#those two are ouroboros coded. to me

[funny-passerine]

Ending 6 : Natal Homing

[inbabylontheywept]

Kartchner Caverns

The first time I traveled to Tucson I was in a car full of zooted children. I would've preferred being one of those children, but alas, any medication that makes me sleep also makes me sleepwalk. And after an incident where I tried to climb out of the car while it was still going sixty (thank God for seatbelts), I was condemned to a childhood of car trip sobriety: No more poor-man's time travel. No more ambien. One less morally ambiguawesome parenting decision from my crazy-ass dad.

I was talking with him when it happened.

I can't remember exactly what we were talking about - something to do with our final destination in Mexico. But at some point, we woke up my little brother. 

(Nothing good happens from waking the dreamer. Best case scenario, the dream ends. Worst case, it doesn't.)

I remember starting when I felt one of his small cold hands reach up to grab my shoulder. Our dad did the same, and it jerked the car a little bit - startling someone whose hands are on the steering wheel has its risks. Dad and I both turned to look at him, but he wasn't even looking at us. He was leaning over the console, staring into the red and purple sunset ahead, watching the rolling skyline of Tucson like it was drowning in dreams. Like he was drowning in dreams. 

We waited for him to speak. It took a while. Normal social conventions don't apply to people when they're unconscious. The fact that he could talk was just some broken line code in the fabric of the world. 

"Wow," he said at long last. 

"Beautiful, isn't it?" my dad replied. And my little brother shook his head like he just heard the silliest thing in the world. 

"It's terrible," he said. "Awful. Is Mexico always like this?" 

"We're still in America," my dad said back. 

My little brother squinted into the sunset, doubt and derision etched into his face. After a few seconds, both emotions softened, and he nodded in wonder. 

"Eagle feathers," he said, chuckling softly. Like he'd just solved some clever little riddle. Then he fell like an angel into something deeper than sleep. 

𓆙𓆙𓆙

(There is a word for angels that fall.)

𓆙𓆙𓆙

The second time I went to Tucson, I hid from the sun. 

You'd be surprised how easy it is to do down there. Society accommodates it in ways you just won't find anywhere else. When it's 109 outside with single digit humidity, of course you stay indoors. Of course the outdoor markets open at 6 pm, and of course they don't close until 11. Of course. You make the sun mean enough, and everyone becomes a vampire. 

So I roamed the streets at night, kicking up red gravel, watching coyotes wander in between the sea of strip malls. Strip malls are such an Arizonan atrocity. Nobody bothers to build up because there’s nothing to be gained from density. The city will never be walkable, because the problem isn’t infrastructure. It's the sun. And you can't solve the sun, so you might as well lean into driving. Mash the whole city flat and crawl through the dust like rattlers. 

(I met a man once, by the canals, that said the strip malls were some sort of American curse upon the inheritors of Johnny Appleseed. There's one God in this world, he said, and it's the god of don't-eat-apples. But then we invented apple pie and gave it to everyone. So this is our hell.)

Still. It made the days long down there. Lurking at night and hiding all day gives you something like cabin fever. I needed something to do outside. Something that was outside, but also, somehow, inside. What's inside and outside at the same time? What kind of klein-flask ouroboros nonsense fits that bill?

Kartchner caverns. 

𓆙𓆙𓆙

I wouldn't say the caves were like walking into Dante's hell - more like finishing the journey. At some point in my life, I'd blown past limbo, lust, gluttony, greed, and anger. I'd spent two decades plus change living in the fires of heresy. Every layer past would only get colder. 

And each step into that cave did. 

My tour guide and psychopomp was a friendly old man. Familiar in the way that all old people feel familiar to me. I view the world more as a pile of metaphors. He viewed it primarily as water-soluble minerals. 

It was a good work dynamic. 

"These here," he said, gesturing to a long, slender series of impossibly frail stalactites, "are called soda straws."

They were beautiful. I can wax poetic at the keyboard, but in real life, my exclamation of wonder is primarily Hot Damn.

"Hot damn," I said, and he nodded good naturedly. 

"They're pretty fun aren't they? Took a few eons to make 'em but I think it was worth the wait."

I was charmed by the way he talked. I knew it was just a fluke of tenses, but there was something funny about the way he described them - as if he personally oversaw each of the dainty little spires. We went further, and he pointed out more formations as we came across them. 

"Behold!" he said just a few feet further. "Fried eggs!" 

And I had to admit: There were fried eggs. 

"Behold!" he said further still. "A shield!"

And lo, there was a shield. It didn't look terribly shieldlike, but who knows - maybe he made the shields first and got better as he went along. The eggs were beautiful.

We kept walking, deeper, and deeper into the cave. At the surface, it had been hot enough for my sweat to dry into a stinging white powder. Down there it was cold enough to see my breath. The feeling of descending into hell was replaced with the feeling of being swallowed by some ancient, fossilized snake. 

"We call this serpent-stone," he said, gesturing to an expanse of wall. 

And then all I could see was the snake that was swallowing me. 

Now, I want to bring something up right about now. At this point, you might be tempted to write off the unease that I was feeling as claustrophobia. Which would make sense - caves unsettle a lot of people. But not me. I'm borderline claustrophilic. When I was a child, I didn't feel comfortable reading until I was wedged somewhere. Behind a shelf, or in a cabinet, or even underneath the beanbag my parents had intended for sitting. Those were my happy places. I liked being crammed into tight spaces. 

I did not like that cave. 

The section of serpent-stone narrowed the further we went. The room started off maybe six feet wide, but eventually it narrowed down. First to five, then four, then three. Two. And it didn’t stop at one. 

The old man put me in front at that point. Said that if I got stuck, he could just push me forward. Didn't occur to me until I'd gone another hundred feet forward, sideways, that maybe getting dragged out would be better. But I was strangely reluctant to bring it up. I’d already let myself get cornered. There was nothing to be gained from letting him know my thoughts. 

But the only way to keep them secret was by going forward. So I poured myself through the crack, slick as slip.  

There's a grain to the scales of serpent-stone, both in the shape of the formations and in the texture of the individual pieces. They're metamorphic, but there's enough sediment left to ‘em that they have a grain. They bite when you go one way, and slide when you go the other. It felt like I was ratcheting myself in. Even if I could slip forward more, I didn't think I could go back. Not without wearing myself down into something skinless and screaming. 

Water began to pool up in sections. It was cold enough to avoid the stink that still waters normally carry, but things stranger than algae festered in the waters beneath my feet. The puddles felt thick, almost slimy. A dozen steps later I saw little ropes of the stuff trickling down my feet. 

Eventually, it got so narrow I couldn't turn my head. I could still hear the old man behind me, but only through little things - the occasional sharp inhale, or steps just an eighth of a beat off from my own. But never words. I remember stopping at one point, just to get pushed, just to know he was there. And he refused. All I heard for fifteen minutes was his breathing behind me. 

He'd called my bluff. There was nowhere to go but forward. 

𓆙𓆙𓆙

I don't know why it took so long to get dark down there. I wasn't carrying a flashlight, and if the old man had been carrying one, I'd have seen it bob with his steps. There was a sort of soft glow to everything but that had faded hour by hour. Eventually it didn't matter that I couldn't turn my head sideways - I wouldn't have been able to see the man if he'd been two inches in front of me. I walked, and I walked, and I walked, and just when I was about to get stuck for real - stuck in a way where I wouldn't be able to step forward, where I'd have to be pushed (or dragged back along the sharpness of the scales) - I popped out of the serpent stone crevasse like a cork from a bottle. 

Plunk. 

I can't tell you the relief that I felt at that moment. It didn't matter that I didn't know where I was, or how I got there. I'd never been claustrophobic in my life, but at that moment, I couldn't stand even the proximity of the crevice. I scrambled forward, stumbling over the rough cave floor, desperate and eager to find the next wall. To get some sense of where I was. 

I never did. Even as I calmed down, even as the relief of being free of that infernal vice sat upon me like a crown, I never found another wall. Anywhere. I walked until fear made me crawl, as low and blind as any worm. I crawled until my pants tore and my knees bled and my spine ached. 

And I found nothing. 

When the vastness of the space truly sank in, when I realized that leaving that first wall had been a mistake, I turned back. But some choices can't be unmade. There were no walls. Not anymore. No matter how far I crawled, how hard I tried, there was no end. There was nothing but perfect darkness, broken stone, and endless snaking trickles of cold cavern water. 

I dipped a finger in one of the rivulets. Just to feel it. Just to ground myself in something. I felt the waters slither past, and I found something like sight in their motion. 

Water always goes down. Whatever else I lacked down here in the stone, in that moment, I knew up and down. And for the first time in hours, I had a choice. A real choice. No instinct or panic or too late realizations: Up or down. 

I went down. 

𓆙𓆙𓆙

I’d visited a rope factory once. Watched the threads dance and spin and weave into something mighty. I got a blind man’s sense of that from my trickle. I felt it meet more of its kind, braiding into them like thread. I liked pretending it was still my rivulet, but eventually, I had to admit it was lost in the mess. Picking out one thread from a rope would be easy, compared to picking out one trickle from a river. 

Funny how water can drown in itself. 

The first contaminant to the water was iron. I could smell it in the air -  strong as blood. It should have unsettled me, but I’d smelled water like that before. My grandpas well-water stained everything it touched rusty red. His sinks, his showers, his fields. Even his teeth. He was wealthy enough that he could've wiped the stains off decades back, but he told me once that he liked the way it made other people uncomfortable. The way it reminded everyone who saw him smile that by sacrament or soil, they too drank of god. 

The next contaminant was the thick water from before. Apparently, the stagnant pools weren’t as still as I’d thought. Somehow, over strange eons, they too could seep through the stone and make their way into this deep river. It was scentless, but I could feel it catch around my ankles on some steps. It seemed like a memory from a different life. I just didn’t feel like the same person that crawled through the serpent-stone crack. I was just some stranger wearing his shed skin. 

Then at long last came a smell of deep sulphur 🜏. It was an odd contrast with the sharply cold air, and the strangely warm waters. It was the least pleasant of the bunch, but I endured it well. I followed until the tears streaming down my cheeks felt as normal as breathing. Until the rush of the river was replaced by the pounding of waves. 

I’d arrived on a beach. I couldn’t see the ocean in front of me, but I could hear how vast it had to be. There was a terrible stench, worse than the sulphur - the smell of some vast death. Godly carrion. A wound in the world long left to fester. 

I sat there on the beach of that ocean. Afraid to let those dark waters touch me. Thinking and waiting and worrying about what would happen next. 

A voice spoke just twenty feet behind me. I recognized it. I never would’ve recognized it before, but there was a knack to the way this place wore me thin. Like a razor getting sharpened instead of a shirt going ratty. 

“You’re very close,” the old man said, and I remembered him from all those years ago - sitting cross-legged in the moonlight by the bank of the canal. Looking up at me, eyes dark, and calling me over to tell me a secret. 

There's one God in this world, he said then. One God. And it's the god of don't-eat-apples. But then we invented apple pie and gave it to everyone. 

So this is our hell.

𓆙𓆙𓆙

I turned around. I don’t know why. I shouldn’t have been able to see him. I shouldn’t have been able to see anything. But I could see the outline of where he was on that shoreline. Not as a  bright thing, but as a darker shade of absence. A little hole in the dark. 

I could have run. But that would’ve required taking my eyes off him, and at that moment I couldn’t bear the thought. He was the only thing to see down there. The only reason I had eyes. But somehow, more important than the joy of seeing was the feeling that as long as I kept my eyes on him, he was trapped. Pinned to this world like a butterfly on cork. 

There was a half second pause. The voice was a memory, but seeing through the gaps was new to me. The thing in front of me wasn’t an old man. It wasn’t even good at pretending. I was oddly embarrassed that I’d ever been fooled by it. What I was looking at was something older than this cave. Something trapped down here so long it could not bear the thought of light. The dream of something dead. The sloughed skin of a snake. 

The first apple eater. 

I could see shades of absence. More than the hole in the dark. I could look at the thing and feel the place where its wings should have been. Its first ones, at least. 

It lunged for me. 

I’d forgotten it could do that. 

It slammed into me like the water from the bottom of a dam. The power was nothing compared to the cold. I couldn’t see a thing, but what I could feel made bile climb up my throat. 

It was melting. Running down itself in little streams, like snow melting in the sun. Like the river I followed all the way down here. A hand ran over my face and I could feel it pouring into me, and in my fury I did the only thing I could think of: I reached up, and I wrapped my hands around its neck, and I clenched so hard that I could feel the tendons in my wrist sawing up through my skin, taut as piano wire. 

It was like squeezing wet clay. It deformed under my touch, stretching longer and thinner and smoother even as the muscular length of his impossibly long body wrapped around me. At some point the fists beating on my chest turned into wings. Stolen wings, to replace the ones that were stolen from it, and there was a scream in the cave it was so awful that I prayed it wasn’t mine. 

