#and find them all int he same resolution

[seraphsfire]

idk are these anything

[viranellee]

do i shoot straight (or do i cheat fate?)

synopsis: jealousy is a good look on eddie.

warnings: smut, unprotected sex (reader is on the pill), dirty talk, swearing

a/n: i need him.

---

"Who the fuck is that?" Eddie questions, thinly veiled fury laced within his words, and despite having your back turned, you can probably guess they're spoken through gritted teeth.

The fact that he had practically dragged you to the kitchen, as well as his hostile tone, makes you heave out a sigh, but admittedly, seeing another guy's arm around your girlfriend's waist is an understandable cause for concern. Swallowing your fears, you nervously adjust your hair and turn around to face Eddie, ready to tell him the news that had you avoiding him these past few weeks.

"My fake boyfriend. Label said I'll have to keep him around for a while, it would be beneficial to my public image or whatever, especially with the new single coming out." You start, the darkness of the quiet kitchen hiding Eddie's expression, the only source of noise being the loud, drunken hollering and cheering of The Six behind the closed door. "It's all fake. I'm sorry you had to find out like this. I just...I just didn't know how to tell you. You know I hate this just as much as you do."

You step forward, shyly reaching out and intertwining your fingers with his. For a moment, you think he won't forgive you, that he'd drop your hands and tell you that he just can't keep up with all your famous pop singer bullshit anymore. Instead, he proves you wrong, like he always does, and pulls you forward by your intertwined hands until your foreheads touch. He sighs, anger washed away by your explanation, but tension in his shoulders still very much present.

"Is this why you've been avoiding me? Jesus, you made me go crazy. For a second there, I thought it was over when I saw you with that blonde douchebag. Don't ever do that again." Eddie murmurs and you smile slightly, shaking your head.

"Noted. I'm sorry, again." You reply and he kisses your forehead, accepting your apology.

"I want us to go public." Eddie declares after a beat of peaceful silence, looking at you right in the eyes, speaking with the hard resolution of someone who's saying something that's been on their mind for a long time. "I don't want to hide anymore. I want to write songs about you, and I want you to write songs about me, and have everybody know we wrote them for each other. I don't want to love you in secret like this anymore."

Your eyes soften at his confession and you kiss him tenderly, putting every single ounce of your love into it, hoping he'd understand that you feel the same way. He leans into it, hands grabbing your waist and pulling your body against his.

"Y'know, the entire band probably knows we're an item already. I mean, we don't exactly try to hide it around them." You joke when you break apart for air, a trail of spit connecting you and Eddie's lips.

He chuckles, pupils dilated as he gazes at it, and starts to slowly corner you against Billy and Camilla's fridge.

"They do. But how about we make things clear for that boyfriend of yours too, yeah?" He whispers and you swallow when his thumb reaches out and slowly pulls your bottom lip down. You tune out the sounds coming from the other room the longer you look at him.

"Jump, baby." Eddie commands and you immediately do so, wrapping your legs around his hips and burying your hands in his hair, while he grips your ass, fully pressing you against the fridge.

He kisses you then, previous tenderness replaced with predatory hunger, as he bites and licks his way into your mouth. You let out a helpless moan, involuntarily dragging yourself across his hard-on, the feel of it on your core making you gasp.

"You're already hard?" You question in disbelief, slightly pulling away from him, eyebrows raised so high they almost reach your hairline.

He licks his lips while you speak, looking inconvenienced at your interruption.

"Been hard like a rock since I saw you in that dress, sweetheart, you just didn't see it. Too focused on your boyfriend, probably." He teases without any actual malice, but before you get the chance to scoff and tell him to fuck off, he's already kissing his way down your neck.

You can only sit there, lost in a haze of enjoyment, as he frantically drags your dress up your thighs, continuing to pepper kisses on your collarbones and cleavage. Once your dress is finally out of the way, he doesn't waste any time and cups your cunt in one large hand, making you shiver, while he drags his thumb across the wet spot of your panties.

"Is this all for me?" He asks, knowing the answer already but wanting to enjoy the satisfaction of hearing you say it.

"It's always for you." The words roll off your tongue, an unabashed truth, and he rewards you for it by pulling off your panties - but instead of dropping them on the floor, he decides to shove them in the pocket of his jeans.

His movements are quick, but you see all of it, and hit his back with your leg as a form of protest. Eddie squeezes your hips in return, stilling you immediately, but offering no explanation, only dragging his thumb across your slick entrance, eyes intently focused on it.

"Eddie, why the hell did you do tha- oh, shit." You start just as two of his fingers glide inside of you, and his thumb starts rubbing your clit in circles.

Your back arches at the feeling of his fingers pistoning in and out, as you completely disregard what you were going to say. Eddie answers anyway.

"Want my cum to be leaking out of you after this." He tells you like it's obvious, and the idea is so erotic it makes you whimper, your warm head falling back against the cold metal of the fridge.

You take a look at Eddie, not nearly as messy as you, a perfect picture of composure and self-control, and feel as if you have to rectify it. After all, you can't be the only one moaning and panting.

You grab the collars of his jacket and lean in to whisper in his ear, just as he delivers yet another precise thrust to your G-spot and another wave of pleasure hits you.

"As much as I'm enjoying this, if you don't put your cock in me right this second, I just might have to call my boyfriend." You tempt, tracing the shell of his ear with your tongue, and he catches the bait, anger coming back with a vengeance.

Suddenly, his fingers are being pulled out and the metallic clink of his belt echoes throughout every crevice in the room. Before you know it, you feel the head of his cock against your entrance and he enters you impatiently, your mouth opening in a silent scream before he catches it in a passionate kiss.

You think he's going to start out slow like usual, savouring the feel of you around him. But it seems that he has different plans for you tonight.

You groan out his name as he instead begins to pound into you mercilessly, and all you can do is hold on for dear life.

"Yeah, baby, take my fuckin' cock, just like that. Shit, I missed this tight little pussy. Missed you." He groans in your ear, alternating between kissing your neck, shoulder and jaw, the contrast between his tender touch, filthy words and brutal pace rolling your eyes back with sheer pleasure.

His thrusts move in tandem with your moans as your body slackens in his grip, letting yourself feel every single delicious inch of him inside you. Your shaking hand moves downward in an attempt to relieve your throbbing clit, but Eddie slaps it away, replacing it with his own.

"So fuckin' pretty when you're like this, sweetheart, dumb on cock. I'm the only one that gets to have you like this, yeah?" Eddie asks, voice hoarse, rubbing your clit just the way you like it.

"Yes, fuck yes, yes, yes, yes, Eddie!" You gasp out, partly as a response and partly as a plea for him to keep fucking you silly like this.

He gently slaps your clit, a satisfied smirk pulling at the corners of his lips, as he reaches forward to suck on your earlobe, and you barely have time to yelp when his pace quickens even more. The sound of skin slapping against skin is so painfully loud in the dark kitchen it makes you briefly wonder if his bandmates in the other room have already heard you, but as if reading your thoughts, Eddie speaks again.

"Let them hear what I'm doing to you, how much you love this cock. My pretty girl." He tells you, pulling out and lightly slapping your clit with the head of his cock, a gesture so uncharacteristically possessive of him, it makes you clench around nothing.

Nodding helplessly, you move your hips around in an attempt to communicate how much you want his cock back inside, and he complies, resuming his punishing pace the moment he re-enters you. You cry out, walls gripping him like a vice, nails dragging against his clothed back. He groans at the combined sensation and kisses you so hard your teeth clank against each other.

"Eds, I'm going to-" You're cut off as his cock delivers yet another precise thrust. But you don't need to finish your sentence, if the understanding glint in his eyes is any indication. He moves you around before you have any time to process what's happening and you're suddenly being laid on the countertop - face down, ass up - and he enters you just as his hand buries itself in your hair, yanking, but not enough to hurt, as you feel your whole body being manhandled upright, your back pressed against his chest.

Your blurry eyes catch sight of the kitchen entrance, and it clicks, just as you feel your climax take hold - anyone could walk in right now and see you getting fucked like a whore by Eddie Roundtree himself, bent over the countertop.

And that's exactly what Eddie wants.

"Cum for me, baby, c'mon. Let go for me." He urges behind you, panting due to his own impending orgasm, and you do just that. As your ears start ringing and your vision turns white, you can briefly recognize his voice coaxing you through it. You lean your head against his shoulder when you feel him follow shortly after, releasing inside of you.

The kitchen is comfortingly quiet as both of you calm down from your respective orgasms. Eddie presses kisses at the back of your head, a silent apology for his slightly rough treatment, and you turn your head, kissing his cheek in return.

You're about to tell him that you love him when the kitchen door opens and your fake boyfriend Anthony (or was it Aaron?) appears at the threshold, eyes widening in shock as he takes in the sight in front of him. You avert your eyes down in embarrassment, but Eddie moves his hand towards him in a shooing gesture, a toothy smile on his face that only emerges when he knows he's being a prick and loving it.

"Do you mind? Me and my girl were having a moment."

The guy nods shakily and leaves, the look on his face so bewildered it almost makes you feel bad.

"Eddie..." You sigh and he laughs, prideful, the sound of his uninhibited laughter making butterflies flutter in your stomach. "That was so unnecessary."

"I know. I don't really care, though."

[littleeyesofpallas]

lost a big ol draft. fuck retyping that. fuck rethinking thoughts. not today... =___=

gist of things was this...

Tarot cards: Major arcana. scenes and characters on the cards are all their own symbols and archetypes, sure. but in sequence they're also a specific cycle of development. And they're even on pretty similar to the Hero's Cycle. Real basic take away is that if Hero's Journey is kinda clunky and you'd rather not have to tweak and edit it, you could just use Tarot cards. 21 is kind of a lot of steps though...

But there's a second level of this. The reason Tarot car dreadings work in the first place (if you're like me and don't actually believe int he whole divination process anyway) is that they're effectively just a very well developed system of randomized cold reading. (same with astrology but im not getting into that right now, maybe later) Because like Hero Joruney the major arcana aren't just a start-to-finish process, it's a cycle that loops back around to the start. And this is helped by the fact that the structure isn't being applied to a "story" it's being applied to you and your life. And we are all, always in this cycle, not just at a singular point in a singular iteration but in work, in play, in love, in family, in friendships, in communities, in society at large.... we are always able to place ourselves in some stage of development where there is a recognizable recent past, a WIP in the present, and a foreseeable future.

But it's not just a matter of taking a generic reading and fitting it into a personal narrative for the sake of racking up a false positive. The specific nature of tarot card readings as repeat, frequent, consultation has a directly psychological effect as therapy. By presenting the themes of the cards, all of which are applicable to all people at all times, the reader presents a singular focal point rather than a whole process. This centers the introspection of the person being read to on one subject at a time, and the distinct nature of a good reader also means prompting that self reflection rather than dictating it's meanings directly to the person. This along with the nature of readings as being prompted by specific questions or even broad subjects, means that the readings serve as a kind of arbitrary priority.

It's also an exercise in self mythologizing: an act of turning your own lived experience, with all its realistic randomness and meaninglessness, into a story you tell yourself and others, into a narrative. it both guides you into a process of development and resolution where there is none, while drawing out the actual development underway and again aiming it towards the desired conclusions.

And in one sense that is the function of the 21 stages as a whole, but no one is going to go about their lives constantly thinking of all the tarot cards and all their meanings and how those reflect on how to live their life, all the time... But if they get a reading every 2 weeks that gives them 3 or 5 cards at a time to focus on for the week ahead? That's an exercise in Mindfulness.

And Mindfulness is a vital facet of meditative practice, therapy, and neuro-elasticity and overall mental health exercises. In its most basic form, Mindfulness is just how "present," or readily accessible an idea is in your mind. It differs from Memory Recall or Memory Retention, because recall centers around conscious prompting, and of course memory can be retained without being easily recalled or without mindfulness.

When you lock your front door as you leave, and realize a few blocks away that you can't remember if you locked the door or no? You remembered to lock the door, but you weren't mindful of that act as you did it. Mindfulness is the anti-autopilot.

In another sense, it's like if your psyche was a narrow but deep pool of water, and as you think of certain things, they float to the surface such that when you look at the pool all you can see is what's on top, even if you know there's more underneath. Mindfulness is about managing that surface level space. And things like tarot readings, horoscope readings, and other ritual practice and fetish* totems are all tools and practices that exercise that Mindfulness aspect by funneling bigger ideas down into bite sized chunks spread across regular intervals.

*fetish as in the actual word "fetish" and not short for Sexual Fetish/Erotic Fetish. I'm also not about to get into a whole psychosexual complex dissertation right now...

Anyway, point being is that a fun way to work through some writers block? Or a snag in your plot? Do your character(s) or even your story as a whole a tarot reading. Doesn't even have to be a big formal reading, you can just take the 21 major arcana, pick 2 and ask yourself how floating those themes to the surface for the moment influences the story.

Also, I find this is a great way to work through being overwhelmed by the open-endedness of, say... running a tabletop RPG.

(There is also a whole cycle for the minor arcana you can look into as well, but I prefer working off the major in relation to the Hero's Journey just because it deals more overtly in archetypes rather than just abstract symbols.)

[hecallsmehischild]

Recent Media Consumed

Books

Half-Bad by Sally Green. Man, this is grim. It’s good fantasy, and the writers breaks certain writing conventions to convey the story better, which is fascinating. But it’s so grim. There’s two more books in the series and I want to get ahold of those before I say more.

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes. Did I say Half-Bad was grim? This is grim. Grimdark to the max. But also a fascinating premise, that the crime of murder and its accompanying guilt manifests an animal companion that marks you for the rest of your (shortened) life? If you can stomach some of the imagery and if you do well with being plunged into unknown terminology and figuring it out on the go from context, this is a good read.

Dropped titles: Pursuing God’s Will Together by Ruth Haley Barton and How Should We Then Live by Francis Shaeffer. One was a recommendation, one was semi-assigned reading because I’m a non-voting member of a ministry board. In both cases I got about halfway through. I have the gist of both books and I’m enjoying neither. At all. I started to avoid Audible altogether. The moment I gave myself permission to stop listening to them and pick up the next Thomas Sowell book on my list, I was right back on reading, because I’m actually interested in what Sowell has to say. Note to self: it’s ok to drop books that you find uninteresting. (this preceded a Sowell binge reading session)

Dismantling America (and other controversial essays) by Thomas Sowell. I was surprised at how much more of an edge Sowell has in this book, but the appearance of the edge here makes a certain amount of sense. This is the first collection of newspaper columns I’ve read by him, and he has way less time to make his point in a column than he has in a book. With that in mind, his points have much less groundwork than I’m used to reading from him when he spends a whole book on a topic (though I’d guess that each point he makes probably has a crapton of citations in the printed book, like the rest of his work. He’s quite thorough about his research). This is probably not the best title of his to pick as a first read, but it’s good and interesting. My main take-away point from this book is that politicians look out for politicians, and expecting them to do anything else is naive. And, in fact, many things attributed to a politician’s “stupidity” is far from stupid, in fact they are brilliant within their set of incentives and constraints. It just rarely aligns with the general public’s best interest. Thinking about it again, it MIGHT be a good first book. It sums up a lot of his views into bite-sized digests. It just doesn’t substantiate each and every claim as thoroughly as some of his other books do. That’s my grain of salt.

Compassion Versus Guilt by Thomas Sowell. More of the same, a collection of essays by Sowell. Different ones, on a different theme. A couple that sound like they could have been written by the authors of Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, his satire is on point.

Ethnic America by Thomas Sowell. This was a fascinating read for me. This book traces 8 groups of ethnic migrations to America. I descend from Scottish, Irish, and Russian Jewish immigrants, and seeing what the different groups had to content with over the years was very enlightening. A few things that stood out to me were; each immigrant group seems to have very different cultural strengths and foibles, inter-group violence is not new (but not always in the directions modern people would think), almost every group has its own upper class that disdains and reviles its lower class, and each ethnic group is far more variable and differentiated than the general category (“the Irish” or “the blacks” or “the Jews”) makes them out to be. More and more I’m coming to mistrust the general racial category as referenced by either political party because it seems to be a linguistic expediency that sacrifices the truth of a situation for a fast rallying point.

Civil Rights: Rhetoric or Reality? by Thomas Sowell. I’m not even sure what to say about this book. It’s short and punchy and gives me a lot to think about. Sowell definitely has zero sacred cows. Toward the end of this book he addresses some of his critics who piled onto Ethnic America, which was interesting. Also, while reading this, I have begun to realize how much of a disadvantage I am at in analyzing arguments because I’m unable to understand how people slice numbers into statistics to make their point. I’m at the mercy of the conclusion they draw at the end of the statistics because, until they summarize their findings, I really don’t understand what the raw numbers are saying. I’ve had this feeling for a while, but in this book, Sowell dissects some of the foundational studies and statistics that buttressed later civil rights cases, and I realized that if I just read the statistics and data from those cases and the statistical rebuttals that Sowell has side by side, I would not understand what was being argued at all. I can only rely on the end conclusions put into words at this point, but the written conclusion is not the proof, the numbers are. This gap in my understanding is disheartening, but I hope to continue sponging up knowledge in the hopes that I will be able to think more critically in future years.

Maverick, a Biography of Thomas Sowell by Jason L. Riley. My parents pre-ordered this for my birthday a few months ago and it arrived a few days ago. I have torn through it. I think I got a more cohesive overview of Sowell’s progression through his body of work and added several titles to my wishlist. The biography is fairly minimalist on Sowell’s personal life and focuses more on his ideological clashes with… well, everyone, left and right, people he disdained and people he admired. Maverick, alright. Also Riley takes a look at how each of Sowell’s books (or grouping of books) came about, for what reasons, and what was going on at the time.

People of the Book edited by Rachel Swirsky and Sean Wallace. This is a compilation of Jewish sci-fi and fantasy short stories and can probably be summed up best by this paragraph in the introduction: “These stories allow us to identify with, although briefly, so many different characters and places, they entertain us and they give us comfort. And yet, the tales in this anthology often have a melancholic tinge, similar in tone to the minor keys of our musical liturgy. We don’t want to be too comfortable, too happy. Because that might bring some bad luck onto us, might tempt the evil eye.” I also sensed a whole lot of anger in the undercurrent of these stories, and that saddened me.

On deck/currently reading: The Brothers Karamazov, The Rational Bible: Genesis, re-read of Basic Economics, and War Nerd.

Shows

Dropped series: Hilda. The first season was lovely on so many counts. The second season’s antagonist… bothers me. So does Hilda’s behavior. And given how much time I spent on Star and its accompanying disappointment, I’m not really interested in continuing Hilda any further. I’m shelving it at this point. There are other things I’d like to watch.

Infinity Train Season 4: Now retitled “The Wormhole Judgment Line” I believe, lol. It’s hard to top season 3, but it was a solid story. Good. Interesting. The resolution with the villains int he last episode felt kind of out of nowhere and I’m really not okay with Morgan’s behavior even if the plot wants me to feel sorry for her, but those things aside, it was enjoyable. I hope Infinity Train is picked up again, I’d love to see more.

On Deck: The Mandalorian or Wandavision

Movies

Jiang Ziya. Okay whatever this studio produces in this line of movies, I will be watching it. I definitely don’t understand all the significance of what I’m seeing but it’s creative along COMPLETELY DIFFERENT lines than US animation and it’s an absolute joy to behold.

Raya and the Last Dragon. Suffice it to say, it would take an intensive blog post (or a movie review of the style I used to do as one half of The Storytrollers) to cover all the things that bothered me about this movie. I will take the thing that bothered me the most and be brief: I find the moral to be terrible. I take major issue with the idea that repeated blind trust in the face of repeated betrayal will reshape the world, given that I extended blind trust to people who never changed for many years. I take issue with the worldbuilding, I take issue with some of the designs, and I take issue with the moral. I was exceedingly disappointed in this movie.

Profile. Now THIS was a good movie. I would not be averse to seeing more movies shot like this, using the computer desktop as both film set and character. In addition this was an interesting topic, though I was tense for the whole movie, afraid the main character was going to slip up. Very good, very tense movie to sit through.

Mighty Ira. So, this is a documentary about one of the great leaders of the ACLU. It was interesting to see this, especially since it shed more light on the whole Skokie situation than I’d heard of before. Good watch. Informative.

[chiyohsfistyourface]

All Chiyoh Scenes in Hannibal

This is mostly a resource for me and my writing but just in case anyone else wants to use it I am posting this here. Exactly what it says at the top, all Chiyoh scenes and dialogue under the cut. 

First Appearance: Secondo 3.03 

We first meets Chiyoh when Will is staring at her through Binoculars like an absolute stalker at Castle Lecter. She’s plucking a pheasant and cooking and it reminds Will of Hannibal. She then ends up leading Will to a basement where he goes in and finds the Prisoner. 

Just cause I haven’t seen one, I will translate what he says here:

CAGED MAN (O.S.): Kas ten? Labas? (Who’s there? Hello? )

Will approaches, illuminating the cage's contents: a CAGED MAN, wan, covered in matted hair. He's tall and thin. Could be 40, could be 70. Hard to tell. He holds a cooked pheasant, mid-meal. The juices dampen his beard.

CAGED MAN (CONT’D): Labas? (Hello?)

Will stays quiet as the man moves to the front of the cage, his face suddenly ghoulish in the flashlight. The bars are decorated with handmade trinkets and dolls made of bird bones, snail shells and twine. A bucket of shit in the corner. This man has been in here for years.

CAGED MAN (CONT’D) (begging): Atsiliepk, kalbek prasau, prasau, prasau. (Answer me, speak, please, please, please)

The man starts to cry. They seem to be tears of relief.

CAGED MAN (CONT’D): Ji su manimi nekalba. Ji niekada su manimi nekalba! Prasau! (She does not talk to me. She never talks to me. I beg you)

He grows frustrated, desperate for something, but Will doesn't know what.

CAGED MAN (CONT’D): Kalbek! Kalbek! Kalbek! (Speak, Speak, Speak)

Suddenly, a HIGH-POWERED BEAM hits Will in the face. Blinding him. His hands come to his face. The caged man rushes to hide in the shadows of his cell.

Chiyoh stands behind the light, holding it against the barrel of her shotgun; a shadow among shadows.

CHIYOH: You're upsetting him.

Then, Chiyoh and Will begin to chat  

HOT WHITE LIGHT

It FLARES THE CAMERA, glancing over tips of its tentacles flex and turn

a snail, the eyes on the away, finally finding...

WILL GRAHAM Eyes shaded from the light piercing INT. CASTLE LECTER - BASEMENT - NIGHT

The shotgun is leveled at Will, his back to the cage. The caged man cowers. Chiyoh's eyes fixed to Will's. Anger and also exhaustion, and maybe even relief. The constant, distant flowing of water provides a surreal HUM.

CHIYOH: You're trespassing.

WILL GRAHAM: I'm a friend of Hannibal's.

The shotgun barrel dips slightly, either in hesitation or relief.

CHIYOH: He sent you?

WILL GRAHAM (shakes his head): I'm looking for him. 

Her barrel rises.

WILL GRAHAM (CONT’D): My name is Will Graham. I'm unarmed. May I lower my arms?

Will begins to lower his arms; she indicates with her barrel to keep them up where he had them.

CHIYOH: This trigger has a three-pound pull. I'm holding two of it. 

Will's arms slowly regain their lost height.

CAGED MAN: Atsiliepk, kalbek prasau. (Answer, speak please.)

WILL GRAHAM: What's he saying?

CHIYOH: He wants you to look at him, speak to him, but you're not going to.

WILL GRAHAM: You've cast aside the social graces normally afforded to human beings.

CHIYOH: He's cast them aside. All he is allowed is the sound of water. It's what the unborn hear, it's their last memory of peace.

She moves around Will with her light and shotgun, and points him back up the stairs. Will doesn't move.

WILL GRAHAM: You're keeping him like an animal.

CHIYOH: I wouldn't do this to an animal. There's room in there for two.

OFF that not-so-veiled threat...

FROM BLACK

CUT TO BLACK.

CAMERA PULLS OUT of the barrel of Chiyoh's shotgun to reveal Chiyoh marching toward CAMERA. CAMERA CONTINUES TO PULL BACK to reveal she is marching Will out the door of:

EXT. LECTER ESTATE - CASTLE LECTER - NIGHT As Will exits the castle, Chiyoh a safe distance behind him:

WILL GRAHAM: What did he do?

The question forces images into Chiyoh's mind she would much rather not think about. Finally:

CHIYOH: He ate her.

WILL GRAHAM: Mischa.

Chiyoh reacts, hearing the name aloud. Will stops marching. 

WILL GRAHAM: How long has he been your prisoner?

CHIYOH: We've been each other's prisoner for a very long time. The weight of that gives Will pause.

WILL GRAHAM: How ever did you find yourself in this situation? Will turns to face Chiyoh and her gun, his arms still raised.

CHIYOH: The question applies to both of us.

WILL GRAHAM: And the answer's probably the same. What's your name?

CHIYOH: Chiyoh. How do you know Hannibal?

WILL GRAHAM: One could argue, intimately.

CHIYOH: Nakama? It's the Japanese word for a very close friend, someone you share with.

Will considers the complexities of friendship with Hannibal.

WILL GRAHAM: Yes, we were nakama. Last time I saw him, he left me with a smile. 

With one hand, he carefully lifts up his shirt, revealing his ABDOMINAL SCAR, its corners upturned in a vague smile.

He slowly lowers his arms; her gun remains pointed.

CHIYOH: All sorrows can be borne if you put them in a story. Tell me a story.

Then it cuts away to Hannibal and Bedelia as Will tells the story. When it comes back Will and Chiyoh are still talking

WILL GRAHAM: Our minds can concoct all sorts of scenarios when we don't want to believe something. We construct fairy tales. And we accept them.

CHIYOH: I accept what Hannibal has done. I understand why he's done it.

WILL GRAHAM: Mischa doesn't explain Hannibal. She doesn't quantify what he does.

CHIYOH: He does what was done to her.

WILL GRAHAM: How do you know it was your prisoner who killed Mischa?

CHIYOH: Hannibal told me he did.

As the words leave her mouth, she hears how damning they are.

CHIYOH (CONT’D): Hannibal took someone from you, are you here to take someone from him? 

The thought had crossed Will's mind.

WILL GRAHAM: I've forgiven him his trespasses, as he's forgiven me. 

CHIYOH: You're nakama. Aren't you alike? 

Will chews on that question, then:

WILL GRAHAM: If I were like Hannibal, I would've killed you already. Cooked you, ate you and fed what was left of you to him. It's what he would do.

CHIYOH: You've given that some thought.

WILL GRAHAM: Do you know where he is?

CHIYOH: Why are you looking for him after he left you with a smile?

Will glances down at his abdomen, unconsciously.

WILL GRAHAM: I've never known myself as well as I know myself when I'm with him. She considers that, recognizing the feeling.

CHIYOH: You won't find Hannibal here. There are places on these grounds he cannot safely go. Bad memories.

WILL GRAHAM: Memories lead to more memories. What do these grounds hold for you?

CHIYOH: Hannibal wanted to kill that man for what he did to Mischa. I wouldn't let him take his life, so Hannibal left his life with me. If I turned him in, he'd go free. If I let him go... he would kill me. Wouldn't you?

Will doesn't respond.

CHIYOH (CONT’D): The easiest path was to kill him.

WILL GRAHAM: Why didn't you?

CHIYOH: Because Hannibal wanted me to.

WILL GRAHAM: He was curious if you would kill. I imagine he still is.

Then, of course, Will the Bitch releases the prisoner and I’m just going to cut the two scenes into one and ignore the cutaway

CAMERA PULLS Chiyoh down the stairs. Bag over one arm, shotgun tucked under the other, she descends into --

THE BASEMENT.

CONTINUE PULLING her toward the cage behind us. We assume it's empty, but she doesn't react. As Chiyoh pushes past CAMERA, we REVERSE to reveal --

THE CAGED MAN BACK IN HIS CAGE! She leans her shotgun against the wall.

Moves to the cage and slides the parchment package through a slot in the door, all as though nothing's changed. But it has...

The caged man GRABS HER WRIST.

Chiyoh looks him in the eyes, the first time she's done so in twenty-five years. His rage intensifies. Still holding his gaze, she doesn't notice --

THE LOCK -- undone.

And the man SLAMS the unlocked door into her face with a loud, metallic BAM.

Chiyoh crumples back, scattering bottles of wine, stunned. CHIYOH'S POV

Blurred. Dazed. Bottles of wine hit the ground and SHATTER SPECTACULARLY IN SLOW MOTION as the caged man descends on her. Reaching for her throat.

