#ennie experiments with a thing

[enniewritesathing]

not a lot of people know that Brian called his aunt a raggedy bitch.

(snippet from Catharsis... it doesn't have words on pic so save that a bit of false advertising.)

[mediumorange]

Ok so I'm finally getting around to my thoughts on the theatrical rerelease!

The first thing that really hit me was the sense of scale. The long shots, the long silences, the sky that fills the entire frame. Seen in theaters, Brokeback Mountain conveys the physical experience of the Mountain West and the Great Plains like no media I've ever experienced. The sky is staggeringly large. I lived in the Great Plains region for several years, and that's the thing that sticks with me. Unbelievably, the sky feels even bigger over the prairie than it does over the ocean. The sky stretches on forever. It dwarfs the prairie, which also stretches on forever, and you can't imagine the prairie will ever end, let alone the continent, let alone the world. I think that I understood intellectually, having seen the movie on my television and my computer screen, that the shot selection was intended to convey this sensation. Seeing it on the big screen, I felt it for the first time.

The second thing was Heath's performance. It is so completely outrageous on the big screen in the best way. Every inch of him is in this character, every ounce, every atom. Every tiny movement, posture, breath, everything. Nothing is wasted, and when he's that big you see all of it. It was really special to watch.

Third, the audio quality. Thanks to the audio technology in the theater, I heard things I had never heard before. For me, the most remarkable thing was the wind. It was omnipresent. You could hear it in nearly every scene that took place in Wyoming, even the ones that were inside. For me, this felt so true to life. On the prairie, the wind is inescapable. For hundreds and hundreds of miles, it is so perfectly flat that there is nothing is in the way of the wind. It never slows down. It hits you full force. And it's constant. I can't remember where he said it, but Ang Lee observed this about Wyoming, as well, when he and his team visited Wyoming for research and location scouting. If I remember correctly, he described the wind as "maddening" (or something similar).

The scene that particularly comes to mind is one of the earliest scenes featuring Ennis and Alma, at their "lonesome" ranch house before they move to the apartment above the laundromat. She's doing the laundry, the kids are crying, everything is chaotic, and the wind never abates. This is true to life, but it's true to Annie Proulx, too! In Annie's writing, the environment is always a character in the scene. It's not just a place for the action to unfold. The environment is why the action happens, and it tells you everything you need to know about the action and how to feel about it. The constancy of the wind, of the presence of the outside world pressing in against ostensibly private places, the inescapability of the movement of a great and terrible world... It's marvelous.

The theater's audio quality also allowed me to hear some dialogue I had never heard before. There's some quiet dialogue that happens during the Second Night In The Tent (tm) scene and then immediately following the "I wish I knew how to quit you" monologue. I had been aware that there was murmuring going on, but I had never heard the words before. Both times, though in very different contexts, Ennis is emotionally overwrought. Both times, we hear very quietly, "I'm sorry." Then, "It's alright, it's alright." The juxtaposition of these lines in two different contexts is heartbreaking. It also feels very intentional to have the beginning of the story and the end mirror each other in this way-- we get another interpolation/juxtaposition in the latter scene, where we are presented with the "dozy embrace,” as Annie terms it, from the "You're sleeping on your feet like a horse" memory right before Ennis drives away following their fight. Through the contrast of tenderness with bitterness, both are heightened.

The last thing I noticed that felt really impactful is something I probably could have noticed on a smaller screen had I been paying more attention. I think I noticed it this time because the big screen experience really drew my attention to the cinematography and shot selection in a new way. The shot of Ennis arriving in Signal at the very beginning of the movie and the shot of him driving home at the very end, right before we see him put the numbers on his mailbox (presumably having just moved in), are identical. It is very early in the morning, or perhaps late in the evening but either way nearly dark, and we see a lone vehicle in the distance as it makes its way across the mountains. The only difference is the direction the vehicle moves. Once from left to right, once from right to left.

This shot clarifies something for me. In the short story, Ennis is living in Signal by the time he and Jack go on their final trip together. In a conversation with Jack, he refers to "a woman who worked part-time at the Wolf Ears bar" (Cassie, in the film) "in Signal where he was working now for Stoutamire’s cow and calf outfit." In the movie, however, Ennis is clearly living in Riverton at this point. We see him leaving the Riverton post office with his postcard stamped "DECEASED." The choice to put this mirrored shot right before the shot of Ennis putting numbers on his mailbox says to me that Ennis has now moved to Signal. Only in the film, he doesn't move until after Jack's death. Why now?

In a way, this is Ennis and Jack finally moving in together. Moving to the town where they first met, the closest town to Brokeback Mountain. Brokeback Mountain, which Jack called "all we got." Brokeback Mountain, which he wanted for his final resting place.

TLDR; Go see it in theaters.

[colethewolf]

🌟 HAPPY FATHER'S DAY 🌟

To celebrate this special DAY OF DILFS, I compiled a list of some of the DIRTIEST & DADDIEST fics that I've written over the years.

Mind the tags for TRIGGER WARNINGS, but ENJOY!

1. Goldilocks and the Three Hales | 10k words

During a thunderstorm, Stiles' jeep runs out of gas on the empty interstate. Desperate to find somebody to help, he wanders into the woods towards the sight of chimney smoke billowing up from the dense woods. Instead of finding help, Stiles finds Derek, Peter, and Markoff Hale--the last surviving family members of the Hale pack, who just want to have some fun with their new virgin pack pet.

2. The D.A.D Chip | 29k words - 13 chapters

Rafael McCall, Gregory Hale, and Sheriff Jonathan Stilinski get their hands on some very powerful mind control technology and decide to celebrate the holidays by using the technology on their sons.

3. The Neighborly Thing to Do | Chp. 6 of The Drabble Factory

Hello I would like you to write a dabble with the theme cheating on the couple "Stiles and Derek" the cheater would be Derek Bottom with Ennis Top. I don't know if you understand why I'm using a translator haha. I love your jobs, good luck.

4. Parental Authority | Chp. 7 of "The Drabble Factory"

Sheriff finds out stiles and Derek are dating and reminds stiles who he belongs to.

5. Eavesdropping is for Winners | Chp. 9 of "The Drabble Factory"

Stiles gets fucked in a sleepover by Rafael and Derek's dad. - L

6. The Newest Addition | Chp. 20 of "The Drabble Factory"

When 18 year Derek gets kicked out of his house after he comes out as gay, his best friend, Stiles, and the Sheriff happily invites him to live with them. Derek and the Sheriff become very close and Stiles doesn't think much of it assuming Derek is just needing a parental figure.

7. School of Hard Knocks | Chp. 25 of "The Drabble Factory"

Mr. Harris is tired of Scott and Stiles talking in his class. So one day during their senior year, he gives them detention. He tells them they are going to do an experiment, staring at a video of a black and white spiral to test who can watch it longer. In reality he hypnotized them. Soon they are on top of one of the lab tables, sixty-nining or as Mr. Harris would say, using their mouths for something other than talking.

8. Putt-Putt Stilinski | Chp. 30 of "The Drabble Factory"

Could you write a fic with Stiles/Sheriff as the main pairing where the Sheriff takes the deputies out for a round of golf and Stiles is the hole. Like, his hole has been gaped open and he has to get up and walk to the holes before laying down and spreading himself open so that the balls can be putted into his hole. I don't know why I love this image so much but I cant stop thinking about it.

9. Prom Practice | Chp. 35 & Chp. 37 of "The Drabble Factory"

I don't know if this is your tea, but I never saw any fic like that, so I'll try it anyway. Boypussy!Peter, like Stiles and Derek are virgins, so Peter manipulates them both to use his pussy and hole for practicing.

10. Thanks for Dinner, Mr. Hale | Chp. 38 of "The Drabble Factory"

Anything with unaware hypno smut (maybe everyone around is oblivious as well)

[thydungeongal]

you mentioned OSR modules? read any particularly good ones?

As of late I've been enjoying @cavegirlpoems's Gardens of Ynn and Stygian Libraries! The former recently had a Kickstarter for a new print edition and I recently got my hands on the PDFs for both, and I really enjoy them! They are both depthcrawls, a type of randomized pointcrawl with an almost procedural generation approach to them, so each sojourn into the two will feel completely different each time! I posted about Ynn here briefly:

I also like Necrotic Gnomes' two first-level modules for Old School Essentials, The Incandescent Grottoes and The Hole in the Oak, which (my players don't read this) ||actually combine into an interconnected dungeon with a whole lot of cool stuff to explore!|| Me and my group aren't that deep into them yet, but there have been some really fun instances of actually getting to experience the underworld as a space inhabited by weird lil guys who don't always want to fight (my party ended up making friends with the kobolds foraging moss on the first level of the dungeon and everyone agreed that the kobolds are sweet lil guys).

What else. Oh yeah, Barkeep on the Borderlands looks like a fun bar crawl adventure, sadly I'm not quite sure if I can safely plug it into my open table campaign given its event-based nature.

I also recently checked out The Bloom for Liminal Horror, a cool OSRish modern fantasy module inspired by, among other things, Last of Us, Alan Wake, and Twin Peaks! It's been nominated for an Ennie and I think it has a shot! :)

[artielovesfilm]

The Melancholy of Brokeback Mountain

This film left me devastated in a manner few have, with its melancholic portrayal of relationships sabotaged by self directed hatred caused by societal homophobia. Aside from the standard tragedy of such a film, a back and forth trope of ‘right person, wrong time’ that ends in one party’s untimely death, the depth in which this film explores Ennis’ denial and fear of who he truly is is what makes it stands out with the infamous ‘tragic gays’ genre.

Ennis is a character marred by his experiences. Traumatised by being forced to bear witness to the mutilated corpse of a man assumed gay at just age nine, and raised by a man so violently homophobic he’s unsure whether his father was the culprit, Ennis’ repression is so enforced that it wrecks his relationships with those around him. Unlike Jack, who was in no real rush to marry but formed a genuine connection (at least on a physical level) with Lureen, Ennis’ relationship with Alma reads like a checklist. He married her, kissed her, slept with her, had kids with her, all of which he treated like tasks. His treatment of her meant the film bordered on unwatchable at times; she was an accessory to him, a role he fulfilled and then felt no reason to invest more emotion or love into. Their divorce is better for Alma, certainly, but it blows the only cover Ennis had. He can no longer bring himself to feign a connection long enough to marry again, and he pulls away from Jack for the sake of self-preservation.

Ennis harbours the working-class mindset of prioritising survival, no matter what. Settling down, working hard, doing what you were meant to in life, no matter whether you were truly living or not. Jack does not hold the same priority; he lived with a recklessness, one that ended up being his demise, in the very manner Ennis avoided. In my mind, it’s no coincidence that Jack marries only after his summer romance with Ennis; for the first time, something tethers Jack down, and losing the ability to take the job at Brokeback Mountain teaches him the lesson Ennis lives by. That, sometimes, to have even a taste of what you want, you have to do a hell of a lot of things you don’t. He commits to this ideal for the sake of his unwavering hopefulness; that, one day, his love for Ennis will be enough to overcome the latter’s fear, a future we never manage to see come to pass. Despite how free-spirited of a person he once was, seeking out the future he wanted, Jack becomes irrevocably tied to the idea of his and Ennis’ life together and spends half his life fighting for it. After decades of trying, of rejection, of being pushed away, he still cannot quit.

The only reason Ennis isn’t entirely alone by the end of the film is due to his daughter, Alma Jr’s, unwavering dedication to having a relationship with him. Jenny, his other daughter, no longer seems to give him the time of day, and Ennis clearly makes no attempts to keep up with Alma Jr’s life. This is another symptom of his self-hatred, a punishment inflicted on himself for never taking the life he so desperately wanted. While Jack died young, he also died having lived staying true himself, always ready to commit to the risk oof a horrible end. Ennis fulfils the expectations ingrained in him; he survives, despite everything, and yet he isn’t living at all. His easy descent into tears just at the sight of Jack’s shirt, his isolated caravan where, ironically, he and Jack could have likely lived undisturbed, the daughters he hardly has a relationship with. Truly, it could be said that Ennis died the moment he knew Jack had.

I’ve been crying over this film since I watched it. The performances from Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal are beyond words in their execution, portraying depths of emotion worthy of poetry simply through their facial expressions. This film is a gorgeous exploration of humanity that is as endearing as it is devastating. The script is incredible, and the subtleties of the production make for an overall fantastic film.

