#(the three of them are actually all interconnected and you can go between the three of them without even hafting to leave)

[vampirecatprince]

It's still strange as hell seeing a pawn shop that I bought a few Sonic games at as a kid IN a Sonic TV show

[leeny-leens]

Creatures Of The Night Masterlist

…synopsis: Enter a world shrouded in darkness and mystery, where creatures of the night awaken to hunt their prey. Here, you can hear stories full of heartbreak, betrayal, understanding and the nuanced complexes of different worlds colliding.

…warnings: each work is marked with its own content warnings, but all of them contain mature themes (i.e violence). Viewer discretion is advised.

…content: each work is tailored to the character and storyline that is the main focus, however all of them contain romance between the reader and the centric character. While these works can be read as standalone so, they all play out in the same universe and are interconnected.

…wc: each work varies in length, so make sure to check it out for yourself!

…disclaimer: English is not my first language and therefore you will find mistakes despite my best attempts to fix it. Everything I’ve written is complete of my own making, and while I do not own the core idea of these concepts, I own the storylines I have made up for each instalment. I do not consent to plagiarising, translating or feeding my work into AI. I also do not consent to the making of any kind of ai bot with these concepts. If i see you’ve stolen my work in any capacity i will hunt you down and make your life a living hell 🤍

…note: if you would like to be tagged in any or all works of this project, let me know! The masterlists for SC and GT will be released once BH is concluded.

Instalment i: Bloody Hell

⤷ vampire!Reader x poly!Moonkiller

At your core, you’ve always been a hater. You hate being woken up too early, your teachers giving you pointless assignments, your friends being too loud when you haven't fed in a while and above all, you hate Remus Lupin. You don't know why, but the older boy gets on your nerves like no one else; putting you both in the same room for longer than three minutes is the equivalent of setting off an atomic bomb. However, when your best friend Barty Crouch Jr. ends up kissing the git and catching feelings, you have to put your hatred aside and aid him in his romantic endeavours, all while desperate to keep your little bloody problem under control. Easy, right?

visuals:-

vampire!Reader | Barty Crouch Jr. | Remus Lupin

status: currently in progress

tropes:-

Enemies to lovers (Remus/Reader ; Remus/Barty)

Friends to lovers (Barty/Reader)

Secret identities

Forced proximity

Lollipops used for plot purposes

Please be warned that this instalment contains mature themes (i.e. bullying)!

Instalment ii: Siren’s Call

⤷ siren!Reader x Evan Rosier

Evan rarely dreams, but when he does it’s of a girl he’s never seen. He’s not sure who she is, let alone whether or not she’s actually a girl, if the claws, the scaly hands and those inhumanely bright eyes are anything to go by. She haunts him anytime he closes his eyes, her voice seductive as she calls for him time after time. When the dreams become frequent, tinged with urgency and overcast stormy seas, he believes his imagination to be playing vile tricks on him when she calls for help. That is, until he hears her voice coming from a dark corner in his waking hours. Only, it’s not his dream girl calling, it’s you. Will he ever be able to figure out the mystery behind the siren’s call? Or will she drive him mad before he ever lays his eyes on her?

visuals:-

siren!Reader | Evan Rosier | The Clearing

status: in planning

tropes:-

Secret identities

Seer!Evan

Obsessive!Evan

Mating Bonds

High stake hurt/comfort

Please be warned that this instalment discusses mature themes (i.e. paranoia, kidnapping)!

Instalment iii: Ghost Touch

⤷ ghost!Reader x Regulus Black

Being the second born of the Most Ancient And Noble House of Black teaches you many skills and truths, especially when your older brother is —quite literally— the brightest star in the sky. Regulus learns silence, and he learns quiet observation. It reveals many things, among them his unique ability to read people like an open book. Barty’s strange friend? He’s known for ages that she’s a vampire, his gut whispering the word in his mind anytime she’s near. Lupin? His furry little problem is the first thing Regulus picks up on upon meeting. Still, there is one person he never could categorise; the girl in the attic of the little cottage in France. For years now, he’s spent every summer visiting her when his parents took him to the vacation home and everything screams that she is human, but how come no one else can see her? Is the Black Madness finally getting to him? Or is there something else behind her mysterious existence? And why on earth is she fading with each day he spends by her side in the summer before his final year at Hogwarts?

visuals:-

ghost!Reader | Regulus Black | The Cottage

status: in planning

tropes:-

Childhood friends of sorts

esp!Regulus (-> extrasensory perceptive, the ability to perceive someone’s true nature)

Family curses

Star crossed lovers

Bitter sweet end

Please be warned that this instalment contains major character death!

Further Instalments: to be added…

[chatonarya]

One Of The Hypergryph Writers Is A Fujo: A Crack Theory

I can't believe I'm writing this, but here we go.

About a year ago, when the Break The Ice drama CD was first announced, it came to my attention via a certain joke that it was not the first time Midorikawa Hikaru and Konishi Katsuyuki (the Japanese VAs of Gnosis and Enciodes respectively) would be starring in a drama CD together--though this previous drama CD was a BL drama CD from 2005, based off of the R-18 manga of the same title, ...Virgin Love. I was highly amused and made an appropriate meme to commemorate this newfound knowledge, which you can see below.

Then through a few generous connections and kind souls, I managed to obtain a copy of this ancient disc, whereupon I gave it a listen for the sake of some cheap and cheesy entertainment.

I was surprised, however, to discover that not only are there multiple similarities between the Arknights and the disc's characters, plot, and setting, but they are... a little uncanny. This feeling only increased as I, out of some morbid curiosity, proceeded to track down and read the original manga (painful anatomy and all), and saw more startling similarities.

I realize this is an absolutely unhinged, unbridled tinfoil hat moment, but there are certain things which are so similar that they almost--almost--make me suspect someone at Hypergryph was somewhat or even vaguely familiar with this story, perhaps even on account of its voice drama (which was apparently popular enough to inspire the author to write two more volumes about the lead characters), and possibly even used it for inspiration for the plotline and relationship of the two characters who share these 90s yaoi mens' voices: Enciodes and Gnosis.

(Please take everything I am going to say with a grain of salt.)

The Setting

...Virgin Love takes place in the extended "Toudou universe" created by author Fujisaki Kou. It forms the setting for the "Beast" series which spans some 20 volumes and explores different interconnected characters within this same universe, most of which (to my understanding) have some sort of connection to the Toudou Group company, hence the nickname, and which tend to be set in the corporate world. For the purposes of this essay, we will be looking at three connected volumes: ...Virgin Love, ...Junai no Seinen, and Men's Love, which focus primarily on a single couple (the side couple, actually) with a supporting cast from the other books and universe. There are two more volumes which focus on this couple (namely, Erotic ni Kojiakete and Otoko no Mikkai wa Bed no Naka de), but being as they are only available in Japanese on Japanese sites, I have not been able to obtain or read them, so I will preface this by saying that I have read only the VL (...Virgin Love) trilogy and listened to the drama CD, so I have supplemented some of the gaps in my knowledge with our good ol' friend TV Tropes.

The Characters

The lead couple of the VL trilogy consists of Daigo Mikihisa (the seme, played by Konishi) and Kirishima Kaoru (the uke, played by Midorikawa). (Though both experienced VAs, this was their first time being paired together for a BL drama.) Let's look at them one at a time.

Daigo:

The "Young Lion" of Mercury, Daigo is the managing director of the Japanese branch of the Mercury company at the young age of 27. In contrast to the many mentally unbalanced residents of the Toudou'verse, Daigo stands out as being a fairly normal and down to earth despite his background. On the job, he is extremely cool, capable, and professional, while being very laidback and big-hearted while he's off, including switching his speech pattern, and keeps his professional and personal faces quite separate.

His position also means that he cannot afford to display any weakness on the job, being exacting and merciless, though this doesn't prevent him from cracking a few times due to how deeply and intensely he is smitten; he falls very quickly and very hard for Kaoru. He faces intense pressure from his father in the third volume regarding Mercury, with his father attempting to force him into an arranged marriage advantageous to the company and break up his relationship with Kaoru.

He also has rather wavy hair, like a certain snow leopard.

Kaoru:

Kaoru works as a mid-level manager for the Toudou Group as the assistant and second-in-command to the president's secretary, his cousin Saijou Chiharu, with whom he has a somewhat vitriolic relationship (he and Chiharu grudgingly help and sometimes hinder each other's relationships); in volume 3, while Chiharu is away or occupied, Kaoru effectively takes his place to hold down the fort. He often overworks his subordinates, but despite it, is respected and liked due to the fact that he produces results and assumes responsibility for his subordinates' mistakes. A workaholic whose hobbies consist of drinking, smoking, or casual sex, he meets Daigo at his usual bar and is impressed by Daigo's extremely straight-forward proposal and invites him to have a one-night stand.

His cold and disdainful demeanor and somewhat abrasive tsundere personality conceal a deep insecurity and lack of self-worth, as well as an inexperience with intimacy and fear of vulnerability. These issues stem from his childhood neglect: his mother was an abusive man-eater and unable to maintain a stable relationship for long, inevitably driving her partners away through jealousy and obsessiveness, which she always blamed on Kaoru's existence. This left him determined to never become like her, and also extremely fearful of commitment.

He also has dark hair worn messily in a style similar to a certain crane.

The Plot

The plot revolves around the two mens' developing relationship as they try to balance their work and private lives and grapple with Kaoru's psychological issues. Throughout the narrative, there are quite a few striking similarities to Break The Ice and the Kjerag plot events, as well as certain things which could easily be extrapolated as in-character for Enciodes or Gnosis. I shall recap, whilst doing my best to refrain from inserting headcanon or personal theory.

-- As mentioned above, Daigo and Kaoru meet at a bar, where Kaoru feels someone staring intently at his back. When Kaoru turns around and stares back, Daigo acknowledges his interest and propositions him for a night. Kaoru, pleased and intrigued by his boldness, accepts. -> Enciodes also approaches Gnosis very boldly when they sneak aboard the train as children, and it's through his boldness speaking of Kjerag's weakness and need for change that Gnosis is won over by him.

-- Kaoru has a penchant for bondage as it gives him control of the situation and ties Daigo up before having sex with him, and does so repeatedly; though Daigo later asks him if they can go without it, he accepts it being a condition of continuing the relationship and doesn't complain, especially as it becomes a fixture of their sex life later on. -> Enciodes is very unperturbed by being tied up as a child. You can extrapolate.

-- Daigo also accepts the initial bondage as a fair form of payback when Kaoru is annoyed about the whole thing being a set-up and a dare from Daigo's friends. -> Again, Enciodes simply comments that he "should get used to this" regarding being tied up, as it's a consequence of Kjerag's weakness.

-- Related, Kaoru, despite being the uke, is fairly assertive in bed and likes to be on top to remain in control. -> Gnosis has an aggressive streak (feel free to take this as you will, even if it verges on headcanon territory).

Kaoru initially refuses to continue maintaining a sexual relationship with Daigo despite their chemistry as he feels that Daigo is dangerously addictive and vows to never see him again, but this is thwarted when they meet again in the professional sphere as Mercury pursues an alliance with the Toudou Group and Kaoru is put in charge of the account. Following this, their relationship continues.

-- Kaoru comments how completely Daigo switches off when he's not at work, and Daigo replies that there's no need for him to maintain his "company face" in front of Kaoru, and that Kaoru is the same. -> Enciodes always speaks to Gnosis without any pretense or facade, and vice versa.

-- Kaoru is caught off-guard by Daigo saying that he wants him. -> Gnosis, in general, is surprised by Enciodes throughout his oprec, and his gestures of acceptance and liking.

-- Kaoru and Daigo have a year's difference in age. -> Enciodes and Gnosis also have nearly a year gap between them.

-- Chiharu comments that Kaoru typically won't have anything to do with other people beyond strictly necessary. -> Gnosis shuns contact with others as well.

-- Kaoru tells Daigo that he's not his subordinate when Daigo asks him if something happened at the office. Yep. -> Gnosis is very clear to Enciodes that he is not Enciodes's subordinate.

-- Daigo talks about how he clearly divides his professional and private faces, how there isn't really anyone to help him and his position as the director of Mercury means that he has to be decisive and firm, and is happy when Kaoru immediately understands that if Daigo is too soft, the company will collapse. -> Enciodes draws a clear distinction between his personae, and his position also requires him to be merciless, and Gnosis is one of the people who understands this best.

-- Chiharu warns Daigo that Kaoru is surrounded by a wall of pride in which he isolates himself, and for his own sake, it's better that he break up with Kaoru as soon as possible. Daigo states he has no intention of letting Kaoru go. -> It's implied that Enciodes was heavily discouraged from continuing his friendship with Gnosis, but Enciodes ignored this for years. Similarly, Gnosis is an emotionally isolated person, something which stems from his ostracization and childhood neglect.

