#and legitimately contemplated just sleeping in them

[wastedonthesebutterflies]

i am so terrible at taking care of myself

[self-loving-vampire]

While on that subject, one of the stories about abuse that resonated the most with me (besides Tsukihime, which is also about a ton of other things) is the short manga titled May My Father Die Soon.

Part of this is that it avoids the "perfect victim" narrative I complained about the other night (although not to the same extent as some other characters I know).

Spoilers and discussions of child abuse (including a couple of personal things) below the cut.

Asuka is obviously the sympathetic party, but the abuse coming her way is not depicted as just random outbursts with no rhyme or reason like in some other stories. Abusers like that do exist, to be clear, but my experience was more with violence as a tool to coerce and attempt to shape behavior.

The abuser often has some kind of excuse for what they're doing. Something that helps them convince themselves that what they are doing is right and proper, maybe even necessary. It doesn't mean their behavior is good, but it means there's a logic to it that the victim comes to understand and navigate.

The first time we really witness what Asuka's home situation is like is when she neglects her chores to play video games with her sister.

Hitting children for not doing the laundry is wrong, but it is something that a lot of abusive parents would find to be justified. They think they are teaching their children discipline and virtuous behavior when they do that. They think they are preventing their children from becoming spoiled and lazy.

Sometimes people are even abused after doing things that are legitimately wrong, but this does not justify the abuse. It's a type of nuance that is missing from depictions in which the abuser is just a gleeful sadist who just hates their victim and enjoys hurting them.

A lot of these parents think they are doing the right thing and use violence as a means rather than an end. After stomping on his own daughter he refers to what he just did as "discipline" and acts as if it's just a burdensome duty he has to deal with rather than an act of violence he inflicted on an actual human being.

He is also quick to pull out the "I give you food and shelter so be eternally grateful and always obey me" card.

Which is, again, something I have heard expressed by multiple authoritarian parents both in my personal life and online. "I pay the bills so they must do everything I say" or "I am a good parent because I do the legal minimum to provide for them".

I also like how Asuka does not react to her abuse in a perfectly meek and submissive way like the "perfect victim" archetype usually does. She not only eventually contemplates patricide out of desperation but also shares her sister's anger even if she tries to put on a more "role model-like" front about it.

She hates how she's being treated, and she even lashes out against her sister and feels disgusted with herself afterwards. It's very different from the depictions where the victim only has "nice" and endearing symptoms like low self-esteem.

The scene in which she tries to get help from the law only for her to be dismissed (her father is a respected and influential person) and punished for it also carries a sort of despair that I'm very familiar with.

One of the times my mother came to sleep in my room because my father was being violent (I used to protect her from him) I naively suggested calling the police. She said it would only provoke him into potentially lethal escalation and that the police would not act unless he did something extreme, like killing or hospitalizing someone. Hearing that from an experienced lawyer would have been pretty chilling if I had not already been dissociating for years at that point, but the information and its implications sank in regardless of how I felt about it.

He was a rich business administrator and CEO considered a good and successful person in the adult world. He once even mockingly dared me to call the police on him, knowing nothing would come out of it.

The only reason I still bothered to fight back against him physically is because I did not care about myself enough not to at that time. Might as well inconvenience and hurt him if I'm fucked either way.

Her father then proceeds to draft her into his company (hey that seems like a very specific and unusual thing but it also happened to me!) in a way that further highlights the way in which his behavior is actually in accord with authoritarian parenting norms.

His reasoning is that he's not going to just give her handouts. She needs to work for a living. This sounds reasonable to a lot of people, who worry about "spoiling" their children by being too generous in providing for them without demanding effort, but here we can see the ways in which it tightens the leash.

She can't decide on her own future and is impeded in independently financing her escape because her finances are going to be dependent on him and his approval.

This is something that a lot of people actually miss when thinking about the children of abusive but wealthy parents. You don't actually have free access to your parents' resources. You have purely conditional access that relies on pleasing them and conforming to their wishes. Meanwhile, they have an increased level of reach, resources, and respectability to prevent you from escaping.

Another heartbreaking bit is how the abuse has become so life-defining for her that she doesn't really know what she wants to do with herself. The one wish she can think of is just not being abused anymore.

She is eventually forbidden from freely leaving the house entirely, and while sexually abusing her again he once again makes it explicit that he considers her property...

And when the subject of Hotaru (Asuka's younger sister) comes up, he goes on a monologue that those of us who defied authoritarian parents may be familiar with.

The whole "I have been too nice but it only made you spoiled (as proven by your defiance) so from now on I'm going to hurt and control you more" thing.

And he also drops this line.

To an authoritarian parent, disobedience of any kind to any degree is a deadly sin that must be beaten out of children as if they were dogs in training. If you read conservative parenting "experts" like James Dobson you can even find them saying this kind of thing explicitly.

I also like that Hotaru provides a different, also resonant exploration of how someone might react to abuse in addition to Asuka. Even after being hit to the point of bleeding by her father, she remains willful and tries to hold on to her own independence even if obedience would hurt less.

And, like Asuka, she's not a Perfect Victim either. She is the one who helps finish her own father off after all (after being given a lecture on rehabilitation no less). The conversation she has with her sister regarding worker ants also shows she is interested in her own autonomy and leisure to a degree that would be considered "spoiled" by a lot of people. She should aspire to be a hard worker who pleases others at the cost of her own happiness like her older sister was raised to do, right?

I especially like that she's wearing an "I love myself <3" T-shirt during the scene in which she rejects the efforts to beat her into submission as well as Asuka's recommendation to give in and obey. Kind of heavy-handed, but cute.

I also like the flashback that shows that there was once a time Asuka's parents were kind to her and she sincerely loved them.

Children are in a situation where they are strongly predisposed towards loving their parents by default and need to be loved back. It often takes a lot to change that. Some people, like Hotaru, change pretty early on while others try to cling to this need for a lot longer.

This is complicated by the fact that the parents may start out "kind" until their children start disobeying them, at which point they turn increasingly violent and controlling.

Asuka eventually realizes that she will never be truly happy if her life revolves around being her father's property. That even if she was to hollow herself out into exactly the kind of obedient doll he wants her to be she will be miserable. With no options left to escape, she becomes suicidal.

This leads to a panel that is like... pretty much straight-up an exact conversation I have had before.

"I provide. I have money that you benefit from. Your life is way better than that of poor people. You should be grateful and do everything I say." again.

Like paying the bills mean they own you and can do as they please.

It really feels like a good understanding of not just the victims involved but also of this type of abuser as well, and even now I get the impression that if I had failed to think of a plan for how to escape them my own situation could have also ended up with a murder, a suicide, or both even though I'm not a violent person at all. The desperation as all of your peaceful options are cut off is very real.

I'm really happy it did not come to that in my case, but I still did many things that a "perfect victim" would not be allowed to, like becoming manipulative and deceiving my parents for the sake of escaping. I don't feel guilty about it either, and eventually lost much of my sense of empathy (oddly, this happened after I had already gotten away).

So even though I did not actually kill my abuser I still relate to characters who end up doing that, because to me it feels like a bad ending I was this close to getting despite not really wanting that to happen.

Anyway, I feel really seen and understood by this story to a much greater degree than I do in more sanitized, black and white stories about abuse in which the victims never do anything remotely bad and the abusers are moral aberrations who just enjoy hurting people for fun.

[tuliplips]

sorry i just need to vent. the son of a not very close friend of my mom took his life recently. i didn’t know him, but i met his brother who is a very nice handsome kind young man. i knew about the guy who died, and his depression though; and his mother lives nearby, and he worked in a nearby cemetery, and he is/was half dutch and half portuguese like me. so i thought about him often, when i would walk by these places, wondering if he was doing better.

then we got the news. it affected me a lot. from what i heard he was a lovely and kind person. he looked like the exact kind of guy who would be my type. i felt connected to him and his brother because they are both the same two nationalities like me and both speak the languages and are around my age, and i thought one day i would like to date someone like them.. :/ it’s all so embarrassing.

the past week since it happened; i didn’t sleep properly, i have been feeling so sad for his suffering, and for the hurt and the grief his friends and mother and brother and father must be feeling. i thought a lot about how lonely he must have felt. it felt all a bit unreal. then my mom was going to the funeral and i was contemplating if i should go or not. i felt like i should go because it mattered to me, and to support my mom going and also to show support to his family. but i also felt weird to go since i didn’t actually know him and i also felt in my heart that maybe it would be bad for me to go because it would upset me. especially because i’ve been having a hard time lately and i’ve been not really all there ..

anyway i ended up going. there were so many young people there.. so many friends… it was so intense. i didn’t know him but i cried and cried.. i cried so fucking much!! and i feel so pathetic. i can’t get rid of the images of the body laying in the casket. it’s kinda haunting me. i always hated funerals since i had to attend my fathers so young. and especially the body in the casket scares me. i didn’t want to look this time but it was like almost impossible not to look. and now i deeply regret it. it was so weird because he almost didn’t look dead. it looked like he was just taking a nap and could get up out of there any time.

i can’t get rid of the images of all his friends, crying, all the people there, the energy in the room that was so dense???? i really didn’t need something so triggering in my life yet i felt like couldn’t look away, and i wanted to prove to myself that i can face things in life; that i don’t need to keep looking away from everything. i felt like maybe i needed to feel the uncomfortable things because i need to feel more in general. but i’ve been in a low place due to having been very very sick for a very long time, and it has made me so isolated and detached , i actually need things to uplift me, since my energy has been so low for so long.

anyway it’s not about me right now, but i feel so shaken up by this death and this funeral and while i was there i was proud of myself for going but now i regret it. i feel so embarrassed for getting so swept away. i feel also so not legitimate to suffer so much.. it shouldn’t be my hurt… it shouldn’t be mine. it feels like i did something wrong maybe. i also cant stop thinking about the pain all his friends and his mother must be feeling. i want to sleep, its my birthday party tomorrow but i can’t get rid of the images… i’m so tired i haven’t slept well in a week .. i am even scared in the dark now. scared to feel a presence or something. like as if he is near. i don’t know. i feel a little bit insane

[comradekatara]

Hi, hope you're well.