NORMAL MOTION as Chiyoh sputters and gasps, grabbing at his hands, which tighten around her throat. She scratches at his face, but it's useless; his matted beard may as well be armor.

Chiyoh twists and turns, trying to gain leverage, but he has her well pinned. She gasps for breath.

CHIYOH'S POV

Losing consciousness, she uses her last bit of strength to dig her nails into the caged man's throat.

Her face is bulging and near blue, but still she reaches. Her eyes twisted, looking OUT OF FRAME.

The man senses she's almost finished, bears down.

CAGED MAN (subtitled: "Speak to me.") Atsiliepk, kalbek.

Then a moment of stillness washes over Chiyoh as she stares deep into her killer's eyes -- not as his victim, but as his guilty tormentor. She mutters through an airless whisper:

CHIYOH: I'm sorry.

She lets go of him, giving in. CLOSE ON HER HAND It slides off of the caged man, onto the ground, limp. ON CHIYOH As she appears to be surrendering to her death as we...

ON CHIYOH

She's covered in blood, staring dead-eyed. An eerie, sad moment, then the BLOOD LIFTS off Chiyoh in SLOW REVERSE MOTION, like raindrops returning to the sky.

CAMERA follows the blood into the caged man's neck as the GEYSER IS STOPPED by Chiyoh's hand -- holding a JAGGED PHEASANT BONE, she REVERSE JAMS it into the caged man's neck.

He rears back; Chiyoh rolls on top of him.

She watches as he clutches his throat, blood pooling between his fingers around the bone.

ON CHIYOH

Caged man's hands grasp the bone to remove it and, making a decision, Chiyoh covers his hands with her own. Holds the bone in place.

Panic fills his eyes and his hands struggle against hers.

Now resolute to what needs to be done, Chiyoh puts her weight to the bone. And slowly, despite the caged man's efforts, she forces it ever deeper.

BLOOD GURGLES in his throat. Blood spurts from the hollow end of the broken bone.

In one last burst of strength, the caged man rolls on top of Chiyoh, using his weight to squeeze the life out of her, until she pulls the jagged pheasant bone out of his neck, which spews a GEYSER OF BLOOD.

ON CHIYOH

She does what she has always resisted and deliberately kills the caged man. He slumps and falls off her.

She lies still for a moment, then lets out a SCREAM. 

CAMERA finds Will reacting as Chiyoh's SCREAM rings.

Chiyoh sits on the floor opposite. Staring at his body.

Will Graham comes down the stairs and stops as he sees the scene within -- SHOCKED.

CHIYOH: You did this. You set him free.

WILL GRAHAM: You were who I wanted to set free.

CHIYOH: You said Hannibal was curious if I would kill. You were curious, too. He was, if he is honest with himself.

WILL GRAHAM: I didn't want this.

CHIYOH: Yes, you did. You were doing what he does. He'd be proud of you. His nakama.

WILL GRAHAM: Did you know? Some part of you? At some level... you knew.

She studies him -- is he asking from experience?

CHIYOH: I traded feeling frightened for feeling righteous.

Will picks up an unbroken bottle of wine, stabs a knife in the cork and pulls it out, offering the bottle to Chiyoh. She takes it and takes a tentative sip.

WILL GRAHAM: He created a story out of events that only he experienced. "All sorrows can be borne if you put them in a story."

She hands the bottle back to Will who takes a swig.

CHIYOH: I never knew Mischa. I only knew what Hannibal told me about her. What he told me was done to her. He wasn't lying about that, was he? 

WILL GRAHAM: No. 

CHIYOH: We swore promises on objects, pledges at the altar and a blood oath, pricking our fingers. For Mischa. "M" is for Mischa.

Will watches her reel from the impact of what she's done.

She moves across the room and takes up her shotgun. A tense moment as she might turn it on Will. Then:

CHIYOH (CONT’D): I'll help you find him.

WILL GRAHAM: Why would you help me?

CHIYOH: I have no reason to stay here. Not anymore. You saw to that.

The next time we see Chiyoh is in 3.05 Cotorno when she’s in the train with Will on the way to Italy 

They sit opposite one another in a sleeper cabin -- two chairs beside the window with a table, bunk beds and a small bathroom. Old wood. A taste of a Europe from days gone by. The train's RATTLE and CLACK is a constant background.

CHIYOH (V.O.): On still evenings, when the air wasdamp after a rain, we played a game. Hannibal would burn all kinds of barks and incense for me to identify by scent alone. He was charming the way a cub is charming, a small cub that grows up to be like one of the big cats.

WILL GRAHAM: One you can't play with later.

CHIYOH: The day I met Hannibal, he was an orphan. I was meant to meet him with his sister, but he was alone.

WILL GRAHAM: How did you meet him?

CHIYOH: I was his aunt's attendant. My parents sent me to learn from Lady Murasaki when I was just a girl. I learned from Hannibal, too. He had all the wisdom in miniature.

WILL GRAHAM: He comes in the guise of a mentor, but it's distress that excites him.

CHIYOH: I'm not in distress.

WILL GRAHAM: Not anymore. You had a strict rule about taking life and you broke it. Is it on your mind? Do you see killing him over and over?

CHIYOH: No. I see you.How do you know Hannibal's in Florence?

WILL GRAHAM: Botticelli.

Will hands her an Uffizi Gallery POSTCARD of the Primavera.

CHIYOH: When we find him, I will have steady hands and a slow heart. Will you?

Will offers a faint smile, glances out the window. She stares at him a moment, then glances outside herself.

CHIYOH: I've never been to Italy. I never expected to. Birds eat thousands of snails every day. Some of those snails survive digestion and emerge to find they've traveled the world.

WILL GRAHAM: In the belly of the beast.

Then, later at night while Will is in bed Chiyoh and him have another conversation

WILL GRAHAM: Do you want me to talk so you don't have to? Or would you rather I not talk at all? Can talk or not talk.

CHIYOH: Are we obligated to talk?

WILL GRAHAM: No

CHIYOH: Strange to talk so much. Not used to hearing voices outside my head.

WILL GRAHAM: I hear voices from all directions.

CHIYOH: I become aware of words no one is saying. Words that spoke to me in the gnawing sameness of my days.

WILL GRAHAM: In the gnawing sameness of your days, did you look at the shape of things? At what you were becoming?

CHIYOH: I wasn't becoming anything. I was standing still. Exactly where he left me standing. Like taxidermy.

WILL GRAHAM: Hollowed out and filled with something else.

CHIYOH: Not something else. I'm not as malleable as you are. You have a taste for it now.

WILL GRAHAM: A taste for what?

CHIYOH: Harm. 

WILL GRAHAM: Do you?

CHIYOH: I was violent when it was the right thing to do, when I was obliged to do it. But I think you like it.

WILL GRAHAM: Violence can be a powerful means to regulate someone's behavior.

CHIYOH: Are you regulating Hannibal's behavior or is he regulating yours?

WILL GRAHAM: We afforded each other an experience we may not otherwise have had.

CHIYOH: You've afforded me an experience I would not otherwise have had. If you don't kill him, you're afraid you're going to become him.

WILL GRAHAM: Yes. 

CHIYOH: There are means of influence other than violence.

Then we have the famous “yeet Will from the train scene

Chiyoh stands alone, braced against the railing, staring out into the darkness unfurling behind the train. Will watches Chiyoh from inside the caboose a moment, then joins her.

The wind whips at them both.

CHIYOH: I like the night. It's more than a period of time; it's another place. It's different from where we are during the day.

WILL GRAHAM: We're different from who we are during the day. Little more hidden, little less seen.

CHIYOH: When life is most like a dream.

Will stares at her a moment, studying her.

WILL GRAHAM: Why are you searching for him? What are you hoping to find?

CHIYOH: I'm not searching for Hannibal. I know exactly where he is.

WILL GRAHAM: Is he in Florence?

CHIYOH: Yes.

WILL GRAHAM: Why didn't you tell me you knew?

CHIYOH: I told you there are means of influence other than violence.

She kisses Will tenderly on the lips, taking his breath away.

CHIYOH: But violence is what you understand.

And with that, Chiyoh shoves Will violently over the railing, sending him ass over teakettle into the night.

Chiyoh takes a deep breath and lets it go and she begins to RECEDE AWAY FROM CAMERA as the train pulls her into darkness.

This is the last time we see Chiyoh in Cotorno, but we see her again in 3.06 Dolce! This is a good one because she meets Bedelia, shoots Will and briefly meets Jack.

First up: Meeting Bedelia

Bedelia, seated in front of the unrolled leather bag and its contents, wraps surgical tubing around her forearm, pulling it taught to create a bulging vein.

With one end of the surgical tubing in her teeth, she picks up her needle and ampoule, but when she looks up, she starts.

CHIYOH -- Stands in the apartment, regarding Bedelia with curiosity, her rifle resting on her hip.

ON BEDELIA

Without pulling the plunger to draw fluid from the ampoule, she carefully removes the needle and sets it down.

BEDELIA DU MAURIER: You must be looking for Hannibal Lecter. One of his patients?

CHIYOH: No, not a patient. Where is he?

BEDELIA DU MAURIER: Gone. Seeing how you let yourself in, I hope it's not too forward to ask, who the hell are you?

CHIYOH: Family.

BEDELIA DU MAURIER: Ah. You've come all the way from home.

CHIYOH: Who are you?

BEDELIA DU MAURIER I'm his psychiatrist.

Chiyoh glances at the ampoule and needle.

BEDELIA DU MAURIER: Medicinal purposes.

Chiyoh studies Bedelia, eyes narrowing.

CHIYOH:You're like his bird. I'm his bird, too. He puts us in cages to see what we'll do.

BEDELIA DU MAURIER: Fly away or dash ourselves dead against the bars.

CHIYOH: You haven't flown away.

BEDELIA DU MAURIER: You're flying right toward him. How does he inspire such devotion?

CHIYOH: You're his psychiatrist.

BEDELIA DU MAURIER: You could add to what I've learned in my experience with him, and from the mute postures of the dead. Were you there? Did you watch as the beast within him turned from the teat and entered the world?

CHIYOH: I met the beast and I saw him grow. Someone wants to kill him.

BEDELIA DU MAURIER: More than one someone, I'd say.What do you want?

CHIYOH: I want to cage him.

That makes Bedelia smile.

BEDELIA DU MAURIER: I thought Will Graham was Hannibal's biggest mistake. But I have to wonder if it isn't you. Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time for me to take my medicine.

I have a lot of thoughts about this scene, but that is for another post and another analysis. For now, onto shooting Will 

Will and Hannibal emerge from the museum, out into the bustling courtyard.

A TELESCOPIC RIFLE SIGHT FROM THE ROOF Finding Hannibal in its crosshairs...

CUT TO: EXT. UFFIZI GALLERY - ROOF - DAY

CLOSE-UP -- the rifle's silenced barrel, its opening resembling the entrance to a dark tunnel pregnant with danger.

CLOSE-UP -- a gloved finger twitching on the trigger. Reveal it belongs to Chiyoh. HER POV THROUGH THE TELESCOPIC SIGHT Deliberately moving from Hannibal to Will.

BACK TO CHIYOH As she pulls the trigger and FIRES. Causing a FLOCK OF PIGEONS to burst into frightened flight...

CUT TO:

EXT. UFFIZI GALLERY - COURTYARD - DAY As WILL IS HIT IN THE SHOULDER.

And is thrown off balance against Hannibal who catches him. Holds him up as if Will is drunk or faint. Will's blade falls from his hand and Hannibal picks it up.

Hannibal looks around quickly and then throws an arm around Will, dazed and bleeding, and quickly hustles him though the courtyard toward the riverfront.

EXT. UFFIZI GALLERY - ROOF - DAY Chiyoh takes a moment to consider what she has done.

Then Chiyoh meets Jack going up to Sogliato’s 

Jack enters through the front door.

Checking a directory displayed on the wall, he finds the name "SOGLIATO -- 7B."

Then he gets into an elevator.

INT. SOGLIATO'S APARTMENT BUILDING - ELEVATOR - NIGHT

Jack presses the button marked "7."

As the door begins to slide shut, a hand suddenly reaches in to stop it.

CHIYOH

Steps into the elevator with her rifle case, standing right beside Jack, both of them looking straight ahead.

The door closes again. Chiyoh reaches to press "7," realizing it's already pushed. She glances surreptitiously at Jack.

The elevator LURCHES upward. Jack looks at her.

Chiyoh looks at Jack. Sees the gun under his coat. AN OVERHEAD SHOT Looking straight down at Jack and Chiyoh.

CUT TO: INT. SOGLIATO'S APARTMENT BUILDING - HALLWAY/ELEVATOR - NIGHT

A cheerful DING heralds its arrival.

The door opens. Jack holds it open for Chiyoh who reluctantly walks out. Jack watches her go. He allows the elevator door to close and follows Chiyoh.

She moves down the hall and, as she approaches the stairway landing, she pauses. She glances back at Jack.

CHIYOH: Wrong floor.

Chiyoh casually descends the stairs, aware that Jack is watching her suspiciously. He considers a moment, then continues down the hall.

The final time we see Chiyoh is in 3.07 Digestivo 

The first scene she’s in she helps Jack when Mason’s people come to kidnap Will and kill Jack:

JACK CRAWFORD: Arrivederci.

The two remaining cops move toward Jack. The lead cop picks

up the bone saw. It WHINES in his hand.

ON JACK -- immobile -- at their mercy. The other cop holds his head.

Through the window -- a GLINT OF LIGHT makes Jack squint. CRACK!

A hole appears in the window, and the cop holding Jack takes a bullet in the head and drops.

CRACK, CRACK!

The lead cop takes one in the shoulder and, as it spins him, another one in the head.

The bone saw drops, WHINING and VIBRATING onto the table, now right in front of Jack.

ON JACK, two dead cops on the floor -- their blood splashed on his face. His eyes on the bone saw BUZZING ever closer to the table's edge and his lap...

CLOSE ON the starred bullet holes in the window. CAMERA pushes through a hole to find:

EXT. ROOFTOP - NIGHT

CHIYOH stands to steady her

Chiyoh lowers

with her foot on the ledge, bracing her elbow aim. Her eye huge in the end of the scope.

CHIYOH'S BACK

CAMERA follows her into: the rifle.

TIME CUT TO:

CAMERA moves around Chiyoh to find Jack Crawford, head bowed. The floor CREAKS and he glances up over his brow.

JACK CRAWFORD Wrong floor.

Chiyoh switches off the bone saw.

JACK CRAWFORD (CONT’D) Would you come over here and pull this needle out of my arm?

CHIYOH: Where did they take them?

JACK CRAWFORD: Did you do this?

CHIYOH: Of course.

JACK CRAWFORD: Appreciate it. May I ask why?

CHIYOH: Why wouldn't I? I ought to. I should. Therefore, I must. (then) You're sitting at Hannibal's table. You know him. You know Will.

JACK CRAWFORD: I know them. They are identically different, Hannibal and Will.

CHIYOH :Where did they take them?

Jack studies her a moment, then:

JACK CRAWFORD: They are most likely taking them to the U.S. To Maryland. I can even give you an address... once you pull this needle out of my arm.

He indicates where the drugs are still flowing into his body. Chiyoh does not move.

CHIYOH: Once I pull this needle out of your arm... then what?

JACK CRAWFORD: My "then what" consists of getting out of Florence alive now that I'm supposed to be dead. That leaves me in no position to stop whatever it is you're intending to start.

Chiyoh holds Jack's gaze and then pulls out his IV.

CHIYOH: Where?

JACK CRAWFORD: Muskrat Farm. The Verger estate near the Susquehanna River in northern Maryland.

Chiyoh stoops and frisks the dead Italian police officer on the ground until she finds his gun. She places it on the table in front of Jack Crawford and exits.

Then Chiyoh goes to Virginia to do some truly fantastic shooting

Out of the shadows behind Hannibal, two Verger bodyguards appear. Moving swiftly upon him, raising their RIFLES to fire --

ON HANNIBAL -- the two bodyguards looming on either shoulder. PFFT! PFFT!

Both of their heads fly backward as a red mist EXPLODES from them and they crumple to the ground.

REVERSE AT SPEED to find -- CHIYOH

In the bough of a large tree, looking down the sights of her hunting rifle.

Hannibal Lecter now fixed firmly in her sights...

Then there is the conversation between Chiyoh and Hannibal and even though it’s short, I absolutely love this conversation. 

Chiyoh stands on the porch alone, her rifle resting in the crook of her arm. After a contemplative moment, Hannibal emerges through the front door.

HANNIBAL: Will you go home? Can you go home?

CHIYOH: No more than you can.

HANNIBAL: We all form frameworks from our early experiences through which later perceptions are understood.

CHIYOH: Perceptions are understood when you look harder. I've looked into you. I thought you should be caged.

HANNIBAL: Would you watch over me?

CHIYOH: I will watch over you. Not in a cage. Some beasts shouldn't be caged.

HANNIBAL: Your obsessive and successful hunt, whose plight was it driven by? Mine? Will Graham's? Yours?

CHIYOH: Mischa's. Did you eat her?

HANNIBAL: Yes, but I did not kill her.

Chiyoh breathes a sigh of relief.

HANNIBAL (CONT’D) One quality in a person doesn't rule out any other quality. They can exist side by side, good and terrible. Socrates said it better.

CHIYOH: I see the best of you and the worst with steady hands and a slow heart.

HANNIBAL: The most stable elements, Chiyoh, appear in the middle of the periodic table, roughly between iron and silver. Between iron and silver. I think that is appropriate for you.

OFF Chiyoh studying Hannibal, not taking her guard down.

Then the final time we see Chiyoh she has her Rifle on Hannibal as he is captured by the FBI. 

Might do some analysis of these scenes later but for now I am just dumping these scenes so I have them. 

[calliecat93]

Top 15 Star Trek TOS Episodes (Part One)

I debated on doing this until I did the second watchthrough/reviews... but heck with it. I don’t see it changing too terribly much after and I thought it would be fun. It’s been a fun ride with TOS and I didn’t expect to love it, but here we are. It ain’t a perfect show, but a good one with good characters, strong themes, and just the right amount of intrigue and silliness. I had a blast watching it, but let’s face it, some episodes are better than others. Some are goofy but enjoyable, some... well, they tried. Everyone’s got what they like and dislike, and these are the ones that I liked best. All is only my opinion, so take it with a grain of salt. So to finally cap off this watchthrough before I start the second one and also plunge into TNG, here is the first half of my favorite TOS episodes~

#15. Bread and Circuses

I didn’t realize this until I saw someone else point it out... but this is essentially Star Trek’s version of The Hunger Games, only combined with Roman gladiators. We have our main trio get captured by the government whom have already caused another Starfleet captain to succumb and he sentenced his entire crew to death. Thus we have Kirkg ivent he option of either doing the same, or he can remain in defiance and risk Spock and McCoy’s lives. Either way, he loses. It’s a good episode, showing Kirk given one of the most sadistic choices that you can give him... and yet he doesn’t break. Oh he gets plenty of hardship. He makes the choice to keep the crew form beaming down, which morally is te best decision. After all, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Kirk, unlike Captain Merik, chooses to preserve his cew’s safety as a captain should. Whatever happens to him makes no difference... but because Spock and McCoy are with him, him making that chocie means that they suffer theconsequences as they are not only thrust into gladitorial combat for their lives, bt Kirk is forced to watch and can do nothing. He tries to when Bones is down, but restrained form doing so. But even then he doesn’t back down or even consider it. Merik may have thrown away his whole crew, but like Hell Kirk is going to and concerning the other two, he accepts execution after Spock breaks the rules to save Bones, emphasizing the point more. It;s a really god episode to show just how much Kirk truly follows that responsibility.

We also have some great Spock/McCoy content here as the episode does put their relationship int he spotlight a bit. Their relationship is the most interesting to me so this was a great one. They bicker pretty much all episode with even the other guy they got caught with asking if they’re enemies, which Kirk just replies that even those tow don’t know. But I think if there’s any doubt that they don’t care about each other, this one promptly shuts it up. Spock, despite knowing that he can’t, defends McCoy and saves his life. This leads tot he excellent scene int he cells where Spock is trying to figure a way out, despite fully well knowing that he can’t break through the bars. Logically it would be pointless to continue fruitless efforts, but he tries to anyways. When McCoy tries to thank him for saving him, with Spock both hiding behind his usual logical shell while still focusing on the futile escape effort. Thus we get McCoy confronting him about being afraid of living and not knowing how to handle even one warm feeling. It’s a really good scene performed excellently by Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley and is just a really good insight into their relationship. I’ll keep from going into any huge detail for if that review project makes it this far, but still an excellently performed scene, especially when it caps off with McCoy simply saying that he’s worried about Jim too, the one thing that the two CAN agree on without doubt.

This is at fifteen mainly because of a few small factors. I only know a few things about Roman history so anything about it went over my head and the ending also baffled me likely due to that. We also have it implied that Kirk did... it with a slave girl. Mind you the slave girl went to him and again it’s implied. But that still makes me feel... very uncomfortable once the girl did it under orders, and therefore not fully without consent. I’m gonna have to watch it again when I dot he more in-depth analysis, but... yeah. The ending also leaves without a real resolution to the planet, remaining as they are until they eventually fall just like the actual Rome did. I guess that was the intention, but... just kinda sucks that nothing truly got accomplished. Still from a character standpoint, it was a really good one for the Triumvirate and a great watch.

#14. For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky

So for those who have been following me since I began this venture, you know that McCoy is my absolute favorite character. So when we got to a McCoy-centric episode, I was excited! And overall, it was a good one. Not one of the best, but perfectly fine. We have McCoy diagnosed with a terminal illness and given a year to live. When he and the other two transport onto a meteor-esque spaceship, they encounter the priestess Natira and her people headed for essentially a promised land witht he ship controleld by The Oracle. As Kirk and Spock try to learn more, McCoy is left with Natira who has grown smittenw ith hima dn wishes for him to remain as her mate. Sadly, I feel like this pisode wasted a lot of potential. Bones, the Chief Medical Officer who is always taking care of everyone else, is now the sick one and has only a eya rleft, if event hat. But the only real signs of this is he’s a little weaker than normal, which tbf it was just diagnoses so he may not have the most severe symptoms bu it also kidna makes the fact feel... less urgent. Using that time to set up himw ith Natira also felt wasted since we have the potential of a very emotional story where McCoy sis truggling with his lfie and the others have to come to terms that e’s going to die and likely struggle to find some way, any way to save him... and we spend it with a Girl of the Week who we’ll never see again and on a romance that while it is kinda sweet, ultimately leaves zero impact. It just feels like there was so much wasted potential and the emotional weight that you DO get... it feels less strong if you don’t know McCoy’s history. We know it now cause of supplementary material and such, butt he audiece of the 60’s certainly didn’t, hence why this is fourteen on the list.

That being said, the episode is still good. What makes up for the lack of impact about McCoy’s status and lack of history is DeForest Kelley. The man put his all into this episode (he did in every episode, but especially here when he gets ot be center stage), expressing McCoy’s sadness and loneliness as he talks to Natira perfectly. You can feel that loneliness, that longingness for what Natira’s offering him, that need to just have... some kind of happiness and intimacy that he was just never able to truly have, especially now. He just feels so... sad and vulnerable. Even though we’ve seen him interact romantically with women before, he comes off as so nervous and uncertain about what he’s doing. Like it’s been so long since he’s been intimate with anyone that he is at an utter loss on what to do with it. Natira essentially takes the lead and is even perfectly fine with caring for him in the limited time that he has left. There is someone willing to be with him and to love him for the first time in who knows how long and willing to continue to do so despite him dying... is it any shock that he chose to remain? And even then he did so in part to save Kirka and Spock from death when they got caught... and even then when he found out how to get the ship on it’s actual course and out oft he way of danger, he called them immediately for help. Yeah he almost got his brain fried for it which tbf he didn’t know would happen, but it still shows how selfless he really is, still placing others well-being before his own. As a good doctor would and should.

We also have Kirk and Spock’s reactions to the news. Kirk only knows because Chapel pretty much forced Bones to tell him and the man looks like a kicked puppy when told. He even tells Bones that he doesn’t have to go on the mission with them when normally he’s all gung-ho about dragging him along, only allowing it because this time Bones actually wants to go. Spock finds out after they all get zapped with Bones taking longer to wake up/being briefly unrsponsive, where Kirk admits it to him. Spock is noticibly concerned, emphasized when he holds onto McCoy’s arm for a good 30 seconds just to help the man sit up. McCoy can already tell that he knows before Kirk say it...a dn chooses to just let it be and get back to the matter at hand. Then there’s McCoy after he made his decision and faces the two for as far as he knew the final time. Kirk argues with him and is all but begging him to come back since otherwise he’s gonna die, which McCoy refuses since...well, he’s gonna either die from collision or being shot down, or he dies of xenopolycythemia. Either way he’s on borrowed time, so why not at least let him live it hacving a shot at happiness? Kirk is upset. Spock is as upset as a Vulcan will express. McCoy’s not happy about it, but firm in his decision... so firm it kinda makes the end where he does decide to go back kind of a juxtaposition, but I ain’t complaining either. The cure is also too convenient, but again not complaining. It doens’t seem like that much of an episode at first glance, but once you sit down and reallye xamine it even if you know nothign about McCoy’s backstory or peornsal life, it relaly leaves an impact. Again, a testemant to Kelley’ performance. As such even wit it’s issues and waste of potential, I adore it~!

#13. Obsession

I don’t see this one talked about much, but I found this one... well I hate to say the word but fascinating. What can I say? I’m a sucker for character studies, and BOY do we have a good one with Kirk here. In this episode we have a mysterious gas creature thing killing the crew and eventually get into The Enteprrise. Kirk reacts badly to it. Why? Well his crew dying of course, but the big reason is because he’s dealt with this creature before when he was a lieutenant where due to hesitaitng for a brief moment, mass casualties including his commanding officer were killed. So now with this creature’s pesence, Kirk is ont he hunt to take it down once and for all. But as the title indicates, he’s leaning towards becoming obsessed with it. We se Kirk acitng more angry and reckless than usual, especially when he continues to choose this over getting out of the space to diver some vaccines whent heya re desperately needed... yeah we’ll try to ignore how uncomfortable that is int he current times for now. The on of his former CO is also part of the Enterprise crew, and Kirk is spreading that obsession onto him, even punishing him for hesitating as he had when you’d expect him to be more sympathetic. It’s an episode that really unsettles you because Kirk isn’t acting like Kirk. Even in Consciousness of the King when dealing with the man who... you know, caused a genocide that Kirk was a victim of, he mostly held it together.

It’s these kinds of episodes that always fascinate me. What happens when we put this character into a situaitont hat completeley unnerves them? How would they react? How would it affect their usually rational actions? What would drive them to behave in such a way? How do those around them react? Kirk is very much dealing with a trauma and while eh is able to convince Spock and McCoy that e IS sound of mind and fit for duty, it doesn’t change that he’s allowing the trauma and guilt to morph into a dangeorus obsessiont hat is risking numerous lives. Not to mention afecting a young man who is in a similar position to him and also lost a loved one, yet the one that you’d expect to have Kirk’s sympahty is the one he’s treaitng harshly because of what he himself went through. Yes Kirk realizes it at the end and both corrects his mistakes and takes outt he monster, and it was good to see that he was able to pull himself back. But it was still just so interesitng to explore Kirk in this kind of position.

Spock and McCoy were also on point with both knowing that Jim isn’t acting right and ultimateley confornting him. The whole scene where McCoy gives Kirk essentially apsycological analysis, bringing Spock in once Kirk gets partiulalry heated, and them both laying down the line and holding firm until Kirk properly assures themt hat he is fit for duty was such a great scene. So was Spock actually seekign Bones as he knows that he can better understand Kirk’s emotional issues and him trying to comfort Garrovic was nice... it failed but he was stillt rying to do the right thing when Jim couldn’t. It’just one of those episodes that a character analyist like me eats up. As far as flaws go, notign comes to mind, but that might change on rewatch. I had just had others I liked better that placed it here, but it was very much an episode that got my attention.

#12. Operation: Annihilate

I still remember the suspense that this episode had me in. So we have the crew arrive at a colony that is uner attack by these parasites that are infecting thema nd leading them to painful deaths. Its already bad when Kirk finds his brother dead and his sister-in-law dies in utter agony, leaivng his young nephew’s fate uncertain. But it gets worse when Spockg ets infected and while he does his best, he’s having a difficult time managing the pain. It shows too in not only the scene where he pretty much goes balistic, but every scene after where he’s moslty under control, you can see the pain in his body lamnguage, tone, and eyes. Nimoy did an excelelnt job at keeping up that usual Spock demeanor, but converyign everything through body language alone. The team has to work to find a way to get rid of these parasites before it kills anyone else and exterminate them fromt he colony.

