#you see I LOVE the concept of the nations being able to die from physical reasons but then come back to life after a while

[lindonwald]

so since it’s canon that countries don’t die but do feel the pain,,,,during battle wouldn’t getting captured by the enemy be the worst thing to happen to a nation?,,,,since torture literally couldn’t end in death for them,,,

[itsmaferart]

Keep your hands off my woman!!

Leaving aside the most important part of the chapter, Yor must kiss her husband for world peace and the Twiyor nation to be happy.

I think it's a good message if we look deeper into how the stereotypical duality of women is portrayed to us, which I think is a message that can encompass anyone in general.

The most conventional romantic movies are usually about the man being - stereotypically - the strongest and the one who must protect the woman, who wins his sensitive heart and makes the hero bring out his sweetest feelings.

Becky being a little girl has in her heart the fantasy of a sweet romantic love just like the one in her novels and movies. But sometimes, people are not so conventional.

Both Anya and Yor, don't feel comfortable being pigeonholed into “girls waiting to be passively rescued”, because within themselves the love for the people around them is a drive to be strong, take action and save others.

I feel that one of Endo's best points, is her way of undertaking a concept of what femininity, or rather, “feminine energy”, represents. Feminine energy is a force that comes from feelings, it is fluctuating and unpredictable, sometimes like a gentle breeze and sometimes like a terrible hurricane.

Most of Endo's female characters are strong, independent women who do not need to be rescued. And they are very willing to put themselves in the face of danger to protect those they love. This is something we have seen, with characters like Yor, Sylvia, Martha, Fiona, and they have been able to save other men or take on subjects much larger and more muscular than them.

Even with girls like Anya who we know very well is a very brave girl and has been in the face of danger despite her age (maybe too much, our poor baby is only 4 to 5 years old, God), and has the strength to send a bully flying (and fall in love in the process) on the first day of school.

So …. if women are strong …. men are weak?

Absolutely not!

Everyone, regardless of gender, is strong. We know perfectly well that Twilight is someone capable of taking care of himself, is someone who is physically trained and has enormous intelligence. Even Yuri has survived so many dangers that we wonder how the hell he didn't die. Damian is a brave guy (when he doesn't see an insect lol).

The point is, even though women and men (or any gender in general) are strong. We all have our weaknesses, our sensitive sides.

You can do things on your own, but you don't have to do everything at once....

Clearly, although Yor is physically strong, she has problems with metal and verbal confrontations. Because her insecurities are so great that when they make her doubt herself and her own value, she tends to lose it and that is when Loid is there for her, not to take care of her because she is weak, but to remind her of her own value (because she doesn't seem to realize it herself) and to make her see that she is worthy of the understanding and love of others. In the same way that Yor reminds him that he too can be a little weak and take refuge in her.

Even if we feel weak and awkward, we can take initiative....

I think it is very important, the idea that Yor or anyone in general can have the “initiative” to seek on their own that “love” that you so desire.

Many times we feel that if we don't fit into the expected canon, or social archetype we are not worthy of love. (Feminine women who feel vulnerable and who depend on the guy to live are the ones who get love in the end). When nothing could be further from the truth….

Being weak and vulnerable is something totally natural and not exclusive to one gender or social role. We are all weak and strong at the core, and we need each other to complement each other and to be able to enjoy much more of our own love and the love we can give and receive from others.

Yor's desire to actively seek love (kissing her husband a lot) is not only a way to develop her bond with Loid, but a way to grow her self-esteem and challenge her insecurities. To stop seeing herself as a child in front of the world, but a woman who can get things because she wants them (and has her husband's consent, of course) (But, come on, we all know Loid needs kisses from Yor).

[jeridoesntdourls]

hmm oh forgot to specify 20 for all three :)!

THANK YOU!! Reversed endings mean talking about their worst traits which i love so much- I'm not 100% sure about how I would like them to play out but the story beats are the same independently. Might be a bit weird but i always imagined bad endings as more of bad routes where the story itself changes as you make your choices. Never thought I'd be saying this but suicide tw on Attis' bit and desire to be physically hurt expressed on Medea's. This one is LONG. (also yk disclaimer that despite the church being used as a "villain" in Medea's route, I am not criticizing the concept of belief or of religion. Despite my problems with the church, I would still consider myself religious)

BOREA

When valued by the player only for her achievements and making jokes during moments of emotional intimacy, Borea will become cold and distant, thinking her feelings do not matter and that she can never be understood. She goes on to establish contact with Vesuvia before the Brass ring can agree, which causes the group to rebel against the Syndicate and then be slaughter en mass by the new government. Borea then tries to lead the syndicate alone and is mutinied. The nation erupts into chaos and the ship captains and crew are nowhere to be found, stranding the MC on Tua. Without any other hope, Mc seeks out Borea, who awaits her death in the syndicate meeting room. She pulls MC into an embrace, crying for all that they could've been, for all the nation could've been. You have the option to shield Borea so that she can look over the city. You die before you can see if she does as well.

ATTIS

When his escapism is encouraged, Attis will leave his sister to sort out the situation between the Brass Ring and the Syndicate, making plans to escape with the MC to Vesuvia and start anew there. He will try to ignore the rising tensions and tour the city with MC until all hell breaks loose when his sister takes her own life. The Brass Ring, now without a diplomat, begin infighting and sporadically attacking members of the Syndicate. Attis begins fabricating weapons for the Ring because he believes that is the only thing he is capable of doing well. The MC begins to reveal the plans of revolt and on the dawn of the first attacks, Attis tries to abandon Tua but is unable to because of the blockade. When MC catches him, he tries to play it off but if they insist on asking him why he's making these firearms he admits that he doesn't know what he's doing, he misses his mother and his father and his sister and he thinks this is the only way they could ever be proud of him now. He tries to settle things down but they're too far gone. He creates even more of a divide between the Ring which leads to full out duel between the two. There is finally an opening where he is able to leave Tua but returns from the port to protect MC.

MEDEA

If you treat her as being unable to do harm and feed into her self sabotage, she will regress into the strict morals of the old Heilist church and support the outside attempts at foreign intervention from the nation of Insulinde, believing that she is saving the city from damnation. There isn't any change at first but then, Insulinde begins to pay off members of the Syndicate and assassinate the others(Borea included), launching campaigns to elect newly integrated officials of their own and members of the church into the Syndicate. Every philanthropic donation from Insulinde is just a way to solidify it's power over Tua and begin to capitalize off its exploitation once again. Medea is assigned the Reinado seat in the syndicate, a newly invented position that installs a religious authority to oversee the making of policy. Their relationship with the MC becomes strained as the Insulinde officials are weary of Vesuvians and the prospect that maybe the country could offer the rebels aid. After the Brass Ring begins to riot, Medea cannot convince themselves that their actions are justified, so they seek out the MC for the validation they once gave her. If the MC chooses to go against Medea, her self hatred that's been brewing since the beginning of the story makes it so she begs the MC to hurt them in an attempt to make the MC just as morally corrupt as her. This prospect keeps them in their position of victim and makes it so she can be with the MC without feeling that they are a better person than them. This ultimately does not work but makes Medea resign and become targeted by the new government. They have the choice to join the Brass Ring's revolts but the weight of defying their religion and their victimization tendencies make it almost impossible. Route ends before you know what her choice is.

This was such a good question and I've been thinking about it non stop and I don't think these are the final editions of how they'll be but if I keep rewriting I'll never post this and you'll never get your art :( hope you like em!

[silvantransthranduiltrash]

Do ya have any more headcannons about the whole Thingol and Melian you sometimes write about over here? I really like the concept of Thingol being Melian's thrall basically

Yes yes yes! It’s pretty much canon in my mind

So Thingol isn’t being mind controlled by Melian 24/7, it’s mostly during important events /decisions.

When it’s just an average day, Melian loosens her control over him (bc she’s a sadist) so that she can say she doesn’t control him all the time. Unfortunatly for him, when he isn’t being mind controlled, Melian is verbally and occasionally physically abusing him, so it’s a toss up on which he prefers: mind control, where he doesn’t have to think to much and isn’t constantly being hurt, or no mind controll, but he is constantly being hurt and gaslit.

By the time the noldo came to the eastern shores, Thingol has pretty much given up, which is why his personality switches between mind control and no mind control aren’t noticeable.

Furthermore, Melian likes to make herself out as the good guy, so she has Thingol act and decide things that actually she wants, but she herself will play as the disapproving, compassionate wife. This means that most elves, espescially the noldo who haven’t been around to witness the breaking down of thingol’s will, believe that Melian is the one to talk to in order to get Thingol to work with them, and it gives the impression that, if anything, Thingol is the abusive one in the relationship, essentially trapping Thingol, and preventing him from escaping due to social pressure.

Luthien knows exactly what’s going on, but other elves either 1. Don’t believe her (like her Noldorin cousins) or are not in a position to help her and Thingol completely. They might be able to keep melian down momentarily, but they can’t put a permanent stop to it unless they are willing to risk the eradication of all the sindar.

As mentioned in previous posts, this really leads to a “hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil” mentality in the sindar, and even all the way to the third age the concept is pushed that Melian was merciful and Thingol was not.

Luthien, whenever she needs to get away from Melian’s abuse (with her it’s more verbal/gaslighting and watching her father get hurt), runs to Oropher, the head of house Edireth, bc he’s one of the only elves who has enough power to stop Melian in her tracks unless she’s willing to risk it all. She has a permanent room in his household, where she keeps all her diaries listing the abuse Melian has put her and Thingol through, bc she knows that if she keeps those diaries where Melian can access them, they’ll end up destroyed. This is her way of documenting proof of melian’s abuse bc she knows no one will believe her if she accusses he mother without proof.

Luthien is also pen palls with Lasgen, her cousin, god mother (Thingol was able to gain controll for enough time to make Lasgen Luthien’s god mother, bc he didn’t trust melian for one bit) and Oropher’s grand daughter, who lives (at this time) in the Arctic Empire (an Avari nation), and Lasgen has hundreds of letters where Luthien is venting about exactly what is happening in her home.

Also as mentioned in previous posts, Luthien didn’t only choose to marry, live and die with Beren bc she loved him, she also did it to escape her mother’s grasp.

However, Luthien’s departure from his life ultimately broke Thingol, and she’ll forever regret that.

Now, the ainur aren’t really good in this au, especially the valar, so when Thingol comes out of the halls, Melian gets control of him once again and the valar do nothing about it, and no one really helps him, bc everyone has been so gaslit into believing that Thingol is the bad guy and melian is the good guy, that no one even knows smth is going on.

Except Olwe, Ingwe, and Finwe that is.

And as much as they want to tear him away from Melian, they have to play the long game and little by little break Elwe away from that bitch.

It isn’t untill into the 5th age that they, with the help of other Avari and cuivienen elves (bc they are some of the only ones not blinded by the ainur’s powers), manage to fully destroy the marraige and chase Melian away from Elwe. Of course, this causes further chaos amongst the elves as a whole bc if Melian could succesfully make most of the elven population believe that she is the good guy, even though she’s just as bad as Sauron, what else are the ainur doing? Especially considering they didn’t intervene now that they were in valinor.

[wubwubnparmaham]

how do you think the world would react to immortality and what would be the reaction of historians and people overall of alexander still being around and not only him but of other historical figures

In like a literal sense? If you mean our world, how would we react, the first thing I would see happening (depending on how this knowledge came to be in the open) is a lot of divisive conclusions about the validity of it. I can see people hopping onto forums and calling it fake news to the ends of the earth, so there would need to be some substantial proof for the non-believers to not just assume it was some scare tactic on the government's part, or like a distraction, similar to those UFO documents from the CIA coming out during other global crises that needed the public's attention there instead (Ukraine, Palestine, etc). Since the government has a habit of doing that kind of shit, I think even I would be skeptical at first.

Considering the eventual reality that it is confirmed and believed by all, then a lot of other shit might happen.

I think scientists and the government would be quick to lull the public into saying they were "looking into" and "dealing with it" and "not to worry", but secretly the government would probably be panicking, preparing the military for defensive action and rallying the national guard, and I think if they could manage it, scientists would absolutely capture one and try to figure out what the fuck was going on physically.

Over time, if immortals weren't keen on fighting a war against humans and no real violence ever came, people's mindsets would shift to desire instead, wanting to become immortal themselves to escape the ever-encroaching death day in their futures.

I think that would divide society even further. People would be separated into "human purists" and "sympathizers", and the former would have some moral high ground standpoint against the latter, calling immortals and all who wanted to be them abominations against our species.

Tensions would probably rise in the public as those warring mindsets duked it out, and a lot of people would get more and more nervous about the fact that billionaires were already or were becoming immortal, corporations and their execs, government bodies, and global leaders were now unstoppable. Even I hate the thought of that.

If the world is ever proven to be run entirely by people (potentially tyrannical people) who WILL NEVER DIE, the indomitable human spirit would win out and we would fight back heavily, good odds or not. Likely, by becoming immortal ourselves, to be able to stand a chance against them. The more hesitant people in the earlier stages might jump at the chance to become immortal too, similar to how I would think many anti-gun people wouldnt think twice about running off and securing as many guns as humanly possible if the government / military ever actually started attacking us (but thats a whole different can of worms).

Warfare would be absolutely inevitable, and it would likely rip nations apart. I'm not sure HOW it would end, really, but there would be a lot of death before any kind of resolution.

When it comes right down to it, I don't think the historical figures aspect would mean much in the end. I think at first, that concept would be gripping, and if anyone ever got a chance to hear from them, they wouldn't even blink as they listened closely to their stories on television or social media. But given that the historical figures may not be the ones in power, the attention would naturally shift to who was immortal and in power at the same time, because that would be the biggest threat, and a very valid threat at that.

As far as my reaction to that historical figure aspect goes, if I ever heard that Alexander the Great was an immortal, I would simply shrug and say "I know." 😂

And would I become immortal? Yes. And maybe in this hypothetical world of ours, I already was one the whole time, and Love Endless was just a subtle tell-all before the world knew the truth. But if I hadn't been, I would become so happily, and the 1%ers would absolutely be my first target.

[inkmyname]

The Ember Island Players: performing toxic masculinity and narrative complicity in propagating misogyny

Initially I wasn’t going to respond to concerns about Katara’s racist/misogynistic portrayal in the Ember Island Players with anything more than snarky tags, but apparently I can’t keep my mouth shut, so I’m posting my response as a standalone meta about how the writers’ insistence on creating drama for drama’s sake leads them to--in lieu of actual character development--fall back on lazy narrative shortcuts whereby a performance of toxic masculinity against a gendered heternormative background is used to create tension in a romantic relationship, presumably with the goal of keeping the audience invested.

The Ember Island Players is problematic for a lot of reasons, not least of which is the pervasive tone-deaf misogyny, including racialized misogyny, directed at Katara. There’s a lot of meta on this, so I’d like to focus on something different: Aang’s relationship with gender and romantic attachments.

Aang seems so uncharacteristically chagrined the whole episode: “I’m not a woman!” Based on his previous characterization up to this point:

The Fortuneteller. This is the same Aang who makes a necklace for Katara when she loses her mother’s. Observe how he responds to Sokka’s jibe about jewelry-making, which can be seen as a feminine pursuit: Sokka: Great, Aang. Maybe instead of saving the world, you can go into the jewelry-making business. Aang: I don’t see why I can’t do both. Femininity isn’t presented as being mutually exclusive with narrative pursuits like saving the world which have traditionally centered male protagonists (especially if we take the entire canon of anything every written in any genre that’s not specifically, say, something like shoujo or jounen which are directed and young girls and women, the narrative focus on male personalities is overwhelming).

