#did anyone else play upgrade complete?

[imnobodyuknow]

“Level 2, or...our second item is a couple of Mega Anime Avatar Creator pic--”

“Wait...  The old Flash game?  Oh my gosh, I completely forgot about Flashpoint 11 Infinity and that entire collection of over 160,000 Flash games!  I still have to play Upgrade Comple--!!”

“Um...  Sorry.  I got a little carried away there.”

No worries.  So, ready for some MAAC versions of Anya Forger’s adopted parents?  Well, here you go.

I’m sure you all saw this was coming after the MAAC Anya picture.  😉

Her adopted father, Loid Forger (also known as Agent Twilight) is a spy tasked with maintaining peace between the rival countries of Westopolis (his home country) and Ostania by spying on the leader of Ostania’s National Party, Donovan Desmond.  To do this, he must adopt a child, enroll her in the private school Donovan’s son goes to, and pose as her parent, which he does with young Anya.  Not exactly your run-of-the-mill adoption story, is it?

He later learns that part of the school’s enrollment process is a family interview, which requires the student’s parents (both mother and father) to be present.  As fate would have it, he meets a woman named Yor Briar who happens to be looking for a romantic interest (mostly for the sake of increasing her social standing), and the two of them decide to achieve their respective goals by getting married.  Not exactly your run-of-the-mill love story, is it?

As fate would also have it, however, she happens to be a professional assassin (codenamed “Thorn Princess”).  Anya, of course, knows about both her and Loid’s true identities and occupations, but decides to keep it to herself even though she finds their union to be, in her words, “SO COOOOOL!!!”

Fate’s kind of funny like that, isn’t it?

Recreating Loid in MAAC was simple enough (my only problem was getting his hair a little too long), but Yor was a little trickier -- I couldn’t find a proper match for her head ornament or her “work tools,” so I decided to leave out the former and replace her weapons with a couple of shuriken.  I also couldn’t add earrings since they appeared behind her sideburns for some reason.  We’ll call it make-do, I guess.  *shrug*

Anyway...here are the original pictures for comparison:

Yor’s expression came specifically from this snapshot:

I honestly don’t know how I’d react to the incongruency of seeing someone with a face like that holding a blood-covered weapon.  And God willing, I never will.  😐

[biteofcherry]

Hi! ALPHA STEVEEEEE oh my actual days. i have an unhealthy attachement to GoT. If his omega was feeling insecure how would he react? I feel like he would be completely flabbergasted and considering how she is very much independent she might not tell him at first. but if he found out...

A study

alpha!Steve Rogers x omega female reader

warnings: none; fluffy hurt/comfort; alpha has unique ways of improving your mood; but there's also understanding and communication; alpha Steve is a warning okay?

Grain of Truth Masterlist

Main Masterlist

"I guess this one could work," you shrugged, watching yourself in the mirror with growing resentment.

Your words reached Steve with quite a delay. He was staring at you, his mind occupied with images of ripping the fabric off of your body to get his hands on the magnificence of your curves and softness.

You looked absolutely fantastic in that dress - and it wasn't even some revealing, super sexy evening gown, but rather a chic, modest piece. Perfect for attending a conference.

And when you first saw that dress on the display as you passed the shop, you seemed to love it. How could it change so quickly?

Steve's gaze dragged up your body until he met your eyes in the mirror.

It was the very first time you showed annoyance with your looks, even if occasionally you fussed about not fitting into your favorite clothes right before the heat, because your body was accumulating fat to survive days of endless fucking.

"What is it?" Steve's brows furrowed as he took a step closer and you felt the warmth of his body at your back.

His hands slipped onto your hips and he rested his chin on top of your head as he held your gaze in the reflection.

"Nothing," you shrugged again, instinctively leaning into your alpha's embrace. "It's a good dress, but it doesn't really matter, right?"

Steve sensed that clearly it did matter, so he waited patiently for you to elaborate.

"I just have one meaningless presentation, nobody will pay attention to it beside just politely listening and clapping after I'm done." You tried to play it cool, like it didn't bother you that there was going to be a different star at the conference.

"Unlike Hope," you muttered, your tone more bitter than you wanted to let on.

Hope was- not exactly a friend, but not an enemy either.

You went to the same university, shared some mutual friends and occasionally worked on the same projects before graduation. Then you pursued your career goals while Hope went on to rock the world with everything that she had.

She was stunning, always had a line of men and women trailing behind her with dreams of spending time with her. She had a brilliant mind, too. Honestly, she had it all, in your opinion.

Including the freedom of not being driven by designation and hormones, since she was a beta.

As it turned out, Hope now had not one but three degrees and steered her career toward medical science for the military purposes. You were proud of how you were actually helping people day to day, running your small research, but it suddenly felt less significant compared to Hope's straight road to saving the world.

When you stumbled into her an hour ago, your brief, quite warm conversation revealed she was going to be the mysterious grand star at the conference you were also attending.

And she too was searching for an outfit. Judging by the label on the bag she was carrying, Hope was going to have something designer. Perhaps even custom fitted.

Then it turned out Steve was familiar with one of her projects; he saw it used in action when back in the military.

They switched feedback and information about Hope's upgrades so flawlessly and passionately, and you just stood there with a smile, nodding your head in pretend-interest.

Hope had it all. Still. Just like she had in uni.

Including attention of your mate.

You knew Steve loved you, you didn't fear him leaving you to chase anyone else. But love didn't mean he was impressed, or interested in your meager career.

The only profit you'd gain from presenting your study at the conference would be Maria's proud face as she added to your clinic's website information about running research acknowledged at international conferences.

"Hope?" One of Steve's eyebrows quirked up, confusion settling on his face. "That beta we ran into?"

"Yes, that beta whose great improvements to the battlefield medicine-" you mocked Steve's voice- "you were complimenting less than an hour ago," you glared at him, barely stopping yourself from stomping on his foot.

"Sweet brat," Steve's hands tightened their grip on your hips, an almost painful reminder to watch your tone.

"I was a Captain in the Army and sometimes on missions things got really bad. I simply appreciate that Hope's projects helped to save lives of some of my men."

"I know her work is important." You grit out, crossing your arms over your chest. "Which is why I know everyone will look forward to her presentation and discussion panel with her. So I don't need to bother stressing over my showing."

Steve recited the full title of your presentation and research, showing you he was always paying attention to what was important to you.

"Hope's work may be desired by the big, important institutions," he said, "but it's your research that has the potential of aiding people nationally, in their day to day struggles."

Your heart melted at the conviction in Steve's voice. Through the bond you sensed a steady rhythm and a flush of fiery pride that your alpha felt about your work.

"And you know what else?" Steve bent down a little, resting his chin in the crook of your neck, his lips brushing your cheek.

"Hope has nothing beyond her career. Beneath the smell of perfume, there's only the scent of the lab on her. No partner, neither long term nor a fuckbuddy. No remnants of anyone familiar, like a friend or a pet."

"Maybe she chose it that way," Steve mused, rubbing soothing circles on your hips with his thumbs, "or maybe she spends the rest of her day being as fussy as you, feeling bitter that she doesn't have a mate and love like you."

You sighed softly, uncrossing your arms. You rested your hands atop Steve's forearms, caressing his warm skin.

You tilted your head slightly as your placated insecurities slowly retreated, living room to the mentioned fussy streak. That still wasn't entirely gone, strumming inside you with a need to act out.

"So you were checking her scent?" It was a deliberate poke, delivered with a glare.

Steve huffed and closed his eyes for a second. Then he straightened and in one swift move twirled you around.

He pushed you back against the mirror, gripping the back of your neck with one of his large hands.

"If you're sporting for a spanking until you sob all your frustration and insecurities out, I will happily arrange it." His voice remained soft, but dropped to that low octave a breath away from a growl.

"Or maybe we can make you more excited on that stage?" You gulped nervously as Steve's eyes darkened.

His lips trailed along your jaw, teeth just barely grazing your skin.

"You'll be giving your lecture wearing nothing but that pretty dress, while I sit in the first row with your panties in my pocket. Knowing that as soon as you're done with your presentation, I'm going to be fucking you full of my cum..."

Steve nipped your chin in reprimand when your eyes closed, the sting making you open them instantly.

"So that when you do the rounds at the banquet later that beta you're jealous off knows that you've won something she'll never have. A true mate."

Your clamped your hands on Steve's shoulders, gripping the fabric of his too tight t-shirt.

"You can't solve everything with sex, you know," you said breathlessly, clenching your thighs as you felt Steve's free hand slide up the pencil skirt of the dress you were trying on.

"How about we conduct a longitudinal study on that?" Steve chuckled and slapped your thigh.

[scary-grace]

Enough to Go By (Chapter 11) - a Shigaraki x f!Reader fic

Your best friend vanished on the same night his family was murdered, and even though the world forgot about him, you never did. When a chance encounter brings you back into contact with Shimura Tenko, you'll do anything to make sure you don't lose him again. Keep his secrets? Sure. Aid the League of Villains? Of course. Sacrifice everything? You would - but as the battle between the League of Villains and hero society unfolds, it becomes clear that everything is far more than you or anyone else imagined it would be. (cross-posted to Ao3)

Chapters: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Chapter 11

“Hey, there you are!” Spinner spots you and Tomura first as you step through the portal. “Twice is on his way. We thought you two were never going to show up!”

Tomura lets go of your hand and peels off his gloves, heading for the pile of gear that contains the rest of the hands and his coat. He put the hand he calls Father on his face before you left the apartment. “Kurogiri was busy.”

“Sure he was.” On the far corner of the wall, Dabi is rolling his eyes. “We all know what you two were busy doing.”

Your face heats up, but you’re behind your veil, and Tomura’s busy securing a set of hands over his neck, covering both the bandage and the mark you left on the other side. Nobody else seems too interested in joining Dabi in picking on you, although Magne’s ribbing him for supposed jealousy over his own lack of a cute girlfriend. Toga is studying you. “You changed your costume,” she says, and you hold your breath while she renders her verdict. “It’s cute.”

Compress drifts closer to investigate, too. “It’s an improvement. What’s the occasion?”

“We’re meeting somebody in an official capacity. I just thought I shouldn’t wear street clothes.”

Your costume upgrade isn’t much, and it took a while to put together. You’ve still got the grey veil and crown of thorns, but underneath it you’ve added a grey long-sleeved tunic you thrifted, leggings you bought, and boots you already had. Then you decided that the tunic was a little shapeless and cinched it at the waist with a red scarf. Worst comes to worst, you can use it as a tourniquet. You were worried about what Tenko would think of the entire effect, but when you showed him before Kurogiri came to get the two of you, you could tell he was pleased. Pleased enough to kiss you over it, although it took a while to make it work around the veil.

The aesthetics of your costume aren’t the important part. There’s a thin backpack over your shoulders, completely hidden by the back of the veil, which contains your best approximation of an EMT kit, and there’s a spare suture kit taped to your thigh, out of sight under the tunic. That was Tenko’s idea. He doesn’t want Overhaul to guess what role you play in the League.

And apparently he’s not the only one who’s been thinking along those lines. “It’s a good thing you changed your costume,” Spinner says. You look questioningly at him before remembering that he can’t see your face under the veil. “We were thinking. Shigaraki wants you to stay undercover, which means we can’t use your name in front of outsiders. And that means you need –”

“A code name!” Toga chimes in. “We all talked about it –”

“Nobody liked my ideas,” Dabi mutters.

You don’t even want to know. “And we all agreed,” Compress continues. “Unless Shigaraki has already given you one –”

You look to Tomura. This looks like it’s news to him, just like it’s news to you, and he only ever calls you by name. He shakes his head. “Excellent,” Compress says. “Spinner’s idea was chosen. Spinner should reveal it.”

Spinner looks a little nervous. “We already use a nickname for you,” he starts, “but ‘Saint’ sounds really dumb for a code name. So we decided instead – Saintess.”

It’s quiet for a second. “That’s not a word,” Tomura says.

“It is! We looked it up,” Toga sings out. “It’s like actor and actress, or villain and villainess. Saint, Saintess. It’s perfect, don’t you think?”

You’re not sure if you like it. It feels like kind of a dig against you. More than ‘kind of’, if you’re being honest. “It suits your look,” Magne points out. “And your attitude, since the boss wouldn’t dream of letting you get your hands dirty.”

“My hands will get dirty the first time one of you gets hurt,” you say. “You have the important work. My job is to make sure you can keep doing it.”

“Spoken like a true Saintess,” Compress proclaims. “Shigaraki. Your thoughts?”

“Yeah. She’s your girlfriend,” Dabi says. “You really want to let Spinner name her?”

Tomura considers it for a moment. “If it’s a good name, it doesn’t matter who it comes from. And it’s better to be named by your friends than your enemies.” He nods to Spinner. “It’s a good name. Call her Saintess from now on.”

Toga wandered over to one of the windows while Tomura was talking, but now she hurries back. “I see Twice! He’s got the other guy with him.”

“Places,” Tomura orders, and the League scatters to the sides. He reaches out and links little fingers with you. “You’re with me. This way.”

The League arranges themselves on and around a pile of shipping containers, set up in a rough pyramid. Tomura settles on one just below the highest level, and you sit down on one just below his, slightly off to the side so you won’t block his view. Tomura looks dissatisfied. “You should be up here,” he says. “But it’ll draw his attention to you. I’m not risking that.”

“I’m fine where I am,” you say. You glance up at him. “How’s your neck?”

“It’ll be fine,” he says, which means it hurts. You’ll look at it later, once this is over. “What about you?”

“I’m fine. You did a great job with the aftercare.”

Tomura’s face flushes, and you remind yourself to be careful what you say. The hand over his face doesn’t hide him nearly as well as your veil hides you. “Tell me what your friend said about them again,” he says. “The Hassaikai.”

“The new head – the one we’re meeting – he isn’t liked the way the old one was,” you say. “Someone who worked for both of them called him a monster. After he left the gang.”

“Yakuza don’t defect. For someone to do something like that, it must be serious.” Tenko’s expression is grim behind the hand. He raises his voice. “Be careful. Twice is trustworthy, but the one he’s bringing isn’t.”

“Understood.”

“You got it, boss,” Magne says, winking.

“For sure, Tomura-kun!” Toga chirps. She’s the only person other than you who uses Tomura’s given name. “I can’t wait to meet our new friend!”

You wish you had Toga’s optimism. Instead, all you feel as the head of the Shie Hassaikai walks into the warehouse is apprehension. You know you shouldn’t. Everyone here is battle-tested, except you. Everybody here has a quirk, except you. They can handle themselves, and they have the yakuza boss outnumbered seven to one – and if things wind up, it’s your job to settle them down.

Overhaul wears a mask over the lower half of his face, and thin white gloves on both hands. Is his quirk in his hands, like Tomura’s is? He’s peering up at Tomura and the rest of you, only the barest spark of interest in his eyes. “So this is where you’ve been hiding. I expected a little more.”

“It takes some time for an organization to adjust following a change in leadership,” Tomura says. “I’m sure you understand.”

Overhaul inclines his head. “Of course. Still, I expected more from All For One’s student.”