I was listening to ‘social cues’ by cage the elephant, ‘in cold blood’ by alt-j and the ‘be the cowboy’ album by Mitski and all these songs just reminded me of this one western-ish mai&sokka roadtrip au where they are kind of cowboys, kind of assassins with a mission to kill local rich boy Zuko who can't seem to die, but I digress…

What would you envision for a mai&sokka modern au road trip?

ummmmmm please elaborate on this AU????? cowboy assassins mai and sokka sounds almost as good as bored teen detectives HELLO. also "zuko can't seem to die" is so true lmfao like he's not even trying NOT to get killed (in fact. the opposite) but he's indestructible nonetheless he's just built different. i'm picturing mai and sokka trying to kill him but every time they're about to they see him do smth so pathetic that they are momentarily distracted out of suddenly being overwhelmed with pity/secondhand embarassment for him, and he keeps managing to get away, escaping his fate. they can't tell if he's some kind of master of manipulation or legitimately the saddest guy alive. eventually they reluctantly befriend him upon deciding that he's more trouble than it’s worth.

as for a modern au roadtrip (boy, you sure do love roadtrips huh?) i definitely think mai and sokka would go on a lot of long drives together, especially during their college years (established lore states that they attend princeton together). these roadtrips include...

stopping at a gas station and buying SO MUCH junk food it doesn’t seem possible that only two people could ever get through that much food. but of course, they do.

mai wresting control of the aux cord but sokka likes every song in her music library anyway (some mitski, some kate bush, etc.)

mai talking shit about azula & zuko and sokka having to stop on the side of the road because he’s cracking up so hard he’s near tears, he can barely breathe.

mai really likes when sokka drives fast; she rolls the windows down to feel the wind in her face and yells “RUN OVER THE PEDESTRIAN!!” every time he stops for a red light.

comparing various quick and easy ways to kill yourself and neither of them being concerned that they’ve both clearly contemplated this a lot.

comparing horror stories about the assorted nightmare students they’ve met on campus. people who care about eating clubs, that sort of thing.

sokka banning mai from taking the wheel because she drives way too fast and it’s an actual safety hazard.

getting into a really big argument about objectivity in quantum physics even though they actually mostly agree with each other.

sokka getting a spontaneous call from aang (he just felt like saying hi) so they put him on speakerphone and talk to him for over an hour.

katara joining the call at which point sokka lights up and mai goes dead silent with an irritated look on her face until she leaves. mai’s just like “ugh katara is such a spoiled little princess” and sokka is like “YOU LITERALLY GREW UP IN A MANSION????”

sokka putting on jets soundcloud album at which point it becomes a test of endurance to see who breaks and has to turn it off first.

giving each other math and logic puzzles to solve as a way to pass the time but sokka gets too into it and ends up driving really slowly because he’s too busy concentrating which only serves to extend the length of their journey.

stopping at a diner and eating so many waffles between them that their server is genuinely concerned for them.

mai napping in the backseat and conducting an entire conversation with sokka in her sleep (this is not nearly the first time this has happened btw).

sokka stopping because he saw some cool mushrooms on the side of the road and mai being like “ew. that’s literally fungus. ew” to which sokka’s like “yeah, so cool, right?”

stopping at another gas station to stock up on even more junk food (they ran out an hour ago).

getting into a debate over whether aristotle was an important thinker in his own right or whether he was irreparably nerfed by being a student of that idiot plato.

getting into an extremely heated debate over which pokemon is the most fuckable (the conversation ends when mai says “lickitung”).

sokka noticing that mai is suddenly sweating a lot after having just checked her phone and he’s like “oooooooh did you get a text from ty lee??” and mai’s like “SHUT UP?? SHUT UP AND ALSO. I’LL KILL YOU.”

flawlessly singing all the words to smash mouth’s “all star” without missing a beat.

sokka being like "look!!!!! an animal!!!!!!!!" every time they pass an animal and mai scoffing in disgust because she hates all animals except for lizards.

stopping at yet another gas station because they somehow ran out of snacks again.

prolonging their trip by taking lots of pointless little detours because, ultimately, they enjoy this space they've created for themselves far more than the prospect of actually leaving the car and facing the world in all its brutal vulgarity.

driving slower than necessary and cranking the music up as a sort of last hurrah as they cherish the final moments before they pull up to their destination.

arriving.

[wettestwraith]

No bc like it's legitimately so fucking annoying when i want to scroll across fandom posts and the captions are 'incest shippers kill yourselves' or something of the like because even with the most repulsive of humans. I don't want them to experience the mental state you have to be in to seriously start considering to commit suicide. It's also just triggering for me to read that because for three years of my life, I seriously contemplated suicide and the only things that put me off it was literally to sleep way less than I usually do (which was already not much) and to drink coffee (something that makes me dizzy and have headaches) so I wouldn't be able to think properly, I got so emotional one time after a fight with my sister that I almost killed myself in front of her and her toddler, it's such a fucking despairing and lonely and genuinely terrifying experience to be feeling suicidal and it kind of makes you an asshole too. I don't care if you truly mean it or not, I don't care if it wasn't that graphic of a statement, you're telling a stranger to kill themselves, which at best is upsetting and/or uncomfortable for them and at worst fucking triggering. You don't even tag 'suicide mention' or smth like that. And it's all over shipping, granted shipping that's considered 'problematic', look that kind of content makes me uncomfortable too, but I just filter tags and move on. Honestly, just put 'dni incest shippers' or smth like that and move on. I'm at my fucking limit with y'all.

[not-really-a-writer]

Notifications: Part 4

[Part 1 here] [Part 2 here] [Part 3 here][Part 5 TBA]

Summary: Cody returns to Coruscant. You contemplate moving on from your situationship with Cody when a surprise event changes the state of the galaxy.

Commander Cody x fem!reader

Warnings: 18+ ONLY, angsty oops-i-caught-feelings-fwb situation w/Cody, feelings, reference to kissing. Major departure from canon events. Setting up entering an AU with this story bc I want them to have a happy ending like they deserve :)

Cody stands alone at the top of the ridge, away from the tents of sleeping soldiers. The mission had gone well, but the victory was only won after many weeks of brutal ground assaults. After what felt like forever, the 212th was able to secure and claim the area for the Republic here on this faraway planet. What was it called again? Ahh, not important, Cody thinks. He is preoccupied with a mission of his own at the moment.

Cody pulls up the message that he had typed up earlier. "Hey. I had a great time hanging out with you. Sorry I suddenly had to leave. Would love to get together next time if you forgive me." He stares at his comm device signal indicator. It shows that he is able to send a message off world, but he doesn't hold out much hope. Cody presses "send" and waits.

"Message send failure," it beeps back to him, illuminating his frustrated expression in the darkness. This was the 20th time he had attempted to send you this message and failed. Cody scowls and stares out over the ridge across the expanse of forested plains below. By the dusky light of the moons, the shape of the trees could still be seen against the backdrop of night. The exotic fronds of wispy foliage still showed their delicate blue color, even in the dark. It was a beautiful planet.

"Kriffin maker-forsaken rock," Cody curses the sight before him. The planet's unique magnetic properties had messed with their comms, garbling transmissions or preventing them completely, and this made it nearly impossible to communicate off world.

"Commander." A voice like his own startles Cody from behind. One of the clones standing night sentry watch approaches carefully. "Commander, the General wants to see you," he says.

"Thank you Sergeant," Cody says tipping his head in acknowledgement, and then walks past him toward the command tent.

"Ah, Cody," Obi-Wan says, beckoning Cody toward the group assembled in the middle of the tent around the holotable. Stepping closer, Cody notices a few clones with armor markings he doesn't recognize, and a couple of robed Jedi. A master and Padawan perhaps. Another battalion must be here to relieve them.

Obi-Wan calls the meeting to order and confirms Cody's suspicion. A new battalion had just arrived above the planet and were making moves to take over the fortifications that the 212th had set up on the planet. They would begin turning over the post in the morning. At sunrise. And the 212th had received orders to return to Coruscant.

"Excellent," Obi-Wan says, ending the meeting as next steps were all understood. The other clones leave with their Jedi, leaving Cody and Obi-Wan alone.

"After such a mission, you all deserve some time off, Cody. I am being requested at the Temple, so I'll be quite busy during our little break...But I do hope you and the boys find some time to enjoy yourselves for a bit," Obi-Wan says lightly.

Cody smiles wistfully. Time off was always nice, but he couldn't help but feel like there was something missing out of all of it. "I'll get the men to check the supply stores before we embark. We may need to stop on our way back, " Cody suggests. It's not like he was making up an excuse to stop on your planet. It was more that he was trying to find a legitimate reason.

"No need for that," Obi-Wan says with a pleased look on his face. "Our relief brought us enough supplies to last the entire trip back."

"That's great," Cody mumbles, trying not to sound disappointed. At least he could send you messages en route to Coruscant. And as soon as he gets off this maker-forsaken rock. Tomorrow morning couldn't come fast enough.

---

"Well, well, well. Who do we have here?" the stranger in front of you drawls in a strange accent you don't recognize. He places his items on the checkout counter in front of you and looks at you through his bangs which partially cover his eyes.

You turn around to see no-one standing next to you. It dawns on you that the comment is meant for you at the same time you see his cheek form a dimple, pushed aside by his lopsided smile. "Talking to you, love," he says, still grinning.

You chuckle at his corny attempt at flirting. "You trying to get my name?" you toss at him. You notice that he's cute. Cute enough, anyway, to entertain such banter. You're not sure that you would necessarily go much further than that.

"Yeah, I'm trying," he says, placing his hands on the counter and leaning in slightly. You notice him catch sight of your name tag pinned to your shirt.

"Hmph," you huff quietly, knowing that he now got what he was asking for. The stranger looks back to you where you meet his gaze for a moment. He looks friendly. Maybe a few years older than you at most. His blonde hair is now pushed gracefully out of his face by now so you can really see him. His features are handsome. Defined cheekbones, masculine jaw and stately nose. Fine lips, and eyes the exact color of the sky on a clear day.

"It's a beautiful name, love," he says, looking over your face. You feel yourself blush slightly. Breaking the tension and awkwardness, on your part at least, you laugh off his comment with a little "thank you" so as not to be rude.

"My name is Vaan," he says, holding out his hand. You take it and give it a little squeeze and shake. "Ok Vaan. Nice to meet you," you say, with a polite smile, and release his hand.

You and Vaan continue to make small talk as you learn he recently moved to the area. He's quite charismatic.

"Ahem," you hear a customer grunt behind him. This sound snaps the two of you out of your trance.

"Sorry.. I'll let you get back to work," Vaan says apologetically, stepping to the side. "See you around, Vaan," you say as you begin to ring up the other customer.

Minutes pass as you finish clearing out the checkout line and close your station down as the market was now closed. During the entire transit train ride and walk back to your apartment, you are curious about this new person: Vaan. Though you'd never admit to anyone, this was the first time in weeks that you had thought of someone other than Cody.

You tried hard. After those first few days, you told yourself that you would move on. You even muted your comm and hid it in your nightstand so that you wouldn't even be tempted to check it. But you couldn't stop your mind from chasing him.

Days turned into weeks and still, he remained on your mind. But now? You had met someone new tonight. He's new on world, and curious about your area. He's cute, seems nice. Maybe you'd have a shot at something real with him. He's a new regular at your market. You would be seeing him pretty soon, and could see him regularly. You wouldn't be stuck waiting for unknown stretches of time like you did with Cody.