It was a terrible race. We were killing each other the same way. There was no question about someone dying here in front of the empty throne of god. I just didn’t want it to be me. 

Eventually, it could stretch no more, and my hands could crush more than just nightmare and shadow. The wings beat on me weaker, and weaker, until eventually some cartilage in its great neck snapped under the pressure of my thumbs.

It was like cracking a glow stick. There was a flash of light, brief as thunder, and I could see the waves in front of me. An ocean of rotting meat and bones. The outline of some great, dead serpent, fifty feet tall. And a tower of dead bodies, stretching back to ages that I could not recognize. The only corpses I could recognize were those at the top, with their strange helmets and iconic breastplates. 

Conquistadors. 

When the light went out, the body went with it. Most dreams don’t leave anything behind. Even when they’re made by gods. 

𓆙𓆙𓆙

I don’t know how I left the cave. 

I followed the river up. At some point, it stopped being the river I followed down. The tributaries feeding into it spread out like a fan, and fool that I am, I kept picking left. It shouldn’t have worked. Part of me wonders if I somehow bent the river to my will. Filled in for the dead thing bobbing in the lake, or the echo that I strangled on that starless shore. 

Or maybe I just got lucky. 

I can remember finally breaching the incline and seeing an exit into the desert. Not the one I stepped in through, but good enough. I can remember getting closer and closer, before stepping out into the burning sun. I thought it was finally over.

I thought wrong.  

I can remember looking into the bright blue sky and seeing exactly what my little brother saw on that drive all those years back. 

I don’t know what I killed down in the cave. Some dead thing in the dark, dreaming it was alive. An altar of blood and bone, designed to hold a fragment. 

But the real thing sat there in the sky. Curled up so tight and so smooth, you could mistake it for a ball. Waiting, and watching, and hating. Alive but dreaming death. The mould that stamped out the form of what lay in the cave. 

Quetzalcoatl, I learned later. The feathered serpent. 

I moved the month after that. Went somewhere north, somewhere cold, somewhere that a snake wouldn’t follow. Most days now, I look up, and I just see the sun. A flaming ball of gas. A little, red, star. 

But only most.

𓆙𓆙𓆙

𓆙𓆙𓆙

𓆙𓆙𓆙

𓆙𓆙𓆙

𓆙𓆙𓆙 𓇳

Thanks to @qsatisfaction and @foldingfittedsheets for being my editors on this piece. And thanks to @dr-robert-chase-apologist for providing the prompt.

[wanderingaldecaldo]

WIP Whenever on a Wednesday

I am terrible at keeping up with tags in general but I am aghast to see my oldest WIP Whenever tag was from nearly 8 weeks ago. I completed a couple of things since my last one, namely the sock garters and the boots, and added quite a few more projects to the list than I scratched off. 😩

Tagged by (and tagging back) @fly-amanitaa @streetkid-named-desire @ouroboros-hideout @aggravateddurian @luvwich

@ghostoffuturespast. Also tagging with the usual zero pressure @olath124 @dustymagpie @medtech-mara @corpo-cunt-couture

@merge-conflict @blackrevell @fereldanwench and YOU reading this! Share and tag me!

Modding

Shocking that it's still my main focus 🙄 but the first one is in support of a couple of VP project:

Presidential Props which include a variety of flags and the NUSA medal with box. The flags are part of the VP set below, though I didn't actually show them here.

Featuring: five different flag varieties with five appearances each; medal box in multiple states, plus the medal itself; and the presidential coin, scalable and with multiple appearances.

SlutWear, a new line of clothing that will tell NC just how slutty your V is. It will be gender and (smaller) size inclusive. 😊

Does Val really heart NC?

An update of my tee framework for dynamic AXL just in time for Pride, though there are no interesting pics to share. Sorry!

However, in support of the previous two items, a modder's tool: a CodePen to generate instances for the yaml. Both the SlutWear shirt(s) and the custom logo tees will require a lot of instances to get all of the color and logo combinations that are possible through dynamic AXL. There's still a little work to do, but it's already been of great use to me, as it wrote 220 lines of code for me. Let's not discuss how many lines of code I wrote to save those 220. 😂

Me using the tool to generate instances for the custom tees yaml. This will remove the limit on colors available to the user, so they can have any color with any of the logos!

VP (and Writing)

A glimpse at a set I took last week for inspo in the presidential PWP that's been stalled out at 5.7k words. More on it in a minute...

Even though the pics are cropped, they're still on the risque side, so I'm sticking them and the rest about the PWP behind the cut.

Not shown: Johnny both rolling his eyes at V and enjoying the show

I've been working on a PWP that was unrelated to the President's Merc AU for months now, but have been stuck because, well, I don't know how to wrap it up. I posted about it a little ways back and someone helpfully suggested that I just have to keep going until one of them passes out. Which, is what does happen, but I don't have that kind of patience to write it out and nearly 6k words is already well longer than my usual PWP, so I went in game to set the scene and possible prompt some ideas for a potenial ... climax to the scene.

It worked! I have a plan, and I think it won't take more than 500 words to reach the end, plus a few more touch-ups to help set up everything, then a rewrite or two for cleaning and polishing.

In the meantime, as I've been working through this version of Val and how she responds to Rosalind, it's the perfect prologue to The Tower story that I've been writing longhand. Val is going to leave this encounter fully loyal to Rosalind and will turn So Mi over with only a moment's hesitation. She doesn't have any attachments in this universe other than Misty and Vik, and after she wakes up to what Night City has become, it's easy for her to walk away from it forever. Especially when it puts her closer to Rosalind.

What about you? What are you working on? 👀

[tumblezwei]

Bear with me I'm about to go insane for a few paragraphs.

Actually scratch that I meant a lot of paragraphs, because this became so much longer than I intended.

A thing that Honkai Star Rail is utterly obsessed with doing is masking the involvement of Aeons in certain events or encounters with their own personal symbolic language. If you read a piece of text and it mentions amber or constructing walls, for example, you can be pretty confident that it's referencing Qilpoth. Similarly, mentions of flapping wings, multicolored material, or things smelling of fruit is likely in reference to Tayzzyronth.

The Swarm Disaster in particular is rife with this shit. You can drive yourself insane reading through Trailblaze Secrets trying to parse through whether this line is meant to refer to something, or if you've been staring for way too long and need to slow down. In particular you can drive yourself insane looking for references to Terminus the Finality.

Terminus in kind of annoying because they don't have an entry in the Data Bank, but they are referenced well enough that we know a decent cursory amount about them. The main facts being that they somehow exist and move backwards in time, they are currently asleep and murmur prophecies, and they have two factions: the Omen Vanguard and the Creed Exequy.

The symbols we can generally look out for when it comes to Finality are concepts of time moving backward, prophecies, and, of course, references to "finality."

And to add more context to what I'm about to say, I have to mention that the Finality is all over the Swarm Disaster (so is HooH the Equilibrium but I don't care about them right now). In one of the Trailblaze Secrets we learn than an Omen Vanguard managed to hear and decode part of the prophecy murmured by Terminus and tried to spread that prophecy to members of the genius Society, but all who learned of it were killed by Polka Kakamond along with the Omen Vanguard. And like, the same part has Finality prophesying Tayzzyronth's death, which maybe implies that this prophecy is what caused the whole Swarm Disaster in the first place. But I'm also not a great theorycrafter so take that with a massive grain of salt.

The point for this post being, Terminus is connected to Tazzyronth in terms of their possible role in the Swarm Disaster.

Why bring all of this up? Because I watched "the "Fables About the Stars" again.

This trailer is unique among the many Hoyo have put out because it's one of the best jumping off points we have to sorting out the different symbols and motifs used by the Aeons featured in it. One of whom is mentioned three separate times without being explicitly shown. And I bet you can guess who.

The final minute of the trailer, after the Harmony, we get a rush of lines and images about the unplayable Aeons that are likely important to HSR's story. The images and titles that flash by are, in order, Aha the Elation, Ouroboros the Voracity, Idrila the Beauty, Tayzzronth the Propagation, Mythus the Enigmata, HooH the Equilibrium, Fuli the Remembrance, and finally, Akivili the Trailblaze.

"But that's weird," you think. "Where are those mentions of the Finality you talked about?" And that, my fellow mentally ill friends, is where this gets fun for me. Because when you turn on closed captions for that video, almost each reference to an Aeon that Black Swan says is accompanied by another phrase in parenthesis. No other Aeon earlier in the video gets this, it's just the Aeons in that last minute.

Now, some of these are in reference to the Aeon that the line in Black Swan's poem is referring to. But others, in my opinion, are referring to one Aeon in particular.

Aha -

Ouroboros -

Tazzyronth -

Mythus -

The first reference to Finality I think appears is right after "the mariner's intemperance" with this line:

"End of All Things" seems pretty Finality-coded to me. Why they are referred to as "the infant" I can't tell you. maybe something to do with how they exist backwards in time. Much like the prophecy given on Tayzzronth, perhaps Finality's existence predates their birth. Another strange aspect of this line is it's transition into Idrila, who doesn't seem to get a reference at all. The glass shattering into their title might imply that they are "the mirror," something suported by the fact that one of The Beauty's factions is called the Mirror Holders, but I don't really know enough to be confident about that. Considering Idrila is one of the missing Aeons, we can maybe take this line as a hint that Finality also had a role in Idrila's disappearance.

The next reference I've already shown. Just after Idrila we have the line introducing the Propagation, and the phrase (as they enter the dream (Consciousness)." If my ramblings about the Swarm Disaster previously were coherent enough, you might have already connected the dots on this one. If Terminus was indeed responsible for Tayzzronth's ascent to Aeonhood, then this line can be ready fairly literally. To put it in less flowery words: "Listen to the Propagation as it spawns into existence."

The third reference is thus:

Now, "the shapeless prince" is a reference to HooH, of that I'm....mostly certain. And what makes me the most certain is the next phrase "Against the Current." The concept of "currents" being another fun little symbolic reference to Terminus.

Reading more into the Swarm Disaster, you can also begin to see that HooH, alongside Ena the Order, is greatly involved in the Propagation's demise. Tayzzronth's appearance disrupted the equilibrium of the universe, and obviously that's HooH's whole shtick. So Terminus (who flows backwards in time) murmurs a prophecy that spawns Tayzzronth into existence, and HooH (Against the Current) participates in Tayzzronth's destruction. You see what I mean?

And that's. Really it. As a closing note, you know what else is fun? Outside of Idrila (maybe, neither I nor the other lore enthusiasts I follow have quite parsed that out), each Aeon mentioned in that last minute of the Fables About the Stars trailer has a role in the Swarm Disaster. Aha, of course, was one of the key players who was brought on by Ena and further recruited Akivili for help. Ouroboros was created because of the Swarm Disaster. Followers of the Enigmata are mentioned creating false histories of the disaster (this one is my personal theory). HooH as previously explained. And Fuli because of this one particular Trailblaze Secret which might have been about Akivili falling into IX and Fuli grabbing their memories before they were consumed, but honestly this post is long enough and I'll explain that one later if people are interested.

But uh, yeah. The Swarm Disaster has made me go a little nuts and so has the Finality.

[gexfan32]

Crystal of Shining Justice, an XC3 AU part 1/3

Glimmer:”Hey sis, mum explained the gist of what happened with origin, and I just wanted to check on you, cause you were crying when it happened, It must suck to remember all that miserable fighting so suddenl-“

Mio:“Nah, it wasn’t that, Glim, I actually don’t remember anything from those soldier clones, if I had, you probably would’ve as well”

Glimmer:“Then why were you crying?”

Mio:“See, when that on particular clone did her whole gambit, Origin freaked out, because its code now had pointer values for two Mios, and now there was just one, so, to avoid a crash, it essentially dropped me, with all my memories accounted for, in some random spot in Gormott, fast forward a few days, and I get picked up by those city people, who I then explain that I want to reboot Origin, so I could see you, mam, and the rest again, obviously.”

Glimmer:(hugs Mio) “Thanks, Sis”

Mio:”I haven’t even gotten to the interesting part, see, they also knew the other Mio, who was gallivanting about with some group called Ouroboros, so I told them to use my full name, cause the clones didn’t have last names, BUT!! That ended up giving me a glorious, CHAOTIC, idea…”

Glimmer:”I like the way this is going”

[rhapso0odic]

Preface: My (Our Generation’s) Hamartia

My apologies first and foremost for the toil I know is to read my writing. 