His voice is dry, almost inflectionless. Tomura chuckles. “And yet you’re coming to me, not the other way around. Explain that.”

Overhaul’s eyes started on Tomura. Now they’re shifting, from Magne and Spinner and Dabi on one side to Compress and Toga and Twice on the other. Then back to Tomura. Then down to you. His eyes are still on you as he addresses Tomura again. “To my generation, your master was nothing more than a dark legend, but the elders believed we still had reason to fear him. It seems they were right.”

To fear him, not to fear Tomura. Overhaul’s not scared of Tomura, and he doesn’t seem worried about just how badly outnumbered he is. Your stomach clenches. “With All Might gone, the underworld is in chaos,” Overhaul continues. “And it’ll stay that way, so long as the question of who the next leader will be remains in doubt.”

“I’m the next leader.” Tomura’s confidence sounds unshakeable. “All Might fell because of the League’s actions. The heroes are rattled because of what we’ve done.”

He gestures at all of you. “We’ve got victories to our name. What have you got?”

“All Might didn’t fall. He was forced to retire. And it was by your master’s hand, not yours.” Overhaul’s gaze drifts across the League, lingering on each person for a few moments, you included. “Every time you’ve won, you’ve taken losses equal to or greater than the victory you’ve claimed. You still have outside help – you don’t look nearly as filthy as I’d expect for staying three weeks in a warehouse without running water – but it’s much less than you had before.”

“Congratulations. You have eyes.” Tomura’s voice is sharp. “But again – you came to us. Not the other way around. I’m the next leader. You can join me or you can stay out of my way.”

“Let’s assume you’re correct, and you are the next leader. What’s your goal?”

Tomura scoffs. “To expose the so-called heroic system for what it is, and bring it down.”

“How?”

The question rings out, and it’s met with silence. Too long of a silence. Tomura regroups, but not fast enough. “All Might –”

“One hero, who would have retired anyway. Others will come to take his place,” Overhaul says. “You have ideals, but ideals are useless without a plan. And I have a plan.”

Tomura’s jaw is clenched, and you see Spinner’s shoulders stiffen, see a blue spark flicker around Dabi’s fingers. Useless is never anything but inflammatory, and you know enough about the League at this point to know that almost all of them feel like they’ve been thrown away. You speak before anyone else can. “It’s nice that you have a plan,” you say to Overhaul. Nice isn’t the best word, but you’re thinking on your feet. “That’s less important than your goal. If your goal doesn’t align with ours, we should go our separate ways in peace.”

Overhaul studies you. “We do share a goal,” he says after a moment. “The destruction of the current system, and a return to the old ways. We can assist each other in that regard.”

“How?”

“My plan is sound, but my organization is small, with few flashy victories. In order to secure more support –”

“You want our name,” Tomura says. “Why should we loan it to you?”

Overhaul doesn’t answer him. “Put yourselves under me,” he says, and the League reacts exactly how you’d expect them to. Overhaul ignores them. “I’ll ensure you’re better taken care of than this. In exchange, you’ll reap the rewards of my plan to return to the old order.”

“And take orders from you?” Tomura’s voice is full of scorn. “I don’t think so.”

“It isn’t a request.” Overhaul shakes his head. “You lack the vision necessary to make your childish dreams a reality. Since your master didn’t teach you properly, it falls to someone else to rein you in.”

It’s not a request. If it’s not a request, it’s because he thinks he has the upper hand. Why does he think that? “Someone ought to rein you in,” Magne says. She’s on her feet, and a bolt of terror shoots through you. “I’ll put you in your place.”

She activates her quirk, and Overhaul’s yanked towards her from across the warehouse. It surprises him, but not enough. You see him yank off one of his sheer gloves, extend his hand, making contact with Magne’s forearm before her support item can strike the side of his head. He touches her, and then –

Spinner, Toga, and Twice all cry out, but it’s too late. You can barely make sense of what you’re seeing. Dabi looks up at you, shouts at you to do something, but Magne’s beyond your help, beyond anyone’s. Even if you had a healing quirk, you’d need something to heal, and the top half of Magne’s body is gone. All that’s left are her support items and her legs, which teeter horribly in place, twitching, before falling limply to the floor.

Everyone’s frozen – you, Dabi, even Tomura. The only person who moves is the person who’s close enough to contain the situation. Compress lunges forward. A gunshot rings out from somewhere, and you see his arm jerk as his hand makes contact with Overhaul. His quirk should contain Overhaul instantly, but nothing happens. Overhaul seizes him by the wrist with the same hand that killed Magne and blows his arm apart.

He screams, and the sound breaks your paralysis and Tomura’s at the same time. You both leap into motion, Tomura headed for Overhaul, you aiming for Compress, and for a few seconds, you’re running side by side. A second gunshot rings out, from the same direction as before. You know who they’re aiming at, whoever they are. You throw yourself forward, getting ahead of Tomura by a single step, and the bullet tears through your veil, sinks into your shoulder. It doesn’t hurt like you expected it to. It feels more like a sting.

There’s a third shot, but Tomura’s aware now. He dodges, closing the gap between himself and Overhaul, and you readjust your trajectory and race to Compress’s side.

The floor’s covered in his blood and Magne’s, but you drop to your knees at his side anyway. There’s an explosion somewhere in the offing, and for a moment, you’re dragged back to Kamino – but you aren’t there, and you’ve got a job to do. You pull your backpack from beneath the veil, unzip it, and start pressing sterile pads down over the open wound. Compress howls, tries to squirm away, but someone pins him in place. Spinner, who’s come to help. You don’t have even a second to thank him. Your entire world narrows down to finding a way to control the bleeding, to secure the bandages, to make sure the job Overhaul started isn’t finished on your watch.

You don’t see what happens with Overhaul. You hear pieces of it, enough to know that the Hassaikai is withdrawing for now, that Tomura killed one of them, that the not-a-request is still on the table and Overhaul fully expects Tomura to agree once he’s had time to think. And then he’s leaving. Overhaul is leaving, and Magne is dead – but Overhaul’s quirk isn’t what he did to Compress and Magne, is it? That can’t be it. If that was it, they’d call it something else. If that’s not all it is, is there something more he can do?

“Wait!” The words leave your mouth at a volume you didn’t expect, and Overhaul’s progress towards the hole he punched in the wall stops. He turns back to face you, and you seize the chance to speak before anyone else can stop you. “You can fix people, can’t you?”

Overhaul inclines his head. That’s as close to a yes as you’re going to get. You swallow hard. “Please,” you say, “bring Magne back.”

“Why should I do that?” Overhaul’s voice is flat. “He attacked first.”

“She did,” you admit.

“And Shigaraki killed one of my subordinates. Wouldn’t you say we’re even?”

“No,” you say. Overhaul tilts his head to one side, studying you. “You called the person Tomura killed a subordinate. Magne is our friend. We made a mistake, but you can save her. Please, bring her back.”

Don’t disagree with him, but make your point. Don’t look helpless, but hand him as much power as you can. Be respectful, deferential, but not submissive. Every de-escalation skill you’ve ever practiced flashes through your head, and it’ll all be useless if any of the other members of the League open their mouths, Tomura included. But they’re quiet, for once, and Overhaul’s still looking at you. What happens to Magne now is up to him – and up to you, if you’re able to convince him.

“If I bring him back, I leave a valuable piece in Shigaraki’s hands, and I’m not interested in rewarding bad behavior,” he says. You nod. He’s not saying no yet. As long as he hasn’t said no, there’s a chance. “So I’ll make you a deal. If you value his life so much, then I’ll bring him back – and you’ll leave him here for the police to find.”

Your stomach lurches. “Decide quickly,” Overhaul says, and finally, he looks away from you. “As the leader, Shigaraki, the choice is yours.”

Tomura doesn’t hesitate. “Bring her back.”

Overhaul walks past you without looking at you again, to the same spot where Magne’s legs and support item lay in a pool of blood. He peels his glove off his hand and touches the puddle of blood and tissue. You don’t know how to explain what he’s doing, except that he’s reassembling her body, piece by piece. Someone throws up – Spinner, who at least has the presence of mind to turn away from Compress before he does it. Compress, and his missing arm. Why didn’t you negotiate for that as well? You’re an idiot. You’re out of your mind, and Compress is still losing blood. Your job still isn’t done.

You don’t look up again until you’ve packed enough sterile pads onto the stump of Compress’s arm that they don’t bleed through instantly, and when you look up, you find the rest of the League gathered around, and Overhaul’s minions standing back, guarding the exits. Twice is melting down. Toga’s trying to console him, but she looks furious herself, and Dabi’s expression is masklike, frozen. Tomura crouches next to you. “How is he?”

“I’ve secured it for now, but he needs those arteries clamped off. Does law enforcement know his face?” You see Tomura shake his head out of the corner of your eye. “If we take the mask off and lose some of the costume, I can take him to the clinic. They won’t ask questions.”

Tomura nods once. “I’ve called Kurogiri. He’ll take you there. Can you stay with him?”

“We can’t stay here,” Dabi interrupts sharply, before you can finish saying yes. “Half the prefecture heard that explosion. Where are we supposed to go?”

“Back to the waystation.” Tomura answers before you can offer. You would have. He looks to you. “Meet us back there as soon as you can get away.”

Warp gates begin to appear, engulfing the other members of the League, and you start removing the identifying features of Compress’s costume. Hat, waistcoat, tie, mask, the one remaining glove. Now he just looks like a normal guy. A guy who’s had a really awful accident. You pack up your medical kit, put your backpack on, and start pulling Compress to his feet. He doesn’t resist, exactly. It’s more that he just doesn’t try. “Leave me here. I lost my arm. My quirk. There’s no point to anything anymore.”

You’ve lived your whole life without a quirk. It’s not the end of the world. Sometimes people with quirks say the dumbest things. You chalk it up to blood loss and decide to ignore it. “I’m not leaving you behind. We’re going to get you patched up and get back to the others.

The warp gate appears and you drag Compress through it, the two of you emerging in the alleyway behind the clinic. You barely remember to take off the veil and crown and tuck them away before you and Compress make it to the waiting room. All you can think about is how you failed to negotiate for Compress’s arm. All you can think about is how you had to leave Magne behind.

You figured it might be a while before you got back to your apartment, but you weren’t counting on all the complications – the clinic’s short-staffed, and in order to circumvent the policy about sending major trauma to the ER unless there’s no choice, you hop in to help and free up a nurse-practitioner with a quirk that helps blood clot to tend to Compress. Unsurprisingly, there are questions about how Compress got the injury. You don’t feel any shame in saying that a villain did it.

About four hours in, you get a phone call on the clinic’s phone. The person who initially answers it tells you it’s your sister, which sounds not-right – Isuzu doesn’t know where you work, and if she wanted to talk to you, she’d call your phone, not the clinic’s. You pick up the call and hear Toga’s voice on the other end. “Tomura-kun wants to talk to you,” she says. She sounds miserable. “Hang on.”

Tomura doesn’t sound much better than her. “How is he?”

“As good as he can be. Once he’s hemodynamically stable they’ll let him go.” You hear the questioning sound Tomura makes and define your terms. “Once his blood volume’s a little more compatible with life. How are things back there?”

“Fucked.” There’s a light thud. You imagine Tomura flopping back against the wall. “Twice hasn’t quit freaking out. Dabi and Spinner are climbing the fucking walls. Toga is – I don’t know what. You need to come back soon. I don’t know what to do.”

“As soon as I can. But you do know what to do.” You try to think. “Tell them that he won’t get away with this. That we’ll make sure he answers for it. Make them believe you.”

You think of what you’ve seen from the League so far, how they’ve gone from at each other’s throats that first night in the bar to ready to fight for each other now. It’s because of Tomura, because of who he is. “You’ve always known how to do that.”

Someone shouts for you down the hall – something about a patient who needs a pelvic exam. You wince. “I have to go. I’ll call when we’re ready for – wait, how are you calling me? Whose phone is this?”

“Yours. You left it on the kitchen table.”

You did. You’re not under suspicion, but you didn’t want to risk anybody tracking your phone’s location. “I’ll call when we’re ready for a pickup. Soon.”

“Soon.” Tomura hangs up, and you head down the hall to talk a patient into a pelvic exam they really don’t want.

The nurse-practitioner who was looking after Compress really doesn’t want to let him go, but you manage to talk her into it, and you and Compress make it back to the alley and through the warp gate to your apartment. The mood within the apartment is palpable. Sadness. Frustration. Fury. With the number of unstable personalities in the League, it’s a miracle that no one’s trashed the place yet.

Dabi is sprawled on the couch, but even he’s not so much of an asshole that he’d make Compress stand. He gets up, and once Compress is lying down, he climbs up to sit on the back of the couch instead. He peers down at Compress. “You look like hell.”

“So would you.” Compress looks pretty sickeningly pale. “I lost my arm and my quirk.”

“Your quirk?” 

“He touched Overhaul. It should have worked,” Spinner says. “But it was after he got shot with one of those.”

He points at the coffee table. There’s a bright-red capsule sitting there. You’d say it was a bullet, except for the fact that it’s tipped with a needle. “What is that?”

“We don’t know,” Tomura says. He’s sitting on your kitchen table, legs crossed, elbows on his knees. “We need to find out.”

“I heard three shots.” Toga’s voice drifts out of the kitchen. When you take a peek, you find she and Twice lying on their backs on the tiles. “One hit Mr. Compress and one missed Tomura-kun. What about the third one?”

You become aware, suddenly, of a sore spot on your shoulder. “I think that was me.”

“Right,” Spinner says. “You and Shigaraki both ran. I saw you get in front of him. What happened to your quirk?”

You look blankly at him. Is it really possible that the League doesn’t know you’re quirkless? Tomura wouldn’t have told him. It doesn’t matter to him. You glance to Tomura. Tomura nods once, and you take a deep breath. No matter how many times you say it, it never gets easier. “I don’t have one.”

It’s quiet for a second. “Twice,” Dabi says, “pay up.”

“No fair,” Twice protests. “You bet she had a lame quirk, not that she didn’t have one at all.”

“Having no quirk is probably better than having a lame quirk,” Spinner says. You’d argue, except you have a vague idea of the hell that heteromorphs go through, and if Spinner would rather have your problem than his, you’re not going to judge him for it. “Healing quirks are really rare anyway. And I’ve heard they burn through tons of mana.”

“Even if you had one, it’s not like you could make somebody’s arm grow back,” Toga says practically. “Or somebody’s –”

She trails off. You know what she’s thinking of, because you’re thinking of it, too – what happened to Magne, something so sudden and catastrophic that it would take a miracle or turning back time to fix. You got a miracle, but you lost Magne anyway. Her arrest was reported on the news while you were still at the clinic. In the silence that falls, Tomura climbs down from the kitchen table and steps into the center of the room. “Three days from now I’ll tell Overhaul that we’re accepting his offer,” he says. No one says a word. “When we respond to what he did, we need to respond decisively. That means we need more information. And we need to know more about this.”

He points at the bullet on the coffee table. “Starting tomorrow, Compress will test his quirk on the hour, every hour, to see how fast it returns.”

“It won’t return.”