Oof. There he is again, popping back into your mind. Somehow, waiting for Cody was never hard. Well, it was, in a sense. Because you'd be counting down the days until his next visit. But most of the time you didn't really know when they'd be back. Still, he'd message you whenever he could while he was away. And that was enough to keep you feeling that sense of closeness you had with him.

You wondered if Cody felt that sense of closeness, too, when he messaged you. If he felt giddy with excitement as he pressed the 'send' button, eager to get your reply from elsewhere in the galaxy. Maybe?... Nah.

You finish settling in for the night, and lay your head on your pillow at last. Your eyes roam over to where your nightstand sits in the dim light of your room.

Don't.

You resist the urge to check your comm device yet again, but you can't stop your mind from wandering where it wants to go so badly. To him. Many nights you stayed awake in your bed thinking about him. Waiting for him to come back to your planet if only for a few hours. All that time you spent waiting for him, you could have easily been with someone else already. To some, that might seem sad. To put yourself on hold for one of those clones. They're one of millions just like 'em, some people would say. But not to you. To you, Cody was worth the wait.

Closing your eyes, a single tear rolls down your cheek into your pillow as you attempt to refocus your thoughts. What was that guy's name again? Ah... Vik, or something like that.

---

"Hey. I had a great time hanging out with you. Sorry I suddenly had to leave. Would love to get together next time if you give me a chance to make it up to you."

Cody presses the send button and watches the transmission complete successfully for the first time in many weeks. He breathes a sigh of contentment as he thinks about you receiving it on the other end, back on your planet. He wonders if you're standing there somewhere sipping your fancy gourd-spiced caf. Cody licks his lips imagining the flavor of the beverage and how he would certainly taste its essence on your lips if he only had the opportunity to kiss you. If he had your lips right now, he wouldn't back away like he did last time. No. He'd savor the moment this time.

After seeing his message send successfully, Cody returns to his daily activities filing out reports, getting caf, training, getting in a workout, and lunch. The post turnover to the new battalion had gone well and all of the 212th were back on the cruiser, en route to Coruscant.

At each break in his day, Cody looks down at his device to check for messages, but a sinking feeling enters his chest once he notices that there are none.

Cody hums to himself in confusion. That was odd. You were normally pretty responsive to his messages.

"I just really want you to know that I'm sorry about leaving so quickly last time. I had orders to leave and it was something I could not talk about, as you know. I wish I didn't have to do that to you. Let me make it up to you?"

Cody hesitates for a moment, but then presses send on his 2nd message to you. He didn't want to annoy you, but he wanted to make his intentions clear. With practiced discipline, Cody returns to his duties and activities for the day to distract himself from waiting for your response.

At the end of the day, Cody settles in his stateroom after a longer than usual sonic shower. It felt great to be back on the cruiser after camping out on that awful planet. Of course, the first thing he does upon settling into his bed is grab his comm device to scan for new messages. There are none from you.

Cody's heart drops at the sight of the empty queue. There were a million reasons why you might not be responding. His mind races to find an explanation. You might have lost your comm device. You might be busy. You might be working. You might be with someone else right now...

Cody feels the bitter twinge of jealousy wind its way from the pit of his stomach until it fills his whole body. How silly of him to assume that you would just be sitting there, waiting for him all this time. Each time again, and again. How silly for him to think that he was special enough to hold your attention and your heart for so long that you'd have no-one else in your life. That you would be happy to have nothing but his messages and fleeting visits on your planet.

You had always responded to him before, so he never even imagined a day would come that he wouldn't hear from you. But now it appeared that the day had finally come when you moved on.

Cody blankly stares at the ceiling and lets his device slip out of his hand until it drops to the floor. Burning tears form in his eyes in the privacy of his room where no-one can see. He was beyond exhausted right now but the last of his energy faded the moment he finally realized you weren't going to reply to him. He wraps himself in his blanket and rolls over on his side. Now heavy enough, his tears fall silently down his face and run into his pillow as he tries to steady his breathing.

Cody huffs at himself, breaking the silence in his room. The boys would never let him hear the end of it if they could see him now. Who would have known that the Commander Cody had finally gone soft for a civilian girl on some faraway planet. Normally, things were the other way around.

As handsome as they were, the clones always left a string of broken-hearted women behind whenever they would go as they drifted from place to place during the war. Cody shakes his head and chuckles at the thought. In the years since the war started, he had had his own share of fun. Sure, nights of drunken debauchery naturally resulted in him sharing a bed with an exotic woman or two. For whatever time he had off, he would indulge in worldly pleasures if only to serve as a distraction from the grueling reality of his life as a soldier in the GAR. There were nights where he couldn't even remember the woman's name. Or face. There were so many of them, at least a few dozen, if he had to count. And they all were the same. He gave them the same empty "see you later"s and such. They were promises never meant to be fulfilled.

But things were different when he met you. Sure, before you, there was a time or two when he thought he had met someone special. Some girl who he thought he could have a future with - But those relationships didn't last the test of time and space that had come into play. You were special.

"You are really special to me," Cody whispers into his empty room. Why he said that aloud and not as a message to you, he doesn't know. But it didn't feel quite right to say it in past tense as if he were preparing to speak to you for the final time. Maybe it was because he wasn't quite ready to say goodbye just yet. Cody was born to be a soldier, and perhaps fighting for the good in things was just central to his being.

You and Cody had a good thing going, whatever it was that you wanted to call it. Friends with benefits? That was bantha crap, and he knew it. You liked him. And this gave him the hope and courage to let you know he felt the same way about you, too, regardless of any other men involved.

If there was something that Cody believed in with all his heart, it was that good things are worth fighting for. Cody wipes his tears with the back of his hand and with a renewed sense of determination, he decides not to give up on you.

---

This day starts out just like any other, except you have a date after work. You wake up, get dressed, and head to work on the transit train. It had been a couple weeks since you had met Vaan. He was an alright guy, so far as you could tell. A while after meeting that day at your market checkout station, he had returned to ask you out on a proper date. And now that day had arrived.

You meet him as planned, after work, to enjoy a cup of caf at a nearby diner. The date goes well, ends on friendly terms, and after a hug, you depart to take the transit back to your apartment alone.

Was this it? Was this the beginning of something new for you? you ask yourself as you lay down for the night. Normally, a person should feel giddy or at least somewhat excited after a first date with a cute stranger. But that's not how you felt. In fact, it didn't really feel like anything at all.

There were no sparks. Just some friendly conversation. Some genuine laughs but nothing too special. The caf was warm and flavorful, but the rest of the experience was just... blasé?

And that wasn't what you wanted. You wanted to feel excited. You wanted to feel energized from your date with Vaan. You wanted to feel something for him but you didn't. Perhaps it would take a few times?

Your eyes drift to your nightstand as if they know what your heart wants. Your body knows where your excitement is, where your lust lies, where your feelings live. And without thinking too hard about it, you find yourself inching toward your nightstand to retrieve a device you haven't touched in a long time.

Your hand wraps around your comm device and you slide back into bed holding it in your hand. What would I even say to him? you ask yourself. As if it mattered. He hadn't bothered to send you anything after he left last time.... But what if he did? What if he eventually decided to send something? Or if he sent nothing at all, what would I say? you question yourself.

The truth was that playing the game you had been playing with him had taken its toll on you. It took a lot of energy to conceal the truth: your feelings for him. And as scary as it was to confess these feelings to him, you knew it had to be done.

You flip on your comm device and quickly type out your message.

Hey Cody. I've been thinking about you, and I have to confess something. I've fallen in love with you. I know you may not feel the same way about me, and you don't have to feel bad about it if you don't... I just thought you deserved to know the truth.

Your finger hovers over the send button for what feels like an eternity. But your nerves get the best of you. Delete. You press the clear button to remove the words you typed, and collapse back into your pillows. What was the point?

Instead, you send a simple message: "Hey Cody. How's it going?"

You place your device back on your nightstand and wait for a reply, but none comes. You wait so long that you eventually drift off to sleep. In your sleep, your device continues to update and download messages that were sent to you while it was deactivated.

Your device, an earlier generation model, slowly downloads a few old messages from Cody when he was in transit to Coruscant. But you don't even hear the notifications on your comm device in your sleep.

Cody receives your message, but he doesn't hear his notification either. However, unlike you, his day hasn't started out like all the rest. While you sleep peacefully in your bed, Cody is on Coruscant bearing witness to an event that will change everything about his life and yours.

[cheemken]

Everyone is already tired of Eepy after a month, mf is even starting to piss off Iris because he won’t listen to her

So imagine how defeated everyone felt when Iris came home with a Tyrunt , a Pokémon that likes to bite even more that Gible, and their bites are known to hurt like a bitch

Even Drayden is starting to think letting Iris bring home wild baby Pokémon is a bad idea, if the broken TV is anything to go by

I just imagine the lead up to that was just, Iris sitting them down on the couch and looking at them in the eye seriously

“I’m going into the next room to do some paperwork”

“Tyrunt!” “Ble!”

“Promise me that you’ll behave by yourselves until I’m done”

“RuntRunt” “Gible!”

“Ok, I’ll get this done as fast as I can”

And not even five minutes later does Iris hear a crash. Girly is really contemplating whether she should let Drayden find the mess first or just go clean it up herself

On the bright side, Eepy finally stops biting them 24/7 and instead bites Tyrunt when they play together

REAL😭😭🤣

No bc in the first ask you sent me I was gonna add like, a small bit of Eepy following Iris during the league meetings and ofc, he's there biting her, and ofc it was expected of Cynthia to say that's normal for Gible bc when her own Garchomp was still a Gible it wouldn't stop biting her too, it still has a habit of biting Cynthia really (Iris hopes and prays everyday that Eepy won't keep that habit when he evolves, please Arceus just this one good thing), but also Diantha saying how it reminds her of her own Tyrantrum when it was still a Tyrunt too, and Iris was just "really? I mean, doesn't your Tyrantrum have Strong Jaw??"

"yes, he broke my bones back then"

"WHAT"

And that's how the Champions found out that Dia took a year off from completing the Gym Challenge bc her Tyrunt bit her arm hard enough it broke her bones lmao

And that in mind, when she found her own Tyrunt, well, she's glad at least that it's Eepy he bites, not her, bc she'd rather not want broken bones too lol

But also now it's Eepy and Terry, im gonna call him Terry bc of Dinosaur King I love Terry so much he's so cute, causing trouble in the league, Caitlin's chambers is off limits now like she legit put up a psychic barrier so the two lil shits won't be able to disturb her while she's sleeping hahaha

Imagine Eepy and Terry just following Iris to another league meeting, Hilbert just gives her a look™

"no."

"Well, I can't just leave them!"

"yes you can!! Why don't you leave them with Bianca?! They listen to her more!"

"because I'd be a bad parent and partner if I just leave them with Bianca all the time! Plus, she has her own meeting"

"Okay how about this: give them to trainers!! To Dragon trainers! Can you at least do that?!"