IMO, this was when iot felt like the writers realized what they had with the Triumvarite. At that point it was mainly abotu Kirka dn Spock and hwile Bones got it better than a few of the others, he still didn’t feel... quite there yet. I mean Kelley wans’t evne including int he opening credits until the next season. Here though we have all three with something major going on that’s important. Kirk is trying to figure out how to deal witht he situaiton which has cost him two fmaily members and may cost him his kid nephew. Spock is n pain due tot he parasite but still trying to perform his duties,e ven beaming down to get one of the parasites sicne as he’s already infected, he’s not at risk. McCoy is tryign to figure out how to get rid of the things and is the one having to keep both Spock and Peter alive. These all intersect together and the three just have this great chemistry. Their dynamic isvery mucht he thignt hat I loved most whenw atching the series, and this is when it felt like it clicked into place. The climax isalso heart-breaking. They figure out that bright lightcan kill the parasites, but McCoy is worried about what that intensity can do to Spock. He’s reluctant, but both Kirk and Spock push him to do it and while it’s successful in killing the parasite, it elaves Spock blind. Then Bones finds out that he didn’t need to turn it up that high and would have know had he just waited a few moments. While Spcok accepts it as a necessary loss, Kirk can barley hold back his fury... thoguh I DON’T like how the blame all get put on Boens when Kirk made him do it. Evenw hen Kirk tells Bones later that it wasn’t his fault, just by Bones’ face you can tell that he fully blmes himself.

That does bringmy big criticism though that lande dit at twelve. The ending is... nto good. I mean yay the succeed, but it felt like this was meant to be a two-parter, they couldn’t get the seocnd part, and had to make a hasty resolution to clear up the plot quickly. Not only is Peter’s face never mentioned or do we see Kirk’s reactionw hether good or bad, but Spock... is fine. He had a second eyelid that NEVER comes up again and he had just forgottena bout it. I now that TOS wans’t a serialized show but it not only felt like a waste of some potential story and character development for all three of our boys, but like haivng Spock blindd at all and sending McCoy down that guilt trip was utterly unecessary to begin with because it all happened int he last five minutes. I’mg lad that Spock was okay, and the end where Bones asks Kirk to not tell Spockw hat he said about him being the best First Offficer int he fleet, which Spock ehars and thanks him for half-enuinely, half-jokignly, again it feels like it was unecessary with how lat eit happened and how little impact it ultimateley had. Because of that, it landed here. But it’s still an enjoyable episode that again, felt like when the Triumvirate truly clicked into place and gave us even more good material after,

#11. The Naked Time

When I got to this episode, I had to remember how I quit as a teenager right before this and proceeded to yell ‘why didn’t you just go ONE more episode you idiot?!” to my past self. I really enjoyed this episode mainly for the concept. A virus that erases one inhibitions and self-control. Some of them are wa ky like Sulu with the fencing sword, which was also the most entertaining part of the episode. But it’s still interesting as we see these characters just give into whatever they’re desiring without any sort of thought and it erupts into chaos. It WAS a tad uncomfortable cause... you know, we’re watching a spreading virus that came about cause someone failed to follow proper safety guidelines while we’re living in a pandemic. But that’s not the episode’s fault.

It especially got interesting when Spock got it. This is the fourth episodes aired (I think it’s later in production order but I watched the order Netflix gave me) but even then we saw that Spock was a logical, very in-control character. We din’t know all the details anout him yet or that much about Vulcans, but we’d seen enough to get the general gist of the character. Then due to the cirus, those mental barriers begin to crumble rapidly. The scene where he is alone, trying to force himself to gain control of his emotions and ultimately failing as he breaks down... damn that was an excellent scene. Apparently it was thought of on the spot by Leonard Nimoy and he only had time for one take. Boy did he nail it. That was the moment I became invested in Spock as a character and in his and Kirk’s relationship as Kirk tries to snap him out of it, even risking getting infected himself because he needs Spock.  I think that there are episodes that I enjoy more and the weird time travel ending made the ending really weird. Hence why this just barely missed the Top 10. But back when the show mainly gripped me for it’s science fiction concepts, this was a really good episode. It was the first one I went and watched twice before moving to the next one. I’m just so interested in the idea of losing your self-control and how you and others around you deal with it. Maybe it’s the analyst in me talking, but damn those mental concepts always get to me! A fun watch that was essentially the episode that convinced me that yes, this show is good and this time I wasn’t backing out.

#10. Mirror, Mirror

Top 10 now! Here we go! So.. mirror alternate reality. We’ve seen this a billion times in just about every media ever. IDK how common it was when Star Trek did it, but I always love this kind of concept snd seeing how a character would act if things had gone even slightly different. The Mirror Verse is admittedly a little too cartoonishly evil, but does come across as a fascist dictatorship, so I can’t really complain. Anyways, Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and Uhura and up there and now have to figure out how to get home without anyone catching on that they’re not their counterparts. One thing I love is that it gives Scotty and Uhura some much needed focus and they are both awesome with Scotty being his usual miracle worker self and Uhura kicking ass as she gets info and outright threatens Sulu when he tries to come on to her. God I love that woman~

The Mirror Crew are essentially one-dimensional monsters with the exception or Mirror Spock. He’s still the logical being that we know him as, but much colder and ruthless as well. Yet he still is the closest to matching his usual self and has at least some level of decency compared to everyone else. It’s probably why Kirk was so convinced that he could cause a turn around at the end. He’s not good, but he’s still more good than anyone else on that ship. Yeah the guy who forcibly mind melded McCoy without consent (and how much we judge that I’ve seen varied but I consider it a horrible invasion of privacy that they shouldn’t have brushed off) is still FAR better than anyone else if that indicates how bad this universe is. Seeing his and Kirk’s interactions was super interesitng as clealry Mirror Spock caught on quickly that something was up, but chose to prolong it until near the end. It’s interesitng to observe. I also just love seeing our four heroes handling the situation. They all act effectivlynd manage to keep up the masqurade very well with only Spock and Marlena figuring it out. It’s one of the more diverse ensembles and I wish they had done more diverse dynamics than here, but it was great to see.

I think my only issues aside form McCoy’s potential trauma being glossed over (though I do love how he insisted on saving Mirror Spock and risk not making it home cause damn it, he’s a doctor no matter what) is how we don’t get to see the four’s mirror selves aside form once, where only Kirk gets a characterization as a cartoonishly violent brute. We hear a few things about them like Mirror McCoy’s sickbay essentially being a torture zone, but that’s it. I guess it was due to only having an hour, but I wish we had gotten to see how Spock’s end of things and how he interacts with them aside form Kirk, which that didn’t amount to much anyways. Ah well, fanon has covered both of these pretty extensively from what I can tell, so I shall settle on that. Still it was an enjoyable episode. I’ve seen better Evil Universe stories (nothing’s gonna beat the Justice Lords from Justice League for me tbf), but still a good one with a good ensemble, good character moments, and a unique threatening situation for our heroes to navigate through.

#9. Amok Time

AKA, the episode that more or less created the Slash Genre as we know it. But we’ll touch ont hat later. For now, one thing that I was really hoping for when I got to Season 2 was learning more about Vulcans and their culture. We knew a few things by then, like certain physiological differences between Vulcans and Humans and of course their logical philosophy. But S2 explored them and their culture more, and this was a big one. Spock is acting uncharacteristically agressive and refuses to explain why. Eventually he reveals that he is undergoign Pon Farr, aka going into heat. Unless he goes to Vulcan and does... ugh... mating and soon, he will die. IDK how they got away with this on a 60’s show, but I ain’t complaining. It does that exploration into Vulcans that I was hoping for. Hell we grt to finally see Vulcan... well a section of it but we still got to see it for the first time! It was interesitng to learn about Pon Farr and the rituals that go into it like how maitng works (weird that the logical Vulcan species has arranged marriages, but whatever) and seeing more Vulcans outside of Spock. It’s the kind of world building that does my heart good~

It had a lot of really good moments. Spock explaining everything to Kirk while trying to keep himself from killing him. Chekov being uttelry done with everything as they keephanging course to and from. Ulcan. Spock inviting not only Kirk to the ‘wedding’, but also McCoy, showing that despite their arguments he undoubtedly considers him a close friend. Hell McCoy imo is the true hero of the episode for being the one to catch that something was worng with Spock and his in-genius plan to fake Kirk’s death to keep his two idiot best friends from killing each other without pissing off any Vulcans. Seriosuly, the man needs all the appreciation in existence. And of course, we have the kal-if-fee where T’Pring (great antagonist BTW, will explore her when ai do an a tual review) forces Kirk against Spock. What ensued, while I fully believ eunintentional, forever generated a whole wave of slash and outright invented the term. While I’m not even close to as into Spirk as others, there is no denying how impactful the ship was to fandom culture and to the LGBT+ community. It is a legavy that I hold respect for since it really gave people like myself creativity and enpowerment for over 50 years, and is still generaitng works even now. That is something to respect.

As for it’s placement... the ending was a litle weird. It felt like they didn’t know how to have Spock cured without him either killing someone or doing hanky panky, so he just... gets over it agter thinking that he killed Kirk. It is a good moment, especially his reaction when he sees that Kirk is alive. That was a very justified emotional response that made me smile... and laugh when he tried to deny it haha. ButI find it hard ot buy that a biological funciton like that just... went away. But ah well. It was still an ejoyable episode with some great Vulcan content, McCoy being an underrated badass, and the moments that slash shippers will forever be grateful for. But speaking of slash...

#8. All Our Yesterdays

Sorry Amok Time, but THIS is the slashiest episode in the whole show. While I didn’t get into Spirk much, I got head over heels for Spones. IDK what it was but their dynamic has always been enjoyable and it just... really drew me in. Most of my favorite moments were between this two like the moment in Bread and Circuses and more I’ll go into later, This is essentially The Spones Episode despite what actually happens. Our heroes are to clear a planet that’s sun is about to go supernova, only to find it already gone. Kirk ends up going through a portal when he hears cries for help and when Spock and McCoy go agter him, they end up in an arctic-like area. They were all sent to different points of th eplanet’s past, Kirk in some old timey point and Spock and McCoy even earlier. Now they have to figure out how to get back and survive their situaitons. Kirk’s plot has nothing special tbh and with a few adjustments could have been written out entirely, hence why this is at 8. But Spock and McCoy? Ho boy, their scenes MAKE this episode.

Spock and McCoy try to survive the harsh conditions, the latter almost dying of severe frostbite. He outright tells Spock to abandon him with Spock being VERY adament that that’s not happening. They’re rescued by a woman named Zarabeth and Spock proceeds to spend most of the episode interacting with her while tending to McCoy. Which he gets VERY touchy feely with the latter. Like... a lot more than normal, which tvh the whole seaosm felt that way between those two if what I said about The World is Hollow... counts for anything. Now he DOES end up ‘falling’ for Zarabeth, but there’s a reason for that. Spock is regressing to how his ancestors acted at the time, which was like ‘barbarians’. When amcCoy starts to realize that something’s wrong, it leads to two very intense but really well done scenes with McCoy using logic against Spock to make him realize that he’s lost himself. And while Spock pretty much gave up greitng home due to all of this, McCoy refuses with or without him, even outright going back into the storm to find the portal because damn it, he wants his life back. Then when we find out that Spock and McCoy HAVE to go back together or not at all, it doesn’t take Spock even a second to decide to leave Zarabeth behind. It’s sad because Zarabeth will die a cold, lonely death and she cdoesn’t deserve that at all, so it’s bittersweet. But man next to the katra thing int he films, IDT it gets more symbolic than that.

Like I said, Kirk’s scenes in the past are the only real issue I have since aside form explaining a few things about he situation, feel like they’re just there so that Kirk can still be in the episode prominently. I had some problems with Spock’s OOC behavior, but that got an explanation and has some credibility with how Vulcans are psychically linked. Would explain why McCoy and Zarabeth never seemed to regress. But it was still a good episode with great Spock and McCoy scenes, we FINALLY git a snow environment after forever (and a time travel plot to boot), and a bittersweet but nice ending. Seriously when Spock and McCoy make it back safely and Kirk just touches them on their shoulders in relief is such a nice moment. God I love those three~! Season Three wasn’t a strong season but it still had it’s standouts, and this was very much one of them for me. But I AM biased cause Spones, so take that for what it’s worth!

And that’s enough for now. The last seven will be in another post. Thank you for reading everyone~!

Image Source: TrekCore TOS Gallery

[psychosistr]

Mending the Broken- Chapter 2

Summary:  Jonathan and Speedwagon venture further into Dio's trap, but find themselves in a bizarre situation they couldn't have foreseen.

Notes:  Mild warning this chapter for some slightly gory visual descriptions, but nothing to far off from the canon content.

-First Chapter-

The tunnel seemed almost endless. The pair had been walking for what felt like hours, and, with no view of the sky to judge the passage of time, very well could have been. They ran out of oil in the lantern and were forced to simply let their eyes adjust to the darkness. Despite the darkness and the generally unpleasant aroma of the cave, though, there were no other hindrances. It was quite strange…

“Oi, Mr.Joestar..” Speedwagon stopped to brace his hand against the wall of the tunnel, looking a bit unsteady on his feet. “Sorry..but..mind if we stop a spell? I dunno why..but me ‘ead’s killin’ me..”

Jonathan nodded in understanding and walked over to his friend’s side, gently rubbing his back. “Of course. My apologies, I should have thought of that sooner- you did suffer a concussion, after all. It must be painful, even with the damage healed.”

Speedwagon shook his head slightly, rubbing at his eyes. “No, it’s not like that..it’s almost..heavy? Feels odd..” He looked up at Jonathan and he finally took notice of the dilation in the other’s brown eyes.

Jonathan gasped in realization. He sniffed the air, really taking in the aroma of the cave and it only confirmed his fears. “The air..it’s laced with something..!” He looked down at his hands and realized how hard it was to concentrate on them- his vision doubling slightly around the edges when he focused his eyes on any finer details at all. “We’ve already fallen into their trap!”

The two looked up in alarm when they heard a skittering sound within the darkness. “!!”

Speedwagon reached for his hat, trying to stand up straight. “I’ll ‘old ‘em off, Mr.Joestar! You try t’ get out!”

Jonathan got into a defensive stance of his own, trying to draw in enough air to charge his hamon, but it was proving difficult with whatever was weighing down the air getting into his lungs. “I am not going to leave you on your own!”

Speedwagon turned to him with a stern expression. “I’m already infected with whatever’s in ‘ere! You’ve got a better chance of escapin’ than I do!” He broke into a coughing fit, his body trying to expel the foreign substance from his lungs.

Jonathan frowned and, ignoring his friend’s startled exclamation, picked him up and started running. “We shall get through this together, Speedwagon!”

Speedwagon tried to say something else, likely to fuss at him for not doing as he asked, but he only ended up coughing again and holding his head with a pained groan. “Damn it..Jojo..’m not..worth it..jus..go..!”

Jonathan only held his companion tighter as he ran, determined to reach the end of the tunnel despite the sounds growing louder around them. He caught glimpses of something out of the corner of his eye every now and then, but it moved too fast for him to properly pinpoint its location for long.

Jonathan came to a split in the tunnel and, not having many options, ran to the right in hopes that it would be the way out. His hopes were dashed against the proverbial and literal rocks when he came to a dead end. Damn it all!

He glanced back over his shoulder, hearing the enemy drawing ever closer. However, the mere act of turning his head was causing waves of dizziness to hit him faster than ever. He would not be able to fight properly like this, darn it. He attempted a hamon breath once more, able to keep a little bit of his breath in his lungs before he felt the tremor of a cough building within him. The breath was only enough to build up a small amount of hamon, he would have to make it count.

Keeping one arm braced around Speedwagon, Jonathan closed his eyes and charged the bit of hamon he’d gathered to his other hand. “….” He waited, listening carefully to the movements drawing closer. Then, he heard it- something crawling along the walls before jumping in their direction. “Zoom Punch!!” It was weaker than the usual version of his attack, but it was just enough to take down the small creature with ease.

After it fell, Jonathan was finally able to see that it was some sort of small, monstrous, mixed up animal that looked like a large cave bat with a human head and, oddly enough, small flowers blooming from its back. The flowers had a pinkish hue and, although he was no botanist, Jonathan still recognized the blooms: Belladonna, the devil’s cherries, also known as deadly nightshade. Even though the creature was defeated, the flowers continued emitting an unnatural scent into the air, more so then should have naturally been possible.

Jonathan tried to remain standing, but the dizziness was proving too difficult to ignore. Then, it happened- his legs gave out from under him.

He managed to hold onto Speedwagon as they fell, landing on his back with the blond cradled protectively against his chest. As consciousness began to leave him, Jonathan held tight to his friend, doing his best to keep him nearby and hoping beyond hope that Baron Zeppeli would find them before the rest of Dio’s minions did.

___________________________________________________________

Jonathan opened his eyes to a bleary, gray nothingness. He couldn’t tell where he was and had the odd feeling of weightlessness, as if he were floating. He attempted to sit up and found himself in a standing position instead, his feet still not touching anything.

“Where..am I..?” He asked himself as he looked around. Then, he heard it- voices. He looked towards the voices and saw an all too familiar head of blond hair. “Ah! Speedwagon!” He tried to walk towards his dear friend, but found he was stuck in place. “Strange, why can’t I-?” His query was forgotten in favor of a new one once he noticed the person that Speedwagon was talking to. “Wait..is that..ME..?”

Indeed it was: Speedwagon was talking to the spitting image of Jonathan, the two smiling as they discussed something that Jonathan couldn’t quite make out at first. As he focused on listening, though, he realized this was a conversation that he’d had with Speedwagon a few days before embarking on their trip to defeat Dio:

Jonathan chuckled as Speedwagon finished speaking. “You do always have the best stories, Speedwagon.”

Speedwagon grinned broadly, clearly glad he was able to offer Jonathan some form of entertainment to lighten his mood. “I’ve got a million of ‘em! Anytime ya wanna ‘ear ‘em, just give ol’ Speedwagon a call!”

“I certainly shall.” Jonathan smiled more before a thought crossed his mind. “Speedwagon..tell me..do you really plan to come with Baron Zeppeli and myself on our mission? You know neither of us would hold it against you if you decided not to come- you would be in a great amount of danger, and I would hate to see something happen to you because of me.”

Speedwagon gave the larger man a troubled frown. “Ya tryin’ t’ say ya don’ want me comin’ with ya?”

Jonathan quickly shook his head. “No, not at all! Of course I WANT you to come with us, I merely wanted to make sure that was what YOU wanted as well. I wouldn’t want you coming along simply because you felt obligated. You are quite dear to me, Speedwagon, and I would hate to lose you in any way.”

Something briefly passed through Speedwagon’s eyes, something tender and insecure and uncertain, but as soon as it was there, it was gone,  replaced with a calm, resolute smile. “You’re important t’ me too, Mr.Joestar. I came int’ this whole mess with y’, and I plan on leavin’ the same way. Besides, I can’t just leave a monster like that t’ run amok, now can I? It’d put you an’ all me mates back on Ogre Street in a right bad spot.”

The desire to protect those you care about- Jonathan could certainly relate to that.

“I understand.” He offered the other man a warm smile in return. “Truthfully, I feel very much the same way about the whole matter: I think of how leaving Dio out in the world could put the people I care about, such as you and Erina, in danger, and how I cannot let that happen. I could not bear to lose either of you.”

Speedwagon’s smile turned a bit sad at the edges- that look in his eyes changing again. “That’s ‘bout what I’d expect from a man like YOU0, Mr.Joestar. But ya should probably put Erina a bit higher than me- she’s the one you’re plannin’ t’ stay with forever, right?”

Jonathan missed the saddened tone in his friend’s voice completely, a dreamy look coming across his face at the thought of Erina’s beautiful smile. “If all goes well and we defeat Dio, then yes, I would very much like to ask for her hand in marriage so that I may spend the rest of my life by her side.”

Speedwagon’s smile remained just a little sad but he tried forcing it into a larger grin. “I’m sure she’ll say yes. You’re an amazin’ man, Mr.Joestar- a true gentleman that anyone in this world would be lucky t’ ‘ave.”

Jonathan looked back down at his friend. “Thank you, Speedwagon. Your words give me hope and courage for what lies ahead. Whether it be undead monsters or dealing with Erina, it all seems easier with you by my side.” He finally took notice of the other man’s forced smile, causing his own to fall slightly. “Speedwagon? Is something wrong?”

Speedwagon shook his head and kept that smile firmly in place. “I’m fine, Mr.Joestar- nothin’ t’ worry ‘bout.”

Jonathan wanted to pry and ask more, but felt it would be rude to do so and trusted Speedwagon to tell him if something was truly bothering him. “Very well then, if you say so.”

Jonathan looked between the dream version of himself and Speedwagon. Had that really been the face Speedwagon made at the time? The tone in his voice? How had he missed such obvious sorrow? How had he just dismissed his dearest friend’s pain so easily?

He cared very deeply for Speedwagon. When thinking of the most important people in his life, Speedwagon was, without fail, always at the top of his list- right beside Erina in his heart. Some would find it odd for him to hold a man of such low social status in the same regard as a beautiful noble woman such as Erina, but Jonathan did not care- he loved each of them in his own way. The thought of ever being the cause of Speedwagon’s unhappiness troubled Jonathan greatly and-

Jonathan blinked in surprise at himself. “Wait..did I really just think of the word love in regards to Speedwagon..?” He’d never really payed it much thought before, but, in a way, it made sense. ‘Surely, he is kind, brave, clever, and I do greatly enjoy his companionship and love him dearly..but..do I..love him as I love Erina..?”

That thought perplexed him to no end. He knew that some men were capable of loving other men, and he certainly had no problem with it as long as both parties were happy, but he’d never really held feelings for another man himself before. Then again, throughout his life, he’d never really fallen for any women other than Erina, either, so he could not truly say that he only found women attractive.

Perhaps he was more attracted to certain personality traits rather than a particular gender? That would certainly make sense. After all, both Erina and Speedwagon were kind hearted, brave, strong in their convictions, intelligent, and charming in their own unique ways. When he thought of it that way, it was much easier to rationalize being attracted to both of them.

Still, even after admitting to his own attractions, what did that make him? An adulterer? An unfaithful ingrate towards Erina? And what of Speedwagon? How would he feel to know his close friend harbored secret thoughts and feelings for him? Would he-?

The sound of clicking heels drawing closer drew Jonathan’s attention back to the dream versions of himself and Speedwagon. Oddly enough, he saw Erina approaching them.

“Strange..” Jonathan muttered to himself as he watched the dream versions of himself and his two beloveds interacting. “Erina was not there that day..so, why would she be here now?”

He observed them, the dream version of himself giving Speedwagon an apologetic smile while Speedwagon merely put on that same forced smile from earlier and waved him off towards Erina. His dream self smiled and walked away with Erina, taking her hand in his and smiling adoringly at her.

Jonathan almost smiled at the site, but was startled when he looked back at the remaining member of the trio. “Speedwagon..?”

The blond was still smiling, waving farewell to the dream versions of Jonathan and Erina, but lines had started forming on his face under his eyes- cracks, Jonathan soon realized, as they split down his face like he was made of glass. He lowered his hand once the other two dream-versions were gone and his smile fell with it. More cracks began splintering off from the corners of his mouth, forming a twisted, disturbing facsimile of his earlier smile. He brought one hand to his face and covered it, sobbing quietly into his palm as more cracks formed- some further splitting his cheeks and jaw as if they were the paths that wet tears would take when cascading down his face, while another, much larger crack, began to form over his chest above his heart.

“Speedwagon?!” Jonathan tried to reach him again, but found he was still stuck in place. Nonetheless, he tried to call out to the other in an attempt to ease his pain. “Speedwagon, please, look at me! I’m here for you! What’s wrong?! Please, talk to me! Speedwagon!”

Speedwagon just barely lifted his head, starting to look towards Jonathan. But, Jonathan quickly noticed, something was wrong with his eyes. Rather than their usual lively state, they looked empty and hollow. He opened his mouth as if to say something, presumably to Jonathan, but was halted when a hand suddenly and forcefully plunged itself into the crack that had formed on his chest.

Jonathan’s eyes widened in alarm as the hand pulled back out, shattering Speedwagon’s chest open like a stone breaking through a stained-glass window and leaving a large, gaping hole in his torso. The hand was coated in blood as it retracted through the hole and, in its palm, it clutched Speedwagon’s still beating heart that was connected to the broken opening by its many veins and aortas- beating out a frantic rhythm as Speedwagon fell to his knees.

“SPEEDWAGON!!!” Jonathan struggled against his invisible bonds, now clearly feeling something tight around his neck, but the restraints would still not yield.

The being to whom the hand belonged came into view and Jonathan’s heart ignited with protective rage at the sight of his adopted brother smirking cruelly at him while holding his beloved friend’s heart in his hand.

“Dio!!! Get away from him!! Leave him alone!!!!!”

Dio only laughed cruelly at him and rose the quivering organ to his lips and, while maintaining eye contact with Jonathan throughout the process, devoured the other blonde’s heart one sickeningly bloody bite at a time.

“No!! Stop it! DIOOOOO!!!” Jonathan was a combination of livid and desperate. He had to do something! He couldn’t just sit there and do nothing, yet he couldn’t break the bonds on his own like this! Damn it all, what could he do to save Speedwagon?!

He looked frantically to his friend, still kneeling on the ground. His skin grew pale the more Dio partook of his heart and he had more and more cracks appearing all over his body. Strangely, though, his earlier pained frown was slowly lifting into a smile, the action causing parts of his face to break off and shatter on the ground.

Dio soon finished and licked his lips, thoroughly satisfied with his meal. He looked away from Jonathan, down to the kneeling, bloody, broken man at his feet. He gave that wicked grin of his as he reached down and tilted Speedwagon’s head up with his blood soaked hand. The other allowed this, gazing up at Dio with that shattered smiled and hollow eyes. Dio seemed to like what he saw and looked back at Jonathan with a smirk.

“He’s mine now, Jojo.”

Those words were the last thing Jonathan heard before he awoke.

<-Previous Chapter Next Chapter->

End Notes:  I always felt like Dio's chimera-zombies were wasted potential and wanted to see more of them, so you'll be getting a couple gruesome Halloween-worthy ones in this story x3

[maxismatchccworld]

Patch Notes

Update 12/12/2019 PC: 1.59.73.1020 / Mac: 1.59.73.1220

Hello Simmers!

It’s been quite the year for The Sims 4! We blew past the game’s 5th anniversary with no signs of slowing down. One of the community’s most highly requested expansion packs just launched recently, and we hope you’re all enjoying getting educated in Discover University. In case you haven’t heard, we’ve also launched another community Stuff Pack project, where your collective votes will decide the path of yet another pack coming to The Sims 4. And of course, The Sims’ franchise 20th anniversary is just over the horizon, which we’re looking forward to celebrating with you.

Today’s update has been influenced by you as well... We set aside time to specifically address issues that you’ve let us know are important to your in-game experience, and we hope the long list of fixes and improvements you’ll find below will lead to many hours of fun playing The Sims 4. In addition, we’ve squeezed in a few un-planned extras we hope you’ll enjoy. Not only have we added some new music tracks to the game, but we’ve also converted a number of hairstyles to now also be available for children and toddlers. While the adult versions of these styles will remain exclusive to whichever pack they originally came from, we hope you’ll all enjoy these additional options for your Sim’s little ones.

While Maxis will soon be taking a short break to enjoy the holidays (merry Winterfest, and a Happy New Year!), we’ll be back for another packed year for The Sims 4 in 2020. See you then!

-SimGuruGraham, ft. SimGuruGnome

The Music

The following music has been added to the alternative station:

“Nicknames”

Performed by Dayglow

Written by Sloan Struble

Copyright Control

Recording courtesy of AWAL Digital Ltd.