“We don’t know that yet,” Tomura says. He looks around at the rest of you. “Compress’s injury and what happened to Magne won’t go unanswered. But our answer will be the final word. Does anyone disagree?”

There’s silence. Tomura turns away and climbs back onto the kitchen table, assuming the same position as before. You check one last time on your patient, note that he’s shivering, and find a blanket to drape over him. Dabi is peering through your closed blinds, down at the street; Spinner’s sprawled in one of your chairs, lost in thought. Kurogiri is wherever Kurogiri goes when Tomura doesn’t summon him. Now that you think about it, it’s strange that Tomura didn’t summon him for the meeting with Overhaul.

You have questions about that. But as much as your feelings are pulling you in Tomura’s direction, you know rationally that it’s Twice and Toga you need to check on first.

You have a feeling they won’t react well to you checking on them. You’re not their mom or their sister. You head into the kitchen with the excuse of making tea and step carefully around and over them, trying to think of a solid opening line. “If you guys want somewhere to sit, I’ll arm-wrestle Spinner over that armchair.”

“Hey!”

You don’t know why Spinner’s getting wound up. In an arm-wrestling contest between the two of you, you’d almost definitely lose. “Twice likes the floor better. It’s cool and welcoming,” Toga says. She doesn’t open her eyes. “Sorry I said I was your sister.”

“You should have said cousin.” Twice’s eyes are closed, too. “You two don’t look anything alike.”

“I was on the phone. They couldn’t see me.”

“Sister was the right call,” you say. “I only have one female cousin, and she’s a villain.”

“Really?” Toga sits up, interested, and Tomura looks up from the kitchen table. “Why isn’t she in the League?”

“I don’t know that she’s, um, in your league,” you say. “Have you guys ever heard of Gentle Criminal?”

“That guy? I’ve met him! He’s a tool,” Twice says cheerily. “We were locked up in the same holding cell one time. The first time he went to jail it was for trying to be a hero. Your cousin’s with him?”

“Yeah, she’s his sidekick. Or videographer. Or something.” You’re understating it slightly. “I’m pretty sure they’re a thing.”

“Like you and Tomura-kun?”

“Not like that,” Twice disagrees before you can say anything. “The boss is way cooler. Saintess has better taste.”

“Or higher standards,” Toga says. “Or both.”

“What are their quirks?” Tomura asks. He slides down from the kitchen table and comes closer. “Could we use them?”

“I’m not sure about his. Hers – I don’t think so.” Your family thought Manami was quirkless for a while. When her quirk popped up late in primary school, they were thrilled. “None of my family are power types. All their quirks do is change things about other people – like status effects in a video game. My dad can change how people perceive time, so time-out really sucked when I was a kid. My youngest sisters can make people feel the same emotions they feel, which is terrible.”

Tomura makes a disgusted sound. “That’s worse than the twins.”

It’s not great, but on the whole, you’d rather deal with the triplets. “Those are all broad-spectrum. Manami – my cousin – her quirk is a power-up, but it only lets her affect one person. The person she loves the most. So unless her boss’s quirk is something really special, I don’t think they’d be much use.”

That’s true, but only halfway. You don’t want your cousin mixed up with the League. You don’t want anyone you know involved with them. You and Manami were pretty close, since you were the only quirkless ones in the family at for a while, and it was her running away to join Gentle Criminal that inspired you to shake off your parents and follow your own dream. You haven’t talked to her since, but ever since you found yourself a member of the League, you’ve thought about her more than usual. Wondering if she’s happy. Hoping she found what she was looking for, whatever it was. Praying she doesn’t get hurt.

The tea finishes steeping. Green tea. You remember Tomura likes that. You pass a cup to him, then down to Toga, and watch with no small sense of relief as Twice sits up for one of his own. When you look up, you find that Spinner’s come over, too. Once you’ve given him a cup, you call out to Dabi and Compress. “Do either of you want tea?”

Compress says no. Dabi, to your shock, says yes. “I’ll bring it to him,” Toga says. She hops up from the floor, takes the cup you pour, and brings it over to him at the window. When she comes back, she sits on the counter instead of the floor, and she focuses on you. “How many siblings do you have?”

“Seven.”

Toga looks surprised. “That’s even more than me,” she says. “Are you the oldest? You seem like the oldest.”

Not by much, but enough to count. Enough to make sure your childhood ended before it began. “How did you know?”

“Nobody starts out good enough to be a Saintess,” Toga says with a shrug. “You have to learn it somewhere. I’m the oldest, too. But I was never very good at that part.”

You have to learn it somewhere. You’ve never heard someone say that before, but now that you think about it, it’s true. You wouldn’t have gotten so good at keeping things calm, at smoothing things over, if you hadn’t had to. If tamping down your feelings, controlling the negative ones by any means possible, hadn’t been a necessity in your family, you wouldn’t have done it. It’s a personality trait, but not one you were born with. For a split second, you wonder who you would have been if you hadn’t grown up the way you did – and then you realize that you know. The lessons you learned set in before the triplets were born, but long before. The person you would have been is who you were with your best friend.

You push the thought aside. “How many siblings do you have?” you ask Toga. “Did you get along?”

She says yes, which makes sense. She’s outgoing compared to the rest of the League, and just like you learned from your family, she learned from hers. Spinner surprises everybody when he chimes in about his family, too – he’s a middle child, with one older brother and one younger sister. Tomura doesn’t add anything, but that doesn’t surprise you. He stays at the edge of the conversation, listening, and you keep one eye on him and one on Twice. If you wait long enough, you have a feeling Twice will talk about what’s bothering him.

You’re right about that. He speaks up in the next lull in the conversation. “I wish Magne was here,” he says. “She’s the only big sister I ever had.”

It’s quiet for a little while. Twice’s voice is small when he speaks again. “It’s my fault. I brought him there.”

“Nobody blames you,” Spinner says. “He lied. It’s what villains do.”

Nobody steps in to point out to Spinner that he’s also a villain, and something clicks in your head: The League thinks Overhaul is more of a villain than they are. Having seen what Overhaul did, you’re not going to argue. “He lied,” Tomura agrees. “Unless you have a mind-reading quirk we didn’t know about, there’s no way you could have known what he was planning.”

“Big Sis wouldn’t blame you.” Toga pokes Twice in the shoulder with her foot. “So you shouldn’t blame you, either.”

“And she’s still alive,” Tomura adds. “We’ll deal with Overhaul, and then we’ll break her out of wherever the heroes are keeping her. It’s not anything close to over.”

The situation seems like it’s resolving, sort of, and you have other stuff to do. You finish your tea, then make your way out of the kitchen. If you’re going to be responsible for caring for Compress’s injuries, you need to make sure you have the necessary supplies. And there’s blood all over your costume. You should probably change. When you shut the door to your room and peel off the tunic, it sticks to you, which is when you realize that your skin is covered with dried blood, too. It’s all over you, and the sight reminds you of something you wish the memory wipe had cleared away – what happened in the wreckage of Tenko’s house, when you tripped and fell and sprawled out in what was left of a member of his family.

You need to clean up. You need to clean up right now. You strip out of your clothes on the way to the shower, turn the water on hot, and throw yourself in before it’s even started warming up.

The cold water isn’t enough to freeze out the memory, and the hot water can’t burn it away. It’s your turn to throw up in the bathroom, and you do, on your hands and knees in the shower, trusting the water to cover up the sound. Your head is spinning again, between Magne’s death and Compress’s injury and getting shot and getting Magne back and outing yourself as quirkless and getting a new name – a new name, like a villain, like your cousin Manami except you’re all but useless to the villain you serve – and hosting the League for the next three days, and getting shot. You keep forgetting that you got shot. You keep forgetting how it happened.

It’s been clear for a while that you put Tenko above yourself, in a lot of ways. His memory above your sanity. His mission above your integrity. His needs over your pain. But today was the first time you actually put Tenko’s life over your own. Sure, the gun had quirk-canceling bullets instead of real ones, but you didn’t know that when you heard the first shot. You heard the first shot, knew who the second one would be aimed at, and threw yourself in front of him. And you did it without hesitating.

You don’t like thinking about that. You don’t like looking at it, either, once you’re out of the shower, wrapped in a towel and trying to patch it back up. It’s not a bullet hole – more like a puncture wound, angry and inflamed, with jagged red lines emanating from the impact point. You don’t like looking at it so much that you leave dealing with it for last, patching up yesterday’s injuries and getting most of the way dressed before finally facing up to it. You’re just deciding whether to use spray disinfectant or antibiotic cream when someone knocks on the door. “Just a second,” you say, and the door opens anyway. It pisses you off. “Out. If you can’t give me a second –”

The door shuts again, and a moment later, Tenko appears in the mirror behind you. His eyes are fixed on the wound in your shoulder, and without asking, he lifts the supplies out of your hands and gets to work. He does with the Neosporin over the antiseptic spray. In general, you’re pretty stoic about pain, but the spot where the quirk-canceling bullet struck feels like the worst bruise you’ve ever gotten, combined with an ache in your shoulder and arm that almost feel like you’ve got the flu. You flinch from Tenko’s touch. “Careful.”

“Sorry.” Tenko’s hands are barely touching you. It just hurts. Now that you’ve let yourself admit it, you have to admit that it hurts a lot. “This was stupid. Don’t do it again.”

Your stomach clenches. It’s not like you were expecting him to thank you, but – “It was necessary. We’d have been in big trouble without your quirk. And I’m your sidekick. My job is to –”

“Have my back. Help me. Be with me.” Tenko looks up from his work, makes eye contact with you in the mirror. “We’re supposed to win together. You’re not supposed to die for me. I never let that happen.”

Even when you were little, you were a little too realistic for the games you and Tenko played. Sometimes you’d imagine yourselves into a corner you couldn’t see a way out of, and in those cases, you’d try to say your goodbyes – and Tenko never let you. If I can’t save my own sidekick, how will I save anyone else? “Those were just games.”

“And now they’re real. Nothing else has changed.” Tenko’s much more careful than usual as he bandages your shoulder. “Did you get the other ones?”

You nod. And while the two of you are here, he’s got wounds you need to check. You unwrap the bandage without asking, just like he did, and inspect the scratches. For injuries incurred last night, they don’t look so bad, and you pick up into the same routine as before. There’s something almost comforting about the pattern you’ve fallen into with Tenko, of tending to each other no matter where the wounds came from. It settles your nerves, slows down the frantic spinning of your mind. This is why you’re here. To be with Tenko. And you are, so what does the rest of it matter?

You’ve just put the panic in its place when Tenko speaks up. “Don’t do it again,” he says. “Say you won’t.”

“I won’t,” you say. The words roll off your tongue easily enough, but they feel wrong, and it’s not until Tenko kisses you that you understand why. All this time, he hasn’t lied to you. Whether he’s Tenko or Tomura, he tells you the truth. You’ve just lied to him for the first time ever, selling it so smoothly that he can’t help but believe you, and it feels awful.

It’s not the worst part, though. The worst part is that you’re not sorry.

[dustedmagazine]

Listening Post: Gastr Del Sol

Photo by James Crump

Gastr Del Sol was the convergence of two individuals who had not spent their youths like anyone else and were on their way to lives quite unlike most lives. Between 1991 and 1998 David Grubbs and Jim O’Rourke made a sequence of records that simultaneously pointed out what a lot of music listeners were missing and where music might go next if it was really interested in being interesting. Grubbs came from Louisville, Kentucky’s hardcore scene; he played in Squirrel Bait while he was in high school, and took Bastro with him to college. Jim O’Rourke grew up tracking down recordings from the far reaches of every fringe and then setting about making his own place within each method he learned. Before he was out of college, he’d already made connections with Henry Kaiser, Derek Bailey and the folks at Ina GRM. Each was a guy who knew what the other did not, and their collaboration pushed both to make music that they would never make again with anyone else.

Gastr Del Sol began when Grubbs decided to let Bastro get quiet, and made one LP before O’Rourke came aboard. Their first album together, Crookt, Crackt, Or Fly, was assembled from miniaturized poetry, elongated post-punk riffs, frozen improvisation and fluid, texturally-focused compositions. Their last, Camofleur, is a droll pop statement completed just weeks prior to the collapse of the duo’s relationship. The acrimony between them took a couple of decades to die down, but around the same time that they buried the hatchet, a live recording of their final concert surfaced. We Have Dozens Of Titles shuffles together that performance plus every compilation, single, or EP track that Gastr Del Sol released outside their core Drag City discography.

Intro by Bill Meyer

Jonathan Shaw: I have admired Gastr del Sol from a sort of distance. I like “At Night and At Night,” from the terrific Hey Drag Citycomp; I know Upgrade & Afterlife quite well and dearly love “Dry Bones in the Valley...”, the Fahey cover collab with Tony Conrad. The first song on this new-ish record sidles in alongside those wooden textures, but is a more anxious affair. I like that it never quite boils over or takes its propulsive energies to catharsis. It’s sort of a complement to the conversation with the French kid blowing up firecrackers at the track’s close: it can’t quite move forward, in spite of all of the things that want it to.

That’s also a handy metaphor for my relationship to the music. When I have listened to Crookt, Cracked..., I get the sense that these are really, really smart folks, doing some smart stuff, but I haven’t quite connected with and moved into the sounds. They can be forbiddingly remote. So, I am glad for this record, and its invitation to revisit the band’s trajectory.

Bill Meyer: Each record is so different that I can easily see someone liking one and not likening others, and if you held a gun to my head, Upgrade & Afterlife is the one I would name as my favorite. Which makes it all the more interesting that this collection spans their existence from O’Rourke’s first presence (the Teenbeat single — and it’s pretty amazing that they ended up on that label) to the very last concert (that trip is probably when the encounter with the Francophone child occurred, since the concert was in Quebec).

By virtue of its length and timespan, We Have Dozens Of Titles shows more sides of Gastr Del Sol than any other record.

Bryon Hayes: I think that’s one of the band’s traits that I find appealing, that their sound and approach shifted from record to record. “At Night and At Night” was my introduction to the band, and it also seems to encapsulate multiple faces of Gastr Del Sol in a single track: a drone intro, followed by a guitar/poetry passage, and then a dollop of minimalism accompanied by backwards cymbal splashes. I bought Hey Drag City for Pavement, Silver Jews, and Smog but was introduced to some new and intriguing sounds across the whole of the comp. That track, and Gastr Del Sol as a whole, always felt like a riddle or a logic puzzle to me, albeit one that continuously changed, so it wasn’t possible to “solve” it. But I actually like that fact: the thrill of the act of investigating is pure enjoyment itself.

I never did get to experience Gastr Del Sol in a live setting, so those tracks on We Have Dozens of Titles are particularly revelatory for me. I like the more stripped-down setting of “The Seasons Reverse,” for example. Maybe even more than the version on Camofleur. I’d also bet that the field recording of the kids came from Victoriaville. The town is far enough into Quebec that it’s likely there was a language barrier between O’Rourke and the local youth at the time. Also, the drawn-out version of “Blues Subtitled No Sense of Wonder” feels much fuller and richer in the live setting than it does on Camofleur. I’m not saying I dislike that album, but I too would pick Upgrade & Afterlife as my favorite...