The Warriors of Kyoshi. Oh, and this is the same Aang that dressed up in full Kyoshi gear, kabuki makeup and all, without complaint. Why would he? After all, she was him in a past life. (There’s a whole meta here about gender-critical analysis of kabuki productions where male actors typically assumed female roles and how Avatar both takes inspiration from this real-life kernel and subverts it in Rise of Kyoshi where Kyoshi’s signature look is not only an homage to her parental heritage but also a reimagining of who can inhabit what roles. Her legacy, though imperfect, is also notably feminist, taking face paint worn typically by men IRL and expanding it into war paint for women warriors.) (There’s also great headcanon-adjacent meta here about gender non-conformity and non-binary identities in Avatar. Avatar was not overtly explicit about its feminist or gender-progressive mindset outside of episodes like The Warriors of Kyoshi or The Waterbending Master, but it was still way ahead of its time. If anyone was to be presented or headcanoned in such a way, it would be the Avatar who’s lived a thousand lives, inhabiting a thousand skins and a thousand identities, including gender identities. There’s also cool crossover meta here about the Legend of Korra depicting a female Avatar in Korra with masculine tendencies and visible muscle vs Aang as a male Avatar with a gentler pacifistic spirit and gender nonconforming tendencies.)

The Cave of Two Lovers. Aang wears a freaking flower crown and is generally wholesome and adorable, even leading up to the “let’s kiss lest we die” scene with Katara. He’s not pushy or overly concerned with appearing masculine and it is in fact Katara who suggests the kiss and Aang makes a fool of himself. From the transcript: Katara [Shyly, blushing.] Well, what if we … kissed? Aang [Very surprised.] Us … kissing‌? Katara See? It was a crazy idea. Aang [Dreamily.] Us … kissing … Katara [Fake-jokingly.] Us kissing. What was I thinking? Can you imagine that‌? Aang [Fake-jokingly.] Yeah. [Awkwardly laughs.] I definitely wouldn’t want to kiss you! [Beat.] Katara [Insulted.] Oh, well! I didn’t realize it was such a horrible option. [Angrily.] Sorry I suggested it! Aang [Realizing his mistake.] No, no, I mean … if there was a choice between kissing you and dying … Katara [Disgusted.] Ugh! Aang [Desperately.] What? I’m saying is I would rather kiss you than die - that’s a compliment. Katara [Enraged.] Well, I’m not sure which I’d rather do! [Slams the torch into his hand and storms away.] Aang [Miserably.] What is wrong with me … Aang, sweetie, this is not what you say to a girl you want to kiss, but generally, this is Wholesome™ and narratively, this is Good™. Eventually, they do kiss and that’s perfectly acceptable because there’s a whole conversation beforehand with humorous romantic framing. There’s consent and communication and initiative by the female protagonist. So solid A on the sensitive writing.

General Air Nomad culture. We don’t get a lot of Air Nomad culture in the show (and what little we do get what presented in such a misguided way, especially the whole commitment to forgiveness/pacifism which was handled in such an amateur black-and-white way from a writing perspective in season 3). But I digress. I really, really don’t think that Air Nomads who were so concerned with the spiritual side of bending and general existence had stringent notions of gender and romantic relationships–at the very least, they had very different notions of these issues compared to, say, the Northern Water Tribe. Canonically, even though AN philosophy emphasized detachment, Air Nomads practiced free love. Same-gender romance was freely accepted unlike in the homophobic Earth Kingdom (which even Kyoshi, a bisexual woman, wasn’t able to change) and the militant Fire Nation (Sozin outlawed homosexuality after declaring world war, essentially). And though the temples were gender-segregated, it seems that the burden of raising children fell to the entire community instead of just the women. Both male and female Air Nomads are revered. In the case of the former, Guru Laghima who unlocked the power of flight through achieving complete detachment from the material world. And in the case of the latter, Avatar Yangchen, who has statues everywhere because she came to be revered as a deity not just among Air Nomads but in the physical world in general. Nowhere in Air Nomad philosophy is the concept of gender, romance, love, sexuality, relationships etc. etc. tainted with jealousy and possessiveness (especially towards women) or rigid binary heternormativity.

So this was Aang for the better part of the first half of the series. Not overly concerned with gender roles. Pretty much fumbling his way through his first crush like a lovesick puppy and it’s all very wholesome. Supposedly a classic product of Air Nomad upbringing.

Meanwhile, Aang in EIP:

Checks out Katara’s butt as she’s sitting down.

Gets mad at being portrayed by a woman.

Accuses Katara of being the racialized misogynistic version of herself depicted on stage ([sarcastically]“Yeah, that’s not you at all.”).

Nods in agreement when the misogynistic stage production of Katara presents her as the “Avatar’s girl.”

Unable to differentiate between fiction and reality and puts the onus on Katara to do the emotional labor to justify something she never said (”Katara, did you really mean what you said in there? On stage, when you said I was just like a … brother to you, and you didn’t have feelings for me.”)

Assumes they would just… fall into a relationship… just because he forcibly kissed her at the invasion and again pressures Katara to do the emotional labor to justify why their relationship is not how he wants it (“But it’s true, isn’t it? We kissed at the Invasion, and I thought we were gonna be together. But we’re not.” / “Aang, I don’t know.” / “Why don’t you know?”)

Forces a non-consensual kiss on her even though “I just said I was confused!”

So, there’s so many things wrong with this, most of which are a laundry list of behaviors typical of toxic masculinity:

Ogling

Outdated misogynistic humor (what’s wrong with being a woman?)

Verbal abuse

Offloading emotional labor

Gaslighting

Pressuring a potential romantic partner

Lack of direct communication about romantic desires

Lack of sensitivity

Lack of active listening

Lack of emotional intelligence and empathy

Lack of consent and sexual assault

I could go on and on.

My question is Where and when did he learn these toxic behaviors? What happened to the wholesome boy making necklaces, wearing flower crowns, and generally being adorable in a kid with a first crush kind of way when it comes to romance?

Now, you can argue that EIP players Aang has been through a lot, including being shot by lightning and actually dying, and after the failed invasion, he’s stressed out with the weight of the world on his shoulders and maybe not expressing himself or his desires in the best way and taking out all of his frustrations on Katara.

Except… that is all just conjecture because the actual writing of the show doesn’t put in the hard work and make those connections. Instead, they fall back on misogynistic tropes and toxic heternormative romance tropes and a forced love triangle subtext and they just, to put it politely, fuck it up, two and a half seasons’ worth of work, gone, in the space of one episode. And even if it weren’t conjecture, it would still be wrong of Aang to act the way he did.

Let’s list Aang and Katara’s interaction in relation to each other in season 3:

The Headband. “Don’t worry about them. It’s just you and me right now,” Aang says as he pulls Katara into a dance. I have qualms about the writing of this episode: the creators wasted a golden opportunity to flesh out the Air Nomad genocide because they were too busy playing footloose in a cave, they wrote Katara–the same Katara would said fuck you to Pakku, freed enslaved earthbenders from a Fire Navy prison, and became a spirit goddess ecoterrorist to help a village in an enemy nation–as uncharacteristically shy just so Aang could sweep in and pull her into a dance. But like fine, whatever. It’s cute and really well-chreographed and there’s actually appropriate romantic framing here for once and at the end of the dance, look at Katara’s face–she’s happy! Positive Kataang interaction, and I don’t actually mind it. 7/10.

The Day of Black Sun Pt.1. He forces a kiss on her on the mouth, taking her completely by surprise. A chaste kiss on the cheek and a wistful pining last look and “Be safe” might have been acceptable, but given Katara’s shocked and uncomfortable body language, the kiss on the mouth was not. Worse yet, the show just… forgets… to follow up on it for several episodes and when it’s brought up again, it’s used as a sledgehammer to punish Katara for not magically being with Aang. 0/10.

The Painted Lady. Let’s look at the transcript: Katara [Using a disguised voice.] Well, hello Avatar. I wish I could talk, but I am very busy. Aang Yeah, me too. I hate that. [Looks at Katara’s face from behind the veil.] You know, you’re really pretty, for a spirit. I don’t meet too many spirits, but the ones I do meet, not very attractive. [Looks at Katara suspiciously. Tries to look under the hat.] Katara [Giggles nervously.] Thank you, but- Aang You seem familiar too. Katara A lot of people say that. Aang [Suspicious.] No, you really seem familiar. Katara Look, I really should get going. [Covers her face and runs, but Aang uses his airbending and blasts her hat up into the air, exposing her.] Aang Katara? Katara [Guiltily.] Hi, Aang. Aang [Shocked.] You’re the Painted Lady? [Pointing at Katara.] But how?Katara I wasn’t her at first, I was just trying to help the village. [Takes her hat off.] But since everyone thought that’s who I was anyway, I guess I just kinda became her. [Drops her hat on the ground.] Aang So you’ve been sneaking out at night? Wait, is Appa even sick?Katara He might be sick of the purple berries I’ve been feeding him, but other than that he’s fine! Aang I can’t believe you lied to everyone, so you could help these people. Katara I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have … Aang [Happily.] No, I think it’s great! You’re like a secret hero! Katara Well, if you wanna help, there’s one more thing I have to do. Aang gives her a curious look. Cut to the Fire Nation factory. Aang and Katara run along the river’s edge toward it. Aang looks at the polluted water. Aang You wanna destroy this factory? Katara Yes. Sokka was just kidding, but he was right. Getting rid of this factory is the only way to help these people permanently. He helps her blow up the Fire Nation smelting plant! Yes, he does call her pretty, but more importantly, this is one of the few times he acknowledges her faults (lying, deception, putting the mission at risk to help the enemy nation etc.) and still thinks she’s so fucking cool. He calls her a secret hero! There’s a lot of admiration and support here from Aang. He’s raising up Katara (instead of putting her down as in EIP) not because he sees her as a potential love interest but because he admires her and her compassion! This is great. Solid wholesome Kataang interaction. 10/10. But all good things must come to an end…

The Southern Raiders. I’m not going to spend too much time on this because there’s a million pieces of meta on this episode. He’s completely out of line asking Katara to be forgive her mother’s killer, the source of her greatest trauma as a victim of targeted ethnic cleansing. Given that he’s a victim of ethnic genocide himself, although he personally wasn’t there for it/didn’t actually witness it unlike Katara, he should have understood. He does say “You need to face this man,” which is good and supportive and he should have stopped there, because he continues on to say, “But when you do, please don’t choose revenge. Let your anger out, and then let it go. Forgive him.” Stop. Stop stop stop. No one should tell a traumatized victim of ethnic cleansing how to deal with their trauma. By the end of the episode, Katara doesn’t kill him–but she crafts a third path as the conclusion to her hero’s journey and it is not the path of forgiveness that Aang preaches. Ironically, it is Zuko, who also confronts Ozai, the source of his greatest trauma, who never tells Katara what to do but follows her lead instead: even though he redirects lightning at Ozai and could have killed him, he doesn’t go through with it. He understands Katara and he understands that she needs to this. Kataang interaction rating: 0/10.

So that’s where we are with Aang and Katara in Ember Island Players. Some positive interactions that are appropriately romantically framed and some that are just wholesome and good… but all ruined by forced kissing and moralizing about Katara’s trauma instead of offering understanding. So that still doesn’t answer when Aang would have learned all of the toxic masculine/heternormative behaviors he displayed in The Ember Islands Players.

The only answer, I’m forced to conclude, is bad fucking writing, where the creators were not only tone-deaf in portraying Katara in a racist/misogynistic way or, you know, in writing solely for the male gaze because fuck half the audience, I guess, but they just wanted to create drama for drama’s sake. They completely disrespected their female lead and I would argue they disrespected Aang’s character too in making him a stereotypical self-insert Gary Stu who displays toxic masculine behavior without consequences because that’s what’s expected of a toxic heternormative romantic plot device.

And worse yet, they never follow up on this, just like with the kiss at the Invasion. In the last five minutes of the finale, Katara looks up at him with admiration for saving the world and then kisses him. This is not only a missed opportunity for character development for Aang, but also a big fuck you to the female audience because the message is clear: the guy gets the girl as a trophy for saving the world, and fuck input from the female half of the partnership because that’s just not important and is not worthy of screentime. But I guess screentime dedicated to displaying toxic masculine/heternormative behaviors without ever condemning such behavior as a follow-up is just fine! :)))

If the EIP was supposed to make an argument for Kataang, then it failed. but more important:

By the show’s own high standards, The Ember Island Players is a failed episode, full of bad writing and worse characterization. For a show that was so ahead of its time, this episode is a narrative black mark, a failure of progressive representation and a disservice to its main characters.

There’s some wholesome Sukka and Zuko/Toph interaction, but even that doesn’t manage to save this episode, especially given there’s no resolution to the central conflict: the relationship between Aang and Katara. The entire unnecessarily OOC and forced Kataang drama drags it down.

We know Aang is capable of lifting up Katara and being supportive of her, as he was in episodes prior. We could have had honest, supportive, and open dialogue between Aang and Katara that actually followed up on the Invasion kiss, with Aang clearly expressing what he wants, Katara expressing that maybe she didn’t want that right now, and Aang completely respecting that and them hugging at the end because their friendship/connection is much more profound than pre-teen romance. This is an instance where Aang could have chosen to center Katara’s feelings, for once, instead of his own out of selfless love. If this happened, I would have been okay with a Kataang ending. But that isn’t what we got, obviously.

Part of what appealed to me about Aang as a male protagonist in media aimed at young audiences is that he–at least initially–did not start out as a toxic self-insert Gary Stu lifted from every problematic heternormative romance film ever. In fact, given his playful trickster archetype, general kindness/gentleness, and his stance against violence (a typically masculine trait), he both subverted expectations of and expanded the boundaries of what a male protagonist in children’s media can look like. Unfortunately, the creators don’t go all the way with Aang. In fact, they took a step back with his portrayal in The Ember Island Players, where the creators not only rely on misogynistic tropes to create drama but also make him complicit in propagating said misogyny. And that’s just a damn shame because we could have had a wholesome Kataang storyline and a sensitive male protagonist who cares not about your outdated gender roles and respects his partner’s autonomy!

[aleatoryalarmalligator]

I’m copy pasting this somewhat from a letter I wrote to my friend earlier this evening. It is pretty concise as to what is happening with my mother thus far.

The last few days have been very worrying. My mother’s condition with covid got worse. She’s nauseated and deliriously ill and struggling to breath. She was sent back to the hospital four days after they released her. They released her because the beds are filling up so fast, not because she was better.

She tried to go to four different hospitals but they had no room. Eventually she was ambulance driven to a hospital in a rural town fifty miles away. It was a nicer hospital and the staff took more care of her but her situation became even more dire. She has double pneumonia delta variant covid. Two days ago Allison and I called her and god she sounded horrid. She whimpered in agony to talk. She was horribly sorry that she didn’t get the vaccine. I looked it up online and she has a 40% survival rate. We have been devastated. The sick idea of her suffering in the hospital alone is disgusting. She’s not even sixty yet. Every breath is a struggle. At night the doctors spend several hours trying to fix her oxygen.

I’m heartbroken and sick with worry. I go between being numb and sobbing and feeling helpless. She’s suffering. I may never speak to her again. I don’t know how to contextually articulate what that means to my existence but it changes everything. Even if she gets better, I will never be the same. She was part of who I am even when we weren’t close.

Today they emergency flew her to Boise to be on a ventilator. Allison messaged me at work and I fell apart and had to leave. They’ve covered my shifts for this weekend. I sobbed outside until Allison and Eddison came and got me. Happy oblivious people in close quarters looked at me strangely from a completely different reality where covid is merely a year old concept they loosely take seriously. The only bright thing I can say is that her being on a ventilator is actually good news in her situation, not bad. I mean, it’s horrible. But the fact that they gave her one when Idaho has run out is more fortunate news. It means she’s lucky to have that.

Her breathing is stabilized. She still may die. They have a better understanding of how to treat covid than they did last year. I’m trying to stay positive. I love my mom. Hell despite everything I really like her. I just want five to ten more good years with her. I’m writing this in a semi composed way, but I’m not really composed. I’m absolutely unable to focus on much else. The world is just never going to ‘go back’.

Other hideous news is that my grandma Marie, which you may vaguely remember from my life story, and her boyfriend Foreman are both deathly ill of covid. I was very close to her in my late teens and early twenties. He’s a fanatic conspiracy theorist. He believes all the Alex Jones nonsense. They were getting sicker and sicker and when my grandma tried to get better he physically prevented her and yelled at her for trying to get medical help. Maria found out and called an ambulance anyway, which they gave her oxygen and sent her home. She was angered and resentful and when she got back Foreman took half her oxygen for himself. I have no idea how oxygen works or how they take it in, but I will accept what I’m being told.