I wanted to blog, for the pure purpose of turfing a bald patch in my not-so-spherical globe of abilities – my inability to express my thoughts clearly through written text. Although I am not such a poor writer, I know I have distinct faults when it comes to habits in writing – my banal syntax structuring, my propensity to use the same list of familiar words each time, and just an overall lack of clarity, clearly demonstrated by the previous set of clauses. If you’re very generous you might say you can overlook the patch that I am so ashamed of. My friends – when they read my writing, whilst they acknowledge that it is needlessly convoluted at times, have assured me that it is not simply bad, and although I realise the possibility of them trying to be nice, I do know there is a measure of truth in their assurances. And I do know, – and here I try speaking objectively without sounding like I have a big fat ego, or that I’m no different from those people who claim to be bad at something knowing their claim will be met with outraged defences on their mendacious behalves – that I can attribute this feeling of worthlessness (in some specificity of my life like writing, or just life generally) that inhabit, and often inhibits me, to what I have recently begun to combat: perfectionism.

Now I know that was a horridly chunky sentence. Ironically I didn’t bother cutting it down, trimming it to be true and square and perfect. Because the number one Plan of Action I decide to take is – further ironically and despite what I said a paragraph earlier–  just to accept the flow of writing prima facie of my subconscious and post it in its original thought-processed form (unless it is a complete atrocity). But I will get to that, and the Plans of Action.

It is thrice ironic that I have procrastinated on even starting to actually write. There were multiple things to consider, and as always, I wanted to start once I had everything perfectly in mind and in place. I had to research the possible platforms to post – wordpress? If not, ghost or wix? If so, .com or .org? If .org, domain purchase and plans and dreamhost for management and webhosting? If .com, possible plans and design? The list of considerations would go on and on, and I fell treacherously into the ouroboros of wanting to start → finding a gap in knowledge or some operational uncertainty → research → the gap is filled, uncertainty assured → wanting to start → finding a gap… . I read a lot of adept advices from reddit, and one of the opinions I felt stab right through me – because even then my subconscious recognised that as the most sensible, most actionable thing to do – was to “just start, worry about coding, SEO, the best logo, anything outside of writing, later.” 

… And I dismissed it and moved on to research, to tackle any blindspot in blogging logicalities, as I would do tending to my personality. In the very end, after the painful process of deliberating all minor ifs and if-nots, I decided on Medium and Tumblr for now. 

And I sat, satisfied, and did not act on the deep-seated obligation to blog that I had forcibly stirred up in the beginning of holidays. I did that for two or three weeks. While passingly musing that I’d better start and neglecting that thought  immediately after, time went by. At one point I realised at this rate I would not achieve my goal to start in the holidays, that I’d possibly stave off the whole endeavour after all the initial effort to get started. In those same times, I’d been doing a lot of self-reflection, and one of the things that at one point became starkly clear was that this inaction was due to perfectionism yet again. The inherent need to make my content good and writing of quality was barring access to the plane of creation. I had been waiting for a “perfect timing” to start, convincing myself I’d get one post done by the end of the week, then last day of week come, I’d realise there simply wasn’t enough time, or that a better time yet would be tomorrow. The discomfort of that realisation served me well. 

I decided to just start. Just aiming for 15 minutes a day, forcing myself to write, and build a habit. Inevitably those 15 minutes would stretch out for longer duration, by the law of inertia. Once you start, it would be easier to keep going, and you’d be surprised to see that you are actually achieving that intimidating ‘1-hour-writing-time’ goal you set out and decided to scratch out, replace with a more manageable ‘15 minutes’. It is always the initial friction in taking action that is difficult to overcome. 

And to not be needlessly concerned with the quality of writing. Simple words, just to clearly get the message across. I’d vowed this year not to fall into the fallacy of creating ornate sentences just to “sound good” in the expanse of readability. In all previous years I’d simply denied myself working with a draft system in writing, and would lapse into repeated times of staring at the blank page thirty minutes to two hours at a time just to type out one feeble sentence. Now is the time to break the habit.  

I mention these realisations because they would become the founding or the very initial ‘Plan-of-Actions’ I’ll start blogging about to help me realistically bear living by self-entrenched rules of perfectionism. Because I realise I probably can’t get rid of it, only manage it. 

I know that this self-proclaimed hamartia of mine is not unique to me; it ails a large portion of my generation. We are all ambitious at heart, we want great success and a future where we don’t have to worry so deeply about retirement plans. Magnified, we all have that one project at every moment we want to realise, either for a dream, a hobby, or for self-betterment. But a lot of us are not willing to put in an effort, this involuntary laziness coming from the fear that the effort won’t amount to anything. Or that it is simply useless – but that further cycles back to the perfectionism mindset, that it’s not worth the start if you can’t achieve something great from the very beginning. 

So, 

Day 1:

Just start, even for 5 minutes. Don’t wait. 

For me: Be not afraid of writing mistakes. Just write! Fix later. For everything: Take action, and make mistakes, fix and learn as you go. Don’t get caught up in vacillation. 

What was funny is that I had come across these suggested practices miles back in time – and had realised it to be the patent thing to do. The only fault was that these things generally sound so much like useless truisms in their utter plainness, that I’d simply turned away from them as I thought they were not the mind-changing life-altering strategies important to note. 

It was only around now I began to realise that those were concrete steps you could take.  

[theuniverseawakens347]

Cashay race is two white one male one female and slave.. a dark skin…

Okay house nigga coon burnt MENtale…

Look bitch…

WHEN DID I SAY THAT!? UMAR MALONE COULD!!!!???

What’s YG!???

What’s mozzy!??

SHORDIE SHORDIE.. MIKE SHERM…

Okay bluefasebaby…

LOOK DUMMY SIN AND AGAIN AND AGIN DONT KNOW WHY IM BEING TESTED BY RIM…

CAUSE YOU STUPID AND SEE AND UNDERSTAND ONLY YOUR SOUL… it’s burnt.

DEAD. internal and external… so YOU WANA BE DEAD.

Okay. IMMA KILL YOU.

Cause you can’t be THAT STUPID IN MY MY REAL KING DuMB… shordie sherm fase

… JUSTIN OF LONDON YOU IAN MCDOWELL. COLORIST. RACIAT RETARDED ALL THE WAY BURNT MENTAL FOR JUST MONEY.

7 deadly sins wrapped in green blue faces***

NIPSEY MY DARKNESS IN THE LIGHT … angelique.. BLACCsam.. baby hairs… MONI…

MY TRACY .. DARKNESS IN THE LIGHT BUT LEARNING TWO … light in the darkness for pops.

ME WHOLE BY MYSELF.

ILL SLIDE YOU AS A RATCHET GHETTO STREET CODE BITCH

But I’ll also VERBALL nurture you w a tough touch your mom OR dad missed a beat on.

… ITS NOT ABOUT SKIN COLOR.

WHITE PPL GOT THEY OWN FUCKING PAIN…

A COLONIST WAS LACKING SOMETHING IN ITS ENVIRONMENT THAT MADE IT WANT TO FEED ON OTHERS TILL “full”…

VEGANS … you stop eating MEAT A VITAL FUCKING PART OF GROWTH N NUTRIENTS FOR BLOOD FLOW … how ya get … HUNGRY HANGRY HIPPO… CRAVINGS. what ya crave.. MEAT .. what ya eat… THE FAKE SUBSTITUTE SHIT…

Okay go back to Bible sinner looking for “the whining gold” … where ya go? THE FAKE LIGHT BECAUSE THE MONEY “holds” … coi YOU WANT THE FINEST RICHES … what street problems did you have!???

YOU WAS HOING… 13- NOW .. but BEFORE MONEY INDUSTRY HO

YOU WAS THE BOTTOM OF THE BUCKET LAST LICK.. so YOU DO THE MOST AND “DONT give a fuck bc I GOT WVERYTHING I WANT” … was aids and STDs apart of the goal!? No baby plz.. that’s hard two hide .. but sell my seeds India love MORE MONEY PLZ … Amanda bynes show… keana thompson…

YOU DONT HAVE TO SEXXX TO ME A HO OR SINNER OR PROSTITUTION.. YOU SOLD YOUR SPERM HOW MANY TIMES FOR MONEY UMAR CHRISEAN JR … YOU SOLD YOUR LADIE PARTS!??

We ALL DO WHAT WE GOTTA DO TO MAKE SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING … SOMETIMES A QUICK ROUTE IS THE ANSWER… but WHATS THE COAT IN THE LONG RUN!???

YOUR NOT THINKING LONG TERM YOU STOP YOURSELF SHORT THATS WHY YOU STUCK ON YOU TURNS ..

Ouroboboros : consume self CANNIBALISM COWS BRAIN.. YAA WANT DEATH BC.. DEAD END. STOPING THE FLOW.. IAN MCDOWELL KOREY 72 nd Vermont 2 SNAKE BACK TWO BACK ATE THEMSELVES LIKE THIS WHY!??? POISON IN THE ENVIRONMENT .. AND NO WAY OUT BUT… SUICIDE.

Nip “suicidal thoughts” A COVER UP TO THOSE AROUND HIM WHO DIDNT UNDERSTAND HE HAD A MISSION TO FULLFILL LIKE GRANNY LEXI LOVE LOTS TO GUIDE ME AND TRISTAN AND TAME .. GATES KEEPER TO THE SPIRIT WHeEALM … UPSIDE DOWN stranger things NETFLIX YA TALK MY LIFES .. but PRINCIPALS.

Vs

INFINITY OUROBOROS… : my holy trinity flows .. NO MATTER HOW I / WE YELL* or talk AT N WITH YOU IT GOES ROUND N ROUND BACK TWO MY BEING 3. Split over and over and over two one GOD. - THE UNIVERSE.

[byjillianmaria]

@sodaliteskull was inspired to make a meta dump for her WIP (which you can find here, it is sincerely cool), and like an inspiration ouroboros, I was inspired by that post to go more in-depth on why I picked these media specifically! (And if you reblogged a version with slightly different media, I changed my mind on a few! Don't worry about it!) So, some rambling under the cut.

SONGS

Music is a huge inspiration while I write! I've been mildly obsessed with the 8 track playlist I made for this WIP, and while honestly all eight of those tracks have influence on how this book is shaping up, I'll confine my rambling to the three songs I chose for this graphic :P

Sowing Seeds by The Crane Wives - When I think "Midwest Gothic," I think Crane Wives. This song brings in a lot of farming imagery, which is obviously relevant to a book set in a corn field, but there's also a sinister undercurrent to a lot of the lyrics. Also, when I realized I wanted to give The Poet a concrete physical goal to move toward, I borrowed the imagery of a signal tower from this song!

Work Song by Hozier - Listen. This is a book that explores themes of mythology and devotion. It would be insane not to put a Hozier song on the playlist. I picked Work Song specifically because it takes a lot of musical cues from African spirituals, which is a genre that also influences Americana music as a whole, which is sort of the musical equivalent of the Vibe I'm going for with this WIP. And, lyrically, it's about literally wanting to cheat death to be by your lover... that's Orpheus-coded.

Cosmic American by Anaïs Mitchell - Anaïs Mitchell wrote Hadestown, which we'll talk about later, but Cosmic American is from her solo work. It actually features on two of her albums, but I picked the acoustic version from Xoa because that's my favorite. It keeps in line with the Americana theme, and it paints a picture of a love that's wistful, lonely, and a little haunting. In the playlist, I have it at the very end... This is the song that would play over the credits in the movie. Asking, at the end of it all, "Do you blame me? Do you blame me?"

BOOKS

I wouldn't consider any of these comp titles, necessarily... but I do think you can feel their influence in this WIP quite a bit.

1922 by Stephen King - If there's one thing Stephen King does really well, it's violent, upsetting imagery. That's on full display in 1922, especially in his descriptions of the wife's ghost when she appears. You can definitely see shades of him in some of the more violent scenes in this book. I also think the rural setting of this novella has also crept into some of the descriptions you're gonna find here.

Her Body And Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado - This surreal sapphic horror collection has haunted me ever since I read it. And I think its influence on this WIP should be obvious from the moment that I said the words "surreal sapphic horror." The Husband Stitch, which she actually has free to read here, is a feminist retelling of that old folk tale about the woman with the ribbon around her neck, which is a story I also reference in Behind You. You can definitely see her approach's influence in how I write it.

I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid - A psychological horror novel that gets progressively stranger as it goes on. This one does a lot of strange things with its narration, and while I don't think any part of Behind You will ever get quite as esoteric as this one, it definitely made me think about how I wanted to approach the voice of this WIP in a different light. Some of the early scenes, on the remote farm, also have a certain energy to them that, similar to 1922, have probably left their mark here.

Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield - God, the prose in this novel is just beautiful. I would not be so vain as to say that Behind You could hold a candle to it, but I will say that I found it very inspiring. I loved how this book approached relationships, and grief, and queerness. I think you'll hear the heartbeat of all that under the floorboards of Behind You, if slightly twisted to fit the specific theme and narrative needs of this book, specifically.

MUSICALS

I am and have always been a huge musical nerd... of course, that's going to show up in my influences.