[beanghostprincess]

thinking about her (transfem nico robin)

she knew she was a girl since a really young age but due to being on the run was only able to get on hrt after joining baroque works, in fact access to e and bw being trans friendly was, next to being able to search for the poneglyphs, the most important reason she stayed there as long as she did

robin wanting for a long time to have long hair like her mom, but only starting to grow it out after ennies lobby because before that it didn't feel right to do when she was just surviving and not living like olvia wished her to

she might have gotten the full ivankov's hrt, might have went the real world way, but they definitely talked about it during the timeskip and the revs provided her with gender affirming care whichever way she chose (personally i think she'd choose the closer to real world way, so her body would keep a record of her history)

As a trans person I relate so much to her story,,, I know her whole plot about "being a monster" and "feeling left out" isn't specifically about that but it is a metaphor for kids who were different and I feel like the transfem HC for her is so, so real. I've always seen her as this older sister figure who couldn't be herself when she was young so now she has the chance to have fun and still gives perfect advice when it comes to queerness. I feel like she'd be the best influence for young trans people,,, (not to mention my transfem Sanji HC here but I am thinking about her too).

Her admiration toward her mom coming from a place of both love and wanting to be like her,, It's just so sweet. And I believe Baroque works would be so open to queer identities (it's basically canon what am I saying) that she'd finally get to be herself openly. It makes me wonder about Crocodile's transmasc HC too, tbh. I mean, it fits so well with this and I believe that despite everything they'd make Robin feel safe.

When she joins the Strawhats it's sort of like-- The biggest breath of fresh air for her. She doesn't need to tell them anything and if she wants to, she knows they will accept her. She doesn't hide anything but she doesn't make it her personality even if she acknowledges it is a big part of herself. Idk,, I think that Luffy sees gender as something so insignificant and unimportant that it is a relief for Robin to not think about it for once and just... Breathe.

And!!! The Ivankov/Revs thing is always so awesome to hear with OP trans headcanons. I think Robin sharing her experience with others and being able to transition in a way that's safe and comfortable and makes her feel at home and understood is so so so important. No matter what she chooses, because her loved ones will see her as herself anyway,,,

[chirpsythismorning]

Just watched Brokeback Mountain for the first time and I need to talk about it.

Throughout the movie, we see Ennis experience a lot of intense discomfort and fear at the idea of being intimate with a man, despite it becoming abundantly clear in the details and based on his actions that that is indeed what he wants. He even admits to Jack that this fear stems from an experience he had at a young age, when his father showed him two men who were presumed to be lovers (they were roommates vibes), murdered and castrated, with him basically using it as a lesson to show Ennis that being gay was wrong and would get you killed.

Jack on the other hand was a little less discomforted or fearful at the idea of being with a man, in that we actually saw him return the following summer to Brokeback Mountain hoping Ennis would be there, only for him to show up alone. We saw how after this he confidently approached a man at the bar hoping to get to know him, only to get rejected and risk getting hate crimed (foreshadowing 😭). And we saw how, over time, Jack’s struggle had more to do with being hurt over Ennis’ unwillingness to commit or even just consider the possibility of them being together long term, even despite the risk of being gay in the 60’s.

Near the end of the film, upon Jack’s death, Ennis discovers from his father that over the past 20 years since they met at Brokeback Mountain, Jack constantly brought it up to his folks, how Ennis, his friend, was going to move up to their ranch and they were going to build a cabin and live together and take over for the family.

Jack was often the one in the moment taking the chances for them to be together. He was the one who mentioned that they could go to Mexico, with Ennis furiously rejecting it saying ‘you know what happens to people like you there??’

But what’s even more painful, is that in this same scene, Ennis’ acknowledges the truth more directly, and why it’s so painful is because it ends up ironically coming true:

Here, Ennis is basically saying that if he decides to be with Jack for real, aka faces his queerness head on, that’s going to be the thing that gets them (Jack) killed. Shortly after this, Jack loses it and has that infamous ass monologue, followed by Ennis breaking down over how it’s Jack’s fault that he’s this way in the first place.

In the end, when Jack dies, Ennis finds out about what happened from Jack’s wife, Lureen Newsome, who said Jack was pumping up a flat out on a backroad when his tire blew up, with the rim of the tire slamming his face, breaking his nose and jaw, and knocking him unconscious on his back. By the time someone drove by on the deserted backroad, he had drowned in his own blood.

The audience might’ve believed this story, if it wasn’t for how rehearsed it sounded coming out of Lureen’s mouth, but it also doesn’t help that images of Jack being hate crimed as his true cause of death are flashing across Ennis’s mind in real time while Lureen is telling him about the ‘accident’.

While it’s left up to interpretation, it’s implied from what his wife and father said, that Jack was hate-crimed by his father in law, with it being covered up.

Broken nose? Broken jaw?… Those are the kinds of wounds someone endures after being beaten up. And if it’s happening to the point of death, then he was essentially beaten to death.

This then fits into what Jack’s father said, because apparently, shortly before he died, he’d told his father he’d found a different friend that was going to come up there to the ranch with him. And so it’s very likely Lureen’s father caught wind of this as his plans to leave neared, leading to his murder (Jack also bitched his father in law tf out in an epic way, which on its own felt unnecessary in the moment, but within the context of this makes a whole lot more sense).

Either way, it seems Jack waited for Ennis to change his mind. 20 years he waited, and when Ennis didn’t, Jack finally moved on with someone else who made an offer of his own years before, only to get murdered just as Ennis feared he would if he decided to live his life authentically.

Ennis initially found out like this, in a postcard that bounced of him inquiring Jack about seeing each other again after that last massive fall out where they had, only for Ennis’s worst fear to be realized:

Nov 7th with deceased stamped across it has me spiraling 😭

Now, obviously Brokeback Mountain is one of the most well known queer films of all time, like there’s no denying that. So it’s fairly easy to assume ST could be taking some inspiration from this film just like they have with hundreds upon hundreds of other films. But especially if they are planning to go the queer route, homage to this film is pretty much guaranteed (there’s also one more reason it might be guaranteed, but I’m saving that for the end 🤣).

Regardless, as you can probably already tell, it’s very easy to see similarities between Ennis with Mike and Jack with Will.

Mike getting the ‘you see Michael? You see what happens?’ treatment from his father, in the first episode in the series, is very Ennis coded in that this is a TV show that follows that up with seasons of Mike pushing Will away from him, with it leading to a boiling point where he says, ‘What did you think? Really? That we were never gonna get girlfriends? That we were just gonna sit in my basement in play games for the rest of our lives?’ with Will responding, ‘Yeah. I guess I did. I really did,’ aka extremely Jack coded.

The really epic thing about this though, is that ST is clearly going on a different journey than Brokeback Mountain did, in that it’s simply subverting the bury your gays trope. While they are acknowledging the risk of being queer in the 80’s, they’re not letting it end ‘realistically’ like many people have insisted it must because that is the only option. And this will be a satisfying ending because it’s coming as a response to all those heartbreaking stories before it that have reinforced this idea that happy endings just aren’t an option for gay people who simply want to be together.

While Ennis and Jack didnt get their happy ending like they wanted, Mike and Will on the other hand 😏

And last but not least, on a more hilariously ironic note, the guy who Jack was going to settle for in the end instead of Ennis, was a guy named Randall Malone, played by none other than David fucking Harbour.

[blacklegsanjiii]

A loved!Sanji au in which Judge was to his father what Sanji is to him the normal verse. Judge's father is the one who does all the experiments on Reiju and 1234ji. Judge, in terror and understanding as he watches his wife take the poison to try to save their sons. Judge encourages and helps Reiju's with her emotion and helps Sora with everything during her pregnancy.

Judge is so thankful one of his sons doesn't have the mutations until his father let's everything the others do slide and Reiju never helps nor hinders them. Judge patches Sanji up and tries to ensure Sanji knows he is loved, as well as Sora. Judge still has his other duties as Crown Prince so he can't see everything his children do unfortunately, but he encourages Sanji's cooking and holds him.

When Sora dies Judge is numb completely and keeps trying to find Sanji but his father has Sanji locked down in some science wing and will not let Judge see him. Then only a weeks later the king tells Judge Sanji is dead, he's not and the king shows him a look alike of Sanji dying to make it believable. Judge is absolutely wrecked after losing his wife and son. Reiju and the boys don't see him anymore, he is weak and his father won't allow it.

Sanji is in the dungeon with the mask on pleading for help and for his father but no one comes. No one except his brothers to beat him and Reiju once in a while to patch him up. When Sanji is freed the king and Reiju find Judge and give him the helmet after a few days to make sure Sanji is gone. Judge stares at it as the king informs him he would have had Reiju kill herself if she ever told him and that he was freed some days ago, he will die shortly and Judge best not disappoint him again as he gives Judge the helmet.

Unlike Sanji Judge's hands are only used for harming others. Starting with the king of Germa. Judge drops the helmet and wraps his hands around the kings neck and strangles him, watches the life fade from his father's eyes. They throw a funeral for him and Judge is crowned king but it is hollow as he sets to work on making his children human. Sets the scientists to work on restoring their skin and emotions.

When Judge sees Sanji's poster years later he cries, it's awful but it's proof he's alive. But then Ennies Lobby happens and then Sabaody and suddenly Straw Hat is the only one at the war and his brother is dead now. A couple years later Sanji is proven alive again and in the New World so Judge has Germa set course to find Sanji, Reiju and Ichiji are particularly itching to go find him so Judge laughs and sends them both off. The kids all have their emotions back but they still don't understand a lot of things.

Like showing up with Sanji, just Sanji, and not his crew? Judge is listening to Ichiji's reasoning and fuck Ichiji is so excited because he brought Sanji. Sanji is cursing and telling them all to fuck off and smoking and Judge feels hysterical at all of this. Judge then explains to Ichiji that he was supposed to wait with Sanji and his crew for Germa to come and Sanji yells back that Grandpa can rot in Hell, Sanji will never serve Germa and he needs to get back to his crew.

Judge finds out they were on Zou and holy shit is he proud! Sanji is right though and he needs to get to his crew. So he explains how Ichiji messed up("Hey!") and they will take him back to his crew. Judge is so thankful Sanji is alive. Sanji asks what the catch is because there has to be a catch, he's in Germa there has to be. But Judge is king now, he's hugging Sanji and Sanji is blinking back tears because there has to be a catch. There isn't and he is be helding by his father again and he's trying not to cry because Zeff would kick his ass if he was here, he's sure.

Then Germa gets attacked by Big Mom and there's a rescue team for Sanji. Germa is getting hit by all sides over Sanji which Judge understands the rescue team but then Sanji explains what they've done to the Yonko which makes Judge sigh and rub and his temples.

"You're mother was right." Judge groans.

"The fuck does that mean?" Sanji yells.

"I wanna meet your captain!" Yonji yells as he wraps around Sanji. Sanji is going through it because what the fuck. What the fuck.

Niji actually brings the crew to them and the Vinsmokes and Sanji are in a kitchen because Sanji is stress cooking to the max and Luffy is confused because Sanji was kidnapped? By that red guy? Okay, red guy gets a gum gum pistol. Judge says that's why they don't kidnap people, even your siblings. Nami screams and demands what's going on so the rescue team gets a half baked plan to escape that everyone immediately warns them will fall apart and it does. Immediately. Judge has Germa focus on Big Mom as a distraction for Sanji to escape and be free, like Sora and he wanted for Sanji.

Judge has the denden mushi number for the Thousand Sunny, doubting he'll ever need it because his son is in the news quite a bit.

[ultraflavour]

7 Fantasy RPGs to fill the D&D-shaped Hole in your Life

So. It finally happened. Either Hasbro, or Wizards of the Coast, or someone else associated with Dungeons & Dragons finally did something so fucked-up that you've decided to swear it off entirely.

The problem is that for decades, there has been one obvious answer to the question of "What game with Dwarves, Longswords and Wizards in it should we play" and that was D&D, every time. Even their strongest rival in the past couple of decades was just an older version of D&D with a spit shine.

Now you find yourself adrift in a sea of possibility, with no signposts. There are names you've heard, but you have no idea which ones you'd actually be interested in, because you had always just assumed you'd be playing D&D until the heat death of the universe.

So let's take a look at a few games that want to fill that D&D-shaped hole in your gaming life, and examine what they're offering.

Disclaimer: I'm not covering the entire breadth and depth of the TTRPG industry here. I'm specifically going to be covering Fantasy RPGs that should appeal to D&D fans here. So if I didn't cover your favourite indie RPG, sorry. But there has to be a "First step" outside of the D&D bubble, and each of these games should fulfill that need.

The Other "Kitchen Sink" Game: Pathfinder

If you can't bring yourself to keep playing the corporate game, but you still want something that offers as close to that gameplay experience as you can possibly get, your best bet at the time of this writing is probably Pathfinder 2nd Edition.

I say this as someone who very much did not vibe with the original Pathfinder, or its "D&D in space" sister product Starfinder. But at this point, I'd absolutely tell a newcomer to jump into Pathfinder 2E before I recommended they buy any WotC product.

