#essentially playing by the same rules everyone else in the holy see has been playing with for centuries

[canisalbus]

To me, Machete kind of has the energy of a secondary villain/coldhearted side character in someone else's story that a lot of fans latch onto, moreso than the protagonist. Question is, would he be the villain in anyone's story?

Why, thank you! I'm actually glad to hear he gives off that vibe. I don't think he set out to become a villain but a lot of people certainly view him as one.

[goldeneyedgirl]

Who’s ur favorite and least favorite twilight character and why?

LOL, oh man. Prepare for Discourse, Anon. 

My favourite character is Alice (that might be very obvious). I think she was wasted in Twilight, and that she has so much potential. 

She has no recollection of being human. She is a totally blank slate with a gift that is essentially an extra sense or limb. Like, this girl cannot be ‘okay’. I believe in my heart of hearts that Alice functions differently to other people. I mean, I infer from canon that her visions taught her everything that she needed to know - from how to feed, to how to convince Jasper, to how to join the Cullens. She’s going to get the wrong answer? She’ll change what she says!

And that is utterly fucking terrifying - especially if she was aware and doing it intentionally. But I do not think she is, in that sense. I just don’t think she would have any idea of how to live without her visions showing her what to do next. Alice is a hostage to her own gift, and always has been. 

Even her interactions with Bella and Edward in canon are really uncanny, like she’s playing a role - which is more reflective of SMeyer’s piss-poor writing ability than any sort of intention - but indicative that Alice is Not Okay, and kind of explains a lot about how the Cullen family is portrayed. 

A lot of what I love about Alice, and her relationship with Jasper, are things I’ve absorbed from fan-content - what we can infer from the information we’ve been given. Her conviction about her and Jasper, to me, is beautiful and both terribly childlike, and something someone who has suffered deeply would absolutely cling to as a lifeline. The idea that Jasper isn’t just her husband, but her very best friend and confidant as well, paints such a lovely picture of the symbiosis they have. I think that, whilst it’s normally Poised, Confident Alice to Rescue Struggling Depressed Jasper portrayed in fandom, that there is a distinctive possibility that two individuals who were both fucked over in the gift department and were holding onto reality by a strand found each other and rescued each other might be closer to the truth.

I also LOVE fashion, so I kind of get Alice on that level; and I treat Alice - when I write her - as someone with mental illness (like myself) because I find that very satisfying to write, and to explore. I can PROJECT, which is super fun.

Jasper’s a close second because holy moly, he has so much potential from a fic-writing perspective? This is a man who was not a good person as a human - like, there are Varying Reasons he would join the Confederate Army and be proud of being a Major, but that’s a TOTALLY different piece of discourse so we’ll put a pin in that because statistically, it meant he was a racist fighting for racist ideals. And THEN he is changed into a vampire and joins the Southern Wars, falling further into evil as far as violence, hate, and senseless death goes. 

Like this man was a full monster.

And it was eating him alive.

So he just walked away. Alice did not save him. Peter did not save him. Jasper walked away. Peter gave him the opportunity to do so. Alice offered him goals and a way to improve who he is. There’s nothing he can do about the evil he sowed, the legacy he has created. And he has to live with that every single day for eternity. Has to deal with the burn of his thirst, exacberated by years of gorging on human blood, every single day. There is no solution to/for Jasper. It’s one hell or another. And that is so much fun from a fic-writing perspective. 

Plus his dynamic with Maria is so crazy fun - Mother? Lover? General? What does ‘good terms’ even mean? I assume it’s code for ‘cold war’ or ‘not actively seeking the other’s destruction’, but who knows. I love that. 

Jessamine is also super fun and beloved by me, but that’s because she’s either Jasper-derivitive or my particular portrayal of a separate character, so she doesn’t count. 

As for my least favourite, that honour goes to Edward. Full disclosure, I have not read Midnight Sun, only skimmed parts, because the only thing worse than that would be reading EdBella fic. 

I think he’s an arrogant, misogynistic, controlling little brat, honestly. He’s above the rules and the laws when it suits him - at the cost to everyone - and he condemns Rosalie and Jasper so quickly and thoroughly with very little in-text justification. 

He says that Rosalie is vain - well, Captain Dipshit, maybe after being violently and fatally gang-raped by a group including her fiance Rosalie might deal with a lot of body issues - and copes with them the best way she can. Maybe after being raised with a priority of being beautiful above all else, and then harmed in such a grotesque way because of her beauty, and then becoming more beautiful might fuck with your mental health a little, Eddie.

Edward has a bad habit of classifying women in absolutes like Madonna/Whore, depending on his personal beliefs - which, as a frozen 17 year old from the 1900s, is fairly goddamn dubious. Rosalie and Tanya are both ‘bad’, Esme, Alice, and Bella are all ‘good’. But there are no women that Edward fully ‘trusts’ or allows to ‘win’/direct him. He prizes Bella because of her unreadable mind - she is a puzzle and something to possess. They are never partners. Edward uses Alice, Who Tries Her Very Best, as a weapon against Bella multiple times. I often wonder if it isn’t Edward who encourages Alice, off-page/off-screen, to play dress-ups, to make Bella into what Edward expects in a wife. 

Edward is over-indulged by both Esme and Carlisle; honestly, with his gift, I wouldn’t be surprised if he manipulates the family into their slightly toxic dynamic (it’s hard to tell because of SMeyer’s obvious bias, and the perspective of the novels) because it benefits him so much. It puts him second only to Carlisle - Jasper cannot be trusted despite his comprehensive understanding of vampires, especially when it comes to turf battles, and Emmett’s just a frat boy. Or is this the portrait Edward has painted so he gets to be #1 Son?

Edward is the goddamn architect of every disaster the Cullens face because what he wants is dangerous and illegal. Without Edward’s Volterra Tantrum, Aro never would have challenged the Cullens in Breaking Dawn. Victoria’s attack would have been neutralised before the Cullens even got wind of it. Bella never would have gone cliff-diving or solo-hiking if Edward hadn’t dumped her in the cruelest way possible. 

I honestly, truly believe that Edward shouldn’t have had a mate, let alone a wife and child. 

Also, movie!Edward looked like he needed a fucking shower and a flea dip in nearly every scene. 

Bella’s a close second because I have known girls like Bella and fuck me, they are deeply unpleasant to be friends with. She fucks over EVERYONE in pursuit of Edward. I understand that she doesn’t have the same interests as Alice, but not once just she make a suggestion for an alternative activity or a compromise (and that could be Bad Writing again, because Bella appears to have very few hobbies beyond ‘reading’ but it’s what we’re working with). 

In fact, I would argue that Alice tries her very best to be Bella’s friend, but it’s a futile attempt - Bella tolerates Alice because of Alice’s proximity to Edward. If Alice had been a human student at Forks High, you can bet that Bella would have dumped her as fast as possible. Bella has very few moments where she’s positive about the people around her outside of the Cullens (by association with Edward) or Jacob. Charlie gets mostly pity. Everyone else is looked upon with disapproval and judgement (which, again, reflects toxic writing tropes.) 

And Bella martyrs herself at every opportunity. There’s a lot of discourse where Bella’s neglectful childhood is examined, but Bella fucking lunges into the ‘victim’ role at every possibility. And ultimately, I really don’t see Bella maturing or learning anything at all through the series. It’s always about what she wants, above everything else. She succeeds because she and Edward are incredibly selfish individuals who are enabled by the parental figures around them. 

Second runner-up is Carlisle. 

[the-littlefangirl]

TFATWS episode 1 rewatch commentary

The first scene was so beautiful. I loved that we didn't start directly with the fight sequence. It feels way closer to the quiet beginning of CATWS and I love it so much.

The title is also SO NEAT, music's on point too but hey it’s Henry Jackman the one thing I’m sure it’s going to be great overall is the score.

The choreography is AMAZING, really well shot. Sam shielding himself with only one wing was MA-JES-TIC.

“WHAT'S UP” EXACTLY SAM EXACTLY

I did feel so uncomfortable in regards to the military aspect of it. Not that I was expecting anything else, but both here and in Captain Marvel the military we're good guys < 3 propaganda is so blatant and ugh:/ At least there wasn’t a literal recruitment spot like with CM. 

The yellow filter in the Tunisia scene BYE please stop with the yellow filters 2k21

"I've been working with the Air Force for six months now" So, did Sam even catch a break at all after Endgame? Or did he just throw himself to work like SOMEONE did after being iced for 70 years. Hmmm? Sam????

"Essentially, these people, they want a world that's unified without borders" OH NO! HOW AWFUL, how evil of these bad guys smh

Joaquin: SO about Steve

Sam: :)))))) nope

"Moon stuff" SAAAM

#1 cry with Sam's speech, full on chills.. Fuck. Me. His voice about to break before saying thank you bYE.

Shady politician: "It was the right decision" (FUCKKKKK YOUUU)

Rhodey: *press any key to doubt *

I need someone to analyze the different curation of the two exhibits pretty please

NOT THE PHOTO POST-AZZANO JFC. That photo is my weakness, Bucky sweetie (also I find hilarious that usually when there are articles about Stucky and/or #givecaptainamericaaboyfriend they aaaalways use that photo LMAO)

In case someone wants to read the transcription of the texts about Bucky: "In 1944, while on a mission to thwart a Hydra weapon transport in the Alps, Barnes was thrown from a train and believed to have been killed in action. It wasn't until 2014, over seventy years later, that it was revealed that Barnes was alive, having been found by Hydra operatives. Captain America himself (i can't read) the effort to bring Barnes in only to later aid in a escape from custody having been convinced of his innocence. Steve's loyalty to his old friend, coupled with his refusal to sign the Sokovia Accords, led to the dissolution of the Avengers and drove the Captain into hiding with other like-minded Avengers including Natasha Romanoff, Wanda Maximoff, and Sam Wilson. The current whereabouts of Barnes remains unknown, habing been labeled a fugitive following his escape from custody."

"current wherabout unknown" but not the government, interesting. Also, pretty good summary of CACW from the public's perspective, although one of the things I always wanted to see explored was the public's reaction of the fallout of them going into hiding after Civil War (which I'm hoping we'll get to see a little bit of in Black Widow).

Interesting point about the 70 years without having Captain America. Clearly the sacrifice play wasn't enough this time to fuel the nationalism so they went with a squeaky clean John Walker instead.

Sam saying the shield belongs to Steve I'm going to cry now excuse me. Sam. Sam sweetie.

The No. 1 Captain America comic in the display ugH fuck yes

See this is how you do a cameo that has actual meaning. Thank god for Malcolm Spellman being a competent writer. That scene was so well written.

HAVE YOU PRAISED ANTHONY MACKIE'S PERFORMANCE TODAY?? Holy shit that last shot fucked me up.

I'm loving the use of the wide shots, especially in the flashback. The camera movements are in synch with The Soldier's state of mind and mission focus, so good.

EVERYONE STAND UP FOR THE NATIONAL ANTHEM aka The Winter Soldier theme composed by Henry Jackman.

Without a doubt the most brutal TWS fight scene there has been, People involved in Punisher and John Wick are involved in this and it SHOWS. 

For the record, still stands that the only time we've seen him chocking someone with his right hand instead of the metal arm remains the Maria Stark assasination. I know it's probably because of blocking and the way the shot was composed but the implications are still bone chilling. God.

Uhhmmmm I'm very ambivalent about the "Hail Hydra". On one hand, it was 100% fanservice and the internet is probably going to go insane over it, and the dead way Sebastian Stan delivered the line. Good shit. Buuut what I love about CATWS is the way Bucky never, ever ever, mouths Hydra rethoric, and even when Pierce tries to gaslight him with it, it's just an empty effort. The Winter Soldier isn't doing anything because of ideological loyalty to Hydra, even if it's product of brainwashing, it's just sheer dehumanization. They don’t need him to say the words because he’s just An Asset. There are people who have put it more eloquently but yeah, I rather go with the fanon interpretation of that aspect.

The music growing louder with the shot of the keys. GOD.

I'm fine this is fine.

#2 cry with the therapy scene of fucking course.

The government monitoring Bucky is noooot going to end well lmao.

"We need to know that you're not gonna * slowmo stabbing motions *

Bucky: * nodding along slowly * 

I laughed out loud.

"It's passive agressive" I love him.

The way this scene just sucker punched me in the face, made me weep and then had me cracking up. Amazing.

Therapist: You can't do anything illegal

Bucky: yup yup check checkity check. What IS considered illegal tho?

*aggresive tablet finger pressing *

"Then why isn't it rule number one?" Bucky your Steve is showing.

I love the close up shot. I'll keep saying it. It's so good.

"I'm James Bucky Barnes" yeah you are🥺

That smile is nightmare fuel LMFAO I love it.

Uhm the way I'm kinning Bucky it's not funny anymore damn

That whole “are you lashing out at me” rambling is really reminiscent of the bar scene in CATFA and how he lashed out at Steve after Peggy left. Uhm yeah fuck.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?" "Peace"

"That is UTTER BULLSHIT" "You're a terrible shrink"

yeah ugly crying to ugly laughing speedrun for me

"You're free" "To do what?" jesus. That entire scene. #3 and #4 and #5 cries for moi.

Ugh that Brooklyn shot. Someone needs to do a gifset compairing it to the one in CATFA asap.

"It's like Monique but it's got a "U" in there for uniqueness" "That's absurd" LMAO

"You can't keep fighting with your neighbors" uHM * redacted redacted i'm shifting into 1940s mode abort abort *

"Nobody passed 90" "So young. Such a shame" FGADHGA

🥺🥺 yes flex those flirting skills good for you

"It's a dance to this things. You can't… you gotta warm up and I haven't danced since 1943. Feels like." #6 cry I completely broke down into tears with that.

This Yori storyline is going to punch me in the face with a metal fist. Great!

The TWS theme when he looks at Yori fuuuuuck.

GREAT LET'S GO TO LOUISIANA THAT WAS GETTING HEAVY.

Those shots of Sam in the car. Immaculate. Showstoping. Yes.

Marvel, what if instead of promoting the military industrial complex you put a lot of publicity about cars?

"Uncle Sam!" LMAO subtle.

Everyone trying to have the wings lmao same.

I've only had Sarah for a day but etc. Brooklyn 99 meme

Good mirroring about Steve and Sam family's legacy. Good shit. Goooood shit.

Sam is trying so hard ouch my heart. I can't imagine how painful the scene with them reuniting must have been. He 100% still feels a lot of guilt about being gone for those 5 years (and even longer before that).

"Maybe it is time for us to move on" uuuuuuuuuuh

"To the rescue" "Always" 🥺🥺 i love them so much already

That shot outside the restaurant is so beautiful. Can't wait to see the night scenes in Madripoor tbh.

"I tried the whole online dating thing. It's pretty crazy". Uhm well that is something that Bucky Barnes has now said. In canon. Damn.

"It's a lot" "You sound like my dad" LMAO

Every Bucky fanfic trope speedrun with this scene

"Wow you really can drink" OH you have no idea

Just realized we don't even know her name, well.

"You have any siblings?" "I have a sister" THE WAY I SCREECHED. We're definitely getting Becca

Well that escalated quickly. The important thing is to try?

I can't deal with this BUCKY SWEETIE #8 cry right there fuck

The wardrobe department is KILLING IT, there's such a difference between the outfits of the shows vs how ugly and generic it usually is.

"ThEre is NO such thiNg as on time. You're either EARLY or LATE . picK One" lmao the way he delivered that line

At first I thought the flag smashers had thrown two cars out of a window LMAO

"I don't know how jurisdiction works here, but I'mma have to place you under arrest" uhm yikes. The way they changed Joaquín Torres backstory to just random army nice guy #1 is not sitting well with me, what can I say.

Sam's wings motions I LOVE HIM YOUR HONOR

Fuuuuck this guy.

"Funny how thing's always thighten around us" "Look, I'm on your side. After all, he's a hero". This script is C R I S P as hell, great fucking job.

"I don't care, I'm not gonna quit" "What are you trying to prove? And who you trying to prove it to" SHIT HSIT SHIT!!! UGH amazing. Look it's not necessary to say the show's questions out loud but how they flow between the conversations is still very satisfactory without feeling in your face about it. Inner conflicts have been set up fucking perfectly everyone * claps *

Ugh here we fucking go.  I knew this was how the episode was going to end but my stomach still dropped like a rollercoster. God.

The score is on point. Damn. Damn.

God, Sam.🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

The captain america franchise's visuals in the credits are always so amazing.

Also, does anybody know why Mackie isn't first in the billing?  Uhm what's that about?

ANYWAY CONCLUSION THAT EPISODE WAS SO FUCKING GOOD LIKE HOLY SHIT. I love them so much. The balance between the personal conflicts and the political aspect (although the military aspect is still very much yikes) was on point and it was overall a joy to watch.

[mollymauk-teafleak]

The Man That Came Back

Thanks so much to @minky-for-short and @spiky-lesbian, my wonderful betas

Please consider leaving a comment on Ao3, it’s free, easy and means so much! 

---

For the next part of their plan, a heist needs to be pulled off in the fanciest bar on Saturn. And Buddy knows exactly how Juno can disguise himself, much to the delight of Nureyev

---

“Captain, all due respect and everything but that’s got to be the most ridiculous idea I ever heard.”

Buddy gave him a more than slightly exhausted look over the building plans she was studying on her comms screen, “You know, darling, it would be incredibly helpful if that wasn’t your response to every single plan I put in front of you…”

Juno gave her one of his scowls, the ones where he pouted a little and scrunched up his face, where he knew he was being unreasonable but was going to be stubborn all the same, “Well, let’s just say this one tops the whole damn lot! I don’t even...how...how do you even imagine I’d be any good at this?”

Buddy seemed to be tuning him out for the most part, eyes returning to her screen as the floorplan of the bar rotated slowly, exactly where their marks would enter, meet and most likely leave plotted out in glowing lines, “From the data I gathered on you, same way I know not to send you to any job that may, for some unknown reason, take place in a seafood restaurant owing to your allergy to shellfish. I like to know my crew, young lady, their likes, dislikes, the skills they boast about...and the skills they don’t. Keeps things smooth, interesting and us alive.”

Juno had very little reply to that, still choking on the embarrassment he was hiding behind annoyance, “But...what kind of database has that on file?”

“No database that I’ve ever heard of, darling, but you are aware that your high school yearbooks are also digitised and on file, easily accessible in the archives if one has no more information than your name?”

Juno stalled at that, turning somehow redder, “And that was relevant when hiring me to be a space pirate, was it?”

“As far as I’m concerned,” Buddy raised an eyebrow, tracing a new glowing line onto the screen with her finger, “When I am inviting someone new into my family, everything is relevant. Would you pick a sibling or cousin so carelessly, if you had the chance to do so?”

“But…” Juno screwed up his face even tighter, clearly recognising he was trapped in an unwinnable argument but unwilling to go down without a pointless fight, “Of all the jobs, why did it have to be this?”

With a flick of devastatingly manicured fingers, Buddy blew up the plan into a hologram between them and spoke as if to a small child, “The view offered by that position is unparalleled, you’ll be able to see every table as well as the entrances to the bathrooms and the kitchens, thereby covering every possible means of escape for our mark and you can provide a fitting distraction at a moment’s notice.”

“Yeah, yeah, I read the plans before I came in here,” Juno waved away her hands patiently pointing to what she was referencing on the miniature, translucent version of the Saturnian wine bar, The Albedo, “I get your point, doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“I grant you that,” Buddy allowed, “Look, Juno, I’m not asking for talent worthy of a Saturday night stream, you just have to be functional. Enough that we can pull off what should be this very simple and problem free job. Put away that scowl of yours and have fun with it, if you can.”

Juno groaned irritatedly and stared at the still revolving plan in front of him. A simple job. Place themselves within the bar, watch the exchange of the stolen goods between their marks then wait until they leave and re-steal it right from out their back pocket. Boom, details on where the last piece of their little puzzle was hiding, where the book was. Snatch it up before anyone else could find it and not have to pay the exorbitant price their mark probably did. Don’t rob the shadowy, organised crime seller of the information who had security coming out of their ears, rob the poor idiot who bought the thing.

Easy. But it sure as hell didn’t have to be fun.

“Just do me a favour,” he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, “Please put minimal crew members in earshot. And for the love of all that’s holy, not Vesper.”

“Brown butter old fashioned please. With a cherry, if you have one to hand.”

A good alias was like stepping into a different skin, Nureyev had always been taught. Everything you were became less than a memory and this new personality took over completely. If you didn’t believe it, then your mark never would. It had to be complete. It had to be total. You essentially needed to die, for as long as required.

Nureyev still held true to that belief. But sometimes, on a job as easy as this one, he didn’t think it beyond the realm of possibility that your new identity may just happen to have the same favourite drink as you did.