Bill Meyer: Because I lived in the same town as Gastr Del Sol, I was fortunate to see them a lot. The concerts were pretty different from one another, and didn’t always sound much like the most recently released record. When they played with John McEntire, things could be more rock-ish, and I have one fond memory of them getting pretty wild with the feedback. Afterwards O’Rourke seemed embarrassed, like he’d lost control and done the wrong thing. There was room for spontaneity, but they were not an improv act. In 1997 they did lock into the two guys with two acoustic guitars thing for a while, probably because they had a fair number of out-of-town gigs in their later years; they didn’t necessarily want to lug a lot of gear around.

Another aspect of living in the same town with them was seeing the other things they had going. O’Rourke could often be seen accompanying someone whose work he championed (ex: Rafael Toral), and they both played with Red Krayola (although O’Rourke bailed for a while and Grubbs kept going), Edith Frost, and Arnold Dreyblatt.

Jonathan Shaw: Never saw the band, and the live material on this comp is what’s impressing me most. Given my proclivities toward their work with acoustic guitars, I am most compelled by “Onion Orange,” which works a space between gentle and tense to very satisfying effect. The repetitive sequence of notes in that initial six-or-so minutes is really engaging; it invites anticipation, flirts with letting that become apprehension. I can imagine that would be even more powerful in a real room, with the players really making the noises in front of you. But even here, via the mp3 I am playing on a device, it’s strong stuff.

Bill Meyer: I still need to a-b that with the original on Grubbs’ solo album.

That album, Banana Cabbage, Potato Lettuce, Onion Orange, seems not to be on Bandcamp, and Table of the Elements is long defunct. I’ll have to pull out my CD and play it. On the original edition, Grubbs plays everything, but O’Rourke recorded two of the album’s three tracks. I remember it being very still, a Grubbs take on Morton Feldman. What you hear in this live performance, Jonathan, is probably what makes me think I like this new version better than the original. There’s a management of tension that probably comes from two people playing it together in real time.

The way that We Have Dozens Of Titles is sequenced, with live tracks littered throughout the collection, makes it easy to forget that we’re hearing a complete set here.

Ian Mathers: There’s a relatively well-known tweet (for those of us that are too online, at least) where a guy who’s only ever seen one movie sees a second and immediately compares it to his only experience. As someone who’s never heard Gastr del Sol before (although they’ve lingered somewhere on my impossibly long “get to this someday” list) and only really knows Jim O’Rourke’s work via his Bad Timing album, I had my own “Getting a lot of ‘Boss Baby’ vibes from this...” moment playing the opening live version of “The Seasons Reverse.” The guitar playing there immediately put me in mind of Bad Timing, which isn’t a bad thing! I was slightly relieved when this compilation pretty immediately shows off different aspects of his and Grubbs’ sound, even in the other live tracks.

And while I did enjoy all of We Have Dozens of Titles, enough so that I’m wondering based on the comments here which of their albums I should check out next, the live tracks do feel like a cut above everything else. I’m probably going to try listening to just them, and while I respect the choice to scatter them throughout this release despite being one show (do we have any idea if they preserved the order of the setlist, or jumbled that up as well as splitting them up?) there is a part of me that wishes it was a separate release. Which is kind of silly, I know — absolutely nothing is stopping me from just playing the live stuff whenever I want, and I’m very glad to have the rest of the material here. My first question for those more knowledgeable: is the album version of “Blues Subtitled No Sense of Wonder” as amazing as the live one here, and should I make that my next stop?

Bill Meyer: If you like the live version of “Blues Subtitled No Sense of Wonder,” you definitely need to check out the studio version. For that reason, I’d point you to Camofleur and then suggest that you work your way backwards through the catalog.

Bryon Hayes: The album version has beautiful vocal harmonies with lyrics that are dryly humorous; the title of the box set is derived from them, actually. The music on the box set version feels fuller and louder than that on the album, the electronics bolder and noisier, accompanied by rich organ tones. Also, that interlude of shouted movie dialogue (or whatever it is), is not in the Camofleur version. Both are appealing, but I enjoy the live version slightly more. If Grubbs sang on the live version, it might be the clear winner for me.

Ian Mathers: Interesting, thanks for the tips! If I’m remembering correctly, there’s no vocals on this collection for at least a while, and I was slightly nonplussed when they came in; not bad, certainly, but it felt slightly out of place with the music. (I was working while listening, which might be the culprit there.) I’ll be interested to A/B the two versions and see what I think.

Bill Meyer: I just drove past the Lyon & Healy building at Lake and Ogden, which prompts the question — what do you make of “The Harp Factory On Lake Street”?

Jonathan Shaw: I sort of like it when there are vocals — in part because of the poetic nature of what’s sung (see “Rebecca Sylvester” on Upgrade & Afterlife), in part because it feels grounding in musical contexts that frequently get very abstract.

Bill Meyer: I like the way you frame that, Jonathan. Grubbs’ words do have a way of anchoring part of the music, bringing a sonic fixedness that contrasts with the music around them, but also introducing an uncertainty of their own because of their sometimes-oblique content.

Roz Milner: I’ve just been lurking this thread. I’m not familiar with this group, although I do like what little Jim O’Rourke’s music I’ve heard (Bad Timing, Happy Days). Any recommendations on where to start with them?

Tim Clarke: I’d start with Camoufleur, which is easily their most accessible album. I have a bit of an uneasy relationship with Gastr Del Sol. I got into them soon after I became obsessed with Jim O’Rourke’s Eureka, but it was quite a shift in tone from that album. I do enjoy Camoufleur a lot, and the album versions of “The Seasons Reverse” and “Blues Subtitled No Sense of Wonder” are, in my opinion, far superior to the live versions on We Have Dozens of Titles.

Gastr Del Sol are quintessentially experimental, in that much of their music sounds so open-ended, as though O’Rourke and Grubbs are constantly wondering what x would sound like played at the same time as y, whether it’s an open, suspended acoustic guitar voicing alongside a sour synthesizer drone, or some piano with some field recordings or samples. Upgrade & Afterlife actually freaks me out! The first time I listened to it after buying it from Rough Trade in London, I couldn’t venture past the opening track as a massive gnarly insect flew in through my open window while I was listening to it on a spring evening. It scared me so much I don’t think I’ve revisited the album since. There are moments on We Have Dozens of Titles that are truly magical, so I think I’ll have to get over my fear and revisit Upgrade & Afterlife after all this time.

Christian Carey: The timing of this release is interesting. David Grubbs was just appointed Distinguished University Professor by CUNY, the highest faculty distinction possible. In addition, he was just awarded the Berlin Prize, and will be in residence there next year. Wonder if the awards might have helped to fund the recording project.

Jonathan Shaw: Distinguished Prof at CUNY — pretty swell. Makes sense. Some of Gastr del Sol’s headiest stuff has the feel of the “experimental,” and in ways that engage the connotations of knowledge and concept in that term (which often gets used lightly and lazily, IMHO). That might have something to do with why I like the live tracks so much. There’s an organic quality to them. Still thorny and challenging music, like the ebbs and flows that make “Dictionary of Handwriting” disorienting and strange. But it’s happening. It’s made, not just thought or assembled.

Jennifer Kelly: Once again, not super immersed in this band, though I had a copy of Crookt, Crackt or Fly at one time, which I can’t find and don’t remember very well, though I’m listening to it on YouTube right now, and the combination of Grubbs’ wandering vocals and aggressive, stabbing guitars seems familiar-ish. So, coming to this a bit cold, though I’ve enjoyed Grubbs’ more recent work with Ryley Walker and Jan St. Werner — and there are definitely some common threads. Nonlinearity, an elastic sense of key and rhythm, a haunted room kind of aesthetic.

I found this track-by-track exposition at the Quietus, which I was trying to read as the songs came up and it’s quite good. I especially liked the paragraphs about “The Bells of St. Mary’s,” written for what sounds like a truly bizarre Christmas comp with Merzbow and Melt Banana on it. Gastr del Sol’s lone concession to the holiday form was sleigh bells, though Grubbs says the main reference was to “I Wanna Be Your Dog” not “Jinglebells.”

Anyway, you might enjoy this.

Tim Clarke: In addition to the Quietus piece, this recent podcast interview is also very enlightening in regard to the history of the band. A rare opportunity to hear Jim O’Rourke chat lightheartedly too.

Having spent more time with the album now, I realize that my listening gets derailed by a couple of Grubbs’ and O’Rourke’s tendencies with this music. The first is when Grubbs does a kind of scat singing that follows the spiky contours of the acoustic guitar parts. And the second is when they retreat into near silence.

Bill Meyer: Near-silence is an O’Rourke strategy to make sure that the volume is set high enough when you get to the loud part.

Christian Carey: I’m curious what connections to later projects people hear in the recording. As TJ mentioned, there are some mannerisms that seem to forecast avant moves by both Grubbs and O’Rourke, with greater assuredness in the idiom. The post-rock vibe is unmistakable, and I am finding the songs with connections to Tortoise et. al. to be the most compelling music-making here.

Bill Meyer: Re: similarities with Tortoise, it’s worth keeping in mind that John McEntire of Tortoise was also a member of Bastro and a key non-member contributor to Gastr Del Sol. Re: the term post-rock, I appreciate the irony that Gastr Del Sol was actually O’Rourke’s entree into rock following years of intense work in improvisation, musique concrete, etc. with people like Henry Kaiser, Eddie Prevost, Christoph Heemann and Illusion of Safety. It was his “I’m almost ready to rock" project.

Ian Mathers: Roz, if you still haven’t settled on a way to check out Gastr del Sol, I was in a similar position to you and honestly, I found this compilation a pretty welcoming (and broad-ranging) introduction! I haven’t moved on to checking out any of their albums yet, but I have played We Have Dozens of Titles a number of times, and while I’m still experiencing it more as a gestalt than I am picking out specific elements (so I��m not sure how I’d answer Christian’s question at the moment, for example), I find the time just slipping away when I do. I was reading Steven Thomas Erlewine’s newsletter recently where he was discussing this collection and he described Gastr del Sol as “music that changes the temperature of the room,” and I keep coming back to that as an apt description of what I’m experiencing.

Bryon Hayes: I read somewhere that Grubbs’ The Plain Where the Palace Stood is his solo album most similar to his work in Gastr Del Sol. I’m listening to that record now and it actually reminds me of the little Bastro that I’ve heard along with parts of The Serpentine Similar.

Bill Meyer: Gastr Del Sol’s existence corresponded with Grubbs’ time at University of Chicago, where he was getting his PhD. I believe it was in poetry, and the words he wrote for the band’s songs reflect that study.

Christian Carey: I've been having fun poring over David Grubbs’ trilogy of books and guessing which stories might be about Gastr del Sol. He's excellent at being covert, but I would be surprised if they weren't featured in some of his writing.

[x-birdsong-x]

Curious what you have to say about Adams

Edit: speed-rewrote/rearranged this at 10pm in a burst of anxiety-driven rambling because my coursework started up again. posted it as is because i probably need to take a break and it's been in my drafts for a few weeks. there's not really an ending here this is one big post with me rambling about my underdeveloped blorbo

I've rambled at my buddy @/willowpelt about Adams for weeks now n I think any of my House moots know how very autistic I am about her,,,,

Adams is stubborn. And petty. And sheltered. She's short-tempered and avoidant and nowhere near as trusting as she likes to think/say she is. She does not make it easy to get along with her.

Her moods are about as reactive as early-season Chase, the closest any later character ever gets to being similar to that; the smallest thing can set her off and she's snapping at everyone like a cornered cat for the rest of the day (god knows what made her angry in the first place half the time). She can get physically destructive when she's angry enough and refuses to get physically destructive when she's angry enough until her upgraded dad tells her to and gets her a rage room to destroy with a baseball bat. Her reaction to House asking if she's still angry before that is to shut up and stare at him. She swings between Fight and Freeze depending on the situation. The one time she reads House even mostly correctly is when she tells him he took the first deal anyone offered him Because He Wanted To Punish Himself. The only time she even near-successfully lies to House (or Chase) is when she is lying about her family, and Adams is Not A Good Liar. She can not lie to House or Chase or even Foreman to save her life.

She's completely Insane in ep 1 and is drastically toned down after that for literally no reason -- She gets attached to House before he gets attached to her and within two minutes of him calling her a dumbass she decides he's her Free Dad Upgrade and she'll never listen to anyone else ever again. She spends a good few seconds just pouting at him and then sulks for a good few hours when she finds out he briefly (indirectly) lied and then drops it completely when she's done. She gives him Vicodin when she's already on incredibly thin ice with her actual boss- and she doesn't like being in trouble here. She gets herself fired doing House's test and still finds a way to get a note smuggled into solitary just to tell him he was right. She's happy to meet up (for what she thought wasn't even work) with him when he first contacts her before ep 3 and sticks around from there.

Ep 5 is where she and Park are dramatically watered down even further just so Chase and Taub can play House-translators in a way that wasn't at all necessary given the way it's done covers misunderstanding House in ways Park and Adams literally never did.

And then there's ep 6. I project on Adams like a little whiteboard. I get mad when I think about her parents. Icicles by the scary jokes most Adams song of all time

This

Was Not

Her Fault

"You took the first deal they offered you because you wanted to punish yourself" is the only time she accurately reads House, the only time she almost manages to lie to any of them is when she's lying about her family. House spends their interactions this episode poking his second-to-newest daughter with a stick, as he does, and it gets little to nothing out of her except that her parents totally didn't do anything

When she does give him an answer, she starts it, and only when she has the opening to tell him He's Wrong, it was All Her Fault.

Honestly Adams would need years of therapy even if she hadn't had another episode after this (And Parents wasn't even her assigned episode, it was mostly Taub's)

The way Adams carries this around is genuinely so fucked up. Your sixteen-year-old with anger issues did a majorly impulsive thing. Something snapped and she went missing for two months and got into a very confusing very Not Good situation. She's not the type of person to have told them where she was- or at least where she stayed- while she was gone but I literally don't care if she didn't tell her parents that part of it I literally don't care if she got home and said she just stayed with a friend you can not tell your kid that She Did A Bad Thing that It Was All Her Fault that You Can't Believe She Did That that She Was Always The Problem There that She Caused All That Trouble to the point she believes it so strongly to the point she carries so much guilt so much desperation for absolution that when a kid who did the same thing who is the same age she was shows up she spends every second of it making everything worse by going This Is How It Has To Be This Is What You Need To Do Next

Runaways my beloved mess.

Why is this character-driven episode stuffed full of everything they needed to get into the season before Nobody's Fault/Chase covered months in-universe? Why are we following House running around without his ankle monitor all on-screen? Why is he taking the whole team with him to all these places? Why is Wilson here to say House is protecting Callie because he feels a connection with her but House never interacts with Callie at all past the opening? Why wasn't Foreman's relationship with Anita put in the episode before this - where it would've fit infinitely better because a point there was the patient's wife having feelings for her friend? Also I swear to god that reveal of Foreman going to that boxing match with House at the end of Parents did more for Foreman and House's relationship than any of this here.

Why is Chase so out of character and/or non-existent?