To their credit, the 2nd Edition of Pathfinder does much more to, uh, find its own path by diverging from 3.5 edition and implementing new systems that take it into uncharted territory. The "Two Actions Per Turn" paradigm is often cited by its proponents as being a meaningful improvement over the 5E way of doing things.

The "TTJRPG": Fabula Ultima

One of the biggest success stories of the early 20's was Fabula Ultima from NEED Games in Italy. It came seemingly out of nowhere to win the ENnie Gold Award for Best Game of 2023. Since then it's become notoriously difficult to find in print, though it's still freely available as a PDF.

Fabula Ultima is a "TTJRPG," modelled after Japanese fantasy video games like Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Phantasy Star, Breath of Fire, etc. While it's firmly planted in the Fantasy genre, its gameplay will also very recognizable to fans of those types of games.

The major benefit of this conceit is that you can probably already picture how combat in FabUlt works in your mind: Two rows of characters take turns jumping and slashing at each other, or casting magical spells to harm, heal, or apply status conditions. There's no concept of "Spacing," but the game still manages to be mechanically intricate with lots of varied class abilities and status effects to apply.

D&D refugees looking for a game where you simply pick a class and fight some monsters, but aren't too particular about how they do that, will find a lot to love here. FabUlt leans much more heavily on storytelling mechanics than D&D does, so players who've been looking for something a bit more "Theater of the Mind" should be well taken care of here.

Final Fantasy Lancer: ICON

Like Fabula Ultima, ICON is a TTRPG that takes heavy inspiration from JRPGs, specifically tactical games like Final Fantasy Tactics and Tactics Ogre. It's from Massif Press, who also authored the surprise indie Mech combat hit Lancer.

And like Lancer, ICON is a game with two very distinct rulesets: Outside of combat, a "Fiction-first" narrative system inspired heavily by Blades in the Dark; In combat, a grid-based tactical skirmish game reminiscent of D&D 4th Edition. All backed by the gorgeous art of its author Tom Parkinson-Morgan, who also writes and illustrates the comic Kill Six Billion Demons.

ICON separates its "narrative" class system from its combat class system, giving each character two distinct character sheets that come into play at different times. Because those two systems don't have to cross over very much, each can be as intricate or as rules-light as it needs to be to promote the type of gameplay most appropriate for the situation.

The Old-School Gateway Drug: Shadowdark

If you ever took a few steps outside of the walled garden that is D&D in the past few years, you will likely have read or heard of the OSR, or "Old-School Revival/Renaissance." Proponents of the OSR are players who yearn for an older style of Dungeon Crawling Survival Horror game that hearkens back to the early days of D&D, before the players became akin to superheroes.

Shadowdark aims to be a game that bridges the gap to that style of gameplay, without being totally unfamiliar to players who only ever learned 5th Edition mechanics. It's "Old-School gaming, modernized."

Aside from simply being a modern take on a D20 fantasy game, it freshens up gameplay using a mechanic called the "Torch Timer." It turns light into a resource that dwindles in real time. This serves to elevate the tension of the game as every minute that passes is one less minute of light on your torch. And when the torches run out, well... You can probably guess what happens next.

5th Edition with the Serial Numbers Filed Off: Tales of the Valiant

Tell me if you've heard this one before: Wizards of the Coast introduces sweeping changes to its "Open" license model, leading existing 3rd-party content creators to create their own version of an older ruleset to protect the viability of their backlog. It happened in the past, but what are the chances that happens a second time? Ha!

Well... It did happen again. This time, playing the role of the "Paizo" in this scenario is Kobold Press, who loudly declared that they were "Raising the Black Flag" in response. In order to ensure that there would always be a "Core Fantasy" ruleset that would remain compatible with their content, they announced Tales of the Valiant, which would essentially duplicate the 5th Edition ruleset with a bit of a spit shine, in much the same way that Pathfinder did for 3.5 Edition.

Tales of the Valiant will be the game for the D&D player who just wanted a rules refresh of 5th Edition, but also doesn't want to keep throwing money at the corporate hegemony. It should end up being "The 5E you can feel good about supporting," and that matters right now.

Matt Colville's Big Bet: The MCDM RPG

Kobold Press was not the only publisher of third-party D&D content to have a strong reaction to the OGL fiasco. Unlike Tales of the Valiant however, Matt Colville's response was to announce a fully new Fantasy RPG system, with no expectation of backwards compatibility with any edition of D&D.

MCDM's sights are firmly set on the "Post-Kitchen-Sink" future, and to that end their game is explicitly not trying to be the one game for every possible playstyle. It's Tactical, meaning you'll need a grid to play it on, and it's Heroic, meaning characters should feel powerful, and not like they're constantly one critical hit or failed trap-sensing check away from being decapitated.

This approach might seem like a massive risk considering how insanely powerful 5th Edition became at its peak. But a record-breaking crowdfunding campaign backed by over 30,000 people shows that there is at least an appetite for something new, and that there is a like-minded community of players ready and waiting to join you.

The Critical Role Game: Daggerheart

If the Kobold Press announcement was a shot across the bow, and the MCDM crowdfunder was a bomb dropped, then Daggerheart is a full-blown asteroid, streaking straight towards Wizards of the Coast HQ.

Daggerheart is an original Fantasy RPG from Darrington Press, the publishing arm of the Critical Role media company. That by itself should mean something considering how important CR is to the D&D brand, but there's more to talk about here. Though it superficially resembles D&D in a lot of ways, it has some extremely important differences. Namely, its use of "Powered by the Apocalypse" mechanics such as "Fail Forward" dice rolling and "No Initiative" combat.

While "PbtA" has become somewhat of a loaded term in the D&D community, Critical Role has an opportunity to overcome that stigma with the sheer force of their platform. I've made this case already in the past, but if they were to use their power to do for themselves what they did for 5th Edition, it would be the most significant threat to the Hasbro Hegemony to emerge since Pathfinder. Let alone taking just a slice, Daggerheart has the long-term potential to take the whole damn pie.

And more!

The games I've listed here are all theoretically capable of replacing the Corpo game as your "go-to" long-term game. Not all of them are fully playable as of this writing, but they all represent one possible future for the "Sword and Sorcery" RPG genre.

There are of course a whole plethora of other games out there beyond the limited scope of "Medieval Fantasy" that are just as valid and just as viable, if you're feeling a bit more adventurous.

If you're looking for something explicitly tactical like a miniature skirmish game, but still in the RPG genre, and you're willing to expand your choice of genre beyond Euro-centric Medieval Fantasy even further beyond ICON, you might be interested in Gubat Banwa or the aforementioned Lancer.

If you want a game that promotes a slightly more streamlined, less mechanically-intricate approach to combat while still giving you tons of monsters to kick the shit out of, you might want to check out the "Illuminated by LUMEN" family of games inspired by the games LIGHT and NOVA from Gila RPGs. It might even inspire you to write your own RPG!

If you're more interested in the Old-School Renaissance, you might want to check out Forbidden Lands, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Old-School Essentials, or MÖRK BORG.

If you like the idea of "Old-School Roleplaying" but are also willing to step outside of the fantasy genre into Sci-fi territory, you might be interested in Stars Without Number, its Cyberpunk sister product Cities Without Number, or Mothership.

Finally, if you just want a game that focuses on telling the best story rather than mindlessly killing monsters and acquiring loot, you might want to check out Blades in the Dark, Thirsty Sword Lesbians, Girl by Moonlight, Coyote and Crow, and many more Fiction-First games in the Powered by the Apocalypse and Forged in the Dark genres.

But most importantly: Just play more games! Don't just buy them, play them! The point of this whole exercise is to replace the monopoly with a plurality, for the sake of the health of the tabletop gaming industry.

Because the next time Hasbro lays off a bunch of WotC employees, there should be a much stronger, more diverse industry for them to land in feet-first. We should all want for the people who build the games we love to feel safe in their career choice. Not just for the sake of the ones who are already there, but for future prospective designers and artists who want to make their mark.

It should be viable to be a tabletop game designer outside of just making more D&D stuff forever, because as we've seen, it's not safe to assume that we can all just keep doing the same thing we've been doing and not get bit on the ass by it.

If we want that future, we have to take it into our own hands and build it ourselves. But if there's one group of people that knows about building something very big from very little, it's TTRPG players.

[dirtyriver]

John Constantine, Hellblazer by Jamie Delano Omnibus Vol. 1 Hardcover – October 15, 2024

My favorite Hellblazer run gets the omnibus treatment!

The Hellblazer era begins in this massive collection of early stories starring DC's beloved antihero, John Constantine! Since his introduction in 1985's Swamp Thing #37, cynical occult detective/con man John Constantine stands as one of DC's most uniquely popular characters, being adapted in film, television, and animation, along with starring in some of the most celebrated stories in the comics medium. Now, fans can revisit—or experience for the first time—his earliest solo adventures in the John Constantine, Hellblazer by Jamie Delano Omnibus Vol. 1, collecting the first Hellblazer stories from writer Jamie Delano and artists including John Ridgway, Richard Piers Rayner, Stephen R. Bissette, and more. Hellblazer helped usher in DC's seminal Vertigo label, and stands as the longest-running series of that imprint—and now the earliest stories of that era are available in the omnibus format, alongside a host of extras. John Constantine, Hellblazer by Jamie Delano Omnibus Vol. 1 collects John Constantine: Hellblazer #1-22, John Constantine: Hellblazer Annual #1, Swamp Thing (Vol. 2) #65-77, and The Sandman #3, along with a brand-new foreword by famed Hellblazer author Garth Ennis, a brand-new introduction by Delano, the never-before-seen proposal for the Hellblazer series, the full script for issue #2, and many more never-before-seen wonders from the making of the series!

[theresattrpgforthat]

Hello, thank you for all your hard work on recommendations! Do you know of any vampire games where being a vampire is NOT presented as a 'You are a horrible parasite clinging to humanity!' thing? And/or perhaps it is more about how humans are awful to vampires. Being non-crunchy is a bonus. It doesn't have to be light-hearted, I'd rather play something with a serious tone.

Theme: Alternative Vampires.

Hello friend, there’s a lot of really interesting vampire games out there! One of the most well-known is, of course, Vampire: The Masquerade, which you've possible heard about before, but I think is important to acknowledge when looking at many vampire games that have been created in the past. It's influenced the way a lot of roleplayers see vampires.

On the other hand, there's also a lot of work to change up how vampires are seen, and the BIPOC Vamp Jam is an excellent example of that. I think you'll recognize some of the games in this list from that jam!

Some of the games here are more serious than others, but I think there’s still some complex themes even within the games that don’t take themselves too seriously. I hope there’s something here that fits what you’re looking for!

Bloodsucker Elegy, by Porcupine Publishing.

Tonight, everything falls apart. The place went up like a bonfire Black-clad mortals They know everything about us They know our names They know how to kill us

Bloodsucker Elegy is a compact (15pp) game for two or more players, about vampires on the night their world comes crashing down around them.

Intended for short-form play, Bloodsucker Elegy uses a diceless system that draws on ideas from the Vampire: the Masquerade spinoff video game Swansong.

A game about enduring the end of life as you know it, Bloodsucker Elegy gives you both human skills and supernatural powers to help you face your oncoming doom. Every time you do something supernatural, you must take 1 Hunger. Every time you use a human skill, you must spend Willpower. With no Willpower left, you’ll slip into a slumber resembling death. At 12 Hunger, you can feel your inner beast surface, your bloodlust take over. You can gain willpower by meditating and reduce hunger by feeding, but both are dangerous when you’re being hunted. If you want a game that pushes your characters and forces them to make heavy choices, this might be the game for you.

Thousand Year old Vampire, by timhutchings.

A creaking hunter among dust and cobwebs, you prowl the night places, seeking the souls on which you feed. You have done this since time immemorial, or so you believe; you have no memories of  living as a man-thing like those you catch and eat. But human traces linger; your fingers trace clever arabesques in the dirt of your grave-place and with the flourishes come whispered songs in a language you've forgotten. Far away, in a museum, hangs your portrait in oil by a master five hundred years dead--you might have been lovers but the diary you kept then is long lost.  

This is a solo game, meant for intimate and personal experiences. Thousand Year Old Vampire comes with a lot of high praise, meant to be powerful, emotional and thought provoking. You are a vampire, discovering and losing memories as you fill up your diary. This is a personal horror game, a game about losing pieces of yourself to the ravages of time. It’s received 3 awards from the Ennies, and also won the Indicade Tabletop Design Award in 2020. I think it’s probably worth checking out!

The Blood, by Falconian Productions.