"and you think I haven't tried??? These little shits wouldn't leave!"

On the bright side, at least y'know, Eepy and Terry just bite each other and their toys now, not them which made the meeting a bit more bearable lmfaooo

But y'know imagine it got to the point Iris has to beg Bianca to train Eepy and Terry not to bite anyone bc she's the only they listen to, and ofc, Bianca agreed, saying she'd have more time with her lil darlings, Iris still doesn't understand how Bianca's not tired of em, Eepy especially lmfao

The downside of that is that while Bianca did train them to not bite anyone, they would legitimately listen to only Bianca now, like Iris is their actual trainer but they won't even listen to her cjkdjdb hahaha now they follow Bianca around so at least she has more company when doing field work, plus, Eepy and Terry doesn't bite people much anymore so that's an added bonus ig hahah least the league wouldn't have to deal w Terry and Eepy anymore hahaha

[impossiblesuitcase]

Mutually Moronic Marriage - part 4.

“But it’s not open to the public,” Kai reasoned, gripping the back of a chair he’d found in the deserted ballroom. “Not technically; you have to be a resident of New Beijing city, and you have to RSVP to attend. Plus, we only invite upstanding citizens with no criminal offences. Dolion couldn’t have gotten in legitimately.”

Torin had guided Cinder and the others to the ballroom as every other room in the palace was receiving safety clearance. Funnily enough, many of the guests had ignored the clear alarms and evacuation chants and decided to continue the party once released from the tunnels. Said guests were mingling in the gardens, leaving the ballroom empty but for their group.

Cinder contemplated. “When I came to the ball to tell you about Levana I just waltzed right in. None of the guards questioned me. The only security I faced was the announcer.”

“All of our announcers are equipped with the bioelectrical security lock,” Torin contended, the only one among them who wasn’t looking completely frazzled or exhausted.

“What about the guns?” Tressa asked. “How did he get those in?” She kept flexing her hand like she couldn’t expel the feeling of Dolion’s gun from it. 

“That’s a trickier one,” said Cress. She sat on the ground in the centre of the group, examining the security system, footage, and invitations list. Her lavender dress was still pristine, while her heels had been abandoned and her cheeks tear-stained from discovering Thorne’s near miss. “From what I can surmise, he probably glamoured some guards to escort him straight to the ball without anyone stopping—”

“No,” Kai cut in, “he couldn’t have. All our non-android guards have the bio-lock.”

Cress chewed on her stylus. “Then…hmm.”

Garrison joined the circle with Kinney in tow, clipping his port to his belt. “There’s been an uprising among the former thaumaturges on Luna. They’ve heard about Dolion and now want recompense for their restrictions.”

Cinder gave him a sympathetic look. “Oh, Garrison, I’m so sorry. I know this will make a lot of work for you.”

“Never mind it, Your Majesty. You just focus on your end of things.”

Garrison had all the diplomacy of Torin but more warmth. When she’d first become queen, he had been one of the few people that took her seriously instead of dismissing her for what she was—an inexperienced teenager. She would always view him as a mentor even now that their positions were equal.

“I’ve got it!” Cress exclaimed. From her port she projected a holograph into the circle. It showed a man bedecked in a mandarin robe, and behind him, a shadowy figure. As the man approached the entry, the figure slipped something from the man’s pocket. 

Cress switched to another feed, dated a few minutes later. The man rushed out of the palace entry in search of something. The figure now visible as Dolion beckoned him forward. “Dolion used this man’s name to get in. Then he glamoured some guests to go back outside and retrieve the guns.”

Thorne pulled off his tie. “Wait…so he just used the RSVP under the person’s name? Is it that easy? Don’t they at least ID the person?”

“Not after the first check,” Torin said, his voice a pitch higher than usual.

“Still, why didn’t the metal detectors pick up the guns?” Cinder challenged.

“Guests who have already been admitted aren’t required to go through a second security clearance.”

Cogs whirred in her brain.

“It’s that easy,” Thorne yawned loudly. “Cool. I feel very safe.” His shoulder had been bandaged, but ever the lucky man, the shot had only caused superficial damage. After a hearty dose of painkillers, he was unfazed and mostly unscathed. “I think I’m done for the evening. Does anyone require immediate counselling from me?”

Cinder waved him away. “No. Go to bed, you deserve it.” She thought she deserved it too. All she wanted to do was to get out of this ball gown, curl into a ball and sleep. As her adrenaline finally wore off she realised just how shaken up she was. 

If the bombs hadn’t been disarmed—distracting Dolion—she wouldn’t have found a chink in his armour. This wasn’t the run-of-the-mill disturbance, as she’d thought when she’d run in without protection or fear. Everyone almost died. 

Everyone: Cress, Thorne, Tressa and Kinney. Garrison, Torin, the people. 

Kai.

Everyone except her.

The holograph danced over Thorne as he bid the group goodnight. 

Cress stopped him by the sleeve. “Do I qualify for counselling? Seeing as I was about to plan your funeral?”

“No,” he teased, ruffling her hair. “See you in the morning.”

Cress grinned—Cinder knew it was only because if Thorne had the strength to tease, he was okay. As he left, Cress noticed everyone’s attention on her. Blushing, she turned back to the holograph and coughed. “Right. He distributed the guns just as the doors were opened. There was a crush of people trying to get in, so it was too cramped for the guards to notice the weapons. All guards in the foyer are tasked with ushering people inside, so he was in the clear while they were distra—”

“Hang on,” Cinder interrupted. This all was news to her. As the empress, she was always surrounded by guards, defensive and stationary, and she assumed that standard would be consistent in the rest of the palace. “Why haven’t we got a more orderly system for entrance?”

The concern was addressed to no one in particular, but all attention turned to herself and Kai. They were seen as responsible for everything in the palace, after all. 

Knowing this, Kai clenched his jaw as he attempted an answer. “This was an unforeseen circumstance. Dolion snuck in with the main crowd, of which Lunars aren’t supposed to be included. We have protocols for Lunar guests: they are selectively invited and monitored to ensure that there isn’t any foul play.”

Cinder pulled at her cheeks. They all seemed to accept Kai’s response flatly. Tressa was leaning on her brother just as Cinder leant on the railing of the staircase. 

They really should discuss this later, after a nice shower and a good sleep because all this information was confusing Cinder. They seemed so unprepared. Surely it was just her muddled mind obscuring things.

When no one had anything to add, she dismissed the thought. “Moving on. The lockdown alarms started, but the doors didn’t shut down like they are supposed to. Cress had to do it herself. I saw maids running around not knowing what was going on. For stars’ sake, the people are still partying out there! We put in protocols after the kidnapping for this!”

Torin frowned, which gave her pause. He knew everything about this palace, so if he was uncertain, something wasn’t adding up.

Newly suspicious, she chose her next words carefully. “After the kidnapping, Kai ensured the palace security was updated to prevent the recurrence of such an event. So then how did those procedures fail tonight?”

Again, Torin seemed hesitant.

Cress was surprised too. She hunched over the portscreen, scrolled through the list of protocols, and shook her head. “I can’t see any upgrades. Not in the mainframe, or the staff training or the ID scanners—it’s no different than when we broke in. A few changes for the guards and gates and cameras, but…”

Incredulous, Cinder turned to Kai. He had that habitual expression of complete neutrality that eternally frustrated her because she never knew what it meant. However, she did know that he used it when he was hiding something. 

She scrutinised him for a long moment until everyone else followed her look.

Cinder inhaled a deep breath and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Love, you upgraded the security, didn’t you?”

Kai’s mouth bobbed open and shut. He knitted his fingers together and dropped that expression before eventually speaking her fears into reality. “...partially.”

She groaned into her fist.

Bonus –

Torin opened the doors for Cinder, Thorne and Tressa to enter the ballroom. Kinney had promptly run off to find the Grand Minister, and without guards, the strict door-opening protocols became fickle. 

And yet, still Torin would not allow his empress to open her own doors.

Cress and Kai sat in a circle of chairs by the staircase in deep discussion. They both perked up hearing footsteps and, seeing the newcomers, jolted upright with her “Thorne!” and his “Cinder!”

Cinder rushed into Kai with unfathomable relief. He scooped her into his arms with matching sentiments. 

“You okay?” she whispered.

He kissed his answer on her lips.

“And the bombs?”

“Sorted,” he assured. “You and I realised at the same time. All our telepathy practice is paying off.”

With a wry chuckle, Cinder brushed back his hair. “Great minds think alike.”

“But fools rarely differ,” Thorne commented as he walked towards them. He had not raced in like Cinder—wise considering, with the blood loss he’d suffered, he might’ve fallen face first.

Kai lay his forehead on Cinder’s, and began to retort, “That’s why fools marr—”

“What happened?!” Cress cried, taking in Thorne’s red shoulder.

Without answer, Thorne approached her and pulled her to his chest with his good arm. She forced herself away to examine the blood. 

“It’s nothing,” he promised.

“He was shot,” corrected Cinder.

As simple as turning the knob for a faucet, Cress conjured up tears instantly. 

“Carswell!”

And then, the blubbering.

She tried to say more and failed, plastering herself around Thorne’s torso tightly. Then she jerked away, afraid to hurt him, until he coaxed her back into his welcoming arms.

Kai raked his copper eyes over Cinder fearfully, checking her for similar wounds. She shook her head. 

He closed his eyes with a slow exhale.

“Hey, hey,” Thorne soothed, his shirt now soaked in two bodily fluids. “I’m okay.”

“No you’re not!” Cress wailed. “You got shot!”

Her sobs filled the ballroom, louder without all the bodies to muffle the sound. Thorne pressed unnoticed kisses to her hair, knowing nothing could stifle these tears. The tap would running for a while. 

He sent Cinder a pointed look.

“What?” defended Cinder. “You thought she wasn’t going to notice the bullet wound?”

Thorne sighed. “No, but I’d hoped to tell her without making her cry.”

“Wouldn’t cry?! Of course I’m going to cry!” Cress shrieked.

Torin guided Tressa forward with a grave but good-humoured sigh of his own. “I’ll call for a medical officer.”

Notes - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Now onto the real story…

Let me know if you'd like to be removed or added to the taglist.

@cinderswrench @cindersassasin @hayleblackburn @spherical-empirical @salt-warrior @just2bubbly @gingerale2017 @zephyr-thedragon @holdmysparks @oceanspray5 @icarusignite @shellyseashell @kaider-is-my-otp @slmkaider @luna-maximoff-22 @cosmicnovaflare @kaixiety

[darkstalker1247]

My review of the FNAF movie

okay so the first half of this is spoiler free, I'll put a break in between sections

The set pieces looked incredible. Each one looked real, like something that I actually existed either in the early 2000s or in the 1980s.

The score was well-done. I have Talking In Your Sleep stuck in my head.