He leaned against the bar and waited for his drink, allowing his eyes a pass over the scene. The bar was comfortably full without being a press of warm bodies in evening wear, just a generous handful of couples and groups at tables or standing with him at the bar, showing why Saturn was considered to have the most eccentric style of the solar planets. The headdresses were towering, the frills were voluminuous, the skirts were miles in diameter. Nureyev was starting to feel a little overshadowed in his simple black suit with gold embellishments set into the silk. The drinks poured out billows of dry ice and came in every colour on the spectrum apart from the usual ones. The music was the only thing old school, classic, a simple piano played by a very talented individual on a small, circular centre platform. Nureyev smiled, it was funny how some things kept coming back into fashion. How old could seem new if it was just old enough.

And in amongst the noise, familiarity. Rita, dressed as a waitress, moving between the tables, chatting animatedly with everyone she brought drinks to so her rounds took about ten times longer than she needed to. Hopefully that slight, almost unnoticeable lump in the pocket of her trousers was the signal jammer, just in case their mark tried to call him some kind of backup or there was a tracker on the goods. Rita didn’t often come down on jobs like this, her place was usually back on the ship, but she’d been desperate to see the bar itself (it had apparently been the setting for one of the streams she liked so much) and besides, if the signal changed, the jammer would need to hunt it down to take it out and Rita was the only one Buddy trusted with that task.

Jet was posing as a patron, dressed in smart dark clothes with his hair pulled back rather neatly, looking like he was struggling with the drink that had been set down in front of him. Nureyev couldn’t blame him, the thing had glowing orbs in it that looked like alien eggs. Not that he’d be drinking much of it anyway, in his usual roll as the muscle, just in case things went south. Jet was always a strong, comforting presence when they went to task and Nureyev was really starting to appreciate it. Muscles were certainly something he’d lacked, if he could be said to lack anything aside humility. Speed and cunning he had but his wiry frame had earned him more than a few bruised ribs in the past when jobs had turned irritatingly sour and fists had come out. He’d learned how to avoid those sorts of outcomes fast.

Nureyev’s eyes continued along, taking in the electric blue lighting fixtures making them look like they were all underwater, sleek leather furnishings, glinting gold and jewels on necks and fingers and wrists. His fingers got that old itch in them but he stilled himself. After the prize was taken, perhaps, but certainly not a minute before.

But one thing unsettled him deeply about the whole situation. The one face he hadn’t seen. The one face he would know no matter what disguise or mask it wore, the one face he always looked for first. Juno Steel was nowhere his eyes could see.

Nureyev frowned. He knew Juno was supposed to be posing as an employee of the bar itself, Rita had worked hard forging them employment orders from the owners. He’d expected to see him behind the bar serving drinks and had gotten himself a little excited about flirting with him shamelessly. They’d had some fun experiences with that, playing around with their new personas when they were supposed to be strangers. Nureyev didn’t think that was breaking his golden rule either. He couldn’t imagine anyone not being attracted to Juno Steel.

But he wasn’t here and that was settling a heavy feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. Too many unknowns. Too many, all centred around a person he cared about. Recipe for panic sparking through his nerves and poor decisions being made.

He tried to catch Rita or Jet’s eyes, tried to calmly and subtly convey the extreme anxiety raging behind his easy, playful bar patron’s expression. But at that moment the lighting shifted, swimming and coalescing on that centre platform. There was an old fashioned mic stand there now, clearly a shift in the entertainment to welcome the actual start of the evening. Though some glitzed up aspiring starlet caterwauling their way through some old Earth classics was hardly what he needed right now, when his boyfriend was AWOL in the middle of a mission. He ignored the gathering interest around the platform and scanned the available exits, head full of potential scenarios with the seller being tipped off somehow, grabbing Juno while everyone else was occupied, leaving him bleeding in the alleyways outside the bar…

Nureyev was halfway out of his seat, drink forgotten in front of him when an artificially amplified voice echoed through the bar room and stopped him in his tracks. No introduction, no preamble,

Just a soft, shy voice buoyed by the sweet piano music, a voice he knew well.

“The night is bitter

The stars have lost their glitter…”

Nureyev whirled his attention to where the rest of the patrons were focused, on the individual in the long, sleek red dress standing behind the microphone, his outfit simple compared to the others on display but so striking for that.

“The winds grow colder

Suddenly you're older…”

Nureyev knew he was gaping at him but he didn’t care. His curls were spilling out over the nape of his neck and forehead, looking so soft under the blue lighting. He looked otherworldly, like something fae and unnatural, glitter dusted over his bare shoulders where it would catch the light just so, the material of the dress shifting and spilling when he swayed to the piano. And his voice.

“And all because of the man that got away.”

Since when did Juno Steel have a voice like that?

If Nureyev had been able to tear his eyes away, he would have seen Rita standing towards the back of the crowd, jaw on the floor, eyes wide, hand having gone limp so a thin stream of neon green wine was dribbling onto the carpet from the bottle she was holding. He would have seen Jet with an eyebrow raised bemusedly, tapping his foot under the table, attention then caught by a man walking in looking more nervous than anyone out for a good time had any right to.

But all he saw was Juno. He was clearly shy at first, voice soft and small, his movements a little stiff. But as the song continued and the reactions from the crowd were clearly appreciative, he began to sway his hips slightly, taking his hands away from holding onto the mic stand in a death grip, letting them float at his sides as he sang. And he started to smile, soft and soulful like his song, full of wry bitterness and loss and longing.

“Every trick of his you're on to

But, fools will be fools

And where's he gone to?”

And then suddenly his eye was on Nureyev, picking him out in the crowd, narrowing the space between them to nothing until they could have been alone in his room back on the ship, voices hushed, lips brushing. And Juno’s smile quirked slightly, enough pin Nureyev to the bar, his breath coming out in a long, quiet exhale. He would make his dear heart sing for him, once this was done.

“The road gets rougher

It's lonelier and tougher

With hope you burn up

Tomorrow he will turn up

There's just no letup the live-long night and day…”

Nureyev could have fallen to his knees in that moment, with how deep and sweet his voice became, drunk without a single sip of his drink. But then Juno’s eye caught his again and slid pointedly over to a table in the shadowier corners. Their mark and the seller. A thin brown envelope being passed under the table, barely visible.

Nureyev went scarlet. Not one of his more professional moments.

He refocused, taking his crystal glass in his hand and sauntering over, like he was just looking for a better view of the stage, an easy thing to feign now Juno’s hands were resting on his chest in a gentle pantomime of heartbreak that was so very distracting. The mark was just getting up, clearly eager to make a quick exit. It was amateurish in the extreme, a millionaire really should have some more self awareness.

It was the simplest thing. Bump into him, the drink cascading over them both. Apologetic pleasantries, outraged exclamations. Pat ineffectually with a nearby napkin. Slip the envelope from the inner pocket and replace with a blank to mimic the weight. Pretend to only just notice that you have just swilled one of the richest men on Saturn and bid a hasty, flustered exit. Child’s play, as smooth and silken as when he’d first mastered the maneuver at thirteen.

Nureyev allowed himself a self satisfied smile, once he was out of view. It was good to know that some things would never go to rust.

He headed back to the stage, stopping to gently tip the wine bottle in Rita’s hand the right way then claim it for himself, taking a seat directly in front of the stage before tipping it to his lips, eyes fixed on Juno, a self satisfied smirk on his lips.

“Ever since this world began

There is nothing sadder than

A one-man woman looking for

The man that got away

The man that got away.”

There were a lot of rules when it came to working jobs, false facing, slipping on alibis like a second skin.

But no one said you couldn’t have fun.

Later, much later, Juno’s voice was raw and breaking from a full night of singing and the noises Nureyev had been drawing from him for the last three hours.

Considering his work done for now and smiling smugly, Nureyev let him fall back against his bed, curling around him and pillowing his head on his broad chest. There was still glitter clinging to his skin that would likely end up on Nureyev and refuse to budge for days but he couldn’t make himself care about that right now.

“Oh my god…” Juno was still panting, chest heaving, heart hammering against Nureyev’s ear, “I mean...oh my god, Nureyev…”

Nureyev chuckled, pressing a kiss to the warm skin beneath his head, “I rather enjoyed it too, dear heart. And I did say you’d be fairly rewarded for your performance, didn’t I?”

“I thought you meant you were gonna buy me a drink or something,” Juno laughed breathlessly, hands coming up to stroke through Nureyev’s soft hair, sort out where it was matted at the back from their efforts, “Not that.”

“Well, I did say the reward would fit the quality of your performance...and that was pretty spectacular.”

He heard the blush in Juno’s voice rather than saw it, he was far too comfortable in his current position, “Ah...I mean, I was alright. Just something I used to do when I was younger.”

“Oh?” Nureyev’s interest was sparked but he hid that. Juno spoke about his past so infrequently, even with all of their lengthy conversations before they’d fallen back into bed with each other. It was clearly still a wound and Nureyev had no desire to poke it.

“Yeah,” Juno continued on, “My brother was always in the school productions, even though it was always kind of crappy and the sets were junk and most kids' parents wouldn’t even come, he still lit up when it came back around. And because it was better than sitting on the curb waiting for him for hours, I signed up too. He was the real talent, Ben could sing, dance, act...everything. I could carry enough of a tune to get shoved into some minor roles but...whenever I sang, even if it was just a few lines, he’d go crazy applauding for me and grinning a mile wide. Really, I was just doing it to see him smile. I knew it made him happy when I joined in.”

Nureyev smiled gently at that, hand reaching out to  entwine his fingers with Juno’s, “I’m sure he’d have loved to see you sing tonight.”

“Oh, Ben would have laughed his ass off seeing me up there trying to be all femme fatale,” Juno hummed, holding Nureyev’s hand just as tightly, “But...yeah. It was hard not to think of him while I was up there.”

“And...what would he have made of the man drinking wine and watching you all gooey eyed, hm?”

“That asshole?” Juno cuddled Nureyev closer with his free arm, “Nah...he’d have liked you. He’d have realised you’re good for me.”

Nureyev buried his face in the crook of Juno’s neck, feeling a burst of delight in his chest at that, at the idea that he was good for someone.

And that someone was good for him.

[pervocracy]

One opinion about almost every episode of Doctor Who that I’ve watched

spoilers, although they’re mostly from like 2005

An Unearthly Child: Whoa, they nailed the theme song right from the get-go!

Rose: The Doctor’s speech about feeling the Earth turning under his feet was chilling, and I think about it a lot in moments later in the series when he’s being goofy and casual.

The End of the World: They spent a lot of money on this one--costumes, effects, even licensed music--to prove to everyone that This Ain’t Your Daddy’s Doctor Who.

The Unquiet Dead: I realize saying “every myth is actually aliens” is kind of the Brand, but this one came off particularly strongly “we wrote a Victorian ghost story but then the boss said it had to be aliens so okay, fine, they’re fuckin’... alien ghosts.”

Aliens of London: “Being the Doctor’s companion will completely destroy your life” is a surprisingly grim running theme in the series.  Every companion eventually brings grief to their friends and families, in one way or another.

World War Three: Rose returning to the TARDIS as a conscious decision, bags packed and ready for adventure, is adorable.  The show implies that certain people are just made to be companions to the Doctor, and Rose is one of them.

Dalek: It was an interesting choice to introduce the Dalek as sympathetic and pitiful, and at the same time one of the most brutal killers on the show.  And at the same time, it’s still a ridiculous-looking thing with a toilet plunger for an arm.

The Long Game: Hey! That’s Simon Pegg!  He looks weird with blond hair!  Hi Simon Pegg!  I’m waving at the TV!

Father’s Day: I only watched this one once.  Couldn’t deal with the feelings.

The Empty Child: Stephen Moffat was so good when he wasn’t allowed to take over the whole show so he actually had to write stories with endings!

The Doctor Dances: And what a glorious ending it is!  Everybody lives, Rose!  Just this once, EVERYBODY LIVES!

Boom Town: The Doctor’s dinner with the Slitheen, and their cold deconstruction of each other’s brutality, is one hell of a scene considering the silliness of the setup.

Bad Wolf: Today on Shit You Did Not Expect: a... The Weakest Link crossover?  Really?  Really.  They play The Weakest Link with a penis-headed robot who blasts people with her laser eyes.  And then they’re on Big Brother!  Hey!  My dad worked on that!  I don’t think he was actually part of this episode though.

The Parting of the Ways: Rose doesn’t look or act like she’d make a fearsome demigod.  Which makes it much more powerful when she does.

The Christmas Invasion: “Who is this weird new guy?  I’ll never get used to him being the Doctor!” -me, for about 5 seconds before falling completely and permanently in love with Ten

New Earth: This one is so much fun! Rose and the Doctor are so adorably playful with each other, and then they get to do some incredibly goofy bodyswap acting, and then even Cassandra gets to have a sweet, humanity-affirming ending.

Tooth and Claw: So you’ve got a Scottish actor who normally fakes an English accent, pretending to be faking a Scottish accent, then pretending to forget to fake a Scottish accent and “slipping” into an English accent again.  Meanwhile I can’t even speak with a Massachusetts accent and I was born here.

School Reunion: “I couldn’t bear to watch you grow old and die” is a bullshit excuse for ditching a companion, coming from a guy whose entire personality essentially-dies every time he has a contract dispute or “creative differences.”

The Girl in the Fireplace: “Every time I travel through the time portals, several years pass for Reinette.  Too bad I have no pattern recognition abilities!”

Rise of the Cybermen: I’m glad Mickey finally gets an episode where he’s not just a barely-wanted tagalong.  He was on the verge of becoming the Xander Harris of this show.

The Age of Steel: Noel Clarke’s “I’m two people” acting is so good!  You can see whether he’s Mickey or Ricky in each shot with a glance, just from his facial expression.

The Idiot’s Lantern: ahahaha look at their hair in this episode

The Impossible Planet: I’m glad they came back to the Ood later, because it’s rather unpleasant how the Doctor in this one kinda shrugs off “so these people are keeping slaves, what’re you gonna do, cultural differences and all that.”

The Satan Pit: Making literal Satan the bad guy here is adorable.  It’s like something you’d see on 60s Star Trek, but no, it’s happening in our modern CGI-enhanced post-irony Golden Age Of TV world.  A man in a spacesuit is yelling at a giant red devil that just growls back at him and it’s all very serious drama.  I love this show.

Love & Monsters: This is the one where a girl gets turned into a paving slab but then her boyfriend announces that it’s okay because they’re still having sex.  Yeah.  That happened.

Fear Her: I think this one’s mostly filler

Army of Ghosts: There’s just way too much going on here.  We’ve got ghosts and Cybermen and Torchwood and Daleks and a parallel universe and... anyway I think the concept of using those flimsy paper 3D glasses as a magical item is kind of adorable.

Doomsday: ROSE!  ROSE NO!  COME BACK!  ROOOSE!!!

The Runaway Bride: Catherine Tate is so good!  I’m so glad they brought her back!

Smith and Jones: I love that Martha immediately distinguishes herself as a potential companion by being excited instead of terrified that they’ve been teleported to the moon.  She doesn’t even know how they have air, but she’s already like “sweet! an Adventure!”

The Shakespeare Code: By theater nerds, for theater nerds, probably insufferable to everyone else, but theater nerds have long been comfortable with that.

Gridlock: It feels a little too Socially Responsible how the Doctor and Martha are immediately and violently anti-drug.  This world has patches that bring you magical joy with no apparent side effects, and instead of being curious about it the way they usually are about future technology, they just go straight to “SAY NOPE TO DOPE, KIDS!!!”

Daleks in Manhattan: Having Daleks use the old-school pepperpot design and robot-screamy-voices in the modern series is like putting nipples and a codpiece on the Batsuit in The Dark Knight.  Which is to say, it’s brilliant and I love it.

Evolution of the Daleks: too much plot, I’m sleepy

The Lazarus Experiment: I cannot believe multiple adults saw the wig Mark Gatiss wears in this episode and agreed that would be okay.

42: I really like these self-contained episodes that don’t set up any big arcs or prophesies or personal dramas.  There’s just a ticking clock, a mystery, a spaceship, and a whole lot of running up and down hallways whilst shouting.

Human Nature: Hey, it’s Jojen Reed as an uncanny psychic child!  And Viserys Targaryen as a sadistic upper-class brat!

The Family of Blood: Man, the Doctor really dicked Martha over with this one.  “You’re going to be a domestic servant, because you’re black!  And I’m going to turn myself into an old-timey racist who doesn’t know who you are!  And yet somehow you’re supposed to be in charge of making sure I carry out all my plans!”

Blink: This is a perfect episode of television.

Utopia:💖😍🥰😘 jack harkness i love you 😘🥰😍💖

The Sound of Drums: “Menacing goofiness” is a strange place for an actor to aim, but damn if John Simm doesn’t hit it.

Last of the Time Lords: “I’ve been traveling around the world, fomenting resistance and spreading hope... in the idea that the Doctor is magic and can fix everything by himself.  That’s what resistance to fascism is, right?  Just throwing all your resources in with a different all-powerful authority-father-savior figure?”

Voyage of the Damned: Giving the Doctor a one-off temporary companion, and expecting people to care about her as much as Rose or Martha, doesn’t really work.  “Oh no, she’s dying.  Not whatserface. Oh no.”

Partners in Crime: I love that they’re giving the Doctor a companion who doesn’t have any kind of psychosexuromantic entanglement with him, but is really just a friend.  I love that they’re giving the Doctor a companion who’s (by actors’ ages, at least) older than him.  ...Oh shit, is it bad that these are the same one?

The Fires of Pompeii: “I wish we could save the people of Pompeii, but I am powerless to change this part of history... oh wait, no, I’ll save this one random family on a whim.  Guess I could change history after all!  Sorry, other 20,000 people who are still getting volcanoed to death!”

Planet of the Ood: “The companion is the Doctor’s conscience” is always true, but Donna really owns it.  She spares no time for pretending that “oh but what if the Ood are supposed to be slaves” is an interesting argument.

The Sontaren Strategem: Another one of those “too much plot for me” episodes.  I’m a simple man; just give me a monster and a hallway to run down.

The Poison Sky: ditto

The Doctor’s Daughter: It’s weird that they got married in real life.  Like, their actual age difference is within the half-plus-seven rule, and she wasn’t even really his daughter daughter on the show, but, like, it’s still a little tiny bit weird.

The Unicorn and the Wasp: I guess if I read Agatha Christie books I would understand some of these references?

Silence in the Library: Holy shit, this one is scary.  I don’t hide behind the couch often watching Doctor Who, but... “Hey, who turned out the lights?”

Forest of the Dead: River’s speech about “when the wind stands fair and the Doctor comes to call, everybody lives” is self-indulgent Stephen Moffat hooey and a blatant repeat from “The Doctor Dances” but I’ve got goosebumps anyway.

Midnight: Wow.  You don’t really expect to be using the phrase “a gut-punch of an episode” about the same series that was just playing Detective Funtimes With Agatha Christie, but this was a gut-punch of an episode.

Turn Left: I’ve rewatched a lot of these, but I couldn’t watch this one more than once because I felt so sad about Wilfred. Something in his performance is just wrenching.

The Stolen Earth: I couldn’t watch this one more than once because it’s hard to summon up the energy to follow the “let’s throw everything that’s ever happened onto the show into this stew” plotline.

Journey’s End: HOW DARE YOU DO DONNA LIKE THAT.  HOW DARE YOU.

The Next Doctor: Hey!  That’s not Matt Smith!  I thought it was gonna be Matt Smith.

Planet of the Dead: The Doctor without a permanent companion is always an uncomfortable dynamic.  Both because he needs a conscience/foil/audience-surrogate, and because otherwise we have to go through the “the Doctor is the perfect boyfriend who always breaks your heart” narrative all over again every damn episode.

The Waters of Mars: I like when the Doctor isn’t a good person.  When he gets all arrogant and inhuman and at moments even sinister, that’s far more interesting than when he’s a straightforward hero.

The End of Time: Look, I loved David Tennant’s run on this show.  He’s my favorite Doctor and my imaginary boyfriend.  If there’s anyone I don’t mind watching get a bit self-indulgent, it’s Ten.  But even from this perspective, I think it was not a good idea to let him spend a half hour dying while crying piteously and also somehow touring his entire history on the show.  It really was not.

The Eleventh Hour:  This feels like the first episode of an entirely new show.  There’s very little in characters or plotlines (or writers or producers) connecting it to anything that happened before.  The sense of a fresh start is nice, but this literally is not the same show I enjoyed before.

The Beast Below: Oh.  It’s a space whale.  That’s cool I guess.  This show is okay and everything, but there’s no way I would have really gotten into it if I’d started watching here.

Victory of the Daleks: Upon reading the Wikipedia summary of this episode, I realized that I had, in fact, watched it.

The Time of Angels: “Blink” was, as I said, perfect.  But not because the Angels are the greatest enemy ever devised; they’re creepy and all, but most of the fun in “Blink” comes from the meticulously satisfying construction of the time loops.  Taking that element out, and just making the Angels into generic boogeymen, was a terrible idea.