“4am”

Performed by girl in red

Written by Marie Ulven

Copyright Control

Recording courtesy of AWAL Recordings

“prom dress”

Performed by mxmtoon

Produced by Robin Skinner & mxmtoon

Written by Maia M-T

Published by Songtrust Music Publishing

Recording courtesy of mxmtoon LLC under exclusive license to House Arrest/The Orchard

By Arrangement with Bank Robber Music

“Win You Over”

Performed by Whethan & Bearson feat. SOAK

Written by Ethan Snoreck, Jakob Bjørn Hansen, Birdie Monds-Watson, Anthony Whiting and Emily Phillips

Published by Whethan Publishing/These Are Pulse Songs (BMI) c/o Pulse Publishing Administration, Next Wave Music Publishing, Universal - PolyGram Int. Tunes, Inc. on behalf of Universal Music Publishing Ltd., Universal Music Corp. on behalf of itself and PW Arrangements, and Domino Publishing Company USA (ASCAP)

Whethan appears courtesy of Atlantic Recording Corp.

SOAK appears courtesy of Rough Trade Records

Recording courtesy of Ultra Records LLC

FIXES & UPDATES

The Sims 4

Fixed an issue where macOS Simmers could crash when accessing The Gallery.

Fixed an issue where Nice or High Quality harvestables would disappear from Sims’ inventories after Travel or Save/Load.

Fixed an issue where Freelancer Career tasks would not complete after Sims would Travel.

Sims that were seated at a 6 seat round table can now Clean up the dishes.

Child Sims will be now able to enjoy Quick Meals again!

Fixed an issue where Sims didn’t write a genre book when “Write Genre Book” was selected.

Multiple duplicate interactions should no longer appear in pie menus when you have certain objects in your inventory.

The Jet Set Luxury Bath (bathtubJetsGEN_01) was listed as being Unbreakable when that wasn't true.

Speaking of Unbreakable, we fixed an issue with Hot Tubs and Stereos where unbreakable upgrades would not work if these objects were in use when upgrading them.

Fixed an issue in which some Sims could stand on, or walk through solid objects.

Adding a Sim to an existing household via the Create a Sim Stories feature will no longer subtract Simoleons from the household.

You can now extinguish a fire, even if the fire is within another object.

Fixed an issue that would cause Error code 510:5bd7fa0b to occur when attempting to save.

Sims can now Scrap the unfinished paintings of visiting Sims.

Light intensity will no longer reset when setting Auto Lights options.

Fixed an issue which made the item Tiny Globe & Sycee of the Prosperous Moon appear twice in Build Mode.

Half Walls toppers can now be applied to half walls on all levels of your lot.

Fixed an issue that caused Lots downloaded from The Gallery to be placed backwards and not being able to rotate them to an appropriate view.

Households downloaded from The Gallery should now have their starting funds set to the correct amount, and not just the base 20,000 Simoleons.

Child Sims will no longer receive Whims related to workouts.

Fixed an issue that did not allow Nordic keyboards for macOS to use the Size Down Cheat.

Fixed an issue where Error code 102:70c7f9a6 would occur when loading into Lots after loading a saved game.

Walls no longer will disappear when Taking a Photo in a Basement level room that does not have a staircase.

Bookshelves will no longer have the option to purchase University books if you do not own Discover University.

Sims will no longer flicker on and off the landing pad, when in the Rocket Ship using the WooHoo or Try for Baby interactions.

Sims in the Supreme Villain career working on the mischief interaction task can now use the Slablet to Troll teh Forums to complete the task.

Addressed some UI issues in Create a Sim that occurred after modifying the scaling option in the Accessibility options.

Lots and rooms with modded paintings will now be flagged as Custom Content when uploading to The Gallery

Small rugs can no longer be placed over the cutouts created by stairs.

Using Ctrl + U to reset your UI Scaling while you have the UI Scaling window open, will now properly reset the scale bar.

Caterer Sims will now be able to make a Cake and complete their Party event goals.

We attempted to track down the lost harvestables that are currently lost, but found they were lost and unfindable. It’s findings like this that we find we are at a loss of words for, however any future loss should not be found.

Sadly, all the children who had thought they had found the magic loophole, stay seated at the table, are no longer…

...right… like any kid ever stays seated at the table.

Who doesn’t enjoy a good bowl of cereal?

Some example interactions that were reported: “Play Fetch”, ”Give Potion”, “Blackmail”, “Scan Here”. The LastException related to this issue should also be fixed.

It's now truly Unbreakable!

David was also supposed to be Unbreakable… but… spoilers… he broke.

Obviously there was an issue with the hot tub… water is the weakness.

Specifically Baby Bassinets… babies were becoming quite paranoid they weren’t actually Sims...

This could occur if a large object caught fire. You would have to wait until the fire spread outside the bounds of the large object in order to extinguish it.

“Your house is on fire?!”

“Yep… it’s under the bed. Gotta wait it out. But I’m ready.”

Topper… it’s a technical term that means the piece that goes on top of a half wall.

Ok, the issue summary said topper, I couldn’t remember what it was called, so I left it as topper.

Of course I have the game up and running. Yes I could go look…

Ah, you crazy supreme villains and your trolling ways. So eeeeevil.

Get To Work

Aliens should now appear as expected in the Photo thumbnails, and no longer display their disguised forms when they are not in disguise.

Aliens will now display accurate selected options for Eyebrows and Beards in Create A Sim.

Fixed an issue where Scientist Sims would record their findings in Notebooks twice.

We addressed an issue that could prevent Sims from not being able to ring up customers who attempt to purchase from the warming rack.

Some boots, along with the Sims feet, were disappearing when the camera was zoomed all the way out. This should no longer occur.

The "Refer for Surgical Treatment" interaction is now available on surgery tables that have had their color altered with the bb.enablefreebuild cheat.

There are better ways to take tidy and efficient notes.

City Living

There were a number of confusing situations that arose as a result of Invites your Sims would receive. In some cases these would appear as two invites for the same event, one that was the “hey, I just wanted you to know” invite, and the other would be the real invite. They should behave more accordingly to expectations.

Sims with the Shrewd reward trait weren’t as shrewd as they thought they were. We have restored their shrewd’ness and they should now actually receive the money they so rightfully shrewded away at the end of each week.

Fixed an issue in which some shirts in Create A Sim would not tuck in appropriately into skinny jeans.

We blame it on bad investments, the cd market apparently didn’t mean compact discs.

yfTop_EP03Mesh_OmbreBlue now looks as intended when paired with skinny jeans.

Seasons

Sims can now complete New Year resolutions on any lot, and not just their home lots.

The Lottery Holiday is back in your calendars! It should not be a surprise disappearing act any longer.

We spoke to the Holiday Gnomes and they have agreed to stop dropping seed packets if your Sims are not on Lot when the Holiday ends.

Fixed an issue where Weather would affect items inside buildings.

Flower Bunny’s contract has been renewed for them to appear on any Holiday or Tradition that they are scheduled to.

Mandrake and Valerian Root plants are now able to be planted indoors when it is Too Cold if Simmers have Realm of Magic installed.

Holiday Gnomes will no longer break Unbreakable objects when having a negative relationship with them.

The pedestal gnome (pedestal_EF18GENgnome) will no longer spawn as part of the Harvestfest gnomes tradition.

They wanted to spread holiday cheer… or they were attempting to bring about the end of Simanity, and usher in a new world order. Tomayto, tomahto.

Bunny contractual negotiations are ridiculous… they just keep multiplying their demands.

Dad joke quota met.

We don’t know what was done to make them angry, but even as magical as they are, they should not be breaking the Unbreakable.

He’s a table, he knows he’s a table, he doesn’t have any illusions to the contrary.

Get Famous

Married Celebrity Sim Couples will no longer React in Disgust with each other then they enter the same room.

Household members will no longer react to members with Pristine Reputation every time they travel together.

Fixed an issue that caused Recording a Product Review to fail if the Sim had previously interrupted a review by traveling to another Lot.

The Well Suited and G.R.A.N. talent agencies are back in business! Gigs from these agencies will now display appropriately.

Super Speed 3 should now work when Sims sleep in their Sleeping Pods and have a pet.

They are just a B-list celebrity though, can you blame them?

Like... we get it, they are perfect… no need to rub it in.

Island Living

Fixed an issue where Odd Jobs tasks were not able to be completed.

Fixed an issue where Conch Shells were not able to be put in Sims’ Inventories.

Sims can now see their recorded findings in the Notification Wall when performing “Examine Water Thoughtfully” on the Fishing Board.

Released Fish will actually be released back into the water and not be stored in Sims’ Inventory.

Players using low graphics settings will be surprised to find that Dolphins do actually exist in the waters of Sulani.

Discover University

Sims will no longer be accused of cheating on their coursework or homework if they don’t actually cheat.

Term Presentations should not have missing interactions any longer.

Fixed an issue that caused Error code 104:5ee05594 to occur when loading into a Dorm where an NPC had a Baby.

We addressed some feedback that getting As was too easy. Please be aware that your Sim will have to complete the coursework in order to consistently get good grades.

Students will no longer autonomously taunt each other about University Superiority unless they're at the Game Day organization event or have one of these traits: Childish, Evil, Hot-Headed, and Bro.

Please be aware that a Sim’s hunger, energy, and bladder motives will no longer refill on their own just before class.

Fixed an issue in which Enhancing Utility Bots would get cancelled inappropriately.

Roommates should no longer Bring Food home every time they return.

Sims can now Turn Off Computer Glasses when moving to other neighborhoods.

Sims that complete the debate showdown, will once again be able to change into their other outfits.

Term Papers will now always count toward the course’s final grades.

Fixed an issue where the following Build Mode items were not able to be placed on the LearnWell Desk (desk2x1_EP08DORM_set1):

Fixed an issue where “The Secret Society Masks” were not being unlocked in Create A Sim.

The showerWall_EP08Gen_set1 shower will no longer turn on when a Sim attempts to repair it.

Fixed an issue with a swatch color for the yfBody_EP08DressOveralls_BlackSolidWhite

Active Sims should no longer get the “Not Enough Exercise” tense buff if they have enrolled in the Soccer Fútbol after school activity, or choose to juggle a soccer fútbol ball.

Sims now must meet all of the promotion requirements in order to be promoted in the Education Career.

Attempting to interact with a bike rider should no longer cause your Sim to route fail when performing the interaction.

The Make Offering to Sprites interaction should no longer be unavailable if you only have harvestables in your inventory.

Reaching level 5 of the Law Career now correctly unlocks the lawyer suits for your Sim in Create a Sim.

Bots enhanced to level 3 will no longer automatically enhance to level 4 upon activation.

Interacting with a Sim riding a bike will no longer cause the Sim, your Sim, the bike, parts of the world, or any other potential object or thing to disappear.

Inviting your professor to hangout will now actually have the professor arrive to hangout.

Servo can now complete the StrangerVille story.

Servo Fun and Social motive descriptions no longer incorrectly refer to Servo as a Sim.

Bicycles can now be searched for in Build Mode by using the term “bike”.

ExoMech suit can be worn by teen Sims, and is visible too.

Sims already wearing a helmet, will no longer change into another helmet to ride a bike.

Sims in the same household will now automatically know the others degree program.

Sims will no longer receive multiple signing bonuses from degree relevant careers. Only one signing bonus is awarded in any seven day period.

Woohoo in Shower will no longer give fame.

“Chat About Scandalous Lawsuit” now provides fun.

Choosing to cancel the Practice Presentation interaction will now cancel the interaction.

Servos can no longer get sick.

Servos can no longer purchase the Seldom Sleepy reward trait.

Sims on probation can now be asked to study with.

Sims should no longer route fail when attempting to take a Pregnancy test in a bathroom stall.

Asking the Repo Person to not take your stuff will now provide you a Text Notification as to whether or not you had an impact on the Repo Person’s decision.

Sprites no longer appear around the Sim after the buff expires after leaving the Secret Society.

Starving students… yes, it’s a trope, but let’s not lean into it so heavily.

It was getting a bit awkward in special occasions and when meeting neighbors. Not to mention it is a fashion… choice, yes… let’s just say that.

Dang it.

Lex Light By Dex Pix - lightTableLarge_EP08GENarm_set1, Q-Bik Tabletop Mood Light - lightTableLarge_EP08GENcage, and Great Gramps’ Light - lightTableLarge_EP08GEN_set1 can now be placed properly.

yuAcc_GlassesEP08SecretSocietyMask and yuAcc_GlassesEP08MasqueradeMask are now unlocking as intended.

Outdoor Retreat

Sims can now roast at a campfire without needing a seating object nearby.

Spa Day

Fixed an issue where Sims did not have the option to “Take Bath with Soaks” and “Take Mud Bath” on Showertubs.

Sims can now again get massages autonomously at Spas.

Mud bath… showertub, at home? Hmm. Goooood plumbing.

Pamper Mode: On!

Dine Out

NPC Sims will now eat more at Restaurants.

Photos taken of Experimental Foods will now display correctly when put into frames.

Fixed a swatch color error with the ymTop_GP03Blazer_SolidWhiteBlack

Profit!

Vampires

“Influence Emotions” interaction will no longer be available to Vampires that have not yet unlocked this perk.

Jungle Adventure

Several objects were not properly being found when using color filters. These should be filterable now.

StrangerVille

StrangerVille music has been added to the Lin-Z Smart Speaker.

Realm of Magic

Fixed an issue where Occult eyes would not properly apply to Spellcasters.

Unplayed NPCs not living in Glimmerbrook will no longer appear in Glimmerbrook performing Magic.

“Challenge to Magic Duel at Dueling Grounds” performed by a broom and non-broom using duelist will now take place at the dueling grounds.

Spellcasters with the “Knowledge is Magic” Perk will now be able to complete the “Finish Reading 3 Books” aspiration goal.

Fixed an issue where some Spellcasters would not complete the “Learn a Spell” goal, even though they would learn a Spell.

Spellcasters will now be able to Do Laundry while having “Always Transportalate” enabled.

Fixed an issue in which Pet Familiars would not stop foraging, never bringing back their findings.

Sages now can be chosen to Play With for a game of Chess.

Random non Spellcaster Sims no longer will show up as being Sages.

Fixed an issue in which Cauldron made food was not able to be eaten as leftovers when looking at the refrigerator.

Sims on cursed lots will no longer always catch fire in all attempts while using the Fireplace or the Stove.

Fixed an issue in which sounds from The Magic Realm could be heard in Del Sol Valley if you had Get Famous installed.

Fixed an issue in which some shirts in Create A Sim would not tuck in appropriately.

Spellcaster Sims can now clean potty messes, child messes, and kitty litter messes by casting Scruberoo.

Spellcasters will no longer have duplicate makeup options in CAS.

Spellcasters should no longer land in unroutable locations when using the “Always Use Brooms” spell.

Fixed an issue with asset yfAcc_WristRightGP08Gems in Create A Sim that made it display incorrectly when Sims were styled with long sleeve shirts.

Spellcasters that cast Mischief Spells will now get awarded Mischief Skill when doing so.

Male spellcasters will no longer have a chance of going bald after performing Rite of Dissolution.

yfHair_GP08Braids now properly appears within the Afro-Textured texture filter.

Mischief spells are now counted towards the Criminal Career daily task Mischief Interaction.

Spellcasters with the Spellcraft and Sorcery aspiration will no longer reset or cause a LastException after writing songs.

What’s next Bob Pancakes is a vampire?

He is? I knew it!

They are now all good Familiars and bring everything they find back.

We also fixed an issue where they would only bring Brooms back after foraging, they are still all good familiars.

They cheat… I can’t be that bad.

Impostors have been dealt with. Thank you for your cooperation.

That’s probably who I was playing chess against.

Thankfully so! Not sure what we were going to do with all that food.

Try the Mac and Cheese, 10/10 totally recommend.

Looks at SimGuruMorgan with an Evil Grin.

yfTop_GP08ShirtLace, yfTop_GP08BlouseSeeThrough, and yfTop_GP08BodysuitVinyl now look as intended when paired with skinny jeans.

Magic… it’s magic.

I understand buying duplicates of favourite make up items, but this was excessive.

Excellent… Evil Laugh

Perfect Patio

We fixed an issue where hired Maids would often change into Swimwear and use the Hot Tub instead of completing their tasks.

I hired them to clean… honest!

Romantic Garden

Sims in the Freelance careers, including freelance photography, will no longer be able to Wish for Promotion using the Wishing Well.

Sims in Conservationist, Educator, Actor, Style Influencer, Military, Critic, Social Media, or Politician careers will now be able to Wish for a Promotion using the Wishing Well.

Sims are their own boss, so it didn’t make sense for them to do that.

Backyard

Fixed an issue in which some shirts in Create A Sim would not tuck in appropriately into skinny jeans.

yfTop_SP08BodysuitLace now looks as intended when paired with skinny jeans.

Vintage Glamour

Addressed several issues that caused the butler to fail to perform their assigned tasks.

Fixed an issue that prevented Butlers to help put Toddler Sims to Bed.

The Butler should no longer make food for themselves when they are not hungry.

Moschino

Emotional auras in photographs can now be toggled on/off.

Fixed an issue where some photos taken were a bit blurry when placed in frames in Live Mode.

Tripods placed on floors other than 1, 2, or 3, should no longer cause the camera to change floors when attempting to take a photo.

Ask to Pose interaction should no longer fail if the Sim attempts to run the interaction from the Open Street.

Sent all of our cameras to maintenance for repairs, enjoy!

[popculturebuffet]

Star Vs: Lava Lake Beach or Happy Birthday, Marco Diaz

Tomtrospective is back baby! It’s been almost two months, which is better than last time but still not great. As you can probably tell if you check this space i’ve been busy with comissions (5 dollars an episode if you were curious and had another star vs episode you wanted me to check out or any animated series really), which now includes a sizeable project, regular coverage of ducktales every monday, loud house whenever it comes around becuase nick’s scheduling is a nightmare, and because I apparently didn’t have enough going on The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. Part 2 coming before the end of the month hopefully. So this project, which sadly dosen’t get a lot of eyeballs on it, kinda just slid on back. Thankfully though I have a second before I get back to my rather sizeable and mostly self inflicted to do list, so with that in mind, let’s take a trip to the beach in the dead of winter. This is Lava Lake Beach. 

PREVIOUSLY ON STAR VS:

Yeah I skipped over Lint Catcher.. which is ironic given I just decided to cover the meteora and eclipsa centric episodes post monster bash.. but I have good reason for that. And it’s not just “This is my blog and unless i’m getting paid for it I can do what I want”. That’s a valid reason but it’s not THE reason. No it’s because Tom has a sizeable roll in the finale episodes for season 3, and thus the climax to Season 3′s arc overall, and honestly Divide and Conquer are just TOO good to simply skip over Star’s parts of them. I choose to switch to covering full episodes for this retrospective which means i’m doing it right. It means more work for me, but frankly this stuff’s too good to not to cover properly. So i’ll be mixing the meteora arc in with tom, like a finely blended cocktail, after this review and the next one.. which aired after monster party but takes place before so i’m doing it in time for christmas. 

And I WILL be covering the two episodes I skipped over eventually, I just feel the first goes into another possible arc down the line, and the other is just really terrible. Not the worst episode of the series, that would be Marco Jr, but a close second or third for sure. But I will have to summarize them to get to this point so: When last we left off Tom and Star were getting close again, but you might of noticed someone was conspciously absent. Marco went back to earth after his two weeks on Mewni, and as to what he was up to we found out LITERALLY the episode after “Demonicism”: Sophmore Slump. Marco basically spent the rest of his summer not shutting up about Mewni like an obnoxious jackass. Yeah Sophmore Slumb begins the character’s downward spiral and basically coming off like two diffrent characters: He’ll either be.. exactly what he was in the first two seasons, an awkard but well meaning voice of reason or a needy jackass pining after someone elses girlfriend and not caring about anyone else but himself and star. There.. there isn’t an inbetween. So yeah it’s just 11 minutes of Marco being insufferable, and only snapping out of it in realizing he’s neglected his girlfriend Jackie. We do get a GENUINELy great scene when she breaks up with him, realizing that while Marco’s willing to try for her.. his heart’s just not in it and his head’s.. with someone else. He’s not even malicious about it: While he wore his cape, he had a cape, under his clothes he genuinely tried to make things work and go out with her. Conciously he genuinely loves her, subconciously he has feeling sfor someone else and it’s showring. While this isn’t hte best episode it’s not a TERRIBLE one on the grounds that this one end sequence makes it work. Marco then decides to go to mewni and become a knight, and everyone sees him off in a good moment. It’s an annoying episode, but not a bad one the more I think about it.  Lint Catcher is. Basically everyone’s a jackass but Tom and Eclipsa, which really sums up the last few seasons nicely. Not basically Marco dind’t you know, call star to vet any of this, and just expects to be welcomed back. Star, rather than you know admit her feelings for marco while she’s now dating tom, more on that in a moment, tries to shove him off on whoever. And it turns out River wasn’t serious with his offer of knighthood that marco came to take him up on, despite sounding serious and just gave marco a meat blanket because again, everyone’s a jackass.. except maybe moon who tries to make it work. It’s just an aggrivating 11 minutes and unlike the above none of it’s intentoinal. But how does this relate to tom? and wait star’s dating tom? Well Tom shows up early on as Star is singing a burrito song, only for him to burst out of the bathroom and then warmly greet Marco before the guards show up. Star also later admits to Marco yup she and Tom are dating since last episode. Which i’m fine with: we don’t need to see everything and it was pretty obvious that’s where it was headed. At the time I was aggrivated because “another blockadef or starco reallY” but i’ve warmed up with time. So yeah I really didn’t need to bang my head into the door for 11 minutes and whatever hours it took to write this to tell you tom and marco have upgraded from kinda friends to best bros who want to make out with each other and Star and Tom are dating. I will probably cover both episodes eventually, but for now, I have enough to cover especially with my realizing I needded to cover the eclipsa and meteora stuff, without getting a head injury from stupdiity. As for Marco’s knight status, he can’t start there, and Star eventualy realized that awkard sexual tension or not, he’s her best friend and made him her squire. So Marco’s now on mewni, Tom and star are together. 

Let’s get at er. We open with tom summoning the flames of the dammned.. FOR MARSHMELLLOWWWWSSS. Star, Tom, Marco and Kelly are at the titular Lava Lake Beach roasting marshmellows and getting ready for the annual soulrise. Star likes the beach because it’s so spooky with Marco rightly pointing out.. insn’t that the underworld’s thing? Tom just casually shrugs it off as “Yeah i’ts pretty metal”. Which is both accurate and is part of why we’re here. This is our first, and really only, good look at the underworld. With Blood Moon Ball we just saw a bubble of it and it was entirely controlled by tom, if helping explain his control issues as he probably spent his whole life getting everything and never realizing being a possesive creep isn’t ag ood thing and people aren’t things you can own, but well.. people with their own wants and wills. When everyone around you does what you want, including your sweet well meaning parents, why would you understand someone saying no? And his parents aren’t bad people, they clearly have boundries, they just spoiled him a bit much. We’re not in Doofus Drake terriotiry where Tom’s a terrifying sociopath, he just had some very bad behaviors and when called on them by Marco, genuinely changed for the better and has been working on that since.  But this episode gives us a good reason of why the other toxic part of tom, his rage, was never reigned in. Here.. it’s just normal. One scene illustrates this well: A couple casually if rudely challenges marco to a fight when he just wants to find kelly, more on that in a minute. But when he walks away, they just say “he seemed nice. And not EVERYONE is like that.. but most of the demons seen this ep are agressive, competitive and combtiive but not without reason. 

We get a great example of this after Smores, where Marco’s fell off, tom and star are cute, and kelly licked all of hers. And after Marco realizes Tom’s outfit is just one of his hoodies but customized.. which for tom means ripping off the sleeves because that’s how he rolls and offering to do the same for marco. Also Star is in an adorable sailor outfit. what i’m saying is I like their outfits this episode and Marco has a lot of copies of that hoodie so in terms of Star’s invasions of his privacy, this is low on the list. 

Back on point, a couple challenges the group over their spot and mocks star for not having a third eye.... but the resolution is beach volleball, witht he scoring demon from “Mr Candle Cares’ making an apperance. This shows Underworld culture: their volatile, they can get overly agressive.. but their polite outside of it. It’s why Tom’s anger wasn’t really adressed: Here everyone’ds polite the rest of the time, why does it matter? But it idd because even by these standards his anger was a problem and one he’s .. genuinely dealing with. While he gets devensive of his girlfriend, notice how he jsut gets regular angry and not.. murdery angry. We see his anger wasn’t normal even by underworld standards.. but he’s genuinely trying and has changed almost complelely from the last time we visted this realm. 

This is also.. about what we get for tom this episode. Yeah while this is part of the tomtrospective for the above, and for other reasons that we’ll get to, this is a Marco episode. And a Kelly episode, so Kelly, now the food to fill the void inside has run out, I can relate, is suddenly depressed and just.. walks off mid game. And given Star and Tom aren’t the most empathetic people, they really fail to notice with Tom only noticing how it effects him. Tom has grown.. but as we’ll see after “stump Day” with his next two episodes after that, he still has room to grow. But it is nice we get signs of that episodes before it happens. Excellent work. 

So yeah I guess for those who forgot, and if so how dare, or those who never got this far int he series who Kelly is. Kelly was introduced in season 2 as a friend of star and ponyheads who, at the end of her episode, after not talking was revealed to not be a giant bush, but a bispeceled teenager who just has a lot of hammerspace when her hair is down, as her hair is massive and whose species has a symbiotic relation ship with their significant others, as her boyfriend tad was in her hair merged with her the whole time. They breifly showed up again in another episode but otherwise haven’t been all that fleshed out till this episode. 

And what brings it about.. is their breakup. And they have before only to get back together but this time it’s for real, as Marco finds out when comforting her. He genuinely offers her to talk, but we’re interuppted by her good pal JORBY!. I freaking love Jorby and every second of his screentime here is magic. Sadly he’s only used like.. twice after this. He’s a giant talking wolf guy from Kelly’s dimension, only revealed by the finale, who thinks Marco is her new fighting partner and claims to have killed their mutual aquantince greg. Kelly just responds with an amazingly annoyed and sarcastic “You didn’t kill greg” which he didn’t, and when Marco tries to explain she’s falling apart, Jorby responds with “WE ALL ARE ALL THE TIME, EXESNTIAL WARCRY!”... the amount of great minor characters this series wasted I swear. 

But Kelly can’t deal with this and runs off and Jorby.. genuinely apologizes. He didn’t realize his friend was that banged up emotionally, and only dosen’t help because his goose girlfriend needs him. Marco is fine with this though and goes to offer his help after a breif search and two Skelly’s who fall in love over having the same name. Awww. 

Kelly and Marco finally talk and Kelly sobs into his arms in a genuinely moving bit, admitting after being with Tad so long she dosen’t know who she is anymore. It’s REALLY great stuff, and really helps us feel for a character we honestly barely knew: Sure we barely saw their relationship.. but it was good... and when a relationship ends that wound dosen’t close easily> Trust me.. I know. 

Though the other issue is that Tad.. hasn’t moved out of her head. Literally, he’s still in there and won’t take a hint it’s really really over and he needs to move on. So Marco, being a gentleman.. at least for this episode, agrees to help. IT’s why I like marco when he’s acutally written well: he can be awkward and sometimes a bit too full of himself when it comes to knowing stuff, but he’s a good kid who just wants to help people and I genuinely missed that version most of this season. So marco climbs in and finds Tad munching on vega pizza and refusing to leave, clearly subscribing to the duck method of swallowing your sadness. 

Marco tells him he needs to leave, and while Tad is in denial.. Marco gets it to sink in.. that putting himself around someone unavaliable is just going to keep hurting him agains and again and not help him move on. Tad.. .ends up agreeing.. and it’s then the episode has it’s best scene.... Tad says “marco is the expert on that”. Marco of course denies this.. until Tad eventually makes him see the truth: he’s hanging around star the same way tad’s clung to kelly and will sadly continue too as while he agrees to move out.. it takes a bit for it to stick as we’ll see next time. Tad gets him to think about it: He has dimensional sciessors. Anywhere in time and space.. and where doe she want to start? With his unavaliable crush, following her to what he thought would be a couples event with her boyfriend. I mean he didn’t KNOW Tad and Kelly were broken up, so far all he knew he was the fifth wheel. No one would willingly do that for no reason. He’s so obessed with her, he wants to be around her even though it’s never going to happen.. i’ve been there WAY too many times to call and had to eventually learn to let got for their sake and mine. You can still be around them, you just have to let go of romance for everyone’s sake and move on. And Marco hasn’t because he didn’t even realize it. It’s why I tolerate “Sophmore Slump” now.. because with this episode it goes from bad writing to his subconcious scremaing at him to go be with star, and him not listening because conciously he still wants his current girlfriend.. and really he loves both, he just didn’t deal with that or move past either, so he lost both. 