The acting was on point. The animatronic's actors portrayed their mechanical aspects really well, and could turn from charming to terrifying in a matter of mere moments. Each animatronic had a unique personality as well, which was really well done.

The writing was a little rough around the edges, but that's the style of the entire franchise, so it fits and works well. The director did a good job as well.

It was a lot of fun pointing out the many easter eggs and ties to the original games. This movie really was made with lots of love for the fans.

Okay, spoiler time.

Abby with the animatronics was adorable! They played with her, built a fort, even hugged her! That was everything I wanted to experience when I was younger and the games first came out.

Golden Freddy needed more screen time... they made an entire animatronic puppet for 2 scenes. When he was there, though, he did his part well. He was a lot calmer then he is in the games, which is a nice change of pace. (Can you tell who I was most excited to see?)

When Matthew Lilliard was on screen, though it wasn't very long, he stole the show. I felt a legitimate sense of terror when Springbonnie showed up. William being Vanessa's father was something that I don't think a lot of people expected, either. Well done, Matt!

The scenes with implied violence were much eerier without showing the actual gore. Although, my one complaint is that the springlocks didn't look like they'd actually kill someone, just stab them a few times in the gut and leave them in pain.

I'm going to rewatch the movie this evening if I can, since the theater I was in was really crowded and really loud, and everyone wouldn't stop laughing for most of it.

Overall review, 8.5/10. Matthew and Golden Freddy needed more screentime. The YouTuber cameos were also a little ajar from the plot. Especially MatPat's dialogue.

Anyway, I'm gonna go contemplate my existence now. CYA!

[duchessofostergotlands]

“ It said simply that titles would go to the children and grandchildren of Albert II, it didn’t specify they had to be legitimate children or grandchildren.”

It’s amazing to me that they’d never thought of adding a clause about this!

Maybe by the time they had thought of adding it, everyone was too prudish to publish a new law that even contemplated the king have babies out of wedlock, like it would be insulting to suggest such a thing. That’s really the only reason I can think of! Besides wanting illegitimate family members to get titles.

I actually think the opposite on the prudishness thing. Monarchs in the past were always sleeping around and having illegitimate kids! Lol. But yeah I know what you mean about it seeming like an oversight. That does happen when people get complacent and I believe the relevant law was just a refresh of a much older law and so they thought if no one had questioned it yet, no one would question it now. I think what’s interesting is even though I explained to the other anon different countries work differently, I expect that there will be other nations who don’t specifically state legitimacy as being important for titles and there’s two factors involved:

Common law - it might be the case in certain countries - particularly the UK - that the rules don’t say explicitly that to be prince/ss you have to be legitimate, but over the centuries other court cases will have established in common law that certain phrasing always means a legitimate child. I don’t have specific examples but when you watch legal shows you might hear them say stuff like “in Commonwealth vs Sassypants the judge determined you could use sausages for fingers on a Wednesday.” There is a proper law or decree or whatever and that provides a framework but then individual judges interpret it in specific cases, and then later on a judge will use the previous judgements as precedence to inform their opinion. That’s common law. I’m not a legal expert but as far as I’m aware common law isn’t a thing in Belgium so I think what the law says is what it means, and perhaps they underestimated that or assumed that a judge would understand it should mean legitimate kids through just common sense. And they misjudged lol

The Fount of Honour - in many monarchies, the monarch is the fount of honour. In Belgium I believe it says it in their constitution. That means that they hold the power to award titles and honours. Often it’s just a formal power, done in consultation with the government, but generally the monarch still has full power over their family’s titles. Philippe chose not to fight the court’s decision and embraced Delphine but before the decision was made, lawyers for King Albert (Delphine and Philippe’s dad) argued that it was not appropriate for the courts to have the power to award titles to whoever they wanted and it was a matter for the state. And actually that isn’t a bad argument, I can believe that Albert was fully convinced it would win out and Delphine wouldn’t be princess so the wording of the law didn’t matter. Philippe just chose not to escalate things by challenging the decision.

So it is definitely a lesson in the impact of ambiguity in the law, but I can actually understand why Albert and others thought that Delphine wouldn’t get a title even with that ambiguity in the wording.

[andiinaraethtash]

Chapter 9: Though the Sun Surrendered Its Last Light

Notes:

Okay, so in honour of Empires season 2 coming out today, I decided to post a chapter. (Also, yes, I have been watching everyone's videos as they come out and yes, I have been internally squealing the whole time.) TW: Lots of death and destruction in this chapter (I legitimately wrote video instead of chapter, my word I need more sleep), a bit of blood, and of course the demon of the hour being his usual self. Chapter title from Here We Stand by Hidden Citizens

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

There’s an unspoken agreement that they’ll all convene back in the Overgrown after they’ve rested and gotten their things together. Usually, Katherine is more than happy to host her friends, but this is different. This is a war meeting, and knowing exactly who and what they’re going up against has her shaking.

Sausage, the only one who’d already had all his things on him, stays with her the two days it takes for the other rulers to scatter and come back together. Why he’s not with Pearl, she’s not sure, but she appreciates the company. Anything to take her mind off the fact that they’d somehow missed Xornoth taking over one of their friends. They don’t really talk, just kind of sit in silence and contemplate what’s going to happen until the others start filtering.

To absolutely no one’s surprise, Joel and Lizzie arrive together. They’re fully kitted out in netherite armour—sturdy stuff, not the ceremonial stuff that sits in full display in their wardrobes—and wielding fully-enchanted gear. Lizzie in particular looks intimidating, but she’s biting her lip, and Joel doesn’t look any less nervous than his wife.

Jimmy is next, and he flitters about nervously. Sausage actually has to stand and help him readjust his armour, because he’s put it on wrong, and reminds him to breathe.

Joey, Pix, and Shrub arrive one right after the other, carrying tridents, bows, and swords; Shrub even has extra arrows she hands out to everyone, even Lizzie, who doesn’t have a bow on her.

Pearl is last, looking grim. She nods to Katherine in greeting, then sits to the side, pulling out her sword and sharpening it as they wait for everyone to indicate that they’re ready.

Eventually, Jimmy’s the one to step forward. “We all ready?” As they nod, he turns to Shrub, who’d volunteered to try to get a closer look at the Grimlands and see what was going on.

“Right,” the gnome says, spreading out a map of the Grimlands, and Katherine immediately recoils. That’s… that’s not how the Grimlands had looked three days ago at the funeral. It had been a dry plain, with the occasional red crevice where the natural redstone corruption had reacted to the unnatural demonic corruption, with a few villages and one large city dotted throughout.

Now, though, according to the map, it’s riddled with what appears to be red specks, which, before her very eyes, grow. New crevices, filled with red fog, have appeared, and are slowly but steadily growing bigger as the earth rips itself apart to accommodate the demonic presence.

“The tentacles are back,” Shrub starts, and Katherine eyes the map again, realising that’s what those red specks are. “And the land seems to be rejecting Xornoth’s corruption. This village here, the Aerie? it’s about to be swallowed whole by this ravine.”

She points to a spot on the map where, sure enough, a small village is about to be torn asunder by the encroaching crevice.

Pix nods. “We need to evacuate as many of the villages as we can. I don’t think we can ask the Crystal Cliffs or Rivendell to take any refugees, but they’re the closest and the largest. So we’ll need to—”

“We can take them,” Joey interrupts, and everyone looks at him with varying degrees of disbelief. Katherine and Shrub both smile at him, but the others…

“Are you sure?” Sausage asks. “I mean, most of the rest of us have more resources, we can care for some of them as well.”

Joey puffs up, but before he can say anything, Pearl says, “It’s not that we don’t think you can handle it, Joey, it’s that you’re so close to the problem—physically speaking—that they’ll be in danger if the damage spreads any further.”

“It’s a way-station, then,” Pix says, giving Joey a grateful look. “We take as many there as possible, let them rest and recover, then take them on to Mythland, the Gilded Helenthia, and the Overgrown.”

Katherine is mildly surprised when Pearl shakes her head. “I don’t know if the Gilded Helenthia can take anybody. We’re still recovering from the Mythland and Lost Empire refugees that came last time Xornoth got out. We’ll provide what we can, but… I can’t in good conscience try to take any more people in.”

“Neither can we,” Jimmy puts in. “For similar reasons.”

There are a few raised eyebrows all around, particularly at Pearl’s statement—it’s well-known that Jimmy’s empire, while rich in character, is not so rich in resources—but it makes sense. Gods know Pearl had thrown her all into helping last time around. Jimmy, on the other hand... well, he'd done what he could. They all had.

Joel huffs and gets the ball rolling again. “So Pearl and Jimmy can’t take them in. I can, Mezalia is strong—”

“Guys,” Lizzie puts in, pointing to the map. “We don’t have much longer to stand around and find out. The corruption is spreading.”

Katherine glances back down, and sure enough, the village that Shrub had pointed out earlier is being slowly ripped apart by the encroaching ravine. She winces as one building vanishes off the map entirely, and pulls out her rockets.

“Alright, everyone. Ready?”

As one, they nod, and take off.

________

Sausage would love to say he was prepared for the kind of devastation that was laying waste to the Grimlands. He wasn’t. None of them were.

The very air was heavy with corruption, a thick red smog taking the place of the normally smoke-stained skies. Even as they flew to the Aerie, he could see multiple tendrils erupt from the ground, piercing the blood-red sky.

The ground isn’t any better. Multiple smaller crevices rend the ground asunder, while large ones tear through the rolling plains like giant weeping wounds. Thick red… fog? He isn’t sure what it was, actually, but some sort of red something is spilling out of ravines, and if he looks closely, he can see the grass beneath the soupiness is shrivelling and dying, leaving only dust behind.

This… not even the Lost Empire was this bad last time around, but then, the Lost Empire doesn’t have the natural defence/self-destruct mechanism that the Grimlands have. Mythland certainly hadn’t been this bad. This is just… He doesn’t know if there will be anything left to save if and when they defeat Xornoth.

He doesn't even want to think about how they’re going to defeat him. They’d had to lock his physical body away last time, as well, would they have to lock fWhip away, potentially for eternity?

No, there has to be another way. They’ll find it. They have to.

Ahead of him, he hears Katherine gasp as the Aerie comes into view—a little town to the west of Eastvale, where the main quarry and the gunpowder factory reside—or used to reside. The quarry has been split in two, and the gunpowder factory is rubble on either side of the gorge.

“There!” Jimmy shouts as they swoop lower, and Sausage follows his gaze to a small moving crowd that’s sprinting away from the remains of the village. As one, they dive down, landing in front of the group, careful to keep their weapons out of sight.

The leader of the pack, an older man who looks like the flight might have knocked a few years he can’t afford to lose off his lifespan, comes to a halt as they land, signalling for everyone else to stop as well.

