically the only thing that mattered to her in the world right now" is the conclusion Neo comes to without a lot of work put in to explain how he reached that point in her life (248). 

And I can see how this happened. We already know that Neo and Roman are a tight-knit duo from the webseries — Neo's love in particular has been emphasized since Volume Six — and so Myers banked on the reader applying that knowledge to the novel. He wrote the story of what Neo and Roman did prior to meeting, he wrote the story of their friendship prior to the webseries... but he didn't really write how that friendship came about. It's treated as a given, despite the huge number of reasons why that friendship should be rocky (or even non-existent) at the start, to say nothing of many fans' interest in getting an answer to the question, "How does an established villain who trusts no one wind up partnering with a girl a decade his junior?" The novel tells us that this unexpected outcome does, in fact, occur, rather than taking us through the journey of how such an outcome is possible. This is by no means a new problem in RWBY and, admittedly, Myers' depiction of the relationship isn't as noticeably a problem as some others in the webseries, simply by virtue of Neo and Roman being the focus of the novel and the reader knowing that they do, in fact, end up as partners. It's a lot easier to buy a shaky journey when you already know the inevitable conclusion, but that doesn't mean we couldn't have done a better job of showing it. 

Which, to get back to the original point of this section, means that Roman never has that arc about learning to trust someone. He just does trust, the moment Neo comes on the scene. Personally, I think this rapid-fire growth is particularly egregious given everything else we learn about Neo and Roman’s histories. Meaning, just like Roman's cynicism about trust is introduced early on, so is his hatred for the rich elite. In fact, Roman's poverty and the disdain that has bred are arguably the most prominent aspects that Myers added to his characterization. As seen in the novel's excerpt release, Roman's introduction is robbing a rich man coming out of a club where he shows more interest in humiliating and harming the man than just getting his stuff and running. Which, to be fair, isn't solely due to the man's status as a member of the elite. The novel develops both characters' sadist tendencies — “He’s vicious. He brutally beat a man just for his coat. He was having fun” (21) — but the man’s status isn't a non-factor either. Roman's internal thoughts say a lot about how stupid, rude, gullible, pathetic, and inept he thinks the rich are. At the start he's not just taking the man's coat because he likes it, but because he’ll need it to survive the Mistral winter, what with living in a shelter under a bridge and all. We learn that his obsession with survival is born of poverty — “Ma’am, when you don’t have anything, surviving is more. You’ve gotta start somewhere” (20) — and that Roman will go to any lengths just to meet his basic needs, potentially with a side of some comfort. For example, he knowingly risks his life by pissing off Lil' Miss just to get two days of food, baths, and a bed. As Roman puts it, those two days are worth it, even if it means the rest of his life is potentially forfeit. 

So this is a man driven by a desire to live in comfort, manifesting in a hatred of the rich that is so powerful Roman breaks the man's knee just for the hell of it. He's touchy about any comment on his upbringing too: "Roman froze. 'So that’s it. You think you’re better than me. Because you went to school? Learned a trade?'" (80). And, to be clear, this is a hatred of the high society rich. The kind of wealth that's never earned. Roman has a healthy respect for the well-fed crime bosses who have pushed their way to the top, just as he plans to. Not those living cushy lives at the expense of him and others. 

And wouldn't you know it, his partner to-be is a pampered little rich girl. 

"There's the conflict," I thought. "Roman doesn't just need to learn to trust, he's got to trust someone born into extreme luxury. How is that going to happen?" Well, again, it didn't. Neo and Roman's class difference is ignored for 99% of the novel, with the other 1% used for casual banter between them. It's not that Roman isn't aware of Neo's pedigree, so to speak. He finds her through the uniform she wears, the symbol of an academy that rich girls attend. When they share their first tea together, he notes how daintily she eats the sandwiches, more evidence that Neo has had manners drilled into her at a young age. When he finally gets confirmation that she's not just rich, but really rich — flying to her parents' mansion — Roman is just kinda moderately surprised, throwing in a comment about how someday that money will be hers and isn't that nice. Roman's hatred of the elite disappeared for Neo's sake, just like his trust issues did. There's no working through these differences, just an erasure of them so the novel can jump straight to them being the perfectly in synch duo we know from the webseries. 

As a side detail that I think demonstrates this imbalance rather well, hair is used as a marker of identity throughout the novel. Neo moves from being jealous that other girls are allowed to style their hair how they please, to making her hair entirely pink with her semblance, changing that to half brown instead, buying pink dye so she no longer needs to waste energy on something she wants to be permanent, and ending with her getting some white streaks even as she chooses to leave the name Vanille behind. Each change coincides with an aspect of her development and it works quite well. In contrast though, Roman has only setup, no follow through. Unlike the short cut we're used to in the series, Roman starts the novel with a long ponytail that characters frequently comment on. The twins steal his hat and beg to braid his hair when they're bored. Neo seems iffy about the style choice. A couple other side characters make vague references to imply that he should get rid of it — something, something it doesn't actually suit him. So surely we'll see Roman cut his hair sometime before the novel's end, visually representing his growth, just like Neo's changing color has represented hers (ending with a color mix that reflects neapolitan ice cream)? Nope. Not unless I missed it. The foundation for that change is there, but Myers never capitalizes on it, despite obviously knowing what he's doing with Neo. 

So if you want more Roman content, the kind of content we saw in the webseries, great. You'll love the novel. If you want to read about Roman undergoing any significant change, including a dive into how he came to trust Neo of all people, large chunks of that story are missing. In true RWBY fashion, there are plenty of details that allow readers to fill in the blanks for themselves, but the canon itself is, sadly, lacking. 

Part Two: Neo's Magical Identity 

We've established then that Neo gets the lion's share of the development and, frankly, most of it is good. Knowing she's set to become a villain, I loved reading the gradual move from understandably lashing out — Neo throws an umbrella at her father's face when he's being an emotionally abusive dick — to becoming just as stoically cruel as Roman — she launches a woman out of the back of a plane. Did she have a parachute? Who cares. There's a lot here to like about Neo's characterization, with Myers finding a nice balance between keeping her playful and not making her feel like a caricature (helped immensely by spending so much time in Neo's head). However, the one part that arguably fails is the development of Neo's semblance and, consequentially, her identity. 

To be clear, I absolutely get what Myers was going for and it's basically what I assumed was going on when I read the excerpt: Trivia (Neo's birth name) has an imaginary friend she calls Neopolitan and, over time, she realizes she is Neopolitan. The imaginary friend is who she wanted to be all along, not just the person she wanted to spend time with. I like it! Who among us hasn't imagined a badass, smooth-talking, beloved version of ourselves that impresses everyone with a Mary Sue-esque ease? (Or, if you haven't, guess I'm outing myself here lol.) It's a pretty relatable idea. Trivia imagines a girl with the power to dress how she wants, style her hair how she wants, with amazing acrobatic skills, a take-no-shit attitude, fun ideas to implement... but she also has Trivia's heterochromia and muteness. It's the perfect combination of Trivia's unique traits and the confidence/freedom she longs to have. Of course when given the chance she grows up to be Neo, even going so far as to take that name. It's what she always wanted. 

The only problem here is that in the RWBY world, Neo can't just be an imaginary friend. She's a manifestation of Trivia's semblance. As we learn later, the things Trivia creates are as real as real can be, provided she keeps up their existence. You can touch the wall. You can count the money. You can wear the clothes. They're less illusions than short-term creations — as Team RWBY realizes whenever they wind up attacking a Neo duplicate instead of the "real" thing — and that puts an odd spin on just how imaginary Neopolitan actually is. She's not imaginary at all. She's a real person that exists in the real world, it's just that this existence is temporary and dependent on Trivia's aura. 

The novel supports this by constantly writing Neopolitan as a distinct personality from Trivia. Not just the polished version of who she is slowly becoming, but an individual in her own right. Neo makes decisions that are fully her own, contrary to or even entirely unknown to Trivia. To highlight just a few examples: 

Trivia is unsure about sneaking out of the house so Neo "shoved her into the hall" (25). 

Neo "looked on jealously” as Trivia drinks a milkshake, implying a desire to have one and the knowledge that her current physicality doesn't allow for that. If she is Trivia, shouldn't she likewise be enjoying the shake? 

“She shot Neo a questioning look... before she realized what Neo had in mind” (92). Their thoughts are presented as separate and there's no instant mind-reading. 

Neo catches Trivia when she leaps out of a window, surprising her with the save. Trivia never planned for Neo to do that, Neo did it entirely on her own. 

There are lots of other instances like this, details that establish Neo has a person separate from Trivia (this confusion regarding their names should make that clear enough), no matter the fact that she's made out of aura. I mean, we've got Ozpin existing only as a soul in other's bodies. RWBY isn't exactly in a position to get nit-picky about personhood. More specifically though, Neo is presented as a bad influence on Trivia, an outside force enacting on her in harmful ways. Neo's introduction establishes her as the troublemaker to Trivia's more obedient personality: “But those were her parents’ rules, and Neopolitan never cared about those.... She bounced up and down on the cushions the way she wasn’t supposed to” with a “taunting smile” (2). Her father comments on this multiple times, saying that Trivia can't hide behind an imaginary friend. She's responsible for her decisions. And while yes, that's true, that level of responsibility changes when Trivia summons Neo into the world. During a fight with some other teens, they can suddenly see Neo and Neo, independent of Trivia, punches one in the face, making her nose bleed. That seems like a real person making her own, real decisions to me. So it was never Trivia doing things and then trying to foster responsibility off on an imagined cohort, it's a child bringing another, magically-based person into existence and being influenced by her since before the age of 8 (considering that Trivia and Neo have clearly been playing with each other for a long time when the novel starts). There's even a moment where Trivia seems to realize all this, acknowledging that sneaking out, breaking up her parents' party, causing a scene... all of it was Neo's idea. “That had to be Neo’s influence again. Trivia had to stay in control." 

But the idea of control is never actually explored. Despite establishing Neo's individuality and having Trivia comment on her influence, the second half of the novel abandons that for the expected, 'Trivia was Neo all along' reveal. There's a very strange moment where Trivia's mom slaps Neo, causing her to shatter and... that's it. “Neo had been so much more to Trivia. Now she was gone” (98). Neo is, apparently, gone for good, despite the fact that she should return the moment Trivia's aura does. Neo has been with Trivia since she was a small child, nearly her entire life and at least 7 years by this point in the novel, so why did a single slap send her away? That's not explained and, much like the ‘Why has Neo chosen Roman?’ question, the fact that Trivia did try to bring her back several times and failed is mentioned chapters after Neo's absence is presented as an inevitability. The order of events needs some reshuffling. 

Despite this confusion regarding why this change happened now, the explanation seems to be that Neo isn't really gone, Trivia has just realized for the first time that she is Neo. No need to summon up a separate person when you are that person and the novel, from then on, is peppered with constant reminders of this. 

“Trivia was on the verge of exhaustion, but she kept burning the last of her Aura to hold Neo together. To hold herself together” (96). 

Realizing she is Neo: “Trivia smiled. She took in a deep breath. She felt complete for the first time. She felt like herself” (99). 

“You must be Trivia,” the tall woman said. If I must, I must, Trivia thought (126).

“She wrinkled her nose. Her name still felt like a coat that didn’t fit right. She would need to tailor that, too” (153).

“Losing her friend was Trivia’s first step towards putting herself back together and embracing her true, best self” (152). 

“Wearing this [outfit], she almost, not quite, knew (or remembered?) who she was—not as a student or a daughter, but as Trivia Vanille," except the clothes are “the kind of thing Neopolitan would wear” (152-3). 

On not being able to summon Neo anymore: “She had realized that Neo was really just another aspect of herself” (175).

Though there’s also the occasional implication that she's not actually Neo, just someone highly influenced by her: “No, [fully pink hair was] too much of the other girl [Neopolitan]," so she settles on that half pink (Neo), half brown (Trivia) combo (153). 

As said at the start, it's a "twist" that works perfectly well... provided you ignore the magical elements and the amount of work done to establish Neopolitan as her own person, not just Trivia in a shiny, future glamour. Far from the empowering victory I expected to feel in watching Neo become who she always wanted to be, I found the whole situation to be somewhat tragic. Magic created a fully realized person who egged Trivia towards bad behavior since she was a young child, until Trivia comes to the decision that she should just embrace their personality 24/7. It felt less like the growth of a character into who they were meant to be and more like a manipulated kid taking the place of the person who used to exist alongside her — the only friend she ever had before Roman. Given that Neo is a villain, that's a pretty interesting idea for how the good girl goes bad... but it doesn't feel like Myers meant it that way. Rather, we're supposed to accept the simplest reading, that Neo was just a projection of Trivia's internal self, never-mind her individuality, her pressuring influence, her existence as something real in the world provided Trivia has aura. It's a much messier depiction of Neo's identity than that ‘She had an imaginary friend who she admired and eventually took her name’ setup. When magic is involved and a character's mind is creating fully realized people to stave off loneliness... that's a whole other kettle of fish. I don't actually want to delve into a psychological reading here — I simply don't have the expertise for that — but suffice to say, Neo's muteness might have been handled well, but there's a lot more to interrogate regarding her mental state and how much leeway we give to, ‘It's a fantasy series, just run with it.’ 

Part Three: You're Dodging Those Rumors, Clyde 

I admittedly am. Let's take a break from deep dives into characterization to instead tackle Roman Holiday's — undeserved — reputation. I get it. At this point the RWBY franchise is, frankly, a poster child for offensive content and workplace problems. In the last two years alone we've dealt with horrific crunch culture, sexual harassment allegations, an arguably glorified assisted suicide, bad comparisons to real life politics and dictatorships, a huge reversal on the show's disability stance, one subreddit banning another over criticism, a collective YouTube response to the fandom's behavior, iffy choices regarding Mother's Day merch, accusations of queerbaiting, a resurgence of using Monty's death to forward or dismiss arguments, continued worry over whether the bees will be made canonical next Volume... and honestly, that's just some of the big ticket subjects. RWBY's story, workplace, and fandom have a lot going on, much of it bad, so it's no surprise to me that people are primed to see the worst at every turn. Why wouldn't we be? At this point it's a pretty justified response. 

However, in this case it's unwarranted. Let's tackle Neo and Roman first. Yes, they're a decade apart in age and yes, there are some details that could, potentially, imply romantic interest on both sides. But they really are tiny and the novel confirms nothing. Indeed, the back of the book's summary says, "Just like every story, every friendship has a beginning..." So that's the focus here and all the ambiguous hints, importantly, happen after Neo is confirmed to be 18 years old. Roman takes her to a fancy tea shop only because he owes her. “It certainly wasn’t because he wanted to impress her or anything” (189). Neo blushes when he compliments her semblance. Twice Roman jokes “Don’t worry, it isn’t flowers” when Neo is opening up her parasol present (212). Neo also acknowledges Roman's looks at one point: “With his tousled orange hair, dressed like a street punk, he didn’t look much older than her. In fact, he was kind of cute” (184). The most intimate they get though is at the novel's end: “She leaned over and kissed Roman on the cheek. His face went red," though this is immediately followed by "It was fun to mess with him sometimes” (307). Honestly, the most overt "hint" towards a relationship is probably the title itself, a play on the 1953 romantic comedy Roman Holiday. But upon reading the novel, I think it's clear Myers chose that title only because Roman's name is, you know, Roman and the plot somewhat mirrors the idea of a reporter getting involved with a princess. Only in this case it's a criminal getting involved with a high society girl and "involved" just means a crime spree, not a romance. 

So is there something there? Maybe the start of something, if you're willing to read into it, but to me it comes across more like the two of them poking fun at social expectations — he's the guy so he "must" be getting the girl flowers; she's the girl so she "has" to kiss him on the cheek — rather than anything serious. Even if Myers had developed a relationship, Neo is both an adult and at least Ruby's current age, if not a year older, so if some fans want her to start a relationship with the 14-year-old farm boy housing her ancient headmaster, is a ten year age gap really where we're going to draw the line? I know that makes a lot of people uncomfortable — frankly it makes me a bit uncomfortable too, more-so because of the difference in their life experiences (Neo is still a student, Roman a long-established criminal) than the actual gap itself — but we should be wary about when personal squicks turn into unfounded, "This is a sin!" purity culture. And for the purposes of this conversation, the point is that there is no relationship. If anything, Roman is just as aware of Neo's age as the reader is. He initially thinks he's looking at a “little girl” only to quickly realize “She was also older than her diminutive height suggested, maybe about the same age as the Malachite twins” (168). But, as we'll get to in just a sec, Roman very much treats the twins as the kids they are too. Roman even refers to Neo as a "kid" until she makes it known she dislikes it (183-4). He drops the term, but that doesn't mean the mindset disappeared. 

As for the twins, they're the only other minors that Roman spends time with. Lil' Miss instructs him to act as their body guard while in hiding, which means he spends over a week living with them. Frankly? I think it's a really wholesome part of the novel — or as wholesome as the villains can ever get. That's when the girls get bored enough to steal Roman's hat, toss it around a bit, and beg to braid his hair. Myers does a good job of balancing Roman's bad boy attitude with a clear indulgence for them. He doesn't actively like the twins (who does Roman like besides Neo?) and ends up orchestrating a ridiculous plot to get out of "babysitting" them (another indication that he's well aware that they're kids), but he doesn't wish them any real harm. He even cares about them in his own twisted, villainous way. We get to see a moment where Roman tries to convince the girls to escape from a grimm, leaving him behind. We might have been able to write that off as Roman just saving his own skin in the long run — Lil' Miss would kill him if any harm comes to her girls — but there's no need to fake comfort: “Roman squeezed Melanie’s hand reassuringly. He needed her and her sister to remain calm” (52). As one of the other goons observes, “You’re bluffing. It’s obvious that you care about [Miltia], which means you’re up to something” (51). Much later, Roman's thoughts confirm this when the girls are older, more powerful, and trying to kill him: “He’d had to endure their dance recitals when they were little. He’d clapped for them at gymnastic competitions. Now they were trying to do a number on him... He didn’t want to hurt the lil' brats, despite everything, but he couldn’t let them take him down” (166-7). Really, I like everything about this. I enjoy how this humanizes and complicates Roman without undermining his status as a villain. I like the loyalty to their mother it shows in the twins that they'd turn on a man who was so involved in their childhoods. It's just fun to read about a badass bad guy trying to manage bored pre-teens with superpowers and a crime boss mom. Their relationship isn't something I expected from the novel, but I'm glad we got it. There's nothing here to imply the twins are uncomfortable with Roman, or that Roman is inappropriate with them. Anyone who balks merely at the idea of a grown man, quote, "babysitting" two young girls is working from bias and bias alone. 

There is, however, one inappropriate comment made by a goon and an assumption made by Miltia, both of which Roman refutes. First, the goon asks if Melanie is Torchwick’s “new girlfriend” to which Roman responds, “You know who it is... She’s just a kid, big man” (47-48). Later on, we get

“Cute,” [Roman] said. 

“Flattery’s not going to work on me anymore,” Miltia said. 

“I was referring to your moves, not you” (158).

Now, we could drag Myers for including such "jokes" and misunderstandings to begin with, but that's why I mentioned the Yellow Trailer at the start of this review. It doesn't feel right to single Myers out for something Rooster Teeth has already embraced, especially when he's the one working to mirror their original product. Yang deliberately toys with Junior and Junior willingly goes in for the kiss. Jaune blushes at older moms eyeing him up at the crosswalk. Nora tells Ren not to look up her skirt in the middle of a deadly fight. Neo and Cinder both go to Atlas in scantily clad outfits because it's more important for the women to look sexy than it is for the show to stay consistent about the dangers of the tundra. Much of RWBY has that frat boy energy about it. I'd be shocked if nothing snuck its way into Myers' work too. But Roman the pedophile who ogles the twins and manipulates a kid Neo? That just doesn't exist. 

Part Four: Déjà Vu, Anyone? 

I dithered about whether to include this section, simply because I don't want anyone to misunderstand what I'm trying to say... yet at the same time, I'm not entirely sure how to articulate the problem I have here. Or if I'd even consider it a problem at all. In the end, "déjà vu" is the best term I can come up with. I'm not saying that Myers is lazy in regards to plot and choreography. I'm definitely not saying he's plagiarized. What I am saying — the only thing I'm saying — is that there were a lot of times during the novel where I went, "Okay, we've seen this before." Whether or not that's bad I'm... not sure. 

Let's start broad. When the excerpt dropped I mentioned that Neo's situation sounded pretty very to Weiss' and I stand by that claim. Actually, having read the novel now, I'd say it's a LOT like Weiss' story. Neo is the daughter of an incredibly wealthy family, suffering from an abusive father, a more loving but absent mother, whose only freedom stems from her semblance and combat abilities. Alright, let's dig deeper. Like Jacques, Jimmy's abuse is on full display for the viewer/reader. I could give you a laundry list of examples, but here are just a few: 

Jimmy is frequently described as barely controlling his anger around Neo, “there was rage behind his shadowed eyes,” etc. (4)

There are times when she is "suddenly afraid" of what her Papa will do to her (35).

When Neo is taken home by the cops, they reveal that they didn't even know that Jimmy Vanille had a daughter. That's how sequestered she's been.

He and his wife lock Neo in her room when they go out, which means that when she starts a fire she had no way to escape, no one to open the door for her, no way to call for help (her scroll is engulfed in the flames). Neo ends up chancing a fall from the window. 