I really don’t like him and he’s very cult like. He’s someone who is harmless in certain contexts but has the potential for doing great damage and evil mindlessly when the opportunity would arise. My grandma and foreman are now so sick that they can’t move. Their organs are shutting down. They have decided to die together. I half don’t believe this was my grandma’s true will as she was adamantly trying to seek help early on. When they sent her home she gave up. I’m sure hearing about my mother’s condition had broken her spirit also. They have defacated and have feces all over themselves coming off the bed. My sister Maria is trying to take care of them but it’s hard.

David has bronchitis. He’s going to be okay but this whole thing is horrible. He’s focusing on niche news and political topics, and i worry about how his obsession and focus is largely on moral outrage. He’s not a conservative but i see this inhinged need to be angry at ‘a side’. He hates communism and pretty much accused a political people of communism.

My grandma gave into white nationalism and science denial and racism and hate during the end of her life. It started when Obama was first running. I think it gave her something to live for and believe in. Though the potential for hatred and prejudice was in her system she gave into something and it kind of warped her into something that made me want to avoid her, even when I knew and loved her dearly deep down. She was a multitude of people in her time and she was also a very good person in many ways with a limited understanding of the world around her. She had a hard battle to find independence. She’s a victim of what happens when children don’t get hugs.

Old age and loneliness made her open to Fox News and worse. Overtime it made her resent and hate an imaginary enemy every day. Anger and fear that she never coped with distorted her ability to be open. I’m sorry it’s ending this way. She deserves so much more dignity. I know a better side to her and it cuts me to think of her right now wheezing and dying in that manner. She’s very old and I was willing to accept her death. But this is a whole other level of disturbing and sad. She doesn’t deserve to die covered in feces alone. It makes me want to puke.

I’m kind of mad at Maria and her kids because they brought covid to the house and to my grandma. It was to ask for food and gas money. They knew they had covid and didn’t say anything. Now Maria is remorseful and trying to take care of everyone. I’m not actually mad at her. She’s got to be suffering horribly. This is one of the ugliest times in my entire life.

There is nothing anyone can say. I’m disgusted at politicians who politicized this and made people afraid to get vaccinated. They have blood on their hands and they don’t care as they misguide their voter base into death. Even conservatives in other countries aren’t creating myths about covid to create rifts between parties. My mother is a sweet person. She isn’t really good with critical thinking and wasn’t able to access the truth with logic. She’s gullible and childlike. She was fooled. Which was that she was high risk and needed to get vaccinated.

Anyway, there isn’t much else to say. I hope you are staying safe wherever you are. Hold your loved ones close and don’t forget to appreciate the time we have with those people.

[fernrisulfr]

Unpopular FGO Opinion/Rant 2: Bio-Diesel Boogaloo

My second unpopular opinion, though I’ve seen more agreement to this, and there’s a post somewhere that I reblogged which gives a much more comprehensive explanation as to why this is, but “Lostbelt 3: Synchronized Intellectual Nation, SIN” is bad. There’s a few reasons it’s bad.  I will however say this first. Everything about Spartacus? Was good. It was very good. This was a Lostbelt that showed just what Spartacus can be to the narrative. He can be more than just manically shouting about “OPPRESION!!!” in the right setting. My significant other was right when she said the reason he had to die so early in Apocrypha was because had he lived any longer than that, he absolutely would have joined Sieg in starting a Homunculus rebellion. 

So why is Lostbelt 3 bad? A few things. One is that the narrative is very poorly managed. It starts very slow, and almost nothing introduced in the first half actually goes anywhere. Then when we hit the second half of the story the narrative suddenly goes “Oh shit! We’re half done! Better pick up the pace!” and jams it’s foot on the accelerator so that things escalate so quickly barely any of it has time to matter. 

Focusing on the first half of the story, that Vitch was releasing beasts and giants on villages, a point which took up a large chunk of the story, actually went NOWHERE. It really had nothing to do with the story, and the quests themselves brought me back to Orleans where every node and notch was “Here’s two blocks of dialogue. Now fight some Wyverns!”. It was a massive backwards step in FGO’s storytelling. Another issue is that in every Lostbelt so far they’ve tried to give us some sidekick from the world we’re going to prune so we can feel bad about it later, but the one in Lostbelt 3, which he at least got eyes unlike the other anonymous villagers, the kid didn’t even get a NAME. How are we supposed to care about a character with no name and almost no personality to speak of? The kid was quite literally barely more than a generic NPC. 

Speaking of generic NPCs. Let’s talk about how DEEPLY Lostbelt 3 mistreated it’s characters, which is the real crux of why Lostbelt 3 is bad. So Nezha and Mordred just did not matter at all, to the extent they literally got shoved out of the story part way in. Mordred was there for comparison and pairing with Spartacus, but the moment he died she became unimportant and basically didn’t do anything. Nezha started off alright, but then the moment other characters showed up she was likewise shoved to the side, and ultimately out of the story. She basically existed solely to identify that Xiang Yu was a similar existence to herself. Speaking of, Xiang Yu and  Yu Mei-ren’s romance was completely unbelievable. For multiple reasons. Again there’s another tumblr post by someone who’s put more thought into this than I, that explains this better. I’ll try and find it and reblog it again. Anyway. It’s bad and unbelievable. I’ll try to summarize why. Part of the problem is that there’s no real build up to it. It’s a lot of Mei-ren fawning over or being overtly protective of Xiang, and Xiang just being confused. It’s entirely one-sided till almost the end of the story. Then he just does some magic robot calculations and he decides he loves her just like the other Xiang Yu. Which is the other thing the narrative doesn’t pay enough attention to in this “romance”. HE’S NOT THE SAME GUY. Like he’s the “same guy” but an alternate reality version. Mei-ren basically found her husband’s doppleganger and decided to cling to him hoping it’d be the same/because she couldn’t bare to watch another man with that face die. Which could have been very interesting! Really! But it wasn’t paid enough attention to or written properly to BE interesting. Honestly the relationship between Xiang and Mei-ren could have formed an emotional backbone to the story, and instead it’s just kinda off to the side and comes up occasionally, but it’s “super important really!” by the end of the story. 

Related to this is also Gao Changgong, Prince of Lanling, who was UTTERLY UNIMPORTANT. Like he should have been! The Lostbelt started off super strong with that exchange between Gao and Mei-ren in the past, and then the narrative did nothing with it. Gao barely said anything the whole Lostbelt when he should have been more relevant to the plot! He should have been a confidante to Mei-ren! It should have come up that he was happy to be able to see her again in “another life” (such as being a Servant is like living again, albeit briefly). He should have been more involved with Mei-ren and Xiang Yu! Like it could have been done so many ways! He could have been her wingman! Or he could have been her confidante who she talked to about her struggle with Xiang Yu being Xiang Yu but not being HER Xiang Yu. Instead he just didn’t do much, died earlier than any Crypter servant so far in their own Lostbelt, and became utterly irrelevant. 

Red Hare and Chen Gong appeared part way into the story, and served no purpose beyond being Comic Relief, which was a real disservice; especially because their summoning was supposed to be important. It follows after the death of Spartacus, where the Lostbelt suddenly becomes connected to the throne of Heroes because the people regain hope and the concept of a Hero. Their arrival is SIGNIFICANT and then the narrative goes on to do nothing with them. Literally anyone could have been summoned and it would have played out the same. That’s how much their appearance mattered. 

Old Man Li was there, but he also didn’t matter. Specifically it didn’t matter that he was Old Man Li. It doesn’t even come up. It literally could have been anyone. Could have been just some dude, and narratively it would have been the same. 

Which is largely the biggest problem with the narrative. Most of the Servants/Characters present could have been literally anyone and it would have been almost exactly the same. Who anyone was largely did not matter. 

Now let’s address the insect in the room, Emperor Mothman himself,  Shi Huang Di. He was bad. Not like “he was a bad guy”. I mean he was just bad. Poorly written and uninteresting. He was unsympathetic and poorly written. Now. Let me be clear, a villain doesn’t need to be sympathetic. My problem here is that he was unsympathetic, but at the very end of the story they tried to act like he was. I felt nothing for this character, and still do not. He was poorly written and the aspects of him that could have been interesting were under utilized. Also not a fan of his design personally, or at least not compared to images I’ve seen of what he apparently looked like before he became a super-computer, followed by his new moth bod. That’s just a matter of personal preference though and I have no real issues with his physical design. Point is he’s boring. Like everyone else in the story, and despite being there for most of it, he was under utilized, didn’t do much, and his role could have been filled by just about anyone and it would have played out the same. 

And that’s my rant. There’s honestly more to criticize, like the unnecessary on screen torture of Vitch, the generic battles, everything about Liangyu, but I am starting to lose my motivation two rants in, and I fear anything I say at this point will just be me repeating myself. My point is, Lostbelt 3 is bad, and of the first three lostbelts it’s narratively the weakest. (Lostbelt 2 had a LOT of problems, but it was still better. I am at least a little biased though due to a love of Norse Mythology and Sigurd, though those things also make me about three times as judgey as a normal person.).  Anyway. Lostbelt 3 bad. That’s just my opinion. Agree or Disagree, you’re entitled to feel what you do about the matter. 

[nastyburger]

What are your thoughts on Cores? Are they all a type of element? (i.e Ice, Fire, Plant, Electric, etc) Could they be based one some kind of temperature slider? What kind of core would the Lunch Lady have? Would she have a simple hot/fire Core? Or would she have a sort of strange “Meat” Core? Idk I’m asking you

i love the concept of cores! i like to think cores are like the ghost’s mind and heart (but rolled into one and put in their chest) with the “mind” half being their obsession and the “heart” half being their element. i like to think theyre all elemental like fire ice and all that! i feel a core merely fuels the ghost, and the element is just a minor detail dictating certain features (do they feel more hot or cold to the touch? is their image slightly more fuzzed out like fire or pulsing with electricity? are they more rigid yet see through like ice? ect. though these traits are hard to see unless your looking really closely or have a good eye like frostbite taking one look at danny and knowing he has an ice core). like its more how the ghost is comprised/holding its ectoplasm together so i dont believe it dictates what their literal powers are.

hmmmmm think about it like atla nations! like sokka is very clearly water tribe with his clothes, culture, weapons, and natural inclination to the cold but that doesnt mean he’s a waterbender. i think about cores like that basically if that makes any sense! a good example of core not equaling power would be ember, she would have a fire core but her powers is clearly based on sound and music despite the aesthetic! which brings us to our next point..........

im very inclined to the idea that obsessions are wrapped up along in the core. its essentially the gas tank to the whole operation. the more a ghost indulges their obsession the more powerful they become and this is where their true power comes from. the actual elemental part is just the outer shell glue holding everything together and only particularly powerful ghosts, ghosts fortunate enough to have their element and obsession align, or ones simply smart enough to figure out how to tap in would learn their element and use it outwardly.

lets use danny as an example of “a powerful ghost using his core”, danny’s power was building so much that he physically felt freezing no what temperature it was or how much he bundled up. even in ghost form he was constantly shivering. danny’s core was literally freezing him from the inside out and needed to release the excess energy, he had no choice but to learn how to do this and just use ice powers. on the other hand though, this means he can use his ice powers far more frequently and exclusively as his main mode of attack if he wanted to. basically ghosts in this category have no choice but to use their elemental core lest they become a ticking time bomb of repression to themselves (i also like to believe tapping into ones core is very difficult to do hence danny needing to be taught instead of like accidentally releasing it or something, many ghosts born with the POTENTIAL to have this really powerful core ability often cease to exist because it destroys themselves from the inside out. thats why theres not many of them). other examples of this category would be frostbite and undergrowth.

contenders for the “fortunate enough to have their element and obsession align” would be technus. electricity is probably the most common type of element for this category in all honesty. technus is obsessed with technology, and while i would say most of his powers are “possessing” technology with his basic package of ghost powers theres no denying the dude definitely has some sparks flying. i feel like if your obsession is already close to your element then its only reasonable you stumble upon a natural way to use it. but heres the key difference between a ghost like technus and a ghost like danny: if technus can use electricity all the time then why bother possessing electronics? simple answer is thats just not sustainable. danny is literally overfilling with energy, he has so much excess its spilling over and will literally kill him if he doesnt blast off a couple of ice beams here and there. technus is pulling energy from his core, its not excess, hes just tapping into this extra reservoir of power, but if he uses it TOO much he will have the exact opposite problem of danny. basically expending too much of your own battery that you die from lack of power. unless you are the first category of ghosts, tapping into your core at all should be used sparingly.

“simply smart enough to figure out how to tap into their core” would be ghosts like ember and skulker. a musician pop star would have nothing to do with fire, likewise a hunter with electricity, but these two are able to minorly use their element abilities. “smart” probably isnt the right word to use here, but more or less for one reason or another, these ghosts figured it out and are now using their cores. thats basically all there is to it. though i will say, having a core strong enough in general to have power to tap into in the first place is another deciding factor for all three of these categories. with that, lets move on to the last set of ghosts.

going aaaaaaaall the way back to your original question of whether or not a ghost like the lunch lady would have a “meat core” or something like that, the final group of ghost are ones that simply dont use their elemental core at all. they instead lean into their obsessions. ghosts in this category can be here for a number of reasons, perhaps the shell of their core is very minor and weak and they cant use that elemental power no matter how hard they try, perhaps theyre so focused on their obsession they may not even need their elemental, perhaps they just simply cant learn how to tap into their core at all because they dont have enough sentience.

i would say the lunch lady and the box ghost are the “too weak to use their elements” ghosts, but that doesnt mean they are powerless! i like to think all ghosts have a “basic package of ghost powers” with levitation/telekinesis being one of them, the only difference among the ghosts is how their obsessions dictate their natural affinity towards certain things. so while the lunch lady doesnt LITERALLY have a meat core, her obsession gives her the natural inclination towards food and meat. she can control these things with the most accuracy and power, it allows her to do things like making the meat suit and whatnot, its just what she’s best at controlling. regardless, these ghosts can never learn how to use their elemental core but thats okay. their obsessions is just a different path to take. speaking of which........

“so focused on their obsession they dont even need their elemental core” is clockwork. hes just so powerful on his own, why would he need to use that? does he even have an elemental core to control? who knows and who cares because the dude can LITERALLY CONTROL TIME. another example would be desiree, maybe even the ghost writer. these guys already gain so much power from their obsession it doesnt matter whether or not they have the ability to use them or not. thats sorta the beauty in this category! because you know who else can fit in here? TUE box ghost. thats right, just because your elemental core is too weak to tap into doesn’t mean youre weak. in the ultimate enemy, the future box ghost is genuinely powerful. his abilities to control boxes extend beyond just levitating and throwing them around, he can make these pink plasma boxes and hes a genuine threat to behold. he leaned into his obsession and it developed enough to this point of power. again, loop this back to the atla comparison i was making earlier, just because someone is a nonbender doesnt make them weak! those nonbenders lean into learning different skill sets until mastery and become very formidable foes. just because youre not born with it doesn’t mean you cant git gud. on the other hand......

the very last kind of ghosts are the “cant learn how to use their core because theyre not sentient/intelligent enough”. these are ghosts like the blob ghosts, ectopusses, maybe even cujo and other animal ghosts if we’re being honest. using your core doesnt come naturally, it needs to be taught and learned, you have to actually train to use it. so in cases like these ghosts, they just dont have the thought process to do this. hell, some of them like the blobbies may not even have fully formed obsessions. their more scribbles, raw ideas, pure emotion giving sentience to ectoplasm. with cujo (assuming he has an elemental shell strong enough), you could argue that you can train him to use his core like its a dog trick, but in all honesty this would be very very difficult to do and whether or not cujo can use it on his own is debatable.

[buzzdixonwriter]

Super Duper Supermen

This will be a long one, so pour yourself a cuppa and settle down.   We may seem to meander, but we’ve got a destination.

. . .

I’m tired of superheroes.

I’m tired of a lot of genre fiction.