Vampires are creatures of magic; how else do you explain the undead? It’s not some outside force’s pet project — vampirism is magic. An arcane force, The Blood, is what makes a vampire.

What is the Blood? It’s the fragment of power shared by every vampire in the world, and the conglomerate force made up of those segments. It's not a voice, or instinct, but… insight. The Blood shows you what you want, what It wants. It shows you the quickest and easiest ways to get to it.Then, it gives you what you need to act on it.

But your choices are always your own. Those that would do no wrong even in the face of temptation likely still won't as a vampire, but those that avoided wrongdoing only because they feared being caught, or lacked the means?

The Blood is a game about vampires as arcane creatures, an otherworldly force empowering their undead forms and providing them with magical potency. The powers attributed to vampires in stories and media are simply the spells that come most easily to them. It's about seeing how they balance their desire for power with the need for secrecy in the world, and about succumbing to or resisting the arcane desires their Blood inflicts on them. 

This is a game that feels like it draws quite a bit from the lore and allure of Vampire: the Masquerade. It gives your characters an internal struggle to wrestle with, gives you 10-sided dice to roll in dice pools, and counts a 7 or higher as a success. In this game, your character also has magical strengths and personal advantages or disadvantages - perhaps a certain kind of magic always comes easier to you, or perhaps you have a sworn enemy who is always on your tail. If you want a game about secrecy and struggle, this might be the game for you.

Dead Letter Society, by Rori Montford.

Live your best unlife as the newest member of the Dead Letter Society, an exclusive communication network for vampires. Pursue your ambitions, and question the Society's motives, in this journaling and epistolary game for 1-2 players.

Dead Letter Society is a journaling game where your letters drive the action. Choose your genre, build your world, and discover the joys of corresponding via a secret society with unknown motives. 

This is a slower and quieter game, for a much smaller group of people that happens over the course of writing various letters or journal entries. Using tarot cards, you’ll answer the questions that arise out of the course of your play (although it looks like you can use dice or other method of number generation if you like). The game is, at its core, about two vampires sharing a connection through a Society whose motives are… suspect. It looks like there are play-sets for various settings, and while I’m not sure exactly what your vampires’ position is in relation to humans, the fact that it’s meant to take place between 2 players (or by yourself) gives me a suspicion that your characters will be sympathetic, rather than monstrous.

Eat the Reich, by Rowan, Rook & Decard.

The year is 1943. You are a team of crack vampire commandos with one mission: drink all of Hitler's blood.

This over-the-top, ultraviolent game is designed to be played from beginning to end in one to three sessions of carnage, blood magic, meaningful flashbacks and hundreds upon hundreds of extremely dead fascists. It tells one story, it tells it loud, and it tells it brilliantly. Think Wolfenstein crossed with Danger 5 and you're not far off the mark. 

This is a game about punching up, and punching back. The designers are aiming for something that is over-the-top, messy, and violent, something that guides your characters through one big mission while providing the ability to flash-back to moments in WW2 that led your characters to this final moment. It’s meant to be big, bombastic and bloody - and it’s currently still in production. You can still pre-order it on the Kickstarter page, but if you want to learn more about it first, I recommend checking out this post by the authors, as well as the game v, which uses the same rule system to deliver a punchy one-shot experience.

Bloodbeam Badlands, by Viditya Voleti.

You have survived the apocalypse, and your worst nightmare has come true. The sun burns redder, brighter, and hotter, never setting - the Forever Dawn. The land has been irradiated and kissed by its strange sanguine rays, warping the world into a carnival for the strange and the supernatural.

Bloodbeam Badlands is a game for at least 2 players, including a Game Master (GM). It’s a game about vampires stuck surviving a post-apocalyptic world where the sun never sets, what it means to keep moving when the deck is stacked against you, the immortal facing mortality with every step. It’s also a game about being really cool vampires with cool vampire powers and cool magic guns going on rad adventures in a rad world filled with rad things. 

Characters in Bloodbeam Badlands have 3 Stats: Guts, Guile, and Guise that determine your capabilities and how many dice you roll, and 3 Sources: Blood, Bullets, and Burn which determine your state of being and what value you need to roll under. Managing your Sources as they fluctuate and playing to your strengths allows for a dynamic yet simple system! It’s the end of the world and your greatest enemy is able to kill you at all hours of the day.

A game of survival and plenty of character pieces that exist in threes, Bloodbeam Badlands hands you some cursed guns and powerful vampiric abilities and asks you to try and survive in a world where not just the humans, but the landscape wants to kill you. If you want a game about kicking desperation in the face and rad adventures, this might be the game for you.

The Sun’s Ransom, by pidj.

The Sun's Ransom is a poetic, tragic RPG where you play vampires determined to bring back the sun.

The world has gone dark and the mortals are consumed by the need for warmth, light and power. It is up to you, who do not need life or warmth or light or power, to ransom the sun, despite the cost. You must go against your vampiric nature and remember what brought Light and Joy to your mortal self. That is the blood-price for the sun.

This is a game that takes your resources away from you as you play. Your table will have the freedom to determine what kind of world you start in and what exactly the roles are for both mortals and vampires. This means that it’s up to you what kind of creatures vampires are, and how people see them! What you’ll struggle with is your doom - or to be more clear, the doom of the mortals around you.

When you begin play, you’ll place as many dice as can cover the sun that the game provides for you to print out. As you play, those dice will be removed - and the sun will come back, saving the mortals you fight for, and hurting you in the process. If you want a game of tragedy and sacrifice, I recommend this game.

Other Games I’ve Recommended

Blood and Sacrilege, by Tom Clark.

Vamp Camp!, by Sebastian Yue.

Bubblegum Vampires, by Gormengeist.

[sharonisthebettercarter]

billy butcher and addiction--

felt there's a need for a good and proper analysis for this fucker (as well as i can manage, maybe throw in a bit of a rant on poor fandom etiquette, 'three laws of fandom' are an oldie but a goodie lol) so here we go i guess--

i wanna start by saying this is a full scope character deep dive (sortaish?? best i can do take it or leave it--lol i might go further in depth on specific scenes or whatnot later, i'm longwinded but i'm tryin' to condense as best i can for this, aaaaaaaaaaand long long post ahead--) that def includes elements solidly confirmed in dear becky and probably leans more on comics billy overall, but def does intertwine and interlock with show billy (as they are essentially the same, garth ennis' own words went something like 'he's a perfect billy butcher' lol)

i'll try to avoid spoilers (??) for the most part like dear becky, but there are some things that may need more context (there is quite a bit of in the show that works well enough to represent anyway but i guess we'll see how this goes, i may end up talking more about the show elements and how they parallel with comics billy anyway)

i also think it's worth mentioning that there's a lot to billy (especially in the comic) i feel fandom either ignores, dismisses or doesn't want to acknowledge, or just doesn't notice.

whether from personal bias/prejudice, desire (fitting billy into that 'alpha's alpha' toxic masculinity 'dom top' fever dream 'mold' so to speak, probably--no, definitely the *worst* way to interpret and easiest way bungle up his character, it completely misses the fact that billy has built *that* 'daddy approved' version of himself as a *facade* to *hide* his own shame and insecurity, and he is *so* much more complex than that nonsense (and genuinely uncomfortable and unhappy being that way-beyond the subtle guilt of a constant high). can we talk about the ways in which fandoms promote and perpetuate toxic masculinity--what, no time we'll be here all week?? oh, okay. jesus fucking christ that is exactly as bad if not worse than the maga chud interpretation and unironic worship of homelander--), lack of personal experience/familiarity, understanding--fuck it, even lack of education in media analysis or reading comprehension (if not both), and *especially* being pro-censorship/americentric/*stuck* with purity culture blinders (or even some part of them lingering)

all of those can def make media (and characters like billy) that isn't 'cookie cutter america-approved' fairly difficult to understand or accept (i guess??)

i've seen so much listed to hell and back in attempts to describe comics billy. 'he's a piece of shit' *YES*. 'he's just wish fulfillment for the author's hatred of superheroes' *no*??? let me not get into the complete hypocrisy of someone who writes or enjoys fanfic--the epitome of *wish fulfilment*--unironically complaining about other authors doing this and thinking it's a legit complaint. how does *anyone* read the entire story and come to *that* conclusion???

did you even bother reading the comic? no, i don't mean glossing over it with a completely closed mind while actively ignoring and dismissing everything important put in front of you and designed to make you think because the blood and guts or other is too distracting apparently, i mean *actually* reading it thoroughly and making an effort to think about what's being presented and why, waiting for the drop *instead* of jumping to judge (as is the american way)

and to some degree, i get it. i wouldn't say this comic is the easiest to digest (especially if completely unfamiliar with many of the themes presented, even the show has sparked some ass takes and interpretations) there's also plenty of common misconceptions, one in particular about garth ennis 'hating' superheroes. this is actually not true, what he hates is how the superhero *genre* has bottlenecked the comics industry and what is more likely to see success in it (and as a fellow creative, i completely understand how frustrating that would be, his main interest is actually war stories)

it's def one thing to say, 'nah, i don't vibe with the style' or 'it's not really for me/my taste but it's fine if others like it', i get that, satire and horror aren't for everyone. honest critique is fair even.

but it is a whole 'nother thing entirely to pretend your own personal tastes are *the only 'correct' creative law* and then *vehemently* oppose or hate something an artist created and denounce, harass, or fuck--dehumanize the people who enjoy it, if not the artists who work(ed) on it.

i'm sorry, this is a tangent cause it's def not limited to the hate the boys comics or ennis gets *at all*, it's especially prevalent in *literal* kids media like teen titans go where the thing in question is simply put--*NOT MADE FOR THE SHITHEADS NONSTOP COMPLAINING ABOUT IT* when they can literally, *LITERALLY* just *accept* that they weren't the *target audience* and move the fuck on with their day, happy as can be. *instead* of shitting on something *or the people who like it* to make literal *children* or other people feel bad about liking it.

it's one thing to try and educate people or have discourse and discussion, it is another entirely to *bully* them over something so *stupid* as *fiction*.

i especially have a problem with this shit when i have *several* artists tell me that they don't feel *safe* or *welcome* being themselves, liking or creating what *they* want to make in a fandom *because* of the fandom attitude and normalization of *hate* within that fandom.

i *thought* fandoms were supposed to be about *love* so what the fuck is this human tribalist false dichotomy bullshit??

and of course, that's not always the case. there is also an unbelievable level of respect that is given to fanartists and fanfiction writers, and that is *beautiful*. 'don't like, don't read'. *PERFECT*. curate your own content, complain or rant in your own spaces--you're entitled to an opinion, but *accept* that it still has a right to exist and other people still have a right to love it (and aren't wrong for that, opinions cannot be objective), *even if you don't like it*. just don't engage then, it's that simple.

now extend that level of courtesy to the people, artists and writers in the industry.

no, i'm not trying to shut down criticism of media, proper critique is how we learn and grow and understand better and in turn *create* better. yes, they can fumble the fucking bag too, especially when adapting something from a source material and--like *some* fanfic writers out there--think they can do it 'way better'.

but the people in the industry? who bend over backwards, going on strike in some cases, breaking their necks to work on and create the things that we *love* and latch onto?

they're people too. and whether the thing they make goes *exactly* how we want or not, however you feel about the money in the entertainment industry (which they see barely a dime of if those fucking strikes and constant mistreatment are any indication), they don't deserve to be treated like scabs.

that mentality of 'not my personal taste = universally bad' and 'anyone who disagrees with my opinion is wrong' is fucking gross and *extremely elitist*, just straight up announcing how pretentious, obtuse, willfully arrogant and ignorant, and *lacking in self awareness*--the number one easiest way to be the *shittiest* kind of artist/writer/critic--you are. it is *exactly* like cishet white men complaining about something being 'bad' because it's 'woke' or has anything *besides* a cishet white man for the protagonist.

*god forbid something isn't tailor made specifically for them.*

swear to gawd, i got a list of different bullshit and circle jerking i've seen all across different fandoms for different reasons. no i'm not mad at any one person in particular, just a little salty from recurring problems and gatekeeping (ghoulfucking-GHOULFUCKING OF ALL THINGS I--I CANNOT) if not straight up bullying (does it really make a bitch feel *so* much better to try and hurt other people for liking what they, and let's be honest, are not willing to give the time of day?) in fandoms. (the complete audacity of people to complain about a media being 'childish' or 'bad' because 'insert nonsensical trivial bullshit here that holds no weight because it's personal taste if not flat out wrong and not actual critique' and then turn around and throw the biggest fucking tantrums about it--let me not get into the whole sharon carter debacle jesus christ--)

same shit. different pile.

also, fuck me. i keep *forgetting* that genuinely valid critique (*not* personal taste/opinion, proper critique pertains to things like techniques used, composition, narrative consistency and plot holes, goals of the artist/writer, accomplishments of those goals, etc.) is something that needs proper education and understanding all on its own which not a whole ton of people get or even know, which just goes to show--i'm a dumbass too. (but i won't deny that plenty of 'critics' are full of shit and *know* this but use their 'personal taste' as 'critique' *anyway* because... they enjoy being complete assholes and discouraging other artists i guess.)

y'all, take a class or two in art critique and literature analysis. you'll learn all the cool lingo (to later forget if you're like me~), and maybe (hopefully) walk out with a bit more of an open mind wanting to encourage more art in the world, even if you don't personally like it. take a moment to *listen* to differing opinions in their *entirety* and you might even gain a new perspective.

