#ill be back later watching some vods probably

[minecraftbookshelf]

more pirates smp opening stream highlights

Seepeekay just pretending to not be a real person

Scar's tower of hats

Seepeekay's tragic backstory

Bek's absolute determination to commit as much violence as possible

Sausage's...description of Oli's relations(hip) with his crab wife

Supreme Queen of All Pirates: Jellie

Scar's tower of hats

Every single faction making a bid for Owen

Sausage: "Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?"

"Everyone knows that foxes went extinct when the great fox feast happened." Owen pls.

Guqqie being a bit behind the pack because motion sickness, i felt that.

Scar's tower of hats

Olive has adopted the ominous urchin

Guqqie is just bullying us by the end and i cannot make that clear enough. Absolutely just left us hanging.

Martyn really is allergic to having a home.

istg if they killed the lesbians off permanently on day one i will be so disappointed im assuming they will be back they had better be back im totally okay i swear

Sausage and Krow just getting 100% distracted by each other speaking Spanish.

Captain Jellie confirmed official Kestral faction leader

[kaidenshenandoahknapp]

this was an absurd amount of effort for what was ultimately an offhanded-joke but i needed to procrasinate lmao

if you watched @henrykathman's "Melody of Moominvalley" stream, (hi, hello, i made the thumbnail art, that was a cool surprise to see in my sub-box lol) Kathman made a comment about being glad no one has made him into a Moomintroll (or Snorktroll, i guess) because he thinks he would look like Snork

i had two thoughts in reply to this VOD:

that's probably because i would assume most video-essayist are on the spectrum of Hemulans (oversimplification: academics) to Teety-Woo/Woodies (oversimplification: big fans, arguably obsessive). you're probably more of a Hemulan? based on how you present yourself in videos? idk, i dont know you in your personal life lmao Hemulan just seems likely considering the hobby being so analytical (and also is easier for me to look at the different styles of since Woodies seem to have less general rules towards their appearance. and Teety-Woo is the only one of its kind that i know of, idk what is Teety-Woo's species and what is Teety-Woo's individuality there. but, like, that's not nearly as fun as my bullshit quiz lmao)

fucking bet

*: assets in not-gif form below Read More

(psa: please do forgive me for misspellings. i am dyslexic and will probably edit this repeatedly for quite some time, but im tired atm so Now It Is Posted)

anyway, i whipped all these up in about 2 or 3 days? idk, my chronic health issues have been a monster lately, its hard to keep track of days rn

but i made:

comics Moomintroll/Snorktroll

90s Moomintroll/Snorktroll and Hemulan

Tales From Moominvalley inspired illustration art of Hemulan where it has those lifeless "bug eyes with tiny pupils" style i love (but that i also understand why Jansson went back and gave them bigger pupils after a certain edition, and drew with more expressive eyes after a while)

why did i do three different styles + 3 different species? because i was torn on which to do and ended up pulling a classic Kaiden-Shenandoah and going "ill do more work and let them choose which one they like best". something something anxiety, i dont know what to tell you, im trying to learn self-acceptance lmao besides, it was fun to do a quicker shuft through style changes than the usual heavier studying i make Google Images help me do

speaking of, i dont often share my references because i worry about clutter, but i want to include it today and i also used less ref than usual, so you get clutter lol

(i learned last time that Tove Jansson doesn' often draw mugs; so i did my best guesses based on the references here + the result of my references the last time i drew in Jansson' style, which was more so her later novel-illustrations, if i remember right, as opposed to today. lots of best guesses today.)

first of all, i guessed on Kathman's eye-color based on zooming in and it was too pixelated to tell for sure even with the eyedropped tool. secondly, very fun tying in the blue hair dye since 90s Snork has a pink edge to his hair and Mr Hemulan has a green edge to his. last of all: i made them with (and without) a light beard/stubble, since i saw Kathman has one now. but also that was enirely guesswork on my part: Tove Jansson drew heavy-duty moustaches/beards or completely facially-hairless characters, no in-between. so i used educated guesses on how to adapt that. and i feel a bit like i did the male version of that one Snorkmaiden lipstick comic for my efforts lmao but hey! i tried!

my only thing is idk which set to upload to instagram, bc doing all the assets of with/out facial hair feels oddly excessive and maybe goes past instagram's images-per-post limit, idk, ill upload these there someday i guess. really wish instagram would let me post a gif but idk how to do that. c'est la vie

you also may notice one of the Hemulan sets includes a magnifying glass. i just thought it was thematically appropriate for someone analytical, especially since one of my references above did have it available for me to also reference lol

as a fun detail, i did a more Police Inspector color palette for the 90s Hemulan design, and a more Moominpappa palette for the 90s Moomintroll/Snorktroll designs. hence why those colors aren't the same

and the last thing is that i made the comic assets yellow-y to reflect the aging of paper and the quality of the photo references i have. (Henry Kathman, if you want to edit them to be white for the aesthetic of something, feel totally free)

here's all the assets i made in total. the gif version felt the most succint but yeah. also, Henry Kathman, if you are reading this: same rules apply. feel free to use these in anything you want, credit would be nice. (also, very sweet that you saw my name change away from my childhood nickname, i appreciate that 🫶). credit in the future can be to either here or my instagram (which i changed to match this hyphen-less url, since tumblr terminated my last blog for unknown reasons) i hope you are not upset that i went against your wishes of gratitude that nobody had drawn you as a Moomintroll/Snorktroll, but i hope the fact that i think you don't look like Snork even as a Moomintroll/Snorktroll helps. i hope you also dont mind the Hemulan additions lmao. but yeah, i wont blame you if you prefer the more human (or arguably Mymble? idk species) style i did beforehand in the last batch and don't use these. that one has way more references with lots of drafts and this is more of me messing around and finalizing the first draft i made each time around lol but i think they came out fun! very silly distraction, thanks for the idea lmao

thanks to Henry Kathman for the fun VOD and the much-(un)needed procrastination excuse. it was a good distraction from a pretty bad flare-up in my disability and a full plte of things to do that i needed an escape from. hope youre having a great day!

[iron-sides]

dsmp pantheon but for pjo au lets go

there is no like. ~king of the gods~ or wtv thats laaaame they are all just simply vibing

phil is like a wind god. he also is a bird king. listen hes a very powerful bird man he communes with the birds and has minor wind abilities. he has a secondary role as a god of death

-> phil doesnt really interact w mortals outside of like. because hes hanging out w techno lijkr4ed. also since techno's retired to to the camp he probably spends every other week w his wife

technoblade is a war god/the blood god this is a given. he runs the camp bc he's always been a protector of new soldiers and genuinely likes training young people. phil is there bc he follows techno around to carry the souls of those he kills to the afterlife. phil and techno are like. besties your honor, platonic life partners, whatever. him running the camp is retirement methinks

-> technoblade chooses mortal heroes that he blesses with the ability to hear the voices in battle and call upon the blood gods strength

phil's wife is the goddess of death. is she kristin, is the the samsung smart fridge, idk but shes married to phil. he comes to see her and brings her the souls of the dead as like a romantic gift, we know the deal

-> lady death has a soft spot for dead babies but shes not like. their mom? she doesnt really have kids or mortals that are "hers", shes not super interested in them. i think shes actually p cold and reserved, except to phil

drista is a trickster god, comes to earth and causes chaos until she is once again banished to the heavens- dionysus in pjo got grounded to camp half blood, drista gets grounded FROM camp half blood or whatever i end up calling the camp

-> drista picks out a mortal she likes and smacks them over the head in their early-ish childhood (before the age of ten) with her mark, thus labeling them as Hers. they may as well be a demigod at that point tbh shes technically their patron not their mom but the only difference is the dynamic lol

dristas older brother is dreamXD. i dont know anything about canon!dreamXD but im gonna make him a god of reality? bc as i understand it he comes to c!gnf in dreams or smth idk. hes probably the most powerful but idt he cares to be king of the gods- unless someone was claiming to be more powerful than him which theyre not dumb enough to do.

-> if gnf is a god, dxd never has mortal children, only blesses young adults and teens. if gnf isnt a god, dxd sometimes does blessings n sometimes has mortal children. his blessings work like how dristas do

foolish used to be a god of death before phil was, but when phil married the samsung smart fridge, he stepped down to become the god of life instead. he doesnt reign over births in any way, i think the ender dragon does that, but he like. u know. hes the totem of undying guy, ppl come to him when theyre trying to avoid death. or like, if theyre afraid someones gonna die- hes ya man

-> foolish fashions children out of clay ^^

herobrine is a god of destruction. you give up offerings to him to avoid, like, earthquakes n shit

-> herobrine curses ppl and then their kids are all herobrine descendants, inexplicably. i think there is almost definitely some kind of stigma? or smth? major downside. of being a herobrine kid bc of this.

gnf miiiight be a god of dreams or miight be the son of dreamXD i dont watch him so idk how/how much i wanna play into his and dreamXD's canon dynamic. ill have to watch some vods n talk to my datemates little sister and come back to it later

-> gnf does blessings if hes a god. his mortals have prophetic dreams :]

schlatt is a god of divine justice or punishment, he judges the dead and works w mumza to decide who gets what afterlife. i will not elaborate on why find the clip of wilbur reacting to the matpat video lij5rkefd

-> schlatt Has Kids

FUCK official minecraft lore the ender dragon is the benevolent ruler of the end in-game and here shes the god of like, birth/rebirth/life. bc her whole thing is that shes got this egg and shes protecting it.