He comes very near to hitting Neo at one point before backing down. 

Later he drugs her and, again, locks her in her room. 

As said, I could go on. There are a few inconstancies across the novel that, frankly, I've come to expect of Myers' work and RWBY in general, which I bring up now because it messes with the abuse plotline a bit. There's supposed to be a shocking moment when Jimmy grabs Neo tightly by the arms: "Trivia stepped back, appalled. Papa had yelled at her, punished her, even ignored her over the years, but he had never hurt her before” (97). Except she’s forgetting that, at the very start of the novel, Jimmy grabs her by the ankles, pulls her out from under the couch, and proceeds to shake her upside down while her hand bleeds. I'd say that's a pretty intense, physical interaction, making squeezing Neo's arms fail to have the impact Myers was looking for. Similarly, when Neo finally snaps and throws her parasol at her father's face, it's because “The things she had claimed for herself were just more stuff her parents had paid for," meaning, everything she stole on a shopping spree her father made sure to pay for twice over. It's not the ableism, abuse, isolation, and the like that Neo reacts to, even though she clearly struggles with those throughout the novel as a whole. So there are disconnects at times, but the point is this man is an abusive asshole to his daughter until she learns to literally fight back. Sound familiar? 

What particularly struck me was that both men have built their abuse around how the family is perceived. Both are obsessed with their image and how their daughter does or does not serve it. Jacques yelling at Weiss for speaking out about Beacon could be swapped with Jimmy yelling at Neo for not speaking at all. Jacques has maintained his wealth by exploiting the faunus in dust mines and getting in deep with criminals like Watts. Jimmy maintains his wealth by getting involved in illegal dust trades and getting in deep with criminals like the Xiongs. Both try to justify their actions in the name of perpetuating both that image and that wealth: “the things I have to do for that money” (5). Both lock their daughters in their room when they can't control them anymore. Both keep portraits in the hall that “showed her and her parents posing together as if they were a happy family,” a symbol of this familial deception (271).* Both have more compassionate, terrified, but ultimately enabling wives that, the story reveals, have secretly been spying on their husbands this whole time. Just as Willow set up all those cameras and gave the footage to Weiss, Carmel is using the camera in her pin to acquire information on Jimmy, with plans to use it to help Neo. By the time Neo's solution to the "What now?" question was to fly Roman back to her mansion and drink tea for a while Volume 8 style, complete with a Sun-Blake style shock that this is her house — sure you don't mean the tiny one behind it? — I was honestly wondering just how far we were going to stretch these parallels. I don't want to make it sound like these characters are identical (Carmel isn't an alcoholic for one thing)... but they share enough characteristics and distinct details to feel, well, a little weird. It also feeds the fandom's question, "Doesn't RWBY know any villain backstories except abuse?" 

*(As a side note, I initially thought the book's cover, showing a young Neo with two brown eyes, was a mistake. Turns out her parents had the painter get rid of her pink eye because they were ashamed of it, so kudos to the cover artist for keeping that consistent!) 

The similarities between Neo's backstory and Weiss' are absolutely the most obvious example here, but there were two other, smaller déjà vu moments I wanted to toss out, both involving combat. Myers has, at times, repeated fights almost exactly in order to cover two character's perspectives. I get the need to rehash plot in that manner, but he tends to focus on the exact same details back to back, making for a boring read. That incredibly nit-picky criticism aside, it means that I was already aware of combat moments that I'd seen before, not just in Roman Holiday, but RWBY in general. Does this description sound familiar to anyone? 

Neo hopped up lightly onto the broad blade. Rin tried to shake her off. Neo vaulted away just as the Huntress activated the flames, somersaulting over the Huntress. She planned to land behind her and whack her with her sword, but Rin turned and kicked high while Neo was still in the air. The Huntress’s foot connected with Neo’s stomach, knocking the wind out of her and knocking her clear across the room (199). 

If it's not familiar don't beat yourself up because it really is a minor similarity (and, in fairness, there's only so many ways you can write combat...). But take away the swords, replace them with a parasol and scythe, and you've basically got Ruby and Neo's interaction in Volume 8. Ruby tries to land a hit on Neo, she turns, kicks high while Ruby is still in the air, and she flies across the platform, knocking the wind out of her. We've also seen the 'Landing on a broadsword to get close to an enemy' bit with Tyrian and Qrow. But again: minor. What's a far less minor repeat of combat techniques is seen between Roman and Chameleon. Basically, Chameleon is Ilia, minus being a faunus and thus framing her abilities as a difference she's shunned for. Her semblance allows her to camouflage at will, giving her a major stealth advantage in a fight. Which means that when she goes after Roman, things get exponentially harder when the lights go out. But then it's better for Roman when a fire starts. He beats Chameleon and she helps him in the end because she's always been in love with him, even though Roman didn't love her back. If you're going, "Hey, that's the basic plot of Blake and Ilia's fight!" then yeah, me too.

It's not the whole novel. I don't want to make it sound like Roman Holiday is just a stitched together version of previous RWBY content because it's absolutely not. At the same time though, there were enough major similarities — and enough smaller ones that started standing out as a result — for me to raise an eyebrow. As said, I'm not entirely sure what to make of this eyebrow raising, or even if I want to label it a criticism at all. You all can decide what you think. 

Part Five: Wait, Now There's Not Enough RWBY? 

Yes, I contain multitudes and contradictions. As does this book. Even while Roman Holiday repeated some pretty familiar RWBY elements, there were times when the novel didn't feel very RWBY-ish at all. Part of the problem is that it lacks what's arguably the most crucial part of RWBY’s world building: battling grimm. Safe behind the walls of Mistral and Vale, we only see one grimm in the whole story, a captured Capivara that one of the crime lords uses to dispose of people who have displeased him. Roman and the twins barely get more than a few hits in before it escapes upstairs, leaving the kill to happen off screen (and why the grimm ran is another problem entirely. Again: we'll get to that). So although there are plenty of battles between people throughout the story, it doesn't feel quite like RWBY to me without the show's first and most significant antagonist. 

More than that though, Myers goes back and forth between emphasizing RWBY's unique, cultural elements and putting them aside entirely. When he's including them, it's great. We learn that there's an old saying “You can’t put the moon back together” which yeah, of course idioms would develop around the shattered moon (151). Honey Wine, a night club singer, paints her face with red dust as a symbol of both wealth and her dare-devil nature — one stray spark and the dust would ignite, blowing her and potentially the club up too. Yeah, of course people would come up with foolish, ridiculous ways to use this resource if they had it. During one of Neo's lessons, a passage for diction practice goes like this: 

The gruesome Grimm grew greedy. Get that greedy gruesome Grimm, Gregory. Go, Gregory, go. The greedy gruesome Grimme gorged Gregory. Good-bye, Gregory, Good-bye. The gory, greedy Grimm gave a gruesome grin (175).

Yeah, of course the elite would develop silly lessons using grimm as examples! We've got math problems about Johnny and his dish soap (yes, I'm quoting the Vine), so why wouldn't this world use grimm in the same way? Especially those who are rich and privileged enough to never encounter one. 

When it's good, it's good. When it's not... I don't want to take Myers to task for this because, in his defense, much of what makes the book feel generically modern has been seen in the show. Like computers. Or video games. Still, when these things are mentioned frequently it undermines the fantasy/sci-fi core, especially when Myers keeps the standard terminology. Why is a phone called a scroll, but a TV is still called a TV? Why are cops patrolling normal sounding malls with normal sounding guns? Neo sneaks out at one point and it struck me that, up until she uses her semblance against a bunch of bullies, there's nothing to distinguish this outing from a realistic portrayal of an average girl getting a milkshake. None of this is helped by the times when Myers slips on the terminology that is unique. Roman describes what he steals as "cash" rather than "lien" (105). One moment we're getting phrases like “She wasn’t the brightest crayon in the box," the next it's "or rob a convenience store for a six-pack of Dr. Piper” (44, 239). So is RWBY a world that has all the same products we do — crayons and TVs — a world that's different, but only because the author is making it different in a humorous way — Dr. Piper — or a place with a unique culture and history — scrolls, lien, shattered moon idioms? It's a challenge every fantasy writer has to face. Can you have a French braid in a world without France? Some will say no, others will bank on the reader's understanding that you can't change up every aspect of our language. You'll drive yourself nuts if you try. So I'm sympathetic, but it's nevertheless noticeable when Myers seems to remember that he's writing a fantasy world, tossing in "bullhead," "oh my Gods," and "thank the brothers" in a single scene, as if he’s making up for the whole chapters where that work is missing. Take out the grimm, take out semblances for a good chunk of the plot (since Roman doesn't have one), get iffy about the details... and you're left with a story that sometimes feels more generic Young Adult than it does RWBY. Enjoyable Young Adult, but a little lackluster in the world building all the same. This isn't a book where girls turn into rose pedals, lamps grant wishes, and teenagers fight giant mechs. This is a story where a guy uses a cane to beat people up, a girl uses illusions to shoplift, and the final confrontation is basically a shoot-out. Not bad by any means, just not the level of insane "The gun is also a gun!" nonsense that has become RWBY's brand. 

Part Six: Stupid Plots (and Strange Details) 

If Roman Holiday lacks a lot of that RWBY insanity, then that means nothing stupid and ridiculous happened, right? Lol of course not. The novel suffers from what I think of as the, "Well that's convenient" problem. In its immense defense though, it's nowhere near the level of, say, Amity suddenly being ready to go. The world's rules do not bend for Neo and Roman... they just wind up experiencing things that can test the reader's sense of disbelief at times. For example, how likely is it that two huntsmen will waltz into a bank in the middle of Roman robbing it? Very likely, apparently. Why not just have them respond to a silent alarm? Well, because of reasons we'll tackle in Part Seven, so we're left with the iffy coincidence of two trained professionals being at the right place at the right time to show the reader a fight. It's a fun fight though — love the use of dust in it — so we'll let that pass. After all, if coincidence serves the reader's entertainment, aren't they ultimately a good thing? 

Far more frustrating in my opinion is when disaster is illogically postponed and characters are written as incredibly stupid in order for a protagonist to get by. In this case, Neo. One of the major reveals of the novel is that her father has been stealing dust from the Xiongs and hiding it beneath Neo's bed. We're supposed to believe that a moment of Lil' Miss shooting into her room sets this volatile dust off, resulting in an explosion that kills both of Neo's parents (side note: she intended this), but the dust didn't blow up when Neo started a fire in said bedroom, a fire that then proceeded to consume the entire top floor? ...right. 

When Neo isn't conveniently surviving non-explosions, she's duping people left and right with her semblance, despite the fact that she, of course, can't speak. This trick becomes less and less convincing as the novel goes on. First, Neo drugs her tutor (that poor woman) and pretends to be her to escape the house, holding a one-sided conversation with her father as he walks her to the door. He finds nothing strange in this. Later, Neo sneaks back in by pretending to be her mother and though this time her father catches her, it's because “If you want to know whether someone is lying to you, it’s all in their eyes” (70). Not because, you know, his "wife" inexplicably won't respond to him verbally. Finally, Neo takes the place of Xiong, traveling with his assistant for over thirty minutes, and never once do any of the goons question what's going on with their suddenly mute boss. This includes interactions like Neo holding out her scroll and just staring until the assistant gets that she should follow the GPS, and the need to ignore the fact that Xiong, characterized as quite talkative throughout the novel, is suddenly quiet as a mouse. Neo's muteness should have been a severe limitation on her ability to masquerade as others, not something the story outright ignores in an effort to move the plot along. 

The novel is peppered with such coincidences, small inconsistencies, and just downright strange details. Roman notes that the police haven't arrived to his robbery yet, only for the next sentence to say they were swarming in. Later he "pulled on his bonds, testing whether he could slide one of his hands free, but he’d been tied up real good” but then again, a few sentences later, “He craned his neck to try to look out the front window. He managed to unbuckle his seat and hop to the front” (259). Like forgetting how rough her father has been in the past, Trivia bemoans the fact that she can't wear anything that Neo would, something in pink and white, for example, forgetting that her former "adventuring outfit" consisted of a white tank-top and white sneakers with pink hearts (26).* She also claims that the Roman illusion she sends running from the twins is her first long-distance use of her semblance, even though she just got done recalling the time she created a butterfly and watched it fly until it was "out of sight" (170). The novel writes out Neo's texting as dialogue even when someone else isn't speaking it aloud — something I initially made a note to praise it for. This is her version of "talking" after all — only for the texts to suddenly become bolded halfway through the book. As for strange details, Myers seems to like giving his antagonists a lumpy food to indulge in — Lil' Miss forces Roman to eat her cottage cheese, Xiong oatmeal with the consistency of cement — and Roman, quite oddly, decides to cover his spider tattoo with a grinning pumpkin. (Were they a thing in A Clockwork Orange? It's been years since I read it...) Neo learns to fly a plan by watching Xiong's assistant start it up and then, I kid you not, pulling up a How To article. Perhaps my favorite bit though is when Roman reveals his master plan to gain a monopoly on Vale's coffee industry and successfully does so by attacking one (1) warehouse. This is treated with the utmost seriousness. 

*(Second side note: the color brown is tied closely to Neo's backstory; to the person her parents wanted Trivia to be. She has her brown hair, only one brown eye, is introduced in a brown dress, wears a brown blazer and pants that her parents bought, and attends Lady Browning’s Preparatory Academy for Girls, the school meant to turn her into a 'real' lady.) 

That last bit though, the coffee heist, feeds into my biggest problem with the book's plot. @superzerokarasu​ and I have been talking about this the last two days, acknowledging it as one of the book's bigger flaws. (And, Superzerokarasu, if tumblr actually tags you, feel free to ignore this absolutely massive wall of text. I just wanted to give credit for the conversations 👍). Basically, towards the end of the novel it is, quite randomly, revealed that there is an important Room at the academy. Important enough that the story capitalizes it — that's not my doing. We haven't heard at thing about this Room before but Neo, apparently, has been trying to sneak into it for weeks. She knows Lady Beat is hiding something in there. Did we know this, especially since we've spent half the novel in Neo's head? Nope! No sooner has this mystery been introduced than Neo is solving it, much like how the group solves the problem of using Ambrosius moments after his rules are explained. Neo throws up an illusion of an empty hallway, picks the lock on the door, and discovers that Lady Beat has been spying on everyone who ever attended her school through the small pins students and graduates wear. This means she has access to private information about important people all over Remnant. Shocking! Neo reacts to this discovery by tearing the hard drive loose, there are some confusing suggestions about how this information will save them from Lil' Miss and Xiong, and then Roman sends the information to a news station, revealing all. Thus ends the world-wide conspiracy we just found out about. 

It's muddied. It's ridiculous. It, most importantly, comes out of nowhere. There's absolutely no buildup to this mystery, just a sudden announcement that it exists and, wouldn't you know, here's the conclusion. Superzerokarasu is correct that this problem could be solved by increasing the academy sections and fleshing this mystery out. I'm of the opinion that it could also be solved by eliminating it entirely. Why in the world do Roman and Neo need to grapple with a world-changing reveal, especially when the rest of the novel is so tame? Roman shakes money down from other small-time crooks. Neo learns diction and combat at school. Roman leaves the Kingdom to avoid Lil' Miss. Neo sneaks out of the house and goes on shopping sprees. She saves him from a street fight, he takes her out to tea, they proceed to rob convenience stores. Their conflicts take place on such a small scale that this conspiracy plot feels ridiculous compared to the rest of the novel, even if it did have better setup. In contrast, their big coffee heist likewise feels ridiculous for how small it is. As a duo (not Neo as an individual, now that she's involved with the Relics and such), they operate in a pretty specific niche of small crimes conducted for villains with large plans. Given the number of times the novel brought up that Roman should start stealing dust, I foolishly thought that the novel would conclude with them stealing dust. Why coffee? Why conspiracies? Why shootouts between two crime bosses on Neo's front lawn? Let them pull off an epic dust heist together, tying it back to Neo's family since her father is already neck-deep in the illegal dust trade, all of it setting up the characters we'll meet in the webseries: street crooks now stealing dust for Cinder. That's their specialty. Why not start that specialty here? 

Instead we get a bunch of hurried plot points that, of course, will have no bearing on the first eight volumes of the webseries. Which brings us to... 

Part Seven: Roman Holiday's Impact on RWBY

Quite obviously, this isn't a novel that exists in a vacuum. Roman Holiday, given that it is presented as an official Rooster Teeth product, is likewise meant to fit into the already established canon. This has been a challenge for Rooster Teeth in the past — important lore winding up in card games, mischaracterization in other novels, worry about how the upcoming game will re-tell events we've already seen — but has Roman Holiday perpetuated that trend?  

Well, yes and no. Which is never a particularly satisfying answer, but in this case there are both aspects that are working and aspects that aren't. Let's tackle the good first. 

Myers includes a lot of details throughout the story that help fill in RWBY's gaps. In this case, it's not information the viewer should have gotten in the webseries in order to have a complete understanding of the situation, but rather things that simply help connect the two works together, adding depth to what we already know. For example, there are those before mentioned times when characters suggest that Roman start stealing dust. “You aren’t the first person to suggest that. Maybe I should look into that...” (216). I do think it's a missed opportunity not to make a dust heist the climax of the story, but that doesn't erase the fact that this still functions as excellent setup for the webseries' premiere. We know RWBY opens on Roman robbing a dust shop. Now we have a better sense of how and why he got into that line of criminal work. 

We likewise get to see the origins of Neo's parasol, not just how she got it (Roman), but also what led her to wanting that kind of weapon in the first place (struggling with the heaviness of swords, getting attached to a parasol she stole, impulsively using it to attack her father, escaping the fire with it and realizing that the ability to float from high places is an asset). Something else I particularly like is that Myers was careful to explain how Neo became so adept at fighting. According to the webseries, there are only three paths you can take: go to combat school like Ruby, live on the streets like Roman, or live outside the Kingdoms like Blake. Neo, as a rich girl kept within high society, doesn't fit any of those models, so Myers introduces an Academy that seeks to train young women for any eventuality, even an attack. Neo learns how to smile, sew, cook, courtesy... while also taking classes in acrobatics, combat, ballet, and fencing. All the girls train with a combat instructor — “I know this isn’t a combat school, but by the time we’re done, you will be as skilled as any Huntress in Remnant” (201) — and, not only that, but she undergoes some pretty intense testing. Balance is taught by “balancing on a tightrope twenty feet in the air, with no net below you. Lady Beat believed in ‘though love’—without the love part” (146). It's a teaching method that makes Ozpin's cliff test seem a little less insane and it highlights one of those fantasy elements of RWBY. When your students possess aura that can save them from a twenty foot fall, it's slightly more reasonable to include that as a challenge. So when Neo starts following Roman around, it doesn't feel off that she can keep up with him. She's been trained, has practiced her semblance alone, and gets additional tutoring from Roman himself. Myers neatly dodges the question of how a non-Huntress and such a privileged girl — unlike Nora or Cinder — became to be as talented as Neo is. Privilege actually bought her that knowledge, which Neo then combines with Roman's street smarts, making her the formidable fighter we know and love.  

However, for every nice tether there is between Roman Holiday and RWBY there's a moment of worldbuilding that messes with our sense of the webseries. Or at least raises some pretty big concerns. 

Given that we just came off of Volume 8, it's no surprise that I read the novel with an eye for hints about how these future events — the destruction of Atlas, evacuees in Vacuo — might impact the rest of Remnant. What Myers gave us... doesn't look good for RWBYJNOR's decision, or the theme Rooster Teeth was going for in Volume 8. Meaning, the show took on a very black and white view by the end of the Atlas arc. Ironwood is an irredeemable bad guy, Atlas is full of racist trash and deserves to sink, the heroes made the best decision possible given the circumstances. Myers' novel introduces some nuance that, sadly, doesn't serve that black and white view well. He describes Mistral as, frankly, suffering the exact same problems as Atlas. “The city elevator didn’t come down this far, to keep more of a buffer between the haves and the have nots... people at the base of the mountain had no business topside” (10-11). Sounds like the sort of divide between Mantle and Atlas, huh? With the exception that one elite is stationed on top of a mountain instead of a floating city. It's a class issue Neo confirms as a kid when she sneaks out to the lower districts, thinking that, "she was never, ever allowed out alone. ‘For your own safety,’ they said” (25). Rich, racist elites who think themselves better than everyone else isn't an Atlas problem, it's a Remnant problem. RWBYJNOR solved nothing by leaving the place behind (and having one citizen hold hands with a faunus) and the fact that the story acts as if things are better now that Atlesians can’t have picnics on a floating city is... a problem. We already knew RWBY struggles with its racism and classism themes, but moments like this continue to add fuel to the wildfire. 

Similarly, the novel spends a not insignificant amount of time referencing Atlas as the technological capital of their world. We knew that already too, but hammering it home now, post-Volume 8, emphasizes the damage the group has done. No Atlas, no technology. Pretty much any technology, given how often it’s said to come directly from Atlas, or cloned from Atlas originals. 