-- Kaoru is frosty to Daigo's school friends at the bar. -> Gnosis has nothing but disdain for Doctor, ostensible friends that Doctor is with Enciodes.

-- Daigo's friends describe him as someone who is alone despite being surrounded by many people and who rarely talks about himself and tends to go his own way. -> Enciodes is of similar character.

-- Daigo is pleased when Kaoru expresses jealousy over him despite it entailing a slap in the face, as it means Kaoru feels something for him. -> Enciodes is generally unperturbed by Gnosis's radical streak even if ends in harm to himself or his assets, such as the train explosion in BI. He also quite cheerily and accurately realizes Gnosis came to rescue him after being kidnapped despite Gnosis denying it.

-- Kaoru is repulsed by the idea of being in love with someone else, and is fearful of his "ugly self" and "the blood of madness" which flows within him which he refuses to acknowledge. -> Gnosis's father is the stereotypical archetype of the "mad sage", and Gnosis, also, possesses that 'madness' in his radical streak. Similarly, much as Kaoru is terrified of inheriting his mother's possessiveness and obsession, Gnosis sees himself as "the son of a sinner," branded by his father's mistakes and actions.

-- Kaoru desperately and stubbornly refuses to become like his mother and cuts off personal contact with Daigo. -> The thought of having to become like his father makes Gnosis want to run away from Kjerag.

-- Daigo, panicked, confesses that he's in love with Kaoru and can't bear to let him go, a sentiment that leaves Kaoru stunned. -> Enciodes is the first to tell Gnosis that he's starting to like him, a feeling that Gnosis doesn't really reply to.

-- Kaoru, cracking under his own emotions and fears and losing control of himself, is temporarily suspended from heading the Mercury account as his mistakes pile up, by suggestion of Daigo but further escalated by Chiharu. -> Enciodes temporarily suspends Gnosis from Karlan Trade following the "unapproved" incident in the valley and Gnosis's outburst.

-- Chiharu explains that Kaoru is slipping up too much to remain in charge of the Mercury project to Daigo, and that someone who gives up after a single rejection cannot be Kaoru's partner because Kaoru cannot so easily come out of his shell, and Daigo will soon find a better person. Daigo rejects this notion, stating that he feels that Kaoru is the only person who can meet him on his level, which Chiharu describes as "someone who has been fighting alone all his life meeting his match." -> Enciodes and Gnosis view and treat each other as equals and are the ones best able to understand each other's mindset, particularly being co-founders of Karlan Trade.

-- Daigo says that to know Kaoru's true feelings, it's better to ask his body directly. -> Gnosis, too, is very tsundere and his actions speak louder than words about his feelings.

-- Kaoru believes that Daigo will abandon him due to his true self being hideous and "abominable" (in other words, wracked by emotion, jealousy, and possessiveness just like his mother in the way he hates), but Daigo tells him that moment is when he's most beautiful and that he is beautiful. -> Gnosis asks Enciodes at the climax of Break The Ice whether "[Enciodes] would like to finish [him,] the traitor, and make this farce real", underlining the fact that everything he has done has been without Enciodes's explicit approval, questioning whether Enciodes wants to continue the partnership with him; Enciodes simply smiles and confirms that in his mind, Gnosis is still dear to him and everything else doesn't matter.

-- Kaoru tells Daigo that because Daigo called him "beautiful" while he was hideously twisted with jealousy, he's decided he won't hide that side of him anymore, and Daigo is completely unperturbed by this. -> Enciodes has always been accepting of Gnosis's radical streak for as long as they've known each other, and continues to be despite Gnosis's own fears as expressed in his first module ("Vow").

In the second volume, ...Junai no Seinen ("The Young Person's Pure Love"), the couple go through a rocky patch as Kaoru's insecurities and inexperience with intimate relationships flair up.

-- Daigo complains to himself that Kaoru's ambiguous comments sting more than he lets on. -> Gnosis frequently makes ambiguous statements that can be taken quite sharply, such as his insistence that Enciodes let him play the scapegoat in BI, and his snide remarks when they meet up again in Victoria.

-- Kaoru's subordinates like him better now that he has softened up somewhat thanks to his relationship with Daigo. -> Gnosis is much less abrasive in The Rides to Lake Silberneherze, and his relationship with Enciodes is much more harmonious than in Break The Ice; he and his work are also much more respected than in BI.

-- Even so, Daigo's friends point out that Kaoru is a scary person. -> The Karlan Trade employees also fear Gnosis.

-- Kaoru and Daigo are described as strangers or business partners by day, lovers by night. -> Enciodes and Gnosis have much more intimate conversations off the clock than on.

-- Daigo seeks more intimacy from Kaoru than he's willing to give at the moment. -> Enciodes is the softer one emotionally of the two, and the one who emphasizes their emotional bond far more, such as when he reminds Gnosis that Gnosis is his dearest friend.

-- Kaoru takes responsibility for one of his subordinate's shortcomings at a conference, stating that he did not give the man clear enough instructions. -> This is a bit tenuous, but Gnosis being a workaholic, CTO and Director of Karlan Trade, who's stated to care about the ends and not the means, it's not difficult to imagine him holding himself responsible for a mistake in such a way.

-- Kaoru has always enjoyed solitude since he was a child, and in fact took it as a blessing when he didn't have to be around people. -> Gnosis generally doesn't care for other people or being around them, nor dealing with them emotionally.

-- Kaoru has no intention of apologizing for telling Daigo off for losing his temper at work, despite Kaoru knowing no other way of expressing his feelings. -> Gnosis tells Enciodes off frequently regarding decisions he disagrees with, and never apologizes.

-- When Chiharu tells Kaoru to cut Daigo some slack lest he disappear like the "lesser men" before, Kaoru retorts that if Daigo was a lesser man, he wouldn't want him anyway. -> Gnosis is clear in his first module that should Enciodes falter or abandon their mutual dream in any way, he will cut ties with him. Additionally, Gnosis is of an exacting nature, and Enciodes mentions in BI that one must be capable of exceeding Karlan Trade's expectations to work with them. Gnosis also has high standards for his partners.

-- Kaoru struggles with classifying Daigo as a lover or as a sex friend (i.e. fuckbuddy), as one is an intimate relationship and the other has no strings attached. -> Again in his module, Gnosis worries about whether or not his relationship with Enciodes will survive their personality changes. Gnosis never calls Enciodes his "friend" outside of his oprec as a child, the rest of the time they are simply "partners-in-crime."

The last three chapters entail Kaoru playing Daigo against his ex-sex friend Ian Evans purely to satisfy his own ego and and insecurity as Daigo's jealousy makes him feel happy and wanted. This backfires when Daigo has enough of being toyed with and leaves, and I must say that there are much fewer similarities here, but there are still a few notable things.

-- Kaoru reflects that ever since he was a young, he has always been unwanted. -> This is mostly personal theory, but it's easy to read Gnosis's parents, particularly his father, as neglectful when Mr. Edelweiss frequently forgets Gnosis exists.

-- Chiharu notes that Kaoru has never been in love before, and doesn't know how to strike a balance in their relationship. -> Gnosis has precious few interpersonal relationships outside of Enciodes, and treats most people in an abrasive manner, similarly to the way he is tsun to Enciodes. His file again emphasizes that although he understands others' emotions, he has no energy for them; it's not difficult to surmise that Gnosis, due to his ostracization as a child and difficult personality, doesn't really have experience in relationships.

-- Chiharu also observes that Daigo has finally found his match in Kaoru, and loves him so much that he's willing to forgive anything. -> Again, Enciodes and Gnosis are equals mentally and intellectually, and Enciodes forgives essentially everything Gnosis does, up to potentially forgiving Gnosis even for being involved in his parents' murder.

-- Chiharu also comments that Kaoru has spent his entire life living in a shell, and now that he's come out of it and experienced the warmth of being loved, he can no longer return to the way he was before. -> Gnosis is changed by Enciodes's friendship, and Enciodes reaching out to him as a child changes the course of his life completely.

-- Kaoru grimly commits to getting past his break-up with Daigo despite how miserable he is. -> Gnosis commits to the outcome of the gambit in BI heedless of the unhappy consequences to himself or Enciodes, as well as accepting the negative effects of the events which happen outside of his control, such as his position and exile from Kjerag.

-- When Kaoru has a breakdown during a company party, Daigo realizes that Kaoru would hate losing his composure in public and knocks him out and carries him out. -> While not a direct parallel, Gnosis is also carried out elsewhere during what Degenbrecher refers to as one of his most emotional moments.

-- Daigo reflects that he's run away from his true self, and this is the consequence of his actions. -> Enciodes never shies away from the consequences of his actions.

-- Daigo comments to an unconscious Kaoru, "You've lost weight." Yes, really. -> I don't need to explain this one, I hope, as everyone should remember the way Enciodes opened up the "farce" in BI with that exact line.

-- Kaoru awkwardly apologizes for his behavior, and Daigo immediately forgives him. -> Enciodes always forgives Gnosis for everything.

-- Kaoru admits that he's been harsh to Daigo who has always been sweet to him and lets him take control of their relationship. -> Enciodes is the leader of the Karlan Trio, but Enciodes makes no move to stop Gnosis when he decides to do something (such as his plot in BI).

-- Daigo says Kaoru is much sweeter to him now. -> As I said above, Gnosis is much nicer to Enciodes in RS after their disagreements in BI.

In the third volume, Mens' Love, the relationship continues to develop, facing new challenges in the form of Daigo's blood relations this time. There are less parallels here, but for the sake of completion, I will cover it nonetheless.

-- Daigo is placed under extreme stress running the Japanese branch of Mercury, piled with impossible projects from the HQ that he nonetheless continues to accept in order to prove himself as capable of his position, as he is an illegitimate son, working himself to the point of exhaustion despite internal speculation that he is being intentionally ostracized. -> Enciodes often works late and comments on being tired, insisting on handling everything himself, heedless of whatever speculation may follow.

-- Kaoru is also under heavy stress in Chiharu's absence, and the lovers have no time to meet outside of business. -> Enciodes mentions in RS that he's been "increasingly busy with many things", implied to be personal matters, which are causing rumors to spread as he does not show his face in public often. Both Enciodes and Gnosis place business ahead of their personal matters.

-- Continued from above, Kaoru takes time to offer Daigo emotional support after hearing about his troubles from president Toudou, meeting Daigo late at night and lending him a sympathetic ear and a lap to sleep on. -> Gnosis emotionally supports and reassures Enciodes in RS during one of his most stressful moments, and comments that normally he would arrange care for Enciodes's wounded hands.

-- Kaoru is still baffled why Daigo puts up with someone like him. -> Again, Gnosis is somewhat abrasive in personality and regards himself as an outsider, but Enciodes is unfazed by this. It's not difficult to picture Gnosis unable to understand being liked when very few people do.

-- Daigo and Kaoru both admit that it was only thanks to the moral and emotional support of the other that they were able to accomplish their tasks flawlessly. -> Though they don't admit it as explicitly, being partners(-in-crime) allows Enciodes and Gnosis to achieve what they cannot do alone. Again, Gnosis supports Enciodes emotionally in RS, and Enciodes also supports Gnosis off the clock, particularly when he is drunk.

Daigo's father calls him from America to inform him that he has set up an arranged marriage for Daigo, one that will form a political alliance with another company and make him officially part of the family. Daigo refuses to break things off with Kaoru, but is given pause when his father reminds him that him being part of the family is his beloved mother's dearest wish.

The parallel here is more meta than anything--I couldn't help but be reminded of those accursed and hateful bloodline memes, albeit inverted. And while we have no evidence to suggest Olafur would impress such a thing upon his children, it is true that political marriages amongst the nobility were common. While I personally do not believe the marriage of Olafur and Elizabeth was politically motivated nor arranged in any way, I do think it is the connection the Duke of Caster used to make inroads into Kjerag, and perhaps even Olafur himself valued this connection though he may have not expected the Victorians to be quite so cruel or crafty. But this is merely speculation on my part.

-- A stark contrast is drawn between Daigo's mother and Kaoru's mother: though both raised their sons alone, Daigo's mother sacrificed her health for him and he wishes to see to her happiness, while Kaoru's mother never did anything for him but curse his existence. -> While Enciodes himself is somewhat and ironically dismissive of his father as a child, Gnosis idolizes and admires Olafur greatly, while shunning his own father, and the contrast between the forward-thinking and exploratory Olafur and the reclusive and ever reiterating Mr. Edelweiss is clear in Gnosis's eyes. In addition, Courier’s second oprec highlights how Enciodes takes after his mother Elizabeth.