Marco.. has a panic attack over it justifably and breaks down gradually, seeing all the happy couples and finally star and tom, sinking in that .. Tad was right. He’s in love with Star.. and it hurts. It hurts a LOTTTTTT. And he has NO idea how to deal with it. And as we’ll see how he tries to.. is pretty damn bad. But that’s for other episodes. Let’s get to the climax of this one. 

Kelly finds Marco, like her earlier depressed and lost, and upon realizing this, and thanking him as Tad agreed to finally move out, says “kelly’s driving” and drags him. It’s in these last moments we get to see more of kelly’s personality: we’ve seen her be ssarcastic but now we get to see her be a bit off kilter and adorable, which is her standard mode and what makes me like the character so much and wish she got treated better. But we’ll get to that later in the retrospective as it happens to perfectly zig zag into Tom’s life. Point is we see more of her and find out why she came to see the Soulrise as she and Marco prepare to watch: she and tad used to see it every year.. and even if their broken up.. she dosen’t want that taken away from her. Even if their relationsihp is over.. pieces of it can still be hers to treasure and keep from now on. This can still be hers... and in this case Marcos as marco puts his jacket over her, and Kelly cuddles him. Awwww. If you were wondering, yup I do ship Markelly and Yup how it ends is really bad and we’ll get to it and there will be blood. But for now their just two lonely souls sharing a moment, with Kelly rebuffing getting Tom and Star “They don’t need this’ which is accurate and they have each other and some alone time. Their fine. Plus they you know, didn’t notice either of them are missing so ...

Thank you Jake. Rest in Peace my good friend who shares a name. So we get a nice romantic moment as they watch a bunch of eldtirch skeletial angels with wings rise from the depths of the black and white, and it’s also marco’s birthday! “Happy Birthday Marco Diaz”. And with that we’re out. 

Final Thoughts: This is one of my faviorite Star Vs episodes, even with later bullshit, and for good reason. It frames Marco’s previous actions in a better light, has some REALLy stellar acting from Adam McArthur, and is in general just a really soulful ep that really touches on some good stuff and fleshes out Kelly from a background character to a fan faviorite and sets up a new romance for Marco that I genuinely love. IT’s one of the series best moments even if later episodes would tarnish it slightly..but on it’s own.. it’s fantstic.  Next time on tom:It’s the...

Christmas Special! Until then there’s always another rainbow and happy thanksgiving!

[illegalastrology111]

KARMA FILES: XOXO 2020

ARIES

The Full Moon/Super Moon on April 7th, will most likely end a personal relationship that had potential to be longstanding.  If some type of agreement for change can’t be reached between you and your significant other, it’s best to part company and move on.  

When Mars enters your sign for a long cycle, June 29th - November 14th, you won’t be in your most diplomatic, harmonious or banned frame of mind, especially when Mars retrogrades, September 9th - November 14th.  If you’re not able to think before you speak, there will be “fireworks” .  It won’t be easy to be selfless.  Therefore, keep your temper on an even keel and listen first before taking action or saying anything.  At least, you should be able to preserve relationships that matter.

Venus, the planet of love, moves into Gemini (communication),  April 4th - August 8th, during which time there’s a likelihood of “head-games”  being played int he area of love, which won’t end well, especially when Venus retrogrades,  May 13h - June 25th.  Tact, tolerance and understanding won’t be easy, plus the fact thoughtless words spoken in the past could come back to haunt you.

Mercury retrogrades in Scorpio, October 14th - October 28th, indicating past intimate relationships could reappear, but not for the best.  it would be wise to stay clear of this altogether, because the intent will not be in your best interests.  In addition, the desire to “wander and explore” sexually will be strong.  Caution is advised if this is acted upon.  Outcomes will be very different from expected, most likely detrimental and probably create more karma in this area of life.   Avoid getting involved in other people’s relationships completely.

Mercury will retrograde all the way back into Libra, October 29th - November 2nd, an indication past relationships will return temporarily.  Unless a major change has occurred with the person/s in question, anything from the past should be dealt with very carefully, exercising discernment.

Love in 2020 for Aries will be  “mine-field” of potential “blow-ups” if caution isn’t used.  Therefore, putting one foot in front of the other with calm and balance, will be the best way to have a successful year of positive, harmonious love relationships.

KARMA FILE:

You carry a karma from the past, in which you found it difficult to express emotions in the area of love, through words or actions, which then manifested in a psychosomatic manner. As a result, now, especially in 2020 you must find a way to express your emotions in a healthy way that doesn’t have negative repercussions to you or the person you love.    This also applies to feelings of guilt. Guilt must not be projected onto your significant other, or even harbored internally.  Perhaps, by finding a way to write thoughts/feelings down first, you can then heal the karma of the past.    Most of all be careful of attracting people into your life that magnify or exacerbate this karma..

TAURUS

The March 9th, Full Moon/Super Moon in Virgo, greatly affects love and how you interact with your partner.  If you’ve been feeling that somehow your needs are not being served and you haven’t discussed this with your significant other, the stars are not aligned for the relationship to continue in the same format.  

Mercury enters Scorpio September 28th -  October 28th, then again, November 11th - December 2nd.  In-between these dates there is a retrograde in Scorpio, October 14th - 28th.     This is the time to be most careful, because the aspect affects long-term love.   There is no room for undermining, secrets or jealousy, because once the transit is in forward motion, everything hidden will begin to be exposed.

The Universal planetary nodes of the Moon will also be changing May 6th - January 19th 2022.   Even though the aspect affects everyone on a broad scale, individuals will still feel it. Communication, truth, justice. learning, expansion of  consciousness are character traits are going to be of importance, the transit falls in your house of intimate relationships, the past and karma.    Once the cycle begins, or even close to it, the emphasis will focus on being honest, straightforward and verbal clarity.      You have to be wiling to lay the foundation of love that makes both you and your partner happy.  This means having the courage to speak up and decide what type of relationship you both want and a commitment you can both agree on.  

The New Moon Solar Eclipse in Sagittarius on December 14th, should, if you’ve been on a positive relationship path, open the door for new close intimate partnerships, that will be eep and more fulfilling than anything you’ve yet to experience.

Love relationships  can work if both people involved are able to  agree on what it’s going to be, then problems and unnecessary upset will be avoided. in 2020 and the future.

KARMA FILE

The karma you’ll be facing in 2020, stems from lifetimes in  ancient Rome during the Christian era, in which you carried both beauty and/or wealth.  In these lifetimes you viewed and mocked the struggles of others in various scenarios, that brought great physical and emotional pain to the participants.    In this lifetime, as a result of these experiences, those that enter your life in the area of love may have some “disability”, in mind, body or spirit, which you must not look down upon, otherwise they may do the same to you being your back or openly.   Therefore, be careful of entering into a love-relationship without knowing the full details of the other person, then you can decide if it’s something you wish to participate in or not.  This way you won’t feel that you’re being misled, used /manipulated negatively in any way shape or form.   Accept others for who and what they are, because everyone has faults.    

GEMINI

The Full Moon/Super Moon in Libra, April 7th, will be in your house of long-term love, an indication that how you love will change and perhaps even partners.  This wile a time to let of of everything that you’r not happy with, having the confidence to let your partner know, then hopefully try to bring resolution.

With Jupiter in Capricorn until December 20th, karma in the area of intimate relationships will come to the forefront for your attention.  This will place an even greater emphasis, with the New Moon Solar Eclipse in Capricorn, July 5th.  This will be the tie to lay down the law and a new foundation to support growth and stability  between you and your partner, even though this could be uncomfortable in many ways.  Pluto remains in Capricorn until January 22nd 2024, and retrogrades April 25th - October 4th.   Saturn is in Capricorn unto March 23rd, when it moves into Aquarius briefly, then return to Capricorn, July 2nd December 17th.  Al this major Capricorn activity is a sign from the Universe, urging youth “clean house”, getting rid of lingering karma with people you’ve outgrown or who just don’t have your best interests at heart.   This means you may have to repeat certain situations again in order to be clear about what they are, confront and then remove them from your life.

Venus in your sign, April 4th - August 8th, highlights self-worth with your ideas, perceptions and communication of them to others.  However, when Venus retrogrades,  May 13th - June 25th, you’ll have to rely on Self, if and when no-one is interested in what you have to say or even understands.   Your perception of love could be misunderstood  and cause friction.    Writing things down will prove to be beneficial during this cycle, at least putting pen to paper fist will provide the clarity/understanding needed before you convey your thoughts.   Throughout Venus retrograde in Gemini, be careful of circular thinking  that get you nowhere except more confused.

When the Universal Nodes of the Moon switch to Sagittarius and Gemini, you’ll feel a strong urge to be forthright with others and the truth be known - at least your version of it.   Courage, self-worth and confidence will be needed, which can only come from introspection on a deep level, to strengthen self-awareness. The New Moon Solar Eclipse in Sagittarius, December 14th, ushers in a new beginning of long-term love, that will have all the component parts for growth.  It may even bring people from other cultures into your life, so you can have different experience and broaden your love horizons.

2020 love can be one of working harder to create relationships that are fairly based on mutual understanding of growth  and honesty.

KARMA FILE

In previous incarnations in the area of love you were always very  generous to  your significant other.  However you carry the karma of giving material things, personal possessions to your partner but being very judgmental about their conduct, criticizing, finding fault.  The result of doing this creates self-doubt, self-worth and lack of confidence, within your partner, which leads to later conflict.   In 2020 you must try to overcome this karma and be more sensitive  to their feelings, bearing in mind that ‘as you give out, so you receive” will manifest in other areas of life too., with people treating you the same way.

CANCER

Capricorn rules your house of long-term partnerships, therefore with so many astrology aspects in this house, namely, Pluto,Saturn and Jupiter, in addition to the New Moon Solar Eclipse, July 5th, this area of life will not be the same by the end of the year, major changes are in the stars.   Saturn briefly moves into Aquarius, March 23rd - July 1st, during which time it’ll important to establish more independence when it comes to intimate relationships, the karma being, the tendency to be too dependent and/or smothering. Learning to be your own person in the context of a relationship will be of importance. Saturn moves back  into Capricorn for the last time, July 2nd - December 17th, activating karma that keeps love stagnant, unable to grow or move forward.   Whatever underlying problems still remain, now will be the time to confront them once and for all.   Especially, issues concerning the foundation and strength of the relationship overall.  Commitments will have to be changed or at least given serious re- consideration, taking responsibility for what you want/don’t want. Saturn moves permanently into Aquarius, December 18th - March 8th 2023 also joining Jupiter in Aquarius,.  A time of perhaps being single or at least with more time for Self, will be more of an issue with Jupiter with Saturn in Aquarius, The question, how do you become a friend and lover will be of importance.

Pluto  stays in Capricorn until January 22nd 2024.  highlighting fear, insecurity and doubts that you keep to yourself but aren’t positive attributes for a successful love relationship.    Whatever the fears are let them go and learn to deal with the rough and smooth cycles of love.  This will be especially true when Pluto retrogrades April 25th - October 4th, during then you’ll be confronted with those fears as a result of “upheavals” that take place.   At the same time, if single this retrograde is not a good cycle to start a new love relationship, because most likely something will be hidden from you that isn’t in your best interests.

Past lovers could also return when Mercury retrogrades in Aquarius, March 5th - March 10th.

While Mercury is in Scorpio September 20th - December 1st, the possibility of jealousy, intense emotions and jealousy are likely,  in particular the retrograde cycle of Scorpio, October 14th - 28th.  Staying alert and aware will circumvent negative scenarios occurring that would be hard to resolve.

2020 will be a challenging year for Cancer and love, but with a strong desire to overcome lingering karma and create the best possible love relationship, outcomes will be positive.

KARMA FILE

In several previous incarnations, you chose to not use your instincts when it came to love, seeing the person of your affection in their true colors, because of this you experienced great pain and sorrow, when you discovered who they really were and their true i intent towards you. This year, you’ll be faced with this karma again and must therefore be careful of giving people qualities they don’t have, seeing what you want to see, hearing what you want to hear.   Trust your instincts, as much as you maybe attracted to someone.  This will empower you with the ability to avoid creating more karma of this type, in love and unnecessary hurt.

LEO

The activity in the house of permanent love is emphasized with Saturn moving into Aquarius March 23rd - July 1st, briefly.  During this cycle, you’ll be in the position to decide whether you want a permanent love relationship, a relationship that involves seeing other people or no relationship at all.    Saturn is in this house to teach  you about love and happiness.  What does that mean to you?  Saturn moves back in to Capricorn, July 2nd - December 17th, into your house of  work, health, service to Self and others.   Another question, can you make time out of y9our busy schedule for love?

Neptune in Pisces, affects your house of karma, the past and intimate love,  indicating that you have a “blind-spot” in this area of life.   You must learn there are “consequences” for a person’s actions, if they’re not in harmony with Natural Law and cause hurt, pain and sorrow, without regard.  Learning to follow the Golden Rule, treating others in the way you wish to be treated.    When Neptune retrogrades, June 23rd - November 28th,  how you treat others will be a very major factor of which to be aware.  Plus, things that are hidden may well be revealed, for better or worse.    Neptune will be in Pisces until March 31st 2025.

The new Moon Solar Eclipse, December 14th, denotes a new cycle of change in the area of love/happiness,  Opportunities could present themselves that have significant affect on current love-relationships and ones in the future. If you’re willing to take a risk and initiate significant changes in  job/home, these changes could have positive affect on love.

2020 is a year of allowing the Universe to guide you forward, paying attention to how you treat others.  Ultimately, in the long-run you’ll discover that Cause and Affect are real and we all reap what we sew, sooner or later.  Therefore, being mindful of this fact will spare you a lot of difficulties/problems laying the foundation for positive outcomes in personal relationships.

KARMA FILE

During 2020, tread carefully in the area of love and how you treat your partner/s.    You have come into this life disbelieving there is Cause and Affect, in that a person’s actions have consequences.  If you find yourself in situations this year, when love doesn’t seem to be going quite as you expected positively, stop for a second to give thought to past actions.   The Universe has all the time in the world to put things in balance, when, where and how, are questions that can only be answered when karma manifests itself.  Ego will always step in the way of consideration of another’s feelings, but to do this will only make it harder for healing of the karma to happen.   Therefore, throughout the year, practice the Golden Rule, especially in love-relationships, so that healing of past karma can take place.

VIRGO

In the house of love, Pluto, Saturn and Jupiter all reside in the 5th house at the same time, in the sign of Capricorn.   Pluto, highlights all the fear, insecurity, doubt and past issues that are in the way of love being successful and positive.  Saturn is about stagnation, commitment, structures that  no longer serve a positive purpose. Jupiter is the magnifying glass that shines a light on everything that is good/bad in love and in particular from childhood, because the house with all this activity is the house of childhood, happiness, love, risk and creativity.   Jupiter being in this house adds a layer of protection to everything the house represents at this time.  Jupiter is the protector of the Zodiac.

As all these points are converging in this house you have to possess a certain amount of self-awareness to be able to be introspective enough to notice when the Universe is confronting you with issues that need your attention.  Issues that you’ve outgrown and no longer  support a positive love relationship.   The Universe requires that you become more of your own person and let go of the “child” that still aligns itself with that particular time-frame, has yet to move forward into the here and now.  Have toe confidence to create “rules” that are in alignment with relationships that make you and your partner happy, not the rules of others.

Saturn retrogrades, July 2nd - December 17th  for the last time before it moves into Aquarius permanently.    Pluto retrograde April 25th - October 4th, Jupiter retrogrades may 14th - September 12th.  Throughout these cycles all the above issues will be in the forefront for you to confront, so don’t be surprised if you feel overwhelmed with feelings that are memories of the past, good/not so good. The New Moon Solar Eclipse in Capricorn July 5th will bring a revelations and opportunity to really embark upon a new path of love /commitment with your partner, which,  if mutually agreeable will bring positive results by the end of the year.

Neptune is in Pisces until March 31st 2025, in your house of long-term love.    This is a blind-spot area to be aware of.  You must be able to take-off the “rose-colored” glasses to see clearly the needs of your partner and avoid assuming things that are not real or true, which can cause conflict and unnecessary criticism.  At the same time being wiling to do the “work” necessary for love to continually grow/evolve.    Most of all, by applying an element of spiritually to love relationships, you’ll bring in a higher vibration of protection and union for the two of you.

When Neptune retrogrades, June 23rd - November 28th, all the above issues will be more in focus for you to deal with.  Meditation or similar modalities will help to uncover and discern what you need to learn and understand.  Neptune is the ruler of Pisces, the sign that it’s in at this time.  Pisces rules spirituality, so this is the key to obtaining the information needed to bring immense happiness into your love-life.

2020 is na year of letting go, growing up, realizing you have your own life to live with enough awareness to learn from the past, and your mistakes, using them as “stepping-stones” to achieve your hearts desire.

KARMA FILE

You may or may not think it possible, but there is usually an answer for many of life’s problems and such is the case this year in the area of love.   In previous lives, there was an intolerance towards others who were different in some capacity and as a result, whether it was obvious or not, caused pain and sorrow.  Now, you ‘re faced with people being intolerant/insensitive toward you and your needs.  It may seem that, regardless of how hard you try, or seem to be trying to be kind and tolerant, the same is rarely given to you, especially in love, where you need acceptance the most, or it is given but you feel it just  isn’t enough.    Positive affirmation is the key.   If you repeat to Self before going to bed at night and during meditation that you’re a good, kind loving human being who will reach out to help others in need and deserves love in your life, with someone who has your best interests at heart, these affirmations will affect positive healing and change internally/externally.

LIBRA

Saturn moves into your house of love March 23rd - July 1st. for a brief stay, before it moves back into Capricorn for the last time, July 2nd - December 18th. While Saturn is in your house of love, happiness and risk, frustrations and anxiety over wanting love, security, rest, freedom and excitement, could cause erratic behavior that isn’t well thought through.   Saturn will keep you stable secure and centered, holding you back from going off on tangents with certain individuals, as much as this may seem tempting. The task that Saturn brings is to build a solid, formidable structure for love and avenues of expression that bring happiness.  Nothing less will do.   If you try to “cut corners” Saturn will bring in Cause and Affect very quickly, so that the “lesson” is learned.

In addition, you may become aware of small faults/weaknesses that need to be strengthened, that are not favorable for a successful love relationship.  Love that doesn’t have some type of commitment/structure will be problematic.   It’s irrelevant what the commitment turns out to be, as long as you and your partner both agree.  Lessons from past relationships that need to be confronted will also come to the forefront, in order for an understanding of what/who makes you happy, to be established.  Self-image will also become an issue, but has to be addressed from within on a deep level.   At the same time a parent may experience health issues, most likely the father, while Saturn is in Aquarius, so be prepared for visits home, love  and childhood memories coming to the surface.

Personal growth and well-being, although not necessarily attributed to love will need to be looked.  Diet, health, taking caef of Self, dental issues (Saturn), will all be at the top of the attention list, in order for you to transform from a caterpillar into a butterfly.

Jupiter will move into Aquarius, December 2020 - May14th 2021, during which time there’l be plenty of new lovers wanting your attention.  As Jupiter is a magnifying glass, weaknesses in this area of life will be very obvious and need to be looked at.

Mercury retrogrades in Aquarius,  very briefly, March 5th - 10th, a transit which could bring unexpected contact from a former lover.  However, here today, gone tomorrow, their stay will be even briefer and  would make better friends than lovers.

With Mars being in Aries and your house of long-term love, June 29th - January 7th 2021, it will seem as if nothing goes right in this area of life, especially when Mars retrogrades in Aries, September 9th - November 13th.  It’s not wise to begin  (Aries), any new relationships of meaning during this particular retrograde a lot of conflict will be the outcome.

Mercury retrograde in your sign, October 29th - November 2nd, therefore communication will be at its worst, unfortunately.   Better to say little or nothing, rather than risk unnecessary disruption that could be irreparable.  

With Uranus in your house of intimate love, until July 2025, the Universe will be bringing lessons of learning how to be an individual in the context of a sexual relationship.    Deep intense relationships may start suddenly, then leave just as quickly, which maybe upsetting, but the Universe is sending  a “message” to choose carefully who you want to be  intimate with.  

Overall, for Libra 2020 is gong to be a year of challenges with relationships and Self, realizing that love isn’t a romance novel, it takes hard work, commitment, respect and self-worth, for happiness to be attained.

KARMA FILE

Realize this year, that many of the loves you’ve experienced, you’ve known before in some capacity.  Interaction with these individuals wasn’t/isn’t always necessary  for long periods off time, but merely for healing to occur of certain karmas.    In 2020 when you come into contact with new people you feel affinity or attraction, give thought to the “lesson” that needs to be learned.  If you ignore this fact, the karma will increase and prove to make partnerships with another harder than it needs to be.   If you can also develop greater inner strength and fortitude to meet life’s challenges overall, dealing with love karma won’t seem to be such a daunting task.   Great happiness can and will be the result of overcoming the past.

SCORPIO

Neptune in Pisces, February 12th  2012 - March 31st 2025, stays in your house of love, happiness, creativity childhood and risk throughout the entire cycle.   The purpose of this transit is to help you open your eyes when it comes to love-relationships, so that you’re clearly aware of whom you’re getting involved with.  This clarity will be the motivating factor to stop giving people qualities they don’t have, or seeing what you want to see or hear.   Delusion in love has led to many disappointments, when you come to the realization that the person you’re with doesn’t fulfill expectations.   The reality being, maybe they can’t.  You have to be able to see this too.

If you live in a fantasy world of how love should be that isn’t even close to the har truth of what is actually going on, you set yourself up for tremendous heartbreak.  Plus being a Scorpio, you would most likely blame the other person for the downfall of the relationship and harbor resentment, without looking at Self for the answers.   It won’t be easy to learn this lesson, but you have quite some time to give it a try.

The time of the year to be on guard is when Neptune retrogrades, June 23rd - November 28th.  This is when you’ll  be at your most vulnerable and likely to slip up.    Not a great time to start a love-relationship or take risks even with an exiting one because it won’t be based in reality.  Instead, just go with the  flow and don’t make any promises that could be broken later.

Uranus is in Taurus, March 7th 2019 - July 7th 2025, resting in your house of long-term  love.    During this transit new potential love interests will come and go just as quickly, but your love-life certainly won’t be boring.  Beware of impulsive urges to explore, because these urges could create a lot of problems that would be hard to resolve.   If you’re in an existing long-term relationship, it will be “tested” by the Universe to see if you appreciate its worth/value and whether the foundation is strong to remain in place during turbulent times.   You’ll probably have to redefine the boundaries and freedoms of the relationship to avoid misunderstandings.   The most difficult time will be during the retrograde, August 25th - January 14th 2020.  Communication will be an important factor, in order for both you and your partner to be on the same page.

Finally, when the Nodes of the Moon switch to North Node in Gemini, South Node in Sagittarius, May 6th - January 19th 2022, the highlight will be on understanding and communicating your needs with your significant other and not hiding things that should be shared and made known., especially when it comes to intimate relationships.  If you’re going to be involved with someone on an intimate level, it’s important that you make your intent very clear.  Because this particular aspect falls in your house of karma and  the past, therefore, in order to avoid creating more karma in this area of life, it’s wise to be honest (Sagittarius), allowing the other person to decide what they want to do.

Venus will also be in this house, April 4th - August 8th, motivating you to think you understand what a person wants intimately, without necessarily asking for there input and then wondering why everything falls apart quickly.  Even more of an issue when Venus retrogrades in Gemini, May 13th - June 25th.

Mercury retrograde in Pisces,  February 16th - March 5th, is a time when your “vision” maybe impaired and the fantasy side of love will be at its strongest.  If you can keep your feet firmly on the ground, you should get through the cycle in one piece.

Mercury retrograde in Scorpio briefly, October 14th - October 28th, is a cycle when “tall tales” could be told.   The past could come back to haunt you for better or worse, but it would be wise to make any deep interactions temporary, because of potential negativity that could be caused.   Beware of undermining resentment and jealousy whether from you or others.

2020 is really about being the better person when it comes to love, not assuming things that aren’t true or real and  treating others with the respect you expect from others.

KARMA FILE

When you ask yourself this year in the area of love, why am I going through this? Give thought to the fact that current experiences are but links in a chain of events that started long, long ago.  A small piece of a huge puzzle of life.   Therefore, when you’re faced with frustrations/irritations in your love-life this year,  try to look beyond them to discover the common thread of each scenario that has occurred.  If and when you’re able to do this, the healing can begin to take place,  opening the door for a new more positive perspective of personal relationships and how to make them work.

SAGITTARIUS

The Full Moon Lunar Eclipse in Cancer January 10th, probably brought about a change in deep feelings towards another, creating a situation where new rules had to be applied, or the intimate relationship relinquished.    When Mercury retrograde occurs in Cancer, June 18th - July 10th, some aspect of the events in January will occur again, for a final clean-up.  However, it’s important to keep emotions from getting out of control, or allowing Self to be emotionally wounded/manipulated.

Aries rules your house of love, happiness, childhood and risk and with Mars entering this house June 29th - November 14th, you’ll find yourself fin the position of dealing with aspects of love that are reminiscent of childhood experiences.   In particular when Mars retrogrades in Aries, September 9th - November 13th.  During this retrograde the focus will be on avoiding major conflict with family, parents or loved ones, as you feel your voice must be heard and certain feelings brought out into the open.  This is true, but with gentle consideration for the feelings of others.   Ultimately, you’ll have to differentiate between persona desire, true will or purpose, in order to get through this very turbulent transit.

The Nodes of the Moon switching to North Node in Gemini and South Node in Sagittarius, May 6th - January 19th 2022 affects your house of long-term love.   The Nodes of the Moon represent major karma on a Universal and individual level, therefore, the emphasis would be on being honest in your communication with your long-term partner and being in action about making sure they know you care. Discussing each other’s wants and needs so you’re both working towards the same goal.

When Venus enters Gemini, April 4th - August 8th, love will be very much on your mind, but more from the intellectual perspective.   This is not a time to overthink what is or isn’t happening in love, but write down what you think/feel  in order to have clarity.  Venus retrograde in Gemini, May 13th - June 25th, will really get your mind in turmoil causing you to be more scattered  than rational.  If you have contact with past loves during this time, don’t allow Self to get too caught up with those in question, because it’ll end up in a confusing mess.   Be polite, straightforward, keeping a healthy distance.

2020 will bring to the surface many past memories that need to be confronted in the area of love and happiness, leaving room for a new attitude/behavior that is more conducive for love to grow between you and your significant other.

KARMA FILE

When faced with making important decisions in love this year, do so from a perspective of integrity, asking Self, what is the right thing to do? If you can approach each decision, knowing, for every Cause there is an Affect, it’s unlikely you’ll cause pain and sorrow to those you love.   In past lives you didn’t do this and caused tremendous hurt to others.  At the same time, understand the “grass isn’t always  greener over the hill”.  It’s often better to work out existing problems firsts so they’re not carried forward with you to the next situation.   Use this knowledge as a guide in the area of personal love and you won’t go off on tangents that lead to negative situations.

CAPRICORN

The house of love, happiness childhood and risk is highlighted by Uranus in Taurus being there until July 7th 2025.   Throughout this transit you’ll feel the urge to separate Self from things you learned about love growing up and the experiences that followed.  You have to learn to stand on your own two feet, demonstrate independent thinking  and confront old karma connected to this area of life, still holding you back from really experiencing happiness with your partner.   If you can understand that it’s possible to be friends with your significant other and that it’s an important factor in the success of the relationship, you’ll be on your way to experiencing the love of your life.

Mercury retrograde in Cancer, June 18th - July 10th, will bring back memories of past loves that were emotionally draining, loves from the past may reappear.   The best course of action, learn what you can and use the lessons to empower you in current love-relationships.   Being tempted to stray may also be an issue, especially if involved in a long-standing relationship.  The question to ask of Self, would you be happy doing this and if you’re not happy should you let  your partner know? Self-worth plays an important part in getting the right answers to your questions and doing the right thing.

2020 is a year to put energy and time into creating a happy fulfilling love relationship, in which both you and your partner work together harmoniously to make things work.

KARMA FILE

Current problems in love  and through 2020,  with certain family members/friends, are  due to the fact that  in previous lives the roles of you and these individuals, was different.  What you perceive as interference into your love-life, seeming jealousy/criticism is not imagined.  These individuals were part of your love-life in the past, whether as friends or giving healing in some capacity,  or interfering with your love-life because of jealousy.   They want to maintain control of this area of life, but you cannot let this happen.  In the past the outcome was never positive and led to tremendous deep-rooted animosity each time.  Hence the undercurrent of negativity you often feel.     The solution, is for you to speak up and draw boundaries when it comes to personal relationships.  Only you and your partner should be the two people involved in decision making and the success of the relationship, no-one else.