In context this one was Callie lying to keep covering up what her mom was really like, but this still feels ooc for Chase to me. Once they know about it, Callie's home life before she left is more fitting to Chase's situation with his mom and his sister than any other patient Chase has ever been matched up with and the one line he directly gets about Callie at all implies he doesn't believe her?

The most in-character thing Chase does in one of his so few significant appearances in this ep is be brutal when Adams tries (again) to go to him for reassurance/advice.

Chase doesn't ever hold back with her and I find it funny

The way Adams was handled here could have really worked if the episode had focused on what it was meant to focus on - if this one episode hadn't been used to scramble to tie up these other things pre-Nobody's Fault - if this other stuff wasn't taking up So Much Time in Someone Else's Assigned Episode.

I rewrite Runaways for fun- one version generally and one Much more self-indulgent version for the Warrior Cats AU because taking how Adams is handled in Parents - even moreso if they'd let her stay Crazy like she was in ep 1 - it could have worked as well to have had her be the one causing trouble through basically acting the way House does in the canon version of the ep, motivated by keeping Callie away from her mother, rather than causing trouble by doing what is, for Callie, the opposite of what she needs/wants.

Callie is given such a hard time here and Adams actually leads to multiple of those hard times but Callie still talks to her about Everything. Callie latches on to Adams as her safe person and looks for her opinion specifically when it only gets her nowhere and gives detailed versions of why she left/how she feels about her mother to Adams alone. They're so firewatcher's daughter to me,, nothing scares me more than the stranger at my door who I fail to give shelter time and worth

These two were the perfect matchup,, House read Callie like a book within minutes of first meeting her. He had this exact theory about her before he said it out loud. She's avoidant and stubborn and initially doesn't trust any of them. She swings between Fight and Say Nothing.

Callie at sixteen reached a breaking point with her family and ran away, got into (for her personally) a better situation, and then runs away again to get out of the hospital when the chance of being sent back home comes with it.

House read Adams like a book within the first day of knowing her (given he mentions noticing her getting bored in the three months she's been there - he'd done so much earlier than that without even talking to her). She's avoidant and stubborn and a whole lot less trusting than she thinks she is. She's Fight or Shut Up.

Adams at sixteen reached a breaking point with her family and ran away, got into an even worse situation, and then ran away from that to get out of it when going back home became the clear better(safer) option (and that really fucks with your mind when all you're told is that you did something wrong in the first place)

Adams blames herself for everything that went on when she was sixteen. She doesn't look back on any of it and see a reason for her leaving that she doesn't see as play stupid games win stupid prizes. But Callie's not doing that - She's found more stability away from home than she had at home, she's going to school, she still sees her friends, she's living on her own and knows what she's doing and where she wants to go even with the pushed-down emotions toward such a severed attachment to her mom.

Lightly counting the tiny retelling she starts here is watered down with the brightness turned up (succeeded by her being surprised that Callie still goes to school):

The way Adams responds to Callie is so much of her echoing. She spends this whole episode projecting right down to you think her mother wants to feel responsible for her daughter's problems?

It's you could at least let her in the room it's she's your mom and she's finally acting like it it's your mom knows she messed up and she's determined not to do it again and beyond the existing conflict Callie is upset that her parent is not listening to her(me too girl)

Adams' parents did something to make her snap before she ran away

And that Rebellious Phase is something Adams never really lost?? She's completely insane in ep 1. She and Park do a test House didn't want, she tries (and fails) at lying to Foreman for cover for House, she destroys a whole room with a baseball bat with only House telling her she's allowed to in ep 4. In Nobody's Fault she and Chase do a test House didn't want. Ep 18 she gives the kid a treatment House didn't want. She's yes a bit of a pain in Chase. She's stubborn as all hell in (parts of) Post Mortem and Runaways itself. Ep 8 and others she's just,, in One Of Her Moods.

Callie's actually fitting in some way for each of the team. Adams - ^^^ I'm autistic about them / Chase - caring for addict mom while just being a child himself. Dad unavailable in some way. Runaways is Adams' episode, but hell if Chase isn't actually involved in my rewrites / House - mentioned in the episode by Wilson / Taub - still adjusting to being a dad, struggling to feel an attachment to his kids and Callie is mentioned to have been closer to her dad than her mom / Park - Devotion to family / It's mad how Callie is (at least one of) the most developed patient(s) in the season even when the episode spends so much time on irrelevant stuff.

And with that - and again the way Adams is handled in Parents - The way Adams was handled here actually could've fit better for Park given that devotion to family and how they responded to the patient having left his family in ep 3:

vs.

I dunno. Have Adams cause trouble by pushing back at everyone who mentions getting Callie's mom involved.

That said I actually love Adams' last scene in Runaways I'm a complete sucker for the tone of these scenes (Parents, Runaways). Callie's parallels with Adams continue. House again tells Adams she's super fucked up. House tells Adams he doesn't care if she's fucked up. Adams has another crushing sense of unfinished business relating to that part of her life.

I'm obsessed with her. She's soaking up all my trauma like a sponge. I don't even remember when I first got so attached. She should be allowed to hit her dad with a baseball bat.

Adams also tells Chase she's seeing a trauma counselor post-Nobody's Fault and in the words of Willowpelt: "her therapist has it cut out for them and Adams doesn't even know it"

[dextixer]

The ending of Volume 9 proves that RWBY is not about hope or acceptance, it is about meritless wish fulfillment.

Often have the topics of "consequences", of RWBY having "protagonist centered morality" and many other discussions surrounding team RWBY, and the plots inability to ever show them as being wrong. They might fail, but they are never wrong, and anyone who disagrees with them is instantly the enemy.

A lot of Fantasy stories at the end of the day are about hope. They are about the hero defeating a great evil and saving the day. This can take many forms, but unless a story truly aims for a tragedy or a more grimdark setting, hope always remains almost a constant companion to such stories.

The heroes fail, sometimes due to the enemy, sometimes due to their own failures, othertimes due to things that are outside their control. They can lose hope, and in fact, many stories traditionally have characters lose hope in their darkest hour. Only for it to be a set-up to some kind of an uplifting scene, or even an arc during which hope is restored.

Many fans of RWBY love to claim that RWBY is about hope, and admonish us critics for being "mean" or wanting a grimdark story. What these fans fail to realize however is something very simple...

What they are seeing is wish fulfillment.

In the last episode of V9, after Ruby reaches her lowest point. What is she told? That she is perfect the way she is. That everyone fails at some point. Ordinarily that would not be a bad lesson. But the thing with failure is that while it is inevitable, if the failure is caused by ones own actions that means that a mmistake was made, that a person is NOT perfect.

When in Volume 4, Ruby got Qrow stabbed by Tyrion by interfering in a fight that Qrow HIMSELF told her not to get into. Was she perfect? No. She made a mistake. But it was a mistake that came out of her selfish desire to play hero.

When in Volume 6 Ruby decided to steal an airship instead of doing literally anything else. Was that her being perfect? No. She made a mistake. A mistake that once again came out of a selfish desire, this time because she was told "No".

When in Volume 7 Ruby is trusted completely and utterly and given anything she wished for, a license, training from pros, upgrades to weaponry, unconditional trust of plans of national security. Only to then go out of her way to hide information and eventually betray the person who gave it all to her? She made a mistake, all because she decided that she will save everyone, even if it might kill everyone.

The first part of the wish fulfillment is that these things are not even acknowledged as mistakes. They are seen as "good" things, as "heroic" things, even by a lot of the fanbase.

The second part of the wish fulfillment is the lack of consequences. At the end of V4, Qrow is perfectly okay. In Volume 7 her decision to steal an airship is just ignored. In Volume 8 Ironwood is turned into a full on cackling saturday morning cartoon villain, so there is absolutely no need to even think about Rubys actions in V7 or her betrayal.

The ending of V9 takes the cake though.

The end of V9 has us see Vacuo with ships of various makings in the air above it. Many RWBY fans cheered! Look, Ruby was right! Ruby sent the message to everyone and the entire Remnant is now united! Suck it critics who said that her plan was bad! SHE WON!

Of course, these people fail to miss that they are cheering wish fulfillment.

Back in V8 the plan to warn the kingdoms was first hatched by Ironwood, and eventually stopped by none other than the "neighborhood hero" Robyn. Did the fanbase praise Ironwoods idea? No. They instead praised Robyn for stopping it.

Important part of it however was that once the message went out, it would create panic, thus Ironwood was planning to assist all of the states one by one to repel any Grimm incursions caused by such a message...

Yet Ruby went with this plan anyways... And nothing bad happened.

The narrative LITERALLY bent itself backwards to give Ruby a victory.

The SAME exact thing happened back in V8. Rubys plan of evacuating Mantle had no end point! It was simply evacuate Mantle to Atlas and then... There was no other plan. And while Atlas was suffering and its soldiers dying, Ruby drank tea in a mansion. The whole point of Atlas leaving without Mantle was to avoid getting swarmed by Grimm, to leave BEFORE it is too late to leave.

Now tell me dear readers, let us say that Mantle is evacuated into Atlas. What then? The Grimm have ALREADY reached Atlas. Its too late. Congratulations, the plan results in EVERYONE dying.

But wait, it does not. Because at the last second a GOD ITEM is revealed to be able to just portal everyone out.

That is not hope!

Hope is not the protagonist putting hundreds of thousands of people in danger with no plan to get them out of danger, only for the hand of the writers to come down and make them all survive.

Hope is not the protagonist taking reckless actions against their allies because they know that everyone will forgive them or that the allies will turn evil the next episode.

Hope is NOT the protagonists doing something that THE NARRATIVE says is impposible to do without consequences, only for those consequences to be deleted by the hand of the writer.

What HOPE at the end of the day is the protagonist keeping the fight on regardless of the odds, either to their heroic and expected death, or at a small but KNOWN chance of victory.

THAT is what separates hope from wish fulfillment.

Team RWBY being able to do anything and everything because the writers will give them a victory regardless of anything is not hope. And it will never be.

And it isnt Over

In case anyone has forgotten, Salem now controls the relic of creation. A thing that could be used to create anything for the sake of destroying ANY army that Salems enemies could wield. Let me ask you all. Is it not logical that Salem could just create a meteor shower and just destroy any and all airships over Vacuo? She has a literal god item that the protagonist gave to her by opposing Ironwood.

But i can tell you for a fact that she will never use it. The failure of losing the staff will never matter. Team RWBY will win regardless of how sensible or logical it is. The writers will make up a reason for why the staff doesnt work, or for why Salem does not want to use it.

And when that happens, be ready for RWBY fans to tell us all how stupid we are.

[anthurak]

Rambling about Perma-Death in Videogame Stories

So is anyone else just completely and utterly done with the trope of ‘If you die in the game, you DIE FOR REAL!1!1’ that we see in untold numbers of stories about characters getting trapped in video games?

Like I was just watching some clips from the Jumanji reboot and now I just can’t stop thinking about the same thing I thought when I saw it back in 2017: WHY does perma-death HAVE to be a thing here?

If you haven’t seen it, the premise of the reboot is that the magic board game of doom from the original 1995 film realized that board games are getting less popular and thus upgraded itself into a videogame cartridge/console to be more appealing to would-be players. And has now sucked in four unsuspecting teens for an adventure now parodying videogame tropes instead of a board game.

Now the big ‘threat’ posed to our protagonists is that they each start with multiple ‘Lives’ which allow them to immediately respawn when they die. But they only have three lives each, which of course leads to the implicit idea that if they can’t lose ALL their lives or it’s GAME OVER, ie; they’re dead for good.

But the thing is, nothing in the movie actually DEMONSTRATES to our protagonists that this is actually the case. They just… assume that if they die three times they’re dead for really realsies.

And while watching/rewatching the movie, I just kept thinking WHY did the threat of perma-death have to be a thing? And also the fact that it didn’t even make SENSE in this context.

Like the Jumanji game is clearly sentient to a degree and seems driven first and foremost to get people to play it. So I have to ask; WHAT sense does it make for Jumanji to outright, permanently KILL its players? After all, if the players are permanently dead, they can’t exactly PLAY now can they?

Furthermore, just look at the old-style sidescroller games that Jumanji clearly based its new form on. What happens in those games when you lose all your lives? It doesn’t permanently lock you out and keep you from playing ever again. Instead you lose your progress and are sent back to the start of a level. Or in those particularly hard games, you are sent back to the very START of the game.

So don’t you think that makes WAY more sense for how Jumanji would work?

Imagine in the film when the heroes’ fifth party member Alex, the kid who got trapped in the game twenty years earlier, starts to lose his last life, the rest aren’t able to save him. He seemingly dies… and then there is this bright flash.

Then all five of the players are suddenly back in the jeep with Rhys Darby hamming out exposition at them, right back at the start of the game.

I don’t know if that would make for a better paced film, but I definitely think it would make for a more interesting story that could explore some of the real underlying aspects and nuances of how playing a videogame actually goes. Because now this is no longer a challenge of luck or split-second intuition, but of trial and error. You know, like most ACTUAL videogames!

Now that our heroes know there ISN’T actually a threat of permanent death (because this is, you know, a GAME!), they can engage in one of the most FUN parts of playing a big, open-world sandbox game: trying any number of crazy, nonsensical ideas to see if one of them actually sticks!

And I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a great way to ratchet up the dark-comedy as the characters start trying all kinds of crazy ideas that get them killed more often than not. And if you think that wouldn’t make for a very entertaining movie, let me point you to a little-known flick called Groundhog Day! Not to mention the fact that story would still have stakes. The characters still have the goal of completing the game and there’s always the threat of them losing their progress and having to start over. Plus it makes for a great method of character development and bonding as the five are forced to learn how to work together until they’re functioning as a seamless unit.

This is really my overall point about how the threat of perma-death in these kinds of stories feels like such a crutch to needlessly generate generic drama and stakes. Not to mention kind of going against the very thing that makes something a GAME in the first place.

It’s why my actual favorite ‘people getting sucked into a videogame’ story is actually the anime Log Horizon. Because in that series the respawn mechanic of the MMO the characters are sucked into still works, and the story instead revolves around its characters learning to adjust, adapt and live in this new reality. Not to mention it still finds an interesting way of maintaining stakes and consequences to characters dying even if they can respawn: Namely that because the game’s respawning mechanic involved taking away a certain among of Experience Points from a player as a ‘cost’ for reviving, this means that players now lose pieces of their memory every time they respawn.

All in all, while I understand its appeal to writers as an easy way to generating stakes and danger for characters, this whole trope of ‘die in the game you die for realsies’ feels SUPER old and super cheap at this point. And I have serious respect for any story that subverts or averts it.