Hadestown by Anaïs Mitchell - Hadestown is probably my favorite piece of media of all time, and probably the reason I want to write an Orpheus and Eurydice retelling with Americana influences in the first place, haha. Of course, there are some pretty critical differences... Hadestown is, at its core, a very hopeful piece in which the focus is more on the meta significance of the fact that we keep retelling this story, while Behind You focuses on the horror that would actually come from being trapped in that cycle. But these two things are very much in conversation with each other. Also, I borrowed the concept of Eurydice being a drifter-type character from here... although in Behind You, The Poet choses to travel with The Muse, while in Hadestown, Eurydice chooses to settle with Orpheus. Diametric, but not opposed?

The Ninth Hour by Kate Douglas and Shayfer James - This is another musical that focuses on a cycle caused by mythology (Beowulf, this time), and unlike Hadestown, plays it as more of a straight tragedy. I also really like how neither character is really good or bad... they're playing the roles that they were given, and that tension and hopelessness is really palpable. I also just really love how... pretentious this is? I realize that sounds like I'm insulting it, but it's not. I've also been referring to Behind You as pretentious even in my earliest notes and that's part of why I love it so much. It's charmingly pretentious.

PLAYS

Both of these are represented by those little white boxes in the graphic... those little snippets of dialogue are very significant!

Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl - I don't really think Behind You has all that much in common with Eurydice, other than retelling the same myth! Eurydice has more of an absurdist slant, almost a dark humor (in my opinion), and it's serving a very different thematic purpose than I am. But that specific exchange between Orpheus and Eurydice captures the truth of them in a way I'm taking tens of thousands of words to do. Their love is obvious. It is inevitable. It is.

Oresteia by Robert Icke - This version of Oresteia absolutely haunts me. And this line of dialogue (spoken by Clytemnestra) is just... the epitome of tragedy. "This was always going to happen. She's been dead since the beginning." The first chapter of Behind You literally takes place in a graveyard, so I trust you'll understand why that specifically stuck out to me. There's something so haunting about this entire sequence that, I think, gets to the root of what makes tragedies... well, tragic. They're both cosmically ordained and horrifically preventable.

Everything else here are just photos added for flavor... and, in the center is, of course, a painting of Orpheus and Eurydice, since that's the myth I'm retelling! And that's about the end of it. If you read to the end of this, holy shit I love you. Would love for you to ramble about your WIP inspos in this fashion because I kinda sorta live for it.

Behind You “meta dump!” A little collage of inspirations for my WIP.

This trend is going around Twitter right now, so I thought it would be fun to bring here!

[lunapwrites]

💘Is there any posted fic you want to rework/re-edit/re-write?

🌿how does creating make you feel?

🎉how often do you celebrate completing & posting a work? how often do you give yourself the credit/validation that you seek from others when you post? (if you don't, you should!)

💋when you leave comments on a fic, do you want to hear back from the writer?

(xoxo andie)

Andie!!! Hi hi hello! <3

💘 - I've already made a whole post about No Code and the fact that I've retired the original version. HOWEVER, I will say that as I've grown as a writer, I've also become deeply unhappy with the first few chapters of Louder Than Love. I don't feel that the style and quality of the writing properly reflects the rest of the fic. Additionally in terms of subject matter it feels... idk, vapid? Like there's nothing behind it. And maybe that's fine for a chapter or two but I feel like that carried all the way through the first 5 chapters, and then 6 and 7 suffered from me just not having the tools at my disposal to make those scenes shine. This of course being my personal opinion. Readers may feel differently, idk. But in terms of an introduction to what is effectively my magnum opus, it feels like a moist handshake to me.

🌿 - This is a COMPLICATED question, hooo. Overall though, I think the best way to describe it is that it takes something out of me every time. Most of the time, when I'm in a good place to write, it takes that itch-in-the-brain feeling away. When it's a need rather than a want and I become possessed by whatever character or concept absolutely HAD to be on the page at that moment. But other times, if I'm trying to force it, it will just make me feel very tired and frustrated and upset. Because I want to get the words out, but they all feel wrong. They need to cook longer. On a rare occasion, when I'm actually writing for catharsis, it will make me feel like I've just had a long cry (hi Ouroboros, looking at you.) Just a big sense of emptiness and relief and also rawness. Very strange.

🎉 - So... I generally leave it at a little post here and on HPFC nowadays (and some chatting in the GC about the fact that omg i finally updated thank fuck.) But more often than not I will literally post right before I go to sleep so I can ride out the dopamine fiending stage in a safe and sane way lol. There isn't so much celebrating as much as just not writing for a bit so I can relax. I feel weird about doing much overtly.

💋 - Generally yes, even if it's a quick "thanks!" Which is why I will try and respond with the same. But after I've been responded to, I have little idea of how to move forward... is this a conversation now? Am I allowed to comment again? What is the protocol? Most of the unaddressed comments in my inbox are responses to my comments that I just... haven't been able to get past the anxiety wall to respond back on lol. Idk I'm weird lmao.

Thanks for the ask!

From this ask game.

[fullmetalscullyy]

the way it was - chapter 22

summary:  what if riza never went to war?  riza hawkeye has just married the man she loves. six months into their marriage, an unexpected surprise stops her from following roy to the military. a canon divergence au that explores what might have happened had riza been unable to join the military. there will be plenty of family fluff, angst, and royai.

rated: m | warnings: no archive warning apply

read on ao3

1914

but you're a king and i'm a lionheart

When Chris had invited Riza and Mia around to the bar for dinner, Riza didn’t expect her daughter to be whisked away immediately by Vanessa as soon as they set foot inside the bar. Chris approached with determination.

“We need to talk.”

Anxiety settled in Riza’s stomach. What was all this about? There was no room for argument as Chris turned on her heel and walked away, expecting Riza to follow.

Riza wondered if this had something to do with Roy. He’d suddenly called shortly after arriving at work that morning to say that he wouldn’t be home until late that night. He had some work to do, but he was sorry, and he loved them both. She didn’t think much of it, just told him to be safe and got on with her day. Then, Chris called shortly afterwards, encouraging Riza to come for dinner. While she thought it would be lovely to spend the evening with her mother-in-law, there was a tiny niggle in the back of her mind that something was happening behind the scenes.

Chris led the way through to the backroom of the bar, into her home. She led Riza into her kitchen without any kind of indication of what the topic of discussion would be, and that made the wait worse. Was this something she needed to worry about? Riza’s thoughts were interrupted by Mia’s happy squeal from somewhere in the house, followed by Vanessa’s laugh.

Uncertainty clawed at Riza’s heart. She wanted to ask what was going on but knew better. Everything Chris did was for a reason, so if she was leading Riza away from Mia then it was something their daughter shouldn’t overhear. Riza bit her tongue.

Once inside the kitchen, Chris gestured for Riza to sit.

“Roy will be working late tonight, but I’m sure you already know about that.”

“He called this morning,” Riza confirmed.

Chris nodded. “He’s going to do something tonight, and wanted you brought here as a precaution.”

“What’s he doing?” Riza asked. Her stomach tightened at the serious look on Chris’ face.

“He’s going to fake someone’s death using his flame alchemy.” There was no hesitation, she stated it as bluntly as she could.

“Oh…" Riza's heart thudded inside her chest at the revelation. "Wait.” Riza paused, something clicking inside of her mind. “Does this have anything to do with Maria Ross?”

It had been all over the papers for a few days. Apparently the soldier had killed Maes Hughes. Initially, Riza had scrutinised the photo and wondered how that woman could have taken someone else’s life. She’d been an exemplary soldier, according to the news, so why would she murder one of her own? The story didn’t quite add up for Riza, and it didn’t for Roy either.

They hadn’t spoken much about it. They didn’t get a chance really when Mia was around. However, he’d spent more time in his study in the evenings after Mia had gone to bed. Riza would pop her head in and ask if he needed anything, only to be greeted by a tired smile and the reassurance he was all right. She’d spotted Maes’ name on the papers in front of him, alongside Maria Ross', which Roy had quickly scribbled down then scored out. Riza knew he was investigating his friend’s death and was worried for him. Roy explained he couldn’t do it at work, so would spend an hour or two looking over things. Sometimes Riza offered her own input but couldn’t do much. She had a good eye for details but wasn’t in investigations. Still, she could be someone he could talk to about it all.

Chris nodded. “It does. He’s going to fake her death tonight.”

“How though?” Maria Ross was in prison. What was he up to?

“He’s staging a prison break and will “kill” her.” Chris used finger quotations to explain herself.

Riza swallowed.

“It’s all staged though, don’t worry. He has a dummy at the ready that I helped procure the ingredients for. Breda came to me with some things he needed, and I helped the operation along. Havoc will protect Ross and help get her out of the country.”

“So, why bring Mia and I here?”

“Roy asked if I could invite you for dinner, partly as a precaution but also because he probably felt guilty he wouldn’t be home tonight.”

Riza nodded, things falling into place. He had sounded regretful on the phone earlier when he said he wouldn’t be home.

“Why is us being out of the house a precaution?”

Chris shrugged. “Beats me, but I have a pretty good theory.”

“What is it?”

She regarded Riza quietly for a long moment, which only caused frustration to build.

“Chris, please. If my daughter is in some kind of danger then I deserve to know what it is.”

She eyed Riza once more before nodding. “There’s dangerous people roaming around Central right now. They each bear a matching tattoo. An Ouroboros tattoo. They’re tied to the military somehow, but we don’t know why yet.”

Ouroboros… Riza had seen that word mentioned before, years ago in an ancient history book. She was sure it had been in her father’s study. “What does the tattoo look like?” At the mention of a tattoo, her back tingled lightly as a reminder. She hadn’t discussed any form of tattoo with anyone in a long time. They weren’t popular around Amestris, so weren’t a regular topic of conversation.

“A snake eating its own tail.”

That definitely sounded familiar to Riza. She was sure she’d seen it on Roy’s desk at home, half-hidden by other pieces of paper.

“And these people pose a threat?”

Chris nodded. “We don’t know who they’re targeting, but yes, they do. Just be cautious, all right? Know that if you ever need anything, I’m just a call away as well.”

Riza sat back in her chair.

“I have no reason to believe they will contact you personally, however, just keep an eye out," Chris warned.

“I will,” she swallowed. She was still in a daze from all this new information. It was weighing on her heavily. If Roy was targeted by them, who was to say they wouldn’t use her or Mia to get to him? She shuddered at the thought.

“Roy Boy asked if I could at least fill you in on what was going on tonight, and promised he’d answer any questions you had as soon as possible,” Chris added. “He sent me a coded message earlier and then a quick call. I have the letter if you want to see it?”

Curiosity got the better of her, and Riza nodded.

As Chris left the room Riza remained in place, processing the information she’d been given tonight.

This was… big. Riza knew of his plan to get to the top and was well aware of everything that entailed now, but… Now it was real. He was taking steps here that, if found out, could get him court-martialled. Her stomach twisted. But she knew him, and she knew his team. They were smart as hell. And if Chris was on their side too, helping them along, it eased Riza’s worries a little bit.

“I also have this, if you could pass it onto him?” Chris handed her an envelope along with the piece of paper. The front was blank, giving nothing away. “More information for him.”

This was usual practice between them both. Over the years when Riza and Mia had gone to visit Chris and Roy’s sisters, messages in letters had been passed onto Riza to be delivered to Roy. Riza knew he’d been overreacting when he insisted on not getting her involved in anything. And she’d been right. What was so dangerous about picking up a handful of envelopes to hand over to her husband?

“I will.”

“I’ll get us a drink.” Chris excused herself and left Riza with Roy’s coded letter.

It was a story. There were various names on the paper, each one starting with a specific letter at the beginning. Those letters were used to spell out the words of his message. Riza didn’t bother to read the story he’d crafted. The message itself was all that held her attention at that moment.

 Jailbreak MR. Get Riza and Mia for dinner. Love both.

 She smiled at the last part, her finger stroking over the paper.

Sometimes Riza would read the story just to see how he managed to fit it all together. Riza had tried it too in her spare time, leaving little notes for him in his office at home. Then he'd started doing it as well without a word of warning. His were far cuter than hers, with a message of ‘I love you’ left all over the house. Soon, it was common practice and they’d shown Mia how to do it too. Her messages weren’t long or complex, but it was just a bit of fun for the small family.

“He’s a dramatic one,” Chris snorted. “Jailbreak,” she muttered. “I don’t know where he got that flair from.”

Riza laughed. “He used to always tell me it was from you and wondered how I couldn’t see it.”

Chris shook her head and lifted her eyes to the ceiling. “He’s a strange one, that’s for sure.”

“He certainly knows how to keep us on our toes,” Riza murmured, turning her focus back to his letter.

“He didn’t want to speak to you about it over the phone, is my guess. Too many people potentially listening in.”

“I know,” Riza reassured her. “I just hope tonight goes well for all involved.”

“That fake corpse was perfectly constructed,” Chris replied, sipping at her water. Her cigarette was absent from her lips. “And Roy, having a flair for dramatics, will make sure it’s well presented.”