-- Daigo's father sends some of his people to meet Kaoru in Japan, and they present Kaoru with a blank check to break up with Daigo and threatens to expose his orientation and force him to lose his job. -> While we don't have explicit evidence of such specific methods, we do know that nobody was happy to see Gnosis in Enciodes's company when they returned from Victoria together. Given the "sugar daddy" rumors, some underhanded business, potentially even bribery, is within the realm of plausibility.

-- Though initially disturbed by the news of Daigo supposedly getting married, Kaoru spends the night thinking it through and concludes that Daigo must be trapped or manipulated in some form of guilt or obligation rather than remaining in America by choice. -> Enciodes and Gnosis are able to innately grasp the reasoning behind each other's actions without exchanging words regardless of what may appear to be happening on the surface.

-- As Daigo reluctantly lingers in New York and Kaoru finds himself at his wit's end, Kaoru takes matters into his own hands and clears his pending projects to fly to America to meet Daigo since Daigo will not come to him... -> Gnosis is also prone to taking matters into his own hands and making executive decisions when unhappy or displeased with a situation.

-- ...Though not without telling Daigo to go ahead and get married, much to Daigo's shock, as he had been keeping the whole affair secret so as not to worry Kaoru. -> Gnosis also catches Enciodes by surprise when he says Enciodes should let him be the one to bring down the other clans in BI, letting on that he already knows and suspects more than Enciodes does. Enciodes, too, did not mention the plan as he did not want Gnosis to execute it on account of the consequences to himself.

-- Daigo wants to know the real reason Kaoru is there, and Kaoru tells him that he's there to erase him and then himself. Although he says he would never allow it as he takes responsibility for handling the situation poorly, Daigo confesses that he's ecstatic by Kaoru's possessiveness. -> Not to repeat myself, but Enciodes has never been bothered by Gnosis's radical streak nor his oft-violent way of resolving matters.

-- Kaoru encourages Daigo to make his own decision and pursue what he wants even if he has to be selfish about it. -> Gnosis pushes Enciodes to make decisions he thinks are better, though they may not always be as perfect as Enciodes desires, and indeed, one of his chief criticisms of Enciodes is that he always believes he can achieve the "perfect outcome." Furthermore, Enciodes's behavior towards Gnosis is perhaps the most "selfish" he's ever been, as he nigh-demands that Gnosis will stay with him in Kjerag, and repeatedly emphasizes to Gnosis that "this undertaking is ours together," rather than letting Gnosis go to do his own thing.

The volume ends with Daigo refusing the marriage yet again and informing his father that he's returning to Japan, as well as the marriage being called off as the Toudou president is unhappy about Mercury threatening one of their employees and losing the Toudou Group's alliance outweighs the benefits of the marriage. I don't really have much to say about this except it's an interesting situation to picture the Silverashes in.

Now, while I confess perhaps more than a few of the parallels I've pointed out here have been a bit of a stretch and up to personal interpretation and headcanon, the way many of the character traits and several plot developments have matched up with Silverweiss and the way I personally read and interpret the characters of Enciodes and Gnosis them was a rather mysterious and peculiar experience.

In conclusion, perhaps rather than it being a remarkable and funny coincidence that there exists a BL drama CD starring both the voices of Enciodes and Gnosis, perhaps it is that Enciodes and Gnosis star together in a heavily subtextual story and in their own drama CD because of the yaoi...

[8thhousepriestess]

Hi! My question is a bit unusual because it's about angel numbers. I've been seeing a lot of them but 111 and 222 most frequently. Last night I saw the variation of 222 I mean the number 2222. I wonder what do these numbers mean? When I see them I feel that my angels are watching over me and everything will be fine (I'm struggling with anxiety since july 2024 so it's really reassuring) but when I try to find out more about meaning of these numbers I find a lot of inconsistent information - some say it's luck and positivitt some that its alignment with my path and others that its about the need of finding balance in my life. How to figure out the general meaning of each angel number?

Angel Numbers ✨🫔🪽…

Your question isn’t unusual at all 😊. Actually, it’s beautifully aligned. Angel numbers show up when we need them most, & I’m really happy to hear that they’ve been bringing you comfort during tough times.

That IS their magic…

🎬👇🏻 Let’s start with this:

If you feel that your angels are watching over you & everything will be okay when you see 111 or 222… then that IS the meaning. TRUST that. That feeling IS the message. Angel numbers speak through your emotions, your nudges, your quiet knowing. Your intuition is already doing the work.

🧠 Understanding the basic meaning of each single-digit number is important, even though there are many interpretations out there. Here are my personal definitions, which resonate with me, & I find it helpful to view numbers 1 through 10 as a story…

1 – The Spark 🔥

New beginnings. Potential. A soul’s individuality. The number of initiation & inspiration. A seed planted before it sprouts. A singleton. Divine spark. The higher self. Notice how most people begin seeing 11/111/1111 first?

2 – The Connection ♾️

The moment 1 becomes 2. Partnership, reflection, & decision. A handshake on a deal. Cooperation & duality. Connecting the dots. Agreement. The singleton is now a COUPLE.

3 – The Creation 🐣

Now that there’s union, creation follows. A family of three. A trio. Communication. Third-party involvement. Support. Divine intervention. Alchemy. Holy Trinity. Mother - Father - Child. Mind - Body - Spirit. The connection, agreement, & deal in the number 2 now starts to manifest & progress further.

4 – The Foundation 🪨

The roots take hold. Structure is formed. Home, job, wallet… anything with four corners that offers stability. A grounded sense of security. Safety. Building block. Corner stone. The family of 3 is now rooted & secure..

5 – The Turning Point 🔄

Changes & choices. Freedom & adventure. Having many to choose from. Cross purpose. A fork in the road. which path to take? We’ve come to the middle point between the 1 & 10… will you go backwards or forward at this point on the journey of numbers? Stay within the 4 vibration of your comfort zone where it’s safe OR grow & evolve to become a part of something bigger in the 6? Number 5 is also the “middle man”, the “go between”, the bridge or key between the physical & spiritual world. The gap bridger that connects the beginning of the journey 1-4 with the end of the journey 6-10. Which direction will you go? forward or back?

6 – The Community 🕸️

What began as self in the 1 has now become a system. A family, a network, an olive tree with deep roots & branching ties. Harmony or toxicity… Depending on which choice you made at the 5… to stay in your comfort zone in the 4 or proceed forward to the 6 & become a part of something greater than yourself. It’s also the number of “Man”. Service to others. Love & relationships of all kind. The interconnected web of all that is.

7 – The Pause ⏸️

Long-term investments, waiting to see those returns, harvest time, hopes & wishes for the future. Patience. Reflection on your journey from 1-6. Finger of God. Lucky number 7. Divine intervention. Divine timing. After becoming part of something bigger than yourself in the 6 you are now invested. 7 can also be looked at as destiny or fate.

8 – The Expansion 🐦‍🔥

Abundance arrives. Emotion, money, energy… it flows. As above, so below. The infinity loop is active. Personal power. Authority. Business takes off. Ambition. 8 is a very busy & fast number. Can indicate something coming in FAST. Seeing the rewards from your efforts/investments. Energetic return. What goes around comes around. Karma. Transformative.

9 – The Enlightenment 🌟

Near the end, we step into solitude. Wisdom gained, lessons integrated. The Hermit walks alone but with light in hand. Soul purpose. Higher beliefs/perspective. Being up in your head. Resilience. Remote locations. We are almost at completion in our journey through the numbers… just a little more work to do & a little further to go. Wrapping up. The finishing touches. Last minute adjustments before the grand finale.

10 – The Completion ✔️

Coming full circle. The cycle ends… but it also begins again. 1 + 0 = 1. Achievement, fulfillment, rebirth. You’ve done the work. Now start anew. Culmination. The circle of life. Recycling of energy/souls.

Now that you know the deeper story behind each number, you can see why repeating numbers carry certain energies. They’re like an echo or emphasis of that base vibration. They are shown to us in repeated patterns that way they are undeniable & we can’t help but notice them 😊.

• So when you see 111…

You’re getting a big “YES” to starting fresh.

This is the root energy of 1 amplified by the base energy of 3. It’s a sacred reminder that your thoughts are powerful, your energy is magnetic, & you are creating your next chapter right now.

— Your angels are saying: You’re ready. Stay focused. You’re safe to begin again.

• When you see 222…

This is the root energy of 2 amplified by the base energy of 3. It’s a reminder to trust the process, especially when things feel uncertain.

You’re being asked to come back into balance… body, mind, & spirit. It often shows up when emotional support, faith, & patience are needed.

— Your angels are saying: You’re not alone. Stay connected. Keep going.

• & when you see 2222…

Root energy of 2 intensified by base energy of 4. That’s an amplified call for harmony, reassurance, & divine timing.

If you’ve been feeling anxious (which I know you mentioned you have), this is Spirit surrounding you with stability & calm.. even if it doesn’t feel like it yet.

— It’s a number of deep healing. You’re safe. The foundation is being rebuilt.

Your angels aren’t just tossing random numbers at you. They’re sending you codes you already know how to read… you just needed the story behind the symbols.

xoxo

I hope this helped you feel more empowered, more grounded, & more connected.

Thank you so much for writing to me & trusting me with this question 🥰!

-STEPH🤍🫶🏻

[lunarsilkscreen]

Kingdom Hearts (Kairi and Aqua)

Most Japanese Media, Games, Cartoons, Comics, what have you are heavily inspired by [Studio Ghibli]s approach to help children understand depressing subjects..

Today, some of the older cartoons stand the test of time despite not having any of the context of yesteryear. Which can really mess with ones understanding of an art piece for sure.

In the Opening Sequence we see Two of our Main characters, one of whom doesn't get mentioned until the sequel.

Both of them are falling into the [Sea] {maybe star sea} through opposite directions. Roxas falls from the Dark side into the light and Sora the opposite; meeting in the middle.

We never get any clarification on what this *should* mean. It's an abstraction from the [jump]. And it's only ever extrapolated on in KH:BirthBySleep, when we actually deal with the three protagonists from that game, that were technically always around I guess. Doing stuff.

Here's where it starts getting dark and abstracted to the point where you're not supposed to understand it *until* [it] makes sense to you.

What that [it] might be? Take it up with Stephen King. I disassociated myself with all things [it] after having watched the original movie.

Id deep dive into [My Neighbor Totoro] which is supposed to help an audience with a sibling or family member who just [isn't] anymore.

Some soul taken into the catbus for their next trip through reincarnation.

Why is this Important ?

When we Get to Aquas Story in BBS which doesn't complete until KH:3, Aqua is the one who fell through into the [dark sea] where [Sora] and his [best soul friend ever][Ventus] caught each other in their riptide.

I ask because in these kinds of series, you start wondering why certain characters are relevant to the plot at all. Because, at a certain point, Kingdom Hearts *stops* being about trying to defeat the darkness [Game 1s Premise] and more about... Just existing.

How certain people take certain paths because they're uncertain about who or what they should be or should be doing. And you can't immediately tell which side is right and wrong despite having two clear sides at war.

This question frequently asked in Shonen, Action and Adventure Games, and [whatever else]; Are we doing the right thing? Are we fighting for the right reasons? Do we actually want to be fighting at all?

The Older Cast in Kingdom hearts games, missing from KH3 cast from other SQEX games, and ectra; really take the form of a good method of teaching children what to expect from life.

KH3 specifically presents our [Hero on his own for Once] Sora. (Isn't Sora always alone?) No. And yes..but mostly no

All his friends see him as the pink pillow princess he really is.

Stories like these take great lengths to ask players "Who is the company you keep?" And "Which company would keep you?"

We started fighting against the organization and yet were always portrayed alongside them.

Entwined, interconnected in a way that no non-combatant, could ever hope to be.

And here sits Aqua, at the bottom of the Dark Heartless Sea, lost alone, and for all intents and purposes... [not alive.]

And she faces off against her own self trying her hardest not to succumb to just jumping in and letting go of everything else.

The end of KH3 depicts [The Emperor] and [Luke Skywalker] playing with the souls of the protagonists like a chess set.

It turns out... Perhaps it was only ever a game.l played between two masters of opposing aspects, and getting so enraptured into *that* [Game] that nothing else matters...

It's just that... The Console Game; Kingdom Hearts; ends. Each entry has a conclusion. It's not the [Infinite Game] that the key blade masters are playing.

All of these souls entrapped, like In Jumanji, on opposing sides, but only because their leaders are putting them against each other.