Regarding the evacuation, Myers gives us a moment where Roman outright rejects Vacuo as a place to escape to: “Vacuo was a good place to hide, but the desert was probably one of the few fates worse than Lil’ Miss. And while there was a thriving criminal element, it wouldn’t be particularly welcoming to a newcomer. There was no future for Roman there” (88). So the desert is a fate worse than a crime boss and Vacuans are so unwelcoming one individual won't risk going there... and now our heroes have dumped an undetermined number of evacuees in that desert, heading towards a Kingdom that doesn't want them. Obviously Myers needs to come up with a reason for why Roman ends up in Vale where Neo is, but doing it this way just highlights so many of Volume 8's problems. Specifically, that the group made such a world-altering decision when it arguably was no longer necessary and, more importantly, did so without once considering the consequences that seem obvious to everyone else in Remnant. Vacuo is the last place anyone wants to escape to... so why was that the heroes' first choice? "Because the show hasn't gone there yet" isn't an answer. 

There are a couple smaller problems throughout — muddying the waters between semblances and magic again; emphasizing how many people unlock their semblances as kid and rely on their aura to get by, bringing up the question (again) of how Jaune was so ignorant — but I just want to cover two more issues here. 

The first is what I mentioned above about the one grimm the novel has. Suffice to say, the grimm ignores the three fighters in front of it (Roman and the twins) and runs off because... well...

“Grimm are drawn by emotion. You never controlled it. It killed your enemies because most people you drop in here are going to be afraid. They won’t be able to fight back. But as far as I can tell, these girls don’t feel anything. And I’m not afraid to die... Anger can be a more powerful emotion than fear” (54-5).”

Let's tally up the problems with this speech: 

The idea that Roman experiences no fear despite being cornered by a massive grimm, in a tiny room, in enemy territory 

The idea that an ability to fight back increases the chance of the grimm running off to pick other targets (if that were the case, the group would never finish any fights) 

Claiming that they're also left alone because the twins "don't feel anything" which is obviously ridiculous  

Reframing Roman's lack of fear into, specifically, not fearing death. Again, a grimm doesn't care whether you fear death or no

Saying that the anger of the boss all the way up in his office is a stronger draw than the three people currently attacking the grimm

It's just a lot of nonsense, bending one of RWBY's most basic rules to give Roman a cool-sounding speech. Cool provided you ignore what the speech is actually implying, that is. Why bother with this? Just let the grimm break down the door halfway through the fight, moving the fight into a new space with new people causes chaos, Roman either escapes then, or he kills the grimm first and escapes afterwards. Better, in my opinion, to give the story a single grimm kill than introduce a bunch of philosophical complications about how much these characters definitely don't feel fear and one man's anger is suddenly a grimm magnet. It's just a strange scene and, looking back, the only scene where I really went, "What?" As evidenced by this entire review, I have problems with certain aspects of the novel, but none actively made me question what in the world Myers was trying to accomplish. This moment is the exception. 

Finally, I'd like to briefly mention the ways in which Roman Holiday messes with our understanding of the huntsmen profession. Again, this is nothing new. From Blake and Yang shrugging off Adam's death, to Weiss asking if she can arrest her father, the true purpose of the job seems vague, especially when you toss in what they're legally allowed to get away with. At first, the novel seems to support the idea that huntsmen are responsible for defending the people from both grimm and criminals, especially in the cities where walls do most of the work of keeping grimm out. Roman worries that huntsmen will show up to put a stop to his robbery, there's a bounty for him “posted on all the Huntsmen job boards," and then, later, two huntsmen do show up to his bank heist and try to stop him — that coincidental timing (176). "It’s kind of refreshing to fight a bad guy instead of a Grimm for a change," says one, implying that their primary focus will always be grimm, but they're also not going to ignore criminal activity. I get that. I buy that. It fits with what else we've learned about the job from the webseries: students attend school specifically to learn how to fight grimm, but they're capable — and expected — to use those skills for the people's benefit, no matter what form that comes in. Hence, jobs like Jaune acting as a crossing guard. It works.

....Aaaand then Myers blows that understanding right out of the water. 

“[The huntsmen are] being fined for destruction of public property and reckless endangerment. This isn’t the first time they’ve been reprimanded for using excessive force and gross misconduct. The Vale Huntsmen Guild reportedly is considering suspending their licenses (118).” 

So wait, never mind, apparently huntsmen aren't supposed to stop bank robberies that they walk in on. Or at least, they're not supposed to stop them using "excessive force" and resulting in the "destruction of public property." Problem is, there's no way to battle another fighter of Roman's skill without doing property damage and, potentially, putting civilians in danger. The strength of Yang's punch blows small craters into the floor. Weiss uses dust that causes minor explosions. Ruby swings her scythe in such large arcs she could easily hit someone if she's not paying attention. Within the context of RWBY's powers, the huntsmen here didn't use "excessive force" because aura, semblances, dust, and insane weaponry are all staples of combat. So... what are they meant to do instead? Find out if Roman is just a normal dude and, if he's not, back out like, "Oh sorry. We can't fight someone our equal because that would require, you know, fighting. We'll wait for the police to capture you. They'll have a much better time without training, semblances, or any other combat resources, I'm sure..." 

This single excerpt sends us right back into the "Huh?" territory. What are a huntsmen's responsibilities then? What are they legally allowed to do? And why are these expectations so inconsistent across the franchise? I know the answer here is that the group was pardoned by Ironwood, but it still seems absurd that we watched them steal military property, attack an official, cause a major grimm attack, and actively hide from the authorities... and all that's presented as fine. But trying to stop the guy currently robbing a bank? Well, that’s a suspendable offense. And we know this was taken seriously because Roman runs into one of the huntsmen later, a Roch Szalt, and we learn that his license wasn't just suspended, he lost it entirely. These side characters are out of their livelihood for defending the people while RWBYJNOR gained licenses for endangering them. There's something fundamentally wrong with your world building when your protagonists primarily get by on such massive inconsistencies. 

Part Eight: The Last Section, I Swear

This is another aspect of the novel that I really hesitated over including, just because I do think there's a line between legit criticism and unkind nit-picking. In the end though, enough of a trend emerged that I thought I'd toss it out, especially since I've recently been pondering the question, "How does RWBY treat its women?" The answer should be obvious, right? This is a show about four girls fighting evil! Yet as the webseries continues, fans are noticing more and more divergences from that initial premise. Like creating a world where women are almost never in the primary positions of power. Like giving Jaune and Oscar the active, plot-forwarding scenes that should belong to Ruby and her team. Like that frat boy mentality I mentioned earlier on. The purpose here isn't to analyze that aspect of the webseries, I simply wanted to lay out where my thoughts were while reading Roman Holiday. 

The disclaimer? Neo is great. The strange intersection between her identity and her semblance aside, I think she's entertaining, well-rounded, and the fact that she is given not just half the book's chapters, but that focus mentioned in Part One, resulted in a well-developed character. However, outside of Neo the women are frustratingly built around the same thing: sex appeal. Honey Wine is the club singer whose semblance lowers customers' inhabitations, acting like a Remnant version of a siren. The twins — despite those pedophilia rumors about Roman proving unfounded — are the butt of girlfriend/"You're cute" jokes, drawing attention to their developing looks more than their combat skills, strategies, etc. Both Lady Beat and Carmel, Neo's mom, possess that older woman charm expected of high society ladies. They're dangerous because they can acquire information and they acquire that information by looking the part: pretty smiles, fine clothes, figures that catch the eye. Even Lil' Miss, an established character with a lot of power at her fingertips, isn't exempt from this. When Roman first meets her he observes that fashion is clearly a part of her strategic mind, “a plunging neckline and purple corset distracted Roman even more” (19). Distracted, meaning, that Lil' Miss deliberately makes herself look hot so all the straight guys will lose their heads. 

It's a bit more heavy-handed than just some over-used archetypes though, particularly when it comes to making Roman the guy that every girl wants — even when that's just him assuming they want him. Lil' Miss, again, suffers that treatment. “'Is she flirting?' he suddenly wondered. He hadn’t ever considered that she might like him, but if that was the case, he could use that to—” (57). In a similar situation played straight Chameleon, Roman's peer, is introduced with the statement that “She considered him a friend, and plainly wanted more than that" so Roman "continued to string her along” (45). It's that Ilia/Blake dynamic, just with added cruelty and a gender setup that carries completely different implications. Even the minor characters aren't safe from Roman's charms. Lisa Lavender — you know, Remnant's reporter? — receives flowers from Roman after she labels his robbery “one of the most brazen displays of lawlessness” she's ever seen (117). It's not presented as the villain being creepy though. When Roman contacts Lisa directly, we're given a verbal joke about her maybe interest. She loves... the ratings he brings in. Just the ratings. Of course. 

It's worth noting that Chameleon isn't just reduced to a silly crush whose love allows Roman to escape, she's also the character who "has" to be naked in order to make the most of her semblance. Despite writing in an Atlas cape that blends into various backgrounds, Myers still emphasizes the absolute necessity of this woman fighting naked: 

“She didn’t wear much clothing these days, both because it thwarted her natural camouflaging abilities, and because when she chose to show herself, it could be quite distracting... she stripped for added stealth—it wouldn’t be the first time” (81, 85). 

It's a writing choice that I personally despise. And make no mistake, it is a choice. In a world with magical abilities and futuristic tech, there's no reason to make the presumably young woman — we're never given an age, but Chameleon is written to be particularly naïve — getting naked in front of others, especially a man that is stringing her along. Clothes only "thwart" a magical ability when the author says it does. Why can't semblances make outfits camouflage too? Because then there wouldn't be an excuse for the hot women to strip. 

Particularly for more important characters like Lil' Miss or Lady Beat, these aspects are not the sum total of their characters... but there's enough there to be wince-worthy if you're already sick of such trends; already keeping an eye out for what RWBY writes in regards to gender. I think a good way to summarize Roman Holiday's idea of feminism is when Neo is staking out a coffee shop and Roman asks her to bring him a coffee when she comes back. She returns with an empty cup reading, "Get your own coffee." It's clearly meant to be this empowering moment — how dare the man ask for food like she's some servant! — except it's ruined by the context of the situation. Namely, that Neo is already at a coffee shop. And Roman isn't rude about asking for one. And they've already traded presents in the form of a crazy expensive parasol for her and a new hat for him. Asking your crime partner, who just happens to be a women, to pick up a coffee on her way home when it’s clearly not a hassle, is not the outdated insult Myers seems to think it is. And that's what a lot of these choices are: details that don't break the novel by any means, but come across as out of touch none-the-less. 

Part Nine: The End (Okay, This is the Final Section) 

The novel concludes with Roman and Neo flying off together, avoiding the authorities, nothing they have to do except "set the world on fire" (208). It's a rather bittersweet ending given Neo's certainty that no one will ever catch them because we know, eventually, Roman will die and Neo will be left alone. I quite like ending things on that optimistic note, both because it fits their current mindsets and because it adds that extra, emotional punch for the reader. Their story isn't done... but it will be soon. 

And thus ends my review as well! Review? Analysis? Little mix of both, I suppose. Hardly the most succinct thing I've ever written, but what did anyone expect. Final thoughts? I still liked the novel. Despite everything above — despite re-wading through eight major problems I had with the text, ranging from minor preferences to arguably massive mistakes — my overall takeaway remains, "I'm glad I read it." It's been a long time since I actively enjoyed a RWBY story; where my entertainment and appreciation of the writing outweighed the problems I had with it. I know I'm far from the only one currently dissatisfied with the canon, so if you're looking to re-ignite some of that old, RWBY spark? Give Roman Holiday a try. 

And, of course, thank you for reading! 💜

[zero-affect]

On Mark Fisher, Hauntology and Acid Communism

17 May, 1980 – On the night Ian Curtis killed himself, he watched Werner Herzog’s Stroszek on the BBC. Herzog’s existential tragicomedy is an askance vision of the American dream where the soul and sanity slowly erodes. Escaping physical torment in Berlin, alcoholic busker Bruno Stroszek migrates to rural Wisconsin with prostitute Eva and elderly neighbour Scheitz in hope of a better future, only to be broken further by illusionary promises of prosperity. Here, they kick you spiritually, Bruno says, and ‘do it ever so politely and with a smile, it’s much worse’. Eva leaves Bruno as bills amount and his mobile home is repossessed and auctioned off. Scheitz (whose mind has decayed) and Bruno attempt to rob a bank. They find it closed and instead stick up a barber shop. Scheitz is arrested and Bruno flees to a drab Cherokee amusement-park in a truck with his remaining possessions: a shotgun and a frozen turkey. The film’s conclusion reproaches any promise of a meaningful future existence as life deteriorates into absurd repetitions: the truck drives itself in circles until it catches fire, Bruno rides a chairlift up and down until he shoots himself – “Is this really me![?]” emblazoned on the back of the seat – and, most prominently, a chicken dances around and around and will not stop.

 Watching these final moments now, it’s easy to see how Stroszek could have resonated with the Joy Division frontman and acted as what Herzog would call a ‘ritual step’ to his suicide hours later. The inane loop that Herzog presents feels like he was wiring directly into the interior world of the depressive, a place where any anticipation for the future is foreclosed by a sense of pervasive liminality. In my own experience, this mindless repetition is what depression is most like. Feelings of emptiness pervade much more so than any abject sadness. To be sad suggests the reverse is possible. Instead, life feels devoid of meaning, so there isn’t anything to feel in the first place. You simply go through the motions of life despite feeling that they are pointless and, often, ridiculous. Journeying the arctic wastes, getting closer to nowhere. Joy Division was jacked into this void. Driving bass lines and mutated disco rhythms spoke to the heart of nothing more than gentle instrumentation and whispery vocals ever could – you can dance, but what for?

 But to be depressed is often more than just a chronic mood of despair felt within. The depressive enters an exchange with the world where their mental state is projected onto their surroundings, the same surroundings that seem conducive to that very depression. The repetitive motions of daily life are thus not just absurd to you but seem innately so. In a world that seems destined to collapse in a cocktail of geo-political crises, (cyber)wars and the obsoletion of meatspace it feels pointless to work towards a future that will decay into nothing. Existentialism is a pervasive mood for us younger generations and the increasingly endemic state of mental illness in Britain is not just a reflection of today but of the fact that tomorrow looks no different.

 Mark Fisher believed that this psychological loss of the future is the pathological condition of 21st century subjectivity. In Ghosts Of My Life, he argues that our sense of a linear progression of time has drained away – the futures that were promised yesterday have failed to transpire today. For Fisher, this ‘slow cancellation of the future’ (quoting Franco Berardi) is felt at a cultural level. The rapid forward momentum of 20th century cultural production has been displaced, we no longer experience the radical breaks and dislocations in culture that were felt in the previous century. Instead, a formal nostalgia dominates the present as contemporary mass culture expresses an overwhelming tolerance for the archaic. UK music provides his best examples as artists such as Adele and the Arctic Monkeys have naturalised ‘a vague but persistent feeling of the past’ through their reconfiguration of 20th century sonic qualities. Any progress is now minor and incremental, weighed down by declining expectations – the cutting edge has been dulled. The result of this cultural anachronism is the experience of time being lost, ‘it doesn’t feel as if the 21st century has started yet’. As Adam Curtis says at the beginning of his recent documentary series Can’t Get You Out of My Head, today’s paralysis is ‘giving you today another version of what you had yesterday and never a different tomorrow’.

 This cultural impasse is the product of structural and political conditions. Fisher argues that neoliberal capitalism has deprived us of the resources for artistic experimentation, not only in economic terms but also at the level of consciousness. Increasing demands on time, money and attention means we are we are too tired for original cultural production and attentive consumption; comfort and profit is safe within the already proven familiar. The intense rhythm that life now runs at has reduced our capabilities to dream. Massive collective overstimulation means we are no longer able to journey into the depths of subconsciousness and reach out to what’s on the other side. Our lives in hypermediated cyberspace have replaced neural pathways with proxy minds that endlessly trigger us into states of simultaneous boredom and anxiety, beyond thought and concentration into rapid-fire data processing, what Fisher calls ‘post-literate schizo-subjectivity’.

 As Frederic Jameson explains in his influential essay ‘Postmodernism and Consumer Society’, the schizophrenic experience (used descriptively, not clinically) is one of temporal discontinuity; time and meaning breaks down and the schizophrenic subject can do nothing and becomes no one. Jameson similarly claims this experience of schizophrenia is an expression of the logic of late multinational capitalism whereby consumer society folds into obsessive repetition, an intense, hallucinatory and unbearable experience of being ‘condemned to live a perpetual present’. Stroszek’s temporal loop seems particularly resonant here: the tireless demands of subjectivity create a pointless dance that repeats endlessly and the resulting depression that envelops Bruno is the same that plagues us now. The ‘crushing sense of finitude and exhaustion’ of the 21st century that Fisher describes means we are unable to create unimaginable futures.

 If popular music culture was Fisher’s most applicable symptom when writing in 2013, then popular cinema is the abject example of cultural stasis today. Fisher cites Jameson’s other feature of consumer capitalism’s postmodernity, pastiche, as demonstrative of how culture disguises its archaic form via new technologies. But Jameson’s example of pastiche’s mass culture manifestations, the ‘nostalgia film’, needs to be updated. If Star Wars gratified a deep longing to revisit Buck Rogers serials hidden within its special effects, the continuation of Star Wars today gratifies a longing to return to itself, demonstrating a new level of formal nostalgia. The first of the franchise’s sequel trilogy, The Force Awakens, is shameless in its re-hashing of the (un)original A New Hope. Minute upgrades to iconography, lazy name changes that do little to guise the recycling of archetypes and the pageantry of original cast members and classic props illustrates how the “new” Star Wars is an overt re-run of its own past. Pastiche is now fucking itself.

 The dominance of this hyper-pastiche, the prevalence of reboots, remakes and latter-day sequels, speaks to how the nostalgia film is no longer obfuscated as new but foregrounded as a revival of past forms. An overwhelming reliance on recovering recognisable titles and building franchises based on past media churns out zombie forms that market nostalgia as the norm, a sign that the slow cancellation of the future’s gradual waning of cultural progression has reached its final halted form. Cryostasis. Mass culture doesn’t need to pretend to be new anymore, technology now facilitates artificial immortality to endlessly force a reverence for the past and never move on. Nowhere is this more evident than in the resurrection of actors via CGI. Late capitalism’s relentless desire to sell us the same product on repeat has risen the dead. And it is the inherently soulless and uncanny nature of these undead non-performances which is so exemplary of how popular cinema and the rest of our lumpen mass culture feels so deflating.

 Nothing has changed since Ghosts Of My Life’s release in 2014, at least not for the better. But whilst Fisher was able to chart the slowdown of time by contrasting the lassitude of today with the futures projected by the ‘recombinatorial delirium’ of Jungle, Trip Hop and the rest of the experimental music culture he experienced in the 90’s, I’m part of a generation that has only ever known the malaise of the 21st century. The depression that Fisher describes is caused by the failure of the future, life getting worse, whereas young people today have no sense of difference, we’ve never had a future. The full realisation of Jameson’s postmodernism, where there are no new styles and worlds to invent, means art can no longer offer visions beyond today’s faltering economy, unstable job market and dismal political landscape, not to mention the apocalyptic weight of climate change that the youth of today will be the first to truly contend with. Having never known culture’s true escapist capabilities and only ever a postmodern fragmentation, this generation exists without hope or meaning, even for something that has been lost. The return of the void (Fisher writes: ‘If Joy Division matter now more than ever, it’s because they capture the depressed sprit of our times’). It’s no wonder that British youth live only for occasional weekends and short-lived summers. A half-life of binge drinking in parks, shit club nights and raves-that-aren’t-what-they-used-to-be in hazes of lager, cannabis and amphetamine/ketamine/benzodiazepine infusions that stimulate some remnant of feeling (“I love you mate, but I don’t know who you are”) only to come crashing down into unbearable mornings-after, heart palpitations and devastated mental health. We don’t want to grow up, because there’s no world to grow up into.

 This isn’t to say that contemporary culture is completely devoid of anything worthwhile. There are glimpses of the new and the other, but these arrive disparately. The internet has completely restructured consumption. Paradoxically, the interconnected digital world has made culture feel disconnected from the individual in that it now seems to only exist in the realm of cyberspace, separated from real life and away from something tangible. The spaces of subculture have been reduced to forums and comment sections, drawing in members from around the world but retreating its presence from the milieu of everyday life. Without this tactility, there isn’t a sense of a cultural project, that you’re a part of something bigger. Punk’s outward anger rears its head now and again, yet in the age of personal instability, this energy is often inverted inwards into the mental turmoil and isolation of Post-Punk (see Black Country, New Road). Fisher’s argument is that what is lost in the 21st century is a trajectory, the creative force to create new worlds. The classic YouTube comment-turned-meme, “I was born in the wrong generation”, now seems more than just an adage for 13-year-olds discovering Led Zeppelin or Nirvana. It’s a yearning for a time when cultural production coalesced into a shared energy with which to sculpt the future.

 It’s this emotion of yearning that constitutes Fisher’s reaction against these lost futures, his adaption of Derrida’s concept of hauntology. Hauntology is explained through Freud’s notion of melancholia: a refusal ‘to give up the ghost’ – Fisher’s refusal to adjust to the current conditions. Freud writes that ‘melancholia behaves like an open wound’ and, for Fisher, this wound is his longing for the ‘resumption of the processes’ of the cultural and political momentum of the 20th century. It’s not that the culture of the past was necessarily better than the anachronistic reconfigurations of today, but that the aforementioned energies of cultural production promised more. The libido remains attached to this original, uninterrupted timeline. Hauntology is the virtual spectres of what should have been, a stain on the temporal loop that reminds us that time was supposed to move forwards.