-> the ender dragon fucks (love her so much)

lady prime is one of my favorites shes a god a wealth and of business endeavors of all kinds- genuine, scams, pyramid whatevers, if the aim is to get cash money in your pocket u should pray to her shell help u out if she likes u. very much a picker of favorites

-> lady prime Has Kids

the egg is here. its like a bad guy or smth doesnt have kids or anything but does possess ppl

@thenerdistrying pspspspsps give me ur takes

[snailsnfriends]

Dream SMP and the Effects of Grimdark Media: An Essay

Hello! For those who don’t me, I am snail, and I have been interested in the Dream SMP since October, but joined the Tumblr community not too long ago. As a writer and actor myself, the work of those on the Dream SMP has absolutely blown me away. However, I and others have noticed a trend in the writing of the Dream SMP: a good sum of it is very grimdark, and I began to notice people really feeling the effects of that, and I wanted to look more deeply into it, and how that can be altered. 

NOTE: I am completely aware that all of the writers on the Dream SMP are amateurs, and likely do not have any sort of “training” other than what they were taught in school. I would not be critiquing the writing of the Dream SMP if I did not believe that it could be “fixed.” Later in this essay, I offer suggestions to “fix” the problem that I’m bringing up. All references to factual information used in this essay will be linked at the end. 

Now, before we can talk about the Dream SMP and its writing, first we need to figure out what grimdark media is and how that affects those who watch it.

What is grimdark media?

According to the google the definition of grimdark is “(of fiction, especially fantasy fiction) characterized by disturbing, violent, or bleak subject matter and a dystopian setting.”

So now that we’ve established what grimdark is, how does depressing media, or any form of media for that matter, affect our emotions as the viewer?

As we are consuming any form of media, whether it’s a movie, a TV show, a book, a podcast, a live theatrical performance, or a Dream SMP lore stream, we as the viewers are completely aware that what we are watching is purely fictional, and that those who are performing are acting. None of the events are real, none of the characters are real, and none of the settings are real. 

So why do we react so heavily to certain moments? Why do we cry during heavy lore streams if we know that none of it is real? 

A lot of it has to do with the human capacity to feel empathy/sympathy. Empathy allows us to understand the experiences of others, even complete strangers. Sympathy, on the other hand, allows us to share the feelings and/or emotions of others. As we are consuming media, we are aware that all of it is fake, but we still feel empathy and/or sympathy for the characters. So much so that a physical response, such as crying, is a result. 

Even though the characters of the Dream SMP are not real, a lot of their characters’ responses to traumatic events ARE, so we as an audience sympathize with them heavily. For example, c!Tommy shows very clear signs of PTSD after being killed by Dream, such as extreme emotional distress or physical reactions to something that reminds the victim of the event (c!Tommy freaking out after taking fall damage), trying to avoid discussing the even or avoiding activities, people, and places that remind the victim of the event (c!Tommy refusing to go into depth about what happened to him), memory problems (does not really remember how long he was dead for), easily startled, always on guard, extremely irritable, angry outbursts or aggressive behavior, and difficulty keeping close relationships (his current relationship with c!Tubbo). 

Even though we as an audience know that c!Tommy and his experiences aren’t real, his reactions to these experiences are realistic, and can be relatable to a lot of viewers, those with PTSD and those without (which is why it is VERY important to be careful with your word choice when discussing these characters; this connects with the problem of villainizing characters with mental illnesses, but that’s another topic for another day). We as viewers empathize with c!Tommy because it is likely that we have reacted the same way to traumatic events, and we understand them fully. They may remind us of our past and/or current selves, so we react emotionally to them. 

We as people also mirror the reactions and emotions of others. If someone starts to cry, real or fictional, it’s likely that you will as well. If someone is angry, you will likely get angry as well. This is not odd, and is very normal for humans to do. Regardless, getting angry or crying are emotional responses, and will hurt you in some way. 

Another thing to note is that this fandom is made up of mostly minors, and some of the most traumatized characters on the Dream SMP are also minors. It can be hard to watch kids your own age go through so much, even fictional ones. As an adult, it can be just as hard to watch these young kids go through so much, especially when you try to compare those characters to who you were at their ages. 

Even those who have not gone through these events will likely sympathize with these characters heavily because what they have gone through is emotionally heavy. Because of all of this, watching heavy lore streams can have a negative effect on a viewer’s mental health. 

Okay, so why is the Dream SMP storyline at the moment so dark and angsty? Why do people keep engaging with it if it is negatively affecting their mental health?

This sort of “angst spiral” of sorts is usually something I notice in fanworks such as fanart or fanfiction. It is sometimes a lot more fun to write or draw heavy, emotional moments, and they garner more attention. 

It sort of goes like this: the plot has a normal amount of angst in it for the story, and at this point it is balanced with more happy or “fluffy” content, the angst gets more attention from fans, the writer (or in the case of the Dream SMP, writers) notice this and write more angst as a response but it is still bearable, the audience feeds off of this heavily and create more fanart/fanfiction/theories based on it, writer really notices this and (understandably) comes to the conclusion that angst/grimdark things are the best/easiest way to get the audience excited for the plot, the plot gets very very grimdark and is not balanced out with any upbeat moments, random angst plots are started with no real ending in sight despite that not being the original plan for the character/plot (feet are too small for the big shoes) and the rare upbeat moments are short/not given any attention, and at this point, it can be almost unbearable to watch because the plot has become too grimdark. Once we reach this point, or even a few before it, it can cause a big toll on the viewers’ mental health.

The reason why someone who has been negatively affected by the grimdark content of the Dream SMP may still watch it is because the Dream SMP has not always been this way, and the writers have proven that they can do upbeat/fluffy content, so they keep watching. A big example of this is the Disc War Finale. Although the first half of it was more angsty, the final parts where everyone came together to put c!Dream in jail and to protect c!Tommy and c!Tubbo was upbeat and even a bit cathartic to watch. C!Tommy and c!Tubbo sitting on the bench, listening to their discs together in the end was much needed for the audience. This can even be seen in smaller examples, like c!Tommy exclaiming, “I’m free!” while flying around with c!Dream’s trident, or c!Tubbo and c!Ranboo adopting Michael and getting married.

The Dream SMP also may be someone’s hyperfixation, so they are unable to simply stop watching. 

So now that we know all of this, what can the writers of the Dream SMP do to fix this, and what can we as viewers do to help ourselves out?

As I said in the note before this essay, I will be citing examples of a more balanced lore/angst plot that the writers have shown that they are capable of doing.

The writers: 

Make designated lore streams shorter

The best example of this is c!Tommy’s 25-30 minute prison streams. These streams were short, sweet, and to the point. We got all of the “lore” we needed quickly, and if you happened to miss it, it was easy to watch it back later. If the lore bits were too heavy to watch, then you would not be missing too much. 

I know that this is definitely not always possible, so this is most likely the best way to go:

Balance out lore and funny bits in streams

Cc!Tommy’s last lore stream, pretty much all of the Pogtopia streams, and most of cc!Tubbo’s streams are like this. They are a mix of lore and funny moments where the CCs are actually speaking and joking with each other. These are a lot easier to watch because it is not heavy the entire time. The joking moments provide a break in between the angst, and it can also be used as a good way to remind the audience that the Dream SMP is purely fictional. These streams are also better for those who do not really care for the lore and would rather just watch the CCs mess around with each other. 

For me, these funny moments are what caused me to fall in love with the Dream SMP and the creators behind it, and I know that the same applies to a lot of people in this fandom. I think this would probably be the best way for the Dream SMP to operate around lore. 

The viewers 

Try to take a break from lore streams if it becomes too much

As I stated before, the Dream SMP is not real, but the characters’ reactions to events can be very realistic and hard to watch. If things become too much for you, try to take a break from it. Stop watching the stream, don’t go on social media if you follow stan accounts or Dream SMP dedicated blogs, and go do something that calms you down. If you feel that you’re feeling good enough to go back to the stream, go ahead! If not, then that’s completely okay too!

Follow lore recap accounts/blogs to stay up to date on the lore

The fear of missing lore streams is centered largely around missing something crucial. There are plenty of accounts on Twitter and blogs on Tumblr that recap lore streams so you can stay up to date on the plot without having to watch the streams. 

The VODs will be there to watch later

If things are too much, remember that you do not have to watch the streams in real-time. You can always watch them later if you aren’t in the right headspace to watch them live. 

Conclusion

The Dream SMP’s writing and acting is very impressive. The amount of awesome fanart, fanfiction, analysis posts, and other work is absolutely amazing. It is so cool that so many people enjoy this Minecraft roleplay so much. The amount of people who love it is good proof that the writers are doing an amazing job, and the amount of people having an emotional response to it shows the same thing. However, the amount of angst can be hard to watch and can put the writers in a tough spot to get out of. 

I have a lot of faith in the writers of the Dream SMP, and I believe that it is possibly on the right track, with Tommy’s latest lore stream being an example of this. I really do think that the amount of grimdark content can be altered and streams can be easier and more fun to watch. Hopefully we’ll get a more mixed bag of lore and angst soon to make things more enjoyable for everyone involved.

Sources:

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/post-traumatic-stress-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20355967

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-moral-molecule/200902/why-we-cry-movies

https://www.vice.com/sv/article/exqgqm/why-do-we-cry-when-we-watch-films

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/sympathy-empathy-difference

[throwaninkpot]

Notes from the Return of the Thief launch party Q&A with MWT!

• (I meant to keep a Not Telling tally but I got distracted by all the good words Megan put together.)

EDIT: A VOD of the stream has been posted here!

• It took 20 minutes into the event to get the first Not Telling, and everyone was astonished it wasn't sooner.

• She referenced the Not Telling shirt made for her by @queensandkingsofattolia ! She wasn't wearing it, but she did have her Not Telling socks, which she would put on her hands and hold up to the camera.

• She talked about how she doesn't like suspense as a reader. She always wants the stories to get to the point instead of dragging on, so in writing, she puts light scenes in to break up the suspense. She doesn't always know what those scenes will be, she just has a feel for what's needed there. One example is when Sophos and the magus are traveling to Attolia in aCoK, when they eat the chicken. "We eat the chicken now!" was a scene that made her happy while she wrote it.