If you ever just find yourself craving some of that delicious looking blue salt-water Ice cream that Uncle Scrooge shills ... This is why. I think.

[dreamofhircine]

okay so here is the 2023 books year-in-review, this is going to be v. long because I ended up reading & re-reading a lot of my backlog after rebuilding the bookshelves in our house. This is going to be roughly sorted, and I'll try and say a little bit about each thing.

Hazel Jane Plante

Little Blue Encyclopedia (for Vivian) - I adored this! It's a slimmer book, closer to a novella, but it was maybe my favorite piece this whole year. The central premise of this is that in a haze of grief after the death of her bestie a woman gets way too into their shared fandom and writes a combination of TV show fandom zine, obituary & love letter. The two-part narrative structure is something that Plante would go on to play w/ more in

Any Other City - also a great book! This is written as the memoir of a trans punk rock star split between her journal style letters in the 90s as she navigated an art scene as a woman who doesn't realize it yet, and then picks up again in the 2020s after her own celebrity was cemented.

Casey Plett

Little Fish - Really rad slice of life about a mennonite trans woman in Canada who has a lot of feelings about that. This feels more than anything like a strong expansion upon several of Plett's short stories in A Dream of a Woman.

A Dream of a Woman - I got lost in so many of the stories in this anthology, Plett writes the lives of these women so vividly it feels like you know them. You probably *do* know them.

A Safe Girl to Love - Plett's first anthology, recently re-published. I was not *as big* a fan of this one, but it still holds up very well and is a good example of her style generally.

The Locked Tomb - I am gonna talk about all three of these in one go, actually. These were really sweet, really nice, I really like the approach to necromancy as just sort of another kind of science or physical force, worked through a process very close to magic. I've been seeing art of these characters around for a long time now and it is nice to finally put a personality to the faces. The pool scene in GtNth especially really hit.

Gideon the Ninth

Harrow the Ninth

Nona the Ninth

Peter Watts - This is also gonna get a block review because so many of the things here are interconnected to one another. Starfish to Behemoth are all in The Rifters Trilogy, and Blindsight & Echopraxia are a pair. Watts has a really great way of tearing down the human brain and playing with all the ways that trauma can influence it, how adaptational quirks can be weaponized. Starfish is probably the single best way to get into his work, but if 'vampires in space' sounds more your speed then Blindsight has it covered.

Starfish

Maelstrom

Behemoth

Blindsight

Echopraxia

qntm

There Is No Antimemetics Division - This is a republish of qntm's large body of work on the SCP wiki, sharing the same name. This is really solid, and the use of narrative negative space is interesting.

Valuable Humans in Transit and Other Stories - A slim collection of short stories and an overall much better showing from qntm, no longer tied up w/ SCP stuff. The things that delve into the implication of human mind based AI constructs especially is really strongly written and will leave you thinking for a while after.

The Division - Broken Dawn is the older entry and did not really capture my attention very strongly, it felt phoned in more than anything else. Recruited & Compromised by contrast could stand on their own w/o The Division branding though both are very well integrated into the game, w/ events going back and forth between the two now that the game is getting more narrative content to it.

The Division: Broken Dawn

The Division: Recruited

The Division: Compromised

D&D - You can probably guess why I jumped into these and what game got me to do it. Drizzt is something I avoided for a very long time because of the associations in the fandom and that was probably not unwarranted tbh. I probably won't continue w/ the series after Exile. It is competently written but these things are creaking w/ their own age and just don't have enough going on to stand on their own unfortunately.

Drizzt: Homeland

Drizzt: Exile

The Devil You Know - Another entry in the Brimstone Angels series, which is my favorite of any of the longer running D&D series. Centered around the misadventures of a Tiefling Warlock and how she gets pulled into the big-dick-swinging matches between various devils trying to make their weird little power plays.

40K

Horusian Wars: Incarnation - This was stellar. Great look at the Inquisition and how insular and back-stabby it can be, I hope more comes from this.

Kasrkin - A mostly by the numbers book that was written entirely to promote the 'kasrkin vs necrons' Kill Team box that came out a bit back. Competent but doesn't have anything new or interesting to say.

Pariah - Eh. This wasn't bad, but it wasn't that good either. Abnett has long been one of my favorite authors in general, not even just in 40k specifically, but I don't think it is controversial to say he has fallen off lately. Compared to his earlier stuff w/ the Inquisitors, hell even compared to stuff like that Horusian Wars book and Pariah just doesn't do enough and the whole Bequin sequence right now feels like it is mostly being done to shift things around in the meta-narrative rather than be good books that stand on their own feet.

The Armour of Contempt - I re-read this one recently and it was just as good as when I first picked it up in high school. Abnett is at some of his best here.

General Fiction (Unsorted)

The Archive Undying: The Downworld Sequence Book 1 - Homosexual activities in a sci-fi fantasy world once dominated by city-scale god-king AIs that went critically rampant a long time ago. This is a really great start to what I hope will be an excellent series.

The Darkness That Comes Before - Re-read after initially reading this when it was new and I was like a pre-teen. Definitely not a book a pre-teen should read and maybe some of that explains why I am like this now. Let's not look at that *too* closely, yeah? This still stands on its own after all these years, though I hear the series in general kind of flagged after a while. If you're into nihilist fantasy check it out.

Burning Chrome - Re-read and enjoyed yet again. Classic Gibson, lays the frame upon which the rest of his body of work would be built.

Pattern Recognition - Re-read this and it still holds up. Gibson is at his height here, calling shots that would start to land almost *immediately* after he published it. Reading this may re-orient your fashion sense entirely so be forewarned and have a bit of space in your wardrobe first I guess.

All You Need Is Kill - Another re-read! I got back into this after realizing that a lot of that traumatized mech pilot pornography I was writing drew so much inspiration for this. I still love the story, I still love the framing, I still love the short and brutal way it is written and the translation is very solid.

Wasteland: Stories of the Apocalypse - Yet another re-read. I originally read this in high school and I owe a great amount of creative debt to some of these stories, hugely influential works and I recommend picking this up.

This Shape We’re in - A tiny little novella by the author of Motherless Brooklyn (which is currently sitting in my 'to do' pile). There is no adequate way to describe this that wouldn't sound like a joke, it is Lethem's most unusual and maybe his best for that.

Poetry

In the Shape of a Human Body I Am Visiting the Earth - Mostly translated poetry, this was solidly collected and a great example of Global(tm) Poetry.

One Hundred Apocalypses and other Apocalypses - More microfic really but I liked this. The different ways the world can end, be it physically from bombs or emotionally in a bad text message.

Wound from the Mouth of a Wound - Simply beautiful collection of work by torrin a. greathouse, I *adored* this.

Non-Fiction

Underlands: A Deep Time Journey - This was beautiful, simply put. A deep dive (hehe) into places beneath the earth and the people that spend more time beneath the surface than above it. I especially loved the travelogue in the cordoned off sections of the Paris catacombs, you can really feel the claustrophobia and danger of it all.

Bitch: The Female of the Species - I picked this up solely because it had a picture of a hyena on the cover. I do not regret that, it was great and that is something I seldom stay about pop-academic gender books.

Emergence: Labeled Autistic - Temple Grandin's first autobiography. This has been heavily dated in how she talks about being autistic and she has changed her views on this several times, to the point where depending on the version you pick up there may be several introductions from the author in a sequence reflecting on this. It is rare to see autobiographies from notable autistic women, it is rare for there to *be* notable autistic women, so I am really happy that I read this.

Memento Mori: The Dead Among Us - Mostly a photo book that I picked up while on a trip to MFABoston w/ my girlfriend. This is a great little table book if nothing else.

Infrastructural Brutalism: Art and the Necropolitics of Infrastructure - A somewhat dry but well researched dive into massive infrastructure projects and the death cult attitude that empowers them.

Queering Mennonite Literature - A university press publication, you know the drill w/ these. Good base to start from if you want to get more into the intersection of queer & menno literature, which is why I picked it up after reading a lot of Casey Plett's books.

David Graeber

Bullshit Jobs - Maybe the best that Graeber has been, and also an example of him leaning really hard into the pop-science aspect of his public persona. If you've got an office job that feels completely fake please read this.

The Dawn of Everything - Graeber's last work before his death and... Well I think it is really good, well written, broadly researched, but much like Debt you're going to either agree w/ his premise or not. There are some rather radical takes here. I highly recommend it though.

Debt: The First 5000 Years - There has been a lot of back and forth on this and there will never be a solid answer. I think the arguments made here are fairly strong, pretty convincing, but if you're involved in this academically in any way you're liable to have a lot of strong opinions one way or another as you read it.

LitMags

Clarkesworld: Every sci-fi enjoying homosexual has a Clarkesworld subscription these days so I don't have a lot unique to say about this. Great year for work, I love the regular infusion of translated works as usual, and I hope that the recent business hits they've taken don't impact it too hard. Definitely re-subbing.

Alaska Quarterly Review: There were some good entries to this but for the most part it kind of felt like an 'eating your vegetables' situation. I probably won't renew for the next year, but I don't *regret* picking it up this year either.

McSweeney’s: Solid as ever, though I found the 'halloween' issue they did to be kind of boring overall. Everything else was primarily hits, and I'll be carrying this forward next year.

[richincolor]

Interview with Janice Lynn Mather

Today we have author Janice Lynn Mather sharing with us all about her new novel “Where was Goodbye?” that publishes next Tuesday, April 30th. The novel is an exploration of grief and mental health after the death of a family member. 

K. Imani: This novel was truly touching as I felt so many emotions throughout Karmen’s story and her journey to understand her brother. What was your inspiration for Karmen’s story?

Janice: Two truths: life is painful, and humans are amazing. The story began with the thought that we, as people, live through so much—including unexpected, agonizing, blinding loss. And yet, we continue to move through life and the world. I wanted to slow down and think about what it’s actually like to live through an almost unfathomable loss. How do we do that as people? How does a young person, especially, handle that when there’s so much going on simply with trying to figure out life as a teen bordering on young adulthood?

K. Imani: I can imagine when telling a story about grief you want to get it right. Can you describe the type of research you completed to understand how people respond to grief?

 Janice: Life experience informs my understanding of grief. I got the idea for the story, began writing it, and then, less than a year into the process, I unexpectedly lost my own son soon after his birth. I would never have chosen to write a story about grief and loss under those circumstances, but I went ahead with the story. I had other experiences with grief too—my own, and that of others around me. I’ve had plenty of opportunities to both support and let down folks around me as they grieved by saying or doing something that was helpful—or not. I think for many of us, we mess up in how we approach or avoid someone who’s grieving. Hopefully, our mistakes bother us enough that we go over them and try to figure out what we could do better, how we could be kinder, more considerate, next time.

K. Imani: Some of my favorite parts were the flashbacks with Karmen and Julian. Can you share why you chose to include the flashbacks into the narrative?

 Janice: I have a soft spot for flashbacks myself. Maybe I spend too much time revisiting actual events in my mind, but I find going over the past can be really important in navigating the present. For Karmen, flashbacks are an important way to connect with Julian again, to feel like her old reality—the one where life felt right and Julian was there—isn’t gone forever. It’s also a way for her to try to make sense of the incongruity of Julian’s absence now. It’s a way for Julian to be active and real, in the story, as he is in her memory.

K. Imani: What was the hardest scene or chapter to write? 

Janice: I don’t want to give the story away, but there are moments when Karmen revisits the night of Julian’s death head-on, and grapples with his death really directly. These moments are some of the most painful for Karmen, and I feel these for her. Capturing the scenes was intense, and took a lot of emotion and energy.

K. Imani: What are you hoping teens come away with after reading Karmen’s journey in search of understanding her brother? 

Janice: Books and reading have been shown to be such an effective way of promoting understanding, empathy, and emotional intelligence. I think all of us who are avid readers and lovers of stories know how meaningful it is when we read a book that reflects us—our background, or our struggles, or our pain, or our joys. My hope for readers depends on their perspective. For those whose experiences are close to Karmen’s, I hope they feel heard. For those who haven’t lived with loss, I hope the story sparks understanding of what that journey might look like.

K. Imani: Can you share what you are writing right now? 

Janice: Right now I’m moving between a historical fiction piece about three interconnected family lines, and trying my hand at picture books.

K. Imani: That sounds exciting and I’m looking forward to it. As for reading, what books by other Black authors are you looking forward to?

Janice: We go through dozens of kids’ books in our house, monthly. I’m really excited to get my hands on Journey to Grandma’s House (Fall 2024) by Nadia L. Hohn. Nadia’s an amazing and prolific author, editor and presenter, and her Malaika series has been a huge hit in our home.  I’m also eager for A Week of Shenanigans by Janet Costa Bates. I think the name says it all.