 It admittedly took me a while to “get” hauntology, probably because I’ve never known anything but the depression of the 21st century. The pages that make up most of Ghosts Of My Life are essays about certain hauntological traces and phantom presences that still linger. At first glance, these chapters seem to be little more than disparate fragments of Fisher’s own haunted house, nostalgic vestiges of things he used to love. I wasn’t sure if these ghosts were able to rupture the fabric of futurist defeat. The use of hauntology to describe the sonic textures of artists like Burial and The Caretaker complicated things further in my mind. Hauntology seemed instable, although this is part of its appeal and its very nature. I soon started to understand that the identification of hauntology was an act of resistance, but it wasn’t until I read Fisher’s introduction to Acid Communism that the yearnings started to make sense as alternative possibilities.

 Acid Communism calls for the resumption of the momentum of 60’s and 70’s counterculture. The spectre of this period – ‘a time when people really lived, when things really happened’ – offers a return to the open modes of consciousness that defined countercultural thought and promised unbridled freedoms, freedoms which Fisher again argues have been thwarted by the project of neoliberalism. Fisher writes that the 60’s still haunts us today because the futures projected by the counterculture have failed to happen – another future lost. The exploration and experimentation of new modes of consciousness in this period turned the metaphysical into the mainstream and ‘promised nothing less than a democratisation of neurology itself’. To re-ignite the psychedelic, spiritual and social imagination of the counterculture today would allow us to interrogate the very conditions that subjugate us to the temporal loop and reduce us into somnolent agents of mindless cyberspace. Going back to the notion of depression as a suspicion of modern life’s inherent absurdity, adopting new modes of thought and perception can make us lucid to just how ridiculous our lives today really are. Fisher’s commentary on Jonathan Miller’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is particularly evocative: ‘In the solemn and autistic testiness of the adults who torment and perplex Alice, we see the madness of ideology itself: a dreamwork that has forgotten it is a dream, and which seeks to make us forget too’. What Acid Communism proposes is what hauntology yearns for. To reconnect the trajectories of the past to where they should be now, to carry on where the counterculture left off, to continue the mass exploration into new ways of seeing and thinking, to find the energy needed to break out of the cultural impasse and to invent the futures that are unimaginable now but were once seemingly inevitable.

 However, just like the counterculture, Acid Communism is an unfinished project. Fisher committed suicide in early 2017, leaving behind just a draft of the introduction. Acid Communism has become hauntological in itself, leaving us to wonder what new futures could have been imagined if the book was completed and if Fisher lived on and continued to confront our absurd postmodern (un)reality. The phantom that remains, the phenomenal body of work that he left behind, collected in books, articles, lectures and in the databanks of k-punk, haunts us because Fisher’s philosophical resistance, (cyber)punk attitude and unrelenting intellectual creativity continues to be needed and the ideas are only becoming more pertinent.

 Further into the depths of cultural inertia, hauntology is now more important than ever. To keep the wound open resists accepting the continuation of the depressing conditions of the 21st century. But having only ever known time in stasis, it’s hard to be melancholic for a cultural trajectory that I’ve never been a part of. Perhaps the only hauntological trace that can truly resonate for me is Fisher himself. It’s no coincidence that this first blog post is about him. Fisher writes that beginning his k-punk blog was a way of working through his depression and my reasons for writing are similar and directly inspired by his work (the title of this blog comes from a phrase Fisher used to describe the bleakness of depression). Moving through my early twenties has frequently felt unbearable as I’ve become more conscious to how meaningless life is, or rather, how meaningless life now feels. Looking to the future is often an unsettling process in that it’s difficult to imagine anything positive. This sense of precariousness isn’t unique to this time. Yet, I wonder if growing up in the 21st century isn’t wrought with uncertainty but, rather, with a certainty that things will always be empty. Fisher introduced me to alternative possibilities from this painful existentialism. His work is all about uncovering traces of the Outside, finding the future in the strangest of places. Through Fisher I started thinking beyond again, reconnecting with the weird dreamworlds of my childhood.

 The loss of Fisher leaves us with an imperative to continue the project, to continue tracing hauntological spectres, cultural fragments and new (or forgotten) ways of thinking into awakening the future. If we can’t immediately conjure up the counterculture, then we can continue the trajectory of the more immediate ghost that is Fisher’s spirit of resistance. This feels as difficult as it is crucially important. For my generation, depression is inborn, life feels immobile, defeat is hardwired. However, whilst Ian Curtis found confirmation of life’s futility in Stroszek, David Lynch was watching the very same transmission and reportedly was filled with joy and inspiration which motivated him through the difficulties of filming The Elephant Man. This story speaks to Fisher’s optimism at the end of Capitalist Realism: ‘The long, dark night of the end of history has to be grasped as an enormous opportunity[…] From a situation in which nothing can happen, suddenly anything is possible again.’ Life has become malleable, and the void should be seen as a blank canvas. The challenge is to dream again. To find a way to detach ourselves from the numbness and insomnia of cyberspace and the dopamine-laced seduction of the pleasure principle. Exploring the depths of consciousness is not just an experiment of isolated self-discovery, it’s a mode to rediscover a universal humanity. Disconnection becomes connection. Somewhere in the mind lies a communal future and, at a time when there seems to be no such thing, the answer may be unexpected, strange and just what we need.

 Thanks Mark, I miss you.

[static-fanatic-1]

(Edenian Royalty Reader)

(First daughter of Sindel)

A thunderous whip cracked through the thick atmosphere with precision to a man's back. The elderly man's back bent at the sudden pain upon his sliced open wound. He gasped for air under the beating sun and over the scorching hot sands beneath his feet. "Hurry up you lousy man!" Screeched an Osh-Tek guard at the unfortunate soul on the other end of his whip. "The emperor will not abide to this worthless behavior!" He growled again, this time to all of the slaves taken from Edenia's rebels.

(y/n) watched closely with venom as her people were being tortured for a false Emperor. Beside the female, Rain growled as well, his deep and fluid voice echoing rhythmically through her skull. "Filthy Emperor, He does not deserve the throne."

"Correct you are, Rain, once we take control of Outworld it will be no issue to save them and restore Edenia to its former glory."

Rain nodded at the female's words, she was correct in every sense. After the death of Meleena things had become much easier, due to loosing her spoiled self. D'Vorah had made haste in taking her down to feed her filthy hive, and after that the same bug had attempted an escape with a precious amulet. Luckily she was cut short, no telling how bad things could have been. Unluckily it was Kotal Kahn who had taken the amulet into his own hands, using it to further show his power over the realms.

Rain huffed in irritation, Tanya appearing beside him. "I have received word from one of our scouts that Kotal Kahn's Osh-Tekk are making their way back to Edenia soon, possibly to collect more slaves." Tanya spoke clearly with her smooth voice.

"We cannot allow that to happen, Rain, Tanya, we must make haste in our actions. When will the Osh-Tekk be leaving?" (Y/n) spoke up with pain in her voice, her (e/c) eyes showing worry as her eyebrows furrowed. The female couldn't stand seeing her people being hurt.

"Princess (Y/n), I see you are in distress, but only time will allow victory." Tanya proposed. "As for their departure, it was not specified."

Rain turned his body from the buildings edge to the two beside him. "Your majesty, there might be a way to infiltrate the Kahn without him knowing." Rain paused for a second as if to rethink his words.

"I'm listening."

"Ko'atal has yet to know if your existence, you could possibly get into his palace and destroy it from this inside out. Tanya and I will assist from afar."

Tanya gritted her pearly white teeth. "It is not safe for the Princess, besides we do not know if any Edenian has spoiled her surprise."

Rain nodded. "That is true, that is why I was hesitant to propose this tactic, but Princess (y/n) isn't wrong, we need to act fast or else we might lose our chance. The Kahn is becoming stronger with every passing day, time is of the essence.

If Princess (y/n) was to get close to the Kahn then she could sneak Shinnok's amulet away, we could get the upper hand." Rain finished, sitting down on the roof instead of crouching.

Tanya and (y/n) sat down with him, forming a triangle. "Rain is right Tanya, if I could retrieve the amulet then we could easily take back Edenia and take over Outworld. I wish we had time, Tanya, but our forces are falling to the hands of Kotal Kahn, we have only a few men left at our disposal. Not to mention fewer now that Meleena is dead." (Y/n) calmly stated her view on the pressing matter, pointing out claims like the Tarakan's abandoning them after Meleena's demise.

"It is risky, but if that is what you wish to do then I shall not stop you from doing so. I will only be able to support you." Tanya tilted her head down in respect.

"Things will only go wrong once I know where Shinnok's amulet is, and it will be in my grasp by then." (Y/n) stayed calm throughout her speech, a new element of their operation coming to mind. "What about our allies? Kano?"

Tanya lifted her head again, staring into the Princess's (e/c) eyes. "Kano abandoned us after Meleena's death, we have little options now."

"A shame," (Y/n) said. "He still could've had some use." (Y/n) sighed and looked up at the sky, the sun blazing down upon them harshly. "We should leave and plan this out more, we have the last of the layouts for all of this place."

Rain and Tanya nodded, everyone getting off the ground, the Princess and Tanya gripping the biceps of Rain. In a moment of being stuck in the cooling water, the three were taken from the sunburnt lands of the Outworld palace to the lands of the humid Outworld jungles.

"Thank you, Rain." (Y/n) kindly voiced before turning her head in the direction of the small encampment they had created, few Tarkatans wondering around. The princess paused and looked around. "I can't believe we are in such a predicament. From the times long ago, what happened?"

Rain nor Tanya have an answer to their princess, making the atmosphere change into and other worldly silence. The female sighed and continued on her way to a large tent in the middle of the encampment. Tanya followed behind the rightful ruler of Edenia, Rain trailing behind.

"Either way we have little resources and even less time to finish this war, Edenia is in trouble and we need to act soon."

Rain sighed at (y/n)'s words. "We already have some rags for you to wear, but finding a convincing story as to why you are in his palace in the first place."

(Y/n) slightly smirked to herself at the thought. "Kotal Kahn does want slaves correct? So when the Osh-Tekk arrive with slaves I could join my people. From there I could build a reputation in a way to receive a free visit to the Outworlder's Palace. I know it isn't a full proof plan, but there might not be another way to get into his Palace without being hidden in plain sight."

Tanya shifted around in her spot beside the Princess. "You are correct, this all is too close together to figure out a way. All I can say is to find Shinnok's amulet before they find out who you are."

"Do not worry my dear Edenians, I will not fail."

~~~

Osh-Tekk soldiers surrounded the slaves, the Princess hidden within her own people. When she first joined them, they were surprised, but seemed to quickly understand what was going to happen. Freedom was going to happen, and it was going to happen soon.

The Edenians made their way through the sandy streets, the Princess's usual golden and silver outfits to the brownish grey rags the slaves were given to wear. The only issue is that the female was far to fair and beautiful to completely blend in, and the dirt upon her face didn't hide it too well.

Luckily no Osh-Tekk seemed to show much interest in examining their prisoners faces, though there was the two closer members of the Kahn that examined each prisoner a little more in depth.

One man had a raspy yet smooth voice with some sort of hat and many weapon things upon his hips and back. He had shoulder length black hair and tan skin. Every once in a while said man would take on of the things on his hips and twirl them around quiet skillfully before placing them back. (Y/n) honestly found his dexterous handy work quiet impressive.

The other person, or person's one should say, was a large man like beast with a much smaller, child looking creature on his back. They had metallic armor and the smaller one had metal claws. They looked like a strong opponent together.

(Y/n)'s eyes worriedly gazed through the crowd of slaves and soldiers, the crowd coming nearer and nearer to the palace. All seemed to go in slow motion as the mass of new slaves were forced to kneel down in front of the palace stairwell. 

Almost thunderous steps followed the kneeling, (y/n) glanced up in response to the sound. And there he was in all of his glory, the mighty Kotal Kahn. He glared down at the slaves as his closer companions moved to the front of the crowd. "Here they are." Voiced the gruffy man, once again twirling his weapon in his grasp.

Kotal Kahn's lips shifted to the side for a mere second before he made his way down to the slaves, his head held high and his headdress shinning in the sunlight. He stopped in front of a slave, examining them as if looking through their soul. He shook his head. "He will work on the construction." He spoke, a simple sentence with such a heavy weight on each word.

The man he spoke about squirmed and glanced around his fellow Edenians, finding and staring at the Princess with a horrified look. The Princess could see him swallow hard before being kicked in the face by an Osh-Tekk soldier. "Look in front of you." He growled and the whining Edenian below his feet.

Kotal Kahn stared at the beaten slave, following his gaze to the beautiful female kneeling down in rags. The emperor walked his way to the female, stopping in front of her much smaller form. "Who are you?" His deep voice rumbled throughout (y/n)'s being, making her body slightly shake. The princess knew he was intimidating, but it wasn't as horrifying than being up close and personal. "Answer me, Edenian scum."

'I-I am no scum.' Is what (y/n) truly wished to say, but her lousy plan wouldn't allow that. "My title is (f/n (fake name))."

Kotal Kahn lifted her chin with a strange blade, just enough to see into her (e/c) orbs. "And why was he staring at you?" The larger blue man motioned to the slave.

The princess gulped her saliva down her throat. "The Edenians are my dearest friends. They trust me as I trust them."

He lowly hummed to himself and turned his head to look at the other Edenians. "Their trust in you is useless. Servant."

Again Kotal Kahn moved to another, assigning the males construction and the few females as servants. It pained the princess to just sit down and watch all of this take place, but she bit her lips throughout the entirety of the whole visit.

The Osh-Tekk soldiers grasped everyone and took them to their corresponding places, the palace being just in reach of the princess.

~~~

The room was filthy and undeserving of Edenians, much less the rightful ruler of Edenia and Outworld. The room (y/n) was staying in wasn't the worst, yet it wasn't the best. It wasn't exactly large, but it had a bed and desk along with a small dresser. It was questionable to give a servant this type of room, and it was more unusual for her not to be sharing a room with another one of her people.

No Osh-Tekk has been around either to tell her to do anything, and it was honestly worrying to not be doing anything. Did he already know? If so, how?

The door opened to reveal and Osh-Tekk, he stood tall and moved to the side to allow free movement out the door. "There is a job for you to do."

(Y/n) nodded and followed the man, her head down while she listened closely to the footsteps throughout the halls. The two beings wondered for what seemed to be an eternity until she was met with the throne room. "Clean." The Osh-Tekk kicked behind the Princess's knee, knocking her to the ground right in front of Kotal Kahn. A wet sponge was thrown in front of the female.

Bitterly, she took the sponge and started her work, cleaning the stone. Though, where was the other servants? Were they even safe, or were they already slaughtered?

(Y/n) gulped a lump down her throat as she scrubbed harder against the cold stone. The feeling of the Kahn staring down her back more intense every passing second, and it scared her. (Y/n) had refused to be fearful of a lower power, but she knew something was wrong. Something was so wrong.

~~~

A week has passed since (y/n) has become a servant for the person she had sworn herself to kill. Rain and Tanya still haven't received any form of signal, nor has Shinnok's amulet shown itself. Time was becoming tighter and tighter, but no one has revealed her secret, so doing something soon would be ideal.

Princess (y/n) glanced out the window, it has been dark for several hours now. The (h/c) haired female slightly opened the door to her room, silence was being given. She crept out, making sure to shut the door behind her as she started her way down the hall in a bitter silence.

Throughout her search she saw very few guards, and the only issue was dodging the gaze of the large and small guards, the one with the metallic claws. And even though the two had more eyes too see her, she was just able to make it past them without too much of an issue.

(Y/n) now was in a strange hallway, one with a large door at the end of it, was this where it was stored? Joyfully and almost dashing, she hurriedly made her way to the large doors, her shoeless feet making the lightest of noises in her hurried attempt to find the amulet.

As the doors grazed the Princess's fingers a shiver ran up her spine, it must be from the power of the amulet, what else could it be from? She slightly opened the doors, entered and closed them behind her ever so softly. A small smile graced her lips as she rested her head against the doors.

Strong arms wrapped around (y/n)'s waist, squeezing tight enough to keep her in place, but that wasn't needed, for she was frozen in fear. "Now, Princess (y/n), why might you be here?" The deep voice bellowed through her head.

Something was caught in her throat, something stiff and rigid.

"And why can't you speak? Did I surprise you so suddenly?"

"H-how? How did-did you know?!" A sudden feeling washed over the Princess, and struggling became top priority. (Y/n) thrashed and whipped around in his iron grip.

"Ah, don't you remember the tournament created by Shao Kahn, to take over Edenia all those years ago? Well I was fighting in it, at the time I was the General of the Osh-Tekk army and fighting in the tournament was something I was told to do. That is when I met you, a beautiful Princess, the eldest daughter of Sindel. I fought you, and since then I have become infatuated with you. And you just decided to crawl into my arms, more than once." His breath became prominent upon her ear lobe, making her shiver all the more. "How lucky of a god I must be."

"Ko'atal?" Princess (y/n) glanced over her shoulder to meet Kotal Kahn's turquoise orbs, a lustful glare stuck inside them.

"So you do remember, good, then you remember what I did."

~~~

Edenia was stuck in a time of fear, Shao Kahn had made his way to a throne like chair on the opposite side of a coliseum, and the Queen and King of Edenia had sat on the opposite side, a worried look on their faces. "Mother, father, I will not fail this trial."

"I know you will, (y/n), all I can say is to take your challenger down at all costs."

"Yes mother." (Y/n) bowed at Sindel, giving her her respects before walking to the balcony of the colosseum, the gravel decorating the grounds below.

The horns bellowed below, telling all to look into the pits as the challengers approach. (Y/n) glanced at her mother, watching her nod, and then turned to descend into the pit.

Her golden and silver dress flowing behind her, the Princess's gorgeous (h/c) following her dress. A chest plate, shoulder pads, knee pads, and gauntlets covered her being to protect her from attacks.

"I am Princess (y/n) of Edenia," She paused and listened to the hushing crowd. "Bring your first challenger Shao Kahn!"

Yes, she would be fighting two people to protect Edenia, and it would be the most important fights of her life.

Shao Kahn scoffed and leaned to someone beside him, a pale and large man with inky black hair and skull armor. From below she could vividly see his nose piercings and his bloody eyes. The two above exchanged unknown words before departing, the man with the inky black hair leaving the emperor with the skull mask.

The man with the inky black hair showed himself as the newest challenger to the princess, his strength being shown through his height and muscle. "I am Ko'atal, General of the Osh-Tekk army, and I am your challenger!"

"So be it, Ko'atal, meet your demise!"

"I do not think so." Ko'atal was the first to make an attack, cutting his hand in the process for what seemed to be more power.

(Y/n) smirked to herself, finding his growth in power to be useless against someone of a high range. Golden orbs fumed in her hands as her body slowly started to float above the rough gravel. She aimed the orbs at Ko'atal and fired four of them, the man dodging them with speed.

The princess scoffed and flew away as he kept up his pace and skillfully dodging her attacks, coming a little too close on some of them. She flew above and over Ko'atal so he couldn't upper cut her jaw and quickly end this fight. Instead of him attacking her, she used her palm to hit his nose and then his throat. Accidentally forgetting the nose piercing, a long and jagged cut was found all the way down her palm, but she ignored it.

The fight kept going for a while, the Princess being kept on her toes as Ko'atal kept his advances at maximum. Soon he had grabbed her forearm, taking her down in a swift moment and a even more swift upper cut to the stomach. He tore out his strange blade and gave (y/n) multiple cuts upon her shoulders.

(Y/n) was pulled and slammed down harshly onto the gravel. "A shame a flower like you must be cut."

"Your compliments are given to deaf ears, Ko'atal." She head butted the man, yet it seemed to be ineffective against his raw strength. The two grappled for a small bit, Ko'atal having the upper hand, he landed on top of her and punched her square in the jaw. The princess growled and screeched in his ear, not as powerful as Sindel's screams, but still louder than a normal Edenian's.

Ko'atal winced, being thrown off onto the ground beside the princess. This was her chance, she cradled his hips with her thighs and summoned orbs for the last time. "We might meet again another time, Ko'atal." (Y/n) commented with a smirk before using her orbs to knock her challenger.

In doing so, she could almost feel the rage seething out from under Shao Kahn's mask. (Y/n) stood up and moved from Ko'atal's unconscious body. "Bring me your next challenger, Shao Kahn!"

From that point Ko'atal was taken by Baraka and a reptilian creature known ironically as Reptile. Soon the next challenger approached, a prince named Goro, and their fight ended in a similar way, with (y/n) winning.

Not too long after did everyone part their own ways, Shao Kahn staying in a room in the Edenian palace for simplicity reasons. His champions and fighters also staying somewhere in the palace as well.

Ko'atal recovered from the sudden blast of energy, luckily it wasn't as damaging blow, it seemed the blow wasn't intended to kill him.

As he walked around the palace, making his way to Gods know where, he stumbled upon the view of a beautiful Edenian princess in the gardens. She didn't notice him, and he found that quite alluring, and seeing her golden and silver dress gleam in the sunlight along with her perfect (s/c) skin, she was stunning to simply put it.