*no one* should be ashamed to ask questions or admit they don't know or understand something and fuck the people that would make you feel that way. *we can and should help each other.*

but stagnant or hostile fandoms with no self awareness and perpetuated elitism circle jerks? *really* fucking shameful, regardless of the form or where they are.

ANYWHO--

ugh, fuck. okay. i think i'm done with that tangent, back on topic--

BILLY BEAN~<3

and i want to reiterate that *again*, dear becky *does* confirm pretty much everything i'm going to discuss here tho technically speaking, nothing is spoiled here as it's just reiterating what is implicit (if not stated outright) throughout the series.

as far as dear becky goes, it's a good final gut-wrenching piece to the series and i loved it, but it definitely leaned on more of 'tell' instead of 'show, don't tell' (no duh in context, but probably because the rest of the comic did the 'show'--very well imo but it still flew over peoples' heads and made them misplace their brains--i'm sorry, i've just lost so much patience for the lack of reading comprehension and media literacy, but honestly? ennis is genuinely too good at knowing how to spark a strong emotional reaction in readers. and can we talk about the dense mofos that *make* authors have to 'tell' just to confirm something that is heavily implied--what, no time? oh, fuck, fine.)

OKAY--

addiction.

what about it, and why am i mentioning it. well. because if it's not clear by now, william butcher is an addict.

and it is one of, if not the core element that drives him to do what he does.

not becky or becca. not justice.

addiction.

and i don't mean traditional substance abuse (though he admits there has been as much in his life, especially with alcohol, his drug of choice is a bit more complex and maybe not so easy to spot on the surface for those unfamiliar with addiction).

in the show, we even see him mention that he's 'done 'em all' and there's *nothing* like temp v--and it's because temp v *amplifies* his *addiction* to the highest level it could exist on.

something else to note, there's a ton of stigma and widespread (ableist) misconception surrounding addiction still (which may be part of why people may not want to recognize it in billy), but it is absolutely a clinical mental disorder and people who suffer from it should be treated as *medical patients*, not reduced to violent criminals and scumbags. (fuck you drug war and prohibition, you are the root of organized crime and you're racist as shit.) it's also possible to become addicted to *anything*. and i mean *anything*.

if you can repeat a behavior and your brain no longer cares whether or not that behavior is causing you harm because there is a *compulsive* urge for that *repetition* or a specific result from it? that is addiction. money, anger, pain, violence, self harm, attention, love...

you'd think the last one might be okay, but it's not. it's an easy way to get caught in the infinite loop of an abusive relationship, just with promise of it. no delivery necessary.

but it doesn't have to be drugs that cause addiction. hell, gambling addiction is a thing all it's own that can get *incredibly* severe.

and listen, too much of *anything* can be horrible for you. fucking coconut will give you the runs if you eat too much that shit is *not* fun pun intended--

i digress.

in billy's case? he's actually addicted to two i just listed.

violence. and self harm.

i mentioned before that what drives billy has next to nothing to do with what happened to becky or becca.

there's a common misconception that, at the end of the day, billy does have some level of good intent behind his actions, and to a degree this is true in the *complete reverse* of what people often assume, and this is proven repeatedly in both the show (with just what we have seen) and comic (where its laid out too heavily to ignore).

setting aside the fact that there's *never* a good 'rEaSoN' to commit or even attempt *genocide* (EVER. i have ZERO patience for the constant apologism of this bullshit, SWEAR TO GAWD FANDUMB--) and billy's genocidal tendencies on their own, the idea that 'he goes after homelander for becca' or 'justice' has been completely debunked.

'justice is not vengeance'

something to always keep in mind.

but... in the first season? hughie called him out on this.

butcher calls him a 'disgrace to robin's memory', and hughie--bless his little heart, responds with 'i think i'm doing this *for* her.'

it's an interesting response, because hughie is essentially saying--

'you'll *die* for this woman, but that's not what she would have wanted. i'm going to *live* for robin, and for *annie*, because *that's* what she would have wanted.'

and he's absolutely right. billy loved becca, would have died for her. but he refuses to listen and *live* for her.

the group therapist too even before hughie. she literally laid it all out, front and center in the clearest way possible, 'it's a defense mechanism', and then butcher had his little meltdown just before telling hughie about becca, everything he can, including *using* other peoples tragedies and his own *specifically* to manipulate hughie and try and make sure *starlight* can't *save* him from what butcher is trying to turn him into.

*so that hughie stays stuck on his reason to die, instead of finding one to live.*

in the second season, *becca* herself calls him out on this, multiple times.

'you put me on this pedestal but i never knew how to save you'.

'--i didn't come to you, i went to vought--.'

and that's just it, becca (and becky in the comic) is *intimately* familiar with billy's *addiction* and the underlying mental health issues he *wouldn't address*. she didn't tell him what happened even after the shock of it because she *knew* that it would just become a reason for billy to *give in* and be his worst self to a degree where she would *lose him* regardless of what she felt or asked for from him.

she felt she had to *suffer in silence* to *protect him* from *himself*, something that ends up *destroying* her.

becca wanted to *save* billy, but more importantly, she wanted *him* to *save himself* because she *believed in him*, *so much*.

'i never wanted that for you.'

she doesn't want billy to drown and suffer or cause harm in his own hatred and addictions. she *loved* him so much so, that she was willing to *drown herself* if it meant she could save *him*. she loved him *too much*.

billy's mum too, even tries to help in her own way. (she is much less aware of billy's activity in the comic, but we'll come back to her. for the show, this was likely in response to seeing the news about *stillwell*, something his dad fucking *praised* him for)

'--that he wouldn't have this hold on you--'

billy's actions are almost entirely driven by the *addiction* his father forced on him. on doing the things that would make his 'daddy' *proud*. and the thing is, he's *fully aware* of this.

he constantly *says* that *becca* is his 'reason', that she was his *cure*, but she's the *excuse*. his *new addiction* and *self medication* (also billy, you fucking cunt you *know* what you do and have no leg to stand on when it comes to self medicating--)

both in the worst of what he does and his rejection of addressing his own traumas, and she is *unwilling* in this endeavor. she never wanted this hate to consume him, she never wanted all of this death with her name as the signature, *she never wanted billy to be his father*, much less be something much worse.

he even admits as much in the third season when he hallucinates lenny who tells him his actions would 'break becca's heart'

billy responds something along the lines of 'becca's dead, it doesn't matter what she thinks'. (a line presented in the comic even more harshly, but it drives the point home perfectly.)

when he sees lenny again in his nightmare--

'i'm not that bastard--.'

'come off it billy, you always have been. cause anyone who's ever loved you, you end up gettin' 'em killed, don't ya--.'

'--the last person on god's green earth tryin' to stop you from bein' a monster, and what do you do? drag him down to your level... when he dies... and he will... then no can stop you.'

OOF OUCH OWIE--. the lenny stuff hits so damn hard but it represents *perfectly* what butcher's own *internalized beliefs* are.

mallory calls him out on it literally every season.

'--but billy! not the others!'

'it's like asking a cockroach to not be a cockroach--'

'--because it wouldn't stop with just homelander--'

'this was never about ryan or becca, it was always selfish. the hate inside that you want to let loose on the world.'

'--i was wrong... you are your father, always have been...'

and then there's billy's subsequent impulsive reaction to push ryan away, and *be his father*.

but hell, even in gen v when mallory is speaking to shetty.

and truthfully, billy was even showing *withdrawal* symptoms at the beginning of the third season.

billy himself, even *self punishes*, picking fights he knows he *won't* win as a way to counterbalance *and* satisfy his own addiction, infinite loop. vicious cycle.. (ooh i will def be coming back to the big one here--), and we see this in one *HUGE* way, and in many many smaller ways, but even in the more literal sense of going to bars, starting trouble, and laughing or smiling when he's getting beat the fuck up or *losing*.

it's even highlighted in the show, billy *seeking out violence* and conflict whether he should or not, *especially* when unnecessary. getting his own face busted up and smiling because of it is something that happens multiple times in the comic (even on accident in one instance), and is def given a place in the show. it's easy to pass off as billy simply being a masochist (which is def true lmao he does admit as much), but there's also more to it than that and it goes hand in hand with his *addiction* and--

what he thinks he deserves.

billy *hates himself* so *severely* that he actually *does not believe* that he is capable of the *good* that others, such as lenny, becca, his mum, and hughie are willing to *see* in him. he *completely* believes it when others say that 'he is his father' (internalizes it, struggles with it, and frequently acts on it).

he puts on a show. bravado, posture, and 'confidence'. and he's so good at putting on that front, that he can fool himself, even for a moment. and those that believe it will even *enable* him. and the people he feels *nothing* for? again, he maintains the front. he lives his life *masking*, *faking it*--so fucking hard. homelander could never--

and it's not even necessarily the result of toxic masculinity. don't get me wrong, he def has some issues with that lingering (y'all, if you have *say* you're an 'alpha' and posture out your sweet little ass off 24/7, you're def *not* an 'alpha' lmfao), but it's more so his own *trauma* that forces him to *cling* to that.

but when he *loves*, and he loves *deeply*, he completely rolls over and shows his belly like a kitten<3... when he was with becky, he was happy and comfortable, and all of that *ridiculousness* just melted away completely... he didn't feel any need for it because he felt *safe*, because this constant *insecurity* and feeling of being *threatened* all the damn time looming overhead had suddenly cleared up with becky there.

it's not even so much that billy doesn't feel fear. he might not traditionally (at all if his amygdala is damaged), but considering the fight or flight response, billy's *default* setting literally *is* that *fight* response. he's the way he is because he is *always* afraid and he's been conditioned for it to manifest itself as *rage*.

we see bits of his love come through in a few moments he has with people he has genuine care for. (the way he loves his mum and she instantly calms him down is genuinely so sweet.)

but it's always gonna come back down to 'daddy dearest'.

because of him, *billy is afraid of living*.

and--

his father. *is proud of him*.

billy is *just like him* or *everything he wanted to be* as a *man*, or at least is compelled to *project* this on the surface. and everything in *billy* that *is* his father, *just like him*, is *everything* that billy *hates*. so it manifests into an *intense* self loathing and spiraled addiction that magnifies the worst of what his father *forced* on him.

he *doesn't want* to be *his father*, but he feels, and fully believes that *he already is*. his self hatred is another form of *hating his father*, because *he is that man's legacy*.

so *billy* doesn't *believe* that he deserves love or goodness or care from other people (a parallel we see in homelander, presented a bit differently.) so he 'doesn't care'. makes excuses to not care (about people in general, if not just the very *prominent* antisocial tendencies), or leave, or push them away, lashing out to give *them* the excuse to leave him, because he is *afraid* and in his own mind, *unworthy*.

he's *afraid* of being loved, of *losing* that love, of *hurting* those he loves. he is *afraid* of being his own father.

but it's all he's ever known, all he's ever been *conditioned* to be. intoxicated, ever present, it's this terrible thing that destroys him but he *can't* stop. *addiction*.

and what better way to protect those he loves than to keep himself as *far* away from them as possible? than to *make* them hate him. than to do the *wrong* thing, to *disappoint* them. self sabotage. self punishment.

he can't stop himself. he deserves it.

lather, rinse, repeat.

so what does that mean for homelander, or even the reason he goes after homelander? the *real* reason.