Thank you again Janice for sharing your time with us and sharing more about “Where Was Goodbye”. Please check out my review on Friday, then run to your nearest bookstore on Tuesday to grab her book.

_____________________________________________________________

Janice Lynn Mather is a Bahamian Canadian author. Her first novel, Learning to Breathe, was a Governor General’s Award finalist, a Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize finalist, shortlisted for the Amy Mathers Teen Book Award, an ALA/YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults selection, an Amelia Bloomer Book List pick, and a Junior Library Guild Selection. Her second novel, Facing the Sun, was an Amy Mathers Teen Book Award winner. Where Was Goodbye? is her third novel for teens. Janice Lynn lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.

[shitpostingkats]

Hello I have returned with thoughts again

Thinking about Seer Trio, I love them <3 I forgot if they have an actual trio name or not I’ll have to go double check that

Just,,, Jaden and Chazz friendship man, rivalry is optional but I’m thinking ab the TikTok again where Chazz is one of three ppl who actually genuinely care about Jaden and it makes me go aaaaaaaaa. I never really think about Chazz and Jesse’s dynamic but they have great potential too.

I just think they’re so cool, little guys bonding over being able to see things others can’t. Maybe J&J showing Chazz the ropes on Seeing and stuff idk. Man let them be soft. Let them confide in each other and lean on each other and have each other’s backs.

If you want to go a step further make it QPR. I will die on Spiritshipping hill but have J&J be in a QPR with Chazz, I just think it’d be neat <3

I don’t care if it might be OOC in some cases, let them be soft <3 (and let there be angst, we always gotta have some of that, yes? :D)

Hmmmmm family trauma with Chazz and Great Expectations™, I’m a big fan of the hc of Jaden having no home life and having to raise himself after everything with Yubel when he was younger :))) I don’t think we know much about Jesse’s home life, so let’s make it a nice in between of the other two’s. His parents are still around unlike Jaden’s, but they’re more distant and neglectful than Chazz’s. They have expectations for him and if he fails to meet them it’s like he doesn’t exist, whereas Chazz’s parents just get angry. Give them bad parents and little to no support system, as a treat <3

Have them deal with Jaden’s self-destructive tendencies and lack of self-worth (he sees it as him making up for the crimes he committed as Supreme King. They see it as him being suicidal. “How can it be considered suicidal”, Jaden argues, “if I’m not even capable of dying?” Their hearts hurt for him regardless.) Give me angst from love, and love through the angst. Those who hurt and are hurting, helping and healing, even if it’s only by a fraction at a time.

Much love <3

Jesse Anderson my beloved. <3

What is this man's home life. I've written pages of backstory just to answer this question and every part of it is as wild as I could possibly make it because I think having every part of this southern boi be insane is the funniest possible route.

Chazz and Jesse friendship ooooooh. I found it so funny during GX when people were like "Ah yes, the two boys who can see duel spirits, Jesse and Jaden." LIKE! Guys Chazz is standing RIGHT there.

It makes sense tho, while Jesse and Jaden kinda incorporate the supernatural into themselves, Chazz is by all accounts just a normal guy who does not let being able to see invisible monsters distract him from being a run of the mill grunge teenager. And I adore him for it. Chazz being the actual Common Knowledge Braincell of the trio. Jesse and Jaden are capable of subduing space gods, but Chazz is the one you call when you need help on your taxes. (He grumbles and yells at you the whole time and is so grouchy you don't realize until later he was actually really helpful.)

Also YES to qpr. Give Jaden as many qprs as possible. He deserves it. The ideal Jaden Yuki support network is a delicate interconnected web of partners who are all in a groupchat together to keep track of who the hell is taking care of their shared boyfriend over the weekend. Chazz sends a selfie to Jesse of Jaden literally haven broken into his house and fallen asleep on top of him with the caption "come get your mans >:[" and Jesse responds "No <3"

[brucenorris007]

"Sonic 06: gameplay is shit, story is shit."

Okay, I somewhat disagree but don't see the need to expend energy toward-

*comparison between 06 and Forces is drawn*

My brain: heyguesswhatyou'rehyperfocusednow

I was going to do things today. . . but here we are.

Okay, up top and up front: 06 and Forces are both flawed, yes.

But they are flawed in fundamentally different ways, and Forces flaws are, quite frankly, far more glaring and demeritorious for a franchise like Sonic than 06. Anyone who, years from now, goes on to claim that "Uh, actually, Forces was peak." the way that some people are saying about 06 now will be just as, if not more, wrong. And I'll attribute such claims to declining media literacy.

BEFORE the youngsters in the fandom start throwing things at me, note that I said just as wrong. 06 wasn't ever as good as some of the mainline games prior or even spinoff titles after.

The difference is, most of 06's issues stem from the fact that it reads as pitiably unfinished.

The problems with Forces begin and end with the fact that it reads like self-insert fan fiction that had either zero beta readers or too many beta readers that were all given editing privileges. There's definitely a place in the world for that sort of creativity, but said place is not within a licensed game that people have to pay for; one that drastically affects the canon of the franchise and how the fans old and new perceive it and the characters within.

All right? Okay, let's get into details.

Let's address gameplay first, since I have less to say about that.

On this count, if nothing else, Forces barely edges out by being functional; granted, that's the end of it. I wouldn't go back to play it again, and the 'highlights' I can recall mostly felt like reskins of stages in the style of Colors but shortened, with boss fights reminiscent of daytime Unleashed. I imagine the primary draw for people is watching their customized 'sona jump and fly around whilst listening to dialogue from the main cast.

And this isn't really a substantive point, but the fact that receiving stuff like outfits like loot crates at the end of virtually every stage feels kind of manipulative and annoys me. If there's unlockable features, put some actual challenge between the player and the prize, like how you perform within the stage. Otherwise it's just another example of "shiny, novelty, tickle brain often, get player to play longer."

Setting that brief tangent aside since that's just a trend in games in general and not Sonic specific, moving on to 06's gameplay. And uh, yeah. The USP was, like the adventure games, supposed to be that you got three interconnected stories and three main characters each with unique play styles.

I suppose 06 showed us before anything else that Shadow really isn't as fast as Sonic, and as an idea, Silver's psychokinesis was cool. If the tracking in the Speed Up stages and the hit boxes in a handful of other areas had been ironed out, there's foundation for a fairly solid experience. Project 06 is basically proof that the base of the game had potential that wasn't realized, whether due to time constraints or other reasons.

As far as environs, the concept for Kingdom Valley showed off the most soul, I'd say, with Silver's future coming in close second. Character design for the Iblis fragments (not sure if that's the official name but I'm doing stream-of-consciousness here) and Mephiles I actually like a lot. I don't think there's anything objectively wrong with them and however you rate them will come down to preference.

Also, the model for Sonic is like. . . ridiculously good. He just looks like an older teenager; it fits with the widely accepted idea that he was 15 as of Adventure 2. Polish it a bit and that's just how he appears in my head when I write about him.

That said, there are only about six different environs that serve as stages, discounting the hub areas, and compared to Heroes' twelve stages, it just adds to that incomplete/rushed feeling.

That's about all I can say on the gameplay aspect. Functional yet non-stimulating technically wins out over some creativity yet patchy. They are games, after all.

Now then, the "story is shit" business.

Look, if you're going to criticize Sonic's story—which, yeah, his should be subjected to more scrutiny, being the titular character—then much of what you can say against it also applies to the first Adventure. Eggman wants to collect a thing (emeralds/Princess), Sonic wants him to not collect the thing (emeralds/Princess) because he's obviously planning to do evil stuff with the thing, Sonic manages to get the thing only for Eggman to snatch it out of his hands.

Multiple times.

Meaning Sonic spends most of the games on fetch quests that Eggman keeps one-upping him on until the penultimate fight.

And those are the beats. Of both stories. (For Sonic.)

And then at the end of both games, a monster you've fought in various forms (Chaos/Iblis) reappears to threaten the world on a scale that requires the seven chaos emeralds to combat.

Super Sonic. Rad soundtrack. Credits.

Granted, much like how Gamma's story was the strongest in Adventure, the quality of the three main story lines in 06 also vary in strength, with Shadow's taking first place.

My point is, in a franchise that is about characters, you don't grade every aspect of the story on the same scale. You weigh the grade of various aspects differently; and the point that gets graded most heavily is:

Character moments; which can encapsulate literal moments, arcs, development etc.

And for all its flaws, 06 has character moments, almost immediately, even. Sonic's first spoken line is "My, that's a pretty snazzy performance there!"

Which, after the tension of Eggman interrupting the festival and threatening Elise, cuts through the moment right away and, paired with the next several seconds, shows who Sonic is. He sees Eggman's robots aiming and waits until the last second to jump before going to town bashing up bots. Even as he carts Elise off amidst homing missiles and explosions, he's grinning the whole time.

Sonic does what he does because it's fun.

And his third spoken line, answering Elise's question of why he's helping, is: "No special reason."

Again, that's Sonic. Doesn't matter who it is, he helps people because he Does what's Cool. And as well as being fun, fighting off Eggman and his bots is Cool.

06, as Silver's introduction to the series, also does a decent job establishing his character of Temporal Bulldozer. He can be aimed, but his solution to problems first and foremost is usually smashing, and it's really tricky to change his mind once he's focused. He suffers from myopia arguably as bad or worse than Metal Sonic. Amy's the only one who momentarily gets him to pause and wonder if really does want to kill Sonic.

Which is a character moment for her. As in Adventure 2, Amy will happily break laws and go against who and whatever to help her friends; and as she did with Shadow, she's rather skilled at getting very hurt people to listen.

She's not unlike Silver in her willingness to do whatever it takes, really; since Temporal Bulldozer can and does traverse time on several occasions to make things right. And up until the last moment, it never occurs to him that anyone but he should bear the burden of saving the world. Blaze has to physically shove him aside so she can absorb Iblis herself.

Silver sees himself as a Hero with a responsibility toward the future just as much Sonic sees himself as just Some Guy.

Finally, Shadow. And man, there's a reason a lot of people say 06 was the last time a game featured Shadow written correctly.

It's me. I'm one of a lot of people.

Team Dark in general gets a fair bit of spotlight in 06. Rouge, an anti-heroine with perhaps the greatest self-interest after Eggman, promises Shadow that she'd stand with him even if the very world turned against him. Omega, who loathes taking orders and prioritizes his own freedom nearly as much as Sonic, takes on Rouge's assignment for him without question or complaint to wait out 200 years to help rescue Shadow.

And Shadow, in an in-game line during his first fight with Mephiles, reaffirms all the progress he made in his titular game that was wholly about discovering his identity: "Don't bother trying to deceive me. I know who I am!"

And, in contrast to the Shadow the franchise first introduced us to, the Shadow of Adventure 2 who was thoroughly convinced that his only remaining worth was his ability to keep his promise to Maria, the Shadow who was so resigned that he chose to plummet through the planet's atmosphere to his presumed death. . .

That Shadow is faced squarely with his fate of persecution, asked why he would bother fighting to protect. That Shadow declares that it the world turns on him, "I will fight as I always have."

He's grown such that he's now willing to fight against fate.

And that's pretty fucking cool.

On the other side, applying the same grading method to Forces, we find what I call (as of just now) character fauxments.

Remember how I talked about 06's introduction for Sonic? How he cuts through tensions, finds joy and fun in fighting bullies and bad guys?

The thing about that, which Forces doesn't seem to understand, is that if you lean too hard on the wisecracks and nonchalance, you end up with a character who reads as either obnoxious or totally tone-deaf. Sonic knows when to take things seriously, yet in Forces he's purportedly been tortured as well as locked up for half a year, Infinite's destroyed countless homes and killed who knows how many people, and yet when Sonic interrupts his fight with Silver. . .

I mean, if Sonic was written correct, you'd cut out a bunch of faff and change his line delivery. Show that he's frustrated by his time confined and absolutely raring to throw hands and get to business; because Sonic does understand when things have gotten real, and while rare, he does get angry. Something like:

"Since you like talking so much, mind sharing the source of your power? I can ask the easy way or the hard way. I've been cooped up a long time, so I'm hoping you pick the hard way."

It doesn't need to be the most original lines in the world, but Sonic's banter in the middle of a war shouldn't be long-winded, no matter how pretentious his opponent is (and damn, is Infinite pretentious. Like to the point that it's the most memorable part of the game.) If there's banter, it should be punchy and succinct; quick, like he is.

Instead, Forces Sonic's attitude is just kind of. . . incongruous with the stakes the game claims to have established. But then, since we don't get a truly convincing scene showing the rest of the cast being sad that he reportedly died, that's not too surprising.