AQUARIUS

The Full Moon/Super Moon in Virgo, March 9th, indicates that how you serve others and Self in deep intimate relationships will change, if it hasn’t by the time this aspect comes into being.    Instead of being critical and irritable for one reason or another, ask your partner what their needs are and how you can fulfill them, maybe.  At least you can try. By doing this, you show your partner you care about them beyond a physical level and you’re interested in what they think/feel.   This will open the door for a new beginning in how you interact on an intimate level.

The next big aspect to affect love is the Nodes of the Moon changing May 6th.  The North Node will be in Gemini and the South Node in Sagittarius.  The Nodes of the Moon highlight, major karma that has to be learned and integrated Sagittarius - truth, honesty, justice, growth, expansion, travel, higher consciousness to be integrated, to be in harmony with the higher side of Gemini - communication, learning, travel, understanding, versatility, flexibility, intellect and writing.    If you can integrate some of these attributes in the area of love, applying a more balanced approach to love by being understanding, tolerant and adaptable., it’l be easier for love to grow and evolve to higher levels.  This aspect falls in your house of love, childhood, creativity, risk and happiness.

The Venus in Gemini aspect also  affecting the same house, will give you plenty of choice of potential lovers, some will be good prospects, some not so good.   The danger here is of wasting time/energy with people who have little or nothing to offer, especially when Venus retrogrades, May 13th - June 25th.  Throughout this cycle you’ll be more inclined to rationalize love than feel it.  Mind-games are likely.

Throughout 2020, you’ll learn that love-relationships don’t have to be so hard if you’re willing to meet your partner half-way.  In turn, they’ll be open to working with you to improve what you already have together.  

KARMA FILE

Infidelity is the karma to be faced in 2020, Instances you face are from events that occurred before in this life or another.   Now that you understand the Cause of the Affect, that brings this into your life to confront, you must not allow yourself to put up with this kind of situation, or for it continue without verbalizing your expectations of love. Most of all understanding you do not deserve this treatment.  in the event that you’re the one who decides to wander outside of love, you would be wise to let your partner know first. They have a right to know you’re not happy and wish to end the relationship before embarking on a new love adventure.  Problems with infidelity can be avoided if, from the beginning a foundation  of love is agreed upon between you and your partner.  It doesn’t matter what it is, as long as you both agree.  By doing this you avoid creating more karma in this area of life, because in the end no happiness who manifest if infidelity is continued.

PISCES

The Full Moon/Lunar Eclipse in Cancer, January 10th, marked the end of what you once perceived would make you happy in love.  This change of heart was necessary for you to not let your emotions overwhelm you or the relationship, to the degree it becomes stagnant or suffocating.  The Full Moon/Super Moon in Virgo March 9th, signifies, how you serve Self and your partner will change.  If you give too much, boundaries will be set, if you don’t give enough or tend to be critical, sensitivity to their needs will make a big difference. The next Full Moon/Super Moon in Libra, April 7th, changes your interaction on an intimate level.  bringing a more balanced harmonious, loving vibe between you and your significant other, beyond the physical.

Mercury retrogrades in Cancer, June 18th - July 10th,  highlighting a resurgence of emotions from the past and/or past life memories that may cause you to retreat into yourself for a a few weeks, while you sort them out.   Make sure your partner knows you’re not ignoring them.

When Mercury retrogrades briefly into Libra, October 29th - November 2nd, issues of long-term love that haven’t been discussed come to the forefront.  What do you want from the relationship is the question to ask of Self, something deeper or superficial.

2020 is  year for a lot of soul-searching, attaining a deeper understanding of Self and personal needs when it comes to love.  This is important so that you don’t waste the time of your partner because you’re not interested in what they want, or can’t provide what they’re looking for in a love-relationship.    By digging deep within, you’ll find the answer to these questions.

KARMA FILE

This year you may find yourself fluctuating between being helpful to the person you love or being cold and distant.   This behavior stems from previous incarnations of giving and giving to the person you loved, but being used and taken for granted, only to be eventually abandoned for someone else, leaving you heartbroken.   Now, in 2020 this karma will be strong.  However, the key to healing it once and for all, is to learn to have boundaries, learning not to give more than you can afford to lose.  This means you can still be helpful, supporting and caring, but not to the degree you’re being taken advantage of and misled.    Use the powerful Pisces instinct to “read” a person/situation on deeper levels, a gift carried from previous lives. This will empower you to have “clear sight” and to know what is the right thing to do in each situation.

[thesims4blogger]

The Sims 4: New Game Patch (December 12th, 2019)

There’s a new Sims 4 PC update available via Origin.

Remove all MODS and Custom Content before updating your game

Update 12/12/2019 PC: 1.59.73.1020 / Mac: 1.59.73.1220

Hello Simmers!

It’s been quite the year for The Sims 4! We blew past the game’s 5th anniversary with no signs of slowing down. One of the community’s most highly requested expansion packs just launched recently, and we hope you’re all enjoying getting educated in Discover University. In case you haven’t heard, we’ve also launched another community Stuff Pack project, where your collective votes will decide the path of yet another pack coming to The Sims 4. And of course, The Sims’ franchise 20th anniversary is just over the horizon, which we’re looking forward to celebrating with you.

Today’s update has been influenced by you as well… We set aside time to specifically address issues that you’ve let us know are important to your in-game experience, and we hope the long list of fixes and improvements you’ll find below will lead to many hours of fun playing The Sims 4. In addition, we’ve squeezed in a few un-planned extras we hope you’ll enjoy. Not only have we added some new music tracks to the game, but we’ve also converted a number of hairstyles to now also be available for children and toddlers. While the adult versions of these styles will remain exclusive to whichever pack they originally came from, we hope you’ll all enjoy these additional options for your Sim’s little ones.

While Maxis will soon be taking a short break to enjoy the holidays (merry Winterfest, and a Happy New Year!), we’ll be back for another packed year for The Sims 4 in 2020. See you then!

-SimGuruGraham, ft. SimGuruGnome

The Music The following music has been added to the alternative station:

“Nicknames” Performed by Dayglow Written by Sloan Struble Copyright Control Recording courtesy of AWAL Digital Ltd.

“4am” Performed by girl in red Written by Marie Ulven Copyright Control Recording courtesy of AWAL Recordings

“prom dress” Performed by mxmtoon Produced by Robin Skinner & mxmtoon Written by Maia M-T Published by Songtrust Music Publishing Recording courtesy of mxmtoon LLC under exclusive license to House Arrest/The Orchard By Arrangement with Bank Robber Music

“Win You Over” Performed by Whethan & Bearson feat. SOAK Written by Ethan Snoreck, Jakob Bjørn Hansen, Birdie Monds-Watson, Anthony Whiting and Emily Phillips Published by Whethan Publishing/These Are Pulse Songs (BMI) c/o Pulse Publishing Administration, Next Wave Music Publishing, Universal – PolyGram Int. Tunes, Inc. on behalf of Universal Music Publishing Ltd., Universal Music Corp. on behalf of itself and PW Arrangements, and Domino Publishing Company USA (ASCAP) Whethan appears courtesy of Atlantic Recording Corp. SOAK appears courtesy of Rough Trade Records Recording courtesy of Ultra Records LLC

FIXES & UPDATES

The Sims 4

Fixed an issue where macOS Simmers could crash when accessing The Gallery.

Fixed an issue where Nice or High Quality harvestables would disappear from Sims’ inventories after Travel or Save/Load.

Fixed an issue where Freelancer Career tasks would not complete after Sims would Travel.

Sims that were seated at a 6 seat round table can now Clean up the dishes.

Child Sims will be now able to enjoy Quick Meals again!

Fixed an issue where Sims didn’t write a genre book when “Write Genre Book” was selected.

Multiple duplicate interactions should no longer appear in pie menus when you have certain objects in your inventory.

The Jet Set Luxury Bath (bathtubJetsGEN_01) was listed as being Unbreakable when that wasn’t true.

Speaking of Unbreakable, we fixed an issue with Hot Tubs and Stereos where unbreakable upgrades would not work if these objects were in use when upgrading them.

Fixed an issue in which some Sims could stand on, or walk through solid objects.

Adding a Sim to an existing household via the Create a Sim Stories feature will no longer subtract Simoleons from the household.

You can now extinguish a fire, even if the fire is within another object.

Fixed an issue that would cause Error code 510:5bd7fa0b to occur when attempting to save.

Sims can now Scrap the unfinished paintings of visiting Sims.

Light intensity will no longer reset when setting Auto Lights options.

Fixed an issue which made the item Tiny Globe & Sycee of the Prosperous Moon appear twice in Build Mode.

Half Walls toppers can now be applied to half walls on all levels of your lot.

Fixed an issue that caused Lots downloaded from The Gallery to be placed backwards and not being able to rotate them to an appropriate view.

Households downloaded from The Gallery should now have their starting funds set to the correct amount, and not just the base 20,000 Simoleons.

Child Sims will no longer receive Whims related to workouts.

Fixed an issue that did not allow Nordic keyboards for macOS to use the Size Down Cheat.

Fixed an issue where Error code 102:70c7f9a6 would occur when loading into Lots after loading a saved game.

Walls no longer will disappear when Taking a Photo in a Basement level room that does not have a staircase.

Bookshelves will no longer have the option to purchase University books if you do not own Discover University.

Sims will no longer flicker on and off the landing pad, when in the Rocket Ship using the WooHoo or Try for Baby interactions.

Sims in the Supreme Villain career working on the mischief interaction task can now use the Slablet to Troll teh Forums to complete the task.

Addressed some UI issues in Create a Sim that occurred after modifying the scaling option in the Accessibility options.

Lots and rooms with modded paintings will now be flagged as Custom Content when uploading to The Gallery

Small rugs can no longer be placed over the cutouts created by stairs.

Using Ctrl + U to reset your UI Scaling while you have the UI Scaling window open, will now properly reset the scale bar.

Caterer Sims will now be able to make a Cake and complete their Party event goals.

We attempted to track down the lost harvestables that are currently lost, but found they were lost and unfindable. It’s findings like this that we find we are at a loss of words for, however any future loss should not be found.

Sadly, all the children who had thought they had found the magic loophole, stay seated at the table, are no longer…

…right… like any kid ever stays seated at the table.

Who doesn’t enjoy a good bowl of cereal?

Some example interactions that were reported: “Play Fetch”, ”Give Potion”, “Blackmail”, “Scan Here”. The LastException related to this issue should also be fixed.

It’s now truly Unbreakable!

David was also supposed to be Unbreakable… but… spoilers… he broke.

Obviously there was an issue with the hot tub… water is the weakness.

Specifically Baby Bassinets… babies were becoming quite paranoid they weren’t actually Sims…

This could occur if a large object caught fire. You would have to wait until the fire spread outside the bounds of the large object in order to extinguish it.

“Your house is on fire?!”

“Yep… it’s under the bed. Gotta wait it out. But I’m ready.”

Topper… it’s a technical term that means the piece that goes on top of a half wall.

Ok, the issue summary said topper, I couldn’t remember what it was called, so I left it as topper.

Of course I have the game up and running. Yes I could go look…

Ah, you crazy supreme villains and your trolling ways. So eeeeevil.

Get To Work

Aliens should now appear as expected in the Photo thumbnails, and no longer display their disguised forms when they are not in disguise.

Aliens will now display accurate selected options for Eyebrows and Beards in Create A Sim.

Fixed an issue where Scientist Sims would record their findings in Notebooks twice.

We addressed an issue that could prevent Sims from not being able to ring up customers who attempt to purchase from the warming rack.

Some boots, along with the Sims feet, were disappearing when the camera was zoomed all the way out. This should no longer occur.

The “Refer for Surgical Treatment” interaction is now available on surgery tables that have had their color altered with the bb.enablefreebuild cheat.

There are better ways to take tidy and efficient notes.

City Living

There were a number of confusing situations that arose as a result of Invites your Sims would receive. In some cases these would appear as two invites for the same event, one that was the “hey, I just wanted you to know” invite, and the other would be the real invite. They should behave more accordingly to expectations.

Sims with the Shrewd reward trait weren’t as shrewd as they thought they were. We have restored their shrewd’ness and they should now actually receive the money they so rightfully shrewded away at the end of each week.

Fixed an issue in which some shirts in Create A Sim would not tuck in appropriately into skinny jeans.

We blame it on bad investments, the cd market apparently didn’t mean compact discs.

yfTop_EP03Mesh_OmbreBlue now looks as intended when paired with skinny jeans.

Seasons

Sims can now complete New Year resolutions on any lot, and not just their home lots.

The Lottery Holiday is back in your calendars! It should not be a surprise disappearing act any longer.

We spoke to the Holiday Gnomes and they have agreed to stop dropping seed packets if your Sims are not on Lot when the Holiday ends.

Fixed an issue where Weather would affect items inside buildings.

Flower Bunny’s contract has been renewed for them to appear on any Holiday or Tradition that they are scheduled to.

Mandrake and Valerian Root plants are now able to be planted indoors when it is Too Cold if Simmers have Realm of Magic installed.

Holiday Gnomes will no longer break Unbreakable objects when having a negative relationship with them.

The pedestal gnome (pedestal_EF18GENgnome) will no longer spawn as part of the Harvestfest gnomes tradition.

They wanted to spread holiday cheer… or they were attempting to bring about the end of Simanity, and usher in a new world order. Tomayto, tomahto.

Bunny contractual negotiations are ridiculous… they just keep multiplying their demands.

Dad joke quota met.

We don’t know what was done to make them angry, but even as magical as they are, they should not be breaking the Unbreakable.

He’s a table, he knows he’s a table, he doesn’t have any illusions to the contrary.

Get Famous

Married Celebrity Sim Couples will no longer React in Disgust with each other then they enter the same room.

Household members will no longer react to members with Pristine Reputation every time they travel together.

Fixed an issue that caused Recording a Product Review to fail if the Sim had previously interrupted a review by traveling to another Lot.

The Well Suited and G.R.A.N. talent agencies are back in business! Gigs from these agencies will now display appropriately.

Super Speed 3 should now work when Sims sleep in their Sleeping Pods and have a pet.

They are just a B-list celebrity though, can you blame them?

Like… we get it, they are perfect… no need to rub it in.

Island Living

Fixed an issue where Odd Jobs tasks were not able to be completed.

Fixed an issue where Conch Shells were not able to be put in Sims’ Inventories.

Sims can now see their recorded findings in the Notification Wall when performing “Examine Water Thoughtfully” on the Fishing Board.

Released Fish will actually be released back into the water and not be stored in Sims’ Inventory.

Players using low graphics settings will be surprised to find that Dolphins do actually exist in the waters of Sulani.

Discover University

Sims will no longer be accused of cheating on their coursework or homework if they don’t actually cheat.

Term Presentations should not have missing interactions any longer.

Fixed an issue that caused Error code 104:5ee05594 to occur when loading into a Dorm where an NPC had a Baby.

We addressed some feedback that getting As was too easy. Please be aware that your Sim will have to complete the coursework in order to consistently get good grades.

Students will no longer autonomously taunt each other about University Superiority unless they’re at the Game Day organization event or have one of these traits: Childish, Evil, Hot-Headed, and Bro.

Please be aware that a Sim’s hunger, energy, and bladder motives will no longer refill on their own just before class.

Fixed an issue in which Enhancing Utility Bots would get cancelled inappropriately.

Roommates should no longer Bring Food home every time they return.

Sims can now Turn Off Computer Glasses when moving to other neighborhoods.

Sims that complete the debate showdown, will once again be able to change into their other outfits.

Term Papers will now always count toward the course’s final grades.

Fixed an issue where the following Build Mode items were not able to be placed on the LearnWell Desk (desk2x1_EP08DORM_set1):

Fixed an issue where “The Secret Society Masks” were not being unlocked in Create A Sim.

The showerWall_EP08Gen_set1 shower will no longer turn on when a Sim attempts to repair it.

Fixed an issue with a swatch color for the yfBody_EP08DressOveralls_BlackSolidWhite

Active Sims should no longer get the “Not Enough Exercise” tense buff if they have enrolled in the Soccer Fútbol after school activity, or choose to juggle a soccer fútbol ball.

Sims now must meet all of the promotion requirements in order to be promoted in the Education Career.

Attempting to interact with a bike rider should no longer cause your Sim to route fail when performing the interaction.

The Make Offering to Sprites interaction should no longer be unavailable if you only have harvestables in your inventory.

Reaching level 5 of the Law Career now correctly unlocks the lawyer suits for your Sim in Create a Sim.

Bots enhanced to level 3 will no longer automatically enhance to level 4 upon activation.

Interacting with a Sim riding a bike will no longer cause the Sim, your Sim, the bike, parts of the world, or any other potential object or thing to disappear.

Inviting your professor to hangout will now actually have the professor arrive to hangout.

Servo can now complete the StrangerVille story.

Servo Fun and Social motive descriptions no longer incorrectly refer to Servo as a Sim.

Bicycles can now be searched for in Build Mode by using the term “bike”.

ExoMech suit can be worn by teen Sims, and is visible too.

Sims already wearing a helmet, will no longer change into another helmet to ride a bike.

Sims in the same household will now automatically know the others degree program.

Sims will no longer receive multiple signing bonuses from degree relevant careers. Only one signing bonus is awarded in any seven day period.

Woohoo in Shower will no longer give fame.

“Chat About Scandalous Lawsuit” now provides fun.

Choosing to cancel the Practice Presentation interaction will now cancel the interaction.

Servos can no longer get sick.

Servos can no longer purchase the Seldom Sleepy reward trait.

Sims on probation can now be asked to study with.

Sims should no longer route fail when attempting to take a Pregnancy test in a bathroom stall.

Asking the Repo Person to not take your stuff will now provide you a Text Notification as to whether or not you had an impact on the Repo Person’s decision.

Sprites no longer appear around the Sim after the buff expires after leaving the Secret Society.

Starving students… yes, it’s a trope, but let’s not lean into it so heavily.

It was getting a bit awkward in special occasions and when meeting neighbors. Not to mention it is a fashion… choice, yes… let’s just say that.

Dang it.

Lex Light By Dex Pix – lightTableLarge_EP08GENarm_set1, Q-Bik Tabletop Mood Light – lightTableLarge_EP08GENcage, and Great Gramps’ Light – lightTableLarge_EP08GEN_set1 can now be placed properly.

yuAcc_GlassesEP08SecretSocietyMask and yuAcc_GlassesEP08MasqueradeMask are now unlocking as intended.

Outdoor Retreat

Sims can now roast at a campfire without needing a seating object nearby.

Spa Day

Fixed an issue where Sims did not have the option to “Take Bath with Soaks” and “Take Mud Bath” on Showertubs.

Sims can now again get massages autonomously at Spas.

Mud bath… showertub, at home? Hmm. Goooood plumbing.

Pamper Mode: On!

Dine Out

NPC Sims will now eat more at Restaurants.

Photos taken of Experimental Foods will now display correctly when put into frames.

Fixed a swatch color error with the ymTop_GP03Blazer_SolidWhiteBlack

Profit!

Vampires

“Influence Emotions” interaction will no longer be available to Vampires that have not yet unlocked this perk.

Jungle Adventure

Several objects were not properly being found when using color filters. These should be filterable now.

StrangerVille

StrangerVille music has been added to the Lin-Z Smart Speaker.

Realm of Magic

Fixed an issue where Occult eyes would not properly apply to Spellcasters.

Unplayed NPCs not living in Glimmerbrook will no longer appear in Glimmerbrook performing Magic.

“Challenge to Magic Duel at Dueling Grounds” performed by a broom and non-broom using duelist will now take place at the dueling grounds.

Spellcasters with the “Knowledge is Magic” Perk will now be able to complete the “Finish Reading 3 Books” aspiration goal.

Fixed an issue where some Spellcasters would not complete the “Learn a Spell” goal, even though they would learn a Spell.

Spellcasters will now be able to Do Laundry while having “Always Transportalate” enabled.

Fixed an issue in which Pet Familiars would not stop foraging, never bringing back their findings.

Sages now can be chosen to Play With for a game of Chess.

Random non Spellcaster Sims no longer will show up as being Sages.

Fixed an issue in which Cauldron made food was not able to be eaten as leftovers when looking at the refrigerator.

Sims on cursed lots will no longer always catch fire in all attempts while using the Fireplace or the Stove.

Fixed an issue in which sounds from The Magic Realm could be heard in Del Sol Valley if you had Get Famous installed.

Fixed an issue in which some shirts in Create A Sim would not tuck in appropriately.

Spellcaster Sims can now clean potty messes, child messes, and kitty litter messes by casting Scruberoo.

Spellcasters will no longer have duplicate makeup options in CAS.

Spellcasters should no longer land in unroutable locations when using the “Always Use Brooms” spell.

Fixed an issue with asset yfAcc_WristRightGP08Gems in Create A Sim that made it display incorrectly when Sims were styled with long sleeve shirts.

Spellcasters that cast Mischief Spells will now get awarded Mischief Skill when doing so.

Male spellcasters will no longer have a chance of going bald after performing Rite of Dissolution.

yfHair_GP08Braids now properly appears within the Afro-Textured texture filter.

Mischief spells are now counted towards the Criminal Career daily task Mischief Interaction.

Spellcasters with the Spellcraft and Sorcery aspiration will no longer reset or cause a LastException after writing songs.

What’s next Bob Pancakes is a vampire?

He is? I knew it!

They are now all good Familiars and bring everything they find back.

We also fixed an issue where they would only bring Brooms back after foraging, they are still all good familiars.

They cheat… I can’t be that bad.

Impostors have been dealt with. Thank you for your cooperation.

That’s probably who I was playing chess against.

Thankfully so! Not sure what we were going to do with all that food.

Try the Mac and Cheese, 10/10 totally recommend.

Looks at SimGuruMorgan with an Evil Grin.

yfTop_GP08ShirtLace, yfTop_GP08BlouseSeeThrough, and yfTop_GP08BodysuitVinyl now look as intended when paired with skinny jeans.

Magic… it’s magic.

I understand buying duplicates of favourite make up items, but this was excessive.

Excellent… Evil Laugh

Perfect Patio

We fixed an issue where hired Maids would often change into Swimwear and use the Hot Tub instead of completing their tasks.

I hired them to clean… honest!

Romantic Garden

Sims in the Freelance careers, including freelance photography, will no longer be able to Wish for Promotion using the Wishing Well.

Sims in Conservationist, Educator, Actor, Style Influencer, Military, Critic, Social Media, or Politician careers will now be able to Wish for a Promotion using the Wishing Well.

Sims are their own boss, so it didn’t make sense for them to do that.

Backyard

Fixed an issue in which some shirts in Create A Sim would not tuck in appropriately into skinny jeans.

yfTop_SP08BodysuitLace now looks as intended when paired with skinny jeans.

Vintage Glamour

Addressed several issues that caused the butler to fail to perform their assigned tasks.

Fixed an issue that prevented Butlers to help put Toddler Sims to Bed.

The Butler should no longer make food for themselves when they are not hungry.

Moschino

Emotional auras in photographs can now be toggled on/off.

Fixed an issue where some photos taken were a bit blurry when placed in frames in Live Mode.

Tripods placed on floors other than 1, 2, or 3, should no longer cause the camera to change floors when attempting to take a photo.

Ask to Pose interaction should no longer fail if the Sim attempts to run the interaction from the Open Street.

Sent all of our cameras to maintenance for repairs, enjoy!

[travllingbunny]

The 100 6x05 The Gospel of Josephine

While we’re still on the hiatus, waiting two weeks for the next episode, at least I have more time to finally put my thoughts on episode 6x05 in one place and post the belated review.

I appreciated this episode better on my second watch, because, the first time, I found it a bit hard to believe that no one besides Bellamy was suspicious of „Clarke“’s new, decidedly non-Clarke-like behavior, even though they all noticed at least some of it, and that they didn’t put two and two together after they had already found out about bodysnatching. However, putting it into perspective, it all happened over a very short period of time – and besides, it is such a huge thing to accept. Most people wouldn’t even want to believe it.  

Still, while everyone seems to have caught the small blunders, like calling Murphy „John“, I do wonder if anyone except Bellamy was alerted by the fact that „Clarke“ was OK with bodysnatching and arguing that it’s OK because it doesn’t affect them. Could it be that their idea of her is a bit skewed? The funny thing is how much others (well, mostly Raven and Murphy) were bashing Clarke this season as the Worst Person Ever, and now her body is possessed by an actual villain, who is the polar opposite of Clarke: selfish, egotistical, immoral, arrogant, devoid of compassion and caring, allergic to children, and convinced that she is better than everyone and that she can just walk over the lesser, disposable people. There are even some people in the fandom who somehow imagine Clarke to be the Bad Guy, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary, which is a really incredible misunderstanding of the story and characters. Well, if people wanted to see a real villain in Clarke’s body? They got her now.

I expected the reveal about Clarke not being dead (surprise, surprise) but dormant, to happen at the end of this episode. It turns out it will probably happen in the next one.. Even though I can’t wait to see real Clarke again, watching JosephineClarke (JC) try and fail to pretend to be her was a lot of fun. To be fair, JC knows very little about Clarke, so of course she wouldn’t be able to guess how she’s supposed to act, but her hubris also got in the way. Thinking that, just because she was once in a famous play, she would be able to pretend to be a person she’s never met, is perfectly in character for JC, with her dismissive attitude towards „disposable“ people, which made her blunders so much more enjoyable to watch. Eliza Taylor did a great job giving JC completely different voice inflections and mannerisms from Clarke, at times just as playful and carefree as Sara Thompson’s original Josephine we saw in 6x02, but also more evil and scheming. Her „Clarke“ act went from basically just being JC herself in new situations, to doing something of a caricature of Clarke, in her „These people are happy, their world works“ speech in her final scene with Bellamy. But, she’s certainly smart, so she ended up deciding there’s no point of pretending with some people, namely Bellamy, and that she needs a better ’coach“ to teach her how to play Clarke and manipulate the one person who, as it turns out, matters to the Primes’ plan, Abby, so it will be interesting to see her doing her best after getting some pointers on how Clarke would act.

We also learned about something called Offering Grove – apparently, the Sanctum community doesn’t just sacrifice people to their ’gods“, the Primes, so they could live forever – they also do the classic human sacrifice, in this case – to the meat-eating trees. Lovely. And we see another weird thing specific to this planet – the strange green storm that seems to destroy or age or suck the life out of living beings. I’m hoping for more info on that in the following episodes.

One of the great things about this season is the amazing cinematography. Metaphorically, season 6 has been dark AF, but, fortunately, it’s not literally dark, as so many shows are these days when they try to be „dark and gritty“, so everyone wears black and grey and you can’t see a damn thing on screen due to poor lighting. No – The 100 season 6 has incredibly bright colors, with a planet that looks beautiful, with Sanctum looking like Renaissance Fair and with people in all sorts of rich, colorful clothes – and it’s all incredibly weird and disturbing.

Josephine’s first actions after waking up in a new body? Kill her „best friend“ Kaylee, after calling her out on the fact that Kaylee killed her in her previous body; paint a portrait of herself, while dancing and singing along to „Alors on dance“; take a shower and change clothes.

So, Josephine thinks that Kaylee and her family were running away because they were scared Russell would find out that Kaylee killed Josephine VII. But how were they supposed to find out? The only new ’naming’ was Priya. The next one was to be in 14 years, when Rose turns 21, and that was supposed to be Jasmine (someone Miranda loved, but we don’t get info what she was to her). There wouldn’t be a new Josephine for a long time. This doesn’t really make sense, unless there was another reason why they were eager to get away from Sanctum.

It’s been fun piecing the info about the identities and relationships of the Primes. So far, we know for sure that there were 13 people in the Eligius 3 mission = four families, plus Dr Gabriel Santiago, the geneticist. Those were:

Russell, Simone and Josephine Lightbourne;

Priya Desai and her teenage son Ryker (we learn her last name from her plaque in this episode)

Kaylee („Leelee“ as Josephine calls her), her mother (Faye), father and brother (I currently think the father was called Victor and the brother Daniel).

Miranda and her family, which consisted of Jasmine and a man we saw on the portraits of the Primes on the walls of Sanctum in 6x02 (some say that his name on the plaque in high resolution reads as Caleb Mason). We still don’t know for sure what the relations within that family are. I initially assumed Jasmine was her daughter, but from the way the portraits were lined up (parents above, kids below – and only Caleb was above, with two portraits below), it seems more likely they were sisters. (Or, who knows,, maybe one is his daughter and another is her wife.)