Part of the reason is that too much of the current material is ugly and loud, but the real reason is it isn’t fresh, it isn’t fun.

I tried watching The Boys.  I got to the end of the second scene of episode one and realize, “This ain’t for me” and turned it off and went over to YouTube and watched guys build model airplanes.

At least they look like they’re having fun.

. . .

Look, superheroes are a power fantasy and they’re okay for little kids who want to believe there’s always going to be a mommy or daddy who will protect them, but they’re an absurd genre at best and when you start taking them seriously -- and recently even the funny parodies and spoofs take themselves Too Damn Seriously -- they become horrific.

What prompted me to realize this is an article posted on The Vulcan by Abraham Riseman “The Boys Is the End of the Superhero As We Know It.”

Highly recommended, by the way.

. . .

It’s not like Riseman was the first to make this observation.

30+ years ago Gary Groth observed:

“Superman is one version of the hero with a thousand faces -- to employ the title of Joseph Cambell's excellent book on the subject -- and his appeal should therefore not surprise us.  But Superman is a crude version of the hero; if you will, an elementary one.  Unlike his more developed analogues in all the world's great religions, Superman does not offer love or goodwill, self-knowledge or contemplation as keys to man's salvation.  He offers his own physical powers.”

And he ain’t the only one.

Alan Moore recently chimed in:

“They have blighted cinema and also blighted culture to a degree. Several years ago I said I thought it was a really worrying sign, that hundreds of thousands of adults were queuing up to see characters that were created 50 years ago to entertain 12-year-old boys. That seemed to speak to some kind of longing to escape from the complexities of the modern world and go back to a nostalgic, remembered childhood. That seemed dangerous; it was infantilizing the population.

“This may be entirely coincidence, but in 2016 when the American people elected a National Socialist satsuma and the U.K. voted to leave the European Union, six of the top 12 highest-grossing films were superhero movies.  Not to say that one causes the other, but I think they’re both symptoms of the same thing — a denial of reality and an urge for simplistic and sensational solutions.”

. . .

I don’t like cruelty.

I used to enjoy old weird horror films back in the day -- movies like The Reanimator -- because I appreciated their absurdity and never took them seriously.

When the torture porn sub-genre came along, I lost interest in horror films.  

The Babadook is the only modern one I’ve seen in the last 5 years and I enjoy it because like earlier horror films (and here I include both classic Universal / RKO movies and the artistry of Mario Bava and Dario Argento) it’s essentially a very dark fairy tale, not an exercise in cruelty for the sake of cruelty.  

Violence doesn’t turn me off.

Sadism does.

And sadism is all about power and fascism is all about power, so when I remark on modern superhero and thriller and horror stories as being fascist, I know whereof I speak.

. . .

Superhero stories may not necessarily be tales told by idiots, but they are full of sound and fury, and signify nothing.

Ultimately superheroes fail because:

they can’t lose

they can’t win

There is no finality in the superhero genre.  The damn Joker keeps crawling back, Les Luthor constantly schemes, Dr. Doom and Galactus pop up whenever things lag in the sales department.

Superheroes as a genre are failures insofar as they can’t permanently deal with these existentialist threats, nor can they step out of the way to let others deal with them.

Superheroes promise salvation but deliver bupkis, slapping a band-aid on a cancer and telling us it’s all better.

They can’t permanently defeat their greatest threats, yet neither can they be truly harmed by them.

I’ll grant you the occasional Captain Mar-Vel but they are very minor exceptions to the rule.  Gwen Stacy was bumped off in The Amazing Spider-Man #121 in June 1973, first reappeared as a clone in May 1975 then several times thereafter, and most recently shows up as Spider-Gwen in Edge of Spider-Verse #2 (September 2014).  

As Roy Thomas aptly observed:  “In comics they’re only dead if you have a body and even then only maybe.” 

(In fairness, there’s no finality in most formula / genre fiction either, but we’ll get to that in a bit.)

. . . 

Before we delve deeper, let’s be clear as to what we’re discussing when we say “superheroes”.  

They don’t need to possess “powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men”.

As noted above, they just have to be:

always victorious

never in real danger

You can bash ‘em / trash ‘em / slash ‘em / smash ‘em and they still bounce back -- heroically -- to save the day.

Break both legs, riddle them with machine gun bullets, hit them with a car, cave in their skulls with sledgehammers, and yet somehow they summon up the super-human reserves needed to keep in the fight.

Mind you, in the real world there are people who display super-human endurance in horrific situations and not merely survive but go on to achieve incredible success.  They don’t do such things every year (as do heroes in movies), much less every month (comics) or every week (television). They sure as hell don’t make a career out of it.

Let’s veer away from brightly colored naked people flying & fighting to superheroes in a different genre than costumed crime fighters.

Mike Hammer is a superhero.

Sherlock Holmes is a superhero.

Philip Marlow might actually be a literary character.

Look at the criteria:  Can they lose?

Never in Hammer’s case.

Rarely for Holmes (and when he does, it’s always with bittersweet irony).

Frequently enough with Marlowe that one can’t anticipate if any of his stories will end with him victorious (yeah, he solves mysteries, but always at profound personal cost, and in more than one novel he ends up realizing he’s been a sucker all along).

Here’s another example that snaps the dichotomy into ever sharper relief:  

Samuel L. Jackson’s Shaft is a superhero.

Richard Roundtree’s Shaft is just a hero.

Roundtree’s Shaft is aware he can fail.

No “macho bullshit irony” as they say over at the Church of the Sub-Genius.

. . .

Superheroes don’t grow -- they decay.

They never truly use their power for good (because that would involve changing the world) nor do they adequately protect the innocent.

They serve no true function except to entertain and to be exploited.

Series novels and television shows can feature character growth, but the concept has to be baked in from the beginning (Jan Karon’s Mitford series and Armistead Maupin’s Tales Of The City books are two examples that spring immediately to mind).*

More typically, in series fiction the character/s show little actual growth; they are more or less the same at the end of their adventures as they were at the beginning, maybe a little greyer, maybe a little creakier, but essentially the same person.

Sometimes, particularly in military or nautical or police series, they may start out as a callow cadet but soon wise up to the stalwart hero we want to see.

As perfect an example of superhero decay can be found in the Die Hard movies.

The original’s superhero character, Detective John McClane, implausibly goes through a night of hell yet actually shows some character growth:  By the end of the film he’s able to swallow his pride and admit to his wife he was wrong.

A very farfetched movie but an emotionally satisfying one.  We’ll overlook a multitude of injuries that would have rendered him hors de combat in reality in exchange for the movie actually being about something.

All that gets chucked out in the first sequel, Die Hard 2, where the characters are thrown into a contrived situation to mirror the first film without the satisfying emotional growth but with far more ridiculous action;  Die Hard With A Vengeance jettisons McClane’s marital relationship except as an afterthought and ups the absurdity of the story (indeed, it’s best viewed as an action comedy); Live Free Or Die Hard totally trashes all the character growth before it; and A Good Day To Die Hard not only trashed previous character growth but went so badly over the top that it and the star’s aging out hopefully are the one-two punch needed to end the series once and for all.

. . . 

Look at non-superpowered / non-comic book superheroes and see how they fare.

D’Artagnan and the Three Musketeers are superheroes (conversely, Cyrano de Bergerac is not because the focus of his story is on who he is and not the what but the why of his actions; all the cool sword fighting is just bonus material).

Natty Bumpo is a superhero; anybody who can jump into a birchbark canoe from a tree branch 30 feet overhead without crashing through is a superhero because that character simple Can Not Lose.  

For that matter, most 1950s TV cowboys and virtually all Italian Western protagonists are superheroes.

Tarzan is a superhero. 

James Bond is a superhero (the SPECTRE / Blofeld arc in the novels and short stories actually do end up with him going through significant growth and personal change, ending with Smersh brainwashing him and sending him back to assassinate M…but then the British Secret Service intercepts him and a couple of paragraphs later he’s all better and off after The Man With The Golden Gun).

Modesty Blaise is a superhero.

Claire Starling is not a superhero, but Hannibal Lecter is (don’t give me that; even if you’re evil, when you’re the central character of a series of books / movies / TV shows you’re a damn superhero).

They’re all superheroes because they can’t lose and they can’t change their world and more importantly they can’t change themselves.

. . .

There is one exception to the above re superheroes, and that’s in the realm of sci- fi and fantasy stories.

Occasionally we find a character who becomes a king (viz Howard’s Kull) or a demi-god (viz Herbert’s Paul Atreides) and does alter their world for good or ill.

That, of course, is the ultimate power fantasy.

. . .

Fascism focuses on the Will and the Act.

It is a philosophy of movement.

It’s a philosophy that attracts the weak and the sadistic, because it promises protection from and power over others.

It’s a philosophy that actively seeks conflict, not necessarily overt violence, but the promise of same is always there.

. . . 

A brief sidebar to the other side of the comic book spinner rack.

Funny animals are essentially anti-authoritarian.

From Aesop forward to Carl Barks, their characters, filled with all too human foibles, can and do fail.

And when they win?

Ah, then it’s almost never by force or action, but by cleverness.

Funny animals are tricksters, accurately sussing out a situation and maneuvering to gain the best outcome for themselves without obtaining dominance over their opponent.

Bre’r Rabbit and Bugs Bunny.

Ducks Donald, Daffy, and Howard.

Superhero stories seems obsessed with keeping everything orderly and in continuity.

Without continuity, anything goes, and that’s fatal to the superhero trope as it annihilates authority.

Funny animal stories rarely feature continuity and when they do, it’s rarely rigorous.  If Porky Pig needs to be a businessman or a farmer or a studio executive or a traveling salesman, so be it.

He’ll be something else in the next story.

As tricksters, funny animals are bounded by one rule: They may save themselves and seek justice, but they will pay a penalty if they try to use trickery for selfish gain.

Howard the Duck -- “trapped alone and afraid / in a world he never made” -- is just trying to stay survive.

Daffy Duck -- greedy little miser that he is -- inevitably gets it in the neck when he tries to cheat someone.

Donald Duck -- floating somewhere between Howard and Daffy in his motivations -- finds no guarantee of success and reward, yet achieves success often enough to keep striving.  

He may battle mummies or a reluctant coke machine, his stories may take him around the world on an adventure or no further than his kitchen to fix dinner.

It doesn’t matter.

Who he is makes his stories compelling far more than what he does.

He’s not on a power trip.

He doesn’t feel he has to win every time.

And as a result, he has a much richer life than Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark.

. . . 

“So whaddya sayin’, Buzz?  ‘Superheroes is bad’?”

No.

I deny no one their pleasure.

But I also think there are times when we have to demand not just more of creators but of ourselves as an audience with the media we consume.

I only saw the first two scenes of the first episode of The Boys.

That was all it took to convince me not to watch it anymore.

For similar reasons, I have no desire to watch Mad Men or Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul or Game Of Thrones.  

I’ve picked up a strong enough vibe from each to know I’m not going to connect with them.

I’m certainly not saying you can’t enjoy them if you like.

Bu I am saying we’re cheating ourselves by not demanding more.

And until we start demanding more, the studios and streamers are only going to offer us less and less variety.

C’mon, people, we deserve more than that.

  © Buzz Dixon

  *  I’m sparing you a whole long analysis of The Mary Tyler Moore Show because frankly it goes too far afield of this essay’s central thesis and besides I can use it for another blog post in the future.

[empowercbcgl]

Silence and Sleep

This post was written by Michael Ni who will be graduating from Boston University in Winter 2020. Hopefully he can find a job afterwards or something. Here is a collection of his various musings about his faith in his recent college years.

I would like to preface by stating that I will be referencing a few sources, both secular and religious. While it is important for us as Christians to meditate upon our Divine command, it is my belief that only through ruminating the words of others can we truly strengthen our faith beyond a superficial level. In his book Art as Experience, American philosopher and writer John Dewey states that “A poem and picture present material passed through the alembic of personal experience. They have no precedents in existence or in universal being. But, nonetheless, their material came from the public world and so has qualities in common with the material of other experiences, while the product awakens in other persons new perceptions of the meanings of the common world”. If we so choose to examine the teachings and musings of both Christian and non-Christian writers alike, we strengthen both our faith in His divine power as well as our resolve to defend this faith. 

We often view the embodiment of wisdom as an elderly, perhaps scholarly, man or woman, regaling those around them with tales of their vast experiences or cryptic and grave-sounding prose or parable, meant to evoke a lesson or invoke a period of introspection. However, I believe that each and every person, without regard to their age or experiences has some degree of wisdom worthy to share with the world. In fact, it is a fallacy itself to believe that a wise or even perfect man is above learning a new lesson. While God himself is the Great Teacher of humanity, I believe that there is wisdom to be found beyond just His holy scripture that may teach us to better interpret His will. 

1.

“Every word has consequences. Every silence, too.” -Jean Paul Sartre

A large part of reaching emotional maturity lies in our ability to live with others. Learning our boundaries with people, setting our limits on how to speak or act, and even how to interpret our outlook on those around us are important aspects to becoming a mature and contributing member of both society and the natural world. Intersubjectivity is a term used by philosophers to refer to the psychological relations between people, as opposed to the traditional Cartesian view of solipsism, the individual experience. French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre describes the intersubjective experience in his book Being and Nothingness as something he calls “The Look”. Imagine yourself walking through an empty park alone, taking in the sights and sounds, appreciating the world for what it is to you when you suddenly notice a man on a bench. The man looks up at you and immediately, for a split moment, you are unnerved. From the moment your gazes cross, you both now realize that you are not alone and the world around you which you had interpreted in your own way, is now a shared experience, no longer subject to your interpretation alone. In order to learn to exist in the presence of others, we must learn to live with The Look. Simply put, it is of utmost importance that we realize that the world itself is not set up specifically to cater to our will but is a realm we must share with others and their views. 

One of my primary struggles as a Christian is learning to coexist with people who do not share my beliefs. While on a surface level this includes communicating with non-Christians who may believe in a different God or no God, I also run into the conflict of communicating with Christian believers who share my same core beliefs but have differing views on concepts such as social justice, or sexual bigotry. Truthfully, this is an aspect of my faith I have not yet been able to solve, but my confidence lies in the fact that while God is my Almighty Father, my connection to the Hereditary and Original Sin have imparted upon me the privilege of wisdom and the ability of free will. Thus I am no longer subject to merely bear witness to the atrocities of false prophets and the destruction of Sodom, but am empowered to speak up against the face of hatred that masks itself under the guise of the Christian faith. 

Sartre claims that “essence precedes existence”, that is, that the personality is not built upon pre-existing models or natural purpose, because it is the conscious human who chooses to engage in behaviors or enterprise. As an example, while the traditional Christian view is that marriage is the union of man and woman in Christ’s spirit, it becomes my free will, my essence, to cement a potentially different belief, for my existence itself is imperfect by nature, as Adam and Eve indulged in the Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Rebellion is not sinful by nature. In fact, sometimes rebelling against the word of God further bolsters the strength of our faith as we learn new insights of what His will truly is. The most fatal path to take when facing adversity against both our justice or our faith, even when originating from ourselves, is silence, as “the dead do not praise the Lord, nor do any who go down into silence (Psalms 32:3 ESV). The time of passivity in the face of injustice has passed, rather it should have never existed to begin with. Now is the time for us to no longer stay silent but to speak out against the evils present, for “what we do now echoes in eternity” (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations).

2.

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” -Rumi

 In his poem “A Great Wagon” Rumi describes a field, a world beyond even the concepts of  right and wrong, where the world is too full to talk about, and ideas, language or the phrase “each other” no longer matter. There is tranquility and peace to be found in Rumi’s words, imagining a field where the “breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you” and “people go back and forth between the door-sill where the two worlds touch”; A field where we are bathed in the light of salvation; Able to touch God. In a world distraught by conflict, plague and violence, we can only imagine this field, where the wrongdoings of others no longer matter, and the need for right-doing is a thing of the past, where the people of the world can coexist in harmony under the loving embrace of the Lord. 