Speaking of setting up stakes, here's an idea. Rather than cutting from Sonic laying battered in the middle of the city for a lazy six-month time skip established by text on the screen, make it clear that "Oh shit, things are different" via gameplay.

After Sonic falls, immediately transition into a level. Where you run from right to left to escape Eggman's fleet. Turns everything on its head, you can witness and navigate the destruction as it's happening and if you string together enough environs, you can even have the city burning in the distance or the skyline as you near the end of the stage and escape to relative safety.

Anyway.

And of course, the notorious character fauxment: Tails cowering in front of an offline Omega.

There's nothing I can say about this fauxment that hasn't been said already. It's not the first time in the series that Tails was portrayed as having regressed to a scared child, but it is the most egregious.

And. . . actually, that's about it, at least off the top of my head. Which might speak to how short the game is and how little screen time and action the main cast get aside from Sonic and the player character.

But it's enough to determine that Forces' story, or what stands in for it, is weaker than what 06 offered.

Again, I'm not here to rally a feral defense of 06 as a masterpiece, but its flaws are not on the level of Forces. The reason they're lumped together is the amount of disdain both games got on their release; though in the case of 06, the 2000's were just a weird time when hating things was somehow cooler than liking them, and since 06 wasn't up to par with Adventure 2 or Heroes, people picked an aspect of the game-most often how much the almost final fantasy style model for Elise didn't match up with the Mobian models (and yes, the final cutscene, but there's nothing new I can say about that either, and talking about it here is just an open invitation for someone to blow it out of proportion again) and dogpiled the hate on the game.

Sonic 06 feels unfinished owing to a lot of little and larger details. Knuckles' portrayal and having little to do in the story, poor optimization leading to nearly twenty second loading times, BLAZE BEING A GLOWING NEON MISSED OPPORTUNITY! (SEGA, I know I was literally twelve when the game was released, but my Phoenix headcanon works so well and makes her appearance in both Rush and 06 work! A retroactive fix would be so easy and we could get more adventures in her dimension!)

Even acknowledging all that, though, there were still attempts at creativity that just, for one reason or another, didn't pan out. There's significant potential here.

Forces is just. . . a mess. In every sense. And I understand how a mess can be attractive to a fandom, because a mess means you can take whatever you want from it and organize things however you choose.

But a mess that's sold as a finished game is not the same as a rushed title with visible untapped potential.

[sonosvegliato]

Currently rereading "to an athlete dying young" and going absolutely insane over it, it is so well written!

I have yet to find anyone who is even half as good as you are at establishing insanely high tension/stakes while also doing comedic relief the way you do, every single interaction absolutely kills me. Especially Tim's interactions with Jason and Bruce are so incredibly interesting, you really nail those!!!!!

Reading your fic isn't enough, I need to print it out & eat it.

That being said, what does your writing process look like, if you don't mind me asking?

This is a question I only imagined getting once I have my original work published, so thank you for stoking the ever-hotter flames of my ego while I shoot into the stratosphere.

When I am famous with 10 books published and documentaries are made about me, I dream I will have a well-polished answer for to this question. SYKE.

Process:

F around and find out. Not in a threatening way. Just like—playing around with ideas like they're Legos and you are a three year old baby.

A lot of the time I get a snippet of something and I do a "sketch" of it before I forget it. I have a lot of these, and some of them are impossible to interconnect, so I literally take apart the story and rearrange it, and will do this once, twice, or five times to get through a single scene. I read this writing advice once where if you're stuck on a scene than the problem you really have is a chapter back, and I'm not much for universal writing advice, but I do believe that if I'm stuck in a place, then something else has got to be better. Sort of like pulling a car in park over and over again until you sorta get in in between the lines. I am really bad at parking. Literally not figuratively.

To an Athlete Dying Young is probably the closest to plotting I've ever been, since I'm using what actually happened in the comics as a loose guide for the events in the series. But I still write snippets that I jam together and take apart and peel and stick. My document looks like [LINKS NOTES RESEARCH] [STORY STORY STORY STORY] [RANDOM SCENE] [STORY] [SNIPPET SNIPPET SNIPPET SNIPPET] with some hyping myself up in between. Example of my "plotting", pure and unedited:

^ wouldn't you like to know where this is from

And here's a snippet that was possibly going to be in hold the low lintel up. I was going to have Tim move in with Jason. This is everything I wrote for it, so you're not missing any context:

“I’ve had to move out of my house,” Tim continues. 

“That’s…a change. Can I ask what—”

“My uncle isn’t real,” Tim says.

Hood lifts his hands. They pause in the air for twenty seconds before he lowers them, fingers extended towards Tim. “What?”

“My uncle’s fake. I made him up. They’d’ve made me live somewhere else, otherwise,” Tim says. “I…I don’t want to live there.”

He leans against the warehouse wall, feels the dusty wood under the flat of his hands. “So, anyway, I was just wondering…” He glances at his shoes, then back to Hood. Nervousness, with an ounce of confidence. Just a pinch, not too much. Very little trust can take you very far. “If it were maybe possible…”

He trails off just as Hood starts to lean forward. Hook, line—

“Could I stay with you?”

—and sinker.

“I don’t think so,” Hood says.“Why not move in with your brother?”

“He’s working. I couldn’t do that to him.” And he lives too far away. 

“I’m working, too,” Hood says. “And I can guarantee I’m not doing the kind of things your cop brother will like.”

“Alright. Well, if you want to find me, you can find me in the Bowery, where that old church is. I don’t think any rogues have made their hideouts there, but I guess I’ll find out.” 

“Park Row isn’t safest place in the world right now,” Hood says. “You know there’s a reason people call it Crime Alley, right?”

“I’ve been around here longer than you think.”

“Look. Kid. You can’t stay with me. And with all these new murders, I don’t think it’s a good idea you’re even coming here. I get it. You don’t want child services sniffing your ass. I get that more than anybody, but. There are people out there, strangers even, who are willing to help you.”

It’s not a guilt trip. It’s a gentle emotional suggestion. It’s taking Hood by the collar and throwing him over Tim’s shoulder to slam him into a giant guilt pit that only gets deeper the more he struggles. Tim’s English teacher calls it pathos. 

Then the suit for an extra layer of DRAMA.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Also, Tim and Superboy were supposed to be better friends and have sleepovers.

“You were sleep talking,” Superboy says. “It woke me up.”

“Sorry,” Tim says. 

“You don’t look so good, bro. You going to be sick or something?”

“No.”

“What were you dreaming about?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

Tim hears the sheets shift as Superboy turns over. 

“I don’t have dreams,” he says. “I hear they can be pretty gnarly though. Was yours gnarly?”

“Yeah.”

“You drink apple juice before bed?”

“No.”

“Good. I hear apple juice fucks you up.” 

They fall silent. Tim doesn’t have his phone to distract him. He stares in the darkness at the blank wall. 

“And cheese,” Superboy says. “Cheese will make you dream some wild shit. Again, can’t say if it’s true. But that’s what the internet told me. I learn a lot of things on the internet.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Finally, Black Canary was going to have a role similar to the one she has in Young Justice.

I actually have quite a few snippets of her being sort of Tim's therapist, stereotypical Couch of Mental Breakdowns included, but it never got included into the story, just remained outlier scenes. Also Tim was not very receptive to talking it out.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Summary: If I'm bored in the story, I throw a firecracker and watch stuff blow up ✌️

Thank you for asking! And it's an absolute honor to have written a story that's both worth a reread and being eaten. Hope this entertains you until I get the next part up!

[sicklyseraphnsuch]

Three Times a Hairy Hooligan met a Guardian

Snippets of a fic that may or may not come to be.

E. Aster Bunnymund

The large rabbit kneels down, until he was crouching eye to eye with Toothless. Something wordless passes between them and the Night Fury makes a low, chirping noise. The rabbit - a Pooka - nods as if understanding the dragon perfectly.

"Yeah, I know a thing or two about being the last of your kind."

Green lightning fizzes to life between the knuckles of Aster's padded paw. He allows the energy dance from claw to claw before sending it towards Toothless. With a squawk, resembling an overgrown bird more than a dragon, Toothless hastily flaps back, in an attempt to dodge. But the green energy lands without a sound on his nose. Toothless blinks, going cross-eyed for a second.

"Uh... What did you just do?" Hiccup asks, trying not to panic.

Aster wipes down his muzzle and offers a shrug. "Just a blessing. Not much more I can do, being so far from home."

"Since when can you bless stuff?" Jack pipes in, his carefree smile putting Hiccup at ease. "You've been holding out on me, Roo."

"You never needed it," Aster snorts.

"Well, go on, share with the class." Jack elbows his friend.

"Rack off." Aster leans away, rolling his eyes. "I told ya - it ain't much. Just... Whenever this fella decides to have hatchlings, he can have plenty, and they'll be strong, little blighters. No dud egg for him." Then Aster tosses a coy look at Jack, then at Hiccup, then back to Jack. "'Course if you insist, I could always give you that same blessing."

Jack's blush sweeps up his cheeks to the roots of his hair. Hiccup blinks, puts the pieces, then turns a bright red himself.

Oh. Aster just gave Toothless a fertility charm? spell? Oh. Oh wow.

Nicholas St. North

"Is... Did that dragon sculpture move?" Hiccup points. He wasn't supposed to say that. He was supposed to have some kind of serious conversation with the new trader. He was supposed to iron out an agreement like his Dad did with Johann, or barring that, get info about dragon hunter movement in the archipelago. But all that prep went flying out the window when Hiccup set foot on the infamous Santoff Claussen ship.

The rumors were not only true, but actually underplayed the wondrous things that North had in his ship. That was a dragon made out of metal! It was about the size of his palm and sculpted from thin sheets of iron? no, can't be! The sheets were as thin as his fingernails, and interlocked in a near seamless fashion! And more importantly, the metal dragon moved!

Somehow, Hiccup crossed through the whole ship just to study this metallic marvel. He could hear some kind of ticking - gears? Those sounded like gears. Whatever internal mechanisms were allowing this metal sculpture to move, flapping its wings and swishing its tail.

He hears a deep, rumbling laughter as a hand claps him on the shoulder. "Yes, is toy!"

Hiccup turns to the new trader, North. "Toy? Did you say toy?"

Bright blue eyes twinkled. "Yes, you like? I give to you. No cost."

Aaaaand that's totally not suspicious at all. "Why? Is it cursed?"

Again, there's that booming laugh. "Cursed? No! I guarantee. Made myself!"

Hiccup's eyes threatened to pop out of his skull. "You made that!" He glances back at the apparently toy dragon, then back to North, who rivaled Stoik in size and bulk. Those thick fingers somehow shaped all those delicate parts? There's no way!

"Yes, I tell no lie!" North scoops up the metal dragon, pressing some hidden lever to pop open the belly. Inside, as Hiccup guessed, there was a clump of interconnected gears click-click-clicking away. "See, what I do is..."

By the time North is done explaining, and Hiccup has stopped asking his endless questions, the sun had fully set and it was too late for North to conduct any business with Berk. Hiccup didn't even notice the hours passing until he walks outside and it's already night time.

Toothiana

Once Toothiana was well enough to walk, but not yet fly, Valka showed off the rest of her home. Well, not that she's showing off really. She's just being a good host. Not that she's hosted anything in the last twenty years so really, what does she know about hosting? Ahem. Right. So.

Keeping Toothiana's hand tucked in her elbow, she guides the other woman into the heart of the sanctuary. Valka watches as Toothiana's crown feathers fluff up as her jewel-like eyes open wide, drinking in the sight of so many dragons flying about. It's clear that she forgets herself for she slips out of Valka's hold, and nearly throws herself off the edge. Luckily, her foot catches on something and she topples over before anything bad could happen. That doesn't stop Valka from running over and gently pulling her up from the ground.

"Oh, sorry! I - My wings -!" Toothiana dissolves into helpless giggles, but Valka can pick up just the slightest note of distress.

"Well, you wouldn't be the first to go flying off in such a state." Idly, she plucks a leaf caught on one of Toothiana's feathers, right where an ear should be. How curious. "A creature of flight hates being grounded, as I have learned."

Toothiana tilts her head, eyeing the leaf in Valka's fingers before looking at Valka herself. "That's awful. Those dragon hunters..." Something dark crosses her expression, her gaze going distant. "I suppose... somethings are the same no matter where you go."

Valka frowns. Despite their very brief acquaintance, she has come to know the other woman as a bright, sweet soul. The shine of her cheer is rivaled only by the way her plumage soaks in sunlight. Seeing sorrow in Toothiana twists something in her guts.

"We'll get your wings sorted out," Valka tells her, scrounging up all the confidence she had. "You'll be up with the rest of them in no time."