• She was asked to explain the gods and how the different pantheons work with each other, and said she never wants to explain the gods. She doesn't want them to be cut-and-dry or understandable.

• Asked about writing such complex, ruthless characters and making them likeable.

Alex (mod): Do you think [the POV characters] good? Megan: *silently presents Not Telling socks*

• Said that if you're going to spend so much time in a characters head, there has to be some part of them that you and the readers will like. And there are some people whose heads she didn't want to be in. Even the ruthless ones making terrible decisions, she does like. "Nahuseresh? Not so much."

Alex: *says something about how they've never encountered books with more poker face than QT* Megan: *big ol' grin*

• Talking about how these books have so many layers and so much suspense, Megan said a lot of that is owing to the fact it's a series and she needed to be consistent, she couldn't switch the style of it or tone halfway through. When she writes the next thing, it might be a whole different kind of book. She'll have to see whether that was just sonething distinctive to QT, or that's what she naturally gravitates towards writing.

• She mentioned that she isn't fond of 1st person narrative, and the chat collective raised a single eyebrows at the irony.

• In fact, TaT was written in 3rd person at first. But she realized that wasn't working so she scrapped that and rewrote the whole thing, bc it needed to be Kamet who was telling us the story.

• She pronounced Kamet as "Kam-et".

• When talking about the details in her books and how they go into logistics, she brought a book onto camera called Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army by Donald W. Engles. It heavily influenced the way she wrote about war and the politics thereof in QT.

• The Thief was partly inspire by a conversation she had with a young relative back during the Bush administration when Kuwait was invaded. The young relative didn't understand what the U.S. was doing in the middle east when we had so many problems to focus in our own country, and Megan explained that we weren't involved in that conflict out of the goodness of our hearts, but bc they had resources we wanted. (The way she phrased it, you could hear the magus talking to the boys in The Thief, and it gave me shivers.) And she realized, kids don't see that side of war in stories. Armies are always fighting Sauron and the forces of evil, and acting out if their own self-interests against people who might not be all bad.

• And thus, The Queen's Thief spiraled jnto existence.

• Why does she choose to write about disability and illness the way she does? Rosemary Sutcliff. Sutcliff was disabled for most of her life, and this reflected in the stories she told. Megan recalls Warrior Scarlet as the first book that challenged her as a kid to think about disability and illness as a natural part of life, and to question who gets to be at the center of the story. Who gets to be the hero? Who gets to be the hero of an adventure story? Why shouldn't characters dealing with illness or disability be those heros?

• TaT was a direct response to Sutcliff's novel Eagle of the Ninth, where an earnest young Roman soldier has these great plans for his life that get toppled when he is injured in his first battle and can no longer serve.

Megan: Costis checks every box for earnest young guy!

• In Eagle, there is a slave who travels with the protagonist and is freed by him at the end as part of the protagonist's journey. It was important to tell TaT from Kamet's point of view so that it was about him. "He is never an object of a quest, always a person."

• Megan has never read The Aeneid.

• She recommends Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin, which tells The Aeneid from a different POV.

• On writing process: She doesn't outline. When she has a book idea, she first tells it as a story by cornering her husband and telling him the whole thing with plenty of hand gestures. After that, she does a "sketch". She writes down the shape of the story, plotlines and characters, which is usually half the length of the finished book. Then she fleshes it out, and cuts and adds and cuts snd adds until she has pretty much a whole book, and then she edits again to cut everything that doesn't absolutely need to be there.

• She says it's important to remember you can't fix everything in one draft. You just need to focus on 20 or so things at a time, and then on the next pass you can focus on 20 other things.

• On keeping characters straight: "It's very crowded in my head." She doesn't focus so much on remembering exactly what she has written about a character before, but knowing who the character is so that she knows how they would react in whatever new situation she is writing them in.

Megan: Okay, Costis. I know this guy, I know what he's going to do. He's going to punch that guy in the face and it will be very embarrassing.

• A lot of people asked about the vampires referenced in The Thief and if they were real. She's not telling.

• Someone *cough*me*cough* Asked if she was planning a spin-off series about Eddisian vampires falling in love. "Never say never, but it's probably unlikely."

Alex: What happened to Ornon's sheep? Megan: Guys....guys......I have to put on another sock, come on, guys! *digs for her Not Telling socks and holds them up*

• On worldbuilding: You have to break with reality. It's great to research the process of how to retin pans! Adding details like that can enrich your story, but you can also add things that wouldn't have been possible in the real world. Like, pocket watches and window glass and printing presses all at the same time. The made up details also make your story richer.

Megan: Cut the research and tell a good story!

• On myths: She never writes the myths first. When she was writing The Thief, she would make a new line and type "[Myth Here]" and then go on with the rest of the story and cone back to that later.

• She recommends Ancient Near East Texts by James B. Pritchard for some good myths!

• What she likes best about DWJ: The Audacity(tm). DWJ would write about the most bizarre things very casually.

Megan: Her stories had a "hold my beer" quality.

• She told the story about hiw DWJ got her published (Alex: "She had good taste") and trying to send DWJ the advanced copy of aCoK before she died, but those stories have been retold elsewhere before so I won't bother with them now.

• Megan wore lovely, lovely earrings! And at the beseechment of the chat, she showed them to the camera and told us they were made by @freenarnian

• Finally, the winner of the trivia party was granted the honor of asking a question on camera, and Megan benevolently said she would not cry Not Telling on whatever was asked.

• Margaux, the winner, asked what the age difference was between Dite and Irene, and if they had grown up together.

• After a REAL long pause, Megan said that she didn't think they had grown up together. Irene is younger than Dite, and she was too busy, and I quote, "killing people." Her childhood ended early and she didn't have time to be a kid. Besides that, they wouldn't have been allowed to hang out in Attolian society, bc she was a girl and he was a boy. They were probably introduced to each other atvevents, but that was it.

• Also: Dite is pronounced "Die-tee".

• She has more events like this planned in the future!!!!! Keep an eye on her tumblr!!!!!

• EDIT: @whataliethatwas made a transcript of the event!

[wanderinginksplot]

Nobody Listens to Kix

Sorry, Rebels fans. This is not Chopper the droid, but Chopper the clone trooper who was part of Slick's squad before the battle on Christophsis. Chopper has a number of physical and psychological scars, and that should be enough background for you to enjoy this chapter.

Previous | Next | Masterlist

Case 00389: Chopper

Kix packed his medic's bag, preparing for the trip mentally as well as physically. The dread he felt at the prospect was only slightly lessened because he knew his patient dreaded their appointment equally much.

Neither of them liked their meetings, but they were extremely necessary. After the explosion that had caused such extreme injury to Chopper's face, eyes, and body, the 501st's medic at the time, Coric, had started Chopper on a strict physical therapy regimen. Since then, Coric had been reassigned, but he had passed the physical therapy responsibility down to Kix.

The extensive scarring on Chopper's face, chest, arms, and back required constant physical activity or they would stiffen and he would essentially become paralyzed by the scar tissue.

Chopper, for his part, was terrified of all medics and medical personnel, a holdover from his time being treated after the injuries, when the non-clone staff had debated sending him back to Kamino. Even then, every vod had known that was code for reconditioning. Much as Kix had gotten a reputation for treating his brothers whether they liked it or not, he didn't enjoy torture, and that's how Chopper saw their sessions.

An hour later, the transport Kix had hopped was preparing for arrival at an outpost on the secluded edges of wild space… which was a nice way of saying it was in the middle of nowhere on the galaxy's shebs.

Parable Outpost was the kind of place troopers prayed they wouldn't be assigned to. It was quiet to the point of dullness, there was no local life to speak of, and no combat had ever come within 100 parsecs of it. The outpost was the home of foolish brothers, the lazy ones, and any men who had found some way to piss off a superior officer badly enough enough. No brother wanted to go to Parable, but more than a few ended up here. Chopper, however, was here on purpose.

Just before Coric had left the 501st, the medbay had been subjected to an audit and Coric, Captain Rex, and General Skywalker were required to submit a form detailing general medical expenses over the past year. They had managed to disguise the amounts that had gone toward Chopper's treatment due to - as the general put it - creative bookkeeping, but Coric had moved on and Chopper had shared his desire to do the same.

It made sense to Kix. After all, if the GAR or the longnecks found out that there was a trooper with such severe injuries - and several psychological problems as well - they would order him sent back to Kamino for reconditioning.

No one was willing to take that chance, but Chopper had to be moved out of such a combat-heavy detachment. To everyone's surprise, Chopper had come up with a list of places he would be interested in moving, including Parable Outpost.

Chopper had been marked for infantry almost as soon as he was decanted, and he was karking good at it. Over the years, his injuries and aggressive attitude had kept him from being promoted to higher ranks, but he had gained expertise on a remarkable level when it came to battle analysis. Now, Chopper worked at Parable Outpost as a Combat, Munitions, and Enemy Tactics Specialist, a division all of his own invented by General Skywalker and ratified by Generals Kenobi, Secura, and Koon.

It was a dream assignment for the temperamental trooper. In short, Chopper stayed at Parable Outpost and analyzed battle footage sent to him. He compiled reports and sent suggested improvements for tactics and weapons technology to the appropriate departments and generals. He had complete control over how much contact he had with brothers - most of whom he outranked - but could train as much as he wanted.

Even so, Kix couldn't fight back a shudder as he stepped out of the transport and approached the door leading from the hangar into the outpost itself. He wouldn't want to be stuck here, not surrounded by brothers with chips on their shoulders, trapped with troopers who had been reprimanded for underperforming.

He exchanged nods with a few random men as he made his way toward Chopper's office. The first few times he had come to Parable, Kix had been stopped over and over by men who didn't recognize him and wanted to check his credentials. Now, he was accepted as a common sight on the outpost and no one questioned him.