Riza’s stomach turned. “Where are they taking Maria?” she asked, trying to turn the conversation away from the “corpse”.

“No idea. That was need to know only.”

Humming in agreement, Riza took a sip of her own water.

“I had another reason for bringing you here tonight, Riza.”

“Oh?”

“You’ve expressed interest in the part of becoming a part-time informant.”

She nodded. “I have.”

“Have you ever been interested in working the floor? You can absolutely say no,” Chris added, lifting her hands in front of her to placate any objections. “All you’d have to do is sit and talk to people.”

Riza cocked her head and considered it. Then grimaced. “No. The whole reason for me to come and collect the messages from you and the girls was to stop people thinking Roy was cheating on me by going out on “dates” with them. What would happen if word got out at his place of work that his wife was cheating on him?”

“A fair point, and a very good answer,” Chris chipped in. “However, I suppose I worded that incorrectly. Let me rephrase that, would you be interested in talking to people to gather information rather than simply collecting messages?”

“In what way?”

“Military wives love to gossip. They come in every Friday night. While their husbands sit in the bar, we have a space for them to catch up and basically moan about their partners for a couple of hours. It’s in the back of the bar, in that room just off to the right as you go out.”

Riza had noticed the door there but hadn’t thought much more of it. She’d never been through there.

“Your upstart Colonel husband would be a good talking point for those ladies,” Chris ventured.

“Are you asking me to gossip about my husband?” Riza frowned.

“Not at all, but you would be welcomed into their social circle openly. Roy Boy is certainly making a name for himself, especially after coming to Central, and he’s a hot topic of conversation.”

Riza wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that. “Only good things, I hope?”

“Of course. Mostly because he’s a breath of fresh air with all the old stuffy military officials that usually frequent their company.”

She still wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that. “And I assume these conversations are all innocent?”

Chris shook her head. “Riza, all those women are old enough to be Roy’s mother,” she chuckled. “They dote on him because he’s a kind kid who's friendly and polite to everyone. Always the charmer," she snorted. "Vanessa very quickly put an end to any possible… not so innocent thoughts. She went in there one Friday gushing about Roy’s beautiful wife and his adorable daughter.”

She laughed when Riza’s cheeks turned pink at the compliment, and Riza coughed to hide it.

“I’m not jealous,” Riza assured Chris. “I just don’t want pointless gossip to ruin his reputation.”

“If anything, they love your little family even more now. They ate it up. It’s the truth, of course, but they really do say nothing but good things, I promise. The girls covering the party make sure of it.” Chris sat back in her chair. “It was just an idea,” she relented. “Some other way for you to help. Military wives on a Friday night can be very animated, and I thought you stopping by would get them to open up even more. It’s completely up to yourself," she relented. "It can be a onetime thing or a regular occurrence. It was just something to try."

“I’ll consider it,” Riza stated carefully. She’d need to weigh her options and if she could find someone to look after Mia if Roy was working.

“That’s all I ask. Roy told me a while back you were interested in being an informant, and the idea occurred to me after that last Friday night.”

“What happened last Friday night?”

“Lots more oohing and ahing over your perfect family,” she smirked. “Honestly, they eat it up Riza. You should come and see it for yourself someday.”

“Are you suggesting we’re not perfect,” Riza quipped, smiling over the rim of her glass.

“No one is perfect,” Chris replied with her own smirk. “But they are correct. You are a beautiful woman and Mia is extremely adorable.”

Chris guffawed while Riza mumbled her thanks at another compliment from her. She was sure Chris only did it because she got a kick out of it.

“Every word of that is the truth,” Chris stated assuredly. “Come on, let’s go and see what Mia’s up to. See if she’s tired out Vanessa yet,” she chuckled.

*          *          *

Mia was half asleep as she walked up the stairs to her bedroom. The offer to remain at Chris’ for the night was there, but Mia had school tomorrow morning so it would be easier for Riza to just take her home. Her mother-in-law had also offered Roxanne’s protection. While Riza appreciated it and welcomed the determined and eager look on Roxanne’s face, she politely declined the offer.

Riza had only been in bed for fifteen minutes or so before she heard the front door opening. Her body tensed in its half-asleep state, but relaxed when she heard Roy sigh from downstairs. Lights were turned off as he climbed the stairs. With heavy footsteps, he reached the top of the stairs but stopped outside Mia’s bedroom door. Riza heard it creak open as he checked in on her. The house turned silent as he did so.

Their bedroom door opened and Riza looked up. Like his footfalls suggested, he looked exhausted, but he still offered her a smile.

“Hi,” he greeted. Roy’s voice sounded a little hoarse as he spoke, discarding his military jacket over the back of the armchair on his side of the bed.

“Hey,” she smiled. “How did it go?”

“Everything went well. The plan went off without a hitch.”

Roy kicked his trousers off and placed it over his jacket on the chair. His shirt however was discarded into a pile on the floor, so he remained in only his boxers. Climbing into bed, Roy wrapped his arms around Riza tightly, giving her a squeeze. A kiss was pressed to her forehead and Riza sighed into it, her body relaxing now she knew that he was home.

“Maria is safe?”

Roy nodded. “On her way to Xerxes.”

“Xerxes? That’s quite a distance,” she commented, racking her brain to try and think how far through the desert that was.

“We’ve determined that whoever is behind it all is working throughout Amestris,” Roy yawned. “I wanted to be safe. I have some associates from Xing, and they’ll escort her there.”

“And are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he mumbled tiredly.

“Chris told me what you had to do with the… corpse.” Riza grimaced. Her tired mind couldn’t think of a better or more tactful way to word it.

“It was fine. I saved someone’s life tonight, that’s what matters,” he yawned again, but his expression quickly turned pained. “I did become the villain for doing it though.”

“How come?”

“Edward always seems to be in the wrong place at the right time,” he mumbled. “He saw me ‘killing’ Ross. I had no idea who was tailing him or if he was compromised so I had to go with the murder story.”

“I’m sorry, Roy.”

“It’s all right,” he sighed. “But thank you. The kid hates me for sure now,” Roy chuckled. “But he’ll be on his way to Xerxes soon enough too so he can find out the truth.” His eyelids fluttered closed.

Riza looked up as his eyelashes splayed across his cheeks and his face finally relaxed. The day’s events had been weighing on him, and she was loath to take up any more of his sleeping time.

“Get some rest, Roy,” she breathed, pressing a kiss to his lips.

He grunted softly in response, deepening the kiss for a moment. “Just what I needed to feel better,” he grinned. It was that dopey smile that he only showed when he was tired, and Riza loved it. “Plus, I’ll need it. Tomorrow will be another long day.” Then, she felt him pause. “There’s… something coming up in a few days. I anticipate we’ll need to go after one of the people with the Ouroboros tattoo. Can you go to my mother’s that night?”

“Is this something I should be concerned about?”

Roy shook his head. “No. And I mean it,” he added earnestly. “I really don’t anticipate anything like that coming your way, however, it would give me peace of mind to know you’re all together.”

“You know I can handle myself,” she quipped lightly.

“I don’t doubt it for a second,” he replied, pressing a kiss to her forehead again. “But until I know exactly what I’m dealing with and how to handle it, it would let me breathe easier if I knew my pregnant wife and my daughter were under my mother’s protection. She has a whole labyrinth of tunnels underneath her bar. If the wrong people come knocking then you can hide under there and I’ll come when it’s safe.”

“The wrong people, huh?”

He nodded. “The Ouroboros gang,” he drawled. “Keep an eye out for anyone with that tattoo by the way. I have a picture of it in my office. I’ll show you it tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry, your mother already explained it to me.”

His eyelids drifted closed again and Riza smiled. She lifted a hand to caress his face lightly with her fingers. He flinched in fright but turned his head to press a kiss to her palm.

“Get some sleep,” she prompted.

“You said that before then distracted me,” he grumbled.

“I can take that kiss back,” she joked, moving out of his hold. This caused him to latch onto her torso even tighter.

“Please don’t,” he begged. “I’m sorry,” he gushed dramatically.

“Go to sleep, Roy. I love you.”

He hummed with a smile. “Love you too.”

[dragonrajafanfiction]

Dragon Dancer IV: Brotherhood

Lu Mingfei stood face to face with the boy on the railing. The boy was dressed in a fine black suit with low white socks and shining loafers. He looked like he was dressed for a wedding or a black-tie affair. His expression was tranquil, a slight smile on his innocent childish face.

For a long time, neither of them spoke. They didn’t greet each other. They didn’t threaten or shout. They didn’t look each other in the eyes. It wasn’t as if they were two desparados facing each other in a shoot out. It was more like two people who were in the hospital and had just received a grim diagnosis.

The heavy melancholy in the atmosphere made my chest tighten. My hand raised against my blouse and I gathered the cloth in a tight fist. My heart felt like a stone in my chest. Beads of sweat dripped down my face and I trembled with dread.

I looked to Mingfei for comfort. But looking at him was like looking into the coffin of my best friend. Mingfei had been there with me since the start. He carried so much sorrow on his shoulders, but he didn’t mind bearing mine. He was my fellow Club S member, my S-ranked brother. And now through this ordeal he’d carried me on his back, silently and without complaint and brought Chu Zihang back into my arms.

Tears flooded my eyes and rolled down my face as I stared at him, watched the light breeze tease at the strands of his hair and toy with the edges of his black trenchcoat.

The boy on the railing looked at me. “Brother, she’s already mourning for you.”

Mingfei lifted his chin, still silent.

“Do you remember this place? It’s when we made our first deal. It’s only fitting that this is the place where we make the final one.”

Mingfei looked out over the gentle waves of this endless illusory ocean. The waves rolled from horizon to horizon. “How much of this was your doing?” He finally asked, his voice barely carrying over the sound of the ocean.

“That’s honestly hard to say.” The boy followed his gaze out over the water. “I’ve been at work for a very long time. But the conflict has blurred the battle line.”

“Chu Zihang... did you erase him?”

I gasped, looking up at Mingfei and then at the boy who huffed with amusement.

“Why don’t you ask your wife?”

Mingfei’s fists clenched in fury and he bared his teeth. “Did you do it?!”

The boy’s eyes burned golden. “It cost me a lot to erase a man so small. It was so tough for me to run ahead of you. Ahead of your investigation. To clear the tracks before you. And even then... you almost caught me. So I had to have you thrown in that institution....”

Mingfei rushed forward and gripped the boy by his suit jacket, lifting him from the railing and out over the water. The boy  just chuckled and smiled. “Why are you angry? I gave you the perfect life. You could have just accepted it and it would have cost you nothing! Only...” 

His eyes shifted away from Mingfei. “The Gattusos caused a problem by attacking Anjou. I didn’t have anything to do with that.”

Mingfei let go of him but instead of dropping over the edge of the boat, he hung in the air, leaning back as if lazing on the couch. “Things got out of hand. Especially once you got to Japan. Once they started to alter your state with the woodblock, I was left with little options but to escalate our conflict.”

His expression turned melancholy and he let his arm drop, still hanging in mid air. “The wolves are at the door, my brother. There’s nothing you can do now. You have to trade, or you will lose everything.”

“So... you leaked our position to the college. You brought them on me... on Erii... So I would have no choice.”

“You always have a choice, brother! It’s just in this case, your choice could end in the deaths of everyone.” The boy waved his hand in the air.

“Mingfei...” I swallowed. “What will happen to you? Who is this person?”

Mingfei turned to me, his eyes were dark under his bangs. “He’s... Lu Mingze. He’s m...” His eyes shifted to the boy who narrowed his eyes and let out a loud sigh.

“Really? All this time we’ve spent together and you still cling to your fantasy. You really are annoying.” He floated to the deck and settled there. “He doesn’t know who he is, Ouroboros. So how can he know who I am?”

“But... since this is your last day on Earth. I suppose I can call you by your old name.” 

Lu Mingfei eyed him with a mix of dread and curiosity. “...old name?”

His smile stretched across his face. “Weili Yuanhao...”

Mingfei hissed and stomped his foot. “Will you stop playing around?! I should know better than to take you seriously.”

“Is your name not Lu Mingfei?” I asked.

He turned to me and rolled his eyes. “It is! Weili Yuanhao is an old Chinese emperor... “ His words were adamant but there was a sudden fear in his eyes as he smiled and rubbed the back of his head. “Like from a thousand years ago.”

“Oh...” Fear stirred in my chest. “Mingfei? You’re not from this time?”

“Like from a thousand years ago...” Mingze mocked his tone of voice “... But that’s not nearly as old as you are.” The boy looked directly at me and I gasped.

“Eh?” Mingfei turned to me wide eyed.

I never told anyone about what I learned from my father, the dragon that devoured himself. I never told anyone that I’m from the ancient past. Even though people knew I could travel through time, they always assumed that my birthday was January first, nineteen years ago. But I didn’t know my birthday. I didn’t know my real name. It was easy to forget that my identity was completely created by those around me.