Toothiana's look refocuses on her, smiling softly. And Valka... Well, she's staring. She knows she's staring. But Valka has never encountered anything like Toothiana. There's just so much to see, so much to study. Valka resists the urge to simply comb her hand through those feathers.

Toothiana laughs, truly this time. "Well, I'm no dragon. I wouldn't wish to intrude."

"You're as lovely as one. It's really no wonder those dragon hunters came after you. They probably figured you were a new species."

"As lovely as a dragon," Toothiana echoes.

Valka blinks as her mind catches up. Then she snaps her head to the side, unable to meet Toothiana's eyes. Right. That's not something one usually says. Dragons are considered many things - strong, ferocious, even frightening! But they are hardly thought to be lovely.

She feels a soft hand rest on hers, prompting Valka to glance at Toothiana.

"You are very kind. Despite the... circumstances, I'm glad to have met you."

[nicnacsnonsense]

can i ask why you thought ofmd s2 was bad? unrelated to you disliking it, i mean.

Oh Nonny. I could write you a 10000 word essay on the problems I see in OFMD s2 and still have much more to say. I am currently sitting on nearly six hours of footage going episode by episode detailing issues I see and the corrections I would make and why, and that still doesn’t fix everything. And part of the issue is all these things are so interconnected that it is hard to sit here and make a brief list of problems because it all feeds back into each other. What I will try to do here is list some of the broad topics of where I see issues, and you or anyone can ask follow up questions if you would like more info.

1) Character arcs

With the exception of the mini arc Ed goes through across the first three episodes, which is generally very well done, none of the characters go through any sort of satisfying coherent arc throughout the season. I count Ed’s reconciliation with the crew & retirement arcs, Stede’s manliness arc, Izzy’s “redemption” arc, Lucius’s trauma arc, and the arc related to Olu and his romantic relationships, all of which were poorly done.

2) Antagonists

Much like in s1, s2 has 3 characters seemingly set up to be major antagonists. However in this case none of these antagonists live up to their set up or potential at all. Ned gets killed off the same episode he’s introduced in and ceases to matter as a character after that, Ricky is a complete nothing of a character, and Zheng drops all the compelling themes and contrasts to Stede and the looming threat of her fleet to actually be our friend who we like now. And the plot that these antagonists deliver is underwhelming to say the least.

3) Humor

One thing the first season handled really well was the balance of the humor and the more emotional moments and more serious subjects. It was always careful about who or what it was making the butt of the joke. It did sometimes delve into slapstick or otherwise make a joke out of things that should have been painful or otherwise traumatizing but it didn’t generally ask you to laugh at trauma and certainly never invited you to laugh at trauma that you were at other times supposed to take seriously.

Another issue with the humor I have in this season is that there are a number of jokes that exist at the expense of characterization. The first season did have the occasional one liner that maybe didn’t totally fit in with the character, but this season has multiple extended joke sequences that bend characterization in order to work, which ultimately sucks a lot of the potential humor out of it.

4) Themes

This one is a bit of a odd one out in that in a different show I would not count it as point against the show that it fails to have meaningful themes. But the first season of OFMD set the standard for the show as one that does have a lot to say about things like trauma and recovery and emotional support, about masculinity and toxic masculinity and patriarchy, about racism and colonialism and white supremacy. Season 2 seems vaguely aware that it is a show that is supposed to have themes along those lines, but largely fails to incorporate them beyond the occasional wink at the camera and often ends up perpetuating the same things that the first season was trying to criticize.

5) Just the writing in general?

I realize this is kind of a cop out, but yeah. There’s just a pervasive problem with the writing throughout that’s hard to put into specific boxes. Set ups with no or underwhelming pay off, pay off with no set ups, characterization frequently feeling a bit off, characters lacking a clear motive for their behavior, and a tendency to jump from big emotional moment to big emotional moment where each individual moment is well done but there is a serious lack of connective tissue in between or even consideration for how these emotional moments reflection on each other.

Hopefully that helps give you an idea of what some of my issues are Nonny; like I said I can offer more specifics on any of these points on request.

[nalyra-dreaming]

First off, I absolutely LOVE your writing! You capture these characters so well, and Laden as the Sea was such a treat with filling in what might have been happening between the scenes we saw on the show. Sometimes I find it hard to remember that what you wrote didn't actually happen on the show! Thank you! Now for the ask: since you're a huge book fan too, how "necessary" do you think it is to read Blackwood Farm and Blood Canticle before the Prince Lestat books - specifically for someone who really isn't all that interested in the Mayfair storylines? Probably irrelevant background - I've been a huge fan of the VCs since way back in the mid-80s, but never read those two. I haven't read the Prince Lestat trilogy either, I think at the time those came out I thought the Atlantis storyline sounded a bit out there and I didn't want to end up being disappointed, LOL. But I just have to know what happened with all my vampires, and especially now that they're obviously dropping references to the PL books into the show I definitely have to read them. Just not sure if there's any necessary background info in Blackwood Farm and Blood Canticle that I really shouldn't miss. Thanks for any input!

Ohhhh thank you dear, that is such a beautiful feedback, thank you sooo much!!! 💕 So glad you like! *hugs* Hope you'll continue to!

Wrt to your question (also HIIIIII to another long-time fan, I totally remember being weirded out by the story hinted in the title(s), too^^^)

Those two books... are not "necessary".

I find Blackwood Farm a fun read, and also a bit of a wild ride, but ultimately there is not a lot of "new" things in there - and they barely have a connection to the later books. There isn't even a lot of Lestat in there (but the interesting tidbit that he still "cleans up" young ones from time to time, and that people warn others from going into NOLA.) Maybe the most important thing is knowing that (the names) Quinn and Mona come from this one :) Quinn is a delight though, in his own way, and while they might draw on the connections to the Talamasca and the Mayfairs later in the show (maybe) - you can read it later, if you want.

Blood Canticle... is something of a supposed follow-up, but it's... totally OOC for Lestat, and the whole thing with Rowan... *shudders*.

The book is totally ... IDK. It was written during Stan's illness and subsequent death and... mhh. I do think that influenced things. There's nothing I really like about it. Not the Mayfair nor the Taltos connections, and thank goodness Anne dropped the whole Rowan thing like a hot potato after, too. It just feels off. There is also a very infamous rant (copied here, though the Amazon link does not seem to work anymore, unfortunately) she posted in response to a negative review. In that response rant she closes by saying that Blood Canticle was the last of the Chronicles and that she was... glad.

Fortunately, she changed her mind.

The last three books are definitely a wild ride, too.

They introduce a lot of new characters, new background stories, and a lot of the interconnections of what we supposedly knew is rearranged. I have to say I appreciate them even more now reading them for the third time... there is a lot of rearranging furniture, so to speak, but, without wanting to spoil too much... Anne went, and gave "her" vampires a home, religion (in a way), and "happy ever after" (well, as much as that can be with them^^). There's also hooks in them that I'm quite sure Rolin picked up, if the changes they made for the show are any indication^^. (It will be VERY interesting to see where and when we are in Dubai, seriously^^).

So... my advice would be: skip Blackwood Farm (for now), Blood Canticle (definitely, the rant probably tells you all you need to know^^), and go into the last ones knowing that Anne actually managed to close a lot of arcs and proverbial doors (and opened a few new ones^^), leaving the future for "them" bright open and a lot more hopeful than one could have predicted.

Enjoy 💕

PS: If you feel like talking/yelling about them while you read.... *laughs*

[ace-malarky]

Mist Worlds Overview

anyhow I guess I might just? do a mist worlds ramble? girlie got big and I don't think I've ever actually explained what it all is exactly, so

The Mist Worlds are a series of interconnected worlds - there were 22 of them originally, three get destroyed via Some Shenanigans.

They all have theoretically different tech/magic levels, along with different native species and geographic makeup but also there are two Earth-like ones because the EtF world was a late addition to this and by that time I already had another Earth-equivalent, so like. Convergent evolution or whatever

Each world has a funky little Elder God in the core of it that is the source of its magic/Vibes

In The Beginning (before the gates are stabilised), portals between worlds had a habit of disappearing and reappearing on a whim, meaning travel was Tricky and also not always by choice. The only creatures that could safely travel the Mist were the Fair, dragons, unicorns, Erinty, and potentially other mythic creatures

Then Ye Local Arch Mages from Astranys decide that maybe, they also deserve safe travel that won't dump them wherever and whenever because frankly, too many people are lost that way, so they set to and lock almost all the dragons across the worlds into the Mist and let it feed off them so that the gates are stabilised and those Mere Mortals can travel as they will and return home safely

This causes problems.

problem #1 is Shekonys, a world which is split into two when the Elder God at its centre is the one drained for this spellwork. It's locked away from the rest of the Mist, with gates between the parallel worlds few and far between (and mostly in the sky). Gradually, they forget that there were ever other worlds. One half forgets that there was ever magic and a whole race that could summon themselves wings.

problem #2 is that Leritheyar's dragons say "hey fuck you" and lock Leritheyar away in an effort to save themselves, which. to be fair, it works! Leritheyar just also starts disintegrating at the same time, which isn't great. Their local mages go "wow what the fuck" and set about trying to stabilise that by uhhhh pulling some Load Bearing People into the world in hopes that they will fix that. Those people being Leiri, S'ray, and Melisande. This is WereCreature Chronicles!

But apart from them, everything is peachy and honestly it's not like people knew how many worlds were out there, so like. really? no one knows they've lost anything

The next Big Event is that the Bran Rhi, local story telling prophecy guru, creates the wyverns of Kukipia as story repositories for the rest of the worlds and also seals Kukipia from the Mist. No one's quite sure why but she seems to know what she's doing. This eventually leads to Wyvern Queen and thence to Wyvern Call.

Literally the year after that Osseorye, home of the Charm Witches, is destroyed. There's enough warning (or there's been enough travel by now) that some of its people survive amongst the rest of the worlds, largely settling on Idriarea in various enclaves. Unbeknownst to everyone, this also creates the first Erinty from the remains of the Elder God, and they are... well, they're a mixed bunch. They're the immortal remnants of a world's core, shattered 21 ways (one for each of the remaining worlds). If they find each other again, who knows what the fuck might happen.

Another world is destroyed as the harpy with no name finishes the quest she started years before. She gets the harpies their wings 24/7 with no need to shift back and forth between two not-quite forms, but loses any chance at a stable home. The Eternal Queen takes her harpies from Kedditara and looks for a new roost.

Everything is peachy for a while! Travel between worlds becomes more widespread. Cities and gates and beaurocracy build up around the main ones in each world. some places might be invaded and kickstart their own problems. Erinty are making mischief on the outskirts, finding each other, growing stronger, you know how it goes

The last world to be destroyed is Aesserial, home to the Visualisation Mages. Razar Ori would like it on record that he saw this coming and tried to stop it, but the most he could do was drive the people responsible over the edge and then help the refugees out into the Mists.

Some of the groups I talk about are formed - the Guardians, dedicated to stopping another world being destroyed, whether by mortal or Erinty or what-have-you. The Magic Thieves, driven by their need for fun/revenge/a way home/money. Four Erinty form a pop group and become wildly popular and figure that this is better than hunting down their siblings for sport and power.

Then the Magic Thieves break into where the dragons are held captive and free them. The gates hold! Everything is fine! Except now there are dragons and that takes some adjusting.

One by one, the remaining worlds rejoin the Mist. First Shekonys, its parallel worlds situation sorted and the Phoenix created from its ashes. Then Leritheyar, where Kaithr has managed to stabilise its magic after a long life of uhhhhh well, eating its magic and trying to fix themself. And finally Kukipia, where they've heard all these stories about the other worlds via their wyverns, but never believed they were real.

And of course, in and around all of this frankly ridiculous amount of time, people are fulfilling prophecies, becoming superheroes, fucking around in time, vanquishing vampires (being resurrected without their memories), being nosy little shits, and just generally making stories of themselves while trying very hard not to lose everything in the making of it.

[phoenixiancrystallist]

Because @cruelfeline has expressed excitement to meet my girl Knell, and also because I'm really proud of it and I want to share, who wants to see the opening sequence to my self-indulgent self-insert shenanigans? :3

1,024 words under the cut :D

~

The ground's not supposed to be that far away, and it's really not supposed to be getting closer.

Wham. 

The first impact drove Bobbi's breath from her lungs and set stars dancing in front of her eyes, but despite that she scrambled to find something to grab and stop her fall, or at least slow it. No dice; rocks tore at her fingertips and she bounced down the face of a mountain to land on her side, bruised from head to toe and bleeding from various scrapes and gashes. 