Chopper's office was at the end of a long hall on the officer's side of the outpost. There was nothing marking the door as his, nothing to invite anyone in, but Kix knocked with total confidence.

"Enter," Chopper barked after a long pause.

Kix stepped through the door, carefully closing it to avoid making any unnecessary noises. Chopper was a bit sensitive to unexpected sounds. The trooper in question sat at his desk, surrounded by datapads while a holoprojector adaptor threw footage from a battle on a far wall. Chopper's two-toned gaze was fixed intently on the scene, and he scrawled hasty notes on a pad of flimsi as he watched.

"It's time for your therapy," Kix said, loathe to interrupt, but equally eager to get this over with.

"We just kriffin' did this," Chopper grumbled, still writing.

Kix scoffed. "Three months ago. You know we have to work the scarring at least four times a year or it'll-"

"Yeah, yeah, it'll freeze up," Chopper interrupted. He sighed, pausing the holovid in place while he finished making notes and stood. Despite his dread of the therapy, he was already dressed in the gray outfit all clones wore to work out and spar. "Let's get this over with."

Kix nodded, opening the medical bag. He tossed Chopper a bottle of medicated lotion. "Here's enough for the next three months, at least. Are you still applying it twice a day?"

"Mostly."

Now it was Kix's turn to sigh. "Mostly? Vod…"

"I've only forgotten a few times," Chopper explained defensively.

"We'll see about that," Kix told him threateningly. "If you've been skipping applications, I'll be able to tell from the results of your range-of-motion tests."

To the medic's pleasure, the results were positive. "You've gained three more degrees of movement in your right shoulder and two in your left. That's really good, Chopper."

"Uh-huh. Let's just get through the rest of this," Chopper dismissed.

He infamously hated the next part, he always had. Kix had to work the muscles in each area, a process that required a great deal of physical contact. From what he understood, that had never been one of Chopper's favorite things, but now, the trooper despised touch on a nearly phobic level.

Kix worked to complete the process as quickly as he could while still working every patch of scar tissue as much as was necessary. By the end of it, Chopper was sweating lightly and his jaw was clenched to keep in the small pain noises.

From past experience, Kix knew his own face was pale. He hated - hated - hurting his brothers, and causing Chopper so much pain made Kix feel physically ill.

When he finally stepped back, Kix fought to observe Chopper with a medic's gaze. The trooper was pale and sweating, eyes glassy as his attention turned inward. He was fixating on the pain - never a good thing.

"Do you want the therapy machine?" Kix asked carefully.

Most sessions, Chopper refused the additional help, but it had been a long time since Kix had seen his brother in so much pain. It was a testament to the strain of physical therapy that Chopper gave a single jerk of his chin in the affirmative.

Kix wasted no time setting up the machine and attaching the small pads to Chopper's scars. The trooper's joints got a few more attachment points just because Kix had worked them so hard. Chopper didn't speak or react at all during the process.

Within two minutes, Kix had attached all the necessary equipment and powered up the machine. Chopper's shoulders crept downward slightly, dropping further from his ears with every breath.

As he stared at the small, lightweight machine that was currently blocking Chopper's pain receptors and causing a surge of endorphins, Kix fought not to fill the silence. Chopper didn't like unnecessary conversation and there was nothing Kix needed to say, anyway. He was just used to checking on the men's pain level and progress. He already knew Chopper's pain level - kriffing high - and there would be no real progress. This wasn't healing, it was preventative maintenance. Saying anything would just drive home that Chopper was deeply damaged.

Kix took in a deep breath, intent on releasing it as a silent breath, but words snuck out before he could hold them back: "I'm sorry."

Chopper's dark brows furrowed and he stared up at Kix through mismatched eyes. "No need," he said simply, dropping his gaze again.

The room's silence remained unbroken until Kix had detached Chopper from the machine, packed it away, and began to move for the door. Chopper stopped him.

"Hey," Chopper said, avoiding eye contact and speaking in a low-pitched rush of words. "I know I don't act like it, but I appreciate what you're doing for me. I don't like medics, but… I know you're a good man. A good brother. Thanks. See you in three months."

It was probably a good thing Kix walked with the crisp gait of a soldier and a medic. If Chopper had caught a glimpse of how much those words had affected Kix, the scarred trooper would have been more uncomfortable than he had been during the therapy. Still, Kix allowed Chopper's soft pronouncement to bounce around inside his helmet during the trip back to the Resolute, smiling all the while.

[triscribe]

The Eyes of Dragons

I’ve found my myself in a Star Wars fix-it fic mood of late. Please enjoy the result of my morning’s work, with all due credit to the amazing @fialleril for coming up with Amatakka and Tatooine slave culture in the first place.

White dragons.

That was all Atru could think to call them in his mind. Huddled up with Nittu in a makeshift cave of fallen walls, he stared out at the courtyard of the palace, watching with wide eyes. Humanoids in white armor painted with blue or yellow constantly moved past, shooting, shouting, some hurrying in the other direction with wounded slaves held in their arms.

And it was only slaves they carried away - the cooling corpses of masters, overseers, and bodyguards still littered the courtyard. One of them sprawled mere steps away from Atru and Nittu’s hiding place - a scarred old weequay who’d been in the middle of beating them when the first explosions began. His wrinkled face remained stuck in an expression of shock, fingers still grasping at the blaster hole through his chest.

One the one hand, Atru felt a little ill at the sight. On the other...

Bentu Depuraak. The Reckoning of the Masters.

“...know there were a couple kids right around here - has anyone double checked the rubble?”

“Not that I’m aware of, no.”

Two dragons moved nearby. Atru could just see their boots from the cave: white and blue, white and yellow. His breath caught in his throat.

Would they come closer? Would they see him and Nittu? His arms tightened around the smaller boy - it was his job to keep him out of trouble, keep him from getting hurt. Maybe the dragons would leave them alone, but what if they didn’t?

“I’ll check with Ahsoka - if she’s finished clearing out the lower levels with the rest of Torrent, maybe the Force can tell her if anyone’s buried under here.”

“Alright, then we- wait. Vod, look.”

Between one heartbeat and the next, the opening of the little cave became filled by armor. Atru cried out when a hand reached for him, and instantly it flinched away.

“Osi’kyr,” the dragon muttered, pulling back a bit from the entrance. “Easy, little one, it’s okay - we aren’t going to hurt you, the slavers are all gone.”

“Shove up, Cody.” The second dragon crouched beside the first, and pulled off his helmet marked with swooping lines, revealing a human face. “Amavikkan?”

Atru blinked. After a moment, he slowly nodded.

The man in dragon armor grinned. “Ek masa nu Rex, ka. Nuk ek upanda, Cody.”

Glancing between the two of them as the second dragon removed his helmet as well, Atru didn’t doubt they were brothers - they looked just alike. “...ek masa nu Atru Sikataku, ka. Nuk ek upani, Nittu Atruaberatu.”

The man nodded, glancing at the other. “Their names are Atru and Nittu. Check with the medics, see if anyone by the name of Suncaller or Windsong’s been seen to-” Even as he said it, though, Atru started shaking his head.

“Ekte masa ekte.” The man sagged, his eyes softening.

“Saekeppa,” he murmured. I offer my sorrow. “Keekta-du?” When Atru hunched his shoulders, the man sat back on his heels. “They named themselves. Don’t know where they came from - probably sold too young to remember.”

The other man muttered the same strange word as before. Most likely a curse, if his pained expression was anything to go by. “Are they hurt at all? Stuck?”

Atru shook his head. When the man who’d been speaking Amatakka offered a hand, he carefully took it, and let himself and Nittu get gently tugged out into the open air. Armored arms wrapped around his back and under his legs, scooping the boy up. He had to let go of Nittu at that point, as the other man lifted him in the same way. For the first time since being found, the smaller child made a noise, whining softly as he buried his face in the crook of clothed neck and armored shoulder.

The man holding him froze, before cautiously rubbing and hand up and down Nittu’s back.

“He goes to sleep if you scratch his hair,” Atru stated. Both men blinked, before the one holding him barked out a laugh.

“You heard the kid, vod,” he chuckled. “Might make your life easier.” With that, he turned to start walking out of the courtyard, and Atru watched over his shoulder as the other man listened to his advice, black covered fingers combing through Nittu’s tightly coiled locks.

-Dragons-

An hour later, Atru learned where Rex had gotten his Amatakka from.

A tall man dressed in black robes and armor strode into the tent they’d settled in, Atru on Rex’s lap and Nittu still asleep on Cody’s shoulder. The newcomer looked them both over before snorting.

“Now I know what side-tracked you two,” he muttered.

“To be fair, sir, the time had already come for us to get out of the way of Speaker Banai’s relief forces,” Rex replied. “And you’ve said yourself, once the fighting’s done with, our main job becomes reassuring the Amavikkan that they’re safe.”

The man still rolled his eyes, but smiled when he looked down to meet Atru’s curious gaze. “Alright, so who is this little guy, then?”

“Atru Suncaller. Found him and Nittu over there hiding in some rubble from the courtyard’s walls. They don’t seem inclined to trust anyone who can’t speak Amatakka, so Cody and I are keeping an eye on them.” Or at least, Rex was keeping an eye on the other three - two minutes after sitting down with Nittu resting on him, Cody had likewise dozed off. Apparently he didn’t get nearly enough sleep, according to the stories Rex shared with Atru in the time since.

The newcomer seemed to already be aware of that, as he gave Rex a knowing glance before focusing on Atru again. He touched a hand to his lips, then his heart - the traditional greeting between the Mother’s Children. “Ek masa nu Anakin Ekkreth, ka.”

Atrua sat up a little straighter.

“Te akinu ikkeltinan?” He asked. You brought the dragons?

The Rain-Bringer Skywalker smiled, wide and fierce and sharp. “Ek akinu an-umakkar.” I brought the storm.