Flesh and Stone: Oh god, there’s so many mediocre Eleven episodes.  Don’t get me wrong, Matt Smith is great.  I don’t blame him.  But I’m just not feeling the energy to go through every one of these damn things anymore.

[...]

Let’s Kill Hitler: This is the one that finally defeated me.  I wasn’t really offended, just... tired.  Things had gotten so wrapped up in complicated portentous chosen-savior-of-everything plots and we couldn’t have even one episode anymore that was just a normal time travel adventure.  I think about halfway through here, I gave up on Doctor Who.

Oh well.  There’s still time to come back to it if I want.  And we’ll always have “Blink.”

[shikai-the-storyteller]

Homestretch....the final Cyberverse episodes... :’(

Season 3: Episodes 21 - 26

Episode 21

Ok so before we start, I gotta fess up and say I got spoiled for something because Twitter Sucks, so I know Tarn is in this series. Here are my predictions about that: 

Megatron said he rescued Astrotrain from a tyrant. I thought he meant an Alt!Universe version of him, but now that I know This Bastard is gonna be in it, I’m guessing it’s Tarn

If Megatron DID save Astrotrain from Tarn, it’d be hilarious if Tarn & co. weren’t actually planning to kill Astrotrain, they were just using him as transport, in which case Megatron essentially car-jacked (train-jacked?) them.

As much as I rag on Tarn and the DJD I actually do genuinely love the idea of an Autobot + Decepticon teamup against the DJD THAT WOULD BE SO FRICKIN COOL....

Anyways, on to the episode!

Pics taken 10 seconds before disaster, rip Cosmos.

MEDIA BOT and Cosmos! :D GOSH COSMOS REALLY IS CONFIRMED FOR BABY THAT”S ADORABLE.....I’m so glad he’s finally back in a cartoon

OH WHOOPS I FORGOT WINDBLADE WAS FRICKIN DEAD (ish)

LUNA 3???

The “FORBIDDEN” moon? 

Chromia: You can go there anyways! Bee: Huh?  Chromia: When have the rules ever stopped you before? Bee: Fair point

BRO WHY DO YOU HAVE A TOY OF SQUIDSCREAM

aw I love all those photos of him and cosmos, that’s cute

Oh no did he quit the business because he lost Cosmos???

METEOR-FIRE what a cool name

I like this dude a lot

I love that he’s obviously depressed about losing his partner but immediately gets convinced to go break into Luna 3 lmao

HE’S GOT CUTE CAMERAS WITH HIM I love that

LMAO I was gonna say “Wow you just flip the switches alright” THEN HE JUST RIPS THE CORDS OUT I love this guy

Hmm suspicious

Aw I love the space-shots of Cybertron, what a gorgeous planet....

Oh hello cannon-fodder #418

SHOCKWAVE SHOCKWAVE SHOCKWAVE!!!!!

IT”S THE GRUDGE LMAO

It’s probably a sim that shows you the scariest thing you can think of

BLURR!!! AW THAT’S SO SAD

Ok I take it back, it’s probably like MTMTE’s “Cyberutopia” thing where it reads your memory files

Watch the cameras Bee!!!

“Bee, I don’t mean to alarm you, but the alien presence has taken over my circuits” *HEAD DOES A 180* GOSH I LOVE THIS FRICKIN SHOW

The facial expressions in this show are SO FUN Bee’s so expressive I love that

I like that Meteor-Fire is so chill about this, this ain’t his first rodeo

He just snaps his neck back into place that’s so freaky and they play it off so well lol

PRETTY SPACE BALL???? PRETTY SPACE BALL!!! HEY HASBRO CAN YOU MAKE A TOY OF THIS I WANT IT!!!!!!

Gosh I’d legit buy a gem like this if it had constellations engraved on it THAT’S SO PRETTY I LOVE IT

It’s a good thing that Bee’s got Meteor-Fire with him, this is his field!!!

Oh lmao JUST KIDDING I GUESS

Well so much for the alien, rest in pieces

I think Saling already said this in their liveblog but I love that Bee’s collecting Windblade’s parts a-la-Megaman X2 style

COSMOS!!!!!! Yay I’m so glad they got him back!!!

Meteor-Fire: Look everybody, Cosmos is back!!! :D ME TOO BUD I’m so excited to see my space-baby

RODDY AND ARCEE!!!! I love that Percy took over for Maccadam, but that’s also so sad!!! ALSO WHY HAS HE NOT FIXED HIS EYES, RATCHET PLEASE HELP THIS POOR GUY

Episode 22  

OHH PRETTY PLANET

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The background designers on this show are great

Rodimus: That place has nothing but bad memories for me Every Drift fan simultaneously: Mood....

I really don’t think they’ll bring Drift back (unless he’s like, a zombie, which would still suck) so that’s a bummer

Rodimus: *Talking about his trauma* Me, very distracted: Wow Bee looks really cute here

SERIOUSLY THOUGH THEY NEED RUNG IN THIS SERIES They need a therapist in every Transformers series, all these bots need therapy (though tbf they tried to give Starscream therapy and that sure didn’t help, pft)

GRIMLOCK MAYBE DON’T--oh ok too late WELL THERE THEY GO

Repugnis?? I don’t remember who that is

A CITY?????? PRETTY

INSECTICON

lmao the frickin voice actor for that grey dude cracked me up

BEE MAYBE DON’T IMMEDIATELY TRUST THEM

Energon masters???? What

Interesting that they used “She” for Grimlock

Affluence?? 

Oh great these guys are the Cybertronian bourgeoisie 

Oh boy they’re just wasting energon huh

THE SHOCKS????

That’s a pretty bubble but JEEZ

OH NO WHY CAN”T HE TRANSFORM??

WAIT WHERE”S THE AUDIO oh wait no OP did mention there was an audio dropout

Is Grimlock gonna make friends with the bugs!!!

OH RIGHT the bug is Repugnis 

Aw the bugs are way nicer than the bourgeoisie, surprising absolutely no one

HELL YEAH, EAT THE RICH GRIMLOCK

“If we let you go, things will change! We like things the way they are” jeez

I wonder how the Shocks came about

It frickin figures

PRISON BREAK BEE!!!!

EAT HIM GRIMLOCK!!!

“Well this is quite astonishing” cute....

YEAH I WAS WONDERING IF THEY HAD THE SAME ALT MODE they looked like they had bug-bits, I didn’t realize that thing was keeping them from transforming though

Episode 23   

Oh right Megatron has a Matrix of Leadership I FORGOT ABOUT THAT

I ALSO FORGOT WHIRL WAS IN THIS SERIES, MY BABY.....

JETFIRE WATCH OUT YOU BIG NERD

“Rack ‘n Ruin and Ratchet” OH IS THIS GONNA BE A RATCHET EPISODE??? PLEASE?????? PLEASE SAY RATCHET EPISODE

Aw poor Rack n Ruin...

RATCHET BABY BOY!!! I forgot he was a New Yorker in this series lmao

“I LOVE Jetfire!”  “I know, me too!” CUTE....

I love that every continuity has Ratchet stuck with someone who annoys him in a ship

I love that Ratchet’s not even concerned

RATCHET’S DESIGN IN CYBERVERSE IS SO CUTE...

Wait UNSPACE???? Isn’t that where they sent a bunch of bad people????

Different Quantum Frequencies??? Dimensionally aligned??? MAN I LOVE THIS GOOFY SHOW

“It’s a blue-purple” CUTE....

UH OH HERE COMES ASTROTRAIN throwing dead-end??

I love that Astrotrain is so HUGE compared to everyone else, thank you Cyberverse for my life

“Every time..” LMAO GOSH THIS SHOW IS LITERALLY THE BEST someone please make a gif of that. I love that this implies that every time someone rides in Astrotrain they get ejected at 100 mph and skid 50 ft face-first, that’s such a delightful mental image. I think this 5 second scene is legitimately one of my favorite goofs / scenes in this show IT’S JUST THAT GOOD

You can tell I really enjoyed something when I make a meme of it

IT”S ILLEGAL TO BE THIS CUTE!!!!!!!!

OK IT’S LEGITIMATELY A LITTLE FRIGHTENING TO SEE HOW HUGE ASTROTRAIN IS WHEN IN ATTACK-MODE, HE SO EASILY PICKED THEM UP but that’s why it’s cool for him to be SO much bigger than they are, I LOVE BIG CYBERTRONIANS

LMAO I LOVE ASTROTRAIN he’s such a turd to DeadEnd

“Time to pay Ratchet a house-call. ‘Cuz he’s a doctor!” I almost snorted my drink up my nose, I LOVE THE DORKY HUMOR IN THIS SHOW

I swear this series was made with me in mind

TWO HEADS, NO BRAINCELLS

You wonder if Shadow Striker and Soundwave ever just rock-paper-scissor to see who has to deal with the latest Autobot bs that day

“And we don’t” OH SHOOT THEY’RE BEING LEFT OUT OF THE DECEPTICON’S PLANS TOO...This is more dire than I thought

Man I really do love Shadow Striker and Soundwave, they’re the only competent Decepticons

OH NO NOT RATCHET!!! NO!!!!!

Ohh so Astrotrain is still a triple changer in this series!! :O

WOW A SHOT TO THE HEAD REALLY DIDN”T DO ANYTHING HUH

REST IN PIECES DEADEND lmao he and Percy both have good survival stats it seems

NICE MOVES GRANDPA glad your hips still work lol

Oh good I’m glad they actually kept the purple thing

RIP Rack n Ruin

DEADEND YOU DONT EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT IS

YEAHHHHH SHADOW STRIKER AND SOUNDWAVE!!!!!

“You’ve been told this area is off-limits” Oh shoot so Megatron really doesn’t trust them with this huh??? Must be some serious stuff they saw while universe-hopping

“Make us” SOUNDWAVE I WOULD DIE FOR YOU MY SASSY BOY

Love that he’s pissing off this dude who’s literally 4 times his height, love my son

Shadow Striker & Soundwave are Goth / Jock solidarity

Ratchet: Yeah yeah yeah I know Cuteeee

Wow they’re really not gonna help Shadow Striker and Soundwave????

THEY’RE LITERALLY JUST DOLL-SIZE IN HIS HANDS which is probably a not great reminder for Soundwave after that Dr. Tentacle Dude incident

Astrotrain: *bops their faces together* heehee Soundwave: BI Shadow Striker: >8(

JEEZ, BYE ASTROTRAIN

THE STYLE IS SO JARRING I LOVE IT!!! I LOVE UNSPACE AND HOW IT LOOKS (especially when contrasted with the regular drawing-style of the show. Really great artistic choice!)

Oh shoot so Astrotrain can just leave whenever huh

Aw what cute high fives, man this show has such good vibes

Episode 24  

NOOOO ONLY THREE EPISODES LEFT.....

:(((((

WINDLBADE!!!! I hope she’ll be ok

DID it work?? Wait you guys still have two frickin shards left, YOU”RE SO BAD AT THIS

A SHARK????? WTF

HE JUST PICKED HER UP AND DIPPED WTF WHO IS THAT

It’s not Skybyte obviously but he’s a shark too so WHO IS THAT

OHH IS THAT THE HALL OF RECORDS???? 

Wait wtf the Decepticons are attacking?? Oh wait RACK N RUIN DID YOU REALLY TELL THEM THAT

OH NO HE FROZE

WHOA  WHAT”S HAPPENING

WHAT OPTIMUS NO

WHAT”S HAPPENING!!!!! WTF

I WAS GONNA MAKE A BSOD JOKE BUT I TAKE IT ALL BACK OPTIMUS PLEASE BE OK YOU CAN’T DIE IN THIS SERIES

Is this referencing the other time when he glitched oh no....I knew that’d come back to bite us

In other news, I love that we’re learning more about the life and (cyber)biology of Cybertron, I’m so glad we got to have pretty much almost the entire series set on Cybertron

I MEAN JUST LOOK AT THAT!!! THAT’S SO COOL!!! This is the stuff I want to see in Transformers shows!!!

Hasbro could literally make a nature documentary set on Cybertron and I’d be ecstatic. Gimme more details about their world and architecture and city stuff

“Fellow Primes, why have I been summoned?” Oh shoot so the other past primes can just jack OP’s consciousness whenever??? That frickin sucks. I do love the Atlantis vibes I’m ge HOLY FRICK IS THAT MAC

AHHHHHHHH MACCADAM!!!!!!!!!!! GRANDPA!!!!!!! PLEASE GIVE OPTIMUS DAD ADVICE!!!!!! IM SO GLAD WE GET TO SEE HIM AGAIN

Chromia: Bee are you crazy?? Bee: YES! *jumps off the ship*

I love that this weird storm cloud area is basically like an ocean, that’s so cool

OH NO BEE!!!!!!!

Jeez that startled me, the shark sounds just like Bee

“Well you’re doing a scrap job” lmao Chromia please

Oh it’s the Argon Sea, it IS an ocean pft

“An ancient evil” hooo boy

BEE he’s so cute. Wait don’t just jump down a random hole AT LEAST WAIT FOR CHROMIA

CREEPY TENTACLE STUFF AGAIN, JEEZ CYBERVERSE

KICK HIS BUTT CHROMIA

Aw man, not you too Bee

MISTRESS OF FLAME!!!! I get so excited about every IDW reference haha, I love Caminus and I love that they’re letting that still exist

JEEZ THAT”S NOT CREEPY AT ALL

Is this a Titan???? IT IS A TITAN

It’s like a Cthulu titan huh

Chromia: That is THE creepiest thing I’ve ever heard THANK YOU CHROMIA, SAME THOUGHT

Chromia’s just like “This doesn’t even come close to my Top 10 list of BS I’ve had to deal with lately”

More weird smoke, oh great

JEEZ THAT’S A FREAKY TITAN

Me, crying softly: GAY RIGHTS....(and Bee). MAN THE FRIENSHIPS IN THIS SHOW ARE SO GREAT :’)

ALCHEMIST PRIME!!!!!!!!! I FRICKIN KNEW YOU WERE A PRIME

“But this is not about me” I WANNA KNOW MORE ABOUT YOU THOUGH

Wait why is a part of Windblade in Megatron’s Matrix

WHY WOULD THEY ALSO BE IN THE OTHER MATRIX oh they mean alt-universe them

It’s frickin HYSTERICAL that every time Optimus has some ~deep spiritual~ conversation with the past Primes he’s just standing there frozen while the Autobots wait for him to unfreeze like he’s some kind of ancient computer doing updates. Like, that’s legitimately one of the funniest pieces of information canon’s given us so far, thank you for my life Cyberverse writers.

I wonder if Arcee and the other bots ever take selfies with him while he’s frozen like that THERE’S SO MUCH POTENTIAL FOR COMEDY HERE

Optimus: *is frozen for a couple hours while talking to old Primes* Autobots: *put on PJs and unroll their sleeping bags so they can have a slumber party while waiting for him*

Heck now I’m just imagining them playing truth or dare or some similar game while waiting for Optimus to wake up. 

I’m sure at some point during their voyage on the Ark, Optimus froze and they all played the “who can do this silly / embarrassing thing in front of Optimus and get away with it before he wakes up” game. Like, Rodimus somersaults down the hall while spouting fire in front of Optimus, Bee does a handstand while singing the alphabet backwards, etc, and whoever’s in front of Optimus when he “wakes up” loses. (It’d be even funnier if Optimus kept pretending to be frozen while they played until someone did something REALLY embarrassing and he unfroze to freak them out. Then again, the Matrix going back into his chest would probably be too much of a giveaway huh)

OH NO I WAS SO CAUGHT UP IN THE EUPHORIA OF THIS IDEA I FORGOT THERE’S ONLY TOO EPISODES LEFT NOW....

Episode 25

I love Astrotrain’s design (both in bot-mode and his alt mode) because he just looks like a grumpy evil train and that makes me so happy.

Also RAIN!!! I love rain and this looks so pretty

LMAO ASTROTRAIN YOU’RE SUCH A TURD I had no opinion of him before this show but now I frickin love him

HE PULLED THE CHAIR OUT FROM UNDER HIM

“I HAVE HIS MATRIX” OH NO DID HE STEAL THIS FROM SHATTERED GLASS’ OPTIMUS OH FRICK

Megatron running like that while holding the Matrix in his hands reminds me so vividly of a younger sibling stealing their older sibling’s diary and fleeing at top-speed from said older sibling and that’s hilarious to me. Megatron is so petty

Dang, so that’s how his eye got messed up. Ngl it’s a good look

CYBER COWS!!!!

Wow that wall is so WEAK the Decepticons are so dumb lmao

Oh yeah they have a new furry on their team

Rodimus: Math isn’t my strong-suit.

Arcee: Especially me!  Arcee you are ADORABLE

OH SHOOT MEGATRON CAN TALK TO THE PAST PRIMES TOO...DANG

WINDBLADE!!! MAKE WINDBLADE A PRIME YOU COWARDS

Ok I know I said “Shattered-Glass Optimus” earlier but based on that spoiler some moron on Twitter posted, IT’S PROBABLY TARN...man I wish I hadn’t seen that spoiler but despite that IM STILL EXCITED

Makes you wonder how TARN got the Matrix though (not that I can’t guess 8( )

Oh my gosh I just realized we have the potential to see Windblade kick Tarn’s butt in this series. Cyberverse PLEASE, I’D LOVE TO SEE THAT

Ah so Astrotrain is the new scientist

Ur bugs are probably dead dude

LASERBEAK!!!!

RAVAGE??? Oh no that’s the furry dude MAN I GET SO EXCITED EVERY TIME, I KEEP FORGETTING

As much as I Die for loyal Soundwave, it’s really cool seeing him being his own character and acting on his own in this series and trusting his own judgement / surveillance! It’s so good. Soundwave you’re so smart (and I love that he loves Laserbeak :’) )

*SOBBING* CASE IN POINT...HE PET THE BABY..

OHOHO IT”S *THE* INSECTICONS

Oh shoot the Insecticons are deserting 

“No one can stop him. Not even you” dang son

“He doesn’t want us. He wants you” OH BOY

MY BABY WHIRL!!!! THAT’S MY BOY

SEEKERS!!! I forgot we still had a few who Starscream didn’t frickin kill

NICE JUMP-ATTACK OPTIMUS I love that he cuts the dude’s weapon in half meanwhile Grimlock just frickin eats the guy lmao. So much for Optimus’ mercy

FRICK FRICK FRICK IT IS TARN

OK TARN OBJECTIVELY SUCKS BUT AT THE SAME TIME I ACTUALLY DO LOVE HIM BECAUSE HOLY FRICK IS HE A DANGEROUS CHARACTER AND THERE’S SO MUCH TO PLAY WITH THERE, I CANT WAIT TO SEE HIM AND HOW THEY USE HIM FOR THE STORY AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dead End: Yeah, I see your point Lmao I love this guy

Everyone’s gonna frickin die in this series

OH NO WHIRL oh wait yeah he and Dead End know each other, Whirl’s fine

SOUNDWAVE CAN YOU AND SHADOW STRIKER CHILL FOR 2 SECONDS

I love Skybyte’s voice

WOW MEGATRON, YOU”RE ONLY PROTECTING HALF THE PLANET, JEEZ

OH SHOOT

OH SHOOT

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh so that’s why they had a wall, Megatron you turd

WHIRL NO!!!!!!! oh he’s fine thank goodness

Did Megatron get taller??? He looks taller than Optimus now

Just use Optimus’ matrix you big baby

“It’s time I called in that debt you owe me. Now it’s time for you to save me” I LEGITIMATELY SHRIEKED OUT LOUD, AHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

THERE HE IS, THERE HE IS THERE HE IS!!!!!!!

SCREW PAST ME’S OPINION, TARN IS FRICKIN COOL AS HELL

OH SHOOT THERE’S A TON OF HIM WTF

WHERE’S THAT FRICKIN “THERE IT IS, THERE IT IS, THERE!!! IT!!! IS!!!” MEME BECAUSE THAT’S BEEN ME THIS ENTIRE EPISODE HOLY HECK

Episode 26

MORE PRIME NAMES!!! A) that’s very pretty B) LEGIT THOUGH IF WINDBLADE’S THE ONE WHO KICKS TARN’S BUTT I’LL GO APE

OH FRICK IF OPTIMUS IS THERE THEN TARN REALLY DID KILL HIM or it means he beefed it in that universe, as he usually does

“I wish I’d gotten to know you better” 8((((((

What happened to Alt!Universe Optimus!!!!!!! How did you die!!!

Windblade: Optimus, you’re speaking in riddles... Optimus: I always do, it comes with the job of Prime. Windblade: Oh right

“A perfect Decepticon race” HOO BOYZY.....

“All because I spared your life” MAN THAT HURTS

At least they aren’t attacking them right now?