“Your Majesties!” He exclaims. “The corruption—”

“We know,” Pearl says, stepping forward. “We’re going to help you evacuate the town, then we’ll try to cut it off at the source.”

Sausage swallows, but ushers Katherine, Shrub, Joey, and Jimmy forward. “You four, take them to the Lost Empire. The rest of us will sweep for survivors—”

“There are no other survivors, Your Majesty,” a young woman says, her voice so small Sausage has to strain to hear it over the rumbling of the earth. “We’re all that’s left. Everyone else was killed when the factory exploded, or they got swallowed by the earth.”

He winces, but Pix powers on. “Then the rest of us will go to the next village. After the smaller villages have been evacuated, we’ll head to Eastvale. Hopefully, it’s still standing.”

Sausage glances at Shrub, who pulls out her map for a moment, then nods. “Whatever the walls are made of,” the gnome says softly, “it’s holding back both types of corruption. It should be safe from that for the meantime.”

Nods all around as they agree to the plan, then they split up. Sausage takes to the air last, watching as the others lead the way west toward the jungle. They’ve got Joey with them, and he’s a decent fighter, but the rest of them? They’re not warriors, they’re healers, farmers, and cod, they won’t be able to hold their own if worst comes to worst.

But the others are circling, waiting for him, so he sighs and follows after them.

The next village over is gone, and the next is already empty, and Sausage can only hope they fled to the Lost Empire and not to Eastvale, where they would arguably be in more danger. But it’s the fourth village where they hit a major snag, the snag being Xornoth.

He’s waiting for them at the main well of the village, sitting on the crumbling stone brick, surrounded by the bodies of several of the villagers, and examining his nails--claws, really. Sausage immediately grits his teeth, because while objectively he knows it’s Xornoth, the aura of menace and the corruption all across their skin make it very obvious that it’s them, at the same time, it’s also so obviously fWhip that it hurts, it hurts to see him like this.

Granted, his hair is lank in a way he hasn’t ever seen before, and his eyes are blood-red, and there is corruption growing on his skin, but it’s his features that the unnaturally wide grin is slashing open, it’s his hands that are pulling dark weapons—Sausage’s old weapons—out of the aether, it’s his oldest and dearest friend that Sausage sees when he looks at this monster.

“Well, well. Come to save the day, I suppose?” Xornoth asks as they brandish Sausage’s old rapier, and as one, the rest of them draw weapons.

“Xornoth,” Lizzie spits, “Let fWhip go.”

The demon shakes their head. “Now, that, I can’t do. You see, when that pesky wizard trapped my mortal form in that crystal, it left me with no option but to use my back-up plan—this.” They gesture to the body they’re possessing, and Sausage curls his lip.

“fWhip isn’t some meat suit you can don any time you feel like it,” he says, and Xornoth chuckles.

“True. Which is why I had to wait until that stupid elf left the crystal somewhere it would be easy enough to… acquire.” They open their hand, revealing a large, blood-red crystal embedded in their palm. The palm that Sausage had cut open that last time he and fWhip had sparred. The last time he’d seen Gem alive. The last time he’d had the two of them right in front of him, and without knowing why, had hugged them.

Or maybe he had known why.

Shaking himself, he focuses on the conversation going on around them, just in time to hear Pix ask, “Why tell us this?”

“Because I want you to understand the depths of your failures. Even when you got your precious friend back, you were blind to the reality that even then, he was mine.”

Sausage swallows hard. “You killed Gem, not Scott.”

That unnatural grin that slashes Xornoth’s face open from ear to ear widens, somehow, and they nod. “He certainly didn’t hurt my plans, especially now that he’s in exile. The fool won’t dare show his face to you now that he thinks he’s a danger to the lot of you. But yes, dealing with that pesky wizard was quite… fun. You should have heard the Count’s screams as he dealt the killing blow.”

Something in Sausage snaps at that, and without thinking about it, he whips out his bow, loosing an arrow before he can even think. The demon, however, doesn’t seem fazed. Instead they just laugh and bat the arrow away in midair.

“Yes, let’s start, shall we? But first…” They wave a hand and one of the structures around them crumbles into dust, revealing a small family huddled in what was once a corner of the house. They look petrified, and Pearl immediately snaps to action.

“Lizzie, Joel, get them out of here. Search for other survivors. Pix, Sausage and I will handle this.”

They obey without argument, and Xornoth surprisingly lets them. Or maybe not surprisingly. Three of them stand less of a chance than five of them do, but Sausage can’t find it in himself to contradict Pearl’s orders. These people need help.

As soon as Lizzie and Joel have the civilians out of the line of fire, Xornoth straightens and waves a hand. Immediately the red sky darkens, storm clouds gathering with unnatural speed.

To his right, Pix smirks and pulls out his trident, and Sausage hefts his sword and shield, Pearl doing the same off to his left. Without so much as glancing at one another, they attack.

Pix throws his trident, and Sausage has just enough presence of mind to duck and cover his face with his shield before the bolt of lightning arcs down from the sky. Xornoth cries out—or maybe not Xornoth, there’s none of the distortion that he’s come to associate with the demon’s voice—but responds with a flurry of vexes, which attack Pix and Sausage while Pearl goes toe to toe with with Xornoth by herself.

“I hate vexes!” Sausage exclaims as he cuts down two at a time. Pix huffs but otherwise doesn’t respond as they manoeuvre to stand back-to-back to fend off the sprites.

Sausage loses himself to the rhythm, ducking, dodging, and slashing in turns, and slowly he thins the herd around him enough to pay attention to Xornoth, who’s forced Pearl to drop her sword so she’s only holding her shield and is on her back foot as she blocks and bats away Xornoth’s blows.

He cuts down one last vex, then elbows Pix in the ribs to get his attention. He looks pointedly at the trident, then at Xornoth, then back at Pix, who nods.

As one, they move, Sausage tackling Pearl out of the way as not one but two tridents hit the ground at Xornoth’s feet, frying the spot where they were standing with electricity, but they’re a bit too slow. Xornoth has teleported to a nearby rooftop, cackling madly as they summon more foes for them to face—ravagers, evokers, vindicators, illusioners, they all come pouring out of the shadows.

Thankfully, it looks like back-up has arrived in the form of a ten-foot-tall blue axolotl. Lizzie’s trident flies back into her hand and she wades into the oncoming enemies with a battlecry. Pix joins her, and they stand back to back, lashing out at anything that gets too close, and frying those that go after Sausage and Pearl, who exchange a look before charging Xornoth.

Clambering up the roof is tricky, especially at the speed they’re going at, but they manage it. Pearl has reclaimed her sword in the meantime, and so the two of them work as a team to try to break through Xornoth’s defences. He stays high, while she occasionally ducks low, but they’re both outmatched, and they know it.

fWhip is a talented swordsman, though not as good as Pearl, but add in Xornoth’s power, cunning, and sheer disregard for honourable combat, and suddenly he was nigh on unbeatable.

Internally, Sausage curses himself for getting out of practice against lefties. He’s only dueled fWhip once since last fall, and that was only a few days ago, but that bout hadn’t lasted long since they had both been tired from beating Pearl. So yeah, he’s just the slightest bit rusty, and worse, he keeps thinking that he’s facing fWhip, so he’s pulling blows and expecting fWhip not only to return the favour, but also to act in a way that he can predict. But he’s doing neither.

That’s because it’s not fWhip you’re fighting, he reminds himself as he parries another blow, it’s Xornoth, who has hundreds if not thousands of years of experience on all three of you.

There’s a scream from below them, but Sausage ignores it, focusing instead on breaking through Xornoth’s guard and scoring a hit on his side. The moment cold steel slides into his body, Xornoth laughs, teleports a rooftop over, and summons a wave of lava on the rooftop they’re currently sitting on.

Sausage grabs Pearl’s arm to help her up—Xornoth had backhanded her across the face as Sausage had scored his hit—and glances down to see Pix lying on the ground, Lizzie standing over him with a feral expression on her face, teeth bared and eyes flashing dangerously. Sausage gulps, glances back and forth between Xornoth, the lava, and his friends, and makes a choice.

“Come on, Pearl, we can’t stay here!”

Pearl reluctantly nods, casting a glare over her shoulder at the demon, then hops down, scoops Pix up, and takes off again. Lizzie is right behind her, but right before Sausage can leave, Xornoth calls, “These are my lands now, Mythical Sausage. Trespass again and you will pay with your life.”

Sausage casts a glance behind him, and his heart drops down to his stomach. Xornoth has the dark scythe out and is grinning like a maniac. They’re not lying; if they try to come back, they’ll kill them, torture them, and turn them into their puppets, just like they had fWhip.

So with a reluctant, solemn nod, he takes off, leaving the village behind to burn.

Notes:

The Aerie is supposed to be where the gunpowder farm was in canon, it just made a bit more sense lore-wise to say there was a factory nestled into the foot of the mountains than say he was purposely spawning creepers and killing them and they dropped gunpowder. Also, I swear I'm going to post this Tuesday, and hopefully next Saturday as well if my muse lets me keep writing at the pace I want for the next few weeks. I'm nearly done, I have maybe three and a half to four and a half chapters left. Not sure. But! It's all plotted out and with the epic climax written, it should be relatively smooth sailing from here. That being said, see you next Tuesday!

[pesterloglog]

John Egbert, Rose Lalonde

Prologue, page 2

JOHN: rose?

ROSE: How... how long have I been sleeping?

JOHN: i dunno. i just got here.

JOHN: are you ok?

ROSE: I’ll be fine.

JOHN: that looks like a lot of pills you’re taking there.

ROSE: Yeah. It’s not what you’re thinking though.

JOHN: what am i thinking?

ROSE: These are controlled substances that have been prescribed by a legitimate doctor to ease the symptoms of my condition. I am using them only as instructed.

JOHN: ok??

ROSE: So there’s nothing to worry about.

JOHN: but you said you have a condition. isn’t that...bad?

ROSE: Oh. Yes. The condition itself is not ideal, obviously. And perhaps it does constitute something to worry about, in the context of a different conversation. All I’m trying to say is, I’m not backsliding, if that’s what you’re wondering.

ROSE: I struggled with substance abuse for a while, years ago. Remember?

JOHN: rose, jesus. i wasn’t going to accuse you of being a drug addict, and i didn’t fly over here to give you an intervention.

JOHN: it sounded like you had some important stuff to tell me, and the fact that you also seem to be sick is more than a little alarming!

ROSE: I wouldn’t say I’m sick.

ROSE: Just having spectacularly debilitating headaches as a result of my visions becoming more frequent.

JOHN: oh yeah.

JOHN: what are these visions you’re having?

ROSE: I’m a Seer of Light, John.

JOHN: i know.

JOHN: so you mean like, your standard psychic visions about the future and stuff?

JOHN: what’s going to happen? should we be worried?

ROSE: It doesn’t technically pertain to the future. Well, not our future.