[tokiro07]

Undead Unluck ch.182 thoughts

[Might as Well be Sittin' on the Sun]

(Contents: slight Fuuko analysis, power-scaling, speculation)

Okay, so maybe we won't be learning the Master Rules' names any time soon, but to be fair, I did kind of see that coming. After all, this was so clearly meant to be a parallel to the introduction to the Union in ch.8 and 9, and back then, we only learned three out of eight names (Tatiana, Billy and Nico), so it only seems fair that we only learn one new name here (Luck, in this case)

Speaking of parallels, Fuuko's dual rapid-firing to mirror Andy's Finger Bullets was sick, and I hope just a sample of the kind of things Fuuko can do as a gunner. Still waiting to see what the revolver Artifact's ability is, or its name for that matter!! Considering that we're introducing the (presumably) final team of antagonists and Fuuko has made it clear that the team isn't currently up to snuff to take them on, she's definitely going to need some kind of upgrade, and giving her a secondary ability seems like a great way to do that

Also, absolutely insane that Sick is the weakest of the Master Rules, and apparently by a wide margin given how everyone else was picking on him. Poor guy, falling asleep and slumping both forward and back because he's literally and permanently cut in half. That's kind of like what I end up doing while writing these posts late at night

Master Rule I questions Fuuko's motives, and we get to see another great, if subtle, Fuuko face: with a gentle smile and absolutely dead eyes, Fuuko claims that it would have been convenient for her if her bullets had reached the Master Rules, as they would have taken them all out instantly (I guess the 60-year range was one that Fuuko was really attached to, cus even 44 didn't actually kill UMA Heat). That look is simply unsettling, as I think it's the only time that Fuuko has ever said anything about intending to kill anyone or anything. She definitely isn't enjoying it, it's simply a matter-of-fact statement, but she also knows that it would mean an end to their struggles, so while it would be unfortunate in its own way, it would be the objectively best outcome

M.R. I immediately learns to appreciate Fuuko's best charm point, the fact that she's an actual lunatic behind her cute face, and offers one piece of information. Fuuko, of course, chooses to learn Andy's location, fearing the worst since he could only send a clone. We then learn that for hundreds of millions of years, Andy has been chilling on the surface of the sun, using his soul to trap the Master Rules inside

God damn, Tozuka, you told us that Victor was alone billions of years waiting for Juiz and then you said "well Andy's gotta do something more impressive!" Well you succeeded, sir, sitting in place on a ball of plasma that should completely atomize you for millions of years is definitely more intense than hanging around and fighting dinosaurs, or at least a more striking snapshot

I don't imagine I was alone in thinking that Andy and Ruin have been playing cat and mouse for the last 2 billion years, but the fact that at some point Andy found his way to the god damn SUN and just decided to park it really speaks to his willpower and commitment. I wonder if he checked out for it like Victor said he did when the Earth was just uninhabitable magma. I get the feeling that he didn't, since he was able to consciously launch a clone down to Earth, so...yeah, confirmed, I guess, Andy's been present the whole however many millions of years he's been there

Oh, and let's not forget the distance. 92 million miles, eight light minutes away, and Andy was able to accurately fire one of his fingers down to Iseult Hospital in France in the middle of the Sick fight. I don't know if his soul gives him some kind of clairvoyance like how Fuuko saw everything that happened to Andy while she was dead, but no matter how you look at it, that's some firing power!!! Sure, he's got infinite fuel by regenerating his blood repeatedly, but he's still gotta travel nearly 100 million miles with enough force to escape the gravitational pull of the GOD DAMN SUN!!! If Google is to be believed, Andy's finger bullet had to have been moving over a 1.38 million miles an hour just to reach escape velocity, though if he reached Earth in a matter of minutes, then I guess that's a pretty low bar to clear, huh?

I'm moving on from this topic, but I want it to be clear that aside from perhaps any given movement from Sun, this may well be the grandest display of power that we've ever seen in this series, and it's a surprisingly subtle one. No wonder Andy could only maintain the clone for a minute: the finger bullet was probably already around for at least ten. Hell, it definitely explains why this was "spreading his soul too thin"

Now that we've seen all of the Master Rules close-up, now I'm willing to speculate on what their identities might be

As with most people, I'm decently confident that 1 is Death, but with 2 "[reeking] of blood and guts" and being close to Luck, fans have taken to the possibility that 2 is Death to parallel with Andy and Fuuko's relationship. @your-zipper-is-down suggested that 1 might be Life or Humanity, which would definitely be interesting; for Death to be a Rule, that all living things must die, then logically there must be a preceding Rule that living things exist at all. That said, the existence of humanity might be independent of the Rules, but we'll find out sooner or later

If 2 isn't Death, then the most likely reason that she's so smelly is that she might be Pain, as alluded to by Ruin about 80 chapters ago. I think that would fit her religious visual theme pretty well, as self-flagellation and other forms of deliberate pain are commonly associated with religion. I'm also curious if those lizard-eye decals on her habit are actually her real eyes since she never seems to open the ones on her face

3 is Sex, I don't think anyone disagrees with that

We've established that 4 is Luck, which I imagine is because aside from Death, Luck is the concept most heavily associated with bringing death in the series (4 being a symbol of death). The real fun thing, though, is that Luck has a bandage on her right cheek, whereas Fuuko has one on her left! Does the bandage itself hold any significance? Does it simply serve as a visual indicator that she's Fuuko's opposite, or is there a deeper metaphysical connection between them that forces them to act as mirrors to each other? Unrelated, I imagine that Luck's halo is meant to represent the Wheel of Fortune, and likely plays into how she uses her powers

5 has a knight theme, and my best guess for that is either that it has something to do with defense/survival, like UMA Guard to represent survival instincts, or UMA Justice

6 is War. Guy looks like he uses napalm face wash, that's War.

I originally guessed that 7 would be Luck since he looks like a gambler, but now that we know this isn't the case, I'm assuming that the pocketwatch indicates that he's UMA Time. I've seen it suggested that he's UMA Past, but I really doubt that Juiz, a septuagenarian Nico and Phil were able to capture a Master Rule by themselves when Fuuko's Union couldn't beat number 10. Just doesn't seem right to me

8's design is really interesting, as she seems to be wearing a crown shaped like a ruined tower. This immediately makes me (and others like @bubhbuhlmao) think of the Tower of Babel, suggesting that she may be UMA Language, but again, could the Nico of Loop 100 really kill a Master Rule by himself? It's possible, but I don't buy it. She could be Knowledge, though that seems pretty similar to Information, so I don't know if Tozuka would want that much of an overlap. Intelligence? Wisdom? We'll see. However, given that she's wearing ruins, I do think it would be interesting if she's UMA Ruin and God just had really bad naming sense when creating our boy Unruin Ruin

9 is almost definitely Animal or Beast or something like that, but I stand by the extremely funny possibility that he's the real Clothes and Clothy is his Junior. That idea absolutely kills me

I do wonder if the Master Rule fights are going to be individual arcs like the Seasons or if it's going to be a team vs. team match like Union vs. Under, but either way, the introduction of a whole team of Master Rules definitely gives the impression that the end isn't as close as I thought. We still have a few more recruits to get, Ruin and Seal are definitely still going to be a problem, we have to clear the ten Master Rules, and only then can we fight Sun, and for all we know we still might have to fight Luna

In other words, I'm starting to think fouryearsandananime might have been a conservative estimate

[cosmichighpriestess]

Chosen Ones, Cursebreakers, Black Sheep,

All You Do is Win.

They are mad it's you and not them. If it was up to them, at the very least they would have chosen someone else in the family, your sister or brother or maybe one of your cousins (someone more worthy in their eyes) to be the cursebreaker and the one to receive generational wealth to break all generational curses. From their distorted lense of you-they thought you were beneath them-they completely underestimated you your entire life.

Forgive them because you know how the laws of the Universe works. You exist, you get what you give, everything is here and now, the one is all and all is one, the only constant is change except for the first four laws that never change. If they believed that karma was real-you get what you give, they wouldn't have talked so badly about you and they wouldn't be experiencing so much negative karma now. What most people don't know is, when they mishandle you, a pure intentioned person, they are not just hurting you- they are hurting God. God takes it personal when someone or something is bothering you.

They felt they were justified in hurting you and dragging your name through the mud because they felt attacked by your light- the truth. You are the truth. You are Walking. Talking. Karma. Because of your pure heart. Did you not warn them? Did God not warn them multiple times to keep your name out of their mouths in a negative light? Understand, one thing about you Chosen One is you never give up. You are someone with such a wise, resilient, silent strength that when faced with a challenge you take a breath and you do it no questions asked, no complaining you just do it. You are God's hidden secret weapon. No matter how many times you fall or make a mistake you never give up on the vision and your goal of completing a mission or task no matter how big or small.

You don't break. You have a warrior mentality whereas most people you know have a victim mentality. You used to believe everything was against you, and it was but you didn't let it turn you into someone who never takes accountability. You see a challenge and you see an opportunity for growth, more benefits, more upgrades, ego deaths, more wisdom, more peace, and more strength. They see an obstacle, any opportunity to take accountability for their own actions and start pointing fingers and shifting blame onto you and the world, even though they had ulterior motives and they feel attacked by any constructive criticism and avoiding their own ego deaths- keeping them living in denial. All because they couldn't swallow their pride and own the chaos they created around them.

The difference between you and most people you know and witness is that you take accountability for everything even if it's not your fault. You have no problem owning up and setting your ego aside so that everyone can have peace of mind around you. You know what it feels like to be gaslit, you don't play mind games and you are not in competition with anyone. That victim mindset most adult people have is something you've observed your entire life, and you could see that was the reason things never worked in their favor.

They never took responsibility for the reality they created and co-created looking down on others creating lower versions of everyone around them. You even tried to help them get out of those dark mentalities that kept them bound to lower realities and lower levels of consciousness. But of course what do you know? They looked down on you because they saw you as beneath them in their illusionary levels of hierarchy. They had more materially, and they had more friends with the same level of thinking and obsession with status, materialism, beliefs of separation and dependence on what other people thought of them. Whereas you never care what other people think of you, even when you were younger because you know for a fact no one truly knows you deeply except for God.

They only know what you tell them, and because they are untrustworthy you don't share very much information about yourself or your personal life, why would you? Because they have proven that cannot handle you or your truth. They have to get in groups to attack you and demonize your character. They continue to project their insecurities and their own shame onto you because your light triggers them into inner healing. Which is actually a gift for them but they see you as threatening instead. Your light is a threat to all their unhealed wounds. People see you through the lense of their unhealed wounds, therefore never seeing you clearly and never taking accountability for everything they did to hurt you directly and behind your back for years.

But guess what? You will be continuing to prosper in the face of their darkness, you will continue to show them mercy and compassion because that is how loving and genuine you truly are even though you may have forgotten. God scanned your heart even when you may have cursed them when you were upset, God saw beyond that when you corrected yourself and took accountability for the reality you created as well. You are protected, you will continue to go untouched, you will continue to have more peace, you are free now and you will continue to be blessed in front of the people who said you would never become anything. Congratulations cursebreaker, you get to live life in abundance from now on and all you have to do is surrender and appreciate everything in front of you. I love you, God loves you so very much and victory is ours. Join us on the victory timeline and celebrate yourself in the frequency of eternal celebration.

[wildfire317]

Hi everyone on wizard101-blr I've been playing the game for a while and the customer support is taking forever to get back to me so I wanted to ask on here and see if anyone else was having this issue and if there were any solutions I haven't tried yet. So as of a week and a day ago I purchased a 1 month annual renewal membership from the official website so I could get further in the game without spending a buttload of money on crowns, the money went through completely and I got an email saying the purchase was successful. However; It didn't and still hasn't given me the membership, as in all of the areas i should have access to free of charge still require either crowns or an upgrade to membership, the loyalty shop still requires either crowns or an upgrade to membership and the upgrade to membership button is still there which according to a friend who already has a membership it's not supposed to be if you have yours. I have contacted support but as I previously stated it took them until yesterday to get back to my email which i sent on monday three days after the payment went through, and they were unhelpful simply stating that "it may take a couple days" for the membership to kick in and asked for my username which I had already said in my previous email. I emailed them back stating that it had been over a week since the purchase went through, re-sent the username of my account in a more blatantly obvious statement of "the username for the account is: ------" and then my user and asked them nicely to fix it as soon as possible. I also stated that I already did everything that was suggested on their F.A.Q and in the email (completely logged out and logged back in, completely logged out turned my computer off turned it back on and logged back on, logged on from the website instead of the launcher and logged in every day to check) multiple times but none of it worked. And they haven't gotten back to me. But long story short, have any of you had this issue with membership and is there anything I haven't tried yet that may fix it?

[atwas-gaming]

New theory on why we see Athetos at the end of the first game.

So, Trace Prime wanted to go "upstream," "beyond The Filter." Within the context of AV1, we might only think of the power filter, as that's the only "filter" in the first game. But in AV2, we see what Trace Prime meant by "The Filter," and furthermore, Hammond and Samara speaking to Indra from "beyond" The Filter.

I've only played AV2 once and have not analyzed most of the notes, so I could be seriously messing some things up. But. My understanding is that Elizabeth Hammond killed herself and that "the afterlife" is "beyond The Filter."

Athetos knows this theory and all their research, because he's the one who wrote this note.

Trace also said "we" in the Faded Note from AV1, so he was working with a team. Just exactly what happened to the others in that team, or even who they were (possibly Hammond? more of a stretch, Samara???) is not clear.

It's also not entirely clear whether Trace left the Faded Note on his first or second excursion to Sudra. Probably his first, given that he mentions being healed, and his wheelchair is right next to that note; but my understanding always was that he came alone on his first trip and didn't go upstream until his second.

It always struck me as strange just how accepting Athetos was of his own death. Was this because he viewed it as his chance to finally go beyond The Filter?

But if this was the case, why did he even construct the life support system for himself? Wouldn't it have been quicker and easier to just... you know, die? I mean, Trace told Elsenova just before going up to the Breach Elevator that he was "already at some point beyond fear." I think it's safe to say that Athetos/Trace Prime had reached that point a long time ago. So I doubt that it was fear of death that drove him to stay alive.

The only possible reason is that he NEEDED a living human who understood everything to stay downstream of The Filter. I don't know why this is, but I think the most likely reason is that someone needed to keep the Breach Attractor active- or, possibly, to deactivate it once Athetos accomplished whatever he set out to accomplish (I'm thinking he was waiting for reinforcements to destroy the Rusalki, but that's purly conjecture).

So. Now Athetos is dead, and has gone beyond The Filter, to wherever Hammond is. So, then... why shouldn't he be able to communicate with living, like how Hammond communicated with Indra via the ansibles? And it would seem to me that he would have a closer mental connection to a clone of himself than to anyone else.

I don't think Trace was just dreaming that he saw Athetos. I think Athetos actually spoke to Trace in his dream.

As for why Athetos shot Trace in one dream and not the other, I'm still going with my own theory that Athetos shot Trace to wake him up in the "almost" ending because Trace didn't understand quite enough to realize he was dreaming; and that Athetos doesn't have to shoot Trace in the true ending because Trace already knows enough to realize he's just trapped in a Rusalki dream and he can wake up at any time- something that a PatternMind, and only a PatternMind, would be able to do.