However, we cannot delude ourselves into believing that this “doorsill”, the threshold to this beautiful world, can be traversed so easily. Happiness is built upon the backs of those who have sacrificed. Both the biblical martyrs and those who die to bring injustice to light have established the better, brave new world we live in today. This is another struggle I have had with my faith in the past. Is it right to live blissfully upon this pyramid of bones and bloodied soil? What is the worth of my happiness where nothing was staked? Even Jesus, the great martyr and redeemer, who died for the sins of all of mankind; Am I permitted to rejoice and exist in comfort today? 

“Don’t go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want.” For the past five to six years and even to today, I have battled with depression. Depression is not sadness. Depression is the lack of vitality, the loss of the mind’s ability to wake up and experience life itself. There were countless mornings when I would wake up and stay in bed, not because I was physically exhausted, but because I no longer had the will to stand up and face the day. There were sometimes months-long periods where not a single day passed without me thinking about how much I wished to die. What kept me going was not the fear of pain of death, nor the sinful nature of taking one’s own life, nor even the grief of loved ones had it come to pass. Within the tempest of hopelessness and hatred for the world, there was a single anchor for hope; There was work that needed to be done in the world. Even though change on a global or national level was far beyond my jurisdiction, I felt compelled to do something with my life. I felt that I had not yet paid the toll that my life was worth. While each day I struggled, I needed to endure them, and while each small step I took towards my healing was arduous, they were victories, and I needed to claim them, no matter how hollow. God has set forth a path for our salvation. Let us fight for this salvation with our own hands. In the words of Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations, “When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive - to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.” It is my mortal duty to open the door to Rumi’s field for those who have not yet found their salvation.

Don’t go back to sleep. You may not want to wake up again tomorrow. You may no longer feel compelled to do kindness upon others. “Let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober… putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation” (1 Thessalonians 5:4-8 ESV). Truthfully it is beyond my capability to say that better days are yet to come for either you or me, but even still, let our love and faith resonate and move the hearts of others, so that we may one day see justice prevail as we walk together into a field beyond all ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing. God has granted everyone the right to live, thus it is our duty to fight for this right.

“Let your kindness be like rain, that cares not about whom it falls upon” -Rumi

[littleworldbigdreamsblog]

Intruders- Jessie Reyez (A Review)

Introduction

So from the first time I heard this song and watched the video I knew I had to write something on this. I have always loved Jessie Reyez, I even wrote one of my thesis papers about her song “Gatekeeper”. If I can find it I will definitely post it here. The topics that I will tackle with this one are quite heavy but it must be done. We will be looking at colonialism, the manipulation of history and the personification of nature. 

The Artist 

My girl Jessie Reyez has been making music people have been afraid to make and I will say something I don’t say often; she is so underrated. I wish more people knew about her and the messages she convey in her lyrics. Her voice is also so unique and she sings with so much passion and conviction. I have watched so many live performances of hers and I haven’t been disappointed so far. If you have never heard of Jessie Reyez I do encourage you to give her music a listen. Also she has a new album out called “Before Love Came to Kill us”, stream that ish everywhere.  

Song 

Listen here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVhqNnFh25E

So in most of Jessie’s lyrics she does this very interesting thing which again I wish more people talked about. The lyrics of her songs usually create a meta narrative. This just means that there is a main story which possesses a message or a world view within another story. For instance using “Intruders” as an example it reads like a love letter and sounds like a love song. I was casually browsing the comments on some lyrics sites for this song and a lot of people just saw the song as her saying that the man is hers and these “intruders” or other females don’t belong within their relationship. Absolutely nothing is wrong with seeing the lyrics as that alone but if you dig deeper paying special attention to certain words, you would see that this song is a lot more than what meets the eyes or ears. That is where the concept of the meta narrative comes into play. The story we read or hear on one level is a love story and the main story is about land being taken. People who would have done a little history even secondary school history know there is a term for such actions:colonialism. For a little recap National Geographic explains it to be when “one nation subjugates another, conquering its population and exploiting it, often while forcing its own language and cultural values upon its people”. If you watched the music video you would see more physical representations of colonialism which I will get into but for now we are looking at the words and what they say. 

From the first set of lines in the song there is reference to the original natives of whatever colonized land she is writing about, “I found ya, cleared land /  Put down my flag /This is mine from now on”. As someone from the Caribbean I immediately thought of the Amerindians of the greater Antilles. These Amerindians or Indigenous people are known to be the original settlers of the Caribbean and possibly that of America. There were some studies done to try and track where these people came from and the results varied. Some researchers claimed they came from the Amazon while others said the DNA found from bones matched that of  people from Asia. Wherever they traveled from they are the known first civilization of people to inhabit these lands. Just those opening lines say a lot as it relates to theme and it is amazing how much just a few lines can say.      

There are other pieces of evidence of this song alluding to a telling of the colonization of native lands and people. In the second verse she sings “ I wrote you a love song /A war song/ I'll sing it when the ships come, yeah / I'll die for my state” which paints the picture of the natives standing together as the ships of the foreigners arrive willing to die for their land. And that is exactly what happened. Some assimilated while the ones who rose up were killed like animals. It was an act of genocide and historical records tend to see it another way. These records refer to the Amerindian settlements as pre-history which is incorrect as pre-history implies that the colonization of the land is the main or more important part of history when all of it is our history. This is what I meant by the manipulation of history. Just like there is evidence ie artifacts and relics as proof of the Europeans “discovering” the land, there is also evidence of the first settlers. It was a fully structured civilization which involved the tools they used, the type of agriculture grown and even their burial rituals and customs.  So therefore we cannot and should not see it as pre-history. For instance, growing up in the Caribbean, history was taught according to a British curriculum.It was only when I got older and more educated that I realised how biased it was. it was framed to make the Europeans look like our saviours. No sir! 

Video 

So the music video is a visual representation of this message or meta narrative that the song has. The video starts with a kind of Pocahontas like colours of the wind vibe with the main character worshiping the land. The land itself is personified as a man. Personification is giving more of less inanimate objects human-like features. The main character is using every part of the land to live and at the same time not harming it. 

It is a relationship that functions in harmony..... 

......until the fire nation attacked....I mean colonizers.

I feel like the Toronto-based studio, Solis Animation really studied the lyrics of the song and were able to create a video that works with the true meaning. Actually with both meanings of the the meta narrative. It functions as painting a picture of a love story but also one that shows an aspect of history that some people gloss over, that is, colonialism. I mean you can’t get clearer about what this video is really about. Even taking a look at what the colonizers were wearing. The uniforms were very similar to that of either the English or Spanish military like the colour scheme and the shape of the hats.  

 I also think it is important to note that all the people who came off the ships were female. This ties back to the part of the song that infers that it is about a love story. It is to mean that the intruders in the video while describing European colonizers, are also symbolizing the other women that would want to enter the relationship.  

As the good parts of the land were personified we also saw what happens when land is pillaged and destroyed, mainly how it bleeds. This heavily reminded me of the poem by Eric Roach called “Carib and Arawak” from his book The Flowering Rock. The poem really speaks about the land remembering the history of the genocide of the indigenous people of the Caribbean in particular the Caribs and Arawaks of Trinidad and Tobago. The poem highlights the concept of the flowers (hibiscus) grown on the land after colonial times being a reminder of the blood and death that occurred on the land. The hibiscus because of their original and true colour being red, it symbolizes how the land is bleeding out of revenge of the past.  I absolutely love this poem and if you have an interest in reading it, message me as I know it is almost impossible to find online.     

In these couple of frames we also see that she is willing to fight for her lands. This time marking herself with the blood of her home on her way to defend it. This shows the fighting spirit of the natives in order to protect their home. Based on historical accounts and records it states that some natives were peaceful and ready to cooperate until they were betrayed and they felt the need to reclaim their home.   

I believe we have come to the end of analyzing this piece of art. As someone from the Caribbean I really appreciated the way this video was put together. It emphasizes a part of our history which is sometimes buried and lost. It took a little longer to pull together not only because of the the research but also things going on in real life. I hope you learned something from reading this and if you feel like you can educate me some more on the topic feel free! 

References: 

Lyrics : https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/jessiereyez/intruders.html

What is Colonialism? : https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/topics/reference/colonialism/

Where Native Americans came from: https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/article/where-native-americans-come

Eric Roach-https://www.peepaltreepress.com/authors/eric-roach

All gifs : https://giphy.com/channel/BobbieSan

[christinaroseandrews]

Randomization and You: How to ask the right questions, know when to roll the dice, and decide when to invoke the word of God

One of the problems that writers often run into is when they’re world-building, plotting, and character-creating, is finding the answers to every foreseeable question ever.  Which is your main character’s dominant hand?  When were they born?  Did someone get pregnant from unprotected sex? Who dies in this horrific event that didn’t happen in canon? What race is this random side character? You get the picture.  

You can answer all of these questions on your own, and if they’re important, you absolutely should.  But when it doesn’t matter, when you don’t care, or if you’re unsure, sometimes randomization can help.  Randomization takes out bias. Or, conversely, a roll of the dice can clarify the direction that you actually want to go. 

The two of us use randomization a lot.  Not just in our fanfiction, but in our original works as well.  We do it for everything from character birthdays to ethnicity to who a background character might end up with to who lives and who dies.  Randomization is a nifty tool if you know how to use it.

In this meta, we’re going to go over when and how to randomize.

A note: there are major spoilers for some of our fanfic and minor spoilers for some of our original fiction.  If you want to know what those spoilers are, please feel free to message us.

oOo

When is it a good time to randomize?

Randomization is best done in the planning stages.  It’s not something you want to do halfway through the story (although you can, if you discover you need to -- we certainly have!), but it’s best done early on, when you’re still world-building, plotting, and creating your characters.  

Say you’re creating a fantasy world.  You know you have three countries that are going to be your primary focus.  But does the world have more nations?  You might not know the answer to that.  In which case, it might be time to randomize.  

It can also be used in character creation.  Sure, you’ve got your main characters and you know what their main traits are, but do you know when their birthdays are?  Or other seemingly unimportant details that may end up being important later, like religion, physical characteristics, or taste in entertainment.  This is especially important when you’re dealing with secondary characters who may not be as fully fleshed in your mind when you’re in the character creation phase. Because seriously, unconscious bias will come into play here. The number of books and stories we read where the only characters are the ethnicity of the author is staggering. This is especially problematic when it comes to creating accurate representation. Randomization can solve this. Want to write a story about 5 friends who kick ass and take names? You can literally randomize every major trait -- age, gender, sexuality, race, religion, skillset… you name it. You don’t have to randomize everything if you have a vision, but you should randomize things that “don’t matter” like the doctor or the secretary or the janitor. Randomization can remove stereotypes and bias. It’s colorblind casting but for the author. 

You also can choose ranges within which to randomize -- for example, if said story is about 5 teenagers, your range can be 14-18.  You are definitely not required to use all possible options while randomizing.

Then there’s randomization when you develop your plot.  Say you’re writing a romance.  You know your main characters will end up together.  But what about your secondary characters?  Your main characters’ best friends/siblings are going to end up meeting.  Do they hook up?  Are they interested?  Believe it or not, Prim and Bing getting together in Floriography was entirely randomized.  (Floriography has since been turned into an original work, The Language of Flowers -- but we kept said randomized relationship.)

Another thing -- in a romance, you know your main characters will end up together and you may know how they get there.  But what if you don’t?  You can randomize where they have their dates (using both typical and atypical choices such as a restaurant or a monster truck rally), other events that might interfere, and various other beats in your plotting.

Or the biggie... who dies in a major event? Plot Armor is lovely. The trio in Let Me Fly has Plot Armor. (We are not killing our trio, stop asking!) But everyone else… nope… no Plot Armor. That meant when Johanna Mason failed her rolls to survive the flu, she died. We love Johanna. Love her. She’s a blast to write. But she wasn’t crucial to the story we wanted to tell, so she died. The same is true for a lot of other people in our stories. Some deaths we’ve planned. But some that happened ended up changing the story… we’re looking at you, Third Quarter Quell deaths in Let Me Fly. Don’t think we don’t see you. Justice for Justus, indeed!

So yeah. Randomization can completely change your plot and understanding of the characters. It can even help you out of an “I don’t know what to do!” slump.

You want to go wild with the randomization?  Go to TV Tropes and pick a list of tropes that would make up a main character.  Pick a list of villain tropes.  Pick a list of plot tropes, romance tropes, whatever.  Number them all, shove them into a list, use a randomizer, and pick ten of them.  Congratulations, you now have the outline for a short story.  Think this doesn’t work?

Well… here goes.

We went to TV Tropes Character pages first to get our protagonists and antagonist. And this is what we picked.

  Sounds fun, right? I bet you can start imagining stories that could fit these tropes already. 

We ran these through the randomizer and got the following:

A Gentleman Thief and a Big Beautiful Woman Wake Up in a Room on a spaceship wearing matching rings. The door opens to reveal a notorious Space Pirate who congratulates them on their Accidental Marriage. Unfortunately they won’t be able to enjoy the honeymoon Mwah-ha-ha-ha! While they are making their escape, they end up someplace where they have to truly pretend to be newlyweds and they realize that somehow along the way they’ve Become the Mask and are truly in love. YAY! 

Sure it’s pretty rough and there are some parts missing, but it’s an absolutely viable plot… and I’m fairly certain I’ve seen something like this before. This is a great way to get out of a writing slump or even your comfort zone.

It’s all about asking questions and deciding if you know the answer, if the answer is necessary, and what the possible answers can be.

oOo

How do you randomize?

Randomization isn’t always as easy as rolling a die or flipping a coin.  Sometimes it takes creating spreadsheets or lists, while other times it involves understanding probability and percentages.

For example, say you’re writing a fantasy novel that features swordplay.  Knowing if someone is left or right handed is actually plot-relevant.  However, fifty percent of the population isn’t left handed.  Here, Wikipedia is your friend.  Knowing the percentages will help you know what numbers to use.

Another common time to do randomization is pregnancy.  Depending on what method of birth control and/or pregnancy prevention your characters are using, you can research the failure rates.  For example, when figuring out if Katniss was going to get pregnant during the arc of Brand New Breeze (second arc of Let Me Fly), we looked up the failure rate for the rhythm method and applied it to each menstrual cycle she had -- which, by the way, the length and duration of her menstrual cycle was also randomized.  She did okay for the first few months, and then all of a sudden, right around the time that the three of them got married (which was not randomized), she got pregnant.  

That opened up a whole slew of other randomizations, including: did the egg implant?  Did she have a miscarriage?  Was she carrying twins?  Who was the father?  Was the baby a boy or a girl?  What were its eye color, skin color, and hair color (based off of the parents and what was genetically possible)?  How difficult was the pregnancy?  When exactly did she give birth?  How long was the labor?  How difficult was the labor?  What time was the child born?  What were its length and weight?

You notice that was a lot of questions.  But they came in order.  The first question that got asked was: did she get pregnant?  The rhythm method is one of the least reliable forms of birth control.  Without proper medical data, Katniss was guessing, which increased her chances.  According to the Mayo Clinic, thirteen out of every one hundred women get pregnant.  Because of other reasons, we upped it to twenty percent for Katniss.

Using random.org, we rolled on a 1 to 100 scale for each menstrual cycle, with a roll of 81 or higher being a pregnancy.  Katniss did not get pregnant on her first two; she did on her third.

After conception, there are two primary hurdles to a pregnancy.  The first is implantation.  Many fertilized embryos never implant.  The numbers change based off of the age of the mother, the health of the mother, and other environmental conditions, but it’s estimated that at least 30% of fertilized embryos never implant.  So Katniss got randomized on that with a roll of 30 or below being a failed implantation.  She rolled higher.

Then there’s the risk of miscarriage, which, considering Katniss’s environment, health, and activity levels, we gave her a flat 30% chance of miscarriage.  Again, she did not miscarry.

Then it was just answering a lot of yes/no questions and looking up pregnancy-related details.  Did you know that the chance of twins is about 10%?  Identical twins is 1%, so the other 9% are fraternal.  If there are fraternal twins, they can have different fathers.  