HOW CAN THEY POSSIBLY RESOLVE THIS SERIES IN 10 MINUTES

ASTROTRAIN YOU COWARD not that I blame him, every bot for themself I guess

OH NO THE HURT PUPPY WHINE MAKES ME SO SAD

HELL YEAH SOUNDWAVE SAVE MY BABY BEE

I TAKE IT BACK TARN IS CANCELED, HE HIT SOUNDWAVE

*AND* HE GRABBED CHROMIA, YOU”RE CANCELED, ALL THESE CLONES ARE CANCELED

SOUNDWAVE IS THE ONLY VALID DECEPTICON

Optimus: Can’t keep-- Megatron: WE MUST! Me: *SOBS*

OPTIMUS AND MEGATRON BACK-TO-BACK FIGHTING AHHHHHHHHHH, IT”S THE LITTLE-THINGS

Definitely not the right time for this joke but: AU where instead of saying “Powers of Cybertron, unite!” they say “GAY RIGHTS” to activate their Matrix powers

Frick what if they kill MEGATRON in this series

HECK YEAH EVERYONE’S GETTING AN UPGRADE

Megatron: We must join our Matrixes together! Optimus: Now REALLY isn’t the best time for a marriage proposal Megatron: What Optimus: What

Thank you for telling Optimus to get down for once instead of just blasting him AND the Tarn-copies, Megatron

OH FRICK IT IS ALT-UNIVERSE MEGATRON NOT TARN WHO’S THE BIG BAD

I LEGIT STOPPED BREATHING DURING THIS ENTIRE SEQUENCE AHHHH

THIS IS INFINITELY BETTER (AND WORSE) THAN I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

THAT MEANS ALT!UNIVERSE MEGATRON DID KILL OPTIMUS...MEANWHILE OUR UNIVERSE’S MEGATRON SPARED OPTIMUS...MAN THAT HURTS ME SO BAD

MEGATRON NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OPTIMUS SAVE HIM SAVE HIM PLEASE SOMEHOW SAVE HIM!!!!!

OPTIMUS LITERALLY FRICKIN RAN ACROSS THE ROOM TO CATCH HIM, MY HEART CAN’T TAKE THIS DRAMA

NO!!!! NO!!!!!!!!!!! YOU CAN”T DO THIS TO ME CYBERVERSE

“Prime...one shall stand...one shall....” THIS IS THE SADDEST FRICKIN THING THAT”S HAPPENED IM LEGIT GONNA CRY, NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Hold on...my friend...” IM GONNA BAWL MY EYES OUT OPTIMUS

I legit had to take a moment to get up and do a lap around my room while processing what happened LIKE OK I KNOW THEY PROBABLY (???) WON’T PERMA-KILL MEGATRON BUT FRICK DUDE THAT WAS SO EMOTIONAL

MEGAOP RIGHTS....BUT AT WHAT COST

What’s fricking me up rn (granted, several things are fricking me up right now) is that this universe’s Megatron knew he could’ve achieved his goals if he’d just killed Optimus. He said so himself; he could’ve had it all but he failed “all because I spared your [Optimus’] life”. Whatever he saw in that other universe convinced him that killing Optimus just wasn’t worth it (or perhaps, deep deep DEEP down, he really doesn’t want to kill his old friend).

I’m rewatching that last minute and this feels like a frickin fanfiction. I’m Living but also Dying

I KNOW THIS IS A VERY TENSE SCENE BUT MEGATRON’S “I won’t pay for anything!” MADE ME LAUGH

SOUNDWAVE STANDING BETWEEN SHADOW-STRIKER AND MEGATRON!!!!!!!!! STANDING UP TO MEGATRON!!!! SOBS I LOVE SOUNDWAVE SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!! BUT ALSO PLEASE BE CAREFUL MY SWEET BOY!!!!! IF YOU GET HURT ILL NEVER BE OVER IT

Two reasons he could’ve done that: to keep Shadow Striker from getting super pissed off and lashing out at this enemy who’s way above their level, or because the “jacked up Frankenstein experiment” thing is a sore subject for her and Soundwave recognizes that (and frankly I’m leaning toward option B because SOBS....I LOVE THEIR FRIENDSHIP)

GOTH FRIENDS!!!

OH OK THANK GOODNESS, MEGATRON ISN’T DEAD DEAD YET

Dang so Megatron did kill Optimus

OH NO WE’RE GETTING A FLASHBACK

FRICK THAT”S SO GRUESOME, HE JUST RIPPED OPTIMUS’ CHEST OPEN

YOU ALREADY KNOW THE MOST PERFECT DECEPTICON, HIS NAME IS SOUNDWAVE!!! YOU JUST DON’T APPRECIATE HIM YOU BIG BULLY

Oh shoot so the Quints came to that world too

DANG HE JUST WRECKED THEIR SHIP HUH....

I’m loving this throwback to the IDW design

WOW Y’ALL JUST IMMEDIATELY WENT “SURE WE’RE ONBOARD” (I mean, good way to stay alive but C’MON GUYS....)

“I have no need for any of you” WHOOPS SO MUCH FOR THAT should’ve seen that coming

THIS SUCKS SO BAD

NONONONO!!!! MEGATRON!!!!

HECK NOW HE HAS THE MATRIX

wow you guys really just let Megatron fall to the floor COME ON OPTIMUS WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR SMOOTH MOVES

NICE ONE BEE!!!!!!

YEAH WERE ARE ARCEE AND HOT ROD

FRICK YEAH WHIRL, MESS HIM UP!!!!!!!!!

YEAH SHADOW STRIKER!!!!!!

RATCHET PUNCHING TARN HELL YEAH!!!!!!!!!!

FRICK HE CAN JUST MATERIALIZE LIKE THAT TOO

WELL THAT DIDN’T LAST LONG

BEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“And now you will pay the price...for being a hero” DANG THAT”S A COOL LINE BUT DON’T HURT MY BOY

FRICK HIM UP OPTIMUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

WINDBLADE NOW WOULD BE A GOOD TIME TO SAVE EVERYONE

YEAHHHH WINDBLADE!!!!!!!

Yeah don’t turn your back on the body please

YO Astrotrain came back

ASTROTRAIN THAT SOUNDS SO CREEPY AND ALSO THAT’S SUCH A BAD IDEA, JUST KILL HIM

I know this is a kid’s show but PLEASE DO SOMETHING TO MAKE SURE HE WON’T POP BACK UP IN A FEW YEARS WITH ANOTHER ARMY

IM GLAD WINDBLADE IS BACK AND IM LOVING THE HUG BUT DID MEGATRON LEGIT FRICKIN DIE????

WHAT!!! WHAT THAT CAN’T BE IT!?!?!? HOW COULD YOU END IT LIKE THAT NO!!!!!!! THAT WAS SO ABRUPT nO!!!!!!!!!! 

The last few episodes were such an adrenaline rush I CAN”T BELIEVE WE CAME DOWN FROM THAT HIGH SO QUICKLY....IS MEGATRON ALIVE??? KICKSTARTER TO FUND ONE MORE EPISODE???? SPARE ANOTHER EPISODE FOR A POOR FAN???

MAN I wish we could’ve stayed in the universe of this show for a little longer but dang!!! That was really really good!!! I’m so grateful we got to have such a wonderful series like Cyberverse! :’) Thank you to everyone who worked on this incredible show!!!

Man now I gotta wait for WfC for new Transformers content....at least I can look through the tag w/out getting spoiled now

A few more thoughts now that I’ve re-read my liveblog:

If Megatron could hop into the Matrix of Leadership he possessed, I wonder if he ever had a chance to talk to that universe’s Optimus Prime... :( based on what he said, probably not, but that makes me so sad!!!! Did they ever get the chance to work things out!!! IS MEGATRON ALIVE OR NOT.....

[rocker-by-heart]

I know I said I was gonna bounce until TROS,

but I just need to express my last minute theories(in case I’m actually right so can have proof and brag about it).

(i’m drafting this in google docs btw jus so u kno lol)

SO before we get in to anything, I should say that I have not read any leaks or things like that. I’ve only watched the things officially put out by Star Wars/Lucasfilm whatever. I also come from the Reylo/Bendemtion part of the fandom, so that’s the mindset I’m in. Now on with the theories:

Now originally I was of the opinion that Rey was nobody and I liked that and that was okay, and I didn’t want them to retcon it or anything, HOWEVER my mind has slightly changed. Kind of. Not really. Allow me to explain. 

The whole thing in TLJ is that we see that situation from Rey’s point of view. Rey believes that the people who left her on Jakku for drinking money and died were her parents. And they may very well be the people who raised her up until that point, ergo her parents, but they MIGHT not be her actual bio parents. And Kylo sees this in her mind and that’s why he thinks he knows the truth. Because essentially it IS the truth. And that is why, if Rey turns out to be SOMEONE in TROS, I don’t see it as retconning or anything like that. They will still honor what Rian did(and maybe planned) without undercutting it. Now don’t get me wrong, in no way do I think she is a Skywalker or a Solo, or even a Kenobi or a Palpatine(well her being a Palps is by this point the most likely of those, but ya kno). Now is the time for me to put my tinfoil tiara on because I think that it is very probable that Rey is

a clone

AND/OR a sleeper agent.

The reason I think this is because the very first thing I thought, before dismissing it as symbolism, in the cave scene when Rey saw her reflections was that holy shit is she a clone!? (later i was glad that i wasn’t the only one who thought that bc of all the theory videos floating around). I think that it might have been part of Palpy’s contingency plan to restart clone production, and especially how to clone someone force sensitive(that might be why the cloning guy from Mandolorian wants Baby Yoda’s dna or whatever), and he might have succeeded and Rey just happens to a random one of the clones, maybe she was misplaced, or planted on Jakku, who knows. I don’t think she is the clone template, but she might be. Then the dark Rey we’ve seen in the trailers will probably be one of the other clones. (or it could totally just be a vision and i’m just full of bs)

OR if she is a sleeper agent she might have been placed on Jakku for some reason, maybe her memories are real, maybe they are planted, who knows. Palps has some kind of trigger words or something to either wake her up, or put her under a Winter Soldier type like spell(who is the real Rey?).

The reason I kind of came back to these theories was because of the latest TV spots as of  the 14th of December.

But then again she could have been created somehow by the force to meet the darkness in Kylo OR if any of the above, or her being a Palpy is true, she might have been created by the dark(Palps maybe somehow) to meet Ben’s light, because Ben was conceived by light essentially, but then manipulated. Who knows, I certainly don’t.

This is basically a long way of saying I am now in the mindset that I don’t NEED Rey to be a nobody(everyone is somebody) just not a Skywalker or Solo, or even a Kenobi(though I like that headcanon the best), but it is also fine if she is.

(Also out of every brunette lady in Star Wars the internet have speculated being Rey’s mom I think Qi’ra is most likely. But I don’t really think she is.)

(Also, also, Rey got her name/made her name up from the helmet she had on Jakku.)

NOW onto some other stuff that could totally be separate from everything above. Theories and wishful thinking:

What’s going on with C-3PO is that he is getting his pre-end-of-ROTS memories back, sacrificing his memories after that, and that helps with something, perhaps telling Anakin’s true story to Ben (R2-D2 already knowing all of it kinda blows holes in this, BUT maybe C-3PO wouldn’t believe him or something and we need him to articulate to the audience idk.)

We’re going on a Horcrux hunt. That’s it.

Anakin force ghost DEFINITELY. (and maybe even a whole army of former jedi force ghosts helping to save the day idk, but Ani is DEF showing up or else i will sue)

(Anakin hearing Padme’s voice, him turning his head and smiling knowing his love is there for him in the cosmic force)

Ben finishing what his grandfather started(aka defeating Palpy) (also palpy being back doesn’t undercut anakin’s redemption bc it’s the thought that counts even tho palpy didn’t disappear)

If Leia dies(she might not, but probably will), it is from space radiation and she falls asleep peacefully, Connix(Billie) holding her hand because everyone else is off world. (ugh sob)

(Anakin being there with her omg??)

Speaking of Connix she will at LEAST have as big of a role in this as she did in TLJ if not larger. Please.

Chewie will NOT die.

Nor will the Falcon.

In the space battle(from the scene where we can see the Ghost and maybe the Colossus) we see glimpses from inside the ships(as we usually do), one of them being Hera Syndulla(the actual best pilot in the galaxy) going “phoenix leader standing by” and Jacen is with her casually using the force to grab stuff and shit PLEASE.

same goes for Kaz and co. i guess but i don’t care as much about them sorry.

(Ahsoka. maybe. played by Rosario Dawson please. Catching a glimpse of force ghost Ani at the end celebration and he’s smiling at her being proud BC THEY HAVE THE BEST MOST BEAUTIFUL MOST HEARTBREAKING RELATIONSHIP IN ALL OF STAR WARS sorry)

Okay so Harrison won’t show up, BUT ALDEN MIGHT.

AKA flashbacks baby.

Force healing.

The fact that the TITLE is The Rise of Skywalker can’t POSSIBLY mean the end of the Skywalker line, ergo Reylo babies. I don’t make the rules.

Okay now I’m going dark, see you suckers after TROS.

[septembercfawkes]

Breaking Writing Rules Right: "Only One Impossibility"

You may have heard of the "one impossibility rule," the idea that the audience's suspension of disbelief can only handle one impossible thing. In this article, I'm going to talk about what the rule is, why it's a rule, and when and how to break it.

What's the Rule?

When we write, we invite the audience into our fictive universe. In order to take part, the audience must have what's called a "willing suspension of disbelief," meaning that they are willing to enjoy the story even though it's not real.

For example, maybe your story has fairies in it. But fairies aren't real. However, the audience is willing to accept that for the story.

The Rule:

In a story, only one impossibility can exist.

Why It's a Rule

Most audiences can only take in so much impossibility before their suspension of disbelief is no longer . . . suspended.

They might accept with the premise of the story that there are fairies. But if your story has not only fairies but also aliens invading the planet, there is going to be a problem.

That's two different impossibilities.

And they don't go together.

Take that a step further and add the fact that in your fictive universe, dogs have overcome humans in the species hierarchy, so they are the ones running society--and now we have three impossibilities.

It's too much. Every time you add an impossibility, you narrow your audience. With these three, I've really narrowed audience.  

My examples are a bit exaggerated, but these are the sorts of things that the one impossibility rule is referring to.

However, it can sometimes be used in other situations.

One thing the audience has very little tolerance for is when human behavior doesn't make sense. Maybe your protagonist's mom dies, and he doesn't even grieve. That seems impossible. And the more you stack on unlikely human behavior, the more the audience's suspension of disbelief wanes.

For more on problems with unbelievability, see "Inconceivable! Dealing with Problems of Unbelievability."

How to Break It

By now you may have thought of one or more stories that clearly have more than "one impossibility." In a high fantasy, you may have fairies and dragons and dwarves and elves and centaurs . . . the list goes on.

Or maybe you thought of a rarer rule break, like a story that deals with both an alien invasion and restoring faith in God. Putting a belief of God in can be considered a big no-no in the industry when writing science fiction. From one perspective, you are dealing with two impossibilities. (I'm not saying I feel this way, I'm just talking about the industry.)

Or maybe you thought of something stranger still, a story where part of your soul lives outside your body in the form of an animal, where one of the intelligent species are (randomly) bears, where there is a clan witches, and some of the main characters are quite literally at war with God.

Clearly this rule can and has been broken. So let's talk about how to do that.

1. Use an Umbrella

The reason high fantasy gets away with so many impossibilities is because everything actually fits under one big impossibility: an imaginary world.

Sure, in our reality dragons and elves and dwarves don't exist.

But in a completely fictional world, like Middle-earth, all of them do, and more.

Tolkien, like basically all high fantasy writers, gets away with so much impossibility by lumping them together under one big one. Other examples include Alice in Wonderland, The Chronicles of Narnia, and even Star Wars (in a galaxy far, far away).

Even though Harry Potter includes the real world, it does this same thing--everything impossible comes from a magic society within our world, that's the umbrella.

The umbrella does not even necessarily need to be a world or society. Those are just the obvious examples. It could be an origin, history, or something else. The idea is that the one impossibility encompasses and explains all others.

2. Make Connections

Similarly, the audience is more likely to take in more than one impossibility if they connect in some way. Maybe you are reading a novel that has vampires in the real world. Then the second book in the series deals with werewolves. What?

But it's okay, because Stephenie Meyer made them connect by explaining that werewolves exist because of the vampires--they are the natural predators of vampires (yes, I just used Twilight as an example) (yes, I know other stories put vampires and werewolves together as enemies).

When you use this method, you usually want to build off what the audience already knows. They already know about the vampires, great. So when you explain the werewolves, make sure to relate it to the vampires. This will make it easier for the audience to swallow.

Of course, there are some stories that don't do that. Usually in those cases, the writer may introduce them as two separate things and explain the connection later. If you chose to do this, you should know that it's more difficult to pull off, and it will likely narrow your audience, because people might be rolling their eyes and stop reading before they get to the connection. However it has and can be done.

In rare occasions, the connections may not be concretely obvious, but instead thematic. What do invading aliens have to do with regaining faith in God? Well, nothing, directly. Except that it works together thematically in a beautiful way in Signs. Keep in mind, though, that this is one of the reasons some people hate that movie. So for some people, it did not work--in other words, it narrowed the audience. That's fine, if you are willing to pay that cost and take that risk.

3. Shift Context

Sometimes you can get away with multiple impossibilities if you don't present them as all impossibilities to begin with. In Interstellar, we are dealing with some pretty heavy science fiction, but then on the other hand, one of the main characters believes there is a ghost in her room.

I would hazard a guess though, that most of the audience didn't believe there was a real ghost in the room. Instead we can accept that the character believes that. As we get more information and the context shifts, we realize the "ghost" really was a person.

Though worth noting is that it is still ultimately explained by science, so the movie also connects it the other impossibilities.

But my point is, you may be able to do something similar. Maybe we think the second impossibility is something other than it actually is, and it's truly explained later.

4. Foreshadow

Sometimes you can get away with more than one impossibility if you foreshadow it right.

I know a writer who saw Arrival and loved it up until the ending, where the entire story was "ruined" because it "broke the one impossibility rule."

I'm going to have to agree to disagree with that. All of the impossibilities, especially the last, were foreshadowed from the beginning, so when I encountered them, as an audience member, I was prepared.

Also notice how that movie also incorporates context shifts and connections.

The story essential has three impossibilities in it, but in my opinion, they pulled them off stunningly.

However, it didn't work for that one writer, so, like I said above, you are always taking that risk.

But then there are people like me and my family, who loved the story even more and were brought to tears because of how it incorporated three impossibilities.

Basically if you are breaking the one impossibility rule, you are probably polarizing your audience, which is sometimes a good thing, if you want word-of-mouth advertising.

5. Utilize Tone

Tone can go a long way in letting you get away with the impossible. This is especially the case with what are called "unreality" stories.

Unreality stories take place in what's recognized as the real world . . . but it isn't. It's an unreality. It's best explained through examples. Here are some unreality stories:

A Series of Unfortunate Events

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Matilda

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Edward Scissorhands

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Like I talked about in the last section, you may realize that unreality stories can be very polarizing: You either love it, or you hate it.

Notice how all of the examples I gave have more than one impossibility (sometimes completely unconnected), but for audiences okay with the unreality genre, that's not a problem. (Which reminds me, it's also worth noting genre does play a role in what you can get away with).

If you establish the right tone, you can get away with almost anything.

6. Acknowledge the Impossibility

In some cases, you can get away with multiple impossibilities if you validate to the audience how impossible, unlikely, or strange it is, on the page. Since I have two posts that go into this, I'm not going to reiterate everything, but you can read more here and here.

7. Keep the Reader Hooked and Invested

Sometimes you can get away with more than one impossibility if the reader is already deeply invested in the story. They may be so hooked, so pulled in, that adding a second impossibility isn't going to ruin it--as long as you don't do anything too crazy.

Ask yourself (and maybe your beta-readers), is adding this one impossibility really going to stop the reader from reading and enjoying the story? It might give them pause, but you might be able to get away with it. After all, it is a story.

8.  Start with the Most Familiar Impossibility

Everyone knows what a dragon is, even if they aren't real. So it's easier for the audience to accept that.

In Spider-verse we are dealing with two impossibilities that don't . . . really even connect . . . or fit under an umbrella. 1 - that radioactive spiders can bite people and turn them superhuman. 2 - that there are parallel realities. Those are both impossibilities, and they don't actually go together.

But the audience is willing to accept it, because they are so familiar with Spider-man and superhero movies. Adding parallel universes to it isn't a big deal. (Not to mention that parallel universes have been long established as part of the comic book world.)

The more familiar something is, the easier it is for the audience to accept and digest it.