'there must be *some* good in him because homelander 'must be' this 'ultimate evil that *must* be stopped', right?

not really. he's a symptom of a much greater evil, but he was never the root of it. if billy really wanted to solve the problems at hand and get *justice*, he'd go after *vought*, NOT homelander.

homelander is not even the real villain in *billy's* mind, in all actuality.

what homelander *is*?

temptation.

he is... the *ultimate* final high for billy. in terms of addiction to both *violence* and *self punishment*.

he doesn't actually go after homelander because he wants to 'stop him' or even kill him. not really. there are times billy starts a fight *expecting* to *lose*, *wanting* it. homelander *is* one of those times to the most intense degree that billy could find. and he even senses this when they first meet--unnecessarily, privately insulting the man because why?

because he feels *threatened*. because he feels *insecure*. because if homelander is *truly good*, even with *all that power*--

then billy has no fucking excuse--

it is, in essence, the same exact reaction that lex luthor has to superman. forcing himself to *challenge* him because of a *constant* sense of *fear*. (except lex *is* afraid of dying, so 1000% a huge coward lmao--)

but~, when he finds out homelander is *bad*?

homelander is billy's *failsafe*

to stop the person he feels is the most terrible evil of all *and* to set the world on fire in the process. a way for billy to kill two birds with one stone. compelled by his addiction to *chase* this ideation relentlessly.

homelander is to billy--his ultimate end, self punishment, a death wish, a *suicide attempt*.

and a way to *unleash his hatred onto the rest of the world*, *to make it burn*, even after his death. (this would be why despite many many MANY warnings to *not* push homelander *because of the catastrophe this will ultimately instigate and the loss of life this is bound to result in*--billy does not give a shit about the potential consequences. he welcomes them--)

if homelander were a *nuke*, billy would want to *launch* him. right now, homie is more like the *demon core*, incredibly dangerous and in some instances lethal, but not *yet* explosive.

billy *wants* the *warhead*.

it was why he got *so excited* at the *chance* of homelander offering him 'scorched earth'.

the man read billy like an open fucking book, and set the bait--

y'all, in other words, homie straight up went to billy's house and offered *crack* to the *crack addict*--fuck yeah he's gonna take that offer!

homelander never actually perceives billy as a real threat *at all* (safe to say, this is the main reason he doesn't kill him. there's a bit of personal complex combined with the deals/blackmail/request involved, but this would also be why he doesn't *hesitate* to 'kill' billy at herogasm. he genuinely gives no fucks about this poor man or his many anal complexes and daddy issues beyond the mild entertainment he gets from him and just how *easy* it is to read billy or rile him up. maybe a *dash* of novelty being found in billy's obsession with him. i'll go into the homie side of things in depth maybe someday soon lol but for now--)

and here's the thing, homelander isn't the *only* failsafe. he is simply the *ultimate failsafe*

included in all the possible bad habits billy has is pawning off his *responsibility* and personal accountability, even his *will to do good* onto others.

i mentioned before that becca (becky) was like a new addiction for him. and she was. in a sense, billy was using her to self medicate. she loved him, gave him love and made him feel good, no pain, no shame--but also no pause to think about that pain, self hatred and self doubt and actively address it. she was a way to not worry about his own *goodness* because she was an *easy* reason for him to *want* to be good.

and something important to note?

billy feels that he has *cheated* on becca/becky *since* the day she left/died. (there's a whole ass deliciously intricate story there but i'm trying to avoid the spoilers lmao. kind of a freebie hint i guess.)

lenny and hughie similarly make an effort to *hold butcher back* and reach out to him. (everyone does honestly, but not everyone is so successful with it). and butcher lets them, but *also* removes the agency of his own choice in the matter.

he doesn't just *let them* make him *good*, he doesn't believe he's capable of stopping himself on his own--but he believes in *them* because they *are* good, *truly good*.

hughie all on his own is *another kind of failsafe* and lo and behold, even calls butcher out on this by the end of the third season (theme is prevalent in the comic a lil different but again spoilers lol):

'i don't think you want to do this. i think you want me to stop you.'

*ding*ding*ding*!

nail on the head, hughie... butcher does not believe he can stop himself. so he sets up *failsafes* to do as much.

and let me just say, it is *unbelievably* shitty of him to do that, to pawn off the responsibility of his own behavior, whether good or pure evil onto other people. but i get it. and it fucking breaks my heart for him.

because *that* is addiction. it feels like mind control. aggressive compulsion. you feel ashamed, and hate yourself, and don't care if you hurt yourself or even others. but you keep *hoping*, *wishing*, *leaving a breadcrumb trail* so that *someone*, *anyone*, will come along and--

*save you. from you.*

and when you stop believing in yourself, in your own willpower to fight against this *thing* that just completely *destroys* you from the inside out... without *anyone* on your side, what else is left to do but to numb the pain?

i was able to recognize billy's addiction right off the bat because i've *been* to a lot of the places he has been. including the addiction. and he makes me so *fucking* mad because it's like seeing a version of myself *still stuck*, *still lost*, *still trapped* by my own issues and self loathing, and all of the abuse i've gone through--

and the biggest fuck up, the biggest *abuser* is me.

i can't *escape* me. *no one* can escape *themself*.

that fucker breaks my heart to pieces because *i have been there*, and i know just how fucking hard it is to *be* there, just how much harder it is to *get out* and start to *learn*--*who is it you really wanna be? who are you without this drug?*

and something he even says in the comics on a few occasions is--

'i'm not really here, i'm somewhere else watching this happen'

asserting that he *truly* believes that he has *no control* over *what* he is. (in contrast with homelander, who feels the weight of something similar but more literally in some regard, and in relation to so many other aspects in his life with the world around him.)

billy butcher *is* the *true villain* of *his own story*

of his own making.

he's not after homelander or even vought. he doesn't blame society or even his father at this point. he blames himself. and he's *given up* entirely on fighting himself. he's looking for his *overdose*.

*that's homelander*

ain't that a kick in the head...

it's part of what makes their relationship and dynamic so incredibly electric and titillating. it's got nothing to do with becca or becky.

butcher sees homelander as an easy way out. as a way to control the narrative, *maintain his own*, and *stop the bad guy* without bringing someone *good*, like *hughie*, down to his level.

he *sees* the parallels, a kindred spirit. he *knows* the potential. and he wants to be the *spark* to light all that *gasoline*.

because then it won't be his fault anymore. his *guilt*. he'll have passed on his *curse*.

likewise, he actually goes after supes in general for a similar enough reason, and it ties in with why he *doesn't* go after vought directly.

billy actually *likes* the status quo. to a degree, *needs* it, *needs vought*

because *vought* is the *creator* of his *supply*, feeding this addiction. and we hear billy say this in both the comic and show--

'with great power comes the absolute certainty that you'll turn into a right cunt.'

and billy actually believes this--about himself.

when he says it about other supes and even his intense hatred of them, it is a *projection* of his own issues and what he believes to be true for himself (that he would do the absolute worst thing imaginable given the opportunity). and in a way, going after them is in some ways a metaphor for stopping and destroying himself, hating himself, as much as it is a way to maintain his addiction.

and--

maintain the narrative he has built--that he is the true villain.

and if that's the case, well... it takes a *hero* to stop a *villain*, right?

but also--y'all remember that scene in the suicide squad where polkadot man imagines everyone as his mum? how he imagines starro as his mum?

yeah, that.

that's basically billy. every fucking supe, including starlight, and kimiko, and let's *really* not talk about what this means about him sleeping with maeve in context with his 'supe=daddy' issues, but even the person he sees in the mirror. *all of them* are *his father*.

listen, i'm not kidding. billy's daddy issues are seriously severe, so fucking bad, i--

his actions aren't for becca or becky or ryan or justice. even he *knows* that's bullshit and admits as much (which just makes fandom denying it that much more fucked). but they're not even *just because* or because he's genocidal, antisocial, or anything else. he *does* want someone to stop him. he's sane enough to recognize his actions for what they truly are *behind* the mask.

billy's actions are a volatile and violent *cry for help*, because he never learned how to *ask*, or even how to *believe in himself*.

he never truly learned that *he never had to be his father*, and he didn't *need* becky or becca, lenny or hughie to *be good*.

i actually think billy's greatest magic trick is convincing even the audience and readers that he is a *total*, complete piece of shit. and don't get me wrong, he is *def* a huge, massive, incredibly rank and ripe piece of shit--.

and y'all, i'm sorry if you believed him and got played like a damn fiddle, him and homie def throwin' in some hard balls--

but he's also still human. he also still needs just as much if, honestly? maybe even more, fucking *help* than homelander. which kind of draws back into their parallels. the tomfoolery of fandom might have you believe that billy is less complex or more put together than homelander, but their situations go hand in hand and the evidence suggests (if not confirms) something quite different.

billy's plight and even goal in some sense is *convincing the rest of his world that he is a monster*. driven by the addiction his father gave him. enabled by the world around him.

homelander's? it's actually the complete opposite. his struggle is with *his world convincing him that he is a monster*, and in turn, against his own instincts, *growing* into that role. when in reality, he never got the chance to decide for himself, it was decided *for* him a long long time ago.

'i think, therefore i am.'

'i can, therefore i must.'

however, *our actions cannot define who we are, because we can choose our actions*. good or bad are not something you inherently *are*, they are something you *choose to do*.

it paints what in turn becomes quite the brutal and tragic picture when these two forces meet. homelander and billy are both of the mindset that they *don't have a choice*.

and this bit is a bit more of a personal thought, but regarding billy's mum, she was *becky*. she was sweet, and kind, and cared for her family more than anything. *it didn't matter what she suffered, she was willing to drown if it meant saving the people she loved*.

as much as i adore how cute becca and billy were, i don't think she would have saved him.

i think the implication is that she would have either 'drowned' trying and become his mum, history repeating itself in a vicious cycle as billy spread his disease to any child they could have.

or that she would have lost her mind. and in turn *become* the person billy spread his disease to, if not another enabler for him. if not billy's choice of drug, maybe she would have taken up something else and eventually overdosed. i would even say the show implies this outcome with both becca and hughie, as the more butcher pushes--the more worn down they get.

if you put enough pressure on someone--they break.

becca was *good* for him. but billy was so, so fucking *bad* for her.

it begs the question of whether or not billy *is* right, if he really is this monster, *fated* to become his father in the worse of ways. of whether or not it's too late for him.

he's certainly not 'normal' or 'right' or 'good' or even an 'anti-hero'. at best, you could maybe call him an 'anti-villain', he is meant to be the deuterantagonist.

it def doesn't help that every time he has the *chance* to do the right thing, *someone* goes and enables him, gives him a reason to do the *wrong* thing.

fucking maeve in that last episode of the third season. but she's def not the only one, and def not the only time. (and yes, if it wasn't clear enough, being completely fucking indifferent to killing *thousands* of people to go after *one* fucking guy is in fact, the *wrong* thing to do.)

butt.

rewatching the scenes with lenny and billy's reaction, and even the final fight, showed something of a *possible* silver lining.

billy *enjoys* rejecting his father. actually pretty fucking greatly if we're being honest. generally speaking, it's when he *rejects* his father and everything that man represents that billy is at his *happiest* (lmao the epitome of an unfulfilled submissive sweetheart and bratty bossy bottom~<3<3<3)

there's a moment, where soldier boy says something along the lines of--

'--fuck you. you're weaker than he is.'

in regards to homelander. it's sort of glossed over, but this is billy's reaction to essentially being called a 'disgrace' so to speak by a toxic 'alpha male'.

y'all see that? it's a smile. lmao a smirk.

this is a moment where billy is protecting *ryan* and keeping his promise to becca. it's a moment where billy is *doing the right thing*, all on *his own* (mostly lol i'm sure there's a roundabout way to justify it in his head). and i think that's key.

it's not just a moment he's proud of himself and has a legitimate fucking reason to be proud of himself, (oh btw, we shoulda *all* been proud of billy in this moment), it's a moment he's *breaking through what his father made him* and his own *addiction*.

and he's doing it *selflessly* and--*without setting that responsibility on another person*.

so we *know* he has it in him, he always has. even becky *in the comic* kept trying to convince billy that *he is capable of good without her*. and again, we actually saw this in the second season when becca and ryan were reunited and billy *changed* his plans, *for becca*, instead of doing the selfish thing and selling ryan back to vought.

but if billy doesn't believe it himself...

i don't think billy is right about himself. but it is very *very* difficult for someone to *correct course* so to speak, once they have their *core beliefs*, lay out their own destiny and start along a *self fulfilling prophecy*, something him and homelander *both* do.

enter ryan.

and suddenly (lol probably in part due to reading dear becky lol), there was a bit of... not so much new, as *confirmed* perspective in play after that rewatch, something to *look* for and ponder in regards to *why* ryan may have been added for this story, a question in mind--

'would it be wrong of *ryan* to want to save his father?'

was it wrong of becca or becky, hughie or lenny, even his mum, to want to save billy?

how would *billy* even begin to answer such questions?

a different answer for the two would be a clear hypocritical bias (which lol i would not put past billy, but i also wouldn't be surprised if he maintained consistent thinking by answering *yes* to both)

. . .

y'all...

i still can't say i'm particularly optimistic about things turning out alright for either gent or ryan, butt~<3

garth ennis literally made the saddest, most pathetic, deliciously sweet, perfectly precious, extra emo tsun tsun baby boi ever, and put him right under our noses.

some a y'all fucking sneezing all over him, straight up sleepin' on all his *best* bits. how are we not utilizing billy butcher *properly~<3<3<3*????