This is when a strange feeling washed over him, a feeling of lust for not just her body, but her mind as well. He was obsessed.

~~~

His hands slithered down her waist, his right hand taking a hold of the scared palm. "I knew it from the beginning, from the scars that matched the ones I gave you all those years ago, to your facial structure I've memorized. Now," He took her hand and twisted her body around to face him, his bare chest connecting with her dainty hands.

A crazed look entered his eyes as he smiled widely. "Marry me."

"Wh-What?!" (Y/n) attempted to push him away, but even when he was weaker back then she wouldn't be able to push away. "No! No, you helped take away and ruin Edenia! I will never marry you!"

Kotal Kahn grind his teeth together in anger. His voice echoed throughout his chambers in a thunderous way, mimicking the whip from a week ago. "That was not a request."

~~~

Rain and Tanya were found not too long after the forced marrying of Princess (y/n) and Kotal Kahn. The princess begged for their lives, but they were executed with no mercy. Kotal Kahn still is in possession of Shinnok's amulet and his power grows with every passing day and with each passing day Princess (y/n) becomes more and more powerless.

Princess (y/n) was never able to free herself from his memory.

[45paperplates]

More about Olivia Rodrigo: On her Lyrics

Starting some time in 2018 or maybe a little earlier, Olivia Rodrigo began to play original songs, or more often pieces of songs, one verse and a chorus, apparently unfinished, for her followers on Instagram Live. She was about fifteen at the time, although one of the more complete songs (“Naive Girl”) can be confirmed to date back to 2014 or 2015, when she was twelve years old. I began to listen to these songs, all but one of which are available to hear conveniently compiled into a single twenty-five minute Youtube video, when my appetite for her music was only beginning to grow to its present size, after I had listened to the album on repeat for a good three or four days straight. They are the kind of thing only obsessive fans can really gush over, something akin to Bob Dylan’s early Minnesota Hotel Tape from 1961: badly recorded and casually created by a young artist who never intended them to be anything more than they are, a fun and easy way to show off their talent at a time when a wellspring of inspiration was already pouring forth with no better available outlet.  

These little pieces, however, establish finally for sure what a major label pop debut with other ambitions, no matter how special it may be, can only hint at, which is that something within her is driving a preternatural attention for detail, currently unmatched in it’s free naturalism, imaginative power, and consistency, only possibly consistent as a result of its being deeply possessed and long established, despite her youth. I have already touched on what I think that something may be in my first post about her. But whatever it is, it is immediately apparent in her performances here, an instinct that had already cemented deeply considered vocalization as her default, as a simple creative necessity, although a few of the earliest recordings have added even another layer of Broadway-like drama that has since been stripped away, I am guessing as a result of the nascent growth of some level of creative confidence.

Songwriting, then, is to some degree shown to be a third result of that engrained ability, after said holistic sincerity and its resultant vocal intuition, and yet a good chunk of the songs are lyrically composed as well with a just as holistically sincere and intuitive affect, presenting very well-understood conundrums, pared down to koan-like solids one would think by years of rumination. A few are, I would dare to say, more tightly constructed and figuratively multivalent than the songs on her album, many of which share their succinctness but not the violently prismatic irony that seems to be able to overpower the sincere creative drive that gave it life in its brightest inspired flashes. “drivers license” in fact excels by flattening that figurative prism into a simpler and more benign shape, allowing the casual listener to both easily understand and retain some wisp of hope in the end, even if it is only implied.

I would not be so stupid as to claim that Olivia intended these best-written of her unreleased bedroom productions to be metaphysical poems somehow toeing the line between classical balance and baroque terror in their meditation on the reciprocal quality of human sin. That would be silly, not because I don’t think a teenager is capable of such a thing (teenagers have, in fact, always been capable of making high art) but because these few songs focus on themes common to all of her songs: teenage insecurity, uncontrollable jealousy, and betrayal both social and self-inflicted. The depth of her imagery comes instead, I think, from an intuitive understanding of where the cultural meat of an issue lies, and when she writes a song her drive craves and so aims for power and gets rid of whatever there is that lacks it. Perhaps working with a co-writer somewhat slows that drive.  

“Pretender” is a song about being “fake” and how it works both outwardly and internally. It’s personification, the “pretender” of the title, is accused, envied, pitied, and ultimately, understood. It moves through four key lines.

Pointing her finger at this automaton, about whom she alone knows the truth, Olivia first wishes vindictively,

If only they knew what I knew.

But then, now envious of the figure, she prays,

I wish I knew what you knew.

Maybe as a result of these two contradictory desires, she is forced to admit with regret that the pretender can only be a fantastic image rather than a full person, a strawman created by her mind to both embody her sublimated desire and reflexively maintain her own superiority when it goes unfulfilled:

I created you to be plastic and deadly.

Finally, in a relentlessly logical conclusion, she must admit, as the construction falls to pieces, that this is obviously all about herself:

I created you to hide my own envy, ... Maybe I’m a pretender like you.

With her catalog in mind, the canonical interpretation is pretty obvious. The pretender is someone who is perfect and happy and Olivia is jealous of that. By the guilt left in the wake of her accusation, she realizes, indeed it should have been quite apparent from the start, that perhaps the person who seems to be happy is actually not happy. She perceives by juxtaposition that maybe others see her, Olivia, the same way, and in a sinking conclusion, perfect happiness, the other’s and hers as well, is shown to be only truly possible in image and never in the fullness of experience. It is a song about the difficult process of empathy and its bitter personal rewards. This interpretation prevails in Youtube comments, specifically in reference to her other songs about the jealousy encouraged by social media. “I’m happy for them, but then again, I’m not.” Maybe Olivia’s own fun and carefree public-facing presence is just as false?

The genius behind this songwriting, however, is that this other person does not need to exist for the song’s structure to function. This is by design, no doubt; she could very well be speaking only to herself the entire time. If Olivia is pretending too, as the final line suggests, then why could she not have been the pretender all along? Indeed, how else could Olivia be the only one who knows “the truth” about this figure in the first place? A personal struggle with identity, that is the meat of it all.

Her first wish for the pretender’s exposure is based in personal remorse, for lying to the world about who she really is. That her own social facade might be justly but violently forced open to expose the truth would be a painful but cathartic release. She makes her second wish as she recoils in the face of such an embarrassing prospect, hoping against reason that maybe it’s somehow all avoidable, that by abandoning any loyalty to the truth and to herself altogether she might in fact achieve the paradise that the pretender affects, soulless but free of the pain of having a soul too. Third is the realization that this is evil, that her desire is sinful, both grotesque and inhuman (“plastic”), and cruel (“deadly”). Fourth and last she can no longer pretend that her original finger-pointing isn't itself the result of this same worldly desire, as narcissistic an attempt at personal redemption as the outward facade is itself. Insecurity and jealousy, no matter how embarrassing or ugly, no more compose an understanding of identity than any more knowingly-constructed and performative self-image, and are just as self-serving in their own twisted way.

So in this song she is deconstructing herself, from outward composure to cryptic narcissism, shattering layer after layer in an alarmingly accelerating regression. Unfortunately, all that is left in the end is what she has done after what she is—performatively, emotionally, intuitively—has fallen away, specifically the intended result of the accusation she threw at the pretender to begin it all: once again, guilt. What else but guilt is exposed now to be the substance left of the human individual? For Olivia, deep down at least, guilt is always the together creator and eraser of human pleasure, the identity that is desire, and the only thing that fears the emptiness that would be left without it.

That a teenager could write such a penetratingly self-critical work is of course impressive, but the fact that guilt, desire, pleasure, happiness, identity, and fear are shown ultimately to be one and the same generative source is far more exciting. Here she exposes the potential versatility of her created and creative ability, that in maturity this raw power without singular definition could be manipulated into many other things completely new, things only Olivia and not I can imagine now.

[dear-yandere]

succor.

yandere! jotaro kujo 3. major spoilers for stardust crusaders (part 3). word count: 2,600+. tw: bullying, implied depression, drowning, death, gore, and grief.

art credit: ロク. 

He carries himself with poise, an assurity few could ever possess. He is the personification of perfect — alas, a man who appears perfect, like a statue which leaves many in awe, a statue whose marble insides have begun to slowly erode, a statue who’s already begun falling apart. There exists not a soul who can fix him, no sculptor skilled enough, no human kind enough to fix his flaws before anyone else can catch on; Jotaro Kujo is his own sculptor, and he’s forgotten how to mend his broken pieces.

For as long as he’s known, he’s been a soldier. A boy soldier, who bears the weight of the world atop shoulders of steel, shoulders which shake and tremble when no one is looking. He is a soldier without a commander, a soldier without a purpose, and he was content with that. But he is a soldier who’s fought a battle meant for ten thousand men, a battle which has long ended, a battle which still plagues him; he is a soldier who’s fought god and he is only seventeen.

When did it begin, he wonders? When did his marble bones and stone veins start to crack? Was it that day? Becaues he remembers being bullied. He remembers taking each insult, like poison-laced daggers, and thinking nothing of it. He remembers the wrinkles, the eye bags, the grey hairs which had started to pepper his mother’s face at around the same time. He remembers the questions, the sobbing, her desperate pleas, her hesitant knocks on his bedroom door. He remembers her somehow finding out, remembers her standing up for him, one day, in the school yards. And he remembers his bullies trying to hurt her, too.

He remembers nearly killing them.

It was like the flip of a switch, how quickly he changed. Mom became mother, bitch, nuisance. She can’t understand how he felt in those moments — she couldn’t — because until the day he dies, he won’t let her. Keep her at arm’s length, don’t let her in. No one can know, no one can get close — they’ll just get hurt, too. That’s the funny thing about love: it hurts. To feel loved is wonderful, to be loved is tragic, damning, dangerous. He is a catalyst for disaster, destruction, danger, and everything in between.

Death loves him, and love has never felt so lonely.

He lost a friend that day. Metal had bent around his body like silken sheets, water had sod his clothing without care; if his body hadn’t already run cold, the water would’ve made him sick. He would’ve smiled and laughed it off with his dear friend, would’ve said his injuries are no big deal. He can still see, can still move, can still dream. 

If he’d lived.

He lost a friend that day, the only one he’d ever had.

And then there is you.

You are no different from the rest. Just another body to protect, another set of eyes he must keep from prying. Death loves him, and he’d been foolish enough to fall in love; funny how easily it happened, really. Because when you look at him, he feels as if he’s baring his all. All his insecurities and worries, all the times he’s wanted to break down and cry. It’s a feeling he hates, detests, but it’s something new, something unexpected, something needed. You are not those women who look at him with indignant curiosity. You are not his mother who looks at him with worry. You are not his grandfather nor his dead best friend; you are you, and somehow, you are everything he’s needed.

Love is a funny thing, he recalls, and that thought is enough to clear the darkness around him. It’s calming, at first. The nightmare is over and he must be waking up. Your soothing voice will greet him, as it always does; you’ll hug him, cradle him like a child, and he won’t push you away. But you don’t. You shine, so terribly bright that he has to look away for a moment. There’s warmth, comfort, safety in your direction, but he doesn’t walk forward. He doesn’t deserve it.

Not him. Not the man who let his friends die.

Jotaro, a dark, playful voice begins, echoing from the depths of nowhere. It’s familiar; far too knowing, far too cunning, far too demonic. Jotaro feels his mind start to unravel like loose threads, and the voice feeds off this, like a parasite.  If you love your friends and family so much, why do you never tell them? 

“What do you want?” Jotaro barks at nothing and turns toward the dark, turns away from you. Secretly, Jotaro has always been scared of the dark, but right now it was oddly welcoming. The dull beat of that voice, distorted and tinny, still seemed clear, pristine, ethereal. As if the voice had hands which he could not see, they wrapped around his neck like a noose and pulled. Gravity itself seemed to pull at his neck, pushing him further and further into the unforgiving abyss of the darkness as if swallowing him whole. 

Why is he here?

Just as his back hits the waters, the sudden impact knocks the oxygen out of his lungs within a second, before he’s plunged right beneath the surface. His eyes are open, even as salt-water pierced and burned; he was certain before, but this is too real to be a dream. It it weren’t for the fact that he could’ve perished any moment now, the sight before him would’ve actually been beautiful. Nothing but a color palette of deep sea blue clouded his peripheral vision with colors that were excruciatingly breath-taking in real life. 

But he isn’t deceived.

I want to wrap my brain around that head of yours, Jotaro. So, enlighten me... The disembodied voice mocks, feeling like blood rushing against his the insides of his head. It’s closer this time, over his shoulder, next to his ear, and there’s a familiarity to its tone — a familiarity he doesn’t want to acknowledge just yet. Surely telling them you care is easier than breaking your body over and over again.

Jotaro chews on the question with a hint of unmistakable disgust before spiting it out. He hears the voice laugh that mocking song once again, and the light shining from above almost feels like they’re mocking his every movement, too. They watch his arm shoot upwards, silently and slowly for their help — and they laughed. The gears in his brain start turning, willing his limbs to work as legs weakly kicked up in desperate search for air. Realization soon beats itself into his slowly-drowning lungs, and he’s left to face questions that no one but he knows the answers to.

How did he get here? Is he awake? Is he alive?

Answer me, little mortal. We haven’t got all night. The voice goads, and it feels like sharp needles have stuffed themselves into the canals of his ears. Jotaro hisses, and the voice seems content with the response, at the least. Or, perhaps you’d prefer to drown? What a peculiar way for a marine biologist to go, but humans never cease to amaze me.

Jotaro struggles to answer the voice which claims to be inhuman, but dark waters only drain into his mouth like rapids. Time wasn’t even on his mind at this point, but he couldn’t help but wonder how long he’s been underwater. The ocean seemed to pin his legs and arms into icicles, keeping them from thrashing everywhere. Soon, his attempts on fighting for oxygen were getting much more pathetic — much weaker with each kick.

‘Is this how I die?’ He thinks, chuckling at the irony. The feeling of agreeing with the voice is bitter, but its words are not wrong. To think he’d die in the embrace of something he’s spent his life researching. And even so, he wastes no time in reaching a conclusion: ‘Still not a bad way to go.’ 

Not that he'd been holding onto hope in the first place, but witnessing the light stray further from his grasp was anything but welcoming. It’s clear that his mind and body were slowly starting to lose motivation in fighting against fate. His fate.

And right now, he’s drawing nearer to the finish line.

His limbs had eventually stopped responding and allowed gravity to drag his body into the never ending abyss he’d always marveled at when he’d been alive. And despite condemning himself to his fate, the hopelessness seethed in gradually. Human nature, he concluded; to want what you cannot have is human nature. He knows that better than most.

Once his air supply ran tight, his mouth instinctively opened up once again, allowing water to flow in through his nostrils and throat. Every 'breath’ made him choke on the saltiness of the ocean waters, lungs struggling to hang on as the water slowly crushed its cage from inside and out. Barely even able to hear his own thoughts, he assumed his eardrums burst from the insane depths he was being pulled into. His eyelids grew heavy like boulders and finally drooped; he had already succumbed to the thought of death — he couldn’t even cry in anguish or relief, but perhaps the downpour above the waters was crying for him instead. The thought was comforting, to know that someone, some thing would mourn his death.

His back hits the ocean floor like a sunken ship, and he believes he’s dead until the voice speaks again: Have you had enough time to think, little mortal? Its words are scathing, and by far the last thing he wants to hear on his death bed, but with it, came air. It seemed an impossible feat at the bottom of an ocean no human has visited before, but the air is crisp and fresh. Jotaro drinks it up, gulping it down in excess, reveling at how it fills his lungs with life. The water he’d inhaled and drunk doesn’t even seem to exist, at the moment, but he hasn’t the state of mind to dwell on that.

“Where am I?” He chokes out, still tasting the bitter tang of salt against the back of his throat. The voice seems to echo around him, and he finally realizes that he is still on the ocean floor. Sea creatures he’s never seen flit around him, and despite the stark absence of any light, he can see them clear as day.

Only you know that. The voices hums, creating a vibrato in the seawaters, a sound that seems to manifest into arms and once again coil around Jotaro’s neck, like a noose. He wants to scream and thrash and fight, but the comforting presence of Star Platinum within his core is... vacant. 

I shall repeat myself. If you love your friends and family so much, why do you never tell them? The question seems out of place at the bottom of an ocean filled with light and air, but the entity leaves no room for Jotaro to dwell. The heavy stench of iron is immediately recognizable, and Jotaro realizes there’s a gash in his chest. Pale fingers, topped with blackened fingernails which have grown awfully too long, held his intestines away from his torso, the flesh coiled tightly around the hands of a man he once knew.

A man who should be dead.

And yet, here he is. And yet, there is no pain.

“Because...” The words slip past his lips before he knows how to finish. Because what? Because he’s an asshole who can’t put his feelings into words? Because he’s a fool who deserves to suffer alone? Because...

“Because I’m afraid.”

The voice cackles, creating distortions in the sand bed and deep sea water, and yet he could recognize it as clear as day. DIO.

Oh? Is that so? DIO runs a tongue over his lips, deciding to humor his little plaything. Then, hypothetically, if you do tell them you love them, what are you so afraid will happen?

Jotaro doesn’t respond.

I’m waiting.

“...I don’t know.”

Liar. DIO bites and lightly pressing a claw-like fingernail into Jotaro’s jugular. It’s not polite to lie.

“I...” The pool of blood at his feet is disorienting, vivid and real despite the darkness around him. “It’s not that I don’t want to trust them, I...” He reaches out to cup the hand still jutting from his stomach. How odd it is to see such a horrific sight and feel no pain; and it all clicks into place. Jotaro chokes up for a brief moment, hoping a reply will make this all end. “...It’s dangerous to show you care. If they knew, and if my enemies knew how important they are to me, then...”

This isn’t real. None of this is real. How many times has he had this nightmare? And how many times has he imagined just that — the corpses of his loved ones plastered along the streets? The screams that won’t stop? The look of fear and hope on their faces?

That hasn’t happened, yet, and yet he faults himself: how can he be so weak?

There we go. DIO clicks his tongue and gently strokes his great grand-nephew’s hairs — something he no doubt imagines to be an affectionate pat. Not so hard, is it? Jotaro nods, too weak to stand up for himself. This nightmare never ends. You’re afraid of being too vulnerable. DIO coos and twists his blood-covered arm, deepending Jotaro’s unreal wound. You’re afraid of being too... weak.

The ghost’s words always sting, but this nightmare has become so commonplace, so normal — as easy as breathing, despite the waters around him — that Jotaro hasn’t the strength to feel anger. It’s not like DIO is wrong. He is afraid, he is weak, and above all, he’s afaraid of being weak.

But, how curious it is, little mortal. Hasn’t anyone ever told you— the voice begins to chastise, but is cut off; its words don’t reach his ears. Rather, there’s a soothing scent, with familiar aromas he can’t quite place. But the serenity is short lived. The air Jotaro seemed to be breathing dissipates, and he’s drowning again. His throat burns as if a thousand of needles were piercing it all at the same time, chest clenching itself suffocatingly tight; it’s hell all over again. He couldn’t help but feel pathetic for not acting sooner, especially when the exit was right in front of him, even if it wasn’t anywhere near his reach. Now that chance was thrown carelessly out the window, with no means on returning back to his grasp— 

And his sinks.

As he struggled to keep himself afloat and conscious, black spots started to paint his vision one by one, and that’s when time was obviously running out. His eyelids give up —

And then he wakes up.

There’s a gentle, shaking motion, like a boat — as if he’s being cradled and soothed like he had been as a child. He can’t place it immediately, but you’re whispering soft little assurances into his ear, brushing strands of ebony hair which had plastered itself to wet skin. He realizes that the sweet scent from before is you. He can’t discern your words, not fully, not over the sound of blood rushing to his ears. If your arms weren’t wrapped around him a like a safety net, he’d still think he’s drowning, dying; but, the glimpses of words he’d catch every so often were enough to comfort him. You assure him that he’s still very much alive, that he’s awake, that nothing can hurt him, that it was all a nightmare.

It was just a nightmare.

Hasn’t anyone ever told you? The undead voice chimes, but your voice, clear as day, replaces its mocking tone, and Jotaro melts. He gazes upwards, into your eyes which hold the moon and all its stars and he suddenly remembers that wishes are made upon them.

“It’s okay to be weak, Jotaro.”

inspired by this.

[demonfox38]

Completed - Baba is You

I can't believe this is the first game I've perfected on Steam.

Like, I don't like achievement systems in video games, okay? I prefer to set my own goals. Sure, there are some achievements that are interesting, like learning to use a certain mechanic in a cool or efficient manner, visiting hidden rooms, or even running around with nothing but my character's default busted sword just to prove a point. Mostly, I just want to finish them. I don't go jumping through flaming hoops because I want people to think I'm cool. I'm from Iowa. I'm critically uncool by design.

If a game is good, I will put in the extra work. Like, getting 100% souls in "Castlevania: Aria of Souls" and 200.6% map completion in "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night" is now just routine for me. With "Baba is You"? Well, circumstances are just a teeny bit different.

"Baba is You" is a puzzle game from independent developer Arvi Teikari. Your primary goal in the game is to create statements out of nouns, verbs, and conditions and use those generated rules to complete levels. It's basically catnip to programmers. These puzzles are packaged in cute, scribbly animations and gentle music. Ultimately, its soft presentation is the figurative sheep's clothing under which the wolf of this game lives, dragging its players through increasingly more complex situations, sitting there, laughing, its whole world wiggling in its adolescent mockery of you and your sluggish brain.

You're not always even Baba. I know. The absolute betrayal.

I originally saw this game being streamed back in 2019. A frustrating feeling overtook me as I watched the player work through the puzzles. I could feel myself solving them before she could, and it was making me itch. I didn't want to have any more spoiled without giving it a shot myself, so I purchased the game, put in a few hours, and then dropped it for two years. Hell, the major reason I came back to it was that I was babysitting my mom's very needy poodle, and I was more or less trapped on the couch with her during her entire stay. Had to do something. So, I decided this was it.