Kitchen Sink Stories

There is a term in the industry called "kitchen sink." It's the basic idea that a writer has a lot of ideas, but they are throwing them all into one story. It's like a kitchen sink. It has a bit of this and a bit of that. A scrap of old pizza, an onion peel, a soggy fry. Sometimes when writers are trying to include a lot of impossibilities, it turns into a kitchen sink story. In some cases, you may definitely need to divvy out ideas into different stories. But in other cases, it's amazing which seemingly unrelated ideas you can make work, especially using these methods I outlined.

It's hard for me to tell everyone that their "kitchen sink story" isn't going to work. Because it might.

I feel like the best example of this is His Dark Materials. It has everything, and the kitchen sink. But in England, it became a hugely successful series. Yet so many of the concepts don't seem to belong in one story.

- Parts of people's souls live outside their bodies in animal forms.

- There is an intelligent species of bears (bears?? Why? That's so random!)

- Oh yeah, and there are also witches. (oookay . . .)

- And angels

- By the way, there is also a religion reminiscent of Christianity, but it's antagonistic

- Also, God is in it

- And there is this device that allows the user to know all truth

- It takes place in England . . . but it's sort of . . . somewhat . . . steam-punky

- Oh yeah, also, not only is this fantasy, but it's also science fiction. We will definitely be talking about dark matter and running experiments with computers

- Also, surprise, I know you didn't know this from the first book, but our world, the real world, is actually part of this same universe

- Aaaand there are spectors

- We'll also be following people into the afterlife. . . .

Okay, seriously, that whole series is a kitchen sink story!

. . . which is also why it was so revolutionary. It was unprecedented.

So . . . while it's very difficult to pull off . . . it's not impossible.

You might be thinking, "but everything fits under the umbrella of a parallel world." Dude, it doesn't. We don't even know parallel worlds exist until the second book.

It's a kitchen sink.

You Can Break the One Impossibility Rule . . . with These Risks and Consequences

Depending on what impossibilities you decide to use and how you implement them, you run these risks:

- Ruining the suspension of disbelief

Your audience may still not be able to accept your impossibilities. In truth, some readers are unwilling to even accept one. So they may stop reading.

- Narrowing your audience

This may lead to a narrower audience. Maybe most people don't like M. Night Shyamalan's movies (he breaks a lot of writing and film rules). That's okay. Enough people like him, and he obviously isn't trying to appeal to the masses.

- Polarizing your audience

Some people will absolutely hate stories that use multiple impossibilities. But other people love them. Polarizing your audience isn't actually necessarily a bad or good thing in and of itself--it depends on your goals.

These are risks and consequences, but they do not necessarily influence success. Some people cannot read any fantasy, yet it's one of the most popular genres. Not everyone likes Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but it's now a children's classic. Even a kitchen sink story has been highly successful.

Can you break the one impossibility rule? Yes! But like breaking any rule, it can be tricky.

Next week I'll be talking about critique letters and editorial letters, and how I write one. See you then!

[xaeneron]

A Smol Nerd Talks about Backstory and Character Development

Hello frens,

I had someone ask about how I write character backstories, but since they included their discord information in the ask, I thought it might be better to answer that privately and put up this as a public post because the more I wrote, the more obnoxious it got. And because I thought it was interesting! I don’t claim to be an expert at any of this, especially since this is purely a hobby to me, but I do absolutely love character design and development and it makes me happy that the characters that I’ve put time and effort into are encouraging others to develop their own. So this is absolutely a post to skip if you’re not interested, but read on if you’re curious as to how my weird little brain works.

Essentially: Bits of insight into how I write character backstories, which blends a lot into character development and creation. Not really a step by step process, more word vomit.

...under a cut because holy fuck it got long. I’m sorry, I talk too much ><

Visualizing Characters

I’m not sure there’s really a starting place beyond “I would like this character to exist,” but I think it’s important to first stress how I view my characters in perspective to myself. No one method works for everyone, but it is kind of relevant to my own process. 

My friends in undergrad made fun of me for this constantly, but for me, characters sort of...how do you put it, take up space in the mind. Even though they are functionally me since I created them, they’re...not? They exist as their own entities, telling me what they like and don’t like, what they’d like to do next, etc. Ive, who has dominated this space for years, has a tendency to claim any music that I listen to as his own (so I associate it with him), throws parties, and wants to play and write more stories when I want to sleep. I get that this is a really weird way of looking at characters because I’m essentially blaming myself for keeping myself awake, but I think it’s the best way to describe how I see the characters that I create. They’re friends that talk, and they develop their own opinions instead of me dictating what it is that they say (even though...well, I am. I’m sorry this is really fucking weird LOL).

Obviously I’m not saying that this can or would work for anyone, but it’s just how my brain works. It helps me visualize them, along with details like how their voices sound, the facial expressions they tend to make, the tone that they take when saying the same phrase as someone else, etc.

Assembling Personalities...

I know the original question was essentially just about backstories, but backstory writing and character creation bleed into each other a lot. Enough that I don’t really think you can do one without the other, and why as a result I’m kind of writing about both.

So that being said, when assembling those characters, I tend to go piece by piece and let things happen, instead of distilling in all the characteristics I want them to have. That’s a pretty surefire way to make a Mary Sue, and I have plenty of experience with making Mary Sues. A lot. It’s embarrassing. ;A;

Let’s take Ive, for example. His initial personality when I first made him was a happy-go-lucky, debonair, massive flirt without a care in the world. He waltzed through life, never getting attached to anyone or anything. A fairly simple and shallow character base. As I played, pieces just kind of came together - some from the Commander’s in-game characterization, and some from my own ideas. I let him pick up different facets of his personality over time, some good, some bad.

This works because Ive’s personality wasn’t set in stone from the get-go and changed drastically as time went on, but if you do have a personality you have your heart set on, then make sure your character responds to new challenges accordingly. Consistency is key, and the way they act in the present can also help you road map their past, figuring out how they got to where they are. And who knows, if you take another look, they might surprise you.

...Including the Weird Shit

Sometimes the tiniest quirks help make characters memorable to you, and help shape who they were and grow up to be. One of my OCs, Beck, is an obfuscating idiot who legitimately knows his way around a blade and is insanely clever when he wants to be. He also has a random deadly allergy to mangoes. Does he have a story that he (somewhat) fondly looks back on where his adopted daughter chases him around with a mango in retaliation for making fun of her? By golly yes he does. Is it important to the overall narrative? No. But does it establish more of his relationship with his daughter, even when she’s an adult? Yes. It also is the sort of anecdote that can snowball - what was he saying that was bad enough for her to chase him with tropical fruit? How did she even get a mango in the first place? Does she have a crush on someone? What sort of person is that? Is it someone new in town, or is it a stranger? What makes them different? Is Beck just assuming, and if so, is it because he’s dense or because he’s just trying to be a doting father? Even little things count, especially when sometimes it’s the anecdotes and sides stories that help make the world and characters you’re creating feel more real.

Write What You Know

This is pretty common advice, but it’s also pretty solid advice. It’s also something that I do often. None of my characters are straight self-inserts (arguably), but many of them have one or more facets of my personality, which makes it much easier for me to write them. Anyone who knows me personally will attest to this, particularly when you begin to note the amount of deadpan snarkers that my cast contains. My primary OCs (who don’t show up much here unfortunately) range from politely snarky to full on deadpan. Ive and Etiery are prime examples of this, while Richter also has his moments. Sharing traits with you helps writing their dialogue and motivations more organically, because again, it’s not what you want them to do, it’s how they would react as a living individual. If you’re not a naturally sarcastic person, it’s going to be harder to develop and accurately write a sarcastic character, etc. (Flashbacks to when I was a kid and my attempt at sarcasm and wit was “Go home old man, nobody needs you.”) Not impossible, of course, but something to keep in mind.

It’s not just personality, either. Rayne (one of my OCs) and Etiery are a chemist and engineer respectively because that is what I am. Part of the way their brains work stems from the fields that they choose to specialize in, and as someone in that field, I do have a certain amount of experience in thinking from that perspective. It’s okay to base characters on yourself or people you know, or take bits and pieces from people here or there. Again, it grounds you, and if you can write a realistic personality, you can write a more fleshed out backstory for said character, taking into account their motivations and decision-making.

Balancing Story vs. Personality

Part of storytelling is, well, getting across the story that you want to tell. In that, characters are instruments to help you move that plot forward. But if you’re fleshing out your characters, you also want the plot to be a vehicle to help them develop. Really, it depends on the story you want to tell and how you want to tell it, but if you’re like me and you focus first on characters, then my mindset is probably more applicable.

Essentially though, find a balance. You might need someone to do something for the sake of the plot, but think about if the one you’re picking is a good candidate for it, or if it’s better suited for someone else. If no one fits, maybe you need to take a look at the story step you’re making, or at the characters you’ve created. Remember also that although it’s easy to look at things objectively as an author and say things like “that’s so obvious, they shouldn’t go that way,” a character may still make that choice in the moment. Judgment - present, past, or future - can be questionable as it happens.

Pay Attention to the Timeline

This one’s pretty straightforward. One of the easiest things to mess up is to make your character too old or too young to be doing the things that they’re currently doing. Check and double-check. If you’re writing into an established timeline like GW2′s, make sure your character’s timeline fits with the established lore (unless you are very specifically breaking it for some reason). Ive, for example, is not one of the older generations of sylvari, but he is older than the sylvari protagonist in-game to account for his extra time spent training to compensate for his lack of eyesight. Keeping track of when events happen, often simultaneously, will help you decide how characters act and react - Etiery would not have been so kind (relatively speaking) to Ive had she met him before her fallout with her father, and as a result, they might never have become best friends, or friends at all.

Look at Things from All Angles

It’s important to look at a character and ask where they got certain characteristics from - are they naturally this kind/sarcastic/flirty/angsty/mean/etc., or did something happen that catalyzed that? If you’re writing backstory to explain that, take a look at the world you’re in or that you’re building - does the story you’re telling fit reasonably? Really challenge yourself to stay within your (universe’s) rules, instead of being tempted to bend them to make your character (and their story) exactly what you want. All universes have rules, and unless it is a specific plot point to break them, make sure you follow them! Making impossible loopholes to make sure your character has a degree by age 12 or can resurrect someone perfectly when the magic is explicitly stated to not exist can weaken your story and your character!

Richter is a good example of my personal thought process, being a glasses-wearing necromancer whose backstory is a street rat. He’s tall and awkward as an adult, so it’s not unreasonable that he was once a tall and gawky kid, the kind of kid whose arms are too long and everyone picks on. How does a kid like that survive on the streets? One of his major traits is the fact that he’s a bookworm: if he was orphaned, where did he learn to read? If he had parents long enough to teach him rudimentary reading skills (which he did), how much practical experience did he lose out on since he spent less time alone on the streets? As someone with a strong moral compass, Richter had to find a way to justify committing crimes to survive. A child like that would probably be too frightened to ask Grenth’s clergy or anyone at the schools in Divinity’s Reach (which he could not afford) to teach him in necromancy. How does he learn as a result? Is he afraid of his powers? Do people treat him differently because of them?

It’s kind of what I mean when I say pieces start falling into place. Start with a detail that you want for sure, and build up from that while maintaining its feasibility in the world that you’re working in.

And Don’t Ignore the Random

Seriously, I think this is my favorite part. Sometimes the things that you don’t expect sneak up on you and make it in. Fun fact for anyone fond of Ive: he originally wasn’t blind. OG Ive had nothing physically wrong with him. One day I was showing my friend my GW2 characters, including Ive in his full Rubicon set. I was nervous that she wouldn’t think it was as cool as I did, so I joked (although I would have anyway) that I didn’t know how he would see with the brim of the hat pulled so low. She replied, “Well, what if he has the hat pulled so low because he’s blind and it doesn’t matter to him?”

I chewed on that idea for the next day and a half, and suddenly a lot of things fell into place - why Ive and Eet get along as well as they do, more justification for Ive’s growing, below-the-surface jaded personality, an obstacle for him to overcome. I drowned in feels and texted her, and to this day it is still very much her fault that Ive can’t see. 

His lack of vision is now one of the central pillars of his character, and it’s something I hadn’t even considered before my friend mentioned it in jest. So don’t ignore random inspiration!

[mittensmorgul]

today on the TNT loop (which I slept through because migraine which is mildly better now, so I'm watching the blu ray today), 2.13 Houses of the Holy. Aka that one where Dean's skepticism is put to its first real challenge and he's left with a HUGE question he can't answer. It's also where I can clearly see Chuck at work in the narrative, directly challenging Dean's beliefs and forcing him to consider this.

DEAN: That's cute. I'm just saying, man, there's just some legends that you just, you file under "bullcrap". SAM: And you've got angels on the bullcrap list. DEAN: Yep. SAM: Why? DEAN (looks up): Because I've never seen one. SAM: So what? DEAN: So I believe in what I can see. SAM: Dean! You and I have seen things that most people couldn't even dream about. DEAN: Exactly. With our own eyes. That's hard proof, okay? But in all this time I have never seen anything that looks like an angel. And don't you think that if they existed that we would have crossed paths with them? Or at least know someone that crossed paths with them? No. This is a ... a demon or a spirit. You know, they find people a few fries short of a Happy Meal, and they trick them into killing these randoms

Troubled people are being visited by "an angel" giving them orders to carry out "divine will," stopping others from committing horrific acts against innocent people by killing them before they can hurt anyone else. Sam wants desperately to believe it's actually an angel, and he confesses to Dean that he does have faith in God and that he prays every day. We also learn that-- because Mary had faith, had always told Dean that "angels are watching over you"-- that Dean hasn't trusted in that faith since Mary died.

There's a lot in this episode that will become the framework for actual angels when they eventually show up, as well as Heaven itself. Think of this as a smaller-scale version of what we eventually learn Heaven is, in an "as above, so below" sort of way:

DEAN: But she seriously believes that she was ... touched by an angel? SAM: Yeah. Blinding light, feelings of spiritual ecstasy, the works. I mean, she's living in a locked ward and she's totally at peace.

But then they start looking into the person she killed, and discover a literal pile of skeletons buried in the man's basement.

SAM: So much for the innocent churchgoing librarian. DEAN: Yeah, well, whatever spoke to Gloria about this knew what it was talking about, I'll give you that.

But Dean is still convinced it's some sort of spirit, and not an actual angel. Sam desperately wants to believe.

DEAN: Huh. Well, I guess if you're gonna stab someone, good timing. I don't know, man, this is weird, you know? I mean, sure, some spirits are out for vengeance, but this one's almost like a do-gooder, you know? Like, like a -- SAM: Avenging angel? (DEAN turns away) Well, how else do you explain it, Dean? Three guys, not connected to each other, all stabbed through the heart? At least two were world-class pervs, and I bet if you dug deep enough on the other guy —

What they do discover is the connection between all the victims and angel-inspired killers. They all attend the same church, where a priest had been murdered for his car a few months earlier, right before these killings began.

So they go to the church to find the truth, under the false pretenses of wanting to join the parish. Irony much? Even after being caught out in the lie about the previous parish they attended, they persist.

FR. REYNOLDS: Yes. The victims were parishioners of mine, I'd known them for years. SAM: And the killers said that an angel made them do that? FR. REYNOLDS: Yes. Misguided souls, to think that God's messenger would appear and incite people to murder. It's tragic. DEAN: So you don't believe in those angel yarns, huh? FR. REYNOLDS: Oh, no, I absolutely believe. Kind of goes with the job description. SAM: (nodding to a painting on the wall) Father, that's Michael, right? FR. REYNOLDS: That's right. The archangel Michael, with the flaming sword. The fighter of demons. Holy force against evil. SAM: So they're not really the Hallmark card version that everybody thinks? They're fierce, right? Vigilant? FR. REYNOLDS: Well, I like to think of them as more loving than wrathful. But, uh, yes, a lot of Scripture paints angels as God's warriors. "An angel of the Lord appeared to them, the glory of the Lord shone down upon them, and they were terrified." (SAM nods, DEAN looks confused) Luke. Two nine.

(moment to remind everyone what Cas's opinion on Luke was, from 4.18, when Dean was incredulous about learning that Chuck was a prophet of the Lord to be protected: "You should've seen Luke." Apparently prophets are historically disaster humans...)

It's interesting that Sam and Dean come away from this conversation with such wildly different conclusions based on their own personal biases-- Sam's Faith vs Dean's Skepticism. And then after visiting Father Gregory's grave, it's Sam the "angel" chooses to speak to, using his will to believe against Sam, to manipulate him, just like he had with the other troubled people he talked into doing his bidding. Because that's what he'd done.

Father Gregory's spirit believed he was doing the Lord's will, using information gleaned from listing to confessions, and possibly gleaned after his death about the ongoing lives of these people. Like Sue Ann in 1.12, he chose troubled yet essentially good people (drug addicts, alcoholics, mentally ill people) to give this twisted shot at "redemption" to by committing murder in the name of God, killing people guilty of far, far worse crimes.  And post 14.20, I'm wondering if his spirit wasn't given just a bit more info about certain members of his parish specifically to push Sam and Dean into their own crises of faith, especially considering what has come after this.

This episode has always been a game changer with Dean's experience throughout-- refusing to believe in anything he hasn't witnessed with his own eyes. And it's Sam's first test of his own faith in God that shakes his belief in a higher power when he's experiencing so much doubt in himself already. In some ways, we learn that it's his hope that God and angels and good things exist that powers him through his self-doubt, his feelings of unworthiness and impurity and his own confusing powers. We'll see this aspect of Sam's will to believe in God play out over and over again-- being tested by all his life experiences afterward, from learning about the demon blood by the end of s2, to his months without Dean developing his powers, to s4 in believing he can turn his demon-granted powers into something GOOD by saving people's lives... everything that leads to Sam's downfall is directly tied to his need to believe that a divine force he prays to is actually answering his prayers for help. Right on through desperately wanting to believe it was God talking to him in s11 (it was Lucifer), and believing that Chuck might actually help them deal with Jack by healing instead of manipulating and killing. It's 14.20 that finally shattered Sam's belief.

FR. GREGORY: You can't understand it now. But the rules of man and the rules of God are two very different things. SAM: Those people. They're locked up. FR. GREGORY: No, they're happy. They've found peace, beaten their demons. And I've given them the keys to Heaven. FR. REYNOLDS: No. No, this is vengeance, it's wrong. Thomas, this goes against everything you believed. You're lost, misguided. FR. GREGORY: Father. No, I'm not misguided. FR. REYNOLDS: You are not an angel, Thomas. Men cannot be angels. FR. GREGORY: But . . . but I, I don't understand. You prayed for me to come. FR. REYNOLDS: I prayed for God's help. Not this. What you're doing is not God's will. "Thou shalt not kill". That's the word of God.

Heck, Chuck's said a lot of things over the years, hasn't he? He simultaneously ordered the angels to watch over and protect humanity, while leaving instructions for the Apocalypse. Two orders that directly contradict one another, on a very basic level. Yes, thou shalt not kill, but... there's always that caveat of "no, they're happy! they found peace in death! heaven awaits the righteous and that's where they'll eventually find happiness and peace! life on earth is irrelevant in the face of eternal rest despite any and all suffering experienced while alive!"

eta: also, “Men cannot be angels.” Well, Jack may have proven that wrong, but he had to destroy their human souls and warp them into angel grace, just as destroying human souls to warp them into demon smoke makes them no longer human. When we didn’t know this was possible, it was more a theological curiosity, but now? We can see it for the sinister implication of the bigger picture at play on Chuck’s level of the narrative. And it’s chilling.

But Dean? He had to be crushed, to be brought to the point where he doubted everything he's ever stood for, be forced to doubt his own free will and identity through repeated possession and manipulation by Michael to be brought to the point where he would even be willing to sacrifice himself and Jack both in the belief that he truly had no other choice, that his lifelong belief in his own autonomy was a sham and that God's Will was the only force to be obeyed. And even then, gun raised to Jack's head, he couldn't submit. But that seed of doubt was planted in this episode, watching a series of events he could not explain nor justify with his current understanding of reality. He couldn't even explain what he'd seen to Sam.

All he could say in the face of having stopped this man from committing assault (and possibly worse), ending in a car chase where the man is impaled through his chest by a flying piece of pipe flung from a passing truck, was "Holy..." After which he's forced to confront the evidence of his own eyes and find an explanation for what he's seen on his own. He still isn't comfortable declaring it's proof that God exists and interfering in human events, but it shakes him:

DEAN: Gregory's spirit gave you some pretty good information. That guy in the car was bad news. I barely got there in time. SAM: What happened? DEAN: He's dead. SAM: Did . . . you? DEAN: No. But I'll tell you one thing. If . . . The way he died, if I hadn't seen it with my own two eyes I never would have believed it. I mean ... I don't know what to call it. SAM: What? Dean, what did you see? DEAN: Maybe . . . God's will.