We didn’t roll for anything higher than twins because the chances of Katniss surviving a pregnancy with triplets or more with no medicine are extremely low, and that’s if she even got pregnant with more than two babies at once -- which is highly unlikely.  We did not roll for Katniss dying in pregnancy.  That was us invoking the word of God.  

But wait, you ask.  Didn’t Katniss have a chance of dying?  

And you would be correct if this were the real world and not words on a page, Katniss would absolutely have a chance of dying in pregnancy.  However, that was a direction we were not interested in exploring, and that’s when invoking the word of God becomes necessary.  You have to know what you are comfortable writing as an author.  Not everyone wants to write a pregnancy, so they might say, “Nope! This unprotected sex did not result in a pregnancy!”  While others, like us, will occasionally roll for this -- while other times we’re like “Nope!” Trust us, we’ve totally noped Katniss getting pregnant… random.org has it in for her, I swear!

Some people might’ve said “oh hell no, I’m not dealing with a pregnancy in this story” and that’s perfectly fine.  They wouldn’t even have rolled for it.  It depends on what you’re willing to do as a writer.  But often that’s something that randomization can help you with… knowing your own mind. Because oftentimes people don’t know where to go next because they have choice paralysis… randomization can help solve that problem. 

oOo

So when do you invoke the word of God?

Well, here’s a secret.  The two of us invoked the word of God when it came to both of the Hunger Games in Let Me Fly.  

For the 74th Games, the original randomized winner was the girl from Three.  Unfortunately, that did not work with our plot.  Three was too far from our group for Cressida and her group to flee from there and conceivably make it to our characters, which was a plot point we wanted to happen.  So we rerolled with an eye toward what would work, and Taylor, the girl from District Eight, won.

For the 75th Games, the initial randomized winner was the woman from Eight, and -- having plotted the 74th Games -- we realized that the Capitol really wouldn’t be okay with back-to-back winners from an outlying semi-rebellious district.  So we rerolled and got Chaff.  (By the way, some of the side characters -- the infant for instance -- had zero chance of making it out of the bloodbath alive, and each other character had a percentage for what their chances of winning were based on their age, skill, and other factors, and we used a 1-100 scale for randomization.)  

However, there was another thing that happened that basically has colored our plot from the moment that it happened.  

Justus came in second.

The six-year-old kid only had a two percent chance of being picked at any specific time.  But he came in second.  And we took that and ran with it.

That is how randomization can end up creating plot for your story, and also why you want to do it fairly early on.  If your outline changes, you may need to do it later.  Or if you’re a pantser.  But if you’re a plotter, you’ll want all your ducks in a row before you get started.

In reality, randomization is all about asking questions and figuring out probabilities.  And sometimes the questions can tell you which way you want to go -- and you end up answering the question itself without randomization ever coming into play.  Or the randomization tells you which choice you wanted… something you often know by your reaction to the choice you rolled.  (If you groan at something you roll, it is probably a choice you’ll want to override.)

Remember that you are not bound by your randomization.  If you absolutely hate something that randomized and can’t figure out how to make it work, throw it out!  It’s still giving you valuable information, because it’s telling you something about where you don’t want the story to go.  

Sometimes it’s even fun to work with the hard things, the complicated things, the stuff you never expected to roll.  Making something surprising work is a challenge -- and a way to grow as an author.  But if you can’t or don’t want to, you can always toss your randomization. 

oOo

So why would you want to randomize?

One of the downfalls of being a writer is that you know everything about your story.  Where it’s going, the relationships, everything.  Randomization creates that feeling of wonder that you experience when doing something new.  It allows you to brainstorm, and it can force you down paths you might not otherwise have chosen to take.

The two of us were very hesitant about pairing up Prim and Bing in Floriography (later The Language of Flowers).  They were the siblings of our main characters, they were seven or eight years apart in age, they lived a good four, five hour drive away from each other, they’d just met… and would they even want to be together?  We asked the question on a whim.  And then we rolled it.  And then we ran with it.  And it’s become one of our favorite pairings ever.

We would’ve never paired the two together if it weren’t for the randomization.

We’ve even done this when writing whole fics… like we didn’t know what we wanted to write, just that we wanted to play in a particular fandom. So we rolled what characters we were going to play with.  This is how we ended up with a Darcy/Tony/Sif threesome because Why Not? 

We also do this with original fiction all the time. As stated above, it deals with the unconscious bias that we carry in regards to racism, sexism, and a whole slew of other -isms/-phobias. It can also help shape directions where you might take a story. Like our Adeniyi Siblings Series… we initially had all of the siblings paired with white characters… but then (thankfully) we realized the serious Unfortunate Implications… so we broke out the randomizer. Other than Paige (who we’d already written her story). All three of the other siblings’ significant others changed, and it made our series better in the long run. 

In addition to removing bias and answering questions, randomization can be fun.  Even if you never incorporate what you’ve randomized, you’ve got these little details, special things that you know about the character or the plot or the world.  We can tell you EVERYTHING that Katniss and Prim hunted and gathered in Damaged, Broken, and Unhinged. We can tell you every single character who got sick from the flu in Let Me Fly. This is information that none of you need, but gosh darn it it was fun to find out, and it colored how we wrote the story even if the specifics never made it on the page.

As we’ve hopefully explained, randomization can be a powerful tool in the writer’s toolbox.  But like any tool, it’s about knowing when and how to use it. We recommend using it to answer questions. Develop plots and even plot twists. And most importantly, remove unconscious bias. 

Now if you’ll excuse us, we have a Gentleman Thief and a Big Beautiful Woman demanding that their story be written.

Until next time!

Like our posts?  Buy us a coffee!

[bnha-hq]

*gasps* Ask box is open! Uh, hi! For a Haikyuu drabble, can you do 27 for KuroYachi and 44 for KageHina? Thankyouuuuu

I am so sorry this is so late, I hope you enjoy

“I’m pregnant”

Kuroo would be lying if he said he wasn’t worried about Yachi, she seemed more worried than usual, more jumpy and prone to panic attacks. He hadn’t seen her this riled up since her university finals and he couldn’t for the life of him pinpoint what it was.

She’d been so stressed recently she was having seemingly random bouts of nausea and had started jumping more when he arrived or suddenly called for her and when he asked her he got nothing out of her, if she even knew what was causing her anxiety she wasn’t telling him.

She wasn’t telling him anything which usually meant she was worried about his reaction or she was still sorting it out in her own mind to be able to word it in a way that wasn’t more a mashup of concepts so he could understand and hopefully help.

Today had been particularly bad, she’d been sick for the third time today and it had just passed lunch time, not knowing what was wrong worried him so much, he felt like all he could do was sit there and watch with no way to help, just hoping that whatever was wrong would soon pass or ease.

Yachi was currently doing what she had been doing for weeks, fighting an oncoming panic attack. She looked at the four positive pregnancy tests on the bathroom counter, fighting another wave of nausea as she tried her best to sift through the ridiculous amount of emotions that were stewing inside her. She was excited and ecstatic at the news but at the same time it was the most terrifying thing she’d learnt in who knows how long. She didn’t know when to tell Kuroo, she knew she had to but coming to grips with it herself was so hard, she wasn’t sure if she could handle his reaction were it bad and no matter how many times she replayed the scenario in her mind it always ended badly. Logically she knew he wouldn’t hate her or want nothing to do with their baby but her anxious thoughts very rarely planted themselves in logic, watered by the haunting thoughts of the unknown and the ‘what ifs’.

She’d been sitting on this for way too long now, she’d known for a week without telling him and she felt so guilty for not, she had come to the conclusion that she had to tell him, and she would tell him. Today. She knew the logical reactions, she knew Kuroo loved kids and she knew he wanted them in their future. She knew all of this, she just had to cling onto the logic, however fleeting, and not let go no matter what the anxious thoughts screamed at her. She’d tell him today and deal with the consequences as they came, that was all she could do.

Kuroo had started dinner, he hoped Yachi would be able to keep it down tonight. If it didn’t get better he would probably take her to the doctors, throwing up this often isn’t normal right? He didn’t think anxiety alone would cause her to be so sick so often, it hadn’t in the past. Sure, she felt nauseous and like she was going to throw up but she very rarely did so he had to wonder, was her anxiety just getting worse or was she actually sick with some stomach bug? She hadn’t mentioned anything or avoided anything so it didn’t seem like an anxiety thing.

He sighed and finished chopping the vegetables, putting them in the pan to stew with the rest.

Tetsu?” Yachi’s quiet voice cut through the kitchen, she fiddled with her sleeves and avoided eye contact. Maybe it was anxiety related.

“Yes kitten~” he smiled at her, stopping everything to give her his full attention.

She pulled out four little white sticks, at first he didn’t know what they were. They looked like thermometers that you stick under your tongue, so maybe she actually was sick?

“Hm?” He walked over to get a closer look, taking one from her hands and looking it. He saw two clear blue lines and he knew.

His eyes widened as her looked at the test, to her then to the ones in her hands, his mouth open and closing like a fish out of water as he thought of what to say.

“I’m pregnant” she clarified, with more confidence than he expected considering how timid she was only seconds before.

So many feelings flooded through Kuroo that he thought he was going to be sick for a moment, he was so excited and overjoyed, he was going to be a dad! But at the same time he was terrified, he was going to be a dad!

He decided to push away the fear, his excitement easily overpowering it as he picked her up in a tight hug.

“We’re going to be parents!!” He laughed and spun her around, earning a laugh from her as well which was like music to his ears.

“Is this what’s had you so worried?” He finally set her down, seeing her nod weakly and look away. He could tell she was embarrassed, she often said she felt silly after an anxiety attack. He smiled softly and kissed her face, the relief he felt was so intense he just wanted to laugh.

“I’m so glad it wasn’t something bad, I was worried you had the flu or something” he chuckled and gave her lips a quick peck. She giggled.

“Sorry for worrying you” she smiled at him, kissing back gently.

“I wish all my worries ended with news as good as this, we’re going to be parents Kitten!” She smiled at him brightly as he said that, he could just about physically see the stress and anxiety leave her body and he was so glad.

“Yes we are” they could both relax and rejoice in the news, neither weighed down by anxiety and neither could be happier.

“If you die, I’ll kill you”

tw: war and death

It wasn’tsupposed to be like this, it was never supposed to be like this.

They were supposed to finish high schooland go straight into university, hoping to play for the national team one day.

They were meant to find a house together,adopt a pet or two and live out their dreams, happy and content.

It was never supposed to be like this.

They had known the war had started, theycouldn’t not know about it, it had been plastered on every paper, TV channeland radio station.

Japan had gone to war.

The country was thrown into chaos, Kageyamaand Hinata had been drafted and now found them away from home, away from whatthey knew and away from routine and normalcy.

They’d been lucky in the fact that theyhadn’t been separated but Kageyama was terrified, this whole thing scared thelife out of him.

Whenever they were separated for too longhe worried so much he often made himself sick, he worried Hinata had beenkilled, or taken and exposed to much, much worse and by the way Hinata huggedhim, with all the strength he could muster, he figured he had the samenauseating fears as well.

It was never supposed to be like this.   

He was meant to come home, maybe a roughday at class or work perhaps, met with that tight hug to squeeze away problemsof the day, not to remind themselves that they were both alive and alright.

It was never supposed to be like this andit made him so angry, angry at the war, at his government, at the opposingarmy, at everything. They should be living their life, just the two of themwith whatever they felt like doing as stupid young adults, not wondering ifthey were going to live to see the next day.

As the war dragged on it took a heaviertoll on them both, Hinata especially. Kageyama had lost count of the amount ofnights he held Hinata as he cried, loud sobs, heavy under the weight of hisfear and guilt.

The weight of the world was on hisshoulders, the uncertainty of tomorrow clouding his vision and the panicgripped his throat in an icy grip, his cries for help barely audible to his ownears and Kageyama couldn’t help him.

Not completely anyway.

He could lie there with him, holding him ina tight grip and doing whatever he could to take a little bit of that weightoff him. To clear his vision just that little bit or loosen the grip on histhroat, but he couldn’t. There was just too much, too much pain, fear,uncertainty, and so much guilt he felt like he would suffocate before theyreached the light at the end of the tunnel. If they did suffocate, if it didprove all too much, the one thing he was certain of though was that he wouldn’thesitate to give his last breath so Hinata could have one more, even if hecouldn’t make it he’d do everything within his power to make sure Hinata did.

He squeezed the boy in his arms a littletighter, savouring the feeling of him being there, dedicating it to memory,dedicating Hinata to memory, even though he already had.

The sound of his voice, his laugh, his cryand the feeling of his skin and the softness of his hair and his smile. Thesmile he has when he’s done something cool, when he sees Kageyama after a longday or when he’s just woken up. All these little details have etched themselvesso deeply into Kageyamas memory they were just another part of him, heremembered these things like he remembered his own name, he firmly believedhe’d forget his own name sooner that those little things about Hinata, he wouldif he had a say in it.

Hinata’s sobs slowly settled down untilthey were more whimpers and hiccups than actual sobs, though his body stillshook violently, his fingers still digging into the fabric of his shirt so hardKageyama briefly wondered if it had been torn, not that he’d care if it had.

He knew he wasn’tthe only one though, he wasn’t the only one who’d held the one he loves as theycried, who lived in fear and everyday had to push it aside and do what neededto be done. He’d seen his team mates here, from middle school and high school,people he didn’t get along with now trusting him with his life and vice versa.

He remainedawake for what felt like hours after Hinata fell asleep, but realistically itwould have only been a few minutes before he too drifted off into a mercifullydreamless sleep.

Kageyama couldhardly keep up with what was happening, bullets were whizzing past his head,his ears ringing as something exploded somewhere he couldn’t quite make out,voices screaming out commands he that couldn’t quite hear but none of itmattered, absolutely none of it, it may as well be white noise in this exactmoment.

“K-Kageyama…I’msorry” his voice was weak, his hands shaking badly as they covered the redpatch on his stomach that only grew, taking Hinata’s colour with it and leavinghim pale.

“S-Shut up, you’regoing to be alright” Kageyama’s hands also shook as he did his best to stop thebleeding, blinking away the tears furiously in attempt to clear his visionthough whatever tears he shed were quickly replaced.

“I’m sorryTobio, I-I’m so sorry” he sobbed weakly himself, Kageyama growled and screamedfor a medic again.

He was vaguelyaware of Iwaizumi running over to help, vaguely aware of an explosiondangerously close to them, vaguely aware of everything that wasn’t Hinata inhis arms.

“If you die,I’m gonna kill you.” He sobbed weakly, holding his face in his hand and pressinghis forehead to his.

Hinata manageda weak laugh, one that shook Kageyama to his core, before leaning up to leave agentle kiss to his lips.

“I’m sorryTobio” he managed before he shut his eyes.

All Kageyamacould do was scream, a pain unlike any other took hold of his being andsqueezed him agonisingly tight.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.  

[grimelords]

Finished writing my January playlist up a couple weeks ago and forgot to post it. Sometimes things are like that I suppose. A pretty good mix of all the songs I was very into two months ago.

Terrapin Station (Suite) - Grizzly Bear & The National: It's shocking to think that a 5 hour long Grateful Dead tribute album changed my life but it really did. It's so good all the way through which is a feat in itself and it's a great introduction to every side of a band that can sometimes feel culturally overwhelming to try to get into. This song is a highlight, veering over every kind of territory for 16 minutes but always maintaining the sort of precision of purpose I associate with Grizzly Bear.

New Year - Beach House: January baby! I've got tickets to see Beach House later this month and I'm excited because they really surprised me as an incredible live band last time I saw them, building their songs with a lot more dynamism than the sort of drum machine play alongs their albums are (which I love!!).

BAGDAD - Cap.7: Liturgia - Rosalia: I'm still working my way into fully appreciating how good this Rosalia album is. The Justin Timberlake melody is so beautifully repurposed and I absolutely love the church choir behind the 'junta las palmas y las separa' part. It's just a heartbreaking and beautiful song even if I did have to google translate it.