-Dragons-

Eventually, Rex and Cody needed to return to their work, and Atru found himself left with Nittu in a section of tents given over to the freed slaves. “We’ve got medics with scanners who’re removing the detonation chips,” Anakin explained, kneeling in front of them. “But until yours are out, you can’t risk going beyond the palace transmitter’s range, okay?”

Atru nodded.

“We’ll be around, if you need anything,” Rex added, briefly resting a hand on Atru’s head. “Or you can go to any of our brothers, we’re all here to help.”

Another, slower nod. When the three of them left, he took Nittu’s hand and wandered the tents until they found Eteru. The older girl sat against an empty crate, eyes closed and face turned up towards the sky, her hands lying empty of knitting for possibly the first time in years.

“Is he really one of us?” Atru asked her. “Skywalker? Or is he lukkanal?”

Eteru smiled without opening her eyes. “He wasn’t freeborn, I know that much.”

“How?”

“Said too many things, about adjusting, finding ways to prove to ourselves we’ve become kol-depuan.”

Atru felt a thrill race through his veins at that: kol-depuan. Unfettered, unchained. He’d only heard the term in stories, spoken wistfully by older slaves. “And the dragons? Only one of them knows Amatakka.”

“Only one’s been around Skywalker often enough to learn it,” Etreru replied, sounding unconcerned. “Others know phrases, the important words. They’ll learn more, if some of them really stay to help like they say - or if some of us go with them.”

“Go where?”

Eteru lifted her chin a bit higher. “To the stars, Atru. To fight other Depuran, to free other Amavikkan, to bring about Bentu Depuraak across the Outer Rim.”

Awed, Atru looked upwards as well. In the evening light, he could make out two of the moons, green Tenarakin and blue Enchuni, but no stars, not quite yet. Just because you can’t see something, doesn’t mean it isn’t there, a voice from deep in his memory whispered. Don’t be afraid to believe.

The boys sat there for a long while, until Nittu’s stomach rumbled and he made a quiet whine. Eteru didn’t seem inclined to move any time soon, so they left her be in order to go search for dinner.

-Dragons-

People who weren’t dragons or Amavikkan appeared the next day, with replacement food and water and medical supplies. Atru watched from around a corner as Skywalker kissed a short, dark-haired woman, two babies wrapped in a carrier on her back. A twi’lek girl in a white dress with yellow patterns ran and laughed around the feet of the dragons she matched, and a togruta teenager with blue armor of her own stuck close to Rex at all times.

It was this last person who nearly tripped over Atru at midday, as he crouched in the shade of the tent where Nittu and the rest of the little children were taking their naps. She glanced between him and the tent’s entrance, before smirking. “Don’t wanna sleep with the babies, huh?”

Atru shook his head.

“Come on, I know a better spot to get out of the sun.” Seeing his hesitation, she added, “Ek masu nu Ahsoka Tano, ku.”

Atru squinted at her. “...masa, not masu.”

“Ek masa,” the togruta corrected. “And- you must be Atru, right? I haven’t seen any other wroonians around here.”

“Half,” he said, standing up and accepting her offered hand, blue fingers curling around dusky orange. “My dad was human. I think.”

“Okay. What’s your name mean, if I can ask? There’s a lot of Amatakka I don’t know yet.”

“Atru is One with the Wind,” he answered, walking quickly with her to cross the hot sands. “Sikataku is Suncaller, like our Elder Sister Leia. I picked that one,” he added, “‘Cause I don’t remember what my mom’s was.” And because he’d always wanted to be a dragon, someone brave and unafraid to summon fire.

Ahsoka nodded. “Do you want to try and find her?”

Atru stayed quiet until they reached an actual building, and the door slid open, offering cool relief from the noonday suns. “I think- I think my mom died, and that’s why I was sold, ‘cause the man who owned us didn’t want to buy someone else to look after me.”

“Okay, then. Who looks after you here?”

He shrugged. “Eteru, sometimes. Or Ekriti, if she wasn’t busy. But I’m bigger now, so I gotta help look after Nittu.”

The door slid shut behind them, and as his eyes adjusted, Atru glanced around the small room and its furniture - most of which was occupied.

Rex paused with a blaster half-disassembled on the table in front of him, and two others in white and blue armor glanced over from their padded bench. Introductions got passed around again, and then Atru found himself settled on the floor beside Rex’s feet, Echo and Fives watching him with interest as Ahsoka flopped into a chair of her own.

In the thin layer of sand that covered the ground, Atru absently traced out the swooping lines from Rex’s helmet. “What do these mean?”

The man glanced over, and grinned. “Jaig eyes - jai’galaar are the shriek-hawks of Mandalore. They’re a symbol of battle honor that I earned in my training as a cadet.”

Atru hummed. His finger made another symbol from Rex’s armor - the repeated pattern of four lines with a fifth crossed through them. “And these?”

Gloved hands stilled on blaster components. “Tally marks. Each one represents a vod I lost.”

“Vod?”

“Sibling, in Mando’a. It’s how we address our closest brothers.”

Considering, Atru flicked his eyes towards Echo and Fives, who’d picked up datapads to fiddle with but were obviously listening in. “Are you all upandan, or are there ikkalan and attanan too?”

Rex frowned, picking up an ammo clip. “I guess some of us are sisters or siblings, but I personally haven’t met any.”

Ahsoka hummed. “Drop decided a few days ago they were agender, Rexter.”

“Ah. Well there we go, then. At least one attan.”

Atru grinned.

-Dragons-

“Hey, Atru!” Glancing up from the pot he was scrubbing with soft sand, the boy grinned and waved to Ahsoka. Beside him, Nittu looked around expectantly, but the lack of any yellow on white meant he went back to playing with his new brightly colored counting stones.

“So,” the togruta said as she crouched beside them. “How would you like to see the inside of a gunship?”

-Dragons-

“Snips...”

“What? You said we should make sure more of the Amavikkan are familiar with how to operate our equipment, including the aircraft.”

Anakin shot her a flat look, the effect of which was pretty thoroughly dampened by the blonde baby being bounced in his arms. “Older Amavikkan, like Ekriti.” The zeltron woman glanced up at her name, but quickly went back to studying the controls of the ship beside Hawk.

“What, just because he’s a kid Atru isn’t allowed to learn?”

“He’s five, Snips.”

“Maybe six,” Atru said absently, standing on tip-toe in order to peer into the cockpit. He heard Anakin sigh, and the baby gurgle.

“One flight, up to the Endurance and back, and then he stays put, alright?”

“Alright, alright, message received loud and clear.”

-Dragons-

The day after his trip up to the biggest spaceship ever, Atru was once again doing chores with Nittu at his side when Ahsoka appeared, the twi’lek girl in white and yellow skipping along at her heels.

Numa mostly spoke Ryl, with a little bit of Basic - but Amatakka was a language made up of all bits and pieces, with additions from children of more deserts than just Tatooine’s. With a few shared words, and gestures, and laughter, they communicated just fine.

Nittu really seemed to like her too, to the point that he even started to follow after Numa when she ran up to a pair of dragons. Atru nearly stopped him, but then he saw Cody, and just sat back as he watched the smaller boy run up to the man who kneeled to meet him.

-Dragons-

“We’ll be leaving tomorrow, when our Jedi arrives with his flagship,” Cody said softly, sitting beside Atru, Nittu once again asleep with his arms around the man’s neck. “I’d like to take Nittu with me.”

Atru considered it. “Alright. Will you still let him be a Windsong?”

“He’ll always be Atruaberatu,” Cody answered, “and you two can always be upandan. I follow my Jetii, but there will be times he comes back here to visit - probably right around the same times General Skywalker and his family do too.”

“And Rex?”

“And Rex, little one.”

-Dragons-

The copper-haired Jedi arrived, briefly, to hug Anakin and Ahsoka and collect his white and yellow dragons. Nittu went with them, and Numa, along with a few other Amavikkan too, including Eteru, so Atru didn’t feel too worried about the younger boy forgetting himself again.

As he watched the ships take off and slip away into the morning sky, Rex came to stand beside him. “...we’ll be heading off in a couple of days too,” the man eventually said.

Atru kept quiet.

“Going to be more Amavikkan recruits for us than the 212th, thanks to Anakin. Mechanics, mostly, a few pilots, and some who want to learn to fight.” A pause. “Would be nice to have some ad’e around, too, especially ones who might be willing to keep an eye on the little Skies.”

Ad’e meant children, Atru knew. He’d asked Ahsoka once, after dozing off in Rex’s lap while waiting out a sandstorm and vaguely hearing the man call him ad’ika.

“...I guess I’m already the right color.”

Rex laughed. “Yeah, same shade, even.”

After a moment, Atru looked up at him. “Would I have to sleep with the others, or could I stay with you?”

The man smiled, and ruffled his hair. “I think you and I can work something out.”

-Dragons-

“MOVE!”

Firing back the way they’d come, Atru shoved Jinni Skywalker ahead of him, keeping his armored form in-between her and little Feather and the blaster shots coming towards them. Once they rounded a corner, he holstered his pistol and picked up both girls in order to sprint for shelter. The stormtroopers moved a little slower, wary of traps or return fire but well aware the old facility had no rear exit.

For the time being, Atru and his charges were trapped.

He skidded around another turn, thankfully spotting a half-open door just ahead. “Okay,” Atru panted, stopping next to it and pushing Jinni through before handing the pink toddler back to her. “Find a hiding place and stay there, I need you to keep Feather quiet at all costs, okay?”

The blonde six year old nodded at him, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. “Atru-?”

“I’ve got to lead them away from you, but I’ll be alright, I promise. Just hide, Jinni, until you feel your dad or Aunt Soka, don’t come out for anyone but them.”