The one thing Dean has yet to work out, once he's confronted with the reality of Angels, Heaven, and God's existence later down the line, is whether or not God's Will and God's Plans can even remotely be considered a good thing... and after 14.20, he's got the essential proof. "Good" and "Evil" become irrelevant in the face of that revelation. It becomes a case of Divine Manipulation vs Human Will, and the struggle for individual identity and free will in the face of some Grand Plan of the universe. Divine reward of peace and happiness in Heaven after a life of obedience and suffering? Nah, Dean wants his life back now. Screw the end of the road.

[makeste]

the good, the bad, and the basement

so @caliginouscarpacian asked me a while back if I could post my thoughts about the strengths and weaknesses of the Overhaul/Yakuza/Internship Arc once I finished up. so this is my post about that, now that I’ve had a little bit of time to reflect. I decided to do one of those alternating good/bad list things, so we’ll see how that goes.

this is quite a long post, so it’s under a cut. and just to be clear, this post is chock full of spoilers up through the end of the Internship Arc (chapter 161).

the good: the villains

okay, I’m starting with this one because truthfully, it’s my favorite thing about the whole arc. the League of Villains finally came into their own, and it was everything I could have hoped for. they are competent but not too overpowered. they are smart and willing to be patient and bide their time for the sake of cool plot twists. THERE’S A FUCKING CAR CHASE. there is character development! these guys actually care about each other! holy shit. there’s actual chemistry between them. they trust one another and they trust Tomura, and he shows for the first time that he might just actually be worthy of that trust. unlike some other villains I can name. anyways. these guys are amazing, and if this arc did nothing else, it firmly established them as serious, in-it-for-the-long-haul adversaries who are cool and interesting and can hold their own on-screen and whose lives and relationships I’m actually invested in. and like, they’re still evil. just to be clear. but they’re also cool and compelling and a genuine delight whenever they make an appearance, and I can’t wait to see what shenanigans they get up to next.

the bad: the villains

hahaha. okay, so I’m not even gonna talk about Overhaul yet -- he gets his own little mini-rant all to himself. but let’s talk about the Eight Precepts for a moment. I was so let down by these guys it’s not even funny. YOU ASSHOLES WERE SUPPOSED TO BE COOL. you’re the fucking yakuza for fuck’s sake! but instead they’re just boring. not one of them felt even remotely threatening, and it was just obnoxious to watch the good guys struggling against some of them. none of them had interesting personalities or backstories. a few of them did have interesting quirks (thinking specifically of the Thief quirk and the truth serum confession quirk), but they go to waste since they’re used in decidedly uninteresting ways. (seriously though, that is such a mind-blowing waste of a truth serum quirk that it’s painful to think about. it could have been used for character development, interrogations... any number of plot uses. and what does this asshole do instead? HE TRIES TO MAKE MIRIO SAD. come the fuck on.)

and arguably worse than that is the fact that they all wear the same mask. that was such a bad move on Horikoshi’s part. it means there’s no way for any of them to stand out. if their quirks or personalities weren’t going to cut it, their appearances were the only thing left, and he goes and designs them all to essentially have the same fucking face. why would you do that. as if they didn’t all blend together enough to start with.

and lastly, the blind, ferocious loyalty they all have to Overhaul is completely absurd and makes no fucking sense. like, several of them were literally like, “oh I was treated like shit all my life, and then this guy came along who also treats me like shit, but ~with him I have a place~.” the truth serum guy IIRC liked Overhaul simply because he was honest. at least Chance the Rappa had a decent reason for liking him which was that he was freakishly strong and he just wanted to defeat him. meanwhile his monk friend supposedly doesn’t like violence, and yet here he is loyally serving a man who offs his own subordinates at the drop of a hat, and whose master plan hinges on the perpetual torture of a kindergartner.

just. they all suck so much.

 the good: Sir Nighteye

Nighteye had such a great arc. I’m not the biggest fan of how it ended, because that was a perfectly good heart of mine that they ripped out and stomped all over, but aside from that, yeah. he starts out as this cold, disdainful pencil of a man, only for it to gradually be revealed that he’s really just a broken shell of himself, afraid to use his own quirk because he’s scared of whatever horrors he might see that he’ll be helpless to do anything about. he supports Mirio over Deku because he loves Mirio and genuinely thinks he’ll be the better successor, and because he loves All Might, and he’s desperate to stop his premonition from six years ago from actually coming true. it didn’t really surprise me that he became a more likable character in the end, but the degree to which it happened really caught me off guard. I was not expecting to end up loving him so much. and also I just really love the idea of the foresight quirk being as mentally damaging as it turns out to be, because it makes perfect sense, and it’s the perfect way to put such a potentially overpowered quirk in check. just, well done on every aspect of Nighteye’s character and his story arc.

the bad: Overhaul

Overhaul started out with so much potential and it all just went to shit. I’ll start with the good stuff first: his quirk is cool and terrifying, I like his character design, and I like the little touch with him being a germaphobe, even if they didn’t really do much with it in the end.

now the bad. I think my main complaint about Overhaul is that as a rule of thumb, I think that good villains should be written as though they genuinely believe they’re the heroes of their own story. this goes for all types of villains. even sociopaths take pride in being smart enough to take advantage of what they view as the stupidity and weakness of others. meanwhile, righteous villains justify their heinous acts as being for the sake of the greater good. and those villains who are in-between may feel some guilt about some of the things they’ve done, but they justify those acts as being something they had to do, or something the victim deserved, or something they themselves deserved after all of their own pain and suffering. (Tomura is a good example of this type of villain.) then you’ve got anarchist villains who are just in it for the lulz and figure there’s no real purpose to life, so they might as well enjoy themselves. all of these are valid villain personalities and motivations.

the problem with Overhaul is that he acts like a sociopath, and yet supposedly he’s doing all of this in order to somehow pay back his boss for his kindness. and that just doesn’t track. he has not demonstrated himself to be even remotely capable of empathy, so that level of loyalty from him feels forced and entirely unbelievable. I would have much preferred if instead he’d just gone full sociopath. maybe even have it turn out that he was making a power play all along and that he in fact was the one who caused the previous boss’s medical issues in order to seize power. that would have at least made sense with his level of evilness. but instead we have a guy who does shit without remorse that no one with even the barest hint of a functional empathy switch should be able to consider. his boss even tells him on multiple occasions, “hey that’s fucked up, don’t do that.” and he completely fucking ignores him, and we’re supposed to believe that in the end this is his way of trying to show his gratitude? there’s just no internal logic to it at all, and it makes me completely unable to take Overhaul seriously as a character, and so in the end he’s just annoying. 

the good: Kirishima

Kirishima is definitely a highlight of this arc. having sneaked up on everyone to become the surprise 5th most popular character, I guess Horikoshi took that as a sign that it was time to give him more development. and it’s such good development. it’s so unexpected to see middle school Kirishima -- brave, sturdy, loyal-to-a-fault Kirishima -- freezing up in the face of danger and panicking and not being able to do anything when others are in peril. and then we learn that he actually has massive self-esteem issues and has no real confidence in his own “boring” quirk, and despite his dream, he finds it difficult to see himself as worthy of being a hero. and yet he managed to overcome that and become the Kirishima we know today, who’s determined to become the manly hero he’s always wanted to be, even if he has to fake it till he makes it. it’s just good stuff, and it was great to see him get the spotlight.

the bad: Kirishima

lol. but having said that, I’m going to be real here: as much as I love him, there’s just no denying the fact that Kiri, when you get down to it, Only Does One Thing. he makes his body harder. that’s it. yes, it’s a very strong and powerful quirk, and he’s absolutely worthy of being in U.A. and will make a great hero one day for sure. but that said, one-on-one Kirishima fights are just not that interesting to watch. Horikoshi has yet to find a way to mix things up and do anything remotely surprising with his quirk. Kiri just makes himself as hard as possible and tries to hold out against whoever he’s fighting until he can either knock them out, or they tire themselves out, or he gets backup, or he loses. so I’ll go ahead and say this here: there was absolutely no fucking reason to give him two multi-chapter fights in this arc. it makes no sense. just combine the two. or at the very least shorten one of them if you absolutely must have him fight twice for whatever reason. but just. I don’t know why we had to sit through so many chapters of him just standing there getting hit by bad guys. jesus christ. and meanwhile neither Ochako or Tsuyu ended up seeing any onscreen action at all, which is fucking ridiculous. they’re both just as deserving of fight time as Kiri is, and Tsuyu in particular has never had her own one-on-one fight and it would have kicked ass. you can’t tell me it wouldn’t have. so yeah. this was definitely a misstep IMO.

the good: the overall dark mood of the arc

this arc was craaaaaaazy dark. like yikes!dark. guns. drugs. the fucking mob. child abuse. depression. anxiety. prophecies of death. lost powers. dead mentors. just, holy shit. it does what it set out to do, which IMO was to introduce the dark side of the hero world, and all the horrors that the job can lead to. this is what you guys are signing up for. this is the reality of what you’ll be facing at times. it’s brutal, but it sure is realistic.

the bad: apparently there is such a thing as too much angst

yeah. who knew? and look, okay, I fucking love angst. love it. but at some point it just gets to be too much. this isn’t fucking Breaking Bad. you’ve gotta throw us a bone here every so often. we need some humor sprinkled here and there, and the occasional moment of triumph and hope. you know it’s bad when somehow we end up having to rely on the villains for both of those things. and yet that’s what happened here, and Toga and Twice basically saved the arc when it was reaching its most frustrating point, and injected some much-needed life back into it.

and speaking of dark, while I was mostly speaking figuratively, I do also mean that quite literally as well. this arc was too dark. lesson learned: never set your 20-chapters-long climax in a fucking basement. chapter after chapter of drab gray settings. no background variation whatsoever. just, god. why would you fucking do that.

the good: girl power

I got so excited when I realized that for the first time ever, the arc was going to feature precisely two female and two male class 1-A students. a fucking 1:1 ratio. 50/50. and this was in addition to Hadou and Ryuukyuu (Ryuukyuu being the very first female top ten ranked hero we’d been introduced to). all in all I was fucking pumped.

the bad: ...but not really

so fucking go figure that right off the bat, they get attacked on the way in and ALL OF THE GIRL CHARACTERS STAY OUTSIDE while the guys go on to continue the arc. except for Bubble, but she gets left behind barely pages later. and then we don’t see any of the ladies again until the very fucking end. fucking travesty tbh. 

honestly, none of the girls has really gotten any spotlight action since Ochako fought Bakugou all the way back in the sports festival arc, and it’s getting tired at this point. this is probably one of the reasons why Toga has climbed so high on my favorite character list. because at least we still get to see her fighting, and it’s always entertaining. but I need more ladies kicking ass goddammit.

 anyways, this is getting quite long and my will to rant is waning, so I’ll just list the rest of the pros and cons I can think of real quick.

the good: Mirio (such a good boy); the quirk-be-gone and trigger drugs; Eri (who is so sweet and precious and I honestly love her quirk, even if it’s ridiculously overpowered. that’s why they gave it to a six-year-old lol. I don’t think we have to worry about it becoming too broken for a long time); the prophecy and all related angst; and of course, that ending which ripped my heart out and also made me cheer so hard when Overhaul got his comeuppance.

the bad: the basement (yes, I mentioned it before, but honestly it deserves another mention); Overhaul’s lack of an actual master plan (such a letdown, smdh); lack of all of our other faves for like 30 chapters. Bakugou. Todoroki. Momo. Kaminari. Mina. Iida. Sero. god but I missed them so, so much.

 final verdict: all in all, this was an excellent arc for world-building, and  it set up a few things which I think will have a lasting impact on the story (Nighteye’s premonition; Eri; the whole concept of internships; and last but not least Tomura getting hold of the quirk-erasing drug). it also gave us some decent character development on the heroes’ side, and some frankly excellent character development for nearly every last member of the League of Villains. I am very appreciative of that last in particular, and if I ever go back to reread any parts of the arc once I’m done with the recaps, it will probably be those chapters.

having said that, this arc marked the first time that the series, to me, has ever felt dragged-out and dull, and for multiple chapters in a row at that. I was seriously getting concerned at some points, because it felt nothing at all like the fast-paced series I’d grown accustomed to for the first 120 chapters, with most arcs being resolved in a dozen chapters or less, and moving right along to the next arc. I hate the feeling of having to force myself to read something, and that was the case for quite a few chapters in this arc, which sucks. and there was no reason for it, really. it was just bad writing.

probably the best example of this is coming up in just a few chapters in the recaps. I am referring to chapter 138, which is probably my least favorite chapter in the series to date. this chapter begins with the heroes gathered outside of Overhaul’s house getting ready to enter. it ends with the heroes still outside the fucking house, still having not entered. they literally spend an entire chapter, 19 full pages, trying to go inside a house. the pacing is abysmal. hardly anything interesting happens aside from that really big guy busting through the front gate, and Ryuukyuu turning into her dragon form to stop him. that’s basically it. it’s just boring as fuck. this chapter basically sums up all of the problems I have with this arc in one go.

was it an important arc for the story? yes. would I read it again? probably not, LoV antics aside. basically those are my feelings in a nutshell.

 anyways, I’m curious what everyone else’s thoughts are on this arc if anyone else feels like sharing! now that I’m finished with it, it’s a lot more fun to talk about. some things are just more enjoyable in hindsight, when you have finally moved on past them and can joke about them from a safe distance lol.

[secretgamergirl]

RPG Campaign Setting Thoughts - Alignments, Death, and Outsiders

Continuing on from this post here, tonight we have some VERY sketchy notes about the Outer Planes and associated stuff, which is going to spill over from world-building into mechanics and this is all too loose for me to bother with anything resembling in-book presentation.

The Outer Planes have traditionally always served two purposes in this cosmology of D&D and its derivatives which are honestly somewhat at odds with each other. They are both the actual afterlife of the setting, where the souls of the dead end up, theoretically for eternity, and they’re where all the demons and devils and daemons and angels and maybe gods and a bunch of other really weird things that exist mainly for the sake of symmetry generally hang out when they aren’t being summoned so they tend to prominently feature as a way to go bigger and more epic late in a campaign. It’s also very much a tradition (which is weird because I can’t think of a single religion that actually works like this) where all of these supernatural creatures are what the souls of the dead BECOME in the afterlife. If you’re neutral good, when you die you become an angel. If you’re lawful evil, you become a devil, etc. (and there’s a lot of weird exceptions because there’s way more outsider types than alignment combinations, and that’s before also factoring in undead and reincarnation and so on).

The problem here of course is that sometimes, the PCs are going to end up dying, and having friends who die, and when you’ve established that that turns you into one of these cool types of monsters, and that those monsters can be summoned, dying turns into this weird sort of power-up, and this was fixed with a very... game designer sort of solution. Namely, when you die, you completely lose all your memories, skills, personal connections, and really by any reasonable standard straight up cease to exist, being replaced with some new outsider springing into being on whatever other plane who’s really just a different character doing their own thing. And, yeah, that solves that problem, but it creates the new one that WOW, THIS AFTERLIFE REALLY SUCKS!

Now, I did already establish for this setting the concept of a layered prime material plane, where you can essentially have your high level alternate universes as weird little pocket dimensions you can honestly just walk right into without even using magic... but I mean, visiting the outer planes is still a cool fun thing to do, and fighting demons is a cool fun thing to do, and your soul transforming into some weird thing in the afterlife is just neat. So I don’t want to drop any of that, but I want to make some tweaks.

Also? Death sucks game mechanics wise. Players, as it turns out decades down the road from when this whole RPG thing first began, tend to be really attached to their characters, and don’t want to just rip up their sheets when they die. They want to cheat death. Which is fine. But the way you cheat death is you pay a bunch of money and either have your cleric cast a quick spell (or rush back to town to find one) and tada, you’re back with some temporary experience penalty you either kinda walk off or buy off. Which is all very... weightless. And straight up losing cash sucks if you’re saving up to buy fancy magic stuff. AND you don’t even get to visit the afterlife really.

So... the standard raise dead spells? They’re gone or at least getting alterations (gotta keep reincarnate in some form because I have a soft spot for it). Plane shift? Also gone. Instead we are going to dust off our old pal Astral Projection, have it at a reasonable level, and no, when someone gets killed, you have to cast that sucker, chase them across the astral plane, maybe to one of the outer planes, and have this whole mini adventure of rescuing their soul and shoving it back in their body.

Also? I am sticking to a hard and fast rule that the material plane is the physical plane, and all the outer stuff is all souls and magic. Nobody gets to bring their body with them which also means you don’t get to bring all your fancy equipment. You’re either a ghost getting sucked into hell or you’re a demon that used to be a ghost or you’re still alive but effectively a ghost tethered to home by a silver cord.

By the same token, outsiders can’t just physically come over to the prime material plane. This is kind of a big fundamental shift in things, but at the end of the day, isn’t it just freaking weird that there’s never really been a place in D&D for demonic possession?

So, tada. That’s a thing now. Outsiders on the material plane need to borrow something to use as a body. A willing person to possess, or an unwilling person subjected to a proper ritual first, or a recently sacrificed corpse, maybe some kind of magical focus stone. This is one of the sketchier parts of the idea here, but no matter how it works out it’s a built in adventure hook, and it doesn’t really change a ton because obviously being possessed by a whatever dramatically transforms the host into the standard existing stat block until its defeated. Summon spells kinda need a material component or a focus I guess, or maybe even not because like you’re calling up a whatever but you can’t really anchor it so it just has this unstable body made of dust and debris and temporarily conjured matter.

I’m also tempted to straight up invent a new divine caster class to fit in with this theme that’s all about having some outside pal they let possess them in combat. Get the whole Devilman sorta thing going, Maybe in a little subsection with a really dex-y fighter and a different take on an arcane type and a rogue type for a really non-standard but complementary core 4.

Back on the side of dying and visiting the other planes though, I say this is a good place to wedge in a good ol’ corruption mechanic. If you die,and your friends manage to catch up to you while you’re streaking across the astral plane, cool, no harm, no foul. Once you end up in whatever plane though, you gradually start to turn into whatever sort of outsider. Subtle cosmetic stuff at first, sprouting horns and getting weird colored hair and maybe a tail first, some slight shifts in personality, and over months or years you just kinda naturally lean into that, and your class levels fade away, and you just kinda naturally go all in on being a mephit or an azata or whatever the hell thing.

And then when your friends do get your soul back and shove it into your body again, that weird metaphysical transformative soul corruption deal doesn’t just go away. That’s partially demonified you possessing your old body now, so, you keep the horns and the flaming eyes and stuff as a permanent reminder of that time you died for a bit and you can be all angsty about it and maybe rededicate yourself to something because that’s not an afterlife you want to go back to, and honestly if you’re the sort of person with a real thing for dramatic mid-campaign transformations and you want a character to look all furry or glowing or be a hot demon gal at higher levels without the mechanical baggage of transformation magic, hey, the door’s open a crack for you.

Also speaking of succubi, while I’m playing around with outsiders, this one has always bugged me. Say we’re going all 7 deadly sins. We’ve got our wrath demons- big angry spikey jerks, maybe on fire. We’ve got our sloth demons- big gross sluggy things who can barely move. Our gross-Kirby gluttony demons, etc. But then we get to lust and it’s this super hot seductress. That breaks the pattern and I hate it. I am definitely kicking them out of that niche and replacing them with proper lust demons, evoking super creepy long-fingered horny dudes.

And really there is room from there to expand into a two-tiered system of outsiders for every plane where there’s the things that are there because they’re what happens to the average person who had this alignment as their reward/punishment, and then there’s the things that are their to make sure things run the way they’re supposed to, are generally more powerful, and are formed from the souls of people who really actively served their patron deity in life. I’m mainly looking at this from the angle of “do the members of the cult of this demon lord realize that in the afterlife they’re all going to become lemures and realize how much that sucks?” but even on the good side, you have to figure the average paladin doesn’t want the blissful retirement package after death, they want to do the whole holy avenging archon sort of thing and continue to kick evil’s ass, right?

Which segues me into alignments. A lot of people absolutely hate the traditional law/chaos good/evil alignment system, but I find as long as you’re careful to use it descriptively rather than prescriptively and you don’t use really messed up alignment definitions (AD&D 2nd ed had some DOOZIES), it’s cool. There is one missing element I would like to formally add in though- An extra variable for mundane and divine/committed/radicalized versons of each. Breaking this down with specific examples...

First and foremost, I am a big big fan of neutral as the default alignment nearly everyone falls into, with everything else being a bit of an outlying extreme. On the good/evil axis then, neutral if for people who you would generally describe as basically good people. They know right from wrong, and generally always try to do the right thing, but they have a strong sense of self-preservation. Truly good people go past that and will, as a general rule, really stick their neck out and take major personal risks or do full-on self-sacrificial things to help people. Evil people are all about looking out for themselves first. Or put more simply, seeing someone being attacked/persecuted/in great need, a neutral person will think “someone should do something,” a good person will think “someone should do something and I’m that someone” and an evil person will think “sucks to be that person” and try not to think about them much.