;)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

[ultrameganicolaokay]

John Constantine, Hellblazer by Jamie Delano Omnibus Volume 1 by Jamie Delano, Rick Veitch, John Ridgway, Richard Piers Rayner, Alfredo Alcala and more. Cover by Dave McKean. Out in October.

"The story that defined John Constantine! For the first time, experience the series as it was meant to be read with the interweaving narrative between Hellblazer and Swamp Thing restored and the story of Constantine in the wake of Moore’s saga finally told. Collects John Constantine, Hellblazer #1-22, John Constantine, Hellblazer Annual #1, Swamp Thing (vol. 2) #65-77, and The Sandman #3, along with a foreword by Garth Ennis, an introduction by Delano, and more!"

[amity-moonrise]

Welcome to our glorious page, where we post about our life and our experiences as a system along with other stuff!

FYI, we post occasional syscourse posts sometimes but it’s not our main thing. This is just our regular blog for everything.

HASHTAGS FOR EASIER NAVIGATION:

#yellowcosmiccheeseburger for systemboxes, announcements and important posts

#starfallasks for ask posts that we respond to

#starfallmustread for all posts regarding my ex specifically and all the stuff hes done to us and his victims (please read if possible) + other call out posts

#starfallposts for every post I have made that isnt just another reblog (might have a few reblogs)

Spacehey profile (warning for loud undertale song):

Other blogs

Main blog (endo safe): @sparkly-amity

Witchy blog (endo safe): @amity-witchcraft

Stimboard blog (endo safe): @amity-stimboards

Cinnamoroll blog (endo safe): @cinnamoroll-heaven

Syscourse blog (endo safe): @amitys-shenanigans

Headspace blog (Managed by Hartley, endos cannot interact with this blog as Hartley states in his dni): @lunar-headspace

Littles’ blog (Ran by our littles and their caretakers, endo safe): @little-star-squad

Hypersexual Alter Culture blog (traumagenic systems only, endos in dni)

@hypersexual-alter-culture

Please do remember these key things:

- PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD USE TONE TAGS WHEN TALKING TO US IF POSSIBLE, OR ELSE WE MAY MISUNDERSTAND YOU.

- TELL US IF WE SAID SOMETHING THAT IS DAMAGING. PLEASE. OR IF ITS INACCURATE.

- We wont answer every question about our system unless we are comfortable answering the question.

- We do yap a lot sometimes, especially when it comes to topics we know a shitton about. Please don’t necessarily take it as an attack, 90% of the time we just yap a lot. We may sound arrogant or complainy because of this but we assure you that this is how we communicate for the most part. Also, don’t just tell us that you can’t be bothered to read our long posts, thats just mean and tells us that you don’t care about our efforts to communicate clearly. Just scroll if you can’t be bothered to take a few minutes to read.

- We are self diagnosed for AuDHD and DID due to repeated medical neglect and lack of access to proper care. However we are in the process of getting official diagnoses for them thanks to our doctor actually listening to us this time. We do have an official diagnosis for BPD tho

- We use I/me and we/us pronouns interchangeably.

- We may forget to put trigger warnings, please tell us as soon as possible if something serious needs a trigger warning. I won’t put any trigger warnings for my own healed scars though.

- Please be mindful that because of our BPD, we are a lot more susceptible to splits and panic attacks. Please keep that in mind when interacting with us, please be gentle with us, it can really hurt us if we split because they can get really bad sometimes

- Please accurately tell us your boundaries so that we don’t overstep any of them. Especially boundaries regarding sensitive information and topics. We take boundaries very seriously.

DNI and alter tags under cut

We use ‘✨🌟💫’ as our collective tag. Individual alters will use their own tag if they feel like it, will list those later on.

Alter tags:

Silas: ✨ or ✨ 🌟 💫

Wynn: ❤️‍🔥

Chara: 🔪

Ennie: 🧸

James: 🟡

Aurora: 🐑

Vince: ❤️‍🩹

Sage: 💚

Angel Dust: ❤️

Luna: 🌙

Riley: 🩵

Casey: 💛

Eden: 💕

Hartley: 🟪

Violet: 💟

Francis: 🧡 or 🍊

Frisk: 🌼

Karly: 💜

SK: 🔮

Kieran: 🤍

Gaster: ❔

Lucifer: 🦆

Rebecca: 💦

Ruby: 💔

Keeper (The Keeper): 🖤

Purble kitty (no official name yet): 🐱

Jinn (J for short): 🍪

Anyways here’s our DNI (simplified):

- NSFW blogs

- Anti self dx

- Blogs deliberately faking disorders/mocking disorders

- Blogs starting unnecessary drama

- Don’t interact with us if you have hurt us before and we have yet to forgive you

- Misinformation blogs.

- Blogs enforcing politics without asking. We are not interested in politics unless we interact with you ourselves

- Homophobic, sexist, racist, transphobic, ableist, or are generally hateful of those different than you. Leave us alone, and mind your own business

- Controversial and unacceptable identities (transracial, MAPs, super straight, etc).

NOTE: We are pro good faith, people with overlapping identities or good faith identities can interact with us, just putting this here to clarify stuff

- Blogs actively disrespecting other people’s religions/preaching your religion into our blog without permission.

- You support abusers and victimblame people.

- You support bullying/are a general asshole to everyone

- You are an active syscringe member. We do not give you permission to interact or screenshot our content, it is bullying and harassment regardless of whether you censor your victims or not.

- You dont believe that organized abuse/religious abuse is real or you believe in ‘npd abuse’ or any form of ‘disorder abuse’.

- You traumadump or vent publicly without prompt.

We know things may be tough but please don’t dump your problems onto someone else who didn’t ask for it. It’s mentally exhausting and can trigger others easily. If you really need help, there are helplines available. If you want someone to talk to, please go elsewhere or send a DM instead of sending us an ask or commenting on our posts publicly

- Pro-Isra3l/z1on1st, or support genocide. We stand for Palestine, always have and always will.

- YOU ARE SPECIFICALLY SOPHIEINWONDERLAND OR YOUR SIDE BLOGS IF YOU HAVE ANY. YOURE THE ONLY NON TRAUMAGENIC PERSON WHO WE WILL NEVER ACCEPT IN OUR BLOG. SO FUCK OFF.

- Blogs that support problematic ships on the internet/support problematic content on the internet, aka darkships.

- You are on our ex’s side (even after being informed of what he’s done) and refuse to acknowledge that our ex is an abuser who has abused multiple people. (Check #starfallmustread tag below)

Anyways, this list will update in the future if necessary. Have fun on our blog!

[deadite-central]

I've said this before, but Marineford either is the funniest experience or the most gut wrenching experience you could be going through. And the second you get to those gut wrenching moments, they just DON'T STOP

Luffy is still deadset on saving Ace, as he has been for the past two arcs, when we learn about how his brother was genuienly suicidal from back when he was a child, because of what the people around him said about Roger. And now, his family, whether it be the WB pirates or Luffy, will never give up on him, which makes him realize he wants to live. There are obvious parallels to be drawn to Ennies Lobby Robin, both characters realizing that they don't want to die because of the support they have from their family/nakama, which is why it pisses me off so much to see Garp continue to sit on his ass when he hears this, later even fighting Luffy, because he's so caught up in being a marine.

And yet, despite all the hardships, Luffy manages to get to Ace. Manages to save him, and we get one of the coolest team up duos in this entire series, something we have been waiting for since alabasta. It gives you that glimmer of hope, especially if you're reading/watching the series for the first time, that everything will be alright.

Just to completely rip that hope from you in the next few scenes. For a bit of context about me, when I first watched the anime, I was spoiled that Ace died, however, not when, and because I've seen screnshots of him in Wano, I concluded that it was at that point. I was caught completely off guard by this.

And this time, knowing that it was coming, I wasn't shocked, but that inevitability of this is what crushed me. Ace's death was an avoidable tragedy, but a realistic one. He's still young, he should get to make mistakes, and yet, this is where trying to defend his father’s honor, and his brother's life leads him. And when I got to that "Thank you for loving me” panel, man it hurt. He finally knows how loved he was. He dies with a smile on his face. And hell, that just destroys me.

Unfortunetly, that's not the end of things going from bad to worse, as Blackbeard appears with the most vile people he could find in Impel Down, leading to Whitebeard's death, and the taking of his devil fruit, which hey Oda when are you planning toexplain Blackbeard's power more.

Whitebeard's death is an hounorable one, and while it still hurts, there's no way he could have went out in a different way. He defitenlty wasn't anything to sneeze at. And of course, besides the meme factor, "The One Piece is real!" will always be iconic

If you haven't had enough of Akainu being a bastard, when Koby starts hearing everybody's voices, driving him to a panic attack and screaming if any of this makes sense, Akainu's reaction is to attack a sixteen year old marine. Thank the lord, Shanks shows up and finally puts an end to this bloodshed, that the marines will see as a win, despite screwing up on every single possible plane. Because in the end, the side who wins is the side that dictates how the moment will be written about

[eemcintyre]

Playing the Part

TW- an instance of nonconsensual kissing.

Summary- After the events of Rodeo Drive, the vibes between Valerie and Terry are noticeably different. Finally, Terry arranges for the media to discover them when they soft-launch their relationship to the public at a cafe.

Apologies that it's taken this long to get the third part out and that's it's not super long, but I'm finally happy with it and hopefully over my writer's block for a bit! Don't know why I was so stuck on this one but a big thank you to @karatekels for giving the me the inspo I needed to slightly rework and finish it! I hope y'all enjoy 😄

Several days had passed since the whirlwind day on Rodeo Drive, and on the following Wednesday, Valerie sat in the Dynatox office at her desk. Elbows propped atop the armrests of her chair, she clutched a steaming cup of tea to her chest, holding it more as a comfort and as something to do with her nervous hands than as a beverage, but remembering to take a sip every now and then.

It was safe to say that, if things already hadn’t felt odd and uncomfortable between her and Terry, they certainly were now. In addition to their regular duties at work, luckily a lot of the time when they had to be near each other was also consumed by preparations for their public debut that weekend.

Unfortunately, however, none of it was enough to prevent Valerie from inadvertently staring at Terry from across the office instead of at her computer. And, rather than glaring at him and his cigar smoke, her gaze curiously traced the curve of his ring-adorned fingers, as well as the faint outlines of muscle visible through his clothes; a sight that had been seared into her memory all too well after his damp, shirtless entrance at his home the other week.

Why didn’t God ever seem to give with both hands? How could such an egotistical, rude, depraved man have the nerve to be so good-looking?

While Valerie engaged in this mental battle of wills, pointedly scowling down into the murky depths of her tea, she didn’t notice Terry studying her just as intently from his own desk, his face partially hidden behind a folder. The hysterical irony of this moment was not lost on him; he could hardly contain his laughter at how the tables had turned within a matter of weeks, from him watching her obsessively, to her now doing the same, clearly trying to fight the urge but just as clearly losing.  

The next day, another afternoon at the Ennis House, was almost too much for Valerie to handle given the changed atmosphere between them. The purpose of this meeting was the carefully planned photoshoot, orchestrated to give the impression that they’d been dating for longer and spent many more occasions together than they really had. All afternoon they changed outfits while Terry’s staff reworked the amassed props and backdrops to mimic another building location or overseas locale. What an odd experience that had been, like they were models posing for an editorial shoot.

Valerie caught herself wondering throughout, as they held hands and beamed at each other and acted out scenes of parties, trips, and even just lounging together at the house, what it would actually be like to be in such a relationship, intermingling with that section of society.

On one hand, it seemed it would be full of whimsical adventure- she imagined the places around the world that she would see that she otherwise would probably never be able to; the celebrities, political figures, art collectors and other Silver-esque businessmen whose wealth made them influential that she would meet. And perhaps the most wonderful part of all- to never have to worry about money again; to be comfortable and unconcerned about whether she looked cheap or could make her rent; to have the freedom to treat herself to some of life’s finer things.

On the other hand, if Terry was any example to go off of, she wondered whether it would be worth sacrificing her humanity and sincerity. But, seeing as she would never know regardless, she soon stopped contemplating what was a nonexistent problem- in favor of devoting her attention to the very much existent one.

Despite the echoing roominess and impassive blocks of stone comprising every room in the Ennis House, with each moment of lingering eye contact or prolonged silence, all air seemed to leave the room and Valerie felt suffocated and sweaty. After a few too many times that she caught herself gazing at his mouth when he seemed not to be looking, she excused herself to the bathroom.