Tromping boots echoed closer. Atru dragged the rusted door closed, hurried further down the hallway, and fired at the first empty-white helmet that appeared after him. Thankfully, the intermittent lighting of the abandoned facility worked in his favor, the pursuing stormtroopers unable to tell he’d left the girls behind.

The teen swiftly lost track of time as he ran, dodged, and returned fire. Once, a blaster shot clipped his leg, not bad enough to take him out, but the pain still caused him to trip and fall against something with a sharp edge. Cursing at the blood that would make his trail easier to follow, Atru tried to put more distance in-between himself and the enemy.

That backfired when he nearly ran right into the backside of a different group of stormies.

Certain he’d just signed his own death certificate, Atru backed away from the array of blasters - only to breathe out a prayer of thanks to every divinity he knew of when the ceiling erupted with red-hot heat and the flashing of lightsabers.

As Anakin and Ahsoka tore their way through the enemy soldiers, other figures landed around Atru, dragons in white and blue and black, death and life and freedom. One dropped to his knees and yanked off his helmet in order to meet the teen’s exhausted gaze, hands skimming his clothes to check for injuries before stopping on either side of his face.

“You better hurry up and finish with these kriffing growth spurts so we can get your permanent armor,” Rex stated, causing Atru to laugh. He rested their foreheads together. “I deal with enough heart attacks from the Skies, ad’ika, don’t you start giving me even more.”

“I’ll do my best, Ipa,” Atru promised.

“All clear, Captain,” one of the Amavikkan dragons called. “Skywalker and Tano found the girls - permission to return topside so Ekriti and Hawk can stop panicking?”

“Permission granted,” his dad replied. He stood, carefully hauling Atru up with him, before pausing. “And someone tell Marker to have his paint set ready - we’ve got some jaig eyes that need awarding, as soon as possible.”

Cheers and whoops followed them out of the facility, and Atru grinned so wide his cheeks hurt. Rex and the other vod’e called them jai’galaar’la sur’haii’se, but to him, they would always be atre-ikkeltinan: 

The Eyes of the Dragons.

[pagerunner-j]

Before I begin, the obligatory disclaimer: the following is a bit of a feelings dump, and it’s more personal than I meant to get, especially since I’d intended to avoid posting personal stuff here at all. When I say “please don’t reblog,” I mean “PLEASE LISTEN THIS TIME AND DON’T REBLOG.”

But there’s a lot I’m trying to process about last night’s story, the friction between narrative and game mechanics, and the emotional repercussions of this sort of scenario. It’s been a long build-up that all kind of came to a head for me last night. Ergo, this post.

To give proper context, though, I need to back up a bit to the first campaign and explain why Percy’s second death, brief as it may have been, was ultimately worse for me than the first.

—

2017 did not start well. One January day I got a call from my audibly ill father saying that both he and my mother were in the emergency room. She’d been admitted for congestive heart failure. He was diagnosed within the day with what turned out to be stage 4 colon cancer. He’d been avoiding appointments, ignoring symptoms, and putting off the inevitable, until the doctors went in only to find that the tumors had spread to the point that there was nothing they could do. I still have a clearer mental image than I’d like of my dad’s scars, along with bags and tubes hanging out because what was left of his system couldn’t do its job anymore. They stitched him back up as neatly as they could, but there was no fixing the real damage. It was done.

I didn’t have much room to breathe for quite a while. My life was pretty much consumed with trying to figure out how the hell to handle any of this. I did manage, for better or for worse, to keep carving out a little bit of time each week to watch Critical Role, because I needed something good to think about while everything else was falling apart.

Unfortunately for me, it took less than two weeks between the day all that began and the final battle with Raishan.

I was braced for possible bad outcomes, considering the severity of the fight, but what I wasn’t prepared for was for someone to get felled in a way that was basically mundane. Sure, it was a dragon that did it, so much of the situation was fantastical: an enormous mythical monster, and a swipe of larger-than-life claws. But what I had to deal with, because it was, of course, described in detail, was an evisceration. It was, to be blunt, my favorite character getting his guts ripped out. And because Pat had to go and up that ante, writer that he is, I found myself sitting numbly through a scene afterward of Kerrek beside Percy’s body, trying uselessly to put the ruined mess back together.

I still can’t think about that scene without feeling sick. I couldn’t even feel properly relieved when Percy got revived. I wanted to. Obviously I was glad that he was there for the rest of the campaign, because I wanted to see his story find a less abrupt end. I just didn’t feel any better about the idea that well, sure, he got a magic fix. It just kind of ended up spotlighting the futility of what I was staring down.

My dad died in May that year, on a Thursday night. I got home very late after hours of trying to deal with things, and found myself alone, overwhelmed and unsure what to do with myself. For lack of anything else better to do, I pulled up that night’s VOD. I couldn’t really focus on it; I kept drifting out and only sort of coming back to. I let the episode keep running for a while, though, at least wanting some friendly voices to listen to.

Then I realized what everyone was doing, and I looked at the timestamp, and I counted backwards. And I froze.

While the party was playacting at speaking with the dead, I was sitting in a hospice room listening to my father pleading with us to let him go.

I only got a few seconds further in before I stopped the video and turned away.

Despite the fact that I’ve watched almost everything Critical Role has ever done, I still have no idea how that episode ends.

—

After all this I went in for my own medical tests, since my own heretofore-handwaved-by-my-doctors health concerns suddenly seemed more pressing. It turns out, unsurprisingly, I inherited all the fun stuff. Fortunately, none of the growths were cancerous yet, because at least my unfortunate genetic legacy is something that, with proper screenings and care, it’s possible to stay ahead of. But I was told they’d need me to come in in another six months, and probably every year after that forever — or until something finally goes nuclear, whichever comes first.

Guess we’ll see.

My shorter term problems were enough to deal with on their own. The day after the test, I found out I was losing my health insurance. Two days later I found out I was losing my job. Everything since has basically been trying to patch things together from scraps. Sometimes things are sort of okay. Sometimes it’s a bottomless pit of uncertainty. Obviously, nothing in the wider world has exactly improved since, either. In sum total: fun times, especially considering I was already struggling with severe anxiety before all this began.

I wasn’t really sure how to emotionally process the ratcheting stakes in Critical Role at that point either. When you’re still watching the show because you need a breather from months of continual crisis, but your beloved characters are facing down things like, oh, a dread god and the very real possibility of everything going straight to hell, it’s…not exactly something you can turn to for relief, per se. I kept on going, because the bright spots were still so good, but I can’t exactly say I was enjoying myself for significant parts of the run, either. It was also where I started to feel a very real frustration with D&D and the inherent capriciousness that can creep in.

In short, I desperately, desperately did not want this battle to go wrong. I didn’t want to have to face a story that I’d become so invested in going completely south not because it necessarily made narrative sense, but because the dice (as they always have the opportunity to do) said “fuck you.” Yes, the feeling was probably more selfish on my part than anything else. But I still hope it’s understandable for emotional reasons, and it also got me thinking again about the entire logic of “that’s just how the game works,” and how far you can run with that before you finally trip and hurt yourself.

I’ve always had problems with a few common things in game design. One of them — usually less of a problem when we’re talking about high-level D&D, although it can still surprise you — is when things arbitrarily become harder in the game than they would be in real life. (Floor/jumping puzzles in video games where you can’t step diagonally For Reasons, I’m looking at you.) Another is any kind of gameplay mechanic that robs you of your turn or otherwise puts you out of play. Varying degrees of success or failure is one thing, but I could never understand what’s ever fun about being stopped from participating in the thing you’ve come to do. Still, one way or another, there are so many ways for that to happen. Failed dice rolls, getting stunned or disabled, outright death: there are so, so many ways.

And it’s one thing if that’s happening during the course of, say, an everyday board game, but it feels different if it starts changing the course of a full-blown story.

Part of this is the editor in me talking (who will have words with me about this post, I’m sure), because she has Opinions about it all. She always wants to keep the story on track, not go off on useless tangents, and not drop things without getting proper resolution. She’s big on structure and pacing, suspicious of too much chaos. She does not get along well with D&D. This isn’t to say that this forms the entirety of my opinion, mind; I can still appreciate the way the game works, and the fact that so many interesting and unexpected things can be born entirely because of the random element, improvisation, and decisions you have to make in the moment. But dropped threads, unfinished plots, interrupted ideas, the things that get lost, or the characters that do…those can end up haunting me.

Honestly, and this is probably always going to be a fundamental disconnect between me and any D&D game: I’ve discovered both through watching CR and playing the game a bit myself that I don’t really care about the game as much of anything except as a skeleton for storytelling. If it supports the narrative, if it gives structure, if it enables activities, if it provides opportunities for play, I’m all for it. If it yanks the rug out from under you just because, again, the dice decided to say “fuck you,” or the rules get weird, or there’s something else that just doesn’t mesh between player and scenario and/or DM, I have a harder time with it.

And it’s crushing when stories I care about collapse or turn sour because the game says so, and for reasons that feel almost cruelly arbitrary — particularly when I’m getting more than enough of that in real life.

So for CR, the ending of campaign 1 was an exercise in protracted anxiety. I was in a space where I needed something to work out, but even the entertainment I’d been turning to was becoming dangerously precarious. Wasn’t the best feeling.

In the end, luckily, it ended about as well as it could have: not without consequence, but without everything crashing down. I felt relieved, and satisfied, and glad we got a chance for resolution with the characters we’d been following for months. If anyone had to permadie, the character who was already bound to the goddess of death was not a shocker, and in many ways it’s the kindest choice; he got more resolution than any human being in the real world ever will. It barely even registered as a sad ending. I envied him, really.

I’ve watched far worse go down.

Meanwhlie, i was also thinking that even though it would be tough to say goodbye to these characters, it could also be a refreshing reset. We’d get new characters needing to find out who they are, what they want, what they’re good at, how to relate to each other, how to begin. Smaller stories, with not everything having to be about the END OF THE WORLD (again). Lower stakes. I was fine with the idea of lower stakes for a while, and less threat of impending death and pain.