Meanwhile on the law/chaos axis, lawful people have an unflinching commitment to some form of faith in the system/some particular authority/a rigid personal code of some kind.and will always work within that framework. If that’s always obeying the law, any plan that’s explicitly illegal is off the table, and if the law is unjust, working to change it is the way to go. If they’re super religious, doubting their own deity is never on the table. If they’re strict adherents to a code, they don’t make exceptions. “I’ll never allow suffering” never gets a quiet clause of “unless the person suffering is a scumbag who deserves it” they’re really going to intervene over that.

Someone who is chaotic meanwhile actively has a chip on their shoulder about any sort of bureaucracy, full stop will never “have faith in the system,” generally assume any sort of authority figure is a power hungry scumbag, and while it’s hard to translate this into fantasy terms, be the sort of person who always jailbreaks their phone and has a strict no-DRM stance on all their software.

The vast majority of people are, again, neutral, falling between those extremes. Follow the law, trust that calling the cops will usually get things sorted out, but when push comes to shove, most rules are really guidelines and you can make exceptions where you have to.

All of these represent real, realistic attitudes normal real-world people have. Most are true neutral. The corner alignments are the rarest (always going by the book and always sticking your neck out is demanding, looking out for number 1 without bowing down to the powers that be really requires a certain sort of lifestyle, etc.) but there should be people you can point to at all 9 points on the grid, and none of them should really clash so hard that people can’t be friends or live in the same society, and they should all be functional alignments for adventurers since a good adventure should have a mix of personal stakes and rewards and a good party should all like each other enough to stick together through whatever comes up.

Then there’s the more extreme versions of these alignments. Where neutrality becomes about “maintaining the balance” or actively rejecting society as a whole, evil is actively causing harm for harm’s sake, chaos is constant change, law is absolute rigidity and caste structures and such, and good gets really extreme about scope. These are still worldviews actual humans CAN hold, but more typically these are the sort of things supernatural forces get bent out of shape about and have as sources of constant conflict.

Again, lots of loose sloppy notes here, but you can hopefully see where I’m going as far as moral philosophies and cosmology driving games in fun directions, right?

[thexduchess-blog1]

Reflections.

Unattached

The whole unattached thing. As a general rule, with play-partners, FwB and fuckbuddys, I don’t get attached. It gets messy, boundaries are crossed and people catch feelings and it’s just, ugh. No.

There’s a thing I’ve been meaning to do, and that’s reflect on last years, and last weeks explosive, Krakatoa level eruptions that essentially convinced me that everyone is a lying cunt, and I can never properly trust anyone ever again because holy fuck, this is a belter.

Without going into ridiculously specific detail that would identify the piece of shit scumbag wanker, as much as I want to, I won’t.

Around 10/11 years ago I became friends with a guy, and at first we just fooled around but it eventually developed into a pretty serious and committed D/s relationship. Life got in the way occasionally but we always came back together and fell right back into place with each other. We saw each other 3 times a week, went away together, attended events together, and holy fuck the sex was amazing, but so were the lazy mornings, sending pictures to each other at work, goodnight phone calls and late nights getting high under the stars. We explored a lot together, found our limits and what we liked, and things we REALLY liked xD we found our roles and I still identify with those roles. He was my first Daddy, first ‘real’ Dom, I was his first baby, his sub. We helped each other through a hell of a lot. No, we weren’t exclusive, but there were periods where we were. For 10 years.

Last year, I got an email from a girl asking if I knew him. I messaged him and asked him who she was, and he confessed that that was his girlfriend. They’d been together the whole time, she was pregnant with his kid and he’d been lying the whole time, to me and her.

I had no idea she existed. Turns out he was a fucking brilliant liar.

She had caught him flirting with a girl at work, and went through his phone. Boom, all the emails, texts, pictures and phone calls between us. Photos of us together, intimate photos, explicit texts with times and dates. There was no escaping the fact he was lying. Obviously, I stopped it right then and there, explained everything to her, that I had no idea she existed, sent her screenshots of messages where he says he isn’t with anyone else, the whole shebang. I deleted and blocked every avenue of communication, apologised to her a million times.

And I shut down. Not only did I shut down, I vowed never to open up or trust anyone, I decided the best way to deal with it was to take copious amounts of cocaine & speed, various benzos and drink way, way too much over the course of about 6 weeks, self harming and starving myself out of fear, guilt and heartbreak. I was fighting, causing trouble and generally ruining my life, as I slept with all the wrong people and made all the wrong decisions. If I wasn’t in the pub, I was probably sleeping with someone, but no doubt I’d be back in the pub later.

Thing is I was still going to work through the day, owning the business allows you certain privileges, like being left the fuck alone. It wasn’t immediately obvious that I was destroying myself until my foreman came back from annual leave. He’s the same age as me, a really good friend, he’s picked me up, literally more than once. I probably don’t deserve his loyalty and kindness. He came into the office once the other boys had left, shut the door behind him and emptied my handbag across the desk in between us. Strips of pills, bags of powder and over an ounce of green came tumbling out, with grinder, mirror and old store card too.

I fought like fuck to get them back but I didn’t have a Catholic’s chance in Fountain against him. He burned everything except the green. Not before he locked me in my own office going fucking mental.

However, like the legend he is, he picked me up. I was at his sweating everything out and howling at the fucking moon because everything i’d blocked out with pills and powder came flooding in at once and I genuinely thought I was going to die if I cried anymore. I cried until I was sick and breathless, my body ached and my mind felt like it was being electrocuted. But Jai never left me. He put up with the anger, the hurt, the tears and the brief periods of laughter. He stayed with me while I ate, he held me as I shook in my sleep, he listened to every rant and sobbing monologue. I don’t think I’d have lasted much longer if he hadn’t pulled me out that hole. Either my mind or my body was going to snap under the pressure. He encouraged me to talk about what happened, and be explicit in how I felt.

I hadn’t done anything wrong. I didn’t know. I wouldn’t have entertained him if I knew. This wasn’t my fault. But I still felt guilty that he’d cheated on her, ashamed that I was partly responsible for the apparent breakdown of a relationship, I was embarrassed when I thought about how intimate we were, empty that suddenly a huge part of my life had disappeared over night, broken and desperately sad that I didn’t have that connection anymore. And that was okay.

It fucking hurt. But it wasn’t my fault.

Eventually I got a grip, gave myself a shake and with Jai holding my hand I got up off the floor and opened the curtains again. Life continued on and slowly returned to normal. I quit playing within the kink community for a while, unable to trust anyone enough to submit or obey or whatever, I focused on work and keeping myself relatively sober.

Recently, my confidence is coming back. I’ve lost a bit of weight, my tits look amazing, my nails are finally growing, I look good in jersey dresses again, lol.

I came back to fet, I went to a social last month and met a couple old friends, M & I are seeing each other regularly again and life is generally ok.

But then I got an email last week. From Him. The Ex.

“...we’ve finished, can we talk?”

He told a convincing story about being separated since she found out, they’d moved into different houses, shared custody of the kid, he’d moved workplaces etc

I went out to meet him and we went to dinner. I didn’t drink. I asked him why he lied. He gave me an excuse that didn’t even nearly explain it, but was along the lines of wanting the best of both worlds. He apparently convinced me enough that he wasn’t with her anymore, even though I prodded and poked and asked a thousand questions to make sure I wasn’t being fucking lied to again. We went back to his place, sat outside and smoked, he told me how he felt, I told him how I felt. We ended up laughing and ended up in bed. Everything fell back into place, but I made it clear there was no attachment anymore, this was a one off and it wasn’t me forgiving him. To be honest, he’s a good ride. Sue me.

Except in the early hours, I noticed the faux fur of a hooded jacket poking out the cupboard under the stairs. I flipped out. I rang Leigh to pick me up and, while checking my emails in the morning, got hit with even more shit, so I went straight to my old dealers and bought far too much coke, alcohol and green.

I locked myself in my room, sent his girlfriend an email telling her everything, including screenshots of his email, put my phone on silent, and got smashed.

I embarrassed myself and other people, I nearly fucked up something I don’t want to fuck up, I pushed my body to the limit in a matter of hours because I knew I was going to feel everything again.

Jai to the rescue. Obviously I wasn’t at work, he knew I’d gone out for dinner the night before and put 2+2 together. Whisked away to safety again, and I sobered up pretty quickly.

As before, he forced me to face the things I was feeling and be honest about them. Then told me to clear things up with people and apologise, which I did.

Last time, I said I’d never trust or open myself to anyone, but sometimes things happen that make you realise it’s not that you can’t trust anyone, you just can’t trust them. I know that might be pretty obvious to a normal person but I’m not neurotypical.

I know I need to take the steps to be more social again, to be confident and know my worth, but in all honesty my confidence has been shattered.

I’m still me. I guess I’ve still got the same humour, I’m still cynical and pretty much a cunt, i’m still sugar sweet & sour as fuck, but I just don’t have that confidence anymore. Sure, I have moments, as you can tell. I still edit out imperfections though.

It’s funny how when the person who gave you that body confidence leaves, they take it with them.

I’m a little more shy, a little less likely to start a conversation, a hell of a lot more anxious, but I’m working on it. I’ve a little self esteem growing.

I can trust people, and if I’ve told you I trust you, know wholeheartedly that I do because you make me feel comfortable.

I just don’t get attached, simply because I don’t want hurt.

I’m sure someone will ease that fear eventually, and I’m looking forward to finding someone I can see a future D/s dynamic. Maybe they’re already lurking in my peripheral. I’m gonna stay positive. Life was shit for a while there, but it seems to be picking up a bit.

I am not defined by his actions.

I know my worth, and I’m worth more than being a dirty little secret.

[contrariancy]

liner notes for ‘reach’.

So, uh. When I write, whatever I write, I always keep a separate “notes” file with things like general plot points, timelines, stuff I’m debating putting in, cut things, and deleted/rewritten bits. And needless to say, the notes for reach got a little, well, long.

Some of the cut stuff I’m actually repurposing for an upcoming series (tentatively titled ‘iƒ’, based on branching points in ‘reach’), but even when I remove that, it’s a lot. So I figured I’d just dump them here and hopefully someone will find them interesting or what have you.

➤  this fic was how I coped with chapter 295; chapter 1 was written almost in its entirety before 296 came out. I acted cool on tumblr and twitter, but I was absolutely sweating bullets and fully prepared to write bizarre fix-it fic because I wanted it. After 296, I lost some steam, but I had a couple friends tell me they really liked the first chapter and thought it was a good concept. I’ve done enough "lost scene" fics that I wanted to try a new challenge and see if I could create an engaging AU fanfic.

Here is exactly what spawned this:

➤   there were a few rules I created for myself before I got started. The first one was that I couldn’t post anything until the fic was mostly done and once I started posting, that was a commitment to finish it. The second was minimal to no OCs — I had to bend this later with Bathin, but I compromised by making his power fear-based and having him take other forms.

The third rule was that any character introduced had to have some sort of role to play; they couldn’t be there just to "be there" and exist to boost up other characters. Zeal was the only character in it out of necessity, as Guila would have been written entirely differently if she didn’t have her brother with her. Even then, I tried to give him something that wasn’t "[X] in distress." I think the character that came closest to being that was Hendrickson, honestly.

➤ originally, Hendrickson was going to have a phone that he talked to and would have run into Dreyfus while exploring the city. I opted against this because I didn’t want to write any OCs in this and a phone counts. Also, it would be ten times more interesting to have him bounce off of Dreyfus instead of some phone that the reader does not care about. It was also important to me that Dreyfus get introduced as soon as possible, especially in a fic like this where the reader is being asked to accept something different from the top.

➤   Jericho and Howzer were not in the initial draft notes. Then I came up with the pair concept early on (after realizing there was a pattern with Guila-Zeal and Hendrickson-Dreyfus and I could play with that for the eventual Merlin reveal). Fraudrin was an actual character briefly before I decided that Fraudrin as a villain was kind of a tired thing; if I was going to write for him at this point, I would want to explore more of the shades of gray with his character, and this fic would not give me the time or leeway for that. So Howzer became Gil’s paired partner instead, also because I just wanted to write Howzer. Jericho offered the most opportunity for writing things, and I wanted to play her off of Hendrickson and Dreyfus.

➤   Merlin was always going to be the deus ex machina. Merlin was always a factor and always the only Sin I was going to put in. The only thing that changed is she went from sweeping in and completely taking out Bathin and Fixing Everything Ever to coming in for the assist at the end with her OP skills.

➤   Helbram is only in it because he was the first dead character I thought of as a potential partner for Zaratras. I wrote the first half of interlude 1 before anything else and I loved the odd couple pairing, so he stayed and became kind of essential. He’s also very fun to write for and I thought he would be an interesting contrast to the others.

➤   Bathin was going to originally be a straight up Fraudrin clone and just the entity Bathin using Fraudrin’s guise as a persona or whatever. Again, I decided Fraudrin as a villain was a tired thing at this point and having the villain just be Fraudrin again was a bit of a cop out, even if I really didn’t want to write any type of OC. Bathin is like Envy from Fullmetal Alchemist, later complete with Velvet Crowe from Berseria’s arm (which is. also Meliodas and Derieri and I went "oops oh well"). I liked the mental image of Margaret beating everyone up too, so that’s why that happened. It’s also because they’re the two figures in Hendrickson’s life that get possessed and Bathin poses as both of them.

Bathin was meant to be cruel but fun, like an animal that plays with its food. His downfall is his hubris! He thinks he’s on top — and it’s his world, why wouldn’t he think that? — so he doesn’t see anyone as a real threat. The unknown terrifies him though, and that’s why he was tearing his hair out over the 'interloper.' 

➤   ftr, Bathin is one of the many demons referenced in the Lesser Key of Solomon. I’d originally considered something else and even looked into a lot of Arthurian lore, but since Nakaba mines those for canon and I didn’t want to risk any overlap, I swerved in a different direction all together. 

➤   epilogue 1.0 is hot garbage, I started writing this before 296 came out and it was built on assumptions that thankfully turned out not to be true. I trashed it quickly and I like 2.0 much, much better. It’s embarrassingly bad though and this is why you edit, okay. Also, it focused solely on Hendrickson and Dreyfus when the fic did become an ensemble piece and therefore, the other characters deserved to get closure. Some of the sentence structure and imagery got cannibalized for the very last part of the new epilogue, though.

➤   most of the chapter titles stayed the same from the beginning; only chapter 5’s changed. It was originally "in which a good boy questions a demon’s fashion choices" which was a reference to Howzer switching sides and Bathin-as-Fraudrin stuff. Bathin shifted to chapter 6 entirely though, so it became less relevant. The placeholder title was 'in which lightning strikes twice’’ which is a reference to Gilthunder and Zaratras, but since Zaratras doesn’t actually fight in that one, it didn’t make sense.

Everything from here on is from my notes in my project file; the only things I’ve done are rearranged the order for clarity and expanded on shorthand, though there are a couple of italicized notes in parenthesis that I added in later. Some of it is pretty disjointed tbqh! I have a bad habit of not writing in order.

Like I said before, I do a notes file for pretty much anything I write, as it’s where I dump ideas so I don’t forget or move cut text to in case I decide I like the older version better later on (it’s happened). This one just got ridiculously large, so hopefully someone besides me gets a kick out of it.

General notes

Hendrickson wakes up in an apartment, everything is taken care of, wtf

maybe Zaratras has been there for a bit and they're like ARE WE DEAD?? and he's just all HA HA you better not be.

Zaratras is the guy who has just been there!! Forever!! He runs a bar.

Gil is from just before the Kingdom Infiltration arc, so he is just sad and tired all the time.

Howzer is from early and a good boy but also devoted to Dreyfraudrin so it’s like. ??? When he sees those two. He will bond with Hendrickson and this time it will be Hendy’s turn to be like hey. Come. It’s fine.

The ultimate goal with Gil and Howzer is basically attempting to make people whisper "who hurt you."

Merlin shows up in the end like hmm you were all pulled into a pocket dimension but don’t worry, you should be expelled right back into the timeline where you left. No big deal. Bye.

Helbram and Hendrickson kind of. They’re not OKAY but they realize they are both shitty people who were in an impossible situation. Helbram is the petty type, so he’s not really going to forgive him, but Hendrickson doesn’t need his forgiveness either. The two of them work together though because it’s the only way out

Helbram just dunks on Hendrickson constantly because of course he does

Guila is from the same period as Hendrickson and Dreyfus, but she has been there for months by the time they arrive. Zeal is there too because otherwise she’d destroy everyone and everything.

They come in pairs, from similar points in time?

Guila and Zeal are just before the holy war, around chapter 252. Team smartass gen z

Hendrickson and Dreyfus are post 266 / 285 or whatever. Team old man

Zaratras and Helbram are team post death. Team DEAD

Gil and super early bro Howzer who work for Dreyfraudrin. Team dumb boys

Jericho and Merlin. Merlin just lurks for ages, there should be hints about her from chapter 2 on then she’s like lol hi. Post 197 for Jericho, Merlin plays coy because who cares. After 197, Merlin senses Bathin and is like gimme. Team Jericho Broke Nothing

Bathin notes

It’s powered by a crystal that preys on their fears?? Hence Dreyfraudrin existing. Zaratras kind of knows what’s up because he can sense it, since the energy sort of started when he got there, the dude gained a form when Gil showed up, then power when Guila arrived and later Jericho, and now Hendy and Dreyfus sort of complete the collection. It’s their fears all manifested. Merlin has no impact on it though and actually weakened it because ha ha ha you think she has fears, that’s cute. (this shifted to Bathin’s true form being a crystal — I was trying to stick to my "no OC" rule.)

Beleth or Bathin, a fragment of the sangréal? <— too complicated, stick with Ars Goetia lore interpreted for nnt-land. (I think my plan here was some ancient artifact?? Like the sacred treasures. It got really complicated really fast which is no good.) Belialuin Bathinal

Bathin is a demon, its true form is the crystal, it feeds on fears and created the pocket dimension to try and regain a more viable physical form, the weakened state is why its legions are so weak.

But also Bathin feeds on fears and craves Hendrickson and the others’ fears of Fraudrin and everything, and when Bathin finally gets Hendy and is like aren’t you afraid?? He’s just. Yes. I am absolutely terrified. But because Dreyfus took the time to punch him in the heart repeatedly he’s not going to roll over, he has to keep going. Helbram also yells at him like HOW DARE YOU. YOU CAN’T. (This shifted to Jericho in chapter 5 so it could become a more solid arc in the end with the confrontation in 6. Helbram got his moment with Hendrickson and Guila instead and, later, his goodbye.)

Bathin appears like Dreyfraudrin and Margaret, so when they strike Fraudrin down and are like ok?? We good?? Margaret turns and cuts them?? You have until chapter 6 to decide. (it’s pretty obvious what I decided.)

Outline

Hendrickson is the perspective character. Only the interlude, which is Dreyfus-centric, isn’t. (The other two interludes were added as I was writing later on.)

Chapter 1: Hendrickson and Dreyfus and general scene setting. Chapter 2: They actually go around town, Guila and Jericho are super introduced, we get glimpses of Gil and Howzer and they kind of talk to the latter. Kind of. Chapter 3: They get to the bar where there’s a bartender that dresses like a mysterious knight, spooky scary etc etc. It’s Zaratras. Helbram is there, too. More on Gil, Howzer should be questioning. Hendrickson leaves Dreyfus at the bar, runs into Howzer on the way out. Interlude 1: Dreyfus figures out Hendrickson’s plan re: Ludociel. Interlude 2: Jericho and Guila on Helbram. Interlude 3: Howzer and Gilthunder. Chapter 4: The confrontation between Dreyfus and Hendrickson. Howzer crashes their place because of course he does. Chapter 5: The Dreyfraudrin chapter. Vs Gilthunder. Zeal will guide them; alluded to in chapter 3. Chapter 6: The source, Bathin, is revealed, Merlin shows herself. Epilogue: The end. "I’m going to make you see how wrong you are." —> this promise HAS to be fulfilled.

TIMELINE:

Five+ months — Zaratras and Helbram

Five months — Gilthunder and Howzer

Three months — Guila and Zeal

A week — Jericho and Merlin

~Days — Hendrickson and Dreyfus

Setting

Eighteenth Plaza — Bathin is the 18th Goetia. Based on Shibuya 109 on the outside.

Pub’s name — Wandering Knight, Silver Helm

Possible Combos - Shot Purge (Guila-Hendrickson) —> Holy Shot?

Flats are like a venus fly trap, lulling them into a false sense of security and complacency so Bathin can keep feeding off their fear?? Maybe it was and then Merlin showed up like lol hi.  (I dumped this because it overcomplicated things a lot; it just became very subtly and only partially implied in chapter 5 but ultimately not very important.)

Cut lines

Chapter Two: What the four of them manage to put together quickly — really, Guila and Hendrickson exchanging theories and ideas while Jericho and Dreyfus watch from across the booth in silent wonder, occasionally exchanging glances as if to say what is wrong with these two — is this: (I wish I could have kept the Jericho and Dreyfus bit, but it didn’t work. This was when they were in the booth, exchanging information.)