She flopped onto her back, breath labored and hissing as she assessed her pain to see what was broken. Clouds swirled through the deep blue sky overhead, thin and wispy but enough to cast shadows and save her eyes from the sun. Nothing made a sound save her and the wind groaning over the landscape.

No, nope, wait, that was her groaning. 

"Fuck." On the bright side, nothing was broken. On the not so bright side: "Ow."

She raised her left hand to glare at the jewelry wrapped around it; the jewelry that started this whole mess. All she'd done is touch it!

Wound around her wrist, a silver bracelet etched with intricate designs trailed halfway up her forearm, culminating in three stylized suns. Its coils morphed into gracefully arced links that interconnected in a sinuous, radial pattern across the back of her hand. At first she thought the links continued the sun motif, but on closer inspection they looked more like birds. They connected to more silver coils that wrapped around her fingers, and capped her fingertips with thin silver talons.

Whatever else this jewelry was, it was beautiful, delicate, intricate, and apparently a fucking problem. She'd picked it up from its dusty little nook in a forgotten corner of an antiques shop and next thing she knew, she was falling out of the sky. Fucking booby trapped or something.

"What the fuck did you do to me?" she asked it. Not that she expected an answer; jewelry doesn't talk.

"I'm so sorry." Holy fuck, jewelry talks! Bobbi yelped and scrambled to her feet, but her brain caught up with her and no, no fucking way was that the bracelet. Seriously, jewelry doesn't fucking talk, so there had to be someone else here, and she spun in place a few times trying to find them.  "Who—? Where—?"

"Down here, on your wrist," it—she, the voice—said, somewhere between sheepish and teasing laughter. Bobbi stopped dead and lifted her arm to look at the jewelry again.

"No." This isn't happening. 

"Yes." Blueish white light coursed across the surface of the bracelet, and the metal rippled with the light.

"You talk?" What. The fuck. 

The bracelet chuckled. "You are surprised? This is hardly the strangest thing to happen to you in the past several minutes."

"I— no, I think talking jewelry is definitely the weirdest part of this," Bobbi argued. She flexed her fingers and turned her arm, watched natural sunlight play over the metal. The blue only glowed when the bracelet spoke, apparently. "Are you why I got dropped off a cliff?"

"Apologies." If bracelets could blush, this one would be cherry red right now. "I'd meant to arrive in Cipal. Unfortunately, I've never been, so my aim was a tad off."

"A tad?" Bobbi closed her eyes and took a deep breath, tried to calm her racing heart. Stay calm, stay calm. Freaking out won't fix anything. "How... big of a tad are we talking?"

"No more than a few miles, at most. Not bad, on the scope of a whole world, if you think about it."

"I'm trying really hard not to, actually, thanks." Bobbi snuck the fingers on her right hand beneath her glasses to pinch at the bridge of her nose and rub the inner corners of her eyes. She's not going to cry, goddammit. 

"So, um, why me?" That waver in her voice was not the verge of tears. Crying and freaking out can happen after she gets home. Or somewhere safe, whichever came first. Ideally, home. 

"Ah. To be perfectly honest, I hadn't... exactly intended to bring you with me. Rather, I hadn't known that I would. My goal was simply to use your power to travel across worlds. My own power was insufficient to breach the barrier between, so, I needed to borrow the power of another to bridge the gap. Had I known that I would drag you along with, I'd have sought your permission first."

"Oh! Yay!" Bobbi said, her voice high and tight with restrained panic. Shit just kept getting better and better, didn't it? "Accidental kidnapping, just what I needed today!"

"I am very sorry," the bracelet said, now with the impression of consternation and shame. "I promise I will get you home, as soon as I can."

"Can't you just, like, slingshot us back? Ask someone else?"

"That would be ideal, wouldn't it." That wasn't a question, not even rhetorically. "Unfortunately, no. I waited six months, and you were the only one whose power I could use without... ill effect."

"'Power,'" Bobbi repeated, "you keep saying 'power,' what 'power'? I don't have any 'power!'" And she'd said that word so much now that it didn't sound real anymore. 

"Don't be ridiculous." The sheepishness in the bracelet's voice got replaced with a bit of an edge. "Of course you do. Everyone has power, latent and dormant. Some more than others, and therein lies my dilemma. You were the first person in six months who had enough of that latent power that I could borrow what I needed without killing you."

That made Bobbi's blood run cold. "Oh. Uh, yeah, um, thanks for not killing me. Definitely think this is the better outcome."

"You're very welcome. Now, the sooner we get to Cipal, the sooner I can get you home. So, if you don't mind...?"

"Okay. Sure." Knowing that death had been a possibility sure made Bobbi a lot more amenable to whatever the bracelet had to say. "Um, where am I going?"

[grumpygreenwitch]

Machina Ex Machina 18-18.5

For the record, as of tonight the actual story is up to chapter uh.... thirty-something. The problem is that between 24 and 25 I have an oddity of a chapter, and I'm not entirely sure how to link it. I guess I better figure something out, 'cuz my queue's getting short.

As always, if you enjoy the writing, please like and reblog. There's no algorithms here; my publicity is you. And if you'd like to buy me a Ko-fi, I certainly won't complain.

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EIGHTEEN

Adas stared at the flat line in her faceplate. The communication hadn’t just failed, the frequency couldn’t even be found when she searched for active lines of any kind.

Time differential. Both MAR and her User had mentioned that. Was it something that could be corrected repeatedly, or had she squandered the only words she would ever exchange with her User in a moment of frantic panic? She hadn’t even thought to do a proper priority assessment beforehand!

She closed the faceplate and buried her face in her hands before straightening up sternly. Her priorities were as straight as they were going to get. If she could never again speak to her User, so be it; she had said what was important, what mattered to the survival of the Grid.

Everyone’s been warned, Adas.

She could ask for nothing else. Besides, MAR made it sound like he chatted up his User at every opportunity. Surely she’d get another chance.

MAR and Vidi found her sitting on the rim of a fountain. “I always thought they were gone,” she said quietly. “Relics. Extinct. Real, once, but not anymore.”

“That’s fair, I suppose.” MAR crouched easily before her. “Vidi tells me Users don’t talk to the programs in the cities at all. I never realized my relationship with Robert was so unique. I’m sorry to have blurted out such things. I never thought it’d be such a shock to you.”

“Were… were they nice?” Vidi sat on Adas’ side.

“I think so.” Adas looked up at her and tried for a wan little smile. “She was trying to help. MAR, can I… Can I talk to her again? From my end?”

“That’s a little tricky,” he admitted. “Unless you have a dedicated communication uplink, it’s always easier when the User initiates contact.”

“Like the ones at the Spires?” He nodded, and she thought on that for a moment. “But her, she can talk to me again?”

“Oh, yes. Once every three millicycles, give or take,” he assured her, and then smiled wryly. “Sometimes the trick is to get them to shut up.” He spread his hands. “In any case, before the conversation got lost into such deep and dark forests, I was coming to ask if you wanted to be there when your Sentry friend wakes up. It should be any moment now.”

Both his guests sprang up at once. MAR led them back into the mansion, through the exquisite inner chambers, vast and interconnected like a three-dimensional maze.

“You’ve got so much stuff,” Vidi commented, her hair looking every which way.

“I do!” MAR admitted readily. “From my very inception, both I and my User have been very clear that my purpose is art.” He spun slowly, arms spread to encompass every piece of statuary and colorful canvas. “Gathering it, curating it, collating it, preserving it and, mostly importantly, sharing it. At first it was just music, but, you know.” He snapped his fingers, and music filled the space, Mozart’s 13th Serenade. “One learns, one grows.”

“Does it all come from the Users?” Adas asked.

“What? No! No, no, no. Didn’t you see my trees?” He gestured to the floors they’d left behind.

“Your what?” The both of them turned around to look at the spiral staircase they’d just descended.

“The trees! The, the, uh, the fractals outside, and on the slopes! That is art.” He beamed at Vidi. “That’s what happens when you describe a User concept to a Gridborn artist who’s never seen its like.”

They passed part of an immense library, the shelves as tall as five programs. Another stairwell took them past a garage, several lightcycle models sedately at rest in tidy rows.

“We must be halfway down the mountain,” Vidi murmured.

“A third, more or less,” MAR replied distractedly. “The place grows as it needs to.” He trotted down a broad, spiraling ramp and snapped his fingers again.

A Navi’s path appeared on the ground at their feet. It ended at a broad double-door which the Navi opened for them. Beyond it, a circular room with warm green ground lights welcomed them. At the center of it stood a healing sarcophagi. On it, sitting up, head down, was GAM. Hovering just above him was a Bit which was stellating sedately.

“GAM!” they both cried out. The Bit hastily backed away.

“Do be careful, he’s -”

Both programs slammed into GAM, nearly bowling the Sentry over, but still he managed to wrap an arm around each of them.

“- fragile right now,” MAR finished.

“Oh, sorry!” Adas pulled back at once.

“I’ve never,” GAM croaked, “been fragile.” Without his armor, with only the basic outfit of a mid-gen, he looked no less muscular but infinitely more approachable. Much more a program than the faceless, implacable Sentry. He squeezed them tightly for a long moment before he let go and leaned back “Are you two alright?”

“Ugh!” Vidi shoved him, which accomplished absolutely nothing. “You are just the worst, WallSec.”

“That’d be a yes,” he slid off the sarcophagi and onto his feet, though he had to lean on both of them to stay upright. “The program, the SysAdmin -”

“Oh, I administer nothing around here, except myself,” MAR declared cheerfully and stepped forward, offering a hand. “A pleasure to meet you under better circumstances, Sentry. I’m MAR.”

GAM shook the program’s hand, found a grip that matched his own, an exceptionally self-contained wavelength that belied the data density of the program before him. “The virus?”

“That’s an excellent question. I would have thought it would be testing the antiviral defenses of Parnassus, but it hasn’t touched them since its rather abrupt departure. I’ve no idea what it’s doing.”

GAM closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again, his expression was hard. “Then we are likely in trouble.”

“My mountain is exceptionally well-defended, Sentry,” MAR protested mildly.

“I know that, you know that, and it knows that. But the only reason for it to not be testing those defenses is because it already did, and it knows it’s got nothing that can get through. The next logical course of action is to go further into the Outlands and find something that can.”

MAR blinked. “Your predictive protocols are something else, Sentry. And when you put it that way, you make me worry that you’re right. So I’m going to ask you all that you make yourselves at home while I go see what I can learn about this virus.”

“What are you going to do?” Vidi asked.

“I’m going to talk to my User, of course.”

Adas and Vidi both felt GAM go rigid. “Your… your User?”

18.5

Robert, may I have a word?

MAR. Have you been harmed? Has Parnassus been harmed?

No, thank you for your concern. Your warning and the antiviral update got here just in time. But my guests have brought up a very worrisome possibility.

No guests are authorized to enter Parnassus.

And yet here they are. The Halcyonite Sentry, in particular, has brought up a very worrisome concern. A very reasonable one, too, unfortunately. It’s very likely we’ve not seen any more attacks from the virus because it’s out there marshalling new forces, gathering new weaponry. Have you learned anything new about it?

…

I cannot answer your question, MAR.

What?! Robert, you always answer my questions.

I cannot answer your question, MAR.

Ask him what it is.

Sentry, it’s very obviously -

Ask him.

Robert, it is a virus, isn’t it?

No.

Ah. My apologies. What can you tell me about this program?

I cannot answer your question, MAR.

Is it a User, then?

I cannot answer your question, MAR.

Well, there must be something you can tell me about it!

Yes. You must leave Parnassus. It will, eventually, break through the mountain’s defenses. It will, eventually, break through the temple’s defenses. It will, eventually, break through all defenses. You must leave Parnassus.

What?! What about the libraries? What about the music, the art, what about -? The collection has been safeguarded. You must leave Parnassus.

We can’t.

You must leave Parnassus. Give me a moment, Robert, please. Sentry, why can’t we leave?

Because right now all its attention is on us. We are the target. If we leave, we don’t know what it will target next. Halcyon is right up the road. Flow’s a straight line across the Outlands and the Sea. If there’s anything left in Ilo, there won’t be unless its attention stays focused on us.

…

…

MAR.

Yes, Robert? Defense preparations in other cities are ongoing. You must leave Parnassus, but your departure must be perfectly scheduled.

You’ve read my mind, Robert. Where should we go?

I cannot answer your question at this time, MAR.

I suppose we will wait until it becomes too risky to do so. Robert, I’m sorry I cannot be a better guardian to all that you have given me. I’m sorry it must be abandoned. MAR.

Yes, Robert.

You have not failed me. I have failed you. MAR. Oh, Robert…

I’m sorry.