Well. Like I said. It was an idea.

That brings me around to Molly, and to story decisions and gameplay decisions that both broke my heart seven ways from goddamn Sunday.

—

It took me a while to come at this part, because it took some time for the thought to crystallize that I wasn’t only reacting to the rolls of the dice in last night’s scenario. That was part of it, absolutely. Luck is a thing, strategies work or don’t, fate is capricious. I wish that several things had played out very differently, and I’m especially upset that the way things fell out, it stopped a story in its tracks that had barely even started. (I’ll come back to that.) So the start of the thought was still game vs. narrative, and it’s part of why I wrote that whole run-up you just read.

That said, the more I poked at it, the more I got upset that we were playing out a scenario like this at all.

I was thinking aloud about this in another post, but to preface it a bit better: There’s an entire meta level to three players being gone last night that everyone knew about. I understand the impulse to avoid metagaming, but it also creates some odd situations, like everyone trying (and failing, because — yep — the dice said “fuck you”) to investigate the area and find out why their friends were gone. So we had to start with a big, clunky process of the characters figuring out what the audience and the cast already knew: that Matt had written Jester, Fjord, and Yasha out by having them get kidnapped. The story is streamlined enough. The gameplay around it, not so much.

But here’s what I got hung up on once it all sunk in: why did this have to be the story in the first place?

I’m not thrilled with how a situation that arose in real life because of pretty much the prototypical joyous event (i.e. a new baby) and something that had been mundane on the show until now (Ashley being away) got turned into a brutal story about a triple kidnapping and trafficking, which promptly resulted in a death. And it says a lot about the underlying plot they’re dealing with, which is not something I’m sure I’m willing to ride with much further. I’ve been leery for a while – starting off with mutterings about an evil god only a few episodes in put me on edge from the start – and then there’s the political unrest and the religious conflicts and people disappearing…it’s all going somewhere really unpleasant really fast.

It’s also derailed a story I wanted, which hurts like hell.

We’d barely even gotten to know Molly. Molly had barely even gotten to know Molly. We got tantalizing hints, and plenty of suggestions that there was more to discover — probably an entire character arc’s worth of material. And then…this. My inner editor? Yeah, she’s screaming with frustration. In any traditionally structured narrative, this would not have happened, because even if a death was in the cards, ether it would have been timed differently so that you could get further down the road with him, or if the character was always meant to die early, any decent edit would have trimmed out most of the details that suggested at things that never got payoff. But it’s D&D, and so it’s the push-pull at work: game vs. story, plus a(n un)healthy dose of “unavoidable meta circumstances vs. the apparent need for A: drama and B: to barrel right ahead into a crisis even though there were other choices that could have been made in the light of said meta circumstances.” And…here we are.

Here we are, with a dead character who should not, let’s be honest, be dead, and a story left hanging, and far fewer obvious options for fixing it than we had at any such crisis point in the previous campaign, and lots of miserable, hurt people.

One of them being me.

—

There’s a reason this shit hurts. Personally speaking, it would hurt even if I didn’t have over a year’s worth of unfortunate circumstances making narrative swerves like this even harder to take. It hurts because the story and the characters are so engaging, because they’re worth the investment, and, yes, because when things go wrong, sometimes they’re for reasons that make me want to flip a goddamn table. And yes, maybe it’s silly to get worked up when they might — might — be able to do something about it. But we can’t count on it, and so yes. It hurts. It hurts to have a source of joy becoming something else, especially when there were so many other options. It hurts to watch favorite characters get hurt and killed, yet still be expected to write it all off as “that’s just how the game works!”, as if having emotions about it is a weakness and to be scorned.

Honestly, I found myself screaming “FUCK THE GAME” aloud last night (and probably upsetting the neighbors), which sums my feelings up succinctly enough that I should have started right there. :\

But…again, here we are, and here I am, struggling with feeling hurt and sad and exhausted with so many things veering toward pain again when I was hoping for something different, and writing big long word-vomits of posts about it.

Because D&D.

(Memo to Editor Brain: I’m tired, and I’m not going to give you another three hours to edit this post into something more manageable, so you will just have to cope. Not everything or everyone gets good endings anyway. Apparently.)

[fanfictionandstuff]

Secrets- Riverdale X Reader Chapter 4- The Last Picture Show

Fandom: Riverdale   

Warnings: Ms. Grundy and the clusterfuck that comes with that...<<also swearing apparently. 

notes: yikes ive been inactive for forever jfc oops SORRY!

word count: 3,500 (ish)

You woke up on the soft and worn blue fabric of your living room couch the soft evening light filtering through the window. Your phone was blasting your moms ringtone and her smiling face lighting up the screen. You groggily picked up the phone and hit the green 'answer' button 

"hey mom" you mumble still not 100% awake, you were not prepared for her this soon after waking up.

"Hey sweetie, how are you?" she greeted you chirpily, you groaned internally she wanted something 'sweetie' was a dead giveaway.

"I'm fine mom." you replied, sighing internally you just wanted her to get to whatever she wanted.

"Good, thats good...so I heard they found Jason Blossoms body...Sweetheart, I know it might be tempting to tell someone about your...ties to that family. But remember, you'll be ruining both our lives." your moms voice was almost happy and carefree, but there was definite worry under it, finally her reason for calling became clear.

Its not that your mom was a bad parent, but she was flighty and a bit self centered if it didn't suit her it wasn't an option and it had always been like that. When you were 12 she had left you for a month with a babysitter and gone to Rome for work. She tried she really did but she wasn't cut out for kids, honestly if you hadn't come along by accident your mother probably wouldn't have had kids. She was like the professional fun aunt, she was less flighty when you were a kid but something had changed when you were old enough to (kind of) take care of yourself and that was that. It stung a bit when it had first started happening but now you were just tired when it came to your mother.

"no mom. I haven't told anyone. I know the consequences."

"Good! lets keep it that way pumpkin, the Blossoms aren’t people you want to get mixed up with." she sighed with relief. 'pumpkin' was new. 

"Are you coming home soon?" you asked, knowing better than to ask about her comment about the Blossoms you didn't ask about your father and she didn't tell, you had learned that one young.

She breezed past your question. "I have to go (y/n), talk later!" and she hung up before you could even say goodbye. You hit the end call button and threw it at the foot of the couch, and covered your face with one of the navy throw pillows in a form of protest against everything.

You glanced at the wall clock and realized it was almost 6pm, and you were starving so you changed into fresh clothes grabbed your backpack and slipped out the front door. Locking it behind you and walked the few blocks to pops, the neon signs greeting you as you approached.

You walked through the door to find some of your friends already sitting there. Jughead was gesturing angrily as you grabbed a chair from a nearby table and pulled it up. "The Drive-in closing, its just one more nail in the coffin that is Riverdale! No. forget Riverdale. in the coffin of the american dream." Jughead was ranting, he was still doing the angry gesture thing outrage in his every word. "As the godfather of indie cinema,  Quentin Tarintino, likes to say--"

Kevin cut him off. "please, god, no more Quentin Tarintino references." "What? Im pissed. And not just about losing my job The Twilight drive in should MEAN something to us, people should be trying to save it!" Jughead continued his mini rant.

Veronica was next to chime in, "In this age of Netflix and VOD, do people really want to go watch a movie in a car? who even goes there?" “People who want to buy crack" Kevin added. 

"And cinephiles and car enthusiasts--" Jughead started listing off people who go to the twilight and you were the one to cut him off this time.

"I go." you chimed in, you had been a bunch of times when the house got too empty or you felt too isolated. You would take the old beat up pick-up from the garage and go to The Twilight. Just to be around people for awhile, and not have to worry about oversharing. considering everyone in the freaking town only wanted to gossip about the blossoms and Jasons murder.

"See (y/n) gets it! The Twilight drive in is a riverdale treasure, right Bets?" Jughead gestured at you and then turned to a very distracted Betty. She blinked a few times before nodded and smiling politely. "Totally."

"Anyway, its closing because the town owns it but didn't invest in it. so when an anonymous buyer made mayor McCoy an offer she couldn't refuse--" Veronica cut Jughead off again. "Anonymous buyer? What do they have to hide, No one cares." "I do!" Jughead retorted.

"I kind of do too, well more about the drive in closing than the person who bought it. I wont--" have anywhere to go when I cant deal with the big empty house.  "--I spend alot of time there." you catch yourself mid-thought. Jughead gives you that weird stare again like the first time you met in the gym. the weird 'I’m trying to figure you out not just looking at you' stare, after you chime in, and veronica and Kevin gave you half-hearted looks of curiosity.

Jughead breezed past it though. "Also, you guys should all come to closing night, Im thinking 'American Graffiti'. or is that too obvious?"

Veronica perked up at the slight topic change. "I vote anything starring Audrey Hepburn. Or Cate Blanchett." "Or the talented Mr.Ripley." Kevin added. "Betty, your choices?" Betty blinked like she had just woken up. "Everything OK, B?" Veronica asked. "Yeah, yeah. Im just thinking. um....Maybe 'Rebel without a cause?'" Everyone looked at you next, and you shrugged helplessly. "Rebel without a cause sounds good to me."

Veronicas mom came over and set down a basket of fried something or other in front of Veronica. Veronica smiled. "Thanks mom."

Kevin opened his mouth to bring up a new topic but was cut off by cheryl slamming her hand on top of Veronicas mothers a few tables over and glaring at her. "Be sure to put all* of that cash in the register. You are a Lodge, after all--" Veronica got up and started towards Cheryls table. "--and Lodges are known to have sticky fingers."

"oh no" you whispered under your breath. this had the possibility to be bad. "Cheryl." Veronica stated warningly, but her mother put up a finger to stop her.