"Baba is You" really is the ultimate "Yeah, I'll get back to this" game. You know what I mean? There's always a handful of games that you make a little headway into, and then you think, "Yeah, I'll get back to this" and then drop it. I try not to be this way. Video games are expensive, and I want to get as much value as I can out of them. But man, does this game get overwhelming.

I mean, the TAS for a 100% run is currently around an hour and forty-five minutes. That's for 226 puzzles. That is a lot.

Granted, you don't have to finish every puzzle if you don't want to. The game can let you slide free with your first ending after completing only three subworlds on the main map. You know how many people get to that first ending? Like, we're talking maybe getting through 3 hours of gameplay or so. As of this posting, it's around 7.8% of all players on Steam. In comparison, here are first time ending numbers from other games I own on Steam:

"Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon" – 38% (Cleave the Moon)

"Trine" – 29.6% (Completed!)

"Dust: An Elysian Tale" – 23.9% (…And the Dust Settles)

"Fez" – 14.7% (Kill Screen)

"Psychonauts" – 13.2% (I Thought That Was Unbeatable!)

"Typing of the Dead" – 12.9% (Experimental Fiction)

"Final Fantasy VII" – 9.4% (End of Game)

That's right. From a percentage point of view, more players will put 80 hours into a 20+ year old RPG than 3 hours in this game. So, what's up with that?

At first, I wasn't struggling terribly with the game. I was making a pretty steady clip through it, stopping occasionally to check out the game's wiki. (BTW—view that on a laptop browser, not a mobile one. The background makes it hard to read some of the verbs and conditions.) My first tap-out in 2019 happened around the "Forest of Fall" block, when the game started introducing teleporting puzzles. My second brain-snap happened about 18 hours in the game when I accidentally created the phrase "Level is Key" in the puzzle "Fragile Existence," and then I realized that I could both create this level as Baba and had to create another level as a flag to win the overworld map.

And then there was a submap.

And another.

And another.

Holy crap, my brain was not ready for the mess that was Depths and Meta.

At one point, I stopped myself and reviewed why I was overcome with despair at my own stupidity. A part of it is yes, the game looks very cute, and the language used in the puzzles is very simple. So, when you don't get it, it's like saying you don't get "Sesame Street." And hey, maybe you wouldn't if it was in Mandarin and you only speak English. But, I did want to beat myself up for my sluggish responses and my growing feeling of helplessness. Why couldn't I beat the simple sheep game for babies? Was I really that stupid?

I think it helped to know what troubles I had my playthrough harder. This included:

Using text to push objects past barriers. (Yes, text exists in the world, and unless it's floating, you can use that text to move objects around. It's like hitting a car with a stop sign.)

Assuming attributes on an object that weren't actually assigned (i.e., assuming a door was locked or a wall would prevent me from moving through it, even if that wasn't the case.)

Manipulating text to double-layer nouns or break up commands by wedging an inactive/non-solid object in them. (See: Prison.)

Realizing that "you" doesn't always have to go to a certain destination. Sometimes, "you" just need to have something move over there or push something into where you want to go.

Remembering to use the "Wait" button to let moving objects finish their paths.

"Defeat" is a condition that applies only to "you", not objects in your possession. (They may instead be destroyed by "Sink").

Some rules need to be created and destroyed in the same turn.

Things that move on their own can be used to carry commands through obstacles.

Sometimes, you've just got to count your steps when you're taking an action and see if you can reduce them.

And granted, despite my stupidity, there were some puzzles that really clicked! I particularly enjoyed using the "Word" condition, as it allowed for me to treat both words and objects as a noun to make assignments. There were also times where I had to spell out the commands I wanted from letters left on the map. Fun! Natural! And hell, who doesn't enjoy a good block pushing puzzle, now and again? Super easy. Makes sense. Key is push, door is open. Of course!

Ass is Hot! Of course! (Wait, that wasn’t the solution...)

I tended to lock up more when the "Defeat" piece was on screen. I mean, you can always undo your mistakes, and there's no life limit or anything like that. But, hearing your player character go splat when you mess up is flinch-worthy. Additionally, I hated having to build complex paths for objects to follow. Like, screw the entirety of Adventurers. Also, learning what the "Lonely" condition meant felt very unnatural. It was hard to even tell why I was splatting until I read up on what it meant.

Interestingly, changing the language of the game only affects the menu's language, not the game itself. (I was wondering if adding a layer of comprehension to objects would stop me from auto-assigning properties to them or not. Makes sense that it's all in English, considering the "form objects from letters" puzzles.)

I felt bad when I finally gave up on putting effort into solving the puzzles on my own. I did. But, I was also 18 hours deep into my file in a single week, and I wanted to get back to my other hobbies. I felt that if I gave up on "Baba is You" again, I wouldn't finish it ever. And then, those 18 hours truly would be wasted. Also, I felt sick that only 7.8% of people had gotten to the first ending screen. The game isn't bad! It's hard, but not bad! I wanted to at least give it enough dignity to finish it off, even if I was more or less reading what I needed to build with one eyeball and building it with the other.

And hell. Given all of the version differences of this game and the amount of time that has passed since its release, it is a teeny bit YouTube proof. Not completely invulnerable, but I did catch a difference or two here and there. And it's not like the wiki's the clearest with what you need to do, even when they're telling you exactly what to do. You've got to mind your space with your words. At the very least, don't push anything aside or wreck it until you absolutely must.

I can't emphasize how much I felt bad about giving up. I mean, it's one thing to look at guides for other game types. You can get knowledge on how to beat a boss or level, but you've physically got to develop the skills needed to vault through that goal. With puzzle games, knowledge is 99% of what you need to accomplish your task. The rest is just putting in the solution as elegantly as possible.

92.2% of players didn't bother to do even that.

I won't pretend to say I know enough about puzzles to make an excellent puzzle game. However, I do think brevity would have helped this game. Like, think of puzzle games people like. "Tetris," right? Even a long game of "Tetris 64" lasts me a couple of hours at most. "Portal"? That's a handful of hours supported by plot and fun dialogue. So is the sequel. "Panel de Pon" / "Tetris Attack" / "Puyo Puyo"? Those are like "Street Fighter" arcade campaigns. Like, 15-20 minutes. To have a puzzle game go on for hours and hours without any character motivation or plot in sight? Yeah. That's going to burn a lot of people out.

Like, this game could have just the over world, a single hidden world, and then the Center portion, and that would have been more than enough. And then you know what could have been done with the rest of the puzzles? Put them in a new game! "Baba is More!" Bam! A second game, now with extra "Inception"-styled mind screws! Twice the money earned! (Yeah, okay. This plan might stink of capitalism.)

Making 226 puzzles is impressive. However, brevity is the soul of wit. Sometimes, design can be contradictory like that.

But, its achievements? Perfectly laid out. Truly finishing the game is likely to net you everything. I only had to put in a couple of hours after the true ending, and really, only fifteen minutes of that was solving the puzzles. The rest was just finding what I had missed. (I've heard rumors that "Baba is Baba" is bugged, but I think you just need to look up how to get the Level is Win solution in Meta figured out. The rest is elbow grease.)

I don't know if I can recommend this game. Again, having a case of the bad feels over that statement, especially since it seems like the developer has his heart in the right place. I'm hesitant to recommend this because when I was playing it, I had a migraine that lasted three days straight. Granted, there were possibly some external factors to why I had that. A fat polar vortex. Stress from work. Some hormonal influences. Not enough caffeine or water. Just generally living in the United States in the early 2020s. Plenty of things to crush my skull. I don't think it's in good taste to recommend something that will cause others physical pain. I mean, I'm used to games cracking my hands, but that's not exactly healthy behavior. I certainly wouldn't want to give someone an epileptic attack. Why would I want to drive a nail through their skulls, either?

I do think the game is solidly designed. It's a smart little cookie. But, it is unintentionally discouraging to get through, especially if you feel like you can't ask for help. Like getting a clue or an explanation is cheating.

Look. Try. Try hard. Be as honest and earnest as you can be. Just don't expect to do everything in your life alone, okay? I mean, there are times you've got to get an external perspective. I frequently had to crash after school with mathematics teachers and badger professors to explain topics outside of class. You think I was going to come up with how there are different kinds of infinities on my own? Hell no. I'm not creative in terms of mathematical proofs. But, I sure as hell can explain how different infinities work now! Even post-schooling, I still research topics, particularly when building or fixing things. I wouldn't have learned half of the things I've learned about maintaining game cartridges or building dollhouses without suggestions from professionals and enthusiasts. It's just part of life. You ask for help so you don't burn resources—especially something as valuable as time!

[nagisasstunningpersonality]

The Character As A Tool: Why Your Fave Doesn't Get More Screentime

Please refer to this post

REMINDER THAT ALL VIEWS HERE ARE MERELY MY OWN OPINIONS 

In truth, one of the most common complaints I see within this fandom is the treatment of side characters. Meaning, in short, a fair amount of the fandom are less connected to what’s going on with our main group of Nagisa, Karma, and Kayano, and instead relate to some of the less obvious choices. Now, there’s no problem with doing this. Hey, if you see something you like in a less important character, then absolutely go for it!

What We Do Know

I discovered for myself, whilst making my About Ass Class series posts, that absolutely some characters’ actual canon information is very dry. Matsui gives everyone a few bits here and there in both the Roll Call book and Graduation Album. If you’re lucky, there’s further points you can pick up just from watching/reading.

Now, and this I want to emphasise I’m stating as an opinion, Matsui actually gives us quite a lot to go from. Even if not every character is highly developed, there’s still a genuinely very solid starting block to go from with your own headcanon. Perhaps it can be argued that it’s not the reader’s job to supply that, but I’d counter that it’s actually kind of fun to not be fed every piece of information. Though more facts and a deeper dive into interpersonal relationships would be admittedly nice, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with us as a fandom coming up with those ideas on our own, using the pointers Matsui does give us as a starting point. Honestly it would take the fun out a little if there was too much information, and we’d have less possibilities to play with.

Why Certain Characters Exist

I’m sorry to tell you, but one of the first things you’re taught in any kind of writing or literature analysis class is that characters are not people, they’re tools. This may feel a little harsh to say, and I’m aware that many people get attached to characters and have genuine feelings towards them. And that is totally valid! Definitely not on the same scale, but I too enjoy when people have real emotions towards my OCs, so I get it.

(rest under cut) 

To put it plainly: characters exist within a story as either a plot tool, or a message tool. A plot tool is someone who, as it sounds, exists to move the story along. Characters that need to exist in order for the story to happen as it does. Now, don’t get me wrong, you don’t need to have planned this out. You don’t need to specifically introduce Hara, for example, for the sole reason of her upping the stakes in the first Itona/Shiro arc. Characters existing for filler is still, in a way, a plot tool. It’s like… you set up a chess board. Sure, you might use the knight or the queen piece the most, but the pawns are still an important and useful piece, even if you don’t always utilize it for every move, or they don’t always stand out. Message tools are when a character doesn’t really do anything, but they help to assist in the message you want to send with your art/writing. There’s not so many examples of this in ass class, the best I can think of is either Yuuji or Sakura, who don’t do much at all but are beacons for what Matsui wants to say with them (which if you think about it is just ‘don’t do drugs kids’ and ‘stay in school’ :’)).

So free bit of writing advice for you: your character is your chisel. Once you’ve picked them up and started to work at carving out the story you want, then you can start adding all your fancy upgrades and personality points, which is what ultimately makes your character stronger. You grow attached to them when you’re done? Totally fair. Just… don’t go through this process the opposite way.

Without going too in depth with them right now, Nagisa Shiota is a plot tool. He is a plain easy to follow narrator whose observation skills intentionally mean the reader can see things clearly through his eyes. Where he loses relatability is when he displays his talent, but at that point he’s been so clearly introduced that it doesn’t matter as much, we can hear his voice. Him being more plain makes his talent more effective and shocking as it is. Karma Akabane is a plot tool. He exists so we have those somewhat comedic moments, and so we can have these big bad ass mental/physical fight moments. I actually think him not being the protagonist is something that makes Ass Class hugely stronger (and less cliché) as a series. Kayano Kaede is a plot tool. Admittedly, less so, but she has a lot of function as a back up to Nagisa, and then later is the catalyst for Korosensei’s backstory. The story starts to come to its climax due to her arc alone. As an aside I think a lot of criticism for Matsui isn’t that fair within the fandom, but I will openly say his treatment of her post reveal was not the best at all. He kind of lost control of what to do with her.

So, let’s talk about archetypes. I intend to write a whole meta about why Ass Class is predominantly written as a comedy series, but for now just take that statement as my opinion. Honestly, I do think Ass Class, with a few tweaks, could have worked with a bunch of unnamed characters. I’m instantly going to follow that up with: I’m very glad it didn’t. I love that it feels more like a large ensemble with a variety of characters. So instead of just plain filler, Matsui kind of makes good use of archetypes. You know, such as Takebayashi and Fuwa as otakus, Hazama as the dark occult girl etc. etc. All of this for comedic purpose, more than anything, which we really see in something like Koro Q which is more directly comedy. You might argue this is one dimensional, and I’d agree, but in this situation it’s achieving an effect. It’s genuinely better than having nothing. And honestly, they all do stuff. Some characters are far more effective and entertaining as a background character (i.e. Terasaka) than carrying a bunch of weight themselves.

Matsui Actually Does This Comparatively Well

Honestly, try and name another popular series in a classroom setting, with this many characters who all have individual personalities. Genuinely, the only one I can kind of think of is BNHA, and that’s not a fair comparison given the difference in story length. Comparatively to most series, Ass Class actually has really good side characters. If they were completely uncaringly written, nobody would stan them as hard. For the most part, I’d certainly argue everyone is memorable. Given that we’re juggling at least 30 people here (including teachers, Gakushuu etc.), I’d actually argue that’s kind of impressive.

And the thing is, Matsui does care. He cares enough to give everyone designs, hobbies, and personalities. A good portion of them have an entire chapter to themselves, although relative to the story as a whole they might not do so much (example: Kimura). Matsui could have been lazy with it, but he was not. I don’t want to invalidate anyone’s feelings with this, but I do argue here that those who think the opposite might be a little wrapped up in the character they stan. And I can totally understand that rightfully, you want the character you love to have more screen time. However, just because you happened to fall in love with them (figuratively I mean), doesn’t change the purpose they were originally created to fulfil.

It’s an unfair criticism that not giving every single person a huge arc makes Matsui a poor writer. Honestly, if everyone was equal without a few main characters getting a greater amount of the attention, the entire series would be a hot mess. It might be fun to reimagine the series that way, and go ahead in your own time, but as a series from start to finish, as a first time consumer, it would be genuinely very hard to follow. Not without changing the entire structure and many many plot points.

I do intend to write more about this too at a later point (because I will admittedly need to do more research), but in my opinion the biggest issue with Ass Class, and the cause behind the problems I have with it, is the genuine lack of time. It’s a relatively short story, compared to a lot of manga, and thus there isn’t the space to contain everyone’s story in deep way. I’m absolutely certain, had there been 50/100 chapters more, every character would have had a stand out chapter to themselves.

So thus I bring up the fun and stimulation that is headcanon.

The Issue with headcanons

(this point will go much quicker, I promise)

Ass class ended a looong time ago, let’s be fair. Whether you’re newer or older to the fandom, there’s still been quite a while since any kind of new content (Korotan D being the last official piece, Koro Q manga being the last anything, though I could be slightly wrong with that). That means, especially if you’ve cared about this series for a while, that we’ve considered the series to death.

Playing with headcanons is great! It’s fun! But, I do fear that especially when it comes to perhaps the more popular of the minor characters, a lot of us are getting wrapped up. It needs to be kept in mind that whilst these headcanons may have been around for a while, they are not directly correct to the source material. As a quick note, since I have seen people within the fandom getting kind of bothered over opposing opinions to the things they assume as canon. That’s not really anybody’s fault, but it does warrant saying, I think.

A Conclusion

Basically, loving a main character is great. Loving a more background character is great. You’re not a better or worse, more intelligent or more basic person for whoever your fave is. The point is, you see something you like in a character and you relate to them, or else just enjoy them. But as fun as that is, characters are tools. They exist for a specific purpose. Sometimes, that purpose doesn’t warrant them having a huge stand out character arc.

But hey, that’s totally okay because we’re fortunate enough to have such a community (arguably, I’d say a genuinely active one too) where we can dream that up ourselves. We can pretty much endlessly explore these possibilities. So, perhaps instead of negativity complaining about certain narrative issues we find (just putting this here: it’s fair to do this, but I don’t think it should be the FOCUS of conversation), we focus on driving that energy into creation. And there’s a lot to play with and create. And honestly, seeing HC posts and all sorts staring these more minor characters is great, and I’m pretty sure the majority would agree with me on that. I fully realise and accept that I have a platform here, and going forward I personally want to be a part of that. In a constructive way, rather than ‘deconstructing’ (yes, there’s a pretty big different as I see it).

(I realise that this last part comes off a bit call out post like, and I want to ensure that it is not intended to be that. I just have a general sense of some attitudes towards things floating around in a very generalised way right now)

[c0smicheaux]

Ninth House In the Signs

Aries-

When the ninth house is in the sign of Aries, a person can be too passionate about their beliefs, not allowing others to express their system of convictions. Fighters for religion, ethical approach, college, or their own progress of any kind are seen here. In general, this is a strong position that finds energy in the future and draws a person towards positive change. However, any ties to the past will make their dreamland vivid and blur the direction they are supposed to follow. Once they feel they are on the right path, with a mission to accomplish and deep beliefs leading forward, these are the exact people who will learn about boundaries, conflict, and fiercely achieve any goal they set out to reach. They tend to find purpose only in things they are truly passionate about and wither in any circumstances that don’t invigorate them and make them feel alive. They need their talents put to use and the fire in their stomach constantly burning in order to live a long, creative and healthy existence.

Taurus-

If the ninth house is set in Taurus, the purpose of a person’s life is always found somewhere in the material world. Experience needs to be built in the real world, through financial and physical matters, and this is the exact reason why these individuals turn to education in fields of finance, agriculture, cooking, or real estate. For as long as they don’t lack initiative and primal energy, they can truly be fantastic in practical issues, but also tend to close up for new experiences if they get hurt or disappointed. This is a tricky position for as much as the beneficent sign of Taurus can be mellow it can also be lazy, static, or stiff to accept change and the beauty of constant movement. There is a special joy these people find in tradition if their Venus is beneficently set, and they will strive to reach family values and practical pleasures as much as they can in this lifetime.

Gemini-

The ninth house in Gemini leads to growth through communication. These individuals will learn new things quickly and with passion, while at the same time having trouble holding on to large chunks of knowledge or finding synthesis for everything they’ve learned. To mend the troubles found in overthinking, they need to also learn to stay concise and focused on one point at a time. If they have too many goals at once, they will rarely manage to reach any of them, and the most important thing the ninth house in Gemini has to teach, is how one should think and use their words. If they find true emotional intimacy, it will usually give them a strong basis to improve their approach and help them thrive in fields of oratory skills, public exposure, trade, and information technology.

Cancer-

With the ninth house in Cancer, there is always a simple striving held in a person’s path – to find peace. This is not an easy mission for someone with their mind standing in the way, for our human nature often doesn’t allow enough silence and peace to reach that much needed state of clarity and peace. A strong purpose is always in connection with family issues that have to be resolved or gained through their own ability to form calm relationships with their partner and children. Very often, this position will point to the possibility of life abroad, in case it is confirmed with at least two more significations in the chart. Their greatest teachers are found in their own heart and they will come to see that only people they love can actually teach them anything at all. This will lead to some hurtful emotional experiences for the purpose of each feeling they have might be to teach, rather than last or provide them with that much needed peace.

Leo-

When the ninth house is set in the sign of Leo, we see that someone has to clarify the image of self apart from their family, upbringing and values taught at home. If they are too proud to accept that truth is relative to all people, they can become pushy and force their opinions and convictions on everyone around them. The key to a healthy existence here is often hidden in their chase for emotional satisfaction and the Moon will speak of their ability to forgive, move forward, and accept their feelings instead of trying too hard to remain in a rational mode. Awareness will grow as soon as they realize how vulnerable they actually are, face the fact that they are human and that their emotional core gives them much more benefits than weaknesses. They will learn from dominant figures, their boss and their father, but rarely have enough respect for the feminine side within to achieve their incredible full potential.

Virgo-

The ninth house in Virgo speaks of the focus on helping others, charity work, and matters of modesty and detail. Those who were born with this house position often have the need to learn how to heal and rationally understand the intelligence of their physiology and practical issues in the material world. However, their ego stands in their way and they will always have a challenge of their Sun to overcome to truly reach the state of wisdom and purpose. Something is always used and needs fixing in Virgo, and it is quite common for these individuals to have problems while traveling for choosing accommodation that is too cheap to be enjoyed, or overpaid for the one they get. They will have a flare for literature and many linguists and writers will have this position accented, if their tenth house supports strong materialization of everything they have learned.