This story is even told directly through one of the gameplay mechanics, namely the results screen! Trace is a PatternMind- but he doesn't know this at the beginning, and he still doesn't understand what this means even by the end of the game. If you don't collect enough items and you don't complete the game fast enough, Trace never comes to understand what he is or the history of Sudra, and you don't get any post-credits scene. Trace has not awakened enough of his PatternMind abilities for Athetos to be able to communicate with him. If you collect at least 80% of all items, Trace learns about the history of Sudra, as well as awakening enough of his PatternMind abilities through the health and weapon upgrades, for Athetos to reach out to him and basically be like, "Okay, you understand enough, time to wake up." If you complete the game in under 4 hours- which would be an INCREDIBLE feat within the context of the game, traveling through all these areas and defeating all these monsters in only FOUR. hours- then Trace comes to understand at least some of the meaning of being a PatternMind, enough that Athetos knows he doesn't need to kill Trace, just nudge him into doing what Trace already knows he has to do (whatever that is- like I said, I can only make suppositions, we won't know for sure until AV3 finally comes out).

[monty-glasses-roxy]

Just scrolling through your blog (loving all the AU's by the way) and I gotta say, I'm not sure I understand the full on hatred Freddy and Gregory are getting (although I feel like I should mention that the GGY story does heavily imply that Freddy is specifically more involved in protecting "Dr. Rabbit" than the other animatronics are, even though his code is found in them as well.) I haven't gotten the full details of what your version of sb and ruin is (you've written a lot and it's all great) but if it's anything like how the games played out? Then their biggest crime is not going back to repair the other glamrocks once the pizzaplex shut down.

Gregory had to face each animatronic on his own, a little kid against a giant robot wanting to kill him. The excessive force makes sense. Especially since they ARE robots and can be repaired. Sure it would still effect them given how sentient they are but the damage he did to them was a lot less permanent than what they could have done to him. Yeah he owes them an apology but he has more reason to be wary of them than they have of him. And Freddy? Yeah he probably could have done more but at the end of the day his one goal was keep Gregory safe and get him out of there. All he did was let himself be upgraded.

As for Cassie? Personally, I'm of the view that the moment Gregory gets cut off by the mimic in the elevator he is booking it to the pizzaplex, mimic be damned. He's waking Vanessa, unplugging Freddy from the charging port and dragging them there. Sure it's Roxy who opens the lift doors to check on her, she's already down there, but I'm certain it's Gregory and the others who find a way to get them out, all while Gregory is begging for her to be okay because this is EXACTLY what he wanted to avoid. He's probably having a breakdown, the moment he sees Cassie is okay he'd probably collapse and hug her and Cassie would be understandably suspicious but his reaction is not what she'd expect which would catch her off guard.

Because, here's the thing I think people overlook or maybe just don't see fit to mention, Gregory had no reason to wait for Cassie to get into the lift before dropping it. If he wanted to trap the mimic down there he could have disabled it beforehand. If he wanted to tempt the mimic into the shaft and then drop the elevator on top of it? He could have waited until Cassie got out at the top and then done it, the increased height would have definitely done more damage to it. Though considering how it tosses a forklift so hard it imbeds itself into the cave wall? When Roxy had a hard time lifting one off her? This thing is much stronger than a regular animatronic and could probably survive that easily.

The mimic on the other hand? Needs Cassie dead, has been mimicking Gregory all night and has access to the systems through the network once Cassie disabled MXES for good. It didn't need the concrete wall destroyed, it could have left through the other side of the room and went for the elevator shaft the moment Cassie turned off the computer. But it didn't. Because with Cassie as a witness it loses its chance to disappear without people knowing about it. If Cassie escapes she can cut it off, she's the only one in the Plex capable of accessing both the V.A.N.N.I network and tampering with the security nodes. If she gets out she can turn them back on. If she's dead then the mimic can be long gone before anyone else with that ability arrives.

(sorry for the ramble, once I got started I couldn't stop.)

You're good on the rambling lmao I'm gonna go through this paragraph by paragraph to make sure I get everything for you

I completely understand why you'd think I hate Freddy and Gregory given what me and @/jellycreambloodlust (affectionate) have talked about a lot lately. I don't actually hate either of them and I don't think I'd ever take a story in the direction of killing either of them, but ya know, it's all in good fun. I'd kill off my favourites if it was fun too lmao I absolutely don't hate either of them at all I promise. I've also not read GGY and since it's written by Andrea Cradenza-Tubehell Waggener, there's a very slim chance I ever will. I've read the wiki summary of the story though so I kind of know what goes on in it, I just don't know the details and stuff, ya know?

Interesting to know Freddy is implied to be protecting Doctor Rabbit though! I was thinking about this a little bit ago and that was my guess on how Freddy would have been on Gregory's side during he events of SB if you considered GGY to be canon. That's cool, I'm glad I got that one right! Anyway!

In terms of Gregory, I don't see much fault with his actions to be fair. You're absolutely right, this is a kid in a giant pizzaplex full of animatronics that want to kill him. It's a fairly reasonable response, and tells us a bit about how he thinks when he has to handle big problems. If you look at it from the lense of him being recently freed from Glitchtrap, it makes even more sense for him to do that, as he knows what each one of them is capable of and the less weapons Glitchtrap and Vanny have at their disposal, the better. It also explains why he chose to save Vanessa and how he knew what to do, and we already know Freddy is his favourite so of course he'd choose him to protect him.

From the other side though, you can kinda understand why they'd all be upset. It's not their fault they're being controlled, and before Ruin came out, I said they would probably not blame Gregory for it at all once things calmed down again. Having damaged body parts is completely different to an animatronic than it is to a human, yeah, but you also have to consider how these parts were taken. Roxy is a racer, so she was hit with a go-kart. Chica loves food, so she was crushed in the kitchens with all the food waste. Monty is said to stand by the Lucky Bucket a lot, so he falls from the Lucky Bucket. The things that mean the most to them, are the things that got them destroyed. Then some kid comes along and takes their strongest parts away to stick them on Freddy. They're not saved like Freddy is, they're seen as weapons, tools and opportunities, which would really fucking suck.

They have a right to be upset about it I think. Gregory isn't entirely in the wrong for doing it either. It's a complicated situation, especially if you remember that Roxy is a security node, who most likely was keeping the Raceway and Salon shut on purpose, and was potentially using those eyes to keep track of Mimic through the floor. We can't be sure that was the purpose of the eye upgrade, but the provided reason for it doesn't add up and the logs surrounding Roxy are worded as if they're just grasping at straws to explain her behaviour. With a threat like Mimic in play, taking Roxy's eyes is probably not a great plan! Can't really blame Roxy for being pissed off about that one!

Neither side here is really at fault given the circumstances, and I think if the animatronics were to be freed, they'd have come to that conclusion on their own too. I'm with you on Gregory's actions being understandable, I agree with you there. I definitely don't hate or blame him for it. I'll get to Freddy in a minute though.

Yeah I don't think Gregory dropped Cassie either. It would be an interesting story regardless whether he did or not, but you're right. It absolutely doesn't make sense for him to have done it. The way he talks even changes part way through that ending dialogue, I don't think it was him. Especially now that I know there's a staffbot encounter that Gregory sometimes talks through in an attempt to reach Cassie. It just doesn't make a lot of sense

When we've been talking about it lately, it's been almost entirely from Cassie's perspective. Unless Cassie figures it out, she's probably going to believe that Gregory is the one that dropped her right at the end. That's the scenario most of the recent talking has been about. Cassie believing it was Gregory and trying to get justice for that. Like I said, it's all in good fun, ya know?

I feel Cassie is pretty smart, and the question of why would stay on her mind for a very long while. I think with some help, she would be able to come to the conclusion that it probably wasn't Gregory, but in a situation like that, I don't think anyone could be one hundred percent sure. I mean, there's always going to be some doubts, right? She was betrayed twice in like... ten minutes by the same voice after all, I think that's fair enough.

And to consider it from Gregory's side? That's a hell of a situation to be in, I'm not sure how you'd come back from that. I mostly mess around with scenarios where Gregory has no idea Cassie is down there at all, possibly even getting an alert weeks later as if it's just happened, so Cassie not trusting him is completely out of nowhere for him. It's an interesting scenerio to have Gregory, Vanessa and Freddy show up to help too and there's so many ways that one can go, but I feel like with Roxy being a security node, they maybe can't actually get down there now. The MXES isn't completely offline now, right? That door won't open until it's offline. So now they'd have to scramble to try and see what's going on and try and get in contact to help from up top which is probably hell on earth

I mean, knowing what she does, would Roxy even let them connect to her? Probably not! Which also probably doesn't help! It probably feels like they've gotten no closer to actually helping than when they were back home trying to get in contact with Cassie! Awful! Hell of a situation! I feel like Gregory's first thought would be to bust the door down though which probably ends with another forklift stuck in a wall or nearly flattening Roxy as she gets out with Cassie, but he's trying his best! He's got to do something, right? It's better than feeling helpless!

Now uh... well then there's Freddy. I want to start by saying once again, I don't hate him, and I haven't read GGY.

With that said, if you look at what he does in the game, including all of the aspects of him that are clearly just there for game design purposes... He's to blame for almost everything. Unless he is still acting on whatever GGY programming he has, he's to blame for a good chunk of the game. And honestly? I find him more interesting in this light.

To briefly explain, he just does basically nothing. This is a game design thing, I'm aware, but as this is usually framed as a choice on his part, I choose to treat it as such. He leaves Gregory alone for the vast majority of the night unless specifically called on to help. He is fully aware that the others aren't acting as they usually do. There's no way he doesn't know what happened to them as he's actively helping Gregory do this stuff. He chooses when it's okay to make exceptions to the rules, and when not to, for example, he takes Gregory to the staff tunnels where he shouldn't be, but won't open the VIP door for him to leave unless he has a VIP pass, same with the loading docks etc etc. In this situation, he is the only responsible adult available, with the task of keeping this child safe and getting him out of the pizzaplex, and he consistently chooses not to do anything unless Gregory specifically asks for help.

What I'm saying is that the game would have been over in five minutes if he'd actually been trying to help.

Which is interesting to think about! Why is he making these decisions? Does he not feel as if the others are a big enough threat to him? Is it habitual as he often doesn't follow kids around during the day given there's way too many to do that for? Is he doing something else that we don't know about? How does he feel about the others if he's prepared to leave the Pizzaplex at a moments notice like that? He clearly loved Bonnie, so is it all to do with a sense of grief? That it doesn't really matter anymore now that Bonnie isn't there or something? And fuck, how does everyone else feel, knowing that Freddy didn't even once stop Gregory from destroying them and didn't once try to help them? How do they feel knowing that he left them when they needed help?

Even factoring in GGY's coding being a potential reason for this stuff, if the actual, untampered with Freddy is in there, knowing what's going on, is he trying desperately to stop it? Is he trying to help? Or is he just sort of nodding along like "yeah that makes sense"? Or has he just given up completely? Who's to say?

So I definitely don't hate him. I won't say he's my favourite or anything because he absolutely isn't, but I don't hate him. He's interesting to me, just not in a way the majority of the SB fandom seems to like, which is fair enough. We all like what we like and we all have our own interpretations and stuff, there's no wrong way to have fun, right?

I hope this clears some stuff up and I'm also sorry for rambling lmao

tl;dr:

I don't hate Gregory at all, don't blame him for his actions in SB and don't think he dropped Cassie in Ruin. I blame Freddy instead.

[andrea-lyn]

Thanks to @lazaefair for the tag for this meme!

People You’d Like to Know Better

Last Song: Blame Brett - The Beaches, which is not only a fantastic song, but it is going to inspire a fic titled 'blame my ex' at some point, when I have an idea that matches.

Currently Watching: Technically on vacation and my current obsession is cutting into it (see below), but making my way through S2 of Yellowjackets, the latest season of Lower Decks, and Cleaning Lady.

Currently Reading: Persuasion, which I left at home since it's a huge compilation book, and also Thief of Time by TPratchett.

Current Obsession: Did someone say 100% completion of Tears of the Kingdom? I know it's been out almost two months and I've completed the main storyline, but I love it so much and I play it every day (when not travelling). I'm currently working through the koroks (I've got just over 400) and working on getting armour upgrades and exploring the world. Also slowly working on the monster medals and leaving myself some side quests to keep playing while I patiently wait to hear if there will be DLC.

Tagging @lovethecoat @bamblypygi @chamblerstara @ceebee-eebee and anyone else who wants to ramble!

[randomszzz]

Non-exhaustive list of games I’ve played trying to recover from The World Ends With You Obsession

((Play harvestella))

Rune Factory 5: I don’t love Rune factory 4 quite as much as okami or twewy, but it’s definitely one of the closest games, and I was over the moon when rf5 was announced.  But running around the coziness of rf4s, it did seem unlikely that rf5 could equal that, and reviews panning its performance also put a damper on my expectations.  I still found some enjoyment in rf5, but rf4 ran circles around it.  Biggest offenses for me: talking to everyone in the village both takes longer (so many loading screens, being 3d is so not worth this) and less rewarding than rf4 (It felt like  an entire year before villagers start recycling dialogue in rf4; it’s one of its greatest strengths.  Rf5 characters are repeating themselves within a week.).  Actually, that kinda encapsulates a lot of rf5′s problems, longer for less, with excessively long days and low drop rates.  The post game dungeon was also far shorter than I was expecting and supremely disappointing.  My biggest gripe, however, was locking the flower seller to close to the end of the game.  The last character you unlock in rf4 upgrades spells, something totally optionally and easily (and frequently) ignored.  But no flower seeds? abs - ol -ut -ly CRIMININAL.  That means heavily gimped chemistry; and no non rng sources of wettable powder.  I wanted to take my time with the game, do a bunch of farming and social elements, not just rush through main story.  And like, I did, but it left me completely at the mercy of typhoons.  Even dragging my feet as much as I did, I still beat the story before completing a single year, and that always rubbed me the wrong way.  It was over 70 hrs so I can’t really complain it’s too short, but, blegh.  Other minor annoyances: the festival music became intolerably grating after hearing it for the first 5 hours, cute sea horse bosses I so looked forward to taming are untameable, the travesty.  I do really hope its just the kinks of coming back to the series after so long and working with 3d and future rf games are a step up. 

Harvestella PLAY THIS GAME PLAY THIS GAME IT HAS UNICORN OF THE CRYPTIDS WHAT ELSE DO YOU NEED?!?!  Ahem.  I really had a tough time gauging this game.  Saw in the nintendo direct, went sold, this looks awesome gimme.  I didn’t play the demo, as I didn’t want to start playing and then have to wait a couple months to play the rest, but asked my sister her thoughts about it.  She really wasn’t enthusiastic, but she’s less keen on rune factory than I am, it’s fine.  Reviews came out and were thoroughly middling so mmm, maybe it’s not exactly awesome.  But being better than rf5 - or even just as good - isn’t a high bar so I’m looking forward to it.  I started playing it, and I have plenty of gripes - but I also really couldn’t stop playing.  It’s certainly a different rhythm than rf, pretty much all interaction with villagers is exclusively done through quests and there’s not much point in talking to anyone outside of those.  However, said quests are also pretty good, and you wouldn’t want to talk to everyone every day, you could spend all day running to various npcs and probably not reach all of them in one day.  I do really miss rf’s skill and crafting system (harvestella has crafting but outside of accessory synthesis it has 0 customization) and monster catching.  At first it was charming for the sos throwback ‘just buy (not) cows and (not) chickens, but I definitely miss having more things to look forward to.  And once Harvestella’s quests are completed, there’s not much point in continuing to play.  I didn’t much care about the lack of festivals when I started Harvestella, but now on the other side it’s what I think it needs most.  Common complaints about harvestella are the lack of voice acting and extremely limited character creation options but really that’s not where I’d put extra resources too.   Anyways, the music and world in this game are just breathtaking; I’ve been totally immersed since christmas. Totaku and unicorn’s designs are A++++.  I was worried it would be a fairly short affair, and predictably I dragged my feet going through it, savoring every second of that world, but it turned out to be a much more substantial world than I expected.  The ending stretch of the game continued to confound my gaugings, the story by turns being disappointing “I wish you thought through this more” and exciting, I downright wanted to dance in the actually-last dungeon.  Game’s a total treasure, especially if you enjoy melancholy vibes. 