Although Josephine and Kaylee were apparently ’best friends“ (weird friendship, that one), that relationship had to develop that way only after their first lifetime, because the age difference between them seemed to be at least 10 years. Josie doesn’t seem to have much use for children, and Kaylee and her brother were pre-adolescent children during the original mission – the same ones that Josie used to test the unknown plants that, for all she knew, could have killed them. „I didn’t try it. I gave it to the kids. Leelee loved it. If it was poisonous, they’d be dead by now!“

The backstory is that Kaylee killed Josie, after Josie killed someone called Isaac, and non-Prime that Kaylee loved, possibly a boyfriend, though Josie claimed he volunteered to be sacrificed in the Offering Grove. I guess murder is a bit less seriously taken if it just means you get to wait for a few decades to be put in another body. So, basically, Josie decommissioned Kaylee, so, right now, there are just 6 active Primes: Russell, Simone, Miranda, Priya, Ryker, and Josie, but the other Primes don’t know about her yet. They wouldn’t be happy to know Russell and Simone skipped the line for their daughter – Miranda, in particular, would be pissed. They also don’t want the others to know about the whole killing thing, which is why all the sneaking had to happen. The Primes need the Earth people because they hope several of them are Nightbloods. It’s a reasonable assumption, but an incorrect one – but that’s not going to be important after what JC learns later about Abby’s ability to make Nightblood in the lab.

JC and Russell are kind of like Cage and Dante: Russell really likes to think of himself as a moral, noble guy, in spite of the horrible things he’s been doing for 236 years, so he has moral boundaries, such as, no bodyshatching without the hosts’ consent (it’s OK if you first brainwash people into worshipping you so that they will willingly sacrifice themselves and believe they’re becoming „one“ with the deity and that it’s a great honor), though he broke that rule for Josie; and no eugenics, which Josephine has been arguing for, even to the point that she wrote a book about it. From the immoral sociopathic POV, selective breeding really is the best and most obvious way to ensure the birth of new Nightbloods, but Russell insists he won’t treat human beings as cattle. (Even though he already does in many other ways?)  As in season 2, you find yourself wondering: should I be more on the side of the immoral sociopath, or the huge hypocrite? Answer: f*ck both of them.

I really hope Josephine’s science books contain the driest, most straightforward prose possible, because, while she’s brilliant in many ways, literary talent is certainly not one of her strength. „This Ferrari I’m wearing“? Fun line, but what a mixed metaphor.

So, yeah, as we all know Josephine finds Murphy cute rather than Bellamy, which was obviously thrown there to subvert viewer expectations, and stress once more how completely different she is from Clarke etc.… but „he’s cute“?! She’s 200 years old and she talks like a pre-teen? There’s been some discussion over whether the Primes ever really emotionally mature over their many lifetimes. Josephine doesn’t sound any more mature than she was in the flashback in 6x02, and come to think of it, Ryker kind of has an attitude that could fit a teenager. But I don’t think it has anything to do with brain maturity, they are in adult brains, and they certainly have experiences of multiple lifetimes and centuries. I think it’s a consequence of they way of life (similar to how people who, due to circumstances, still live with their parents and are supported by them way into adulthood tend to act younger than people who have adult responsibilities early in life): all the Primes are locked into the past (even with the way JC can’t stop using 21st century slang and references), and even new relationships they develop cannot last beyond one lifetime, while their relationships with each other can go on indefinitely. Kaylee acts like an adult, not a little girl, but her primary relationships are always going to be with her parents and brother, and, as we saw in 6x02, those familial relationships didn’t change at all: during the hijacking, the dad („younger man“) seemed to be telling the son/brother („handsome older gentleman“) what to do, and Momma Faye (the „younger woman“) was definitely in charge and ordering Kaylee around („Just push the damn buttons, Kaylee!“) and telling her with her dying breath that she has to save the heads, though Kaylee already knew that.

Speaking of all the time in the world that the Primes have had – couldn’t Russell and Simone have made an effort to learn Mandarin in all that time? You live so long and you never care to learn new skills and expand knowledge? What do they even do with their time? At least Josephine has been writing books.

I wonder when Gabriel decided to leave and became the enemy of the Primes. He must have had an attack of conscience, after having done such awful things. Of course, people who were developed by Gabriel from embryos they brought from Earth were the ones used as hosts for the Primes, and are also obviously where the entire human population of Sanctum came from. We also learned that 45 or 46 of little embryo girls (I don’t remember the exact number) died in his experiments before he managed to successfully implant Josephine’s mind into one of them, after realizing that the host has to have a fully developed, adult brain. (Was this also the case with the minds of Prime children – if Kaylee, her brother and Ryker were also killed during Russell’s killing spree?) And „consent is key“ wasn’t something Russell cared at the time, since he had no problem with Josie’s mind being implanted in the body of the obviously unwilling and horrified Brooke, who was fighting and screaming until Gabriel injected her with the paralyzing serum (now we know why it was initially developed). Apart from the effect of loneliness and isolation after so many (all?) of the other people in the mission were killed, Russell’s guilt over it, Gabriel’s obsession with Josephine, finding out at some point that Earth was no more (7 years after they came to the planet), another factor could have been that they had the same attitude towards clones as many people seem to have in real life – that they are somehow not „real people“ because they didn’t get conceived and born the regular way (what’s with all the talk of cloning as a way to harvest organs?!).

How did the Primes choose Jade to be the bodyguard of the hosts (and now JC, who doesn’t seem to need someone to protect her anyway)? Did they go „Let’s find the smallest person in this compound!“ But I have a feeling that „bodyguard“ is not exactly the best description of Jade’s job. It’s just what Diyoza called her, and it seemed like the closest term.  

In spite of all the new info about the Primes, this was an episode with strong character moments for Murphy, Abby (with important character revelations about both, about things that make them potentially most vulnerable to Josie’s manipulation), Octavia, Diyoza, Gaia, even some for Jackson, certainly for Jordan (it’s his best episode so far), and Bellamy had some good scenes, but in his case, this episode was a calm before the storm, leading up to the moment when realizes the horrible truth about JC.

Bellamy also deserves points for making plans to explore the planet (and pointing out how weird it is that the Sanctum people haven’t explored much of the planet for 236 years… really, what have they been doing? They’re content to stay locked in their small, narrow space and old habits), and go and found their own community somewhere, away from Sanctum, after learning the important things from them. Someone had to finally mention all these things, and those 400 people still on the ship. To be fair, they’ve only been in Sanctum for a few days and were mostly distracted by other things, including trying to get Sanctum people to accept them and teach them to survive.

Jordan has been fleshed out a lot in the last couple of episodes. We knew him as a sweet, optimistic manboy, and we learned of his brilliant scientific knowledge in the premiere, and sure, he could be naive and trusting, but in 6x04, we saw his sadness and feelings of guilt as he talked about his upbringing and his parents, and now we’ve seen him make the right conclusions and be the first person to pay attention to the suspicious things in Sanctum (which, I think, the others would have also noticed earlier if they hadn’t been so eager to see the Sanctum people as good and to find peace), and determined to investigate what’s going on, after realizing that his girlfriend really isn’t the same person anymore, literally. He had to face obstacles such as, others not taking him seriously (and dismissing him as just a naive guy who’s dealing with being dumped) and the extremely brainwashed Sanctum citizens, including even Delilah’s mother. Priya VII even tried to pacify him by claiming Delilah was happy, which sounds like BS, since we know that the Primes believe that the hosts are ’dead’, which means they have no clue what, if anything, the host is feeling.

However, I didn’t like Jordan’s line about „Heart Bellamy“ – that was too much like breaking the fourth wall, like Jordan was the stand-in for the fandom and the things they say about Bellamy pre- and post-Praimfaya (which I’ve been pretty fed up with, to the point I’m almost starting to hate all the „Head“ and „Heart“ mentions, since they’re used to ridiculously oversimplify the characters of both Bellamy and Clarke). I guess I can imagine Monty and Harper telling them that Bellamy told them on the ring he had to use his head more, to honor Clarke’s memory, because she told him to do that – but it’s still jarring.

When Jordan, Gaia, Bellamy and Murphy broke into the lab and found the videos, it may seem like it was way too easy and that all the info was just lying there waiting, but the fact that the Primes didn’t think they needed anyone to guard it shows how complacent they are, how much they’re used to everyone in Sanctum supporting them, except for a rare Child of Gabriel – and everyone including CoG knows what and who they are, so there’s no reason to guard the information, only to guard the Nightbloods/future hosts.

It was satisfying to see Gaia go from her attitude that every religion should be respected (which is, on one hand, nice in general in terms of tolerance, but also absurd if taken too far, like including cults, created by people who made themselves gods so they can oppress others), to being horrified by bodysnatching and the way the Primes have brainwashed an entire community to worship them and sacrifice people to them. She made the same points about the difference between the Flame and the mind drives that I talked about in my review of 6x04, including the fact that the former was created to help future generations with accumulated knowledge and advice (as it does not take over the host, who is still in control of their body), rather than to let people live forever. (Which was presumably Becca’s intention and the initial purpose for the mind drives, too – before Gabriel modified them so they could store the entire consciousness of a Prime, allowing them to live as the same person in a new body.)

But I also enjoyed Murphy’s snarky but truthful comments about the Grounder religion – the fact that they made children fight to the death for the right to become Commanders is incredibly messed up, too. And Becca was also not a god but a scientist who made herself Nightblood in the lab – although that would have been more relevant to the plot of 4x09 (where the Grounders were shocked by the „blasphemy“ of Clarke trying to pass her scientifically created Nightblood as the same thing as the Nightblood of the Commanders… which also came from a lab).

The reactions were interesting - Jordan was the voice of morality and humanity, but I think  almost everyone agreed with him, except for Murphy. He was the only one – other than Josephine – to defend the Primes and their way of life – and it kind of feels realistic that at least someone would be tempted by immortality as an option. It makes sense it’s Murphy, especially after his recent brush with death that made him think he saw what hell was like, and it also makes sense he would say that openly.

While Bellamy didn’t speak much during those scenes where the group was discussing their shocking discovery, he was, of course, agreeing with Jordan (as confirmed with his later comments to „Clarke“) – but he was, instead, focused on watching „Clarke’s“ surprising reactions. I think he was getting more and more suspicious of her throughout the episode, and since finding out about bodysnatching, he was starting to realize the horrible truth.

Let’s see how many times JC screwed up while playing Clarke:

She was uncomfortable when hugged by Madi, and then told her she can go to school, contrary to what Clarke told Madi in the previous episode. But Madi was just being a child and was happy to get what she wanted.

JC also, naturally, didn’t understand a word of what Gaia said in  Trig (to make it impossible for Jade to understand what she was saying), but she covered it reasonably well.

Saying „Chill out“ (21st century slang is not something people from the Ark are familiar with) was what caught Bellamy’s attention.

Then he asked her about her happy demeanour and the „fun“ she had with the doctor, referring to seeing her dance with Cillian at the club. Bellamy asking about these things isn’t exactly typical of him, either, but it’s interesting. He may not have even been fully aware where it came from, but to me, it sounded like he needed to know more: „So, uh, I’m glad you look happy, but is it because of the doc? Are you really into him? It’s not serious, is it? Please tell me it’s not? I’m just curious for… reasons“. But JC immediately assumed it was about sex, confirmed Clarke had sex with Cillian and was basically like „I banged him and I’m an animal in bed“. Which was one of the most non-Clarke things imaginable: talking openly about her sex life, and bragging about it, and to Bellamy of all people (the two of them have always avoided any talk about each other’s love life or sex life or each other’s love interests). But JC walked out thinking „Nailed it“!“ Bellamy seemed too busy being surprised, confused and dealing with all sorts of feelings and images in his head caused by her comment, so he probably didn’t suspect anything at this point.

JC made more blunders with Abby – including writing with her right hand, which Abby noticed; making a comment that Josephine was a „visionary“ when Abby calls her a monster, and having new knowledge that Clarke didn’t have. A lot of people are harsh on Abby because she didn’t figure it out. However, I think that’s unfair – she didn’t know about the bodysnatching, so she couldn’t put two and two together. The human mind tends to rationalize things it can’t make sense of. She was also very tired, after not having gotten any sleep (reading books from the library instead), and distracted.

Bellamy was getting suspicious when „Clarke“ argued that bodysnatching is „not murder if they go willingly“ and that the Sanctum people are not a danger to them (in spite of herself and Madi being Nightbloods). JC was at that point worried about being found out, so she made sure to take a vial of the paralyzing serum if she is found out. After she left, everyone focused on stopping Jordan from making trouble publicly, as he went to openly confront Priya.

The group talk in the bar was when I think Bellamy definitely had clear suspicions about „Clarke“. First she called Murphy „John“, which weirded out everyone, including Murphy and Jordan. But I think it was her arguments that they should just be OK with what the Primes were doing, and look away – that from „I want to save everyone“ Clarke – that sealed the deal. That and the „Eureka“ look on her face when she heard about Abby being able to make Nightbloods in the lab.

It would have been safer if Bellamy hadn’t confronted „Clarke“ on his own, but I think he desparately wanted his suspicion to not be true. He tested her with Trig – which is a good test, as it’s the one language no Sanctum person could know – and she guessed some of the meaning from the context the first time, but the second time, it was too specific even for her to figure it out (no matter how good with picking up languages she is). So JC was like, my cover is blown, why even pretend anymore, and started taunting him instead. Bellamy’s reaction, the shock and horror on his face, especially as JC confirmed her identity after paralyzing him, was heartbreaking, and made this the best scene in the episode. I cannot even imagine what reactions we’ll see from him in the following episodes. He already went through losing Clarke and believing her dead once before – but that was her heroic sacrifice. This was awful and done against her will. He is going to raise hell, and do everything to fight the Primes and get Clarke back – once he realizes that she is not completely gone.

Murphy naturally had to go along with Josephine for the time being, but is he really going to be on Josie’s side, or play a double agent and help his friends? I believe he will do the latter – he does care about Clarke, and the group, he wants to be a part of the family, and we’ve seen how much he’s changed and that he was willing to die and let the others save themselves in the season 5 finale. I think that he will be tempted for a while to accept the offer, because of his fear of death and hell, but will eventually choose his friends over immortality.

Another character who may be tempted in the next episode is Abby – as JC, pretending to be Clarke, will no doubt play on her desire to save Kane. However, that won’t work when Abby realizes that JC took Clarke’s body – and I doubt JC can keep up the ruse too long.

Many fans tend to talk about and judge Abby only in terms of her role as Clarke’s mother, but she is a character by herself, with her own trauma and issues that are not about being a mom. For the last two seasons, she has been struggling with the trauma and guilt from the Dark Year and her role in Blodreina’s rule. Her comment to Jackson, where she compared both him and herself to war criminals, made a good point: „I was just doing my job“/“I was just listening to orders“ is a poor excuse when you participate in crimes. And her desire to save Kane isn’t just because of romantic love, but also a reaction to that guilt, and on top of that, the guilt of failing Kane multiple times due to her addiction, and indirectly causing his injuries by indulging Vinson (a symbolic embodiment of her addiction and guilt over cannibalism). Kane and Abby have switched roles since season 1, and he has become her moral center. It’s because Kane’s response to feeling guilty was a healthy one: he decided to change his worldview completely and to start doing better. He tried to redeem himself through sacrifice in season 1, but he was never suicidal for the sake of it. But Abby doesn’t know how to deal with guilt, and gets crushed by it. When she feels she’s failed her own moral standards, she starts hating herself.  Her death wish at the time of Praimfaya was a result of guilt over the things she did trying to find a solution to save everyone, and her addiction in season 5 was also response to guilt. Now she’s come to the point where she thinks that she doesn’t deserve to survive, but Kane does. She’s made him a symbol of all that’s good in the world.

I’m really enjoying the scenes with Diyoza and Octavia. The two main enemies/villain leaders of season 5 are now on a rogue buddy trip. Diyoza has been amazing this season, but now I’m starting to be afraid she’s doing to die, after we get her backstory and she gives birth. And we really need to get her full backstory. She’s almost playing a mentor to Octavia now, because she had gone through similar things and understands where Octavia’s behavior comes from, maybe better than anyone else, but she’s rational and pragmatic where Octavia is impulsive and self-destructive. The different ways Diyoza and Octavia dealt with the live sand is the best example of the contrast between them. It was funny when Octavia said „At least I’m trying“ – she really didn’t get how the whole ’The harder you fight, the faster you die“ thing works! But Octavia has shown some of her old humanity, again – this time, by telling Diyoza to save herself and her baby – and, for the first time in a while, a desire to live, since she saved herself from the wave. Nothing like the danger of death to make you realize you don’t really want to die.

Interesting: the Children of Gabriel calling that live sand thing „The Crucible“ – another reference to Miller’s play (Gabriel’s favorite play! Banned by the Primes!). Do CoG identify with the unfairly accused people from that play?

Xavier’s motivations are becoming clearer – he is a rational, no-nonsense guy, just like Diyoza, and wants to get info from them rather than kill them.

I don’t know what the weird green wave is. A lot of people seem to think it has something to do with the Anomaly, but it could just be another phenomenon. I couldn’t even make out what exactly messed up thing it did to Octavia’s hand – did it age it up, suck out some of its life, or what.

Raven, Emori, Echo and Miller were MIA this episode since they were away – Ryker is showing Raven how to build a radiation shield, and the others are protecting them. Next episode, I hope to see more Emori (and Memori interaction). We know from the promo there will be Echo and Jade interaction (they could bond and compare notes on being the follower/servant who follows orders and doesn’t question them) there will also probably be more Raven and Ryker interaction; JC will try to manipulate Abby with Murphy’s help, but I doubt she’ll be able to fool her for a long time, and everyone should find out that she is not Clarke. And I’m sure we’ll learn that Clarke’s mind is really dormant rather than destroyed, and it will be interesting to see how she fights back inside her own mind and her friends and family try to save her, and hopefully kick JC’s and the Primes’ asses.

Rating: 8.5/10

[dicecast]

Blast to the Past: Planescape Torment tutorial

Ok so if we really want to talk about 

Now planescape torment as a game is mostly strongest in the start, the game reaches its peak once you leave for the Outlands and doesn’t really recover until the very end at the return to Sigil, something which I wish the enhanced edition would have fixed.  But I think one of the reasons why this game is so beloved is in large part due to its strong opening.  And whats funny at first is that it is actually closer in structure to the Pathfinder:Kingmaker situation than the Baldur’s Gate I opening.  You awake in a crisis and need to escape from a building with different rooms having different mechanics be introduced.  And while it is a lot faster if you don’t do the sidequests, you can’t just finish the tutorial in 5 mins the way you can with Candlekeep.  Despite that, I think Planescape surpassing even Baldur’s Gate in its opening.  Lets talk about why

1) Aesthetic.  One of the most powerful thing about Planescape is that it has a very specific art direction, one which I have not seen in any fantasy before or sense, this philosopher hobo view of cosmic metaphor.  While PS:T is undeniably part of the D&D universe and is just as much fantasy as Baldur’s Gate, it feels wholly unlike the former, even though both games are canon in the same universe.  The game specifically removes most of the trappings of fantasy, there is a single sword and a single suit of armor in the whole game (the suit of armor is a companion), there are not dragons, there are no goblins/orcs/giants/drow/Mind flayers, you never explore ancient ruins of a lost civilization or restore a monarchy, you don’t even defend a village from monsters.  

   This game abandons the conventional trappings of fantasy instead having an aesthetic of...well a slum.  Your initial weapons include an iron spike, a scalpel, a plybar, a severed arm, and a crunch, you travel to sewers and are murdered in like 40 different ways.  And the Morgue is an absolutely great to place to set the tone, the whole place is full of images of emboldening fluid, dissected corpses, and body parts, but rather than being used to be creepy or evil it is actually rather nice.  They aren’t enemies to be destroyed...they are you.  This place of corpses and preservatives is where you belong, because you are after all, a corpse who keeps refusing to die.  

2) it sets the tone, specifically in not judging a book by its cover.  The Mortuary could easily have been a sinister realm of necromancers with their zombie servants doing experiments among the dead, but the tutorial puts you in the framework of not assuming that the sinister is evil.  A floating skull can be your friend, you don’t have to attack the zombies, and the weird necromancers in robes talking about True Deaths are just stoic goths.  In a Planescape setting and especially in a game that is as role-play heavy as this one, it is important to communicate to the player that they need to take the weird stuff on its surface rather than assume things are going to follow a standard fantasy storylines.  Maybe the two demon ladies can be your friend, maybe its best to talk to the creepy hag, assumptions will not help you in this game 

3) Its not entirely linear.  A lot of the content is optional If you want, you can get through this tutorial in maybe 10-15 mins if you skip the side content.  Also much of the content has multiple resolutions depending on your play style, making it much more an example of self expression rather than “I need to pick the locks now” 

4) It is an actual story segement.  My issue with Kingmaker or Bloodlines is that the tutorial is just....a place you learn the mechanics and nothing more, while the Morgue is directly related to the plot of Planescape.  You need to learn about yourself as the Nameless One, you get to meet and learn about Morte, you meet Dhall and find out more aobut the story,  You meet Deionarra, and most importantly where you wake up is also the entrance of the final boss.  The Tutorial level is absolutely necessary to understand the story of the game and is infact more necessary than the whole Curst nonsense. \

5) It establishes the mechanics.  Despite using the same engine and being set in the same universe as Baldur’s Gate, the experience is totally different in terms of gameplay.  PS:T needs to introduce how important dialogue options are, that your stats can effect the various conversions, that you are immortal and that htis game has a much more visual novel/adventure game feel to it than the more combat oriented BG.  lets contrast some points real quick

In Candlekeep, you have to do an errant for a guy and normally he gives you some money but in one of my playthroughs he gave me a +1 dagger.  I didn’t know why the difference until I looked it up and was like “oh I had 18 charisma”.  Meanwhile planescape torment, it informs you about the different stat and their effect on dialogue in order to let players know to plan their stats accordingly

To use another example, in the Mortuary there are a bunch of giant skeletons chilling around in the upper level.  In BG that would be a challenge to defeat, but in PS:T, talking to them while having this one book and a high enough Int means you can deactivate them, getting XP for each one and looking their armor to learn spells.  This is going to be a hallmark of PS:T and it is established here

The fact that you can get through this whole level only killing a single zombie is right away a major different from BG, where you kill like 90% of the cast.  

6) It sets the tone of Planescape.  One of the reasons why this game is so beloved is that PS:T kinda delivers on the RPG promise.  There are like 20 zombies in this level and almost all of them has a different way of interacting with them and unique appearance.  One of them has stitches that you can cut with a scapel to find a not, one is holding a book, one losses its arm that you can lose as a club, there is a zombie who is actually a human spy dressed up as a zombie (who can dress you up too) almost everything in this level has a unique method of interactivity, and that is before Morte tries to hit on them.  Honestly one of hte failings of PS:T is that no other part of the game is as interactive as this particular level.  

7) You can return to the Motuary throughout the rest of the game, making this place useful.  Even if you do every single side-quest you can first time through, there will still be more to do. You come back here when you die, you need to go here for the final dungeon, some quests take you but most critically there is a whole zombie sidequest here.  later in the game a crying zombie will give you the power to talk to the dead.  If you think of it, you can return to this place and talk to every single zombie here, each of whom has their own story, a few of which are quite elaborate, and one of them is your old buddy who has some items for you.  

In short, PS:T is to me the ideal RPG tutorial (though I do wish I could get through it a bit faster on a second play-through) because it feels like an actual part of the game rather than simply “the part where you do the mechanics” 

Next time I might finally talk about why the tutorial for Pathfinder;Kingmaker is so bad...but I might not bother, its boring. 

[poisonedviper]

Beloved Father, Withering Gaze

The great philosopher L’izzo once asked “Why men great ‘til they gotta be great?” An acknowledgement of how too often people will fail to rise to a challenge that they have already shown they could best, only seeming to fail once it is important that the work be done. This established that the greatest failure was one that by all means should have been overcome and had people trusting would be overcome.

L’alor had known many of these failures in his life, and often the words of L’izzo found him in moments between these. His failures had largely defined his life, shaped the path of it, and forced him to adjust his life around the consequences of those failures. He had backed down from important fights, pursued ill-advised business ventures, hurt Meziene, broken his family, and more. These failures found him due to his fear. He had learned that well by now, through harsh example and Meziene’s cutting words in his worst moments. Fear had brought him nothing but failure, and he had been shown how continued fear would only cost him more. It would cost him everything.

The moment of that revelation had come at the same time as a new command from the Viper, his authority as the Architect of War mandated. It was not a post he could refuse, nor one he could afford to fail in. Whether in the Viper’s humor or anger, the position came at the heart of L’alor’s fears. It forced him to fight and hurt people, to kill. The act that had always haunted him, chased after his thoughts and called to him. The propagation of the Venom depended on it, but it also was nature to him. It was something that often brought the question to him if the Venom made him a monster, or if he had the Venom because he was a monster; he had still never decided. What mattered was that to be the Architect of War he would have to kill, or his tribe would be in danger.

The Viper was merciful, in Its own way, and did not immediately give him a task. He would be on call, as always. It gave him time to deal with his fears. The calling of the Venom had always been a strong fear of his, heeding that unknown urge that he felt when it was strong within in and he was near certain people. Raceaux Eleftheriou had always been one of those people, and later into Raceaux’s incarceration L’alor had felt the call more. When Meziene had chosen the night of her revenge, L’alor had taken the chance to heed the call after his family had left.

That night had confirmed something for him. If he wanted to be great, he would have to stop being afraid of himself.

L’alor felt better after that night than he had in nearly a year. The pain of his Venom had been reduced drastically, his strength had been returned in full, and his mind was clear again. On top of his returned self, L’alor had been bolstered with confidence. Facing his fear and actually following his desires had proven right before, and he would try again.

Ishgard had become L’alor’s home. His attempts to become the Beloved Father, another dark figure of Ishgard that dealt in favors and blackmail to move the city along his desired path, had gone terribly. There had been minor success, but when it mattered most he had been undone. He wasn’t one to play in the shadows.

Lord Alucar Alluindre had left him beaten and broken in an alleyway, alive but wracked with great pain. The Lord had proven himself beyond the shadowed reach of the Beloved Father, and Ishgard would never regard the Beloved Father as anything of note so long as the Lord walked around without reprimand.

L’alor had had to keep Meziene back from killing the man, taking away his chance to try again to establish the Beloved Father. She would kill him without an issue, from the shadows, leaving the man’s body somewhere to be found by servants, only questions left in the scene. Impossible to connect back to her, but the whispers of Ishgard telling the story she wanted. It was awe inspiring to see, but it was not a way L’alor could match. The Beloved Father could not act the same as the Revered Mother, he would have to be what felt right.

If the Revered Mother was to be the shadowy grip on Ishgard, the Beloved Father would have to be the withering gaze that the city could see was watching them.

Flyers had scattered about the city. House Alluindre’s worst secret printed all over it, slandering Lord Alucar as a kidnapper. Babes stolen right from their mother’s arms, raised without knowledge of where they came from, and pretended to be the heirs of House Alluindre by Alucar. Anyone that spoke of the matter was greeted with the swift wrath of Alucar, all of his influence and power brought against them to ruin reputation or worse. He would fight tooth and nail to keep the secret labeled a lie, if it had to be spoken of at all.

Which was exactly why L’alor had signed his title, the Beloved Father, to each of the flyers, so Alucar would know who wrote it.

The public that read the flyers though did not get that far. Whether they had known the secret or not before the flyers crossed their path was irrelevant. Everyone had the information now, and it didn’t matter if they thought it was true or not. They gathered in front of the estate of House Alluindre, a mixture of mob and onlookers. Some called for the truth, some just called for the punishment of Alucar; the response depended on the speaker’s opinion and fear of Alucar.

The guards of House Alluindre were pressing back against the crowd, weapons keeping them at bay from crossing the estate lines. They would keep them back long enough for the city guards to come, if nothing else happened. Then Alucar happened.

The front gates to the estate rushed open, a cadre of guards marching out with Alucar himself at the head. The guards pushed back at the crowd, forcing space for their Lord to occupy. His face was spitting mad, lines of anger crossing the visage and sharpening his gaze over the crowd.

“Who wrote this?!” He shouted. He was a slandered noble and deserved his anger at the mob suddenly at his house; that’s how he would likely try to spin it anyways. “Who has spread these lies about my children?! Step forward now, I order you!”