Signs Of Life - Arcade Fire: I've been thinking a bit about Everything Now and how it was received and weirdly it seems to have a lot of parallels with the Achtung Baby/Zooropa/Pop era of U2, 20 years before it. Well established megastar bands who turned from their extremely heartfelt authentic origins and explored the world of pop and commercialism with varying critical success. Everything Now doesn't feel old fashioned but it's kind of weird they're playing with a lot of the same ideas U2 were in their Pop-Mart era so long ago. Anyway this is one of their best songs ever I think. The disco instrumentation versus the paranoid lyrics is just great, the backing vocals especially.

Discotheque - U2: The vocals in this song are so interesting. There are at times upwards of three Bonos harmonising with each other. It creates an unsettling image of a world overrun with Bonos. I do however love the extremely strangled guitar sound in the breakdown. I sort of wish this song were longer, long as it is, because it really starts to build into something serious by the end but then it just fades out disappointingly.

Violent Shiver - Benjamin Booker: I love Benjamin Booker but he needs to take a lesson from this song and do some hot licks again. He doesn't do hot licks like this in barely any other songs! Benjamin Booker sounds like he's from an alternate timeline where rock n roll stayed black and this is where it's at now.

Dawn Of The Dead - Does It Offend You, Yeah?: Can you imagine naming your band 'Does It Offend You, Yeah?' in 2019? What a time to be alive 2008 was. I absolutely love the steel drums in the prechorus and the bass and 'ooh ah' in the chorus. The production is just so chunky throughout. This whole song is thick.

Golden Skans - Klaxons: Anyway speaking of the heady days of English 'new rave' Golden Skans is a masterpiece. It's also masterfully compact, it's over in 2 and a half minutes. Amazing.

Go Bang - Pnau: I really applaud Pnau for having the audacity to release Chameleon and Go Bang on the same album right after each other when they're essentially the same song. Close enough to be the same song but different enough that you're still completely hyped when either of them come on.

Say You See Why So - Eleventh He Reaches London: I found this extremely serious Perth screamo band a little while ago they're so good i'm surprised I'd never heard of them before. I love the style of just endless new sections on new sections with barely any repetition, it makes you feel crazy which is perfect for this music.

Why Write A Letter That You'll Never Send - The Drones: I don't really know what to say about this song other than imagine literally getting this email verbatim lol.

Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me - U2: Fully fucked up that one of the best U2 songs only got released on the Batman Forever soundtrack.

Dead Of Night - Orville Peck: I'm so glad Lana Del Rey has been around long enough now that she's inspired a second wave. I absolutely love the whole concept Orville Peck has going, masked gay cowboy is a criminally underexplored genre.

Trip The Mains - Methyl Ethyl: I can't believe Methyl Ethyl are onto their third album already. I love how dancey this is compared to their other stuff, and his voice is still completely blowing my mind.

Strange Days (1999) - Health: I've had the cover for this single as my lock screen for two months now. It's simply very good and such a direct distillation of Health's essence. They've simplified and moved closer to pop ideas on this album and I'm all for it, they sound like Purity Ring if Purity Ring exploded occasionally which sounds very good to me.

Milk Crisis - The Go! Team: I'm racist because I thought for a long time that this song was gibberish but it turns out it's actually just in Japanese.

Cream On Chrome - Ratatat: It's fucking sick that Ratatat have been able to not only survive but thrive for so long making music that sounds like the loading screen of a Dreamcast racing game.

Will The Circle Be Unbroken - The Staple Singers: This is maybe my favourite example of 60s stereo recordings making completely bizarre decisions. The drums and bass in this are panned extremely far left and the guitar far right, which has the nice effect of letting you take out your left headphone and listen to a very beautiful stripped back guitar and vocals only version.

Angel From Montgomery - John Prine: I'm seeing John Prine next week and I'm very excited. He's approximately one million years old and seems to only now be getting the recognition he's deserved for decades.

(My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers - Merle Haggard: It's interesting thinking about the parts of American culture that don't really get exported to Australia. We got Johnny Cash and Hank Williams to a lesser extent but I hadn't really heard of Merle Haggard before this year which seems insane now that I've realised just how massive he was.

Debbie - Architecture In Helsinki: I have so much love for this vocal performance. Sitting in a weird half falsetto out of breath and just shrieking your way through it, mwah mwah I'm doing a chef's kiss right now.

Yandere - Yamantaka / / Sonic Titan: It's reassuring that the enthusiastic art nerd mindset of bands like The Red Paintings and The Sound Of Animals Fighting will never truly die. There should be more bands where they all have costumes and multi-movement songs songs telling an inscrutable story and a guy in the band whose whole job is just doing the lights.

Sweetness And Light (For Life Remix) - Itch-E & Scratch-E: My lifelong grudge against Paul Mac for enabling The Dissociatives and various other crimes will always be slightly tempered by how much this one song bangs.

Ontheway! - Earl Sweatshirt: I am such a big fan of this album. All the way through it feels like laying on the floor feels and it's addictive because of it. Every time I listen to it I just want to start it over again and lay the fuck down.

Mistake - Middle Kids: This song made me feel like a record producer in a movie or something when I first heard it because I got about one bar into the chorus and was absolutely smitten. It's just incredible.

Pressure To Party - Julia Jacklin: "I know where you live, I used to live there too" is maybe one of the best ever breakup album lines I've ever heard.

Our Shadows - Deantoni Parks: Deantoni Parks has a huge brain. The thing he does, where he sort of plays live mpc as part of a drumkit could be extremely naff and I'm sure there's a million guys on youtube doing it and making bad music, but he ain't one of them.. His take on it is so completely alien that the human element serves to bring it back to earth, all the disconnect that you would get from someone making a song like this on a laptop is metered out by a physical human body feeling every sound out personally and it's amazing.

Head To Toe In Morocco Leather - Muslimgauze: What's the word for being a weaboo except about the middle east and getting totally radicalised about it but never leaving England? Anyway Muslimgauze rocks and every six months or so I reread his wiki article and listen to his music exclusively for a couple of days before whatever that feeling is wears off again. I have a lot of respect for him but also suspect he may have just been a nut, which I respect as well.

In The Nervous Light Of Sunday - Circle Takes The Square: Very excited that Circle Takes The Square is on spotify now!!!

I'm In It - Kanye West: I heard that when they were recording this there was steam coming out of the horny meter that they have in the studio and then the glass broke on the horny meter and the needle started spinning around and around because the horny levels were so high.

Do Me A Favour - Arctic Monkeys: Alex Turner has two songwriting modes: incredibly tangible story songs and songs where he's just playing word association rhyming games and the craziest thing is both types are good. This is absolutely one of his best of the first kind I think​.

listen here

[dorms-fic-archive]

What are we going through, you and me?

Summary: Faced with an opportunity to address that which he’d thought was long-forgotten, Armin was still able to acknowledge the existence of his own human frailties. (Takes place sometime after the recapture of Shiganshina. Canon-divergent.) [Ao3 | FFNet.]

a/n: And now for something completely different!

Despite the pairing(s) listed, I wouldn't really call this fic purely romantic, at least not in the traditional sense, which is why it's not labeled "romance"; in terms of the themes addressed herein, I'm leaving it up to you to decipher what you will. It's certainly not the happiest story, but it's not complete doom-and-gloom, either. Mild pretentions aside, I haven't written Armin in ages, so this was a nice change!

Title comes from the song "Hairpin Turns", by The National.

It had been three months to the day the Titans surrounding Paradis were all exterminated, yet there was nothing much to be done at present. Rebuilding the damages and consoling the families of those recently deceased took up time, consumed resources, and once the illusion of immediacy fell away it left Armin bitter, yearning for an attack, something, anything to indicate their victory was not so hollowly earned; but that change had already come, and he did not wish to consider that he might for a minute sound like Eren.

To-day: a sunny after-noon alone in the library at Trost’s Legion HQ, waiting for Eren to come back from another series of tests with Commander Hanji; his powers were only beginning to grow, and making guillotines out of crystal was just one proven expenditure. Mikasa was busy enough, training with Captain Levi to assume a similar position; Armin was happy for her, even if it didn’t alleviate his loneliness. Annie made decent company when she decided to tag along.

“Why does he do it?” Armin thought aloud, already knowing the answer. Eren will never be content until he’s sure that his actions are well-earned. It might kill him someday.

“He wants to think he’s in control of himself,” Annie said, matter-of-factly. “What about you?”

Armin hesitated. “What about me?”

“Are you in control?”

“That’s a broad statement. I don’t have the context to answer you appropriately.”

Annie seemed to ruminate on that for a while. “What context?”

He figured she could see it in his eyes, or sense it in his hunched posture; the duality he tried to suffocate, this conflict between the friend he feared to lose and the tenuous alliance he’d formed with her — for now.

(Annie’s betrayal was old news to most who were there when she’d first crystallised herself — and there was really no one left to care about her besides Eren or Hanji. She’s like a bug behind glass, he’d thought, in the days before she’d woken up. A petty nuisance. I don’t know why we’re bothering to keep her.

Though Eren had likely surpassed her in sheer ability, by now; perhaps she was still superior in terms of technique? Supposing Eren’s Titan would be able to consume her — well, it’s called the Female Titan — or was the title more significant?)

“He’s told me before, what he thinks will happen after the Marley arrive. I don’t think he’s too keen on budging,” Armin grumbled.

“Have you asked him lately?”

Armin couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Why do you care?”

She shrugged. “I don’t, really.”

Armin considered that. Regardless of his inheritance, he was sure that he had never felt anything towards her before, besides apathy. He told himself in his head until it stuck — but it was something beyond his control, at least theoretically, and he could not afford that kind of vulnerability. It made him leery to talk to her, but it also forced him to try; he would not be cowed by mere hypotheticals. Besides, it was nice to talk to somebody who didn’t expect much in return.

“You’re his friend, Arlert. It’s not my job to be a messenger.”

He had tried talking with Eren. Several times, in fact. It usually went something like this:

“This revenge you want so desperately; it’s not end-all, so what will be left afterwards?”

“We’ll have ended the war,” Eren said simply. He sounded tired, more often these days, in a sense that Hanji’s ruthless testing or the strange new anxiety brought on in a world without Titans could not be faulted for; it penetrated his eyes, went beyond the physical strain. Armin did find it wearisome to keep running around the same concepts like this, day-in, day-out, like military ritual. That was one of the bigger reasons they weren’t talking so much; let Eren come to him for a change, for old time’s sake.

And Armin couldn’t remember the last time they had talked about unimportant matters, but he himself had no patience for triviality anymore. The sight of the ocean had thrilled him, yes — enough to smuggle back a shell with him in his quarters, while Eren had carried nothing at all but his newfound revenge — but that had been some time ago. Armin did not want to see the new cadets that would never quite understand what it was exactly they were being trained for, would never experience the fresh horror of something like Trost, watching your best friend slip away into the belly of a Titan and know you could do nothing but scream.

(There was hardly a need anymore, Armin mused, to strongly emphasise teaching them how to use manoeuvre gear. Give them guns, and instruct them more thoroughly in how to lead each other to victory in human combat — it was only a matter of time, given what he and Eren had seen in flashes, this terrifying, beautiful World Beyond the Walls.)

Eren was the only one who would humour him and listen when they talked about strategy — Annie was becoming familiar, but Armin did not like to dwell on this notion for long, as it incited the same pit of mistrust in his gut; she was never your friend, she may have spared you once, better not to test it, despite what Bertholdt’s memories say.

This ritual began every time he put his thoughts to paper: your name is Armin Arlert, you are sixteen years old, no, seventeen, and you are in the Scouting Legion.

He supposed his friendship with Eren was not something that would last indefinitely, no more than Eren’s relationship with Annie, but nothing was truly indefinite from the human perspective. Mortality was their only constant.

Armin was a patient boy, now nearly a man, though he did not feel like he had grown up very much between the years. Several years of exhaustive military training had hardened his body, but that could be said for any one of them. Now, the miraculous, unexpected nature of his rebirth turned him strange and flawless. Cuts were quick to heal and he did not tire as easily as he had before. Energy was abundant, always itching beneath his skin and muscles.

The Colossus Titan, when he transformed, was nothing like what he had imagined it would be, all those times pulling Eren from the nape of his Titan, feeling the heat of his skin. It was a laborious thing, heavy on his back and in his chest, burning so intensely he knew it would have grievously wounded him as a mortal boy.

It stuck with him upon reawakening in the Garrison’s infirmary, Mikasa at his side.

“Eren’s worried,” she’d confided, “about you.”

Of course, he had thought. Eren is still my friend. We may have our differences, but even so, he’s my friend. He’d die for me still, and I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve him.

All he had said was: “Tell him I’d love to talk.”

“I’m worried about you,” Armin told Eren now, careful to keep his tone clinical. “You shouldn’t push yourself too hard; you’ll be ill-fit for combat.”

“You sound like Mikasa.” Eren wiped his nose, sitting up on the cot. “Both of you worry too much. It’s going to shorten your lifespan.” He flashed him a grin through the crimson blotting his lip; Armin did not reciprocate.

“You don’t talk to anyone about normal things, anymore. All you seem to care about, from my perspective, is this war that we haven’t even started yet. We don’t know exactly what is out there waiting for us.”

“It’s out there, we can’t ignore it forever. And why d'you care?” His tone was oddly brittle, churlish. Armin didn’t understand.

“You’re — we’re friends, Eren.”

“So what? I can look after myself.”

If the right person talked to him, gave him a clear sense of direction, he would probably do almost anything if it meant getting a leg up over the enemy. Armin felt tired again.

“I never asked you to worry about me,” Eren said bluntly. “Not all the time. We can —” he glanced back at him, suddenly anxious “— shit, I mean. I want to look after you, as well.”

“You’re not — this isn’t like what you have with Annie,” Armin said, defensive, “and you know it, don’t you?”

Eren let his hand drop, curling to an empty fist. “Armin,” he croaked. “That’s not what I meant.”

But the emotion was there, bleeding into his voice, the clenching of his jaw. Armin felt light-headed. “What are you saying, then?”

Eren’s face contorted, like he was at odds with himself. “I…” he licked his lips, would not meet Armin’s eyes, “I thought you’d moved on, so.”

Armin resisted the urge to take him by the shoulders and demand clarification. “You replaced me in your mind with someone else? Is that it?” He could not help the incredulity.

Eren’s scowl deepened. “What? Goddammit, no. You’re different from her, but that’s not…” he grit his teeth, “I-I care about you. Both of you, not like Mikasa, and — I don’t want to see you hurt, but… Christ, I don’t know what that means.” He looked miserable within conviction. Armin wasn’t sure what to make of this.

“Does Annie know?”

Eren flushed. “Shit, I dunno.”

Mikasa wasn’t around often enough to give counsel; Armin had never really how much they struggled without her until now. But they were only getting older, and there was the ambiguity of the future ahead of them. They would need to work this out on their own.

“Are you going to tell her, then?”

Eren blenched, but did not answer.

It was a week or so before Eren got back with him; during this time, Armin found it difficult to hold conversation with Annie, who had gone quieter than usual. He threw himself into his duties as a solider and tried very, very hard not to dwell upon ambiguities.

Puberty had afflicted him later than most of his peers in Military Academy, which had kept his mind sharp, of course, but also disillusioned him greatly to the prospect of sex and desire — even now, it was something he treated as inefficient, messy and not something he could afford if he wanted to get ahead in life. Ignoring it was less of an option as he grew older. Masturbation was only a short-term solution; and it was difficult not to acknowledge who it was he circled back to in the end; he had tried blocking this out, thinking about other boys who would never look his way — not a difficult feat. This was hardly the time to address it. But when was that prudent moment, exactly? Was he going to be hoping until the day he died for something that simply didn’t exist outside the boundaries of his ill-fitting, selfish desire to be wanted, like anyone else?

But Eren had said that he wanted him. He wanted him. He would not, could not, dispel this truth from his mind, invoking a dangerous, possibly hedonistic sense of optimism that kept him humming, impatient for what was next.

“Armin.”

“So what did she say?” Armin asked him at last. “Annie, I mean.” Eren didn’t answer immediately. “You did ask her?”

“I think she knew.” He sounded mystified. “She didn’t really say anything. Is that, uh.” He looked hopefully to Armin, who wasn’t sure he liked where this was going — he told himself this firmly.