Libra-

If the ninth house is set in Libra, there is something strangely confusing in a person’s belief system, the main problem being the fact that their beliefs seem to be defined by other people. They will find many role models in this lifetime and need to overcome their self-criticism in order to truly reach their desired state of mind, physical state, or professional goals that they see as their calling. Hard work is needed for their plans to materialize and they will often be stuck in their dreamland, or when disappointed too many times, in their world of envy and feelings of incompetence. Relationships with quality will have to stand the test of time, and it is very often that these individuals remarry, sometimes only to find that marriage is too serious for them in the first place. When well supported, they will blossom in areas such as law, diplomacy, marriage counseling, and all activities done with a partner or someone they have an emotional bond with.

Scorpio-

With the ninth house in Scorpio, we have to understand that a person will make choices that many would think of as strange. In the most positive manifestation, this will give one an incredible depth of mind, belief in the power of planet Earth, connection to endless pools of inner energy and a tendency to study science, psychology, or even occult teachings. Still, we have to keep in mind that practically speaking, these individuals have a belief system rooted somewhere in the river of their ancestors, highly unconscious and strange for many people around them. Their convictions will be powerful and obvious in their manifestations, while their need to learn about deep matters that others don’t want to deal with often sets them apart from their group at school, college, or at any family gathering. They have to find a way to satisfy their inner craving for deep understanding of the Universe and Unity, but they will find it only if they mend their broken relationships and realize that no man is born into this world to be alone.

Sagittarius- 

The ninth house in the sign of Sagittarius speaks of a higher mind, in a way, and shows one’s need to travel, learn, and widen their horizons as much as possible. The trouble with this position is held in the inability to go deep enough to actually ground ideas and entire mental belief systems. Even though these people can be incredible teachers, attorneys, gurus, or motivational speakers, they will often have trouble accepting change as a necessary tool for improvement. Sticking to their moral convictions without a doubt in their mind, they will forget that change is the only thing that will truly help them regenerate. Aiming high, they don’t have a clear idea of everything going on at planet Earth’s surface and need a reality check from time to time, just to remember that distances are there to be crossed, not just to be observed.

Capricorn-

If one’s ninth house is set in the sign of Capricorn, their beliefs can be annoyingly stiff. It will be very hard for them to make a change in pace or direction once they set out to do something. Their main problem is hidden in the real purpose of all things in their lives. This is why they sometimes have to exchange their practicality and common sense for a dream or two. The main objective with this position is to achieve a state of acceptance that allows these individuals not to push their convictions on everyone around them. There will be an ease in learning about ancient teachings, history, substance, and mathematics if their Saturn is well set in a sign that gives it dignity. However, responsibility they need to take seems to be too distant for them to reach its understanding. Once they do, they will finally have a chance to create a solid foundation for their future endeavors.

Aquarius-

With the ninth house in Aquarius, one’s striving and desires are never ordinary. Learning through symbols will be as easy as it gets, which makes these people turned to astrology, mathematics and programming. The problem will arise when a person with this ninth house doesn’t feel the need to accept responsibility for their own life. A truly disappointing thing here hides in the fact that their routine is shattered enough to make them too tired to learn everything that interests them. This great mind will be truly disturbed by the lack of substance, seriousness to their approach, and a sort of superficial Air-like nature that won’t allow them to sink deep enough to create a strong foundation for their ideas to land. If they take matters in their own hands and make a plan they will stick to at all times, they will feel their energy rise. Finally, this will result in their creativity leading them to incredible innovative moments they have been wishing for since they were born.

Pisces-

If someone’s ninth house is set in the sign of Pisces, there is definitely a mission they should follow in this lifetime. In case they haven’t found their right calling, these people will be dreamers, prone to stressful experiences that could have been avoided if they gave everyone in their life enough freedom. They cannot be tied down and shouldn’t ever try to bond too strongly to other people. When they give freedom they will get freedom to grow and find their right direction in life before they start feeling like its whole meaning is lost. The sign of Pisces creates magic, but also rules all poisonous and unexplored areas of life. This will lead to education in chemistry, pharmacy, psychology or sailing. For as long as these individuals are not asleep but wide awake and pursuing their passion, they will have a chance to truly leave a mark in this world.

Source; astrology-zodiac-signs dot com

[soyouareandrewdobson]

Alex ze Pirate “Mini Review” 1: About Male Abuse

Alex ze Pirate is in my opinion the WORST “comic” series Dobson has ever written up until this point (date for archives: June 2020). Sure, I agree with people that his “hot take” comics on Star Wars Fans, political issues and virtue signaling for the sake of making brownie points are worse overall cause they are uneducated propaganda that give insight in how much of a loathsome human being driven by spite he genuinely is, but Alex “offends” me as someone who enjoys fiction. It may not be the worst thing ever written, but it just does so many things wrong in terms of storywriting, storytelling, presentation and creating fictional characters, I can’t help but wonder what went wrong that Dobson even remotely thought this thing would be a “successful” comic series to establish him as a creator. Cause I can tell you, having read the likes of Don Rosa’s work on Disney, Hilda, Cleopatra in Space, Spirou, Asterix, One Piece (of which I will talk a lot in my next few posts) and many more, I can confirm by comparison that Dobson’s pirates as a published comic would have only one use on the public shelves: alternative for toilet paper during the COVID-19 epidemic

 Believe me, I would love to write an in depth analysis of everything wrong with Alex ze Pirate, from the lazy artwork up to even the publication history of this trainwrack. But doing so would take a lot of time and there is one individual part of this I think deserve at least extra attention. Something that in my opinion embodies quite well a lot of things I consider wrong with this comic. So before I am going over Alex in its entirety (and believe me, the day will come) let me just talk within the next few posts about one certain aspect and story of the comic, that genuinely got me to loath this comic to the core: Sam the Cabin Boy and “his” own individual story Dobson drew in three parts around 2010.  

For starters, lets talk who Sam is: Sam is one of the main characters in the comic and actually the first person who joined Alex and Peggy in the initial pages of Legends, the “original” form of Alex ze Pirate.

See, back in 2004, Dobson released Alex ze Pirate in form of a single comic volume called “Legends” which features Alex trying to recruit a crew. The thing is around 78 pages thick and based on what I saw pretty terribly paced. For comparison: When Luffy in One Piece got his crew together, he spend multiple volumes and at least three minor story arcs to get Zoro, Nami, Sanji and Usopp to join him. All while also giving us good insight into the kind of people his new crewmates were (especially Sanji’s and Nami’s backstory got to me), defeating the likes of Buggy and Captain Black, meeting Dracula Mihawk and defeating one of the biggest bastards Eichiro Oda ever created in form of Arlong. What is the story how Sam joins the crew? An orphanage organizes an auction and sells kids off. Which I assume was even illegal in pirate times, so kudos for already showing us how despicable the world of Alex ze Pirate is to begin with and how much it deserves to be nuked in some sort of alien invasion.

 Sam also doesn’t really get anything to do when he is introduced, just helping Alex escape on a small boat. Which is weird because he does not know her at all, she is just some stranger who bought him off and has no means to keep him in check, so why even bother following her and not let the mob get rid of Alex? 

Anyway, I wish I could tell more about Sam’s involvement in Legends, but I don’t have really more than some scans of it in the beginning and near the end. So I don’t know his involvement in the rest of the volume. I also can’t say how he plays out in volume two, because that does not exist at all. Cause for reasons I will never understand, Dobson just abandoned the idea of telling a “coherent” and ongoing story with Alex ze Pirate and instead went to his colored one page comics/strips with it, turning it into what some people called “Garfield with Pirates” (which I consider a genuine insult towards any newspaper comic out there, even something as Boondocks). And the first thing we see of Sam in “classic” Alex ze Pirate?

 The perverted dwarf of the crew showing of his shota underwear so that Alex and Sam stop bickering who is the cutest, leaving him embarrassed and humiliated.

 Which kinda sums up his role in the comic to a t. Cause this is what Sam is: He is the buttmonkey of the crew. And honestly, I would not have a total problem with Sam being a buttmonkey, if a) he wasn’t it all the time, b) he would actually do something to deserve any form of humiliation and c) if the other characters in this comic itself would not be some of the biggest assholes I have ever seen, who get away with abusing the poor lad.

 See, here is the problem: In a crew featuring a choleric homophobic soulless ginger

 A black rat person who wants to fuck the ginger even without her consent

 A furry abomination that has the same brain wavelengths as Chris Chan 

And a perverted dwarf who tries to impersonate Happosai from Ranma 1/2

 Sam is the only decent person in the entire crew. He works hard, he even questions the morality of his friends at times, he is honest, he is not perverted, almost good to the point of childish innocence and he has a very humble “goal” which is he wants to own his own piece of gold. Not even a big pile of treasure, just one single coin would be enough for him.

 So he is likeable and relatable. In fact, if anything goes by, he may have been one of the most popular ones in the comic. And yet he is the one who gets constantly abused by “fate” and his friends, because as Dobson would say it, he is supposed to be the buttmonkey. There is just one problem: People do not necessarily like buttmonkeys.

I can primarily speak only for myself here, but I hope what I have to say resonates with others too. See, I get it: A character who is the butt of a joke can be fun. Like Daffy in Duck Amuck. But there is a fine line where a character being humiliated for the sake of a joke is fun (and perhaps even deserved because of his own shortcomings or deeds/actions that make the humiliation sort of kharmic, like lets say Johnny Bravo) and a character being humiliated to the point it feels disproportional, unfunny and mean spirited if not outright sadistic, can be crossed. Take Meg Griffin from Family Guy for example whose only “purpose” for existing within the last 12+ years is to get shat on by her family and the writers. People have no idea for a plot with her, so what do they do? Have her father physically and emotionally abuse her, fart in her face for what is supposed to count as a joke and then add additional insult to it by acknowledging that they are only doing this, because they have no other idea for her and think abuse is fun. Let me just tell you from experience, it is not.

And that is essentially what Sam is: He is the Meg Griffin of Alex ze Pirate, used by his creator as the butt of very unfunny jokes, even if he does not deserve any of the things said or done to him. Want to see some examples?

 How about the description Dobson gives Sam within the introduction of one of his volumes, showing how little Dobson as the creator even cares for him.

Why is he called an unworthy “slob” if he is the only one who actually works? Shouldn’t a slob be someone like Dobson, who can’t even take care of himself anymore? Also the confirmation that he was kidnapped at the age of 16. And as we have no clarification how much time passed between Legends Vol. 1 and anything afterwards, that means that in a way Alex is a child abuser.

And now, here some examples by the rest of the cast. Like Uncle Peggy framing him for all sorts of his perverted actions and even trying to kill him for no apparent reason?

Alex trying to kill him with chicken pox…

…Destroying all his worldly posessions which is hilarious because he is a poor orphan…

…Essentially describing him as worthless because he was born with an Y-chromosome…

… doing the kind of thing Dobson claims women would never do to man, using their sex appeal to hurt them…

…forcing him to do some unnecessary and rather petty work for her in a physics defying manner (seriously, the way he holds the axe does not compute with how he swings it. Try it out yourself)

… stealing his food and just being a cruel sadistic cunt to him just because it is fun.

Which is “funny” in so far as that there are a few comics indicating she would jump his dick and ride it like a little pony if she could.

 By the way, Talus and Atea are not better. None of them calls Alex out on her bullshit on average, Atea uses Sam to trigger traps in one story arc…

And Talus, the closest to a “friend” he is supposed to have, once for no apparent reason made him dig through his litterbox

And don’t get me even started when the characters decide to gang up on Sam, to the point he gets sexually harassedor is called to be less worth as a human being than the dirt you find in your belly button

Fuck’s sake, even in fanart everyone gangs up on him, even the freaking big bad of the story everyone is supposed to hate or be afraid of

 Bottom line, Sam is an abuse victim played for laughs in this comics. And just to clarify, I do not think this was Dobson’s intention. But if the character is undeservingly the butt of jokes for the majority of over 120 strips, it turns nasty. The way Sam is treated, I just find disgusting and indictive of just how unlikable any other character in this comic is to the point I do not want to see this being turned into a proper “franchise”. And I assume others were disgusted by it too, cause Dobson eventually decided to make a story more or less addressing the treatment Sam receives, while also attempting to prove that deep down the assholes with starring roles in this trainwrack care for him. How did this play out? Well, I am going to talk about it, so likely not well. If you want to see the details, grab yourself some popcorn and take a toilet break before we tackle part 2 of this thing.

[pk-majora]

Exploring my natal chart pt. 6 i think. Just some more I found.

"Leo Moons are naturally enthusiastic, and prone to outbursts of spontaneous glee.

If this is your Moon sign, you're generous, proud, loyal and an adventurer at heart. You put your whole heart into relationships, and your sense of Self is bound up in who you run with.

You're a sunny optimist and can earn a reputation for being a cheerleader among your friends.

Your instinct is to demand respect, and there's a noble air about you, even if your situation is humble. Your confidence takes a terrible tumble, if you're taken for granted, or worse, betrayed.

Your pride makes you shield your true feelings when you really like someone. You might test a potential new friend or love, with demands, mainly for attention.

Leo is big on romancing and being romanced, perhaps more than all the other signs. So a Leo Moon is happiest when love is in full bloom."

SOURCES: https://www.liveabout.com/moon-in-leo-moon-signs-207098

"With the Sun in Virgo in the 7th house you are becoming a humble and clear-sighted companion. You discover personal power by being of service to the ones you love. Your central purpose is never to give up your vision or ideals, while still making room for others’ reality. You shine when you have something constructive to offer relationships (not grumbling, criticism, or self-defeating subservience). Coming into your own means never being anyone’s doormat. Self-realization comes through paying attention to the company you keep. Being you means always worrying about the ones you love."

SOURCES: https://astrofix.net/virgo-sun-in-houses-astrology/

"Pluto in the tenth house suggests that you are known in the world as a powerful person. You experience power struggles mainly in your professional life and in your relationship with authority figures. The tenth house is the house of career and public image."

SOURCES: https://advanced-astrology.com/pluto-in-tenth-house-natal/

"People born with Sagittarius in 10th House are rather philosophical about their career. They’re not measuring their success by how much power they have, but by considering how satisfied they are with their job. These people can work without becoming easily tired, meaning it’s a piece of cake for them to climb the social ladder. They’re likely choosing a job that involves traveling. When facing a problem at work, they prefer to see it as a challenge."

SOURCES: https://www.horoscopejoy.com/sagittarius-in-10th-house-navigating-any-difficulties/

"Natal Pluto in Sagittarius has a leg up on many other Pluto placements. ... With your Pluto in Sagittarius, you are likely interested in philosophy and love talking about how shifts in our beliefs can make the world a better place. Confidence emanates from your very being and you attract all sorts of people to you."

SOURCES: https://www.tarot.com/astrology/planets/pluto-in-sagittarius

"The north node in Virgo gives you a staunch inner directive that includes an analytical mind, a pragmatic approach to life situations, a desire for perfection, and a detachment from emotions."

SOURCES: https://www.google.com/search?q=north+node+virgo&rlz=1C1VDKB_enUS946US946&oq=north+node+virgo&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l9.2421j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

"Wanting to avoid details and the everyday matters, natives with the South Node in Pisces can have an undisciplined way of living. They don’t want to set goals for themselves, not to mention they trust their big plans too much, while not taking care of the more practical matters. This is a placement that’s suggesting its natives should work on having a routine and respecting a schedule because if not, they can become too worried and anxious."

SOURCES: https://i.thehoroscope.co/south-node-in-pisces-the-influence-on-personality-and-life/

"A natal Neptune in twelfth house gives you the potential to grow into a very wise person. Neptune here usually suggests a person who is aligned with their higher self, displaying compassion and empathy in the world. Planets in the twelfth house sometimes show parts of you that were not welcome in your family."

SOURCES: https://www.google.com/search?q=capricon+neptune+12th+house&rlz=1C1VDKB_enUS946US946&oq=capricon+neptune+12th+house&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i13j0i390l3.4069j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

"Scorpio midheaven can mean you are good at exposing the truth. People with a Scorpio Midheaven bring light to the darkness. People with a Scorpio Midheaven love to find resolve in every aspect of life. They can be the ones who are involved in humanitarian efforts and even giving their spare change to a homeless person"

SOURCES: https://www.yourtango.com/2020334796/scorpio-midheaven-meaning-astrology#:~:text=Scorpio%20midheaven%20can%20mean%20you,change%20to%20a%20homeless%20person.

"The Midheaven (MC) and the Imum coeli (IC) are two opposite points in astrology that are calculated based on your place and time of birth. The IC shows the qualities that you learned in childhood and the environment that you wanted to escape.

In order to get away from the values of the IC, you push towards the Midheaven. In fact, the Midheaven is how people tend to perceive you in the outer world, but more specifically in your career. Although you may embrace the qualities of your Midheaven, the IC always exists underneath.

The IC in Taurus placement is all about living by other people’s values in childhood. As an adult with Midheaven in Scorpio, you seek to individuate and figure out what’s real for you.

Keep in mind that the Midheaven and IC are always opposite signs, so you can’t have one without the other.

With your IC in Taurus, you lived with “set in their ways” types of parents. In some manner, your parents were very traditional. They followed a certain set of rules and may have employed black and white thinking.

However, this also means that in these specific way, your home life was stable. You knew that certain things wouldn’t change. IC In Taurus manifests differently for everyone, but there were at least some constant things about your childhood.

Most likely, your parents lived by societal rules in some manner. They were traditional and created a clear set of boundaries that you needed to follow as a child.

IC in Taurus also means that you probably felt misunderstood with your family at times. It might have seemed that everyone else fit into the mold, but you felt different.

At times, you felt that you couldn’t express the deepest part of you because you had to stick to the family structure. You didn’t have the freedom to completely be yourself.

You parents or caretakers deeply influenced your childhood with their own set of values. In certain areas, you weren’t allowed to explore or develop your own set of values. Instead, you were expected to believe what your parents taught you.

This created a very structured sort of childhood. You couldn’t deviate from the norm, or you would be punished and looked down upon.

Although your parents were headstrong and set in their ways with IC in Taurus, you were probably just as bullheaded. This might have caused some issues because neither side would back down during fights.

However, you may have also learned some positive lessons about strength from your childhood. Now, you probably have stubborn personality pieces, too.

Ultimately, there were no exceptions in your childhood. You had to follow the rules regardless of how you fel.

With your IC in Taurus, you didn’t feel that you could negotiate or explain your side. You felt like you had no power, though you definitely tried to exert yourself.

You may have also felt that you needed to earn your parents love in some way. You may have felt that you were deserving of love because of what you did, not because of who you were.

In both cases, the IC in Taurus leaves you feeling inauthentic. You had to follow the demands of someone else, even when they conflicted with your own personal beliefs.

Now, with your Midheaven in Scorpio, you start to reevaluate your values and compare your beliefs to those of your parents. You were never given the opportunity to develop your own self of morals, so the values that you do come up with might be the exact opposite of your parents’ morals in some ways.

As an adult, you may feel a lot of resentment towards your parents’ values. You were restricted in childhood and hold a lot of deep anger over these experiences.

It’s important that you work with this intensity. This is how you will dig deep and discover what matters to you, and your own values will probably shape your career.

You may come off as dark or tortured, or even seem like an enigma. However, this is important to you because you feel strongly about representing your deep self. You want to be nothing less than truthful, no matter how dark or twisty the truth is.

In your career and public image with Midheaven in in Scorpio, you specifically try to show the parts of you that appear deep and interesting. You want to be seen as someone profound, contrasting with the surface level rules and values you were taught in childhood.

Your appearance sparks intrigued. Something about the way you come off is dark and complicated, so people are drawn to you and want to learn more about what’s inside.

However, you don’t reveal all of your depth with Midheaven in Scorpio. You’re careful to curate an image that displays your best qualities so that you won’t be attacked.

You may also like being a little mysterious because you learned that there’s power in mystery.

In your work, you want to create or uncover something profound. Midheaven in Scorpio is all about contributing something important to the world. You will never settle for surface level work.

With Midheaven in Scorpio, you’re also attracted to power, as with any Scorpio placement. This is because you felt powerless as a child, so you want to appear important now. Power can become your safety net.

You’re hungry and ambitious, so you can be very successful in your career. Once you put your mind to something, you won’t stop until you achieve it.

However, your career must mean something to you. You work has to be an expression of who you are and must reflect your authentic values.

Keep in mind that with Midheaven in Scorpio, you can grow to possess unhealthy power, or this Scorpionic influence can be transmitted for good, helping you make an impact on the world.

Work to wield your power wisely. Don’t get caught in the dark and depressive elements of Midheaven in Scorpio, but instead discover your truest values and use them to shape the world around you.

Ultimately, you don’t ever want to earn love or have to play by other people’s rules. You desire to do what you want, when you want, and find people who accept this.

To heal your inner child with Midheaven in Scorpio, release the hangups you have that don’t serve you. Learn how to be authentic without needing to control the situation or prove anything to other people.

Instead, when you heal your inner child, you will show your truest, authentic self without reservation or fear."

SOURCES: https://teaandrosemary.com/midheaven-in-scorpio-ic-in-taurus/

"In the natal chart, your descendant describes what kind of partner you are looking for unconsciously. As the point directly across the ascendant which represents your identity, we tend to identify with the traits of our ascendants more. This leads to seeking the sign on the descendant in other people. With the descendant in Leo, you are attracted to partners who display the traits the Lion very strongly. This sign is usually emphasized in their charts.