Monster Hunter Stories 2 Did I play MHS 1? No.  Have I played any MH? No.  But I played the demo for this and rise.  Rise was entertaining, but not enough to part with scarce cash for.  I put close to ten hours on the demo for this game though, clearly they were doing something right.  That ‘something’ is not the story, despite the title.  Even trying my best to indulge it, there’s just no getting invested in ‘the power of kinship!’ they keep trying to push, and they really don’t do enough to develop a relationship with ratha.  I suppose they did sidestep a couple eye-rolling cliches I was anticipating (others still abound though), and there is occasional charm.  I understand the minimalist approach to music, but it really would’ve been nice to have some music for the however many, many, many hours spent hunting for rare eggs postgame.  ‘I probably missed something by not playing pokemon’ is the sort of revelation this game brought me.  Lackluster story and nonexistant bgm?  Who cares, there’s cool monsters to find and battle and catch and customize, I was flat out addicted for a month.  Sadly I tried the demo for the first game on the 3ds, and already having a familiarity with the mh bestiary did suck a lot of the novelty and joy from the experience.  Um, pokemon recommendations that go hard on presentation and customization? 

Radiant Historia Is there a better ds game than twewy?  I’m honestly hard pressed to think of any genuine competitors, and consulting the internet this game came up a lot.  Radiant Historia is really good.  Of the games I’ve played since neo, it has the best cast.  There was one chapter midgame that had me on the edge of my seat, and I was thinking, oh, if it just keeps escalating from here it really will be special!! but things kinda just evened out after that.  I went back and forth on my feelings about the villain, at first being disappointed at the reveal but by the time the credits rolled I think it worked out pretty well.  I played the 3ds remaster, the voice acting was excellent, and while I get why some preferred the old portraits, overall I think new ones are better - except for Eruca oh my god why did you do that to her character design?!?! Criminal!  I did get kind of stuck, however, polishing everything off for the true ending.  After spending hours without looking anything up online, I’m pretty loathe to give in and do it now.  But replaying chapter after chapter looking for the needle in the haystack I’m missing has lost its luster.  A hearty f u to aht’s dancing companion.  Presumably with enough work I could give everyone a happy ending, so I’ll just presume a happier ending.  One day maybe I’ll be more patient. 

Ni no Kuni I said radiant historia had the better cast, but also, ester and oliver are my precious children.  The single best thing about ni no kuni is the wizard’s companion.  It’s beautiful and informative!  I love how easy it is to keep track and find things in the game *cough cough cough*.  It also scratches the cool monsters! itch.  By far the worst thing about ni no kuni is that it had a stealth section. Why?  Who thought that was a good idea?  Who even thinks those are fun?  banging my head against a wall.  A slightly negative thing about it is that I really would prefer if it was just flat out turn based instead of realtime.  Give me full control of my companions, please. I will say I, uh, wildly misjudged drippy.  My deepest apologies. 

Final Fantasy Type 0 I like ensemble casts, okay?  At first my curiousity was such that I was just going to watch a playthrough, but it’s opening was strong enough that I actually wanted to play it myself.  So I did.  It has a strong beginning and a stronger ending.  The middle, however, is a great big yawn.  That last chapter though.  If only the entire game was like that.  Idk, this game has a lot of flaws but I like the underlying concepts.  It probably says something that while I was willing to play many hours of radiant historia postgame, I just rushed online to find the type 0 lore and missing bits rather than slogging through any of it again.  Though I do kinda want to bounce around some of its later dungeons... but I have to play through so much bleh to get anywhere. 

Persona Strikers I haven’t actually finished the game yet - haven’t touched it since playing harvestella - and maybe wouldn’t even bother mentioning but I wanna complain.  The stupid ferris wheel event, they were like ‘hey you can hang out with ryuji and yusuke’ and I was like, cool, not something so date coded yaaaay.  Only for ryuji and morgana to bemoan ‘oh this could’ve been a romantic date wow lame’.  It really soured me.  At least yusuke tried to enjoy himself.  It’s not a bad diversion otherwise, although the difficulty is a bit wonky.  Some early game game bosses/events stumped me for hour(s), but after a bit more familiarity it evened out, only for me to gain such an overflow of healing/sp items nothing’s really a threat anymore.

Ori and the blind forest I still don’t know what a blind forest is :(  Still really enjoyed this, although it’s also more difficult in the beginning than end type of game.  Just the design and presentation of this is whole vibe, and one of these days I’ll play will o wisps... one of these days...

13 sentinels People seemed to think highly of this game, my curiosity was piqued, I started to watch a playthrough but really blanched at the one-by-one approach.  Poking around I saw the game had a fair degree of flexibility in following the various stories, plus its own encyclopedia, and yeah this was a game where I needed to be in control.  Besides, playthoughs are frequently watched at 1.5 or 2x speed and this was just too dense to really process like that.  Props to them for making a game’s story really be better as a game.  I was going to say ‘a vn you should play instead of just watch’ but the combat was waaay more fun than I anticipated and perfect palette cleanser/break from the story segments.  Still, I did wind up feeling a bit cold on the story/characters.  It’s impressive it manages so many elements in a cohesive manner, but that’s the best I can say.  Mystery’s fun, but nothing never seen before.  Characters range from ‘meh’ to ‘rather likeable’ but the game’s insistence everyone needs a love interest weighed it down.  Megumi at least had interesting dynamics despite not really being a ‘likeable’ character and the end of her story is probably what I’ll remember the most.  Nenji, Usami, and Keitarou were all pretty enjoyable though.  I did appreciate how the game wound up dealing with its larger conflict and antagonistic forces.  Something about how everyone gets a happy ending I found really refreshing.

There are others too but hmm I’ve slid into playing neo from the start for a third time.  trying to do a run without eating and crying a little on the inside.  Twewy tells me to expand my world and try different things but it hasn’t actually brought me relief.  Woe is me.  At least harvestella has delectable vibes.

[aradiamaxxing]

Admins

copied these posts from a 4chan thread where I detailed my extensive thoughts on the middle management of pokemon’s various evil teams. thought people here would enjoy it.

The Galactic Commanders are, in my opinion, the gold standard for evil admins. They've got it all: immediately striking and memorable designs, strong personalities, memorable fights, even a unique battle theme. They also further the separation between Cyrus and the rest of Team Galactic. Cyrus wants to eliminate spirit, but the Commanders are all very lively and emotional. Saturn even says he disagrees with Cyrus and was just along for the ride. Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are all a joy to behold and it's a shame BDSP didn't give them a touch-up the way HGSS and ORAS did for their respective admins. And Charon's there. I guess. Kind of odd to add a character who does practically nothing until the postgame and is marginally less interesting than the team's previous leader. 

Speaking of HGSS, the Rocket Executives had the biggest upgrade between versions. In GSC these guys didn't even have names! And I think they did a fine job of slotting their new characters into the available roles. They're different but all very distinctly Rocket-esque, be it Proton's ruthlessness and aggression or Petrel's "nice guy" attitude that reflects all the goofy and self-sabotaging antics of Grunts. The only real stinker here is Archer, who battles you once with a lackluster team and then never appears again. Also, the story of HGSS is pretty uninvolved in general, which kneecaps their screentime. It's a shame, but the Executives are at their most memorable when Gamefreak puts them in Kanto remakes. 

A lot of people don't like the ORAS versions of Team Magma and Aqua, and I honestly don't understand why. The teams from the original RSE were nothing. They were non-characters. The admins specifically were interchangeable between the two versions. Between the two revamped teams, I prefer Magma. Of course, I prefer Magma in any case, but something about them just seems to fit the story of ORAS more. Maybe it's because Omega Ruby was my version of choice but I find Courtney threatening to blow up a rocket and "complete project AZOTH" more believable than Matt doing the same. Probably because they were cribbing the event in Emerald where Team Magma raids the space center, and also because Courtney is autistic. I will give the originals one thing: the designs of the admins not named Matt was a lot better. Come to think of it, I'm not fond of Matt's new design either. I think it's the awkward battle art showing him from a lower angle than the grunts. Also, does this fucker have a beard in Gen 3 or not? I genuinely can't tell. I've rambled for a paragraph about two of the four admins so I may as well keep going. I like new Tabitha. He's got little touches that let you know what kind of work he does and what kind of organization Team Magma is. He's a pencil-pusher in a gang far more organized and professional than Team Aqua, which fits the respective personalities of the leaders. Gen 3 Magma was a gang of thugs with a cause, and they didn't have Aqua's excuse of being pirates so the whole deal was a little weak. It also makes sense that the group who wants to further humanity's devlopment run themselves like a company. And, uh, Shelly. Like I said, I never played Alpha Sapphire so I can't comment on how she was executed. At times I wish I had, though. You see, I like the color blue. And Alpha Sapphire has a lot more blue in it than Omega Ruby, for obvious reasons. I liked her in the Generations short, but that’s about all I can say.

The only thing sadder than how little Rood, Zinzolin, Gorm, Bronius, Giallo, and Ryoku do during BW, is how I can remember all of their names without looking it up. I don't know if anyone else noticed this, but Team Plasma has a glut of characters who don't do anything. And it's more noticeable than usual because BW was very good about giving its characters time to shine outside of their usual roles. I can somewhat understand why they added all of this stuff in. Team Plasma's not so much an evil team in BW as they are a proper social movement. You could even call them a secret society. I can excuse the sages for that, and I can excuse them not battling because they're supposed to be the thinkers and philosophers of the group. The ones who exemplify Plasma's ideals. They're vastly underused, but they make sense. What I can not excuse are the Shadow Triad. They do NOTHING throughout BW. They show up in cutscenes, say some words, and then disappear. They shouldn't have even been in the game. The most impact the triad have on the plot is whisking you across a bridge you were gonna cross anyway. BW2 Tightens up the ranks of Team Plasma significantly, cutting all but Rood and Zinzolin and giving the Shadow Triad something to do. But even they couldn't save Anthea and Concordia, names I also remember without looking them up. Man, what do I even say about these two. They exist. That's about it. I would've cut the triad from BW and given their scenes to these two, because god knows they need it. Team Plasma has the same problem as the Rocket Executives: too many characters fighting for too little screentime. Except unlike the Executives, who were split somewhat evenly, it's always N and Ghetsis who win the battles for relevance.

Team Flare's Scientists are the last ones I can be assed to talk about. They suck. I can't remember their names, except I know the blue on is Mable because that struck me as a relatively normal name compared to the others. Also two of them are Celosia and Bryony., but I couldn't tell you who. Then there's Xerosic, who suffers from Archer syndrome but at least has a somewhat interesting ace in Malamar. The others don't even have that. He's also got a postgame quest, but I played that one time 6 years ago and I'm not doing it again. Not helping, of course, is that you don't start seeing them until halfway through the game. You won't see any of them until both of your starters and likely the rest of your team is fully evolved, because XY's pacing and level curve is fucked. And its distribution. I've had my full team assembled before the 4th gym one time. I don't believe any of the broads have ever done science. But at least their music's cool.

[razorblade180]

Played and beat Arrowfell

Let me get the two extremely petty part out of the way. I’m very surprised this entire thing isn’t voiced acted. Like even if a person may have been busy, voice matching would totally be fine with how few lines a majority of the characters have.

Second petty thing. All these cool and unique weapons/semblances that fit a narrative and yet no one thought of a decent idea for ironwood ever.

Anyways, I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect going into this but the best way I can describe this game is this: If RWBY had 24 episodes a season, then Arrowfell would be the canon filler arc. And I don’t mean that in a bad way.

It’s no secret RWBY has no real fluff and sometimes goes a little too quickly for it’s own good. This entire game is their first big mission as licensed Huntresses and that means exploring the kingdom, meeting different cultures, casual dialogue with Ace Ops, and instances of someone teaching them ways to use their skills better. Ya know…all the things that build a world and character relationships. Like I’m not gonna say everything in here is perfectly done but having all of this before the apocalypse hit in V7 and V8 would’ve made them hit harder in my opinion.

I don’t know if I missed a piece of dialogue or something but JNPR isn’t in this game at all and don’t know if they had an excuse. There’s plenty of NPCs asking for help or trying to give you something so I don’t really know why 4 of them can’t be the team. Not mad about it, just confused.

The game itself is pretty engaging for the most part. Levels have areas you’ll eventually go back to with better upgrades and for the most part the map design is pretty easy to understand where you are especially when what kind of enemies are located in them. Game took me 5 1/2 hours and that’s me getting 97% of everything so it can definitely be faster but at the price of missing out on level up points you really want to make things not take forever.

I am going to be brutally honest and hopefully someone can answer this for me. There was never a time a I thought “I should use Yang” outside of puzzles. There are so many situations where it makes sense to use or combine abilities between the other three. Never Yang💀

The best characters literally go in name order. Everyone exists to support Ruby and it shows she’s the only one who can dodge, highest normal attack damage and has the best reach. I leveled everything on her before anyone else because of this. Weiss is really good for crowd control and Blake had great uses for stationary targets and bosses because her clones attack/distract with the rest of the team. They should’ve given Yang a counter but they didn’t. Just a heavy ground pound that isn’t even the strongest attack in the game. Weiss has the strongest single hit but it costs the most aura but ya know, things die.

Last part is the music. Maybe I miss RWBY music, but this soundtrack is pretty good in my opinion. This might be a testament to how much the show is influenced by video games because every track felt like the show, but completely at home in the level it was in at the same time. Even when certain game mechanics are at play to make this a competent game, my brain went “this could exist or happen in the show.” And the more outlandish parts of Arrowfell that exist for game design has the characters go “well this doesn’t feel normal” which I thought was funny.

I payed 30$ for this and honestly I had a very good time with it. I think the price is pretty reasonable considering how this looks and the few regular animation scenes. Some new characters have semblances and others have weapons that will make OC creators go “go damnit I did that.” (Myself included) but it’s alright. This game will completely break your legs if you’re not paying attention but feels pretty rewarding when you’re handling ambushes easily.

I say there’s only 3 parts about this game is one specific jump that thankfully only has to be made once. Rooster Teeth continues to do the same thing when it comes to their women antagonist any time they introduce a man. Also the fact everything happening here and everyone you meet do not matter at all because Atlas doesn’t exist anymore. Who the hell knows if any of those people are alive.

8/10