Mingfei continued to stare at me and I recalled our first meeting. He asked me what my name was. I told him that he could call me what he wanted. Even if it was just ‘newbie’ I would accept that.

‘Carli’, ‘Meixiu’. The family names of ‘Comemnus’, ‘Lu’, and ‘Chu’. These were all names given to me by other people, identities I swapped out like masks.

But I was someone. I had to be.

“What do you know about me!” I shouted, pulse racing. 

A flash of lightning lit up the sky. The sea was growing rougher. Rain began to fall. Mingze didn’t appear to get wet. He folded his hands behind his back and rocked back and forth from heel to toe, whistling innocently.

“Who are you?!” I shouted again.

The boy’s eyes glowed golden from his face like twin lamps. 

“I am his brother. Three times he’s pledged a quarter of his life to me to kill three dragon Kings. I’m here to collect the last quarter.” He slipped one hand in his pocket staring Lu Mingfei down.

“I’m not here to give it to you!” Lu Mingfei stepped in front of me.

“Oh? You haven’t fallen into the desperate loneliness already have you? I thought you couldn’t even feel the Blood Cry?” Mingze’s demonic smile revealed teeth that were suddenly sharp as razors. He hardly seemed human. The oppressive aura grew. 

Above us, the clouds began to spin into a vortex over the boat. The wind pushed me hard and I staggered against the railing to keep from falling.

Mingfei was also affected by the weather. His trenchcoat whipped in the wind, revealing the prophetic Ukiyo-E pattern of crashing waves. “No... You’re going to give me your soul, Lu Mingze. That way, I’ll have your power. I won’t exchange with you any more!”

Mingze’s smile dropped, his mouth opened in shock. But then he doubled over in laughter. It was a crazed, ecstatic laughter, like an excited hyena.

“You’re joking! Tell me you’re joking? Are you planning on devouring me? You?!” He pointed at him, tears flowing from his eyes. “Brother. What has happened? Is this a prank? If so, good show! I haven’t been this surprised in a thousand years!”

“You don’t even know what you’re asking for!” His voice rose and cracked with hysteria. His expression grew more distorted and grotesque. The light in Mingze’s eyes flashed, burning out from his lids. “I still can’t believe I have such an idiot for a brother!”

Mingfei’s voice was even and quiet. “Meixiu, I need you to watch. If things get bad, I need you to get out of here, grab Erii and take her somewhere far away.”

Once he was sure I understood, he drew his arc-knives from their sheathes. They glinted like fire in the blaze of lightning.

Mingze bared his fangs and drew a long black dagger from thin air. “You’re not going to win this fight, brother. I won’t let you.”

“Are you sure about that?” Mingfei pulled up his blades in front of him in a perfect defensive stance honed by years of intense training. “Here we don’t have any cheat codes.” 

[thegardenandthegrave]

Whisper Code Read Along

As some of you may be aware, I published Whisper Code last week. 

There was some unexpected drama with Amazon, and with the manuscript itself, and I identified a massive plot hole 48 hours before publication. All of this sent me into a tailspin the likes of which I’ve never encountered before. 

It taught me a lot about my own writing process, and my productivity, and how I work under pressure. 

Most of all, taught me that even at the worst of times I am still a great writer! 

Last time I published a book I did a read-along to give you my reactions to the story.

Now that I have the publication date a week behind me it’s time to do the same thing for Whisper Code!

Without Further Ado:

 Starting out - the opening is pretty damn good. I remember writing this first line at the end of a chapter and thinking “Oh damn, that’s the opening to the book.”

Yes, I do hate dates at the beginnings of chapters just as much as I ever did. Necessary evil. Hate it regardless. 

 Oh, foreshadowing within the first three paragraphs. (spoilers for major character death in this book, by the way, and if you all know and trust me to keep to my word about not burying my gays or pulling a sherlock/magicians season 4 then it’s all going to be okay in the end. I promise.)

Nate’s found himself a pack of cigarettes. Here we go again. 

“There was only so long a man could spend reading poetry in privacy before people started asking questions I didn't want to answer” is such a random line out of context, but I needed you to read it and know that those words are in this book.

Huh. I mention The Ouroboros right out of the blue with no context because I never published the short story about Nate dating a girl that everyone calls the Ouroboros.  Suffice it to say, that’s coming. She exists. She’s only ever mentioned in passing here so don’t worry too much about it. 

Chapter Two involves an important conversation and a *gasp* swear word. 

We meet SAMIRA in chapter three. She is an absolute angel and you will become attached to her. I can promise you that.

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that any writer in possession of a Cyberpunk story, must be in want of an explanation for how smartphone communication has changed.

@emdop, @tenacious-scripturient, @james-stark-the-writer, @balladofabrokebitch. @anyone who wants to be tagged, let me know.  @chronopunk - I’m reading Bloom during my commute time to work right now and I thought of you while I was writing that last bullet point. Am I right or am I right? Lol. 

[luna-rainbow]

Recommended jdramas last decade

Given that the ratings list isn't exactly diverse and lots of interesting dramas didn't make the top cut, I thought I'd come up with a recommendation list. I remember back in the 2000s J-dramas were all the rage but now there seems to be much less interest in them outside of Japan, but that doesn't necessarily mean the quality is less! My preferred genres are more on the tense and action-packed side, and I rarely watched rom-coms or slice of life dramas until more recently. Nevertheless there are some very topical ones that are worth mentioning. Police procedurals 1) BOSS 1 & 2: another one of my perennial favourites. Set at the pace of American procedurals, equipped with snappy humour and quirky characters, it is the perfect amalgamation of funny, touching and gripping. 2) Strawberry Night: the original series with the gorgeous Takeuchi Ryoko and Nishijima Hidetoshi is leagues above the remake. It's much darker than BOSS but perhaps more resonant because of it. 3) Kinkyuu Torishirabeshitsu seasons 1-3: similar to BOSS, this cast consists of veteran supporting actors who play off well against each other. The cases range from satisfying to acutely dissatisfying, just as in real life. 4) Keiji 7-nin: similar to KinTori, the cast consists of some solid veteran actors, and the cases range from triumphant to depressing. There are some interesteing back stories to the characters, but it's not as well developed as you might hope. 5) Zettai Reido season 3: I tried to go back and rewatch the first 2 seasons, but it's a completely different story. Consisting of mostly a young green cast, somehow the actors have fit the roles so well that it doesn't irk. The cases mostly end on a note of despair and helplessness, as the system rolls over and quashes anyone in its way. 6) CRISIS: for the longest time I confused this with BG as the set-up of the characters are quite similar. It's very well-made, but again the characters function in a morally grey territory and is an interesting digression from the usual straight procedural. Crime solvers 1) 99.9 seasons 1 & 2: quirky and humorous, but also full of heart, and with Kagawa playing the straight foil to MatsuJun's insolent lawyer, it is almost perfect except for the lack of insipration in its cases. 2) Unnatural: I still consider this to have one of the best developed back-stories and characterisations of any crime-solver or police procedural. The script is by Noki Akiko, and it has a sensitivity to it that is not often seen in this cerebral genre. 3) Galileo seasons 1 & 2: released back in the day when Fukuyama Masaharu was still hugely popular, this was long enough ago that I don't actually remember what I liked about it, except that I do like and recommend it. 4) Kagi no kakatta heya: out of Arashi, I've never thought of Ohno as the best actor but when the role fits him, it fits like a glove. Based on a manga, it has the occasional unrealistic plot holes that comes with this genre, but overall it's well-produced, funny and the 3 main characters play off each other to hilarious effect. Medical dramas 1) Code Blue 1 & 2 - Hayashi Koji has a remarkable grasp on the mentality of young doctors. The first two seasons of Code Blue are on my perennial recommend list 2) Black Pean - I hesitated about whether to put this down, but there's actually very few medical dramas I recommend even though I watch a lot of them. I did enjoy Black Pean for its production quality and the dedication of the actors, but the script is an absolute let-down. 3) DOCTORS seasons 1-3 - this subversive drama straddles medical and comedy, and Sawamura's character slowly turned from a straight, obliviously helpful do-gooder, to an outright calculating manipulator but with the best of intentions. It is a fascinating premise for a main character and I'd recommend it purely for that. Rom-coms 1) Nigeru wa haji daga yaku ni tatsu - I really shouldn't put something I couldn't keep watching as the top, but apart from the fact I couldn't stand the 2 main actors, the story was an interesting philosophical exploration of what a live-in relationship means in practical terms. 2) Hotaru no Hikari 2 - again this was so long ago I couldn't remember much of it, except it was nice and sweet, although I think the first season was better contained. 3) Watashi ga ren'ai dekinai riyuu - I'm not quite sure this qualifies as rom-com as the characters didn't all get their happily ever after (which is actually quite rare in Japanese dramas). The story revolves around three women, each progressive yet conformative in their own ways, and how they dealt with the social expectations of courtship. A nice watch and probably a realistic window into how romance works in Japan. Underdog victories 1) Doctor X series 1-6 - Look, as much as I HATE this series as a medical drama wannabe, it is the defining story for the underdog against a conservative hierachical paternalistic world. It is full of impossible triumphs, no bad outcome ever happens and the main character never loses. 2) Shitamachi Rocket 1 & 2 - arguably the series that started the Ikeido Jun craze, it turned something boring and nerdy (rocket and machine engineering) into gripping rollercoaster drama. Well-acted and well-scripted, it made you cheer for the characters even as your real boring self acknowledge how ludicrous their victories are. 3) Grand Maison Tokyo - this is a story of redemption through the shared love of food, brought together by a team of great actors who clearly had great fondness of each other. There are some silly moments, but a lot of it was touching, sweet and highly rewarding, just like a beautiful meal. 4) No Side Game - I tossed up putting Riku-Ou in as well, but in the end I thought No Side Game was slightly better. Both based around sports (marathon and rugby, respectively), it's full of hot-blooded idealism about loyalty, teamwork and dedication, a shounen manga fairytale for adults. Slice of life 1) Gibo to musume no Blues - I'm really not a "slice of life" person, but this drama exceeded all expectations. It starts off odd and a little slow, but each episode will make you laugh and then cry a little about what it means to be family, all the silly moments, the frustrating moments and the tender moments that we share. 2) Ie-uru onna (season 1) - I'm not too sure this quite fits in "slice of life" or comedy, because the main character really is rather odd, but the first season had some beautifully reflective stories, again about what it means to be family and what home means to the different people in society. I don't know what happened in the 2nd season, but it's definitely lost that evocative touch. 3) Jimi ni sugoi! - maybe because the publishing industry interests me, but I thought this was a very cute series with some good inside tips about publishing, but also can be drawn to reflect on how people should view their vocation. Almost a rom-com, not quite a comedy, but a really nice light-hearted series with Ishihara Satomi at her most radiant. 4) Watashi, teiji de kaerimasu - this was a surprisingly sweet take on difficult problems that aren't necessarily unique to the Japanese workplace - the clash of generational values, the internal sense of inadequacies and the people who are deterimentally unable to say no. The main character, rather than being the focus of growth as often happens in these dramas, turn out to be the mediator as she uses her previous painful experiences of burnout to guide others through their own struggles. Suspense 1) 3-nen A-gumi: while prone to hyperbole and melodrama, this was a very nice fable of adulthood and the idea that once you are an adult, you must take responsibility for the consequences of your own actions, told through the microcosm that is Class 3A. Highly recommended. 2) BG: slick and well-produced, as many of KimuTaku's dramas are, it had action and suspense in good measures but unfortunately wasn't quite carried by the plot. Each individual case was interesting enough, but the main plot was rather convoluted and disappointing. 3) Ouroboros: almost similar to Toma's earlier Maou, it was cerebral, suspenseful and full of a sense of inevitable tragedy. The ending was more than it could chew, but it gave a good effort. 4) Kazoku Game: one of those rare dramas that really suited Sakurai Sho, where he was the intelligent and highly sociopathic and slightly psychotic home tutor for a highly dysfunctional family. A fascinating watch. Comedy I have to say this is a genre I struggle with. I'd happily watch slapstick and screaming in an anime, but live action is just awks. There's been some popular ones that I haven't watched but have heard good things about: - Tami-Ou: the sleazy prime minister accidentally swaps body with his extremely introverted son, and they both have to try and continue the facade. - Kyou kara ore wa: high school kids pretending they're better than they're really are, we've all been through that. This is not an exhaustive list by any means. There's a lot of well-reviewed dramas that I hadn't been able to catch, especially in the first half of the decade. There's a bunch of highly popular dramas that I hadn't been able to continue, but clearly they've got their appeal to the Japanese audience. I think in general Japanese dramas do human drama very well, especially the various relationships we have in our lives and how they interact. It's not great at doing the K-drama fairytale romance. I hope the list helps people try out some new things, or you could check out the top ratings list for other safe bets.