ROSE: My abilities have broadened considerably beyond their previous horizon. They shed light on many unseen events. Past, present, future, in realities and frames of reference that have no intersection with ours at all.

ROSE: It seems to be an unfortunate side effect of god tier abilities. They can advance at a rate beyond one’s physical ability to keep up with.

ROSE: Fortunately it doesn’t seem to be happening to anyone other than me.

JOHN: yeah, can’t say i’ve noticed anything like that.

JOHN: or improvement in my powers for that matter.

ROSE: It’s not about gaining additional power, so much as the gradual dissolving of the boundaries between your own awareness and that of your many doomed selves who perished in other timelines.

ROSE: It’s a slow and apparently rather uncomfortable accretion of knowledge. Perhaps I’m the only one to notice any change, since my aspect explicitly relates to knowledge.

JOHN: i guess that all makes sense.

JOHN: so what are these visions showing you?

ROSE: Many things. They’re quite disjointed, and sometimes hard to rearrange into coherence.

ROSE: But in totality, I have pieced together a greater understanding of our present situation and all the events that led us here.

JOHN: ...and?

ROSE: And what?

JOHN: what is it about our situation that you wanted to tell me?

JOHN: is it bad?

ROSE: Good and bad are words that don’t mean anything, beyond a certain threshold of mortal consideration.

ROSE: There’s a different scale I’ve come to understand. Another dichotomy that’s less... emotional, I guess?

ROSE: Consider, instead of the word “good,” using the word “essential.”

ROSE: And what exists at the opposite polarity from essential is...

ROSE: Something that is best not to contemplate.

JOHN: what are you talking about?

JOHN: this sounds fucked up.

ROSE: Yes, that sounds like a reaction you would definitely have to the things I’m telling you.

ROSE: I really should cut it out, and just start from the beginning.

ROSE: The green sun is gone.

JOHN: what??

ROSE: It has been destroyed. At least, from the current frame of reference it has.

ROSE: It still existed, and therefore in a way that’s hard to explain, currently exists, over a nearly infinite span of time, presiding over the birth and death of countless universes.

ROSE: But this universe, our universe, is not one of them.

JOHN: you saw this in a vision?

ROSE: No. Jade told me.

JOHN: she did?

JOHN: how does she know?

ROSE: She can’t draw from its power anymore. She no longer has the ability of a First Guardian.

ROSE: It has been this way for several years. I suspect she has kept this fact on the downlow, however.

JOHN: that’s...

JOHN: surprising, i guess?

JOHN: or maybe not. i dunno, it’s not like she tells me a whole lot these days.

ROSE: It’s also not like she’s had any particular need to unleash the full fury of the green sun, not while she’s been gallivanting around with Dave and Karkat under whatever perplexing social arrangement they have settled on.

ROSE: Anyway, her account of the sun’s destruction syncs up with the data supplied by my visions. I have no doubt it’s gone.

JOHN: how did that happen?

ROSE: It doesn’t matter much, for our purposes.

ROSE: There was a cataclysmic event. A suicide strike by a very powerful being. Much like the one Dave and I attempted, once upon a time.

ROSE: But it turned out the explosive force we released was only a catalyst. A causal gesture. What was needed to destroy the sun was a consumptive assault.

JOHN: consumptive?

ROSE: The entire sun was swallowed by a supermassive black hole.

ROSE: I digress though.

ROSE: There’s really no route through this expository garden path that will adequately cushion you from the bottom line, John.

ROSE: You will need to travel back into canon and defeat Lord English.

JOHN: yeah, i had a feeling that was going to come up again someday.

ROSE: I’m sure we all did. That is, even those of us without visions.

JOHN: i was doing my best not to think about it. i guess we can’t put it off any longer then?

ROSE: Now is the time. We are rapidly approaching a point of no return. If the decision isn’t made soon, it will be too late. The issue will no longer matter.

JOHN: when exactly is the point of no return?

ROSE: Today.

JOHN: wow.

JOHN: ok then.

JOHN: first, one question. um...

JOHN: why?

ROSE: Why what?

JOHN: why do i need to go back and beat him?

JOHN: i mean, sorry if this is a stupid question. i guess he’s a huge awful monster, and that’s just what you’re supposed to do with huge awful monsters. take them down for their crimes, and such.

JOHN: but why does he actually need to be defeated at all? to be honest, it’s been years since we’ve even bothered thinking about any of this, and everything seems...

JOHN: fine?

ROSE: Of course everything is fine here.

ROSE: We’re outside of canon now.

JOHN: yeah, i know. what does that actually MEAN though?

JOHN: are you saying this isn’t really happening?

ROSE: Of course it’s happening.

ROSE: Just because certain events take place outside of canon, it doesn’t mean those events are non-canon.

JOHN: oh.

ROSE: In other words, there is an important distinction between events which can be considered to occur inside canon, outside canon, and those which are not canon at all.

ROSE: The day we went through that door and claimed our reward, we passed a threshold between continua marked by differing degrees of relevance, truth, and essentiality.

ROSE: Those are the three pillars of canon.

JOHN: what?

ROSE: Any event said to take place inside canon will have nonzero values of relevance and essentiality, while maintaining an absolute foundation in truth, by definition.

ROSE: Whereas events outside canon have diminished values of relevance and essentiality. Or, for the most part, can be considered neither relevant nor essential at all.

ROSE: But such events can’t be said to be untrue either. Instead, it’s better to regard their truth value as highly conditional.

ROSE: Are you still following?

JOHN: oh, yeah. totally.

ROSE: So to be clear, everything that’s taken place here on Earth C since we exited canon can be considered completely irrelevant, and for the most part, absolutely inessential. Yet none of it can be called untrue.

ROSE: At least, up until precisely today.

JOHN: ok.

JOHN: then what does non-canon mean?

ROSE: Events that are formally non-canon have no truth whatsoever, by definition.

ROSE: They may have relevance and essentiality values that are nonzero, or even quite high, but only as projections along an imaginary axis, resulting from highly subjective frames of reference.

ROSE: But due to those events having no truth, and thus carrying no real weight, the other properties are basically rendered meaningless.

ROSE: John?

ROSE: Are you okay? Your pupils have gone quite wide, thereby facilitating the appearance that your mind has just been blown.

JOHN: sorry, i’m just trying to wrap my head around this.

ROSE: You of all people really should have a good intuitive grasp over these concepts already.

ROSE: You’re the one with the retcon powers, after all.

JOHN: i know!

JOHN: like, i mostly get it. i think.

JOHN: i just wouldn’t have thought to put all of this in such a jargony way.

ROSE: Sorry. That’s kind of what I do.

JOHN: it’s fine. i’m just a bit rusty is all.

JOHN: it feels like it’s been so long since i did, or even thought about... anything that mattered at all.

ROSE: Yes, the longer we live outside of canon, the more tenuous our relationship with canon becomes.

ROSE: Hence the urgency.

JOHN: then what’s going to happen if we keep dragging our feet?

ROSE: I mentioned that events outside canon have a truth value that tends to be conditional, remember?

JOHN: um.

ROSE: Well, I did. But let me put it another way.

ROSE: As long as we live outside canon, everything that happens will technically be “real,” but only conditionally.

ROSE: There are certain crucial events inside canon which must happen in order to continue to prop up the legitimacy of events here on Earth C.

ROSE: And you specifically, John, have a responsibility to make sure those events take place.

JOHN: and i take it that means going back and killing lord english?

ROSE: Yes.

ROSE: His defeat is the keystone to this entire continuity.

ROSE: Much like his life, in some sick way, governed the overall design of the bridge which that keystone was holding up.

ROSE: But without it, all of this falls apart. Every thing we’ve been through, in a way that’s impossible for a single mind to fully comprehend, becomes retroactively discredited.

JOHN: so... reality will be destroyed, or something?

JOHN: hasn’t that already sort of happened?

JOHN: i mean, when all the black space started cracking?

ROSE: No, this consequence isn’t physical, or even a disruption of the timeline. It’s more of a conceptual unraveling.

ROSE: If you miss the chance to authenticate canon events, something will take place that’s a bit difficult to describe, but I’ve encountered a term for it.

ROSE: It’s called “dissipation.”

ROSE: Like, a notional fading. As if something, somewhere, is undergoing a process of “forgetting,” and we are what is being forgotten.

ROSE: All ideas, people and their full potentialities, possible outcomes and their specific unfolding, all these things live inside conscious frameworks.

ROSE: The further removed we get from authentication of canon events, the less relevant they become, and they slowly fade from the conscious frameworks which kept them stable.

JOHN: ok, i guess we don’t want THAT to happen.

JOHN: or... unhappen. whatever.

JOHN: so i just retcon-poof back to english and start like...

JOHN: brawling with the dude?

ROSE: Don’t be ridiculous. You wouldn’t last a second.

ROSE: You’ll need a team.

ROSE: Also, you don’t want to just dive headlong into a battle with his hulking adult form. That would be tactically foolish, and furthermore, would skip over some very important steps needed to authenticate canon.

JOHN: like what?

ROSE: I mentioned that English’s defeat was the keystone to the continuity. But this is an oversimplification.

JOHN: yikes. well, we sure as fuck wouldn’t want to simplify anything.

ROSE: John, please don’t be a bitch. I’m unwell, remember?

JOHN: sorry.

ROSE: The true keystone, which is a necessary component of his defeat, is the juju.

ROSE: The house-shaped object you stuck your hand in to gain your retcon powers.

JOHN: oh yeah.

ROSE: While empty, it resembles a gap. Like a hole in canon, whose only purpose is to be filled.

ROSE: In serving that purpose, it grants one with the radical canon-altering powers that would be needed to fill it.

ROSE: Once filled, it becomes solid. No longer a gap, but a serviceable, load-bearing wedge in our continuity.

ROSE: Like a keystone.

ROSE: And once delivered to English and directed his way, it empties itself again, releasing its narrative-bridging payload. It functions as a weapon, and in some manner will bring about his demise.

JOHN: in some manner?

ROSE: It’s a complicated artifact. As old and unfathomable as anything else in Paradox Space, like the green sun, or English himself. Don’t worry about it for now.

ROSE: The important thing is that, in the due course of your travels, you end up loading and unloading this weapon.

JOHN: how am i going to do that?

ROSE: Once you set things in motion, it should just happen naturally through the narrative momentum of your journey. I’m really just warning you about it, rather than instructing you.

JOHN: ok. thanks??

ROSE: You’re welcome.

JOHN: so if we’re going to go back and kill him in time to “authenticate canon,” i guess we have to get going soon.

JOHN: like today?

ROSE: Yes.

JOHN: are you sure you’re actually up for a fight though? no offense, but you’re looking a little worse for the wear.

ROSE: I’m not going.

JOHN: oh.

ROSE: None of us are. Only you.

JOHN: what?? but you said...

ROSE: John, this is the victory state.