“Now hold on a minute, Gilthunder!” Dreyfus turns back to face him, squaring his shoulders. “This— this isn’t what you think! If it’s about M—”

It’s Hendrickson’s turn to yank Dreyfus back, hissing in his ear. “Don’t.” (I didn’t want to complicate it with Margaret. This was before I’d decided to have Bathin use Margaret as a guise as well, but I’d still cut it even if I knew.)

Chapter Five: “You should be.” Hendrickson counters, resting his hands on the back of the couch, leaning forward to look down at Helbram. “Because he brought you and Zaratras here before anyone else. It’s likely that he preys on the souls of the dead.” He pauses at that, glancing over at Guila who nods in agreement, before shifting his attention back to the fairy. “Even if we ‘get out,’ you can’t just live here. Bathin will continue to eat away at your very spirit.” (there are several logical flaws in this that got cleaned up in the final version, which reads very similarly.)

“That should be plenty of time.” Guila pats at Zeal’s shoulder lightly. “Some of us won’t even need that much time, certainly.” (The scene was dragging on for too long and this was ultimately unnecessary. I tend to be really wordy and not know when to stop a scene, so I cut a lot for the sake of flow later on or rework things.)

“Especially since this isn’t Dreyfus’s field of expertise.” (This was cut from the conversation Hendrickson had with Zaratras -- about strategy -- because frankly, it isn’t true and even if it was, Hendrickson wouldn’t say something like that. I cut a lot of stuff like this where it works for the plot but doesn’t track with the character. editing good!!)

The screech of tires can be heard in the distance.

“Ah, I believe they’ve managed to find a vehicle!” (god I really wanted to put Zaratras commenting on grand theft auto in this, even if it made no narrative sense.)

Chapter Six: “Huh?” Jericho gives her a confused look before looking back over her shoulder, where Bathin and Gilthunder were battling it out hand-to-sword. “Yeah, I just— this place is starting to fall apart.”

“Yes, it is, which is why we need to be careful. If you could provide a distraction—”

“Oh!” She snaps her fingers in response. “Yeah, okay, I can do that!” (Jericho was a bit too passive here and it was difficult to transition to the next beat. I reworked it in the final version.)

“Be careful. He’s using his weight as a weapon.” (This was somewhere in phase two of the Bathin fight. I was trying to set the character apart from other demons that they’ve fought, but this was too expository. Hopefully, the sentiment got across in description and whatnot and if not, uh. Oops.)

As he pulls away, flying off towards solid ground, the ice begins to audibly crack. Hendrickson stares up at it, almost resigned in a way. “So this is it,” he murmurs to himself, watching the cracks spider-web their way along the platform (I removed this and tweaked the final paragraph because it didn’t quite line up with Hendrickson’s character in this, especially given the turning point that comes only a paragraph or two later. That one line doesn’t line up with the rest of his arc in the entire fic; I was trying to make it obvious that the ice was cracking and wasn’t going to hold, but uh. This was not the way to do it.)

As an amicable silence falls between them — a far cry from the silence that lingered the last time he took this elevator up — (The transition in the elevator was hard.)

Gilthunder clenches a fist. “That’s exactly why I can’t forget. If I—” He swallows hard. (A lot of stuff gets cut because I start typing and can’t figure out where to go with it. It just didn’t work in the sequence and was too emotional for Gilthunder’s canon point.)

“By the way, have you seen Helbram?” (Zaratras was going to ask about Helbram as well, but that would have dragged the pacing down. Besides, I’d like to think that after their time together, Zaratras ‘gets’ Helbram on some level and knows he’d want to head out on his own terms.)

The orange hue fades into the black of the night, growing brighter and brighter with every passing moment, much like the world around them. And then, it reaches a point where it becomes blindingly bright, like a warmth washing over all of them at once. And then—

And then—  (Did you know that this was basically the same format I used to end the pentultimate section of another fic because I sure didn’t until I just so happened to reread it before posting this one. god. damnit.)

Epilogue:

“I’m getting better, right?”

Jericho looks over her shoulder at Hendrickson, then gestures at a small patch of ice in front of her. The druid glances between her and the patch, looking mildly uncertain. “It’s progress,” he admits after a moment.

“You should have seen it the other day, though!” She stomps her foot. “Sir Dreyfus told me I had a lot of potential. (This was originally how Jericho’s epilogue was going to start. It didn’t seem right for her though, especially given the ‘reset’ tone, so I cut it and started from scratch. This would potentially work if it was Dreyfus, but not Hendrickson.)

Detailed chapter breakdowns

Chapter 3: Helbram is disguised, Zaratras is in his armor, it’s a pub and they’re INCOGNITO ok. Helbram spills a drink on Hendrickson like an asshole before the reveal. They figure out that the bartender and server aren’t on the same “script” as the NPCs.

CHAPTER 4 ends with them meeting up with Guila and Jericho, Guila is like this is Bathin, the Eighteenth Duke of the Demon Realm.

CHAPTER 5 is the big planning chapter + infiltrating and fighting Gilthunder. At the end, Bathin’s legions converge on Eighteenth Plaza and Dreyfus stays behind to stop them. Zaratras helps, brothers!! They can have a sad scene with Hendy.

CHAPTER 6 will have a big fight scene in it, this needs to be carefully blocked and mapped out. (narrator voice: it was not carefully blocked and mapped out.)

THE PLAYERS

Bathin — via Dreyfraudrin and Margaret. A lot of darkness, demon powers, fear manipulation. Teleportation? Dreyfraudrin has strength, Margaret has Velvet Crowe-esque hand bs? Dark tendrils, like a cat’s tail.

Hendrickson — Purge, Acid. Purge can weaken Bathin’s power. Dreyfus — Break, Full Size. Full Size might be too much for the building. Dreyfus and Zaratras could hold off Bathin’s legions? Guila — Explosion. Combo with Hendrickson at one point. Jericho — Ice Fang. Someone can get thrown out the elevator at some point and Jericho uses ice to extend a platform and keep them from falling. Eventually uses ice to root Bathin in place so she can PUNCH HIM IN THE FACE!!! Howzer — Tempest. Gilthunder — Thunderbolt. Short circuits the electronics? Helbram — plays his part disguised as Gil to get everyone in, fucks off partway through. Returns to yell at idiots. (This plan was too complicated; what I settled on works better character-wise and narratively speaking.) Zaratras — Great Thunder. Works with Dreyfus to hold off Bathin’s THIRTY DEMON LEGIONS so the others can take him.

Merlin — Infinity. She needs Bathin to be weakened and have his guard down to strike, which is why she slinks in the background and waits. Probably steps in after they’ve done that but Bathin is like YOU FOOLS!! Etc etc. Uses infinity to keep the Holy Shot effect goin’ (see above notes about Merlin)

THE SETTING

Top floor of Eighteenth Plaza. There’s the massive office, the long hallway, and the elevator. This is the main area for Bathin.

In the lobby, Zaratras and Dreyfus will take on Bathin’s legions of demons after freeing Gilthunder from his influence.

Guila and Hendrickson get thrown out the glass elevator window, Jericho creates an ice shelf that they cling to, Howzer and Gil work on keeping Bathin busy while Helbram flies out and grabs Guila at Hendrickson’s urging. Hendrickson falls.

Small brief flashback to super young Hendy and Jenna? A call back to being shown how wrong he is. Jenna’s just like LOOK YOU’LL BE FINE, YOU NEVER LIKED IT HERE ANYWAY!! Gosh you’re such a dour kid sometimes, geez, but don’t worry, someone’ll show you how wrong you are someday.

Full Size Dreyfus catches him because gratuitous yes.

Bathin is unfair but so is Merlin.

. . . and that’s it! Hopefully that was interesting to someone and if not, uh. I’m very sorry. Thank you for reading!  🙏

[angst-in-space]

this is partly just my hopeful klance heart speaking but i also don’t think it’s that much of a reach so hear me out...i think it’s fairly plausible that lance could be the one to convince keith to join team voltron again. lemme explain my reasoning (i’m gonna ramble a lot but i promise it’s all leading up to my main point):

in the first episode of s4 they made a point of showing that neither shiro nor allura could convince keith to stay, but i think they both approached it at an angle that didn’t work for keith; they both essentially were telling him to stay because it was his duty, his responsibility. and keith, who is scared of that kinda pressure is like, “haha nope i’m out.” 

but does he really want to leave the team? if you ask me, it’s a big fat no. you can see that he feels like the team is pushing him away, he feels like they don’t want him there. i think what’s actually going on is that the team is upset about him drifting away (because he’s their friend!!) but he’s misinterpreting that as them wanting him to leave. i think the team similarly is misinterpreting keith’s desire to join the blade; it’s probably very clear to them that they care about him, so they want him to do whatever makes him happy, but they don’t realize that keith doesn’t see that. so really, no one is on the same page. 

it’s also quite clear that keith still cares deeply about team voltron and has trouble adjusting to the blade’s rules because of what he’s learned from his friends. he also is quite literally ready to die for team voltron when he finds out they’re in danger. so it’s pretty obvious that he is still very attached to them.

but at the same time he still doesn’t realize his teammates care so much about him as a person and a friend and not just as a part of voltron. he pushes people away because he fears them rejecting him. he fears the rest of the team merely sees him as an asset & not as someone that they genuinely love. (like, remember in s3 when lance came to him for advice & he seemed so happy until lance said “well, you’re the leader”?) he sees himself as expendable, as is demonstrated by his attempt to sacrifice himself like...at least three times i can think of (and it doesn’t help that the blade’s mentality brings out that quality in him). 

and here’s the problem...no one has explained to keith that the team cares about him. no one has told him that they would all be heartbroken if anything happened to him. do you really think he would try to sacrifice himself without saying goodbye if he knew that? and mind you, i’m not blaming the team. as i said before, i think it’s obvious to them that they love him so they don’t know they have to say it. it’s just not obvious to keith, who has been rejected and abandoned time and time again. 

(ok i’m actually gonna get to the point here.) so......look, someone needs to tell keith this. ideally it would be the team as a whole, but tbh?? i feel like if anyone can convince keith that 1) the team cares about him, and 2) he should come back, it’s lance. 

we’ve been shown numerous times that of anyone else on the team, lance is the best at getting through to keith. like...i’m not even speculating here, it’s like objectively true.

they’ve made a point of this ever since s1––for example, when they were on the balmera together and lance was the one to convince keith not to recklessly dive into battle. (side note: in that scene, keith tries to run off & lance literally grabs him and pulls him back .... that might not have been intentionally symbolic, but i’m just saying.) 

let’s not forget that at the beginning of s3 when keith was torn up over shiro’s disappearance, everyone else on the team looked at lance to comfort him. seriously, i feel like people overlook this but it was so overtly intentional & meaningful. like...they really took the time to animate everyone on the team looking over at lance one by one, and lance doesn’t even notice...he’s just looking at keith the whole time before he steps up to talk to him––which goes to show that he does it of his own volition and not because he feels pressured to do so. that really speaks volumes.

lance was also the one to convince keith to take on the role of black paladin even when he doubted himself.

and of course lance was also the one to get through to keith when they were on thayserix, and keith was too focused on chasing lotor and was causing the team to fall apart. 

i know keith and lance didn’t interact a lot in s4, but that doesn’t negate everything that happened between them in previous seasons (especially considering that s3 & 4 were originally supposed to be one season). we’ve been shown time and time again that lance can get through to keith when no one else can, and you can’t tell me that’s unintentional. and i’m pretty damn certain it will come back into play at some point.

additionally, it’s just in lance’s nature to be very good at getting through to his teammates. he’s very supportive, he’s very attune to others, and he knows how to give a good pep talk. this has been evident especially in recent seasons (the aforementioned “hey man” scene & convincing keith to pilot black, and also lance’s speech to allura at the end of s4). so, lance reaching out to keith and convincing him he is loved & needed by his teammates?? seems perfectly reasonable to me. 

it would also make a lot of sense considering keith & lance have somewhat parallel storylines right now, the main thread being that both of them doubt their place on the team. everyone else seems fairly secure in their places, but with keith and lance it’s kind of a different story.

keith obviously does not feel secure about being black paladin. he was ready to straight-up refuse the position before lance convinced him otherwise. even when he does take on the role, he doubts himself a lot (and may i mention, turns to lance for comfort when he messes up big-time on thayserix). he tries to return black to shiro as soon as he comes back. he tells shiro “i’m no good at this.” at the beginning of s4, he’s still desperately trying to get shiro to be black paladin again. 

and of course, we all know lance deals with his own insecurities about his place on the team and whether he’s necessary. and it’s not coincidental that he turns to keith with these worries––not only because keith is the leader and his friend, but i suspect because he sort of knows that keith is dealing with the same feelings. he even says he’s thinking about leaving the team...and then lo and behold, keith also suddenly wants to leave the team. interesting! 

i just realized this right this second but i’m thinking about how in s3 lance said “not only am i not meant to be the leader, maybe i’m not even meant to be a paladin” and that....perfectly applies to keith’s doubts about himself too, holy shit!! 

so yeah these two boys really have a lot in common, so if anyone could relate to what keith is going through right now, it’s definitely lance. 

tl;dr - i got super carried away as per usual, but yeah i’m just saying keith needs someone to relate to on a more personal level in order to convince him to rejoin team voltron, and seeing as lance has been the person to get through to him many times, it makes perfect sense that it would be lance. 

[congregamus]

“Just....look”

My homily for tomorrow is below the break. The gospel from the lectionary is Matthew 7:13-21, quoted below.

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles?Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

In the name of one God, undivided.

Just….look.

OK. As I read it, there are three quick take-aways from this passage we just heard.

If it’s not easy, it’s probably worth doing, but don’t expect a crowd to help.  (AKA “Narrow is the gate”...)

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. (or, “wolves in sheep’s clothing”...)

You can trust yourself. (Jesus said, “By their fruit you will know them.”)

Now, these teachings come in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount, a treasure trove of spiritual wisdom. We should remember, too, that this list comes only one verse after Jesus reduces the totality of the Mosaic law to “the golden rule.” So, let’s grab that one, and finish our list with it, expressed for our purposes in the negative:

       4. If you don’t want it done to you, don’t do it to anybody else.

These lessons, enshrined within one of the most celebrated spiritual elucidations from antiquity, have been treated as icons, revered, worried over, and re-interpreted by every generation that approaches the text.

They have also been hashed and re-hashed, warmed up, served cold, and, worst of all, taken for granted. The Sermon on the Mount is part of the core of Western culture, and often enough, Western identity.

Jesus’s genius as a spiritual teacher comes to us in the gospels in the form of our never quite knowing which way the Master would have us take him.

Is this a passage where Jesus is being riddlesome or ironic? Is he hiding some deep truth behind common words? Which Jesus do we encounter in this reading? 

The four “take away” statements I began with are examples of common sense handed back to us as deep spiritual wisdom, so I would argue that here Jesus is being as direct as he gets. He essentially says, “I’m just reminding you of what you already know. You trust me, but you can trust yourself, too.”  Remember! These nuggets are right on the heels of the teaching that even we, when our children ask for bread, do not give them rocks to eat.

But is it really as easy as all that?

[TIME/TRANSFORMATION OF MOOD]

Recently, the Steward Guardian accompanied me on an outing to see a film adaptation of a book I read over and over as a young’un. The book is A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, one of the Episcopal Church’s many ambassadors to the world of fantasy fiction. In the tradition of C. S. Lewis, L’Engle makes no mystery of her faith in her story telling, and her moral outlook might as well be written in neon on every page.

Briefly, the story concerns Meg Murray, a troubled high schooler whose father disappeared four years before the action of the story begins.

The father has gone missing because the work he was doing on a secret project for NASA was in some ways successful, but, inexperienced at interstellar navigation as one might be, he became lost light years away from Earth. 

Everyone in the town, though, whispers that he abandoned the family. School and life are hard for Meg, and though it seems that she and her highly prodigious younger brother Charles Wallace should give up on the hope that their father will ever return, they encounter… difficult-to-describe messenger-guides of great wisdom and experience—we would call them angels. These messenger-guides help them in their Odyssey, eventually leading them to the dark planet CAMZOTZ where their father is trapped.

Now this planet is a special situation. Evil as it is, the messenger-guides cannot materialize on this planet, so the children are left alone, with only some advice to help. (Sounds awfully familiar to me.)

Strangely, once they reach the outskirts of the nearest town, they discover no immediate threat of harm. In fact, it seems the opposite of dangerous. Everything is tidy. Everything works. Everything is accounted for. At first glance, it’s a utopia, the American Dream™: a sparklingly clean suburban development whose well-behaved children do not argue when their mothers call them to dinner, but stop playing immediately and head inside. Our heroes, though, warned by their guides, know to remain on guard.

What we come to discover, with just the slightest bit of looking, is that on CAMAZOTZ, all personhood or individuality have become absorbed into a sort of super-consciousness, called “!!! IT !!!!” (can you hear that IT is written in all capital letters? It is.) And IT runs the planet.

A barely disguised metaphor for the egoic structures of the mind, IT wants to absorb everything into itself, especially the loving, precocious grade-schooler Charles Wallace. IT accomplishes this with a surprising lack of difficulty. And so Meg now has to retrieve both her brother and her father from the clutches of IT.

What makes IT so dangerous is that IT speaks exactly the language that our tired, scared selves want so desperately to hear. In fact, if we look at IT even just a little, we can see that IT gives exactly the opposite advice Jesus offers in Matthew. 

Instead of “Narrow is the gate”, “Wolves in sheep’s clothing” or “Trust yourself”, IT offers Meg an easy way, along with some lies about how giving into ITs control really is as good as it sounds. 

Instead of encouraging Meg to seek the Truth within herself, which you may remember from above as “you shall know them by their fruits”, IT tells her what her truth is, and then demands all trust be put in IT alone.

In fact, IT makes all manner of promises in ITs bid for control of Meg’s consciousness, including showing Meg a glamourous vision of herself, free from all her faults, no matter that in the vision she is soulless and in ITs control. IT shows ITs diabolic nature in this method of operation. No “golden rule” for our planet-sized Ego. Rather than functioning from a baseline of relationship, IT only imprisons, commands.

This is precisely the game of the Adversary—the original false teacher.

But how can we tell what’s real when the false teacher is good at illusion? IT on CAMAZOTZ presents such a picture of order, ease, and control. The Egoic Adversary is desperate for the same and presents us with as many lies as we will listen to in its bid for power over our decisions.

So was Jesus wrong? Can we not trust ourselves?

Indeed, we can. Jesus said that we will know the tree by its fruit, but he didn’t say we’d know from across the field. We actually have to perceive something, to look at it rather than look through it. We don’t really know if a tree is producing delicious or rotten fruit from the safety of distance. We have to get close enough to sense it fully. Only then can we properly discern if the “fruit” is health or poison.

It’s the same with wisdom. Some “wisdom” seems great from a distance—“an eye for an eye” anyone?—but the closer you get to it, the easier it is to figure out how bad of a decision it would be to live your life by that. It seems right, but it’s not if we look, and I mean really look at it.

[FINAL TRANSITION]

To some, Jesus, before he is anything else, is a savior. To me, he is above all a revolutionary in the arena of consciousness, and here, Jesus tells us to step out of our habits and to gaze, not glance.

If we look, and I mean really look, this reading is a wake-up call. Salvation, Enlightenment, Unity Consciousness, whatever you want to call it, is hard. Not many people are working on it. Plenty of so-called spiritual teachers, ready to take advantage of the open heart of the seeker, will use manipulation to accomplish their own goals. They may succeed for a time, but they WILL NOT WIN. Because it’s only through deeply relating—which was Jesus’ choice in the Incarnation—that we can hope to come close enough to the inner truth of both ourselves and the Other.

As much as we would like for the church to be easy, convenient, and right all the time (which is what our tired and scared selves desperately want to hear), the church can be a false teacher, too, demanding our full allegiance in exchange for answers to unanswerable questions, and the peace of seeming to be on the winning team. The relaxation of seeming to have the right answers.

I hasten to remind us, however, that Jesus was not on any winning team, that he looked to all the world like a loser, but if we just… look, and I mean really look, we will see that it doesn’t matter if it’s too hard to “win” and we’ll just “do whatever he tells us”. We’ll trust ourselves enough to ignore the seductive lies the Adversary offers us, finally bringing the realm of heaven to earth to rest upon the mercy seat in the holy of holies of the temple made not with hands, not by loving our neighbors as ourselves, but because we have come into the truth that our neighbor is not separate from us, and what we do to each other, we also do unto ourselves. 

Narrow is the gate. Many are the wolves, but we can trust ourselves. It only takes something that’s really hard—but not impossible—for humans to do: that is, to remain rooted in relationship rather than in a struggle for control, which, not being God, we will never, ever have anyway.