[amirosebooks]

Ouroboros: Ten Years Gone

I watched 14x14 last night and it got me thinking about the circular writing that the Dabb era has been doing with the show. This episode reminded me a lot of 4x14 a.k.a. the episode where Dean’s siren turned out to be a guy. At first, it was the parallel of delivering their poison through a kiss that had me pointing and flailing at my tv while I babbled about parallels to my husband (who smiled and nodded and didn’t care). As I put together this post though, I’m positive there was a lot more reflecting on 4x14 than I’d previously thought.

This post isn’t quite as thorough as I’d like as I don’t have a ton of screenshots available yet (the ones I do have are all from Home of the Nutty for both episodes) and I haven’t watched the episodes back to back or anything.

(Also, I’ll have to reblog this post with extra links that inspired this because tumblr is just... *shakes fists*)

We’ve got another mythical creature, instead of a siren it’s a gorgon. And instead of The Odyssey it’s Clash of the Titans that Dean references immediately. Said mythical creature is, again, a guy who is fixated on Dean. BUT in 4x14 the guy, Nick, was bro-coded as opposed to queer coded like our 14x14 gorgon. (They look fairly similar too if you ignore eye color.)

14x14 had Sam and Rowena sharing research together then later pretending to be together for a vet so they could get anti-venom needed for a spell. Whereas 4x14 had Sam getting tipsy with Cara and suspecting her of using those little purple flowers over her right shoulder to poison her victims.

Later, in 14x14 Sam and Rowena posed as a concerned couple when they brought their “dog” (who was really Jack thanks to Rowena’s spellwork) into a vet so they could steal a jar of anti-venom for a spell. In 4x14 Sam and Cara hooked up in her office after (or before? It’s been a while since I watched the episode) finding out that the blood vials from the case were stolen.

A real, solid friendship (of sorts) between Sam and Rowena where they pretended to have a romantic connection to solve the case. In contrast with a romantic connection built up under the false pretenses of Sam’s “Yes, I’m totally FBI” cover story. (Also, Rowena mocking the boys for using the same cover story all the time was gold.)

In 4x14 we had Dean bonding with Nick the siren over classic rock trivia, cars, and strip clubs. In 14x14 we have Dean and Cas looking like 1000% exhausted dads taking their vaguely-teenaged son out for breakfast. The conversation between Dean and Nick was largely light hearted. The dinner date talk between Dean and Cas was stressful and sad and real.

This expression made another appearance in 14x14. I’m sure there’s no correlation between these two conversations or these two fond looks.

Still, one of these looks is borne of a conversation where both people are lying about who they are and is largely performance. (Regardless of any walls coming down.) The other is the product of ten years of living and dying next to each other and for each other and finally getting to a point where they can use their fucking words with one another without trying to lie and dance around the bad things going on in their lives.

In 4x14, Dean was given the siren’s poison by drinking from a shared flask. (Again, is there a heterosexual explanation for what Bobby and Sam must have assumed for how Dean got dosed when all the other victims kissed the siren?)

In 14x14 Cas got a surprise kiss on the cheek to get his dose of venom. He was left paralyzed until Jack burned away the venom from his system. (And a part of his own soul! Can’t forget that. I’m sure that’ll have no negative consequences later...........)

In 4x14 we saw victims of the siren’s venom fall under the siren’s control. 

In 14x14 we saw another one of the “I accidentally joined Team Free Will” extended family members falling under the control of an outside force when Rowena said yes to Michael in an attempt to save the Winchesters.

4x14 had Bobby swooping in just in time to kill the siren and free Dean from his spell.

In 14x14 we had Jack making the last minute save, likely at the expense of burning off a good chunk of his soul.

(At least they brought back the soulless prophet recently so they have a handy guinea pig for figuring out how to regrow or restore a soul, right?)

[verobatto]

"Everything means something": The past, the present and the future

Ouroboros, the episode full of clues for speculations

Hello again my friends, this is the second part of my metas, you can read the first one here.

This will be a meta about symbolism and visual narrative. And I will try to share with you some clues I could see that maybe lead us to interesting and fun specs.

I hope you can enjoy this. Let's start.

Cannibalism and "eating things"

This is such a symbolic topic. Being Noah a monster that ate human flesh, is so symbolic that it hurts.

First of all, this was foreshadowing the end of the episode. Dean saying at the beginning of the episode: Who let that some eats you? Is very meaningful quote, NOBODY WOULD LET SOMEONE ELSE EATS YOU, but what if you can't see that is being eaten??? Dean carrying with Michael inside, trying to keep him locked, is a kind of risk, he won't let Michael eats him.

Then we have the place where Dean, Cas and Jack were to visit. The name was... "EL SABROSO" it means THE TASTEFUL.

Pic credit to my dear friend @agusvedder

Who is the tasteful here? Aww... My little perverted minded friends... Isn't Castiel for Dean.. please focus... But... Now that you mention it... 😏💕🤣🤣

It will be Michael, as we saw by the end, and Jack saying: "Eat others is to be a monster." My sweet nougat boy... He will eat the tasteful grace of Michael.

Another "thing" eaten were EYES. This Gorgon ate eyes to see fate/future. But also, you know what they say, "The eyes are the reflection from the soul", then, this demi God could see true desires. He ate eyes to see. And this is a very, very interesting point here, because the demi God was the one who can see, a BISEXUAL MONSTER, and Michael was who let blind TFW, but mostly, Dean.

Very important was the fable about the black snake and the eggs, related with Jack and his fulfillment of his fate by killing and eaten Michael's grace, so the danger here is the lesson of the fable again, who is Jack? Is he the snake or the chicken? And before Michael died, he flew over Jack as a circle, like the snake that bites his own tail.

Another mention of danger was Roweena mentioning the magic inside Jack as a parasite, you know this organisms live feeding from the host, so could be perfectly related to Dean too, with Michael inside his head, also Michael himself said it I'M THE COMMANDER OF THE HOST.

Colors: DESTIEL AND TFW

Before we start to talk about it, you should read why I'm talking about colors here.. well each color represents a TFW member Because his meaning, isn't the first time writers use this visual narrative, you can check out my color meta from Mint Condition here, in which I explained the meaning of each color and why represents a specific member of TFW.

DESTIEL color coded

Let's start with the color of neon lights from the motel...

Green and Blue! Then, that memorable moment where Castiel was kissed by the bisexual monster, watch the colors from the picture behind Cas.

Mhm... Blue and green again.

And now I want to remind you this pic from "Optimism" written by Jockey too.. watch the walls behind the word AMORE (Love), and this was an observation from my dearest friend @weirddorkylittlediana

This color is a mix between blue and green, is the darker color on the wall draws... Now... Watch the walls from the motel from last episode...

Pic credit @agusvedder

Is the mix between blue and green in the darker color, also a kind of snake skin too.

I already talked about the red mug and the green mug in my first meta, here I just wanted to point two chairs seen in a frame, a red one and a blue one...

You can see it in the first pic a put in this meta or in the following point...

TFW color coded and squares.

In the place where was the Destiel date we had this chairs

Here 👆 yellow chair with a blue one (Sam/Jack and Castiel) and red with blue (Dean and CAS, but... Toxic! Dean...) And the squares representing four points, the four members of TFW 2.0.

We can see squares also in this frame.

Behind Sammy.

About snakes and desert

This was certainly, an episode where "Everything means something" as Roweena said, and using Snakes and Desert sceneries, had a propose.

Desert symbolism

Yes... Desert sands!

The desert has a lot of meanings, the most important is the representation of TEST, Jesus and the Hebrews were 40 day on the desert, and they suffered temptations by Satan and they were tested. It is also a place for retirement and meditation, to searching himself, self knowledge. Is so accurate with Jack and Dean's journeys this season.

Snake symbolism

And here we have much more meanings!

You can see a desert with a snake behind Castiel, and the Mexican man's house decorated as a desert, with sand colors on the walls, and even there was a cactus. And the draws on the carpet again reminding us the snake skin.

But what it means? As I put in my pre meta thoughts here, the snake means knowledge, the soul that gestates itself in a new skin. Eternity, immortality, TIME AND CYCLES. LIGHT AND SPIRITUAL SUN.

With all this symbolic interpretations, I want you to pay attention to the following...

Jack kept the snake from Noah (also Noah was 40 days on the Arc when God made rain on Earth inundating it and renewing it, the new beginning), but yeah, he kept the snake, bc it represents knowledge, and Jack wanted to know about that fable Noah had told him, the snake and the chicken.

But by the end of the episode, when he faces Michael, we had this cycling between three scenes:

MICHAEL TORTURING TFW IN FRONT OF JACK

1)The first one (and it reminded me Zachariah torturing Dean and Sam in 5x01) Michael drowning TFW.

2)Michael made blind TFW

3)Michael gave TFW a huge pain

MICHAEL SELF REVELATION

Michael naming himself as...

1)The commandant of the host

2)The cleaner of the worlds

3)Whom won't be defeated by a child

JACK SELF REVELATION

1) "I'm the son of Lucifer"

2)"I'm a hunter"

3)"I'm a Winchester"

How we related this, the first points: drowning/commandant of the host/Lucifer is talking about possesion, naming Lucifer, we could be talking about past or future. Or both, this is Ouroboros...

The second points: blindness/cleaner of the worlds/hunter, is talking about present, Michael thought he could defeat Dean, but the truth is he was blind, the real cleaners of the world are the hunters, as Jack, killing monster, like Michael. But also and because we had that bisexual monster playing around eating eyes to see, is talking about Dean's blindness and necessity of self acceptance as a bisexual who loves a man.

Third points: pain/defeated/Winchester, and I can make a little of spec here, but maybe in the last point of this meta... But... This has to do with FUTURE and with the talk Castiel had with Jack about surviving and losing the Winchester brothers... PAIN WILL MAKE YOU REMEMBER THEM. Sad but true.

And now... Time for a little spec...

"Fate is cruel and bored"

This are just specs I thought with some evidence on the pocket, so let's play this game with Yockey's clues!

Lovers separation

I keep this spec since 14x06 and now I would say, is still strong... And not just that, I could figure out another scene from 14x11 that I couldn't understand till now... Here...

Pics credit @weirddorkylittlediana

Here we have Noah seeing DEAN ALONE without Castiel... How is that? Because he couldn't see angels?? Yeah perhaps, but it has a more revealing meaning... That wasn't the immediate future... That was FATE. DEAN WILL BE ALONE. And why I say this? Because in 14x11 the twin opened the door and we, the audience, just saw Dean, Sam was there, but we just saw Dean. Conclusion??? Is a foreshadow for the end of this season??? Are all gonna die but Dean? Or maybe Dean will be trapped in some another dimension? Kidnapped by AUKaia?? IDK... Or maybe as my friend @emblue-sparks says... Dean could die.

Jack becoming a new cosmic creature

Like one of the snake meanings, Jack could be the soul that gestates itself, and because this episode could be readed as a parallel of THE FUTURE 12x19, he could fullfil his fate by bringing Paradise to Earth. Let's see... Bc maybe he is soulless now, and could become a real danger.

The return of Lucifer

I know, I know... But the first points I marked up here... From the self revelation scene... Gives me bad vibes... And also I'm still doubting that thing that woke up when Nick was praying could be The Empty, I mean... I had compared the Empty waking up in season 13 with this Terminator thing and... They don't look the same... Sorry and red eyes? The empty doesn't have colors in his eyes... So... Idk..m I don't like this spec sorry.

Still waiting for the talk and the moves (holding hands)

I'm still waiting here for this, because the talk they had it wasn't a complete one, Toxic!Dean came to sabotage the plan, so... Let's wait... And the holding hands!!! Yesssss.

To conclude

Visual narrative in Dabb's era plays an important role for subtext.

This episode was talking about SEE AND DON'T WANT TO SEE, about Bisexuality and fears.

It also takes about self knowledge and self revelation, Jack as a mirror of Dean, who has to give those self Revelations steps, and get out from his prison.

The fable of the black snake with the wise lesson is a bittersweet flavor beacuse now we just don't know who Jack is. The chicken or the snake.

I hope you like it! This one was large... I see you in my DESTIEL meta.

Tagging @metafest @michyribeiro @magnificent-winged-beast @gneisscastiel @agusvedder @emblue-sparks @mrsaquaman187 @weirddorkylittlediana @whyjm @evvvissticante @lykanyouko @koshisekisen @a-bit-of-influence @misha-moose-dean-burger-lover @thatwitchydestielfan @legendary-destiel @savannadarkbaby @casualpandabeliever @castiellover20

Buenos Aires March 9th 2019 3:50 AM

[vino-and-doggos]

Time Enough at Last, chapter 2

Read full text on AO3 and FFN

Chapter Length: 2624 words (story length: 4631)

Rated: T

Status: Incomplete (2/3)

Summary: Submitted for your approval: one wants money, women, status, fame, and everything else in the world. The other just wants more time alive, to see his daughter grow, to love his wife for a little longer. Two seemingly different personalities must learn to coexist so that they both can have it all.