JOHN: what the hell does that even mean.

ROSE: When we went through the door, and passed beyond the threshold of canon, we effectively retired from bearing any responsibility for influencing canon events. We’ve all been sort of decommissioned as active players on the cosmic stage, with severely diminished relevance attributes.

ROSE: All of us except for you, of course, since you’ve retained your retcon abilities.

JOHN: ok, i get that. kind of.

JOHN: but... couldn’t you all just come along anyway?

ROSE: We could. But it wouldn’t serve any purpose.

ROSE: It wouldn’t plug up the remaining dark spots in canon.

ROSE: You’ll need a group of active players. Those still stuck inside the stream of canonic karma.

JOHN: who?

ROSE: Nothing too extravagant. Just different versions of us.

ROSE: Younger versions, from a particularly dysfunctional impasse in our journey.

ROSE: I can point out the exact moment in canon you should be disrupting, and how you should disrupt it.

ROSE: In fact, I’ve already written it down to spare you the trouble of remembering.

JOHN: huh.

ROSE: Is anything confusing about my instructions?

JOHN: no, i remember all this. it shouldn’t be a problem.

JOHN: it’s just weird to think about revisiting this. it seems like an eternity. like... we were all completely different people back then.

ROSE: I assure you we are all still fundamentally the same bunch of losers.

JOHN: should i really punch her in the face?

JOHN: i felt kinda bad about it, last time i did that to someone.

ROSE: Yes. You absolutely should, and must, punch her in the face.

JOHN: alright. this seems straightforward enough.

JOHN: i mean, aside from the part where we all have to fight an invincible monster.

ROSE: He isn’t entirely invincible. He will be vulnerable to Dave’s weapon. I believe other gambits should present themselves as well.

ROSE: I don’t think it would serve the mission well for me to tell you exactly how it will go.

ROSE: But at least I can offer this bit of encouragement.

ROSE: If you follow my instructions, English will be defeated.

ROSE: It is an absolutely essential outcome.

ROSE: And essential, if you’ll remember, is the word we should be using instead of good.

JOHN: i see you’re advising we go after him when he’s young...

JOHN: i guess that makes sense.

JOHN: go get him before he gets all big and strong.

JOHN: like, kind of a surprise attack?

ROSE: Sure.

JOHN: that dude sucks.

JOHN: he was taunting me a while back.

JOHN: like, i think he WANTS me to come fight him?

JOHN: anyway, i just ignored him obviously, because i’m not a stupid idiot.

JOHN: but i guess today will be his lucky day.

JOHN: i should probably get going and let you rest.

JOHN: we can talk all about it when i get back. i’ll fill you in on how it went, hopefully you’ll be feeling better by then.

ROSE: Oh. Um.

ROSE: Yeah.

JOHN: is something wrong?

JOHN: i’m not scared, if that’s what you’re worried about.

JOHN: you already said we’re going to defeat him. so, nothing to fret over, right?

ROSE: Yes. You...

ROSE: You’re going to do great.

ROSE: Goodbye, John.

[junosswans]

had such a terrible dream which i was unable to wake up from and ended up making me super late to work. sighhhhhh

writing down my dream just to vent a bit, it's super intense and dramatic and damn it gave me a panic attack in my sleep which is possibly the first time ive ever experienced that

tw: assault & abuse mention

The dream began with my mother stabbing me in the chest when we were at the library, but then I was the one arrested because apparently my mother had paid off all the witnesses (or the witnesses were her accomplice all along)?? So my mother claimed to be defending herself and I was charged because "I attacked first".

I was like, super scared and panicking and nobody was even treating my wound on my right chest, but then I met a very friendly librarian and he introduced me to this team of lawyers who were willing to represent me, and they treated my wound haphazardly in a hotel room.

I was really scared that I might run into my mother again, and people who were on my mother's side (dressed up as street preachers) were stalking me and following me everywhere. So my lawyer (an old lady), her assistant (a guy in wheelchair) and me were hiding and running all over the place as we look for somewhere to rest and prepare for my case.

At one point we had to get into an elevator with some other passengers, and my lawyer was shielding my face from their sight in case they recognize me, and I was so terrified of being recognized in an enclosed space like that and the panic attack happened. Like I was legitimately shaking and hyperventilating in the dream, which is rare for me, lol.

Then after we've lost the stalkers, we ran into another group of people who mocked my lawyers that the only reason they took on my case was because no one else wanted to hire them and they're useless in court. They got into an argument and I woke up sometime after that.

Many other minor things happened that didn't make sense, but this is the gist of my nightmare and it was like, really scary. Honestly contemplated on taking a day off but then got a text from work saying they need me to handle some physical files, so I ran back to office nonetheless. I wish my mother would STOP HAUNTING ME in dreams like wtf bitch stop looking for me!!! I don't want to see you in real life nor in dreams!!!!

[rookie-critic]

Skinamarink (2022, dir. Kyle Edward Ball) - review by Rookie-Critic

How can I even begin to describe Skinamarink? I guess I'll just start by saying this film is incredibly alienating and experimental. The entire film is comprised of close-up, off-angle shots of the house the entirety of the story takes place in. You never see any of the character's faces, and rarely do you actually see any part of them at all, save for their feet, as a lot of the shots in the film are low-angle, almost as if the camera was just sitting on the floor and happened to be recording. The film revolves around two siblings, Kevin and Kaylee, who awake one night to find that not only is their dad missing and their mom acting strange, but also all of the windows and doors leading to the outside have vanished. What follows is about an hour and a half of unfettered confusion, uncertainty, and darkness. The kids do the best they can given the situation (the youngest, Kevin, is 4, and Kaylee doesn't seem to be much older), and the film plays out in a very bleak fashion.

I'm not going to lie, this was a rough watch. Due to nature of the way the film was shot and the wildly low quality of the film's audio and video (the movie was made on a budget of about $15,000, and there's more visual noise on screen most of the time than there is actual image), large swaths of the runtime feel like they drag. I generally don't get as much sleep as I should, and not having a ton of visually interesting things on screen was making it very hard to stay awake for a majority of the movie, which in conjunction with the aforementioned shooting style, also made the film hard to follow. Not impossible, though, you can definitely piece everything together, but I spent a lot of that dead space between big moments in the film putting those pieces together. However, it wasn't just a rough watch because of those criticisms, it was also a rough watch because it scared the ever-loving shit out of me.

I love horror. As a former child scaredy-cat, I can tell you everything used to frighten me. At some point in high school I decided to fully immerse myself in horror and I never looked back. So much so, that nowadays it's an incredibly rare occasion that a horror movie truly gets to me, I mean really digs down into my soul and embeds itself there. From the second the first door disappeared, this movie absolutely had my number. Every jump scare, every shot staring into an abyssal hallway or bedroom, a sequence where a TV playing a cartoon stops itself and replays the same 10 second loop 5 times. I was more unsettled than I have been in a very, very long time. I drove home in complete silence. I was looking over my shoulder as I walked from the theater to my car, and likewise from my car to the inside of my apartment. I walked in and appreciatively touched my front door after I closed it behind me. I was actually, legitimately afraid to go to sleep that night. To go into a dark room by myself, shut the door (or leave it open, honestly with the headspace I was in, both were equally upsetting for different reasons), lay down, and close my eyes, leaving myself vulnerable to whatever evil presence might be lurking just beyond the cutoff point; where my eyes can no longer tell the difference between silhouette, shadow, and plain darkness. This film shook me to my absolute core, and it did it without ever showing me a single thing. It may drag in spots and it may be hard to tell what exactly is going on due to not being able to actually see any of the action, but it is for precisely those same reasons that it is so effectively terrifying. Kevin's final lines of the film, said just seconds before the house lights in the theater came back up, have stayed with me in the days following like ghost in my ear (and yes, I meant seconds. There are no credits, there is no sitting and contemplating what you just witnessed to some creepy music and names floating toward the top of the screen. You are unapologetically and uncaringly dropped back into reality immediately after the film's closing moment.).

What the movie lacks in straight plot, it more than makes up for in atmosphere and terror-factor. I can't recommend this for most people, and even the ones willing to take a chance on something on the fringes of what storytelling can be perceived as and what even constitutes a movie might find it to be a snooze-fest at best, but Skinamarink tapped into my psyche and made me feel a way that I'm not sure I've truly felt since the first time I saw A Nightmare on Elm Street when I was maybe 13. I have to give it my utmost respect for that.

Score: 8/10

Currently only in select theaters for a limited time, then coming to Shudder at an unspecified date later this year.

[christiemccann]

Old-fashioned Car Appraisal - Some Appraising Tips

If you are contemplating putting up your own classic auto on the market, you might in addition be wondering only how much this will be worth in the current market. It is fascinating to know of which you can have an antique car evaluation done in so that it will find out the current value of your own auto. Opinion issues but just such as every other valuable object, the particular worth regarding the auto will be always determined simply by the purchaser. Thus, whatever options an individual have to evaluate your auto, usually know that the final person that chooses the true worth in the auto is usually the individual that comes out the look at. It is likewise wise to search for other opinions regarding your auto. First, you can always begin your lookup for antique car appraisal on typically the internet. It is usually necessary to ensure that the information a person get is really as accurate as possible plus verifiable, so the particular internet is one of the very best options to look for for information. Don't believe that a buyer will be convinced in order to part ways with his money simply by reading a few sentences on Wikipedia about how much you should obtain for your vehicle at an public auction. Secondly, you have to find companies that deal within the purchase of utilized autos. Sometimes these people provides you with unbiased estimate of what you should promote your car. But a person don't have in order to meet the first a single you see. Because they deal on cars, some of them might give you a phony worth of your respective vehicle. When going to them, make sure the particular one you meet up with is registered using the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and has some great online ratings and even positive reviews. Of which way, you'll be sleep assured of their own credibility and that your auto is going to be appraised properly. A licensed appraiser should end up being sought in case you want in order to appraise for legitimate documentation or for the purpose of insurance. You could find licensing plans in virtually every single state in typically the country and generally there are rules and guidelines that should be adhered to by the licensed appraiser. The evaluations vary from very good, very good, good and excellent. These types of ratings depend on a lot of factors among which in turn are; ways of recovery, mileage, and issue of the motor vehicle. You should be aware that simply no auto will become given a fantastic score unless it had been a new show auto and contains never been driven. One important component to bear in mind is the genuine rating of your own vehicle from the identifier will be determined by the amount regarding information you give him or her. So when opting for antique car evaluation, ensure that an individual divulge any earlier issue with your vehicle because you may possibly be acquiring a favorable rating towards the end.

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[murdockschmitt8]

As the earth grows extra complex and quick-paced, your time turns into more and much more valuable. In purchase to get the most out of your lifestyle, you should organize your time efficiently so that you commit your energies to truly important issues. All matters you like to do in your spare time finish up not happening due to the fact you have to do the job much more several hours.

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