This would not do. She spent a chunk of time pacing before the mirror across the room’s red and black tiles, noting with an unsurprised chuckle that, of course, even his bathroom looked villainous and over-the-top. If she didn’t have the misfortune of knowing the man, she wouldn’t believe he was real. As Valerie paced, she whispered to her reflection in the mirror, lecturing herself. Even though she was rooms and hallways away from where she had left Terry, she had the weird feeling that he could hear and see everything that went on in that house.

“You didn’t move across the country, do all of this work, and take all of his bullshit just to become another of his one-night stands,” she hissed. “Sure, it’s not like this is something that happens to people every day and, all things considered, I think you’ve been handling things pretty well. Credit where credit is due. But try and act like you’ve been kissed before.” She paused in front of the mirror with a wilting look, gripping the black marble counter with both hands. “Sure, it was good, but it wasn’t that good.” She pointed firmly at herself in warning. “Remember who that mouth is attached to.”

~

When the morning dawned on the Saturday that was to be her and Terry’s official public debut, Valerie was struck for the first time with the feeling that she truly might not be able to handle the responsibilities she’d taken on in their ever-so-unconventional agreement. Dressing in another of the outfits she and Joan had picked out, Valerie tried to channel the grace, elegance, and poise of the attire as she stood in front of her mirror, shaking.

Struggling to fit her wallet and everything else she thought she might need into another of the new and unbearably small handbags, Valerie made a last check that her pearl earrings hadn’t fallen out along her frenzied way as Milos buzzed the apartment- the signal that it was time to be whisked away by the limo once more. Except, this time, instead of admiring the California scenery or feeling the least bit sophisticated and cool, she felt like she was being transported to her own public execution. At least she would leave behind a fashionable-looking corpse.

Over the entire drive to the café, Terry was listing off the facts of their fabricated backstory and coaching her on how to behave, but Valerie was too concentrated on trying not to throw up to retain much of it. Not only was the press always trying to dig up stories on Terry regardless, but he'd specifically arranged for reporters and paparazzi to witness the couple's upcoming appearance by utilizing one of his media contacts to drop a tip.

“Valerie!” he eventually snapped at her, succeeding in capturing her attention. “You can’t lose your nerve on me now. We’ve both put in too much work for you to go deer-in-the-headlights at the last minute.”

Valerie opened her mouth in a defensive but stammering reply; Terry could easily see past the thin layer of bluster. While part of him wanted to gloat about how she wasn’t so smart-mouthed now, huh? he knew he had to help her keep it together in this moment. The fun of breaking her down would come later and taste all the sweeter. He scooted closer to her, getting in her face, softening the volume of his voice but not the gravity of his tone or expression. She recoiled slightly, but not as much as she used to when they first interacted, he noted. Excellent.

“Listen to me. Fear does not exist. To get through this and give a truly believable performance, you’ve got to shut out everything but you and me. You’re the enchanting starlet, I’m your leading man, and we’re both method actors now, baby. If we really sell it, there’s no way any of them will know unless we tell them- which, of course, isn’t going to happen. We’re the ones in control here. They’re just a bunch of parasites looking for a good story. And, hell, are we going to give them one.”

Terry finished his pep talk with the cunning smirk that usually annoyed her, but in that moment, his persistent confidence reassured her.

The limo rolled to a stop soon after and the two of them were dropped at the curb- after that, everything became a blur until, suddenly, Valerie found herself sitting at a table on a café patio, hardly knowing how she or the drink and pastry on the table in front of her got there. Since scrutinizing their surroundings for reporters surprisingly didn’t do her anxiety any good, she attempted an alternate strategy, which was keeping her gaze glued to the foamy, white-beige surface of her London Fog. Terry, on the other hand, was surveying their view with calculated intentions, absentmindedly toying with the ring on his left pinky. He muttered a curse and something else inaudible, prompting Valerie to tear her gaze away from her tea and glance at him with her eyebrows furrowed.

“What?”

Terry pointedly glanced to a spot across the street. By a streetlamp and a decorative bed of greenery, a woman lurked in the shade provided by the nearby shrubs. At first glance, she looked like any other pedestrian, in a chic but nondescript pantsuit and orange-red hair swept and pinned up out of her face. But closer inspection revealed her to be scribbling furiously on a notepad, head bobbing up and down from the notepad to the couple seated in front of the café. Then a camera lens glinted from behind the bushes, alerting Valerie to the fact that the woman was not alone- accompanied by not one, but two photographers.

“Who’s that?” Valerie hissed, and Terry’s hand shot forward to grip one of hers in a warning not to react so visibly.

“That’s Amanda Shotwell, the gossip queen of L.A. Mandy’s been trying to come up with some kind of big story on me for years,” he remarked with a patronizing chuckle, suggesting she hadn't yet succeeded and never would unless he wanted her to.

Of the few sure things in Los Angeles, one was that the sun would rise and set each day. Another was that Ms. Shotwell would be knee-deep in everyone’s business for every moment in between.

Over her years as the leading reporter on First Look News’ staff, she had built up a reputation so relentless that she was once quoted as saying “If I don’t get threatened with a restraining order, it means I just haven’t been investigating hard enough.” She often justified her invasive practices, from straddling the fences of private estates to placing hidden cameras, with claims that she was on a noble mission to expose vice and promote transparency- that the people deserved to know what the public figures around them were doing. But anyone with the slightest grip on reality could see that she was addicted to the drama and the power trip that she got from essentially terrorizing the city’s upper circles.

“So, smile, honey- it’s showtime.”

Terry’s grip on Valerie’s hand tightened, and it seemed to her to be simultaneously a warning to begin playing it up, as well as a gesture of grounding comfort. It was now or never to show them all- him, the press, her family and friends, and herself that she could do something intimidating and impulsive- and succeed.

Now that the moment was upon her and the anticipation was over, it was like a switch inside had flipped. Boldly meeting Terry’s expectant eyes, she smiled forcefully, taking a long sip of her previously untouched London Fog.

“Atta girl,” he murmured, lifting her hand to press a kiss to it without breaking their eye contact.

Valerie glanced demurely down at her lap, eyelashes fluttering, pretending to laugh softly through gritted teeth.

“So, what are we supposed to do?” she replied, stealing another glance in Ms. Shotwell’s direction- the scribbling had increased in ferocity and she seemed to be quietly barking orders at the photographers.

“Drink your tea,” he muttered, as if he were stating the obvious.

“Shotwell can’t possibly be her real last name,” Valerie remarked on the all too well-fitting surname for a reporter, eyebrows furrowed.

Terry tried to engage her in small talk that was meant to distract her and help their performance, but which Valerie found only further maddening. Soon she realized that his face was now inches away from her own. Fighting the urge to jump backward despite how every nerve in her body was screaming, “What are you doing?” she hissed.

“Come on, they’ll love it; they’ll go crazy.”

“I… hold on, um-” Valerie felt the panic returning as Terry began to close the remainder of the space between them.

“Just remember the way we practiced- relax, let it flow.”

She felt his other hand, the one not already intertwined with one of hers, firmly at the back of her neck as he pressed his mouth to hers. She heard the frenetic clicking of cameras getting what was sure to be the next day’s juicy, front-page shot of the Society section.

When Terry finally released her, after what felt like an eternity, she felt heat ascending across her face. Wrenching her hand from his as nondescriptly as possible, she hid her face behind her teacup and took another sip, head spinning.

When she finally managed to look back at Terry, she saw that he was trying desperately not to laugh, and her disorientation turned to seething. By then, Amanda and her photoshoot entourage had given up even trying to hide and were out in the open across the street in the effort to get better shots.

Valerie and Terry pretended to only just now notice their presence, laughing together in embarrassment that their intimate moment had been immortalized in film and that their relationship would now be revealed- as if the choice to sit right in front of a popular café on a busy morning wouldn’t have been enough of a guarantee of that result.

But one benefit of Valerie's anger was that it had pushed even the thought of nervousness temporarily to the wayside. She was almost overcome with the urge to slap him, but that simply wouldn’t do. Another course of action, one that would arguably be an even better revenge on him, would have to suffice.

As the forced laughter stretched on, Valerie calmly set her teacup down and dipped the tip of her finger into the foam surface.

“You try that again before I’m ready and I’ll break your fingers,” she whispered saccharinely, while, without breaking eye contact or saying a word, she reached across the table and smeared the finger covered with foam across the point of Terry’s nose.

She saw him arm move almost imperceptibly to snap up and grab her, before his better judgment reeled him in. His normally icy-pale face took on a distinct shade of angry red underneath an absolutely shit-eating grin as he wiped his nose with his napkin.

“I’d love to see you try,” he replied through a tightly clenched jaw.

Even though she briefly wondered whether she’d gone too far, Valerie’s adrenaline allowed her to hold her ground. She was tired of Terry pushing her around and acting like he was the only one with power in this arrangement. He needed her. Her eyes flitted briefly to Ms. Shotwell and her cameramen and back to Terry.

“It wouldn’t be a good look for you to be caught in an angry outburst at your defenseless little girlfriend,” she murmured, unable to suppress a smirk. “You can’t do a thing.”

“You’re a fucking brat,” he retorted, before taking a deep breath, shifting his jaw, and downing the remainder of his coffee. She grinned to herself as she noted the vein bulging in his forehead.

After about a half-hour of playful displays of affection, punctuated by snide exchanges under their breath, the couple settled their check and got up to leave. That was when Amanda and her goons, as well as a couple of paparazzi from other publications, made their move and approached the couple on the sidewalk as they headed down the street to where Milos and the car were waiting for them.

A member of Terry’s security entourage, who had joined Milos in the limo, jumped from the car in an effort to keep the various interlopers from getting too far into Terry and Valerie’s space, growling at them to “make a lane.” Terry had also stepped protectively in front of Valerie as she followed closely behind, white-knuckling his hand, the two of them temporarily putting aside the earlier confrontation.

“No comment,” he replied flatly as the reporters and camerapeople, particularly Amanda, peppered them with questions.

“You two were looking pretty cozy back there; we’ve never seen this side of you before,” Amanda tried to prompt some kind of response from Terry, walking backwards so she could face him as they moved, nearly tripping over her cameramen and shooting them warning looks. “C’mon, Silver- give us something to work with!”

“What’s your name?”

“How do you know Terry?”

“How long have you been going out?”

They asked Valerie, who stared silently ahead, apart from copying Terry with a coy “No comment,” thankful that her wide eyes were now hidden behind a pair of heavily tinted sunglasses.

“Come on, honey- give us a smile for the cameras!”

The immediate silence was blissful, yet jarring, as Terry and Valerie finally hopped into the limo and drove off, leaving the media utterly maddened with curiosity and frothing for answers.

“That’s how we do it, Milos!” Terry exclaimed triumphantly, patting his driver on the back as he slid into the seat behind him. “Always leave ‘em wanting more.”

Willing to put the tension of the morning behind them, Valerie was about to make a celebratory statement about how they’d pulled off their debut, but before she could get a word out, Terry said sternly “Don’t you ever pull a stunt like that again.”

“Like what? Humanize you a little? Don’t be ridiculous- they loved it. Being so serious and perfectly rehearsed in front of the public all the time isn’t doing you any favors. If you’re so concerned about your image, it wouldn’t hurt once in a while to show people that you have a softer side- even if you and I know it’s all just bullshit.”

While Terry knew that she had a bit of a point, he bristled at the notion of showing weakness like that for the world to see. Convincing his potential investors, shareholders, employees and other associates that he was loyal and levelheaded and not some unstable, corrupt sex addict by no means had to include him parading around like a lovesick fool.

“In my world, you can’t show weakness,” was what he verbally boiled his thoughts down to. Valerie’s brows furrowed and she tilted her head skeptically.

“Everyone has some kind of weakness.”

He didn’t appreciate her insinuation but decided to move on; the conversation was a waste of time. He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Look, I’m not going to debate the nature of humanity with you in the back of this limo.”

Remembering his ultimate goal, Terry relaxed his tensed posture and angry expression, taking a deep breath that, in the confines of the limo, was scented strongly with her perfume.

“They really loved it though, huh?” he grinned, tearing his gaze from out the front windshield of the vehicle and to her expectant face, which returned a hesitant smile. She figured that this was his subtle way of telling her that she did a good job without having to admit that she had been right.

“Without a doubt, we have their attention. Now, it’s just a matter of whether they really bought it and where they’re going to run with it.”

At his words, Valerie felt senses of both pride in her performance and fear of just where, exactly, the press was going to “run with it” prickle at her spine. She could probably expect curious and bewildered calls from her relatives and friends within the next couple of days if the media really cooked up an interesting story or gave it enough page space. But, for the time being, she just laughed in triumph along with Terry in the backseat of the limo, clasping his outstretched hand in a congratulatory gesture.