Beta-ed by @flourchildwrites, who deserves Starbucks, cookies, and a bunch of other goodies.

Only one more chapter after this!

Maes faded into consciousness again. It was difficult to tell exactly how much time had passed in the cold stone cell that he was locked up in, especially since consistent waking hours seemed to elude him. He could have been here a few days or a few weeks. Time was abstract, an important concept when one was floating in the ether between life and death. At least there was always fresh water waiting for him every time he woke up.

The wounds in his shoulder stopped bleeding freely three or four wake-ups ago. The bullet hole right below his collarbone still oozed gently, especially when Hughes prodded at it, attempting to ascertain the damage. The puncture wound closer to his shoulder didn’t have any discharge at all, now. Mostly, though, he hurt like a son of a bitch. It hurt to move, it hurt to breathe, it hurt to exist; there was absolutely no way to sit, stand, or lay comfortably.

He wished with all of his being that the family photo that he carried in his inner breast pocket hadn’t been left behind in the phone booth. It would give him endless comfort seeing the face of his beautiful Gracia and his darling, smiling Elicia. He would give anything to hug them one more time, or even to see their faces in the grainy photograph he always carried.

The photo had to be left behind though. He could only hope that Roy was putting the pieces together; he hoped he left enough clues.

Without a body, there was no guarantee that the phone call Maes tried to place wouldn’t just be written off, blood be damned. A phone call that may or may not have been heard, and some blood could be nothing more than a simple prank. Someone who managed to get his personal code, pretending to be him. It could happen. But the photo was solid evidence.

His thoughts became stronger, the strongest they’d been since his capture. Hughes contemplated the obvious shape-shifter who wielded the gun. He would bet any money that they had an ouroboros tattoo somewhere on them. Especially since he met the shape-shifter almost immediately after the voluptuous woman with the sharp, extending fingernails. It seemed too convenient.

Above all else, it seemed quite obvious that this group, the ones with the ouroboros tattoos, also knew the damning history of Amestris. The way that the dots connect.

Maes was yanked from his thoughts when he heard footsteps echoing towards him. The shape-shifter of indeterminate gender materialized from the darkness in front of him. Their greenish-black hair swayed as the creature walked, reminding a slightly delirious Hughes of a palm tree swaying in the breeze. Their lean figure belied defined muscles at first glance, and the lieutenant colonel was mesmerized by the way this being looked like a person, but so obviously was not.

“Ready to come with me, Dad-of-the-Year?” they asked, a mocking tone evident in their voice.

Ever the one for flair, Hughes put aside his pain, smiled and said, “Absolutely, kiddo. Where are we going?” in his best excited dad voice. He hoped it would piss the trigger-happy asshole off, and he was somewhat rewarded as the smile dropped off their face.

“Very funny. Get up; Father is waiting,” the shape-shifter sneered.

“Oh, so I was right with the ‘kiddo’ thing, then?” Maes questioned as he struggled to stand, using the wall as leverage and worming his way up bit by bit.

The other scoffed and rolled their eyes as they unlocked the iron padlock on the cell. “Do I need to restrain you, or are you going to behave?”

“I really don’t think I’m in much shape to be going anywhere. In fact, I’m probably going to end up leaning on you quite a bit.” Hughes pushed himself off the wall and used the momentum to propel himself toward the opening in the bars. True to his word, Maes caught himself on the one sent to collect him, knees giving way and weight sagging.

Scoffing, the shape-shifter dragged Hughes down the corridor, as if impatient to get to destinations unknown. And, as Maes thought about it, the muscles that this creature had were nowhere near what he thought would be required to support most of his weight; thinking further back, this was the same individual that carried him from the phone booth to here.

Glancing above, he noticed large pipes that seemed to line the ceiling and spread in all directions. Just ahead at an intersection in the tunnels, the lieutenant colonel could see the pipes become more congested.

The unlikely pair continued gimping down the hall together, Maes leaning more and more on his companion as they went. The adrenaline had worn out almost immediately after getting up, but the lieutenant colonel pushed aside his exhaustion and pain in favor of investigating the cavernous room that came into sight as they rounded the corner. Here seemed to be the nucleus of the pipes.

Standing at the base of the conglomeration of pipes was a man. He was tall, with straight blond hair that fell mid-back and a beard to match. Donning a white robe with crisscrossed sashes adorning his torso, Maes couldn’t help but think that he looked like some sort of prophet.

But, as Hughes understood it, prophets were not ones to look down their nose at their followers. He dug for his limited religious knowledge, something that Maes tucked away in the dark crevasses of his unconscious. His brain was screaming at him to focus on escape, on gathering the strength to fight his way out if need be; Maes tried to quiet the riotous noise and focus on what he could remember, but then the figure spoke.

“Thank you Envy. Leave the human there,” the deep voice echoed.

The shape-shifter replied, “Yes, Father,” and dutifully withdrew its support. Maes’s body crumpled unceremoniously the cold ground. Hughes thought it was somewhat funny that it almost looked like he was kneeling in front of the prophet before him.

Maybe he needed to heed Roy’s advice and get his sense of humor checked.

“How do you know I won’t run away?” Maes asked.

The prophet, who also seemed to be the one that Envy called Father, made a noise in his throat and said, “I doubt you have the strength to make it to the door. But if you believe you do, go on,” he offered with a sweeping gesture towards a door that Maes had not noticed previously. Suspiciously, Hughes cast a wary glance in the door’s direction, but decided against any attempts. He had no clue why he was there, or what he was wanted for, but he wasn’t stupid enough to try anything.

“That’s what I thought,” the man in white said. “You humans are all the same. Weak. Pitiful.”

Maes grunted as a bolt of pain thundered within his body. Through gritted teeth, he forced out, “Quite an interesting statement there. You look human. One wouldn’t think that you speak about your own kind with such disdain.”

“I may appear mortal,” Father started, “but I am far superior to any human. If you saw a bug on the ground, do you concern yourself with its life? With what it thinks, what it feels? Humans are nothing but insects to me.

“However… insects still have their uses. Bees pollinate. Worms fertilize. And humans provide disguises with less suspicion, especially those that already have high-profile friendships.”

Maes swallowed. He didn’t like the sound of that.

“And now that I have both components, let’s attempt what has only ever been successfully completed one other time.”

Turning to the right, the blond cast his gaze upward; Maes followed the angle and, for the first time, noticed a man suspended in the air, swords sticking out of his body at various angles, red electricity occasionally sparking near the entrance wounds.

Hughes was familiar enough with alchemy to recognize the attempts at transmutation. But who was transmuting? And what? Shaking his head minutely to clear his thoughts, Maes wondered if he did die after all, and he was now in some strange sort of afterlife. Was he due to be tortured next?

“Greed. Awaken.” Father watched as the chained and stabbed one stirred.

His eyes were an unnatural shade of purple, and his pupils were shaped like those of a cat’s, Maes noticed. “Well, well… the gang’s almost all here,” the man said with a winning smile, revealing impossibly pointed teeth. “Where are my missing brothers, though? I would love to tell Wrath hello on… proper terms, this time.” His winning smile turned sharp.

“Wrath and Pride are above ground, doing as their told. I would have loved to say the same for you all these years. You have disappointed me for the last time, Greed.”

Hughes felt the ground shifting, concrete grinding against concrete, as a basin filled with a boiling substance rose directly beneath Greed. Dread and nausea filled Hughes’s very being. The feelings only intensified when the dangling man began laughing maniacally. Slowly, the homunculus began his descent into the vat.

“Like hell this is going to work, Dad! You might be able to kill me, but there is no way in hell that anyone has enough greed, enough avarice, to take me in!!”

The lieutenant colonel shook and tried to force the bile rising in his throat to stay down, where it belonged. He had seen a lot of things throughout his time in the military, but this felt inhumane. Before Greed’s head hit the boiling liquid, Father raised his hand.

“Return to me, Greed.”

A piercing scream reverberated throughout the chamber, and Maes finally lost his battle with sickness. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and lifted his head in time to see red liquid dispensed from a series of tubes into a wine glass.

Father lifted the glass, making eye contact with Hughes. “To new beginnings,” he stated as he tipped the goblet and drank deeply.

Maes was frozen in fear. What the hell did he have to do with any of this? At first, he thought it had to do with his knowledge of the country-wide transmutation circle, but now he wasn’t so sure. Even if the two were connected, in what way?

Slowly advancing towards the lieutenant colonel, Father smiled gently. “Do not be afraid, Maes Hughes. You would be a very valuable asset to me. However, I need to make you a little more…” he paused dramatically, looking at Maes’s wounds, “sturdy.”

Before Hughes could begin to process the words, a third eye opened on Father’s forehead. It seemed to cry tears of red liquid, not unlike the liquid that was just consumed by the man in white. The substance congealed as it cascaded into Father’s awaiting hand, not quite hardening into a solid, but not quite staying liquid either.

Lengths of cord shot out of nowhere and forced Hughes into a spread-eagle position on the ground. Father’s hand hovered over the open gunshot wound in his shoulder, and as Maes started to question whether the wound was put there to immobilize him or to give them an available opening into his circulatory system, white-hot pain seared through his body.

The color crimson consumed his vision, first flashing like lightning, then invading in a swirling current of red and black. Hughes’s body convulsed. His joints bent and bowed in grotesque ways; all the while, his tendons tore and healed in an endless cycle of destruction and resurrection. A raw scream ripped from Maes’s throat. Right before he was swallowed by the undertow of red, he could only see the glow of red eyes from the figure in white.

The inferno around him twisted and shaped itself into what looked like a face. A strangely familiar face, with impossibly pointed teeth and cat-shaped eyes, despite the lack of pupils.

“What the hell are you doing here?” the mouth said through unmoving lips. The words which sounded from the phantasm were striated sound as if spoken from a thousand voices at once. “There is no way that you are capable of withstanding the embodiment of Greed the Avaricious! However, if you just hand over your body, I will be sure to take good care of it.”

“If I refuse to hand over my body,” Maes said cautiously, but confidently, “what will happen to me?”

“Well, I’ll have to try to take it by force. And then, if you even survive, you’ll be swallowed into the thousands of souls the Philosopher’s Stone already sustains.”

“I won’t be conscious again if you have to take me by force?”

“No, but why would you want to be?” the face, who Hughes assumed was Greed himself, questioned. “The world is a mess; even you can’t deny that. What in this universe would make you want to see more of it?”

“My family!” Maes answered emphatically, nearly screaming with hysteria. “My wife, my daughter! My best friend…” He trailed off. Quietly, he pleaded, “I just wanted more time.” Thinking quickly, he steeled his nerves.

“Fine then!” he shouted. “Take me! Take my body! I freely give myself to you!”

“Huh?” Greed said. “You’re giving yourself to me?”

“Yes I am,” the lieutenant colonel smiled dangerously. “And, for letting you do so, I won’t lose my consciousness to the Stone. I’ll get to see my darling daughter again.”

“Families are nothing!” Greed countered. “Trust me; I had a wealth of siblings and a father all my own - they did nothing for me. They held me back! And found families are even worse; you trust them, and then they don’t even try to save you. That’s bound to happen to you, too, if you put all your stock in that garbage.”

Maes forcefully shook his head, “You’re wrong! Families are the only thing that makes another turn on this wretched globe worth living. Take me over. Use my body. And I’ll prove to you that you can have it all if you have family and friends willing to take on everything with you.”

An eerie quiet settled within the red and black void as Greed contemplated Maes’s offer. Then, he chuckled menacingly, and Hughes thought for sure he was done for. He began to say a silent goodbye to Gracia, to Elicia, to Roy, and to everyone else who touched his life...

He was interrupted.

“You’re decisive; I like that! And committed, too. If nothing else, I’m almost guaranteed to succeed if you’re outright accepting me! All right, it is done!” the many voices resounded.

A blinding white light opened up and began to swallow Maes; as more pain wracked his body, he heard Greed say, “Let’s see how ready you are to be avaricious!”

His eyes opened to see the last bolts of red, alchemic energy leaving the body. At first, he was staring at the ceiling, but when the cords holding the body down receded, Greed stood and faced Father.

Hughes suddenly realized he was watching the events around him, as though they were happening on a screen. He had no control over the actions of the body that was once his. He could only see what Greed chose to see. But he could hear what Greed heard, feel what Greed felt. And as he stood before Father as an obedient iteration of the one called Greed, Maes felt the bullet lodged in his shoulder eject and heard it land on the floor. In the next moment, a crackle of red energy realigned the bones and tissue that were damaged, effectively healing the body.

Maes could see Father’s red eyes, glowing in the darkness.

And then he heard, “Welcome back...my avarice.”