Replies shot forward from the crowd. Some calling for similar truth. Others berating Alucar; Meziene’s voice rang out from the crowd, joining with those chastising the Lord. Alucar couldn’t focus on anyone in particular, his eyes widening in anger. His guards stepped forward, prepared to move into the crowd and make arrests of their own.

“I wrote it,” came from a voice in the crowd, firm and resolute. The speaker couldn’t be seen entirely among the crowd, but their tanned hand bearing a moonstone ring could be.

The crowd parted in front of the speaker, separating at their own curiosity and the prods of other Ishgardians. The split before him allowed L’alor, garbed in his work clothes and many weapons, to face Alucar fully, lowering his hand as he stepped forward.

“You,” Alucar all but hissed. “You have gone too far this time! I will not let this slide, I will have justice for this!”

“That’s exactly what I came here for,” L’alor said evenly.

“Someone call the Inquisitors! I want this man arrested and charged for slander!” Alucar shouted, swinging an arm at the unmoving crowd.

“Yes, bring the Inquisitors!” L’alor shouted back, watching Alucar. “Let them come and investigate this claim I have made. Let them find the truth of it out.”

Alucar quirked a brow at L’alor, confused for a moment. He knew what the Miqo’te was trying. Bringing the Inquisition in to investigate would, in theory, expose Alucar for what he had done. Alucar wasn’t worried about that though, he would use his influence and wealth to make sure the investigation went in his favor; it wouldn’t have been the first time. He smirked inwardly, making sure to keep his anger placid on his face even if it had faded away now. This was just another time where the upstart had tried to win and failed, but this time it wouldn’t be an alleyway in the Brume he got left in.

“Or, we can let Halone settle this,” L’alor followed up with, breaking Alucar’s train of thought. “She can decide who is telling the truth.”

Alucar’s look of anger wasn’t fake anymore. The mob shouted loudly at that comment, invoking the justice of Halone was always a way to get Ishgard going. Whether faithful or just ceremonial, the reaction was called for all the same. What made Alucar mad though was the scenario it established. He had been challenged now, formally in the sight of Halone, and if he refused he might as well admit guilt to the mob gathered. Regardless of what the courts decided after, this mob would whisper and rumor across the city until the truth would be solidified by the court of public opinion; which would eventually demand a real investigation he may not be able to sway.

“Unless you are afraid, Alucar,” L’alor added.

Alucar sneered at the man, shouting to his guards. “Bring me my armor!”

The guards around the Lord looked back to their master, giving a confused look. “Sir?”

“I said, bring me my armor!” Alucar shouted again, gesticulating back towards the estate harshly.

Two of the guards ran off hurriedly. Alucar’s eyes never left L’alor, watching him with a mixture of fury and disgust at the scene he had dragged Alucar into. Still, Alucar was a veteran of the Dragonsong War and a soldier worth every bit of his reputation, even after all these years. He would remove this troublesome Miqo’te, and then deal with the consequences that would surely come. The last thought coming with a glance at Meziene who was still in the crowd, next to a large figure carrying a broadsword across his back. Consequences would surely come.

For his own part, L’alor just stood there patiently. The crowd watching with pent up excitement at the knowledge of what was to come. Some had heard of the Beloved Father, a mixture of good and bad equally spackled about that reputation, but many knew about Lord Alucar. They expected a fight that was quick and interesting.

Alucar’s guards, and a few servants, returned before the charge in the air could die down, and their carrying his battle-scarred armor and large sword only enhanced the excitement. They dressed him quickly, Alucar’s eyes riveted on L’alor with each strap and buckle affixed into place. The dark plate and draped fabrics had seen him through battles with dragons and worse, and all of it still fit just well enough. The sword felt right in his grip still, balanced and at home.

L’alor grabbed at the harness around his outfit, eliciting a sound from the crowd as they expected him to draw a weapon from the array affixed to him. Instead his fingers pulled at the central buckle and split it apart. The weapons clattered to the ground, scurried away by a man in robes from the crowd who disappeared from view moments later. Alucar had always chosen his armor and weapons, and L’alor wanted to win the fight at the disadvantage.

If the move had phased Alucar he didn’t show it, instead stepping forward with a swipe of his sword through the air to create the dissonant whistling sound. With a satisfied nod he lunged at L’alor, sword leading the charge and cutting upwards to end the fight in one move.

L’alor rolled backwards as the strike came towards him, putting himself out of reach of the blade’s swing. Normally he would have continued to roll back until he had reached his feet again, and from there strike at Alucar in quick strikes meant to wear the man down. It had been a tactic he was taught as a child, a way to keep from severely wounding other Tias in fights. He would wear them down over time and win that way, but the other Tia would walk away. It was taught so he would hold back and not have enough time to deliver a terrible blow, or worse. The tactic had followed L’alor for all of his life, carrying even in his style as he grew up and left the tribe. Only against large monsters had he allowed himself to follow his desire to strike harshly and fatally, and even then it was restricted.

L’alor did not continue to roll back. His hands planted on the ground behind him and pushed, arms uncoiling to spring him towards Alucar, feet first. The strike caught the knight by surprise, the hard kick into his armored gut stumbling him. L’alor was inside of Alucar’s reach now, more difficult to strike with the sword. As L’alor bounced up from the kick he lifted his fists to punch at Alucar’s armored chest. Alucar thought quicker of the situation and threw himself forward into a rush on L’alor, using his larger size and armored weight to strike the Miqo’te’s whole body at once. L’alor went with the rush, doing all he could to keep his feet beneath him and pace backwards as the rush continued. He didn’t know what Alucar was aiming for, but he could guess it wouldn’t be a good landing.

L’alor took in a deep breath as he stepped back, foot planting firmly as aether swarmed into him and flowed towards his foot. It threaded him into the very stone beneath him, locking him into position. It wasn’t a perfect plan, but it would be better than getting smashed between Alucar and whatever was coming up. His knees bent and he release Alucar. The knight barrel right onward, feet pounding over L’alor as he went, right into the stone pillar he had been aiming for but with too much momentum to stop. He crashed into it with a resounding thud, armor scraping against the stonework with a ear-splitting screech.

L’alor, bruised and likely worse from the change, released the aether around him and moved. He wouldn’t have much time until Alucar recovered and spun. With the screech still in the air he pounced, fists balling together and slamming into Alucar’s backside. The force of the blow threw the man into the pillar again, eliciting a cough as the wind left his body. L’alor’s hands snaked forward to grab at the front of Alucar’s armor, pulling back as he stepped aside and throwing Alucar onto the ground harshly. The armored knight skidded for a moment across the stone, clearly dazed by the turn of events.

L’alor lunged again, going high and curling, feet prepared to slam into the knight. Alucar’s sword rose at the perfect moment, as L’alor was too close to dodge but before he could strike. It bit deep into L’alor’s arm, covering the two men in Miqo’te blood. L’alor landed to the side with a hiss, other hand rushing up to cover the wound. His arm felt like it was on fire and was starting to feel heavier.

Alucar recovered from his prone position quickly, leaving no time to pause. He rushed at L’alor with a downward chop, targeting his weakened side. L’alor slid his foot backwards and twisted away from the strike, completing the circle and bringing his foot up to kick. The sole of his foot launched into Alucar’s hand harshly, battering the bone beneath the armor with trembling force. It wouldn’t break the hand, he hadn’t put enough power into it for that, but it sent enough momentum in to break Alucar’s grip. His sword went flying towards the crowd, thankfully clattering to the ground before it could hurt anybody.

The moment of indecision Alucar had between going for his sword and continuing to fight L’alor cost him. L’alor’s foot planted on the ground, firming his stance, and his hands shot for Alucar. They both gripped at his chest plate, one along the neck and the other at the hip. His arms tensed and swung upwards, lifting Alucar off the ground and over L’alor’s head, and then continuing the arc to throw Alucar right into the stone floor of Ishgard.

Alucar hit the ground with a sickening crunch, flopping over on to his stomach as L’alor released him. His head had just settled from the recoil of the flop when L’alor grabbed it, yanking off the helmet and hoisting Alucar partially up by the hair. His bloodied and bruised face looking out at the crowd of onlookers, pain and a merciless awakeness in his eyes.

A silence fell over the crowd. Cheers and gasps died in their mouths as the question filled the silent air around them all. Was this an execution?

The question played in L’alor’s mind as well. Alucar had left him nearly dead and had threatened to leave it complete this time. He had done terrible things beyond even the wrongs L’alor had charged him with. Killing him would be simple, and with the duel announced before the crowd he could even claim the legal right. His hands stayed as they were though, other questions coming to his mind. Alucar may have deserved to die, but what would it benefit? He was not evil as Raceaux was and his soul did not deserve to be taken, so his death would not bring peace to many as Raceaux’s had did to Meziene. His children, stolen or not, were raised by him and would be without who they had always known as a father. Would he raise children to be as dark as him though? The children could not go back to their mother. They did not know her and she couldn’t support them if she wanted to. Terrible as it was, Alucar was needed to support the children and bring them happiness. L’alor knew he did that, at least. It still didn’t make it right, but it made it different.

“You will bring the mother of your children into your home!” L’alor shouted. He spoke to Alucar, but he announced his command to the whole of the crowd. “She will sit at your side as the Lady Alluindre, and you will submit all power of the house to her! She shall live by your side, with all control over the wealth and power of House Alluindre, and she shall raise your children with you. This is my edict!” He paused for a moment, allowing the words to sink into Alucar’s damaged ears. “Do you accept?”

Alucar’s voice croaked a moment later, hoarsely shouting to the crowd in his reply. He understood the moment for what it was. “I accept! By the grace of Halone, I accept!”

L’alor released Alucar’s hair, his head falling back to the stones. L’alor walked away, heading towards the crowd, while Alucar’s soldiers rushed behind him to gather up their Lord and return him to the house. L’alor parted his way into the crowd, gathering back his harness of weapons, and heading towards a figure in the crowd with a smile. His wife.

[jj-lives]

Sweets - bmblb valentines short.

Okay a day late for Valentines, oops.  Hope you all enjoy anyway. 

@technicallyblakebelladonna 

———

Blake was eight when she was forced away from the safety of her home and thrust into an environment altogether unknown.  Absent from her home, friends, and family everything had an unpleasant sinister feel to it.  She was the only faunus in her new school which meant she became the target of ridicule all due to her oddities she could not control.  The words, insults, and slurs she’d only a half-grasped meaning of delivered with the angry voices of her peers upset her. The physical torment was worse, however.  Words she could ignore, become numb to, but the sharp elbows, the quick feet shoved to block and trip her and rough, unmerciful hands that grabbed for her ears, just to make sure they were real, had Blake running to find a hiding spot at recess.  

There was only one spot on the playground secluded and hidden enough. Blake rushed to the ball diamond’s furthest dugout wishing only to hold her tears off long enough for her to out of sight from her tormentors.  

She hadn’t expected the spot to already be occupied, but it was too late to turn to look for another.  Her tears broke free, salted streams tickling their way down her cheeks.  The blonde girl remained, sitting in the grass cross-legged, leaning back on the metal of the dugout.  She observed her unexpected visitor silently and all Blake could do was wait for the slurs, the names, the hurtful words to fall from the other girl’s lips.  

Instead she raised her hand, reaching out to Blake.  It took her a moment to blink burning tears from her vision enough to realize the girl was holding something.  Blake tentatively took the offered gift; a fruit gummy. Blake stared at it for the longest time, expecting a trick, not believing anyone in the school could be so kind.  

The other girl held out another one, refusing to drop her hand until Blake grasped it as well.  New treasure in hand Blake gently sat beside her, taking in the girl’s blonde hair and violet eyes now that her vision was returning as her tears dried.  She smiled gently at Blake before popping a red gummy into her own mouth.

Blake took her time chewing both gifts, savouring the fruity, sweetened taste.  

When the bell rang they made their way back to the school.  Blake hung a few steps behind wondering if she should ask the girl’s name, but as they stepped through the doors she turned the wrong way, leaving Blake to make her way to class alone.

————

She doesn’t care if it’s past curfew or that she’ll more than likely be in shit later. She just can’t stay here one more second.  She rushes out the front door, slamming it hard behind her on Mary’s demanding voice calling her back.  Blake starts running, letting her legs carry her through the familiar streets. Her vision is blurred by angered tears and she blinks them away furiously.  They aren’t worth it. But the more she repeats the phrase in her head the more her eyes burn.  

When she slows she finds herself at the elementary school.  She’s not sure why she always seems to find her way here, why the tightness in her chest unravels just a little bit at the sight, why her breaths come just a little easier as she takes in the grass smell making her way across the field. She’s not sure completely sure why this place is able to unburden her a little but she’s glad her feet keep carrying her here.

Blake drops to sit on one of the vacant swings and kicks her feet out.  The world gently sways around her as she focuses on her breathing.  The wet trails on her cheeks dry and Blake shivers int he coolness of the night air.  Her eyesight clears about the same time a pair of yellow converse shoes come into view.  

She’d recognize them anywhere, but their presence confuses her.  How would Yang know where to find her. But Yang answers at her questioning gaze before Blake can voice the query.

“Your last message…” Yang takes a deep breath before calmly sitting on the swing beside her. “I had a feeling you might need to escape there for a few hours. So I thought I would see if you were here.”  Yang is silent for a few long moments before quietely broaching the subject. “How bad is it really?”

“He ruined all of them.”

“All?” Blake can hear the anger in her voice, but she’s so far past angry.

“Every last sketch. He ripped every single one.”  Her breath hitches and she takes the time to wipe his face from her mind.  “My whole portfolio is ruined.  I’ll have to start all over again.”

“That took you months, he ca-“ Yang cuts herself off and it’s so unlike her that Blake finds herself turning to her neighbour for answers.  “You’re keeping your new portfolio at my house from now on but I can’t believe Adam would do that even after what you did for him the other day?”

“I think in some twisted way he did it because of what I did for him.” Blake sighs.

“You saved him from a beating and he ruins your entire art school portfolio?”

“I made him look weak.” Blake’s jaw tightens and her teeth clench painfully together.  “He was teaching me a lesson.”

Yang’s mouth opens and closes as she sways side to side, chains of the swing rattle above her.

“Blake, I want to help.”

“You can’t!” Blake takes a deep breath knowing she’s trying. “He’ll be eighteen in a month and will no longer be a ward of the state and I’ll never have to see him again.” She kicks at a small pebble on the ground, watches as it skips thought the grass. “And in a few more months time you won’t have to worry about me anymore. I won’t be a burden to you after I graduate.”

Yang sighs.  She stands taking Blake’s hand leading her across the field.  They round a familiar corner and suddenly Blake is taken back.  It seems another lifetime, yet she remembers the exact fear she’d felt their first meeting.  The comfort and happiness every other encounter elicited in her back then; the same feelings Yang has always, and still makes her feel.

“You always let me have the red ones.” She says head shaking side to side gently.

“They were your favourite.” Blake shrugs.

“But they were yours too.” Blake hadn’t ever told her that.  It was true of course. She always had a preference for the same ones as Yang, but it never felt right to take a single one, especially when it was Yang who chose to share them with her in the first place. “I made a vow back then you know.”

“A Vow?” She asks, confused at what an eight year old could possibly know about vows.

“I had this romanticized notion that because you let me have the red gummies…” She chuckles. “That it meant you were the love of my life.” Her smile is gentle and reminiscent of those recesses spent in near silence together.  “Can you imagine?” She asks, though Blake knows she’s not expecting an answer. “Basing a feeling as strong as love on a snack.”

“That would be too easy.”

“True,” Yang looks to the spot where the ghosts of your past selves can almost still be seen sitting side by side, passing fruit snacks between tiny hands. “My vow.” Violet orbs meet yours. “Was to always be at your side.”

“Yang.” Blake’s barely able to choke out, consumed by Yang’s words.  She’d like to brush them off as a child’s fantasy but the way Yang keeps her gaze and the resolute tone to her voice tells Blake that she still means it.  Yang still believes in her eight year old self’s vow.

Before she can find an argument to bring forth Yang is pulling her back around the dugout, hand still firmly gripping her own.

“I may have first thought I’d love you there, but that’s not where I fell in love with you.”

“Yang?”

“You were gentle and caring enough to give me every one of your favourite snacks, even though - had you asked - I would have given them to you freely. But you were also strong and determined enough to walk back into that house every night, even though you knew how much pain awaited you there.”  Yang’s voice lowers and Blake has to focus to not miss a word. “And you never let that kill your gentle side.  When you stood up for him, your tormentor, where he deserved none of your protection, just because it was the right thing to do… I couldn’t not fall in love with you in that moment.” Her feet halt and Blake’s follow a split second later.  “Right here.” She turns to smile brightly at you. “This is where you stood, berating and chasing off those stupid boys. This is where I fell in love with you… or where I finally realized that I had fallen at some point.”

“Yang, I-”

“I don’t have to say it back Blake.  That’s not why I’m telling you.”  Yang runs her hand through her hair. “I just want you to know there’s someone in this world that loves you and will always be here for you.” She makes a point to meet Blakes eye before continuing. Turning to pull Blake back to the swing set they’d vacated not long before “That no matter what, no matter what demons you’re battling or pain you’re in, I’ll always do my best to keep you safe…and happy if I can.”

“You do make me happy, Yang.” Blake pours all the emotion she can into those words. She wants Yang to know how important she is to her.  But she’s never been very good at verbally expressing her emotions. “You’re about the only person on this God forsaken planet that does, or that I do feel safe with.”

It’s then, as she bends to retrieve it, that Blake notices Yang’s backpack is leaning up against the pole of the swing’s rusted metal frame.  Yang grabs for it, loosening the ties to allow her access.  

“I was going to wait the two days until Valentine's Day but this seems like as good of time as any.” Yang says as she pulls a small container out of the bag.  It has a pink bow wrapped around it.  Yang hands it to her with a smile. “Happy early Valentine’s Day, Blake.”

This is the last thing Blake expects to find when she left her foster care home.  Even if she’d been expecting Yang to show up, she never would have thought she’d bring her a present. Carefully she pulls on the ribbon and watches as the material easily fell away. Lifting the lid she couldn’t help but giggle.  Inside was filled to the brim with gummy candy, all of them red.

“I wanted to ask if you’d be mine?” The hope in her voice is palpable and Blake knows it would kill her to refuse.

“Of course, we’re always eachother’s Valentines.” Blake smiles grabbing one of the gummies bringing it to her lips.  It has been an unspoken rule as far back as Blake can remember.  No one ever seemed to catch either of Blake or Yang’s attention during the holiday.  They’d each had their fair share of offers that they’d turned down, nothing seeming more favourable than a day spent in each others company.  

“That’s good to know.” Yang ducks her head, staring at herr shoes before she gains the courage to look Blake in the eye again. “But I didn’t mean as just my Valentine this year.”

“I don’t g-“

“Will you be my girlfriend?” Yang asks hurriedly.  She scratches the back of her right wrist with her left hand, a nervous tick she’s had for as long as they’ve been friends. “It’s really okay if you’d rather not.  I understand why you wouldn’t want-“ she winces at whatever she was about to voice. “I mean if you’d rather just stay friends than I won’t have a problem keeping everything ju-“

Blake can’t take it anymore, her rambling although cute is only working Yang up into a more nervous state.  Her poor wrist was going to be sore with how she was worrying it.  Blake’s hand gently falls to still Yang’s fidgeting and not a second later her lips descend to stop the others running mouth.  The surprised sound that Yang makes the second their lips meet might just be the cutest thing Blake has ever heard.  When she pulls away Yang’s eyes are glazed and she has the most adorable grin playing on her lips.

“Does that mean-“ Blake presses her lips quickly to Yang’s once more.  She was always better with showing than telling.  When Yang just stares at her but doesn’t say anything more Blake starts to worry.  “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just thinking is all.”

“About?”

“How I’m going to miss those red sweets.”

Blake rolls her eyes. “We can share them, Yang. Just because I’m your girlfriend doesn’t mean I’m going to demand all your favourite snacks.”

A tongue pokes out from Yang’s mouth and brushes slowly along her lower lip. “But they taste so much better on your lips.”

Yang’s laughter fills the night air as Blake’s face heats up.  She wants to be mad at Yang for poking fun at her but when strong arms encircle her she can feel the mirthful spasms transfer from Yang’s body to hers and it pulls a smile from Blake instead of a scowl.  

Besides how can she be mad at Yang when she was willing to give up her candy in hopes of using the excuse to kiss her more?

“Happy early Valentine’s Day, Blake.” Yang whispers into her hair.

Blake tucks her head more firmly under Yang’s chin. “Happy early Valentine’s Day, Yang.”

[willow-salix]

Story Construction

Hi there, a few people have asked me to elaborate on the elements that actually make up a good story. We’ve covered how to do your actual plotting, and how to create believable characters, the seven basic plots and I’ve recently done a video on pacing, but the question I was asked was how to construct the body of the story, what does that actually entail. What elements are actually needed for a good story.

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So today I’m going to elaborate on something I touched on in the guide to pacing, story formula.

First, lets assume that you have an actual idea for a story. As I said in my video on plotting, most people have an idea of how their story is going to start and end, but they aren’t too sure on the bits in between.

That’s ok, we can work with that.

First step is to identify which plot, or plots, your story fits into, because that will help us to find the sub formula for your story.

I’m not going to go into major details of all these plots because, as I said, I have done a whole video on these recently, but what I will do will be picking one to use as an example to show you how useful they can be. So, if you haven’t watched that video, go check that out.

First plot is Over coming the monster, just as it says, it’s a monster, either a physical monster, a big evil of some description or even something that represents a monster like a company or a political party. Think Beowulf or any number of Greek myths.

Rags to riches, again, clue is in the title. The main character will start off poor and down on their luck, maybe treated badly by everyone around them, and by the end of the story they will have made their fortune and live happily ever after. Think Aladdin or Dick Whittington.

The quest, where your main character has to track down an object or person that is needed to save the day. Think Treasure Island or Lord of the Rings.

Voyage and return, where our hero has to set out on an epic journey or suddenly finds themselves in an unknown land and has to find their way home again. Good examples of this are Alice in Wonderland and The Lion the witch and the wardrobe.

Rebirth is where our character will change over the course of the story, from a person that no one really likes, to someone that is worthy and good. Think A Christmas Carol, Beauty and the Beast or the Grinch who stole Christmas.

Comedy, which includes romance, really doesn’t need an explanation nor examples.

And finally, tragedy, which is different from rebirth because there is no redemptive end for the character, something they cannot recover from. Think of Romeo and Juliet or a Picture of Dorian Gray.

Ok, so we now have our basic plots, for my example I’m going to use voyage and return and mix it up with a little comedy/romance as that’s what I live for.

Next, lets take a little more of an in-depth look at our basic story formula.

A story usually has three acts to it, the first which focuses on the main protagonists normal, everyday life.

We start with the hook, something in your first chapter that will grab your readers attention and keep it, they need to feel for your characters, to be drawn in by them and want to know what happens next.

This could be in the form of an event, known as the inciting incident, and this is basically the main reason that the story will happen, it’s the thing that kicks off the whole series of events that make up your story and lead to the climax.

This could be something dramatic, like a car accident that leaves your main character in need of help, physical and mental therapy or it could be the loss of someone close to the main character. It could be a robbery or even some kind of abuse that triggers a change in them that needs to be addressed.

This creates a goal for your protagonist, the thing they will be working towards for the rest of the story.

You will need to show all of this event in the first chapter or stretched over to two if it’s a particularly detailed and complicated event, though I wouldn’t recommend this unless you have had practice in this. Too much detail and drama in one go can be too much for your reader and rather than drawing them in, it will push them away. The idea is to show everything that is major in the event, and tease what will happen next by the end of the chapter.

Let’s start constructing our story as we go. Our main character, who I’m going to call John, has been out at a party with his best friend. John has been drinking, but his friend promises him that he has been good and only had one, he’s more than capable of driving. Unfortunately, that one had been topped up numerous times during the night and was, in reality, more like three or four.

They get in the car and head off home. Within a few minutes, John has drifted off, his head resting against the window. His friend, lest call him Carl, is feeling a bit tired too, and a little fuzzy from the drinks. Deciding that bed is what he needed, he chose to take the quickest route home, down a smaller back road.

While driving, his eyes slide shut and, without his knowledge the car slowly drifts into the wrong lane, right into the path of an oncoming car. Trees and verges on both sides of the road leave the other car with no where to go and BANG.

John wakes up in hospital four days later to find out that his best friend is dead and that he’s lost a leg from the knee down, crushed in the accident.

So now we have our hook, our back story and know the journey that our protagonist will likely have to go on, one where he learns to walk again and deal with the horror of the crash.

Next is the beginning of our second act and our 1st plot point.

This happens somewhere around a quarter of the way into your book, an event that forces the protagonist to face up to their problems in life and find a way to fix them.

The second act is all about a series of events, successes and failures, that escalate towards our 3rd and final act and the ending.

Our hero will be pursuing his goal and overcoming obstacles on the way.

So, lets continue working on our story.

So, we left John in his hospital bed, dealing with the reality of not being able to walk and losing his best friend all in the same moment. He’s understandably upset, traumatised and grieving, both for his friend and his lost limb.

He is let out of hospital in a wheelchair and has to move back in with his parents because he needs help with pretty much everything. He feels useless and sinks into depression.

He is offered counselling, forced to go to group therapy, but refuses to talk about it or face up to the reality of the situation. Slowly he gains some strength back and is booked in to have his first prosthetic leg fitted, even though he doesn’t want it, he sees no point in it.

Now we reach our midpoint, where your character will be in the middle of some kind of drama or at a massive low point int their lives. Something needs to happen in order to give them the kick up the arse they need to keep going, otherwise wed have a pretty rubbish book.

So, as I said, I’m mixing in a little romance here. So, lets picture the scene.

John is assigned a new therapist who fits him with his leg and then starts him on physio therapy. At first he is grumpy and short with her, not wanting to work, not wanting to try, feeling like he wasn’t worth the effort. But in time, he starts to open up and talk to her about the crash and how he is feeling, and they become closer. Both of them are attracted to each other but, when they finally get around to a kiss, they are interrupted and discovered by her boss.

They both get told off, told that it is not allowed, that his therapist will lose her job if it happens again and she is reassigned to another patient.

John, feeling like its all his fault, falls into a downward depressive spiral, feeling like he wasn’t good enough for her anyway, all his doubts about his worthiness and attractiveness now that he’s missing a leg comes back to haunt him.

So that’s the dramatic moment, our hero has been knocked back and it looks like he will fail, but of course, that’s not how this plot works. Now we need him to come back fighting.

John reaches his lowest point, he has no where to go but up. He decides to go it on his own, to work hard and get back to the man he was before the accident, to learn to walk again.

Now we enter the 3rd and last act, our climax the final battle, and then our resolution, a satisfying ending that our reader deserves.

The climactic sequence as we near the end of our book and where we will be putting all our plot points and plans into motion, everything we have been working towards is in this moment.

We see John working hard, taking his first faltering steps, and then gaining more strength. We see him working out in the therapy gym, gaining back some of the muscle he’d lost. We see him forcing himself to eat to fuel his body even though he didn’t have any appetite at first. We see him avoiding his old therapist at all costs, scheduling appointments when she would be busy or have finished for the night, he doesn’t want to see her, not yet. And finally, we see him walking on his own, being discharged from therapy.

And now, we need our satisfying resolution, where everything needs to be tied up in a neat little bow. All our plot points and story threads have to be gathered up and addressed.

So, we see his old therapist coming out of work one night, looking up to see John standing there, beside her car, unaided, without even a stick. She’s shocked, but happy to see him, feeling all kinds of emotions, pride that he did so well and continued, that all their work in the beginning wasn’t wasted.

She runs over to him, wanting to hug him, to hold him, to kiss him, but stops herself before she reaches him. It’s wrong, they aren’t allowed.

Smiling, john closes the distance between them, reaching out, wrapping his arms around her, he pulls her closer, his lips finding hers in the sweetest of kisses.

She pulls back, breaking the kiss, worried that someone might see them, and that’s when he reveals that he is no longer under the care of her facility, they are free to be together.

And there we have our basic plot and the structure to our story, we can see the way that it flows and ebbs, having highs and lows, taking the reader on the journey with them.

All that’s needed then is to fill in the details, to flesh out your story and to make it your own, make it special, make it unique to you.

I hope this has helped. I’m always happy to hear any ideas or requests you may have for videos or any questions, hit me up in the comments or on social media, I’m always happy to talk to people and help in any way that I can.

Until next time, blessed be and happy writing.