“What are you getting at?”

“Is it bad?” Eren mumbled, “that I, you know.” They bumped shoulders; in the context of their conversation, it was a strangely intimate gesture.

Armin chewed his lip. “I don’t know, Eren.”

Eren laughed, low and nervous. “Well, I meant what I told you. And…” he chanced a glance at him, “I want to show you, what I mean.”

Armin’s head was spinning. Eren’s hand was rough and sure in his.

“I-I really don’t think that’s —” Armin trailed off, half-hearted.

Eren squeezed. “I want you to know. Not just by me saying it.”

“What about Annie?” Armin blurted.

“Didn’t you talk to her?”

Armin could feel his face go hot. “What are you — oh God, Eren, she’s not my friend.”

Their laughter was shared, anxious. “O.K., O.K., I’ll get her. We can talk —” his thumb kissed the ridges of his knuckles “— about this, someplace quieter. Meet me up at the square to-morrow morning, I’ve got nothing to do before then.”

The place to meet, as it turned out, was a non-descript inn somewhere in Trost’s outskirts. The man at the bar seemed confused when he asked for the names of his fellow soldiers.

“We’re travelling through the city together on down-time,” said Armin confidently; it was a white lie, after all. “We were planning on staying for a while —”

“Three of you?” the man cut in. Armin did his best not to look confused.

“That’s correct, sir.”

“If they’re not out on the town, I expect they’re up there. Already paid in advance. The room’s the second one on your left, as soon as you come up the stairs.”

Armin could barely contain himself. “Th-thank you, sir.” Climbing the stairs with a mounting sense of anticipation, his hand gripping the rail tightly. He barely took in his surroundings, looked instead for the room on the left; the door was closed, which was a little worrying. He heard movement behind the door and lifted his hand to knock.

Someone cursed; footsteps approaching, and before Armin could hope that he’d picked the right room, the door opened and Eren was there. He looked dishevelled, missing his jacket and boots — Armin’s eyes settled on the ridge of his clavicle.

“Armin,” he said lowly. “Glad you could make it.”

“What’s with — oh.”

Eren looked at Annie, who looked back at him half-naked from the bed, and Armin felt a little like dashing out quickly, inconspicuously, while there was still time to forget this had ever happened, but his feet wouldn’t move.

It was Eren who met his eyes again, muttered: “Close the door behind you.”

“Arlert?” Annie, sitting up, eying him intently. Her nudity seemed less indecent in close-quarters — or maybe he was just starting to accept this as a venerable outcome.

He was afraid, in the back of his mind, of what he would see when he looked at her — the memory of the surrogate intercepted by its inheritance — but they had known each other before, as cadets, then enemies, now soldiers, and had talked with their own names, and he was sure enough that he possessed memories before the retaking of Shiganshina, a personality that was all his own. But the same could be said of Eren.

“I-I’m not sure what you expect me to say,” Armin muttered, staring intently at the wall above her left shoulder. “I didn’t think you’d get started without me.”

“Is that what you think it is about?”

Armin flustered. “God, no. I don’t — want that to be the reason I’m agreeing to —” he could not look at Eren for very long without his mouth going dry.

Annie frowned. “No one said you had to agree to anything.”

It was Eren who reached out and touched his shoulder; his hands were very warm, and Armin wasn’t sure anymore, what or who he needed. “Armin,” he said, very quietly. “What d'you want?”

“I —” his voice broke; he sucked in a furious breath “— I want to be sure this is my choice, right now, not — anyone else’s.” He did not add that there were several other, less emotionally compromising ways to accomplish this feat. “I don’t want to get in the way of this,” speaking quickly, evasive, “I can leave now, if you —” Eren’s grip on him turned brusque; Armin flinched before he could stop himself.

“This isn’t just about us,” said Annie. “It's… ” she faltered; offering reassurance was clearly not what she was used to, “…you and I, Arlert, we’re not together. So we have nothing to lose.”

“Because you have each other,” said Armin, forcing himself to be patient, because neither of them would acknowledge what seemed to him so laughably, irrefutably obvious.

Her eyes hardened. “Well, you aren’t like Bertholdt, are you?”

Armin shot her a furious look; how dare she bring that up now.

“Enough,” said Eren curtly. Annie relented. “Right, Armin. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want, but. I don’t mind if you stay a little longer.” He had softened at the edges, his gruffness giving way to a kind of reckless certainty that Armin knew all-too well.

“What do you mean, stay?”

“You could watch,” Eren muttered, going pink. “Think about it, then decide for yourself.” He looked once more to Annie; she was sitting up straight, almost impatient. Armin didn’t quite understand when Eren flashed him a cautious grin before walking over to rejoin her.

“Hold on, what about her?” Armin retorted.

Annie blinked. “What about me, Arlert.”

“I —” suppressing the need to roll his eyes, because he didn’t always want to be the sense of reason “— shouldn’t we talk about this, first?”

Annie blinked. “He’s willing, I’m willing, and you’re still here.”

Armin opened his mouth to dispute the point, but what was there to dispute? She didn’t want him the way she did Eren, and he wouldn’t have asked her to feel that way, but — maybe it wasn’t so concrete, anyway.

“You want me to watch,” he repeated. “Both of you.”

He could see the blush splotching her cheeks as Eren rucked down her trousers. No one said anything to the contrary. Armin was still able to acknowledge the existence of his own human frailties; bit his tongue, weighing the desire that he had thought he’d long-since forgotten, but had known to be there all along.

“O.K.,” he said lowly. “You, uh, don’t have to wait for me.”

Annie’s eyes glinted. She took Eren’s face in her hands, muttered something he couldn’t make out at this distance. Eren swallowed dryly.

They were kissing again. A tentativeness persisted in Eren’s hands as he pulled her into his lap, cupping her thighs and stomach and breasts, kissing her slow. Armin wondered if that was ritual, or if he should be thinking about their private lives in detail; in the present, Annie grunted and held Eren to her breast. Armin wanted to avert his eyes completely, but that would defeat the point, so in compromise he tried looking at her face.

They locked eyes and Armin couldn’t have said a word, even if he’d wanted. She seemed to jolt in turn, wide-eyed and flushed, but then she groaned, rolling her hips against Eren’s thigh, mussing his hair.

“Armin,” she tried, the syllables heavy on her tongue, “Armin, c'mere.”

Eren’s shoulders shifted beneath. “Oi, are you still over there…?” he teased.

They weren’t putting him on the spot, but it elicited the same swoop in his gut. They had talked about this before, then. He did not love her, not in this way; but of course, one didn’t need to be in love to fuck another person? Shouldn’t think like that. Shouldn’t think at all, actually.

“Shit —” groaning, she tucked her head away. Eren kissed her in concern.

“Wanna stop?”

“No.” Her voice was small.

“Hey, look. We, uh, don’t have to.”

“Do you want —” she bit her lip, undulating “— this? Us?”

Armin wondered who she was asking, really. Eren shivered. “Fuck, I…” he seemed to forget how to speak a moment, “yeah.”

Annie raised her head. Her eyes were shiny when she called: “Arlert?”

On the bed, in a daze, he didn’t remember getting there. And they didn’t kiss, didn’t touch, just held him. Mainly Eren. He could smell him, this close. Now, kissing him — would she feel left out? — Eren, palming him roughly through his chinos. “You want this, too?”

Armin nodded. “What do you…” going quiet as it struck him that perhaps Eren, like him, hadn’t thought about this in a while.

“Strip,” he told him. “I want to see you.”

Armin unbuttoned himself with trembling fingers. Eren drank him in silently, the same unabashed desire in his eyes.

“You’re beautiful, both of you,” Eren muttered, flushed up to his ears — Annie bit her lip — and Armin felt ten times warmer than he had before. Eren seemed at a loss for what to do with himself after this revelation.

“Armin,” he croaked, nuzzling him, reaching for her. “Annie.” She stretched herself out languidly on the bed, eliciting a low sigh. Armin still felt overwhelmed. “You wanna go first, or…?” he grunted, nudging him with his shoulder, and Armin realised he meant him.

Armin scowled. “You were busy.”

“Now I’m not.” Licked his lips, hesitant, then said bravely: “Want me to suck you?”

Armin stared blankly at him. Even Annie made a little huffing noise in the back of her throat.

“I meant it,” Eren grumbled, going pink again. “I want to.”

Annie made no effort to conceal her amusement; Armin scoffed in retort. Eren took him by the shoulder.

“You trust me, yeah?” he muttered, and the sudden switch to undertones told him that he had not had much practise.

In an effort to save face, Armin said: “I’ll do it first.”

Eren stopped dead. “Shit, Armin.”

“Let me try,” he insisted. He did not add that he was worried he wouldn’t be able to control himself.

Eren shivered with delight, kissing him. “O.K., O.K.” Then put him on his knees — must’ve known, then, what he really wanted — and he ached for what was going to happen. It was Eren who sighed, offering himself promptly.

So Armin kissed it. Eren gasped a little, which was encouragement enough to continue; kissing, tonguing the head, until he was pushed back and Eren was muttering his name, yes, his name, stricken, and it was the same heady rush of infatuation as in dreams, only dizzyingly strong. So Armin took it in his mouth and the hand in his hair drew a fist, tugging him forward. Annie’s weight shifted, came around his back, her mouth soft and sure over his nape and — he moaned drunkenly when he felt her hands curl around him, and Eren cursed, tugged a bit harder.

Armin felt him hit the back of his throat and gagged; Eren cupped his face, mumbling feverish apologies. He wanted Eren at his back, touching him, kissing him; he wanted him inside, he wanted to be fucked, giddy and terrified at the thought, but not in front of anyone else, not Annie.

In the end, Eren didn’t let him finish and he was left gasping, indignant. “Don’t wanna come like that,” he mumbled. “You O.K.?”

“Fine,” Armin grunted, sitting up and blotting at his mouth. Annie kissed his cheek tentatively. “Oi,” he muttered, reaching back for her, “you don’t have to —” melting when she pumped him again, and he moaned “— God, will you just — ah!”

“Shh,” she breathed, catching his thighs and digging in lightly with her nails. “Not yet.”

Armin groaned, his hips churning on air. Eren just laughed hoarsely, leaning in close enough to kiss but speaking soft instead: “How do you want us?”

So Armin rolled over onto his back and Annie was straddling him, cautious; he understood, vaguely, what he was supposed to do and took her by the hips, sank. He felt Eren come up behind him again, nipping his jaw, sitting him up, pulling him back by the waist and grinding recklessly against his ass and — it was too real, all of a sudden.

“Wait —” he gasped, arms back to brace himself insufficiently. “Eren, I can’t.” Too many variables outside of his control; diseases, the lack of any proper lubrication — he felt again like an obstruction, the weight of reality becoming an insufferable inconvenience.

Eren didn’t let go, kissed his neck: “We don’t have to.” The same anxiety echoed in his voice; Armin was light-headed.

It was Annie who gripped his chin, said: “Arlert.” She drew herself up on her knees and sank down slow. It felt good enough that he could relax, somewhat.

Eren, to his credit, wrapped his arms around them both and started to move in tandem. Clumsy, because none of them had ever done this before, but Annie was solid in his lap, kissing him pointedly, and Eren behind him, holding his hips, nose in his hair — he was getting taller every month, it seemed — this was such a simplistic, base way to express affection; Armin tried to think, but it was easier to hold her waist, kiss down her throat to the little jumping pulse in her neck — read once about this, because he was curious about the stimuli that was all — and her breath stuttered, walls squeezing him aptly.

He knew he wanted to move faster but couldn’t, pinned between their bodies, too warm to think with any kind of clarity.

“Wait,” he gasped. “Wait, you two.”

“Hunh?”

“What?”

Their responses were almost synchronous; Armin had to chuckle. “I-I can’t really do much, from this position.”

“Oh.” Eren was sheepish. Annie held his gaze.

“Move back a little,” Armin said to her.

She raised her eyebrows, but obliged; she was pretty enough, he supposed, leaning back on her hands against his knees and exposing herself inadvertently — he didn’t look down, figuring that would be too much. She didn’t look away as she sank onto him again, but her eyes fluttered when he twitched, unable to help his body’s reaction.

She tried a couple more times, panting slyly, grunting in satisfaction once she found whatever she was looking for: “There, Arlert.”

Eren perked up. Armin was trying not to make any noise. Her brow creased.

“Oi,” she said, tapping his chin again. Armin squeezed her hips out of reflex.

Eren reached around and cupped her breast; she hummed, arching forward and Armin wondered if this was too far, too private, but she rocked faster atop him, grabbing his idle hand to place it on her other breast, huffing: “you can touch me, Arlert,” and who was he to refuse?

Eren throbbed insistently against the small of his back; Armin was nearly there himself.

“Annie,” he hissed, “stop, I’m going to —”

She shuddered, raising her hips. “Pull out.”

He did so, and Eren, wrapping a hand around his dick, nuzzling his jaw, groaned, “‘rmin, let me help you —”

And Armin grunted, shunting his body back like they were wrestling. Eren’s mouth curled, capturing him in a feverish half-kiss, their skin wickedly hot like the aftermath of a Shift; he kept fumbling over Armin’s name between rough strokes, kissing harder, thumbing him; Armin, curling into his chest, felt his eyes roll back, knew he was going to scream, so close it almost hurt to be touched; knew that Eren wasn’t going to stop pushing this time until he snapped.

He tried to gasp, or call out but his voice was halting. Ended up coming in Eren’s fist and across his own stomach. When he recovered, Annie was still there, flushed and considering him through her bangs. She also had her hand between her knees, grunted something like: “Jaeger.”

“Armin?” Eren’s voice was thick at his ear, a little strained. He was still hard.

Armin moaned stupidly.

“Shh. That was good, you’re good — you rest for now,” Eren pecked him on the cheek, brief and brusque before he disentangled himself, crept over to Annie and teased, “oi, oi, we’re not done,” hefting her by the waist, he threw her left leg haphazardly over his shoulder and sank into her cunt without preamble.

Armin heard him grunt as she hissed, cursing — turning his head to catch the sight of them, tangled up in each other — Annie coiled her arms around Eren, snarling: “hurry up and fuck me, Jaeger” and they went at it for about half a minute, hard enough to make the headboard rattle, before she lost herself with a hoarse shout; Eren muffled a growl into her neck, pinning her to the mattress — he couldn’t keep the momentum going after he spent.

Annie caught his eye and blushed, like she hadn’t expected him to watch. “Sh-shit, Arlert.”

The uneasy feeling returned, more like envy or guilt — he really shouldn’t be here at all.

“Mm. Armin?” Eren, unravelling himself from her with a fleeting buss to her forehead. “How was that?”

Armin didn’t know if talking was even necessary.

“Arlert?” Now Annie was up, crawling over and gripping him by the shoulders. “Speak.”

He sighed through his nose. “You really need to work on your approach; you’re much too brusque for this.”

Annie stared blankly at him. Eren came over and kissed her jaw, making her suck in a breath. “Ease up with him, yeah?” he chided, thumbing circles into her hips.

“Shut up, Jaeger; he’s fine,” she huffed, pressing into the contact nonetheless.

“I’m right here, you know,” Armin groaned, and for the first time he felt left out in a way that didn’t leave him guilt-ridden.

Eren smirked. “C'mere, then.”

So Armin sat up and turned into his embrace; Eren kept him close, Annie did not reach for him so easily.

I don’t know if this was a mistake. I don’t know what I’m going to tell Mikasa, or if I’ll tell her anything. Maybe she’ll know. Maybe she already knew. I’m not going to think about this now.

“Armin,” said Annie quietly.

Armin hesitated. “Yes?”

“Do you think,” she began, “that you would come to regret this, to-morrow?”

Eren shivered. “No.”

“Not you,” she said, impatient, “I mean Arlert.”

What he said was: “I don’t want to lose either of you.”

Eren pulled them closer, while Annie offered him a tired smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

a/n: I still can't quite believe I wrote this, but I guess I've said that before and it's never stopped me! That said, it's likely going to be a one-time deal. Your feedback is highly appreciated, even if it's not always inherently positive or negative; I like making people think or feel something, even with fanfiction.