The descendant is one of the birth chart’s most important features. It is the other angle of the ascendant-descendant axis, which deals with the questions of your self-image versus other people, relationships, relating, and many more. Understanding your descendant in Leo can help you understand your one-on-one relationships better, and it can serve as food for thought about your partners.

The descendant in Leo automatically means that your ascendant is in Aquarius. Being an Aquarius rising suggests that you are a very independent and freedom-loving person. You appear a bit unconventional and shy, but you have amazing ideas and you are smart. However, it can be hard for you to get support from others. The need for freedom of Aquarius can be challenging when it comes to relationships-you want to be attached and detached at the same time.

Being an Aquarius rising often means that in childhood, you were shy and anxious. You had a hard time fitting in, and you were in some way unique, not like most kids around you. As you grow older you need to learn more about the polar opposite of Aquarius-Leo.

Leo is the sign of the heart. You learn to express yourself with warmth and genuine appreciation of others. This helps you connect with others more easily, and improves your relationships as well. It is one of the most important lessons of the descendant in Leo.

For a long-term relationship to work out, your partner must recognize your need for independence and respect your boundaries. They have to understand that you need a lot of space in a relationship. You are not the right partner for clingy people with your descendant in Leo and ascendant in Aquarius.

Your ideal partner also has to respect your need for making things better. Aquarius is all about rebellion and revolution. You are looking at old structures from a new perspective and wonder about topics like social equality and creating better systems. If your partner doesn’t understand the way your brain works, you sooner or later feel that you have to get out of the relationship.

With the descendant in Leo in your birth chart, you want a partner who adores you. You expect to be the one and only in their life and you are not willing to put up with anything less than being treated as a royalty. Giving each other enough relationship is key in your close-relationships.

Your ideal partner is a born leader. They are courageous, fun-loving, gregarious, enjoy attention. You possess these traits as well, but it takes time for you to discover them in yourself. Many people with their descendant in Leo enjoy being in the center of attention later in life. The seventh house in Leo indicates that you love being in the public eye.

A Leo descendant in the natal chart can also suggest that your partners are often people of good position. They can help your advancement in many ways. They are often popular with people and have a large social circle.

The descendant and 7th house is how you interact with your partners and what kind of people you are unconsciously attracted to. Leo is the sign of the ego, and with the descendant in Leo, your ego and conscious self is often tied to other people. Because of this, this is one of the more challenging placements.

The negative manifestation of the descendant in Leo is not being aware of the lower octave of this sign in yourself. This is not an easy sign. Leo requires a lot of attention or else it becomes melodramatic. For some reason, you can find that selfish, boastful, inflexible, arrogant people appear in your life all the time.

The descendant in Leo suggests that you can perceive other people as self-centered act arrogant and bossy, especially those you are in a close relationship with. and unless they realize and find this energy in themselves they can project it onto others accused them of behavior they themselves as well

Leo is ruled by the Sun. The position of this luminary in your natal chart previous more information about your partnerships and the people you are attracted to (you can learn about the Sun in houses here). Sometimes you are are attracted to people who display the traits of the sign of your Sun as well.

There are four angles in the birth chart: the ascendant, the descendant, the Imum coeli and the Midheaven. They represent four fundamental aspects of the human life, and their importance in the natal chart is enormous. You can learn more about the angles in this article.

To calculate your descendant, you have to know your exact time of birth to almost the minute. This is necessary because the descendant changes approximately one degree every four minutes, like the ascendant.

The descendant is always in the opposite sign as the ascendant. For example, if your ascendant is in Aquarius, your descendant is in Leo, if your ascendant is in Taurus, your descendant is in Scorpio.

The degree of the descendant corresponds to the point of the sky setting on the western horizon. This also means that this part of your natal chart is almost like it was in the dark. It is not easy to see it. Most people need a lot of time to become aware of their descendant and eventual planets conjunct it or falling in the seventh house.

The ruling planet of the descendant adds more details to the analysis of this angle. You can learn about the meaning of the descendant’s ruler through the houses here.

The Lion is the royalty of astrology. Everybody knows that this sign is all about glamour and celebration. Ruled by the Sun, Leo is the sign of life energy and creativity. Leo season beings on 23rd July and lasts until 22th August (these are approximate dates, for a specific year look up an ephemeris).

In the Zodiac, Leo is the fifth sign. It is associated with the fifth house of joy in the natural chart (of course, your fifth house can begin in any sign in your own birth chart). Its planetary ruler is the Sun. The symbol of Leo resembles the tail of the lion, and it looks like this: ♌︎.

By element, Leo is one of the fire signs in astrology (along with Aries and Sagittarius). Leo belongs to the group of fixed signs by modality. Fixed signs (Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius) are persistent and determined, focusing on finishing and follow through.

Leo is described as lavish, creative, joyful, dazzling, fun-loving, spontaneous, high-energy, enthusiastic, inspiring, motivated. This sign is the life of the party.

As every zodiac sign, Leo has its shadow side as well. It can act arrogant, bossy, selfish. If it is insecure, it can overemphasize its merits and importance, what can make the Lion appear repulsive. There is a tendency to be lazy and self-indulgent."

SOURCES: https://advanced-astrology.com/descendant-in-leo/

[guidedbynors]

Quest RPG Adventure: The Realer of Two Worlds

Premis/Setting

The Realer of Two Worlds Takes place in any mine within your own campaign. It can take place as part of a small town, city, or even Kingdom that is built near a mine as its main source of income and work. It can also be a great starting point for a campaign as long as all the Questers agree to be connected to the mine in some way and have stakes in its continued existence and the profits it provides.

Feel free to name the town and mine anything that fits into your campaign, but for this short module, we’ll call it Phos Mine, named for the Phos Crystals that grow within its depths.

Opening Scene

Start your Questers in the local tavern near the mine, called The Purple Swill. It’s the local watering hole for all the miners, where they all swap tales of cave-ins, things within the deeper shafts that go bump in the night, and other tall tales. For a mine, Phos Mine is a pretty safe job other than the fact that the Phos Crystals project a person’s fears, desires, or needs as phantasms for all to see if touched with bare skin.

As the Questers drink the Purple Swill brew that the tavern is named after, the door to the tavern creaks open and a little girl, no more than 10 years old stands in the doorway. She is dirty and disheveled and looks ill-cared for. She shuffles up to the bar and asks for something to eat, but has no Phos Crystal dust to pay for it. The bartender is a gruff and uncompromising half-ogre who has little empathy or sympathy (if any). He launches into a talk about how nothing in life is free and at some point everyone has to make their way in life as the little girl begins to sob. The half-ogre doesn’t understand humans well and will think the little girl is laughing, as he often forgets that tears are typically a sign of sadness. If someone reminds him of this he’ll launch into another talk about how ogres, and especially half-ogre sweat profusely when they are sad, and he’s never cried in his life because the ogre in him means he has no tear ducts. For all intents and purposes, his name is Chuk.

When the little girl begins to let out a long wailing, Chuk will offer anyone a night's worth of Swill if they get the little human out of the tavern and stop it from making that noise.

(Optional: If you want to toss in some added tension to the quest, introduce an NPC band of adventurers who want that night of free Swill for themselves. When Chuk offers it up, they will try to stake claim to the child and get her out of the tavern, though not to help her. If your Questers are trying to help her, they may run into some competition with this other adventuring party.)

Eemknot Seeintings

The little girl is Eemknot Seeintings, and her father is a well-known miner named Eeam Seeintings. One or more of your Questers might know him. Eeam is well-liked, but some months ago his wife, Eemknot’s mother passed away.

As Questers question Eemknot the little girl will tell them that 10 days ago her father went to work in the mine and never came home. She’s eaten all the food in the house and has only now left because she’s gone hungry for the last day or so.

If/when pressed for details about her father, Eemknot will tell Questers he has been very sad since Mom died. If asked if she’s seen him do anything strange or if has been acting differently, she won’t name anything specific until she gets some food. Once she has something to eat her mind can get off food and she’ll begin to remember bits of information about her father. First, Eemknot divulges that she has seen and overheard her father speaking to himself while at home. When asked further she’ll tell Questers about the purple dust he puts on his food. Phos dust is purple, and the Questers would know this. Lastly, Eemknot will remember that when her father left for work ten days ago, he took a large backpack with him,

Manager Gorbuck

The Phos Mine has many shafts and adjacent tunnels that end in dead ends. Workers are there 24 hours a day, so no matter what time Questers go to the mine there will be a manager in the small office at the entrance.

Manager Gorbuck is a hardy woman of callused hands, grubby cheeks, and a can-do attitude. She spent years down in the Phos Mine until she lost her left eye in a bizarre bowling accident at the local bowling alley. She now is a pencil pusher and time-card tracker at the mine. Despite this, she keeps an eye on pretty much everything going on around the mine, even if she doesn’t know what’s going on below the surface.

When Questers come to speak with her about Eeam, she’ll nod as though she already knows what they’re talking about. She’ll tell them the same thing Eemknot told them. That Eeam went into the mine ten days ago with a big backpack. Reports from other miners are that Eeam went down into the deepest tunnels where there aren’t any lights set up. Gorbuck will just tell the Questers that Eeam is down in one of the deep shafts by himself in the dark, and nobody has been able to get him to come out.

The Phos Mine

The Phos Mine is a busy place with rail cars and workers. If your Questers are miners, they’ll know how to get to the deep shafts, but they may want to stop along the way to ask workers if they’ve seen Eeam and to learn about why he’s in the deep shafts.

The Phos Mine looks like any other mine until Questers come to places that are actively being excavated. In the most active places, Phos Crystals as small as a thumbnail and as large as a head are being dug out of the ground. Every worker wears long sleeves and gloves to protect themselves from the phantasms that will spring from their minds if they touch a Phos Crystal with their bare skin.

If Questers touch a Phos Crystal to their bare skin, it is up to you how you want to handle the event. You can ask the player to describe what phantasm appears or, if you know the character's backstory well, you can use the event to drive some character-centered narrative.

Finding Eeam

Eeam is a chamber which the deepest shaft of the mine opens onto. There are no rail cars that take Questers down the low, and so they’ll have to walk, eventually. They’ll also need to take some form of light with them, whether by magical means or a torch.

Questers will hear Eeam sooner than they see him. His voice echoes in the large chamber he is in and floats up the deep shaft as Questers approach. It sounds as though he’s having a conversation, but as so often happens with echoes it’s difficult for Questers to know what he’s saying until they enter the chamber.

As their light floods the large cave-like chamber they will take in the following:

The chamber is wide and roughly curricular, perhaps 100 feet, give-or-take, in any direction from wall to wall. It has a tall ceiling as well. Near one side of the chamber is a small underground stream. Presumably, this is how Eeam has stayed alive without dying of thirst.

More startling, and perhaps what should be focused on, however, is the scene near the stream. Eeam is bustling around a kitchen that seems completely out of place in the chamber. At a small table is his daughter Eemknot and a woman that could only be his wife, and Eemknot’s mother, Daunt. Eeam is talking to his family, but when the family responds they their mouths move but no sound comes out. However, Eeam seems to understand them. What’s most startling is that wherever Eeam walks, a scene appears for all to see, and the scene behind him fades. It’s as though anywhere he goes a phantasm of his desire is manifested before him, creating a replica of the life he lived before his wife died.

The Solution

In my experience, the best Quest sessions are ones in which questions are posed to players without a clear idea of how they will achieve their goal. In this case, the goal will likely be to get Eeam to see the phantasms for what they are and return to his daughter. While he has chosen to live in a dream world, he will acknowledge Questers and try to make them feel at home as though they are visitors to his house.

There are a few options I can imagine Questers taking. First, they can try to discover the Phos dust Eeam uses on his food, and take it away from him. Second, they can just kidnap him and pull him out of the mine by force. Lastly, they can try to reason with him through clever roleplay and abilities. There are some skills that let Questers dissolve illusions. It’s up to you, the Guide, to decide if this will work on the phantasms. Since they are springing from Eeam himself, there could be a case made that magic won’t work on the phantasms themselves, but only on the person.

Note that if they try to force Eeam to leave his dream world made of self provoked phantasms, the trauma may drive him mad. Instead, it may take something more subtle in order for him to leave--perhaps even bringing the real Eemknot down into the chamber, in order to make Eeam see what he has done to his real daughter.

If Questers are unable to convince Eeam to return to the real world, they may have to find someone to take Eemknot in or adopt her themselves.

[aion-rsa]

Investigating Digimon’s Biggest Unanswered Question

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On June 25, 2000 on Fuji TV in Japan and October 21, 2000 on Fox Kids in the U.S. an episode of Digimon aired that over 20 years later continues to haunt fans and the franchise itself alike. This was an episode that opened up a world of possibility and a plotline darker than anything else seen in the series – an episode that ended with a gigantic cliffhanger that has never been directly dealt with since.

The installment was season 2 of Digimon, episode 13. ‘The Call of Dragomon’ a.k.a. ‘His Master’s Voice.’ This episode introduced the Dark Ocean.

After all these years it continues to spark debate and analysis from fans. Why? It’s not like Digimon didn’t have its fair share of dropped plots. Why does the Dark Ocean stand out and why was its mystery never resolved? To try and answer that, we have to take a deep dive into the episode that introduced it all.

It begins when Kari Kamiya experiences bad dreams and visions of an ocean swallowing her up. Dark creatures follow her in the hallways. She flickers out of existence and appears in the Dark Ocean. It’s a greyscale world. A lighthouse shines darkness instead of light. Kari attempts to find a way out and stumbles across the dark creatures from earlier, glowing red eyes their only feature. They painfully cry out for help, desperately hoping Kari will free them from the power of the evil Digimon Emperor. 

It’s all a trick however and important differences between the Japanese and English versions of the episode occur at this point. In the English version the dark creatures attempt to kidnap Kari, hauntingly telling her, “you’ll be our new queen. We need you.”

In the Japanese version it’s much more unsettling. They tell her, “you are worthy of being our bride. In order to fight the new god (the Digimon Emperor, it’s implied), we must create new offspring.”

In both versions Kari is saved by her Digimon partner Gatomon and the dark creatures retreat into the ocean. In the English version they woefully explain their foiled plan,

“We thought you would love to be our queen. With your power you could lead us in the battle against our undersea master. I guess we were wrong. Beware, our master can sense your power too and he will come for you.”

In the Japanese version they leave Kari with this parting message.

“Chosen one… we believed you would be glad to be our bride. Very well. We shall return to the depths, to our former god, and wait for the time.”

Kari escapes from the Dark Ocean but a giant Digimon, named Dragomon in the Japanese version, rises from the ocean. The master the dark creatures spoke of. Its eyes glow red. END OF EPISODE. What does it all mean? This seemed like it was going to be a major storyline. The end of the English episode even teases, “who is this evil dark undersea master? Don’t miss the upcoming Digimon!” But that question would never be answered.

The master/god would never be seen again and Kari never crossed paths with the dark creatures. It’s a massive cliffhanger that the franchise has never resolved and no one from the production has given any answers to. The Dark Ocean does show up again but only for brief appearances. 

A flashback in episode 23, ‘Genesis of Evil,’ shows a young Ken dipping his digivice into the Dark Ocean’s waters, transforming it into a Dark D3 digivice which would later give Ken the power to inhibit digivolution. Ken, as the Digimon Emperor, also draws on the power of the Dark Ocean to power his base.

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Kari, Ken Ichijouji, and Yolei Inoue stumble into the Dark Ocean through a “phase warp” in episode 31, ‘Opposites Attract.’ Yolei is unable to see the Dark Ocean until her frustration at that somehow makes it so she can. This seems to indicate that one’s emotions when entering the Dark Ocean can have a major impact on what happens to you there. Ken and Kari both have their share of trauma which may have influenced the Dark Ocean’s hold over them. Ken was originally pulled into the Dark Ocean after his brother died, a brother Ken had previously wished would “just disappear.” Kari watched Wizardmon, a kind Digimon that she’d grown close to, jump in front of an attack meant for her. She held him in her arms as he died. Yolei, her life comparatively easier, wasn’t affected by the Dark Ocean as much as them.

In the Japanese version of the episode Kari worriedly states, “they called me here… again.” It seems the master/god still wants Kari’s power. The three manage to escape through a “hole in space” and never return.

Later in episode 45, ‘The Dark Gate,’ Ken banishes the evil Digimon Daemon to the Dark Ocean. He opens a portal there by facing his darkest fears and with a little team friendship power. Curiously Daemon indicates he already knows what the Dark Ocean is, calling it Dragomon’s Ocean in the Japanese version. 

It’s briefly mentioned in episode 48, ‘Oikawa’s Shame’ when evil mastermind Oikawa reveals the Control Spire’s that plagued the team in the first half of the season and prevented regular digivolution are a “present” from the Dark Ocean. 

The Dark Ocean also gets a few fleeting moments in the Digimon Adventure tri. films. Previously unknown Digi Destined Himekawa becomes stranded in the Dark Ocean after her Digimon partner, Taprimon, couldn’t remember her. She fought back against the dark creatures there but was pulled into the ocean never to be seen again. The films also address the Daemon cliffhanger by hinting he could return as a villain but this never went anywhere. With the Digimon franchise well into a reboot of the original first season, it’s doubtful this or any other Dark Ocean plots will ever get resolved.

That leaves fans (including us) to try to make sense of it all. First off, let’s look at those key differences between the motivations of the dark creatures in the Japanese and English version of episode 13.

In the English version, the creatures seemingly tricked Kari into helping them by using the dark spirals. They knew this would make her sympathetic and hoped she would join them as their queen in a battle against their old undersea master. Why did they need Kari for this? They mention she has power they need but it isn’t clear what that power is. Previously in the series she had a connection to the crest of light so maybe they were hoping her light would be able to wipe out their master. There’s no clear answer to any of that question but it seems Kari, more than any other Digi Destined, has some special role to play in this conflict.

The Japanese version’s motivation for the dark creatures is much clearer. They aren’t fighting against their god; they’re working for him to fight the Digimon Emperor. They chose Kari because she was worthy of being their bride, a bride who would create new offspring to aid in the fight. This leads us to speculate that these dark creatures, which certainly aren’t Digimon, are offspring of some other bride.The horror of all that is off the charts and deeply uncomfortable, especially since Kari is a middle schooler. It’s no wonder this was changed for the English version and rightly so.

Putting that real life horror aside, the biggest lingering question at the end of the Japanese episode is what the dark creatures meant when they told Kari to, “wait for the time.” The time of what? What did this god want with her? 

In all this we also need to ask what the Dark Ocean itself even is. It’s implied to be a dimension or world that isn’t the Digital World, especially since Kari can get there without using one of the Digi-World gates. We only see a small section of the world. The ocean, a beach, the lighthouse, an abandoned town, and a tunnel.

The only other clues we have to try and decipher what the hell the Dark Ocean is comes from its clear influence, H.P. Lovecraft. Dragomon might as well be called Cthullumon given his appearance and the way he rises from the sea. A clear connection is drawn in the Japanese episode when a text card appears just before the title card, written in “digicode.” This is basically the Digimon alphabet and thanks to TMS over on the Digimon With the Will forums we know it translates to “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.”

In Lovecraft’s “The Call fo Cthulhu” story this translate to “In his house at R’lyeh, dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.” This would imply that Dagmon is actually Cthulhu! This could mean any number of things for the multiverse of Digimon but just reading it on the tin, it matches up with the dark creatures statement in the Japanese episode that they’d “wait for the time.” We can now reasonably extrapolate that they’re waiting for the time Dragomon aka their god will wake. Most likely to aid in their fight against the Digimon Emperor… or perhaps something bigger.

With all this information, fragmented as it is, what can we reasonably guess the Dark Ocean is? Perhaps, since the Digital World is made of data, the Dark Ocean is the black screen in-between the 1’s and 0’s in the Digital World’s code. A place that has to exist for more “code” to be written but that’s barren of any life. Dragomon and the dark creatures could have been banished there long ago but before that it was an empty world, only carrying fragments of the code around it (the town, the lighthouse, etc.) That also lines up with the Digital World, which also contains fragments of real world machines and structures (trains, buildings, etc.) This proximity to the code of the Digital World is further supported by the fact that people or Digimon could fall through “phase warps” into it like Kari, Ken, and Yolei did. The Dark Ocean is a world between a world. A world that needs to exist for the sake of another world but is not truly a world of its own. A world you almost never see but if you do… it’s nothingness.

It’s no surprise why the Dark Ocean continues to captivate and frustrate Digimon fans all these years later. A gigantic story was hinted at, one that held particular importance to fan favorite characters Kari and Ken. It could have expanded the scope of Digimon’s world, bringing in a power beyond anything else the team had ever faced. The “what if?” of it all holds great power over fans. It’s a shame the show abandoned something that could have been so compelling.

However, perhaps its lack of resolution isn’t a completely bad thing. It makes the world of Digimon more mysterious. There’s more going on than just the battles the kids are having. There are other forces at work. Powerful forces that have their own goals outside of simple destruction or desire for power.

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The more you get of a franchise like Digimon the more likely you are for its fantasy world to get overcomplicated or over explained. Things get too tidy, too neat, everything is related to each other or a small group of characters (looking at you, Star Wars.) The Dark Ocean breaks all that up. Sure our characters’ stories intersect with it but they’re only a small part of the mystery of the Dark Ocean. If it’s a mystery that’s even solvable. As much as fans want it solved, there’s something powerful about a mysterious force lurking at the edge of the Digimon universe.

The post Investigating Digimon’s Biggest Unanswered Question appeared first on Den of Geek.

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