"Honey I got this. Cheryl, I went to school with your mother. She didnt know the difference between having money and having class either." Veronica practically beamed with pride, while you tried to suppress a laugh at the look on Cheryls face. Veronica slid back into the booth just as the chime on the door jingled. 

Kevins eyes widened slightly, "now thats* an odd combo of people."  

The four of you followed kevins gaze and saw Archie, ms. Grundy, and Archies father walk through the door. "Ill be right back." Betty said while sliding out of the booth.

"Betty, no. dont." Jughead grabbed for Bettys arm but she was already on her way over to the group. You stared in confusion at Jughead and Bettys strong reaction to Archie and Ms.Grundy walking in together. She seemed nice enough, you didnt take any of her classes and didn't know her well you only really knew what Doily had revealed at the blue and Gold office. And then it clicked Archie had been AT Sweetwater river July fourth, and from what Dilton had told you so had Ms. Grundy, but you had never considered they were there together, that was so...oh god.

From the look of horror or shock on your face, Jughead seemed to follow your thought process and shot you a 'I'll explain later' look.

Kevin leaned back into his face his gaze flicking between you, Jughead, and Bettys retreating figure. "Wait, whats happening?" You and Jughead ignored him as you watched Betty and Archie exchange a few words and then head outside. You slid into Bettys now vacant seat next to Jughead to get a better view out the window. This was all about to come crashing down around Archies head, and like watching a trainwreck you couldnt look away. Even as unease and disgust was causing your stomach to flip.

"Whats happening out there? Do we know? Is it about me?" Veronica shot off rapid fire questions at Jughead as Kevin peered out the window. Jughead slumped down in his seat, his face contorted into unease. "I have a strong inkling and no, Also I'd let it go." "Yes, but you're you, and I'm me. You do you, girl. Ill be back." Veronica said while getting up from the booth with a lighthearted smile. "Veronica. You really should just let it drop." You added in an attempt to stop her from going.

Veronica just smiled at you mischievously and walked out the door into the parking lot. Jughead sighed and rolled his eyes. Kevin leaned in and looked at Jughead, "What was it like before she got here? I honestly cannot remember."

You laughed lightly, a slight hint of darkness clouding your eyes. "You mean Riverdale wasn't always straight out of a soap opera? Somehow I find that hard to believe." your words were dripping with sarcasm and a hint of bitterness.

Kevin just smiled awkwardly and turned his attention back to the window. You closed your eyes and leaned back into the vinyl of the seat and let out a long sigh. You were torn between just fleeing this insane town ASAP or punching Ms. Grundy in the face...or maybe just having her arrested...and then punching Archie in the face for once again being an idiot. All options sounded pretty good. When you opened your eyes Kevin was gone and Jughead was staring at you. "I'm not going to rat Archie out, Jughead. If thats what you're worried about somehow I think that would just hurt everyone worse." you offered quietly while switching to the other side of the booth.

"I wasn't worried about that. you just looked queasy." he replied. You sighed and ruffled a hand through your hair. "Student-teacher relationships Jughead. its sick. I know Archie is your friend, But its so, so,* wrong. And its all just about to get worse as far as I can tell." Jughead nodded and dropped his gaze down to the table. you grabbed a pen from the table and flicked it back and forth between your fingers, watching absentmindedly while it spun. An uneasy silence filled the air around the booth. "do you mind? if...if I hang out here for awhile longer? I dont want to go home yet." you asked quiety, your gaze on a small dent in the table. Jughead smiled, "As long as youre buying." he joked.

you grinned, "Paying you in food to hang out. its a little hookerish, but you have a deal Jones."

You grabbed your sketchbook that you had thrown in your backpack, and Jughead pulled out his laptop from his bag under the table. You both spent the next few hours in a comfortable silence, only talking occasionally to order a refill on a milkshake or get another round of food. At around 1am you finally had to tap out, your eyes were starting to close by themselves and it was getting harder for you to stay awake. You packed up your belongings and slipped on your jacket, Jughead looked up from his laptop. "Hey Jughead, I'm gonna head home now. My goldfish probably misses me." you smiled sleepily at your own semi-joke.

"Your goldfish, and not your parents?" Jughead asked. which would be a fair question, not many people would let their kid stay out so late.

"My goldfish is the only one missing me at home." you said quietly, your gaze averting from his. Jughead shut his laptop, before slipping it back into his bag.

"I know the feeling" Jughead said softly, his eyes cold. You didnt pry, it was obviously a touchy subject. So you grabbed your backpack and paid the tab the two of you had racked up shaking off the heavy tension, and headed towards the door, but Jugheads voice stopped you. "See you at school tomorrow (y/n)?" You smiled at him, "Count on it."

The next morning as you walked past the blue and gold offices an arm shot out and pulled you into the room. You stumbled and twirled around to see a nervous Betty wringing her hands, and waiting for you to get your bearings. "Betty! what the hell?" you said annoyed.

Betty looked around nervously before closing the door, "Sorry (y/n) I just need your help with something. I have something to tell you about Ms. Grundy and its--"

"That she and Archie are...dating?" you cut Betty off, cringing at the last word. She gaped at you, "You know about that?" You nodded, "I figured it out at pops the other night...wait, about that, is there something else?"

Betty walked over to her computer and gestured for you to follow, "Yeah look at this-" Betty pulled up a Bunch of tabs, all different social media accounts of Geraldine Grundy. "-everything about her was made around the same time, a year ago. before that Geraldine Grundy doesn't exist."

"...shit. Does Archie know?" you asked as ran a hand through your hair, sighing loudly..

"No. Im meeting him at Pops after school, I'm going to tell him then." Betty replied.

"Betty why are you telling me this?" "I just wanted a impartial third party to confirm that I wasn't being totally crazy about this social media thing." Betty said.

"Look Betty its super sketchy, but be careful. This whole Archie and Grundy bullshit is going to come crashing down Don’t get caught in the mess."

Later that day, you were sitting at the kitchen table working on biology homework when a knock sounded at your front door. You stood up from the wooden chair with a sigh and padded across the tiled kitchen floor into the living room, and then to the front door. You opened the door to see Jughead standing on your porch.

"I need your help, noone will listen to the concerns of one disgruntled employee, and you're the only other person in this town who cares the starlight is closing." he had his arms crossed, but his face was pleading. an odd mix of vulnerable and guarded.

"Hello to you too, yes this is a new shirt thanks for noticing, I'm also sorry for missing you at school." you paused but Jughead didn't respond. You sighed."Of course I'll help Jughead." You grabbed his arm and pulled him with you into the kitchen. "Do you have a plan?"

Jughead glanced around your kitchen, taking in the wood paneled floors and the weird mint green cupboards the previous owners had installed. "I want to appeal to Mayor McCoy directly, show her there are people other than addicts and thugs that frequent the drive in." Jughead started, but you cut him off.

"I take it im the 'people' in this scenario? you know for all you know I could be an addict AND a thug...I mean, I'm not. but wouldn't Betty be better for this? I’m kind of an unknown in this town."  you said sarcastically as you hopped up on your kitchen counter.

Jughead stared at you from across the room. "Bettys distracted with the whole Archie and Grundy thing-" You grimaced. "-But, it doesn't matter, Betty doesn't go to the drive-in. you do. So we'll show her normal highschool kids show up, not just Riverdales 'criminal element'."

You pushed yourself off the countertop and grabbed your jacket from the back of a wooden chair where you had flung it earlier. "Alright. lets go." You and Jughead walked side by side to city hall, going over your strategy. so far the plan was use you as a prime example of the twilights redeeming qualities and if that failed, wing it.

When you got to city hall, the mayors secretary waved you in while she chatted on the phone. You trailed behind Jughead. The mayor was moving around her office flipping through papers. "Mayor McCoy you cant close the Twilight Drive-in."  Jughead piped up before the mayor could say anything "Its a staple of this town!"  You nodded along.

She moved to stand behind her desk, "I'm sorry, but the Twilight Drive in? Its a blight thats become a cesspool! And a hangout for criminals and transients." she took a seat in the red leather chair and continued to flip through her papers. "And normal highschool students! Im there almost every weekend." You shot back from next to the scale model of the town. annoyance biting at your words. The mayor smiled at you tightly, like a parent trying to get their child to behave in public. "Look kids, The deals done. Andrews construction is set to demolish the lot on monday."

You narrowed your eyes slightly at her. You were pissed beyond belief, but you had no idea what to say. 

Jughead bit his lip and glanced down, bouncing slightly. He grabbed a chair and pulled it up to the mayors desk. "Mayor McCoy, when I was a kid, my family and I would go to the drive-in all the time.- " She finally put down her papers and crossed her arms, leaning on her desk, giving Jughead her full attention. "-We couldn't afford tickets for everyone...so my sister, Jellybean, and I would hide in the trunk until we parked. we'd sneak out." He shook his head slightly at the last part. your heart broke for him as he looked the mayor in the eye again, his expression pleading."It's like my home."

The mayor glanced away and then looked at him again. "Thats a very sweet sentiment, Mr. Jones. But the future of Riverdale is at stake." her expression and voice were almost kind, but there was an edge of condescension in every word. Jughead shook his head and stood up from the chair, heading straight for the door.

"Jughead!" you called after him. but he didn't stop. You turned to face the mayor and gave her the best glare you could manage before running after Jughead. You headed out the double doors of the mayors office to see Jughead disappearing around the corner, The floorboards creaked softly as you jogged to catch up with him.

"Jughead, wait!" you called after him again, your voice echoing through the empty hallway. He finally paused and turned to face you. "I'm sorry." you said, there was nothing else you could say. you could tell he was hurting, and you had no idea how to help.

"Thanks for trying." was all Jughead said before he walked away again. And this time you didn't follow. 

That Friday night you trailed behind Kevins truck in yours, his truck only had two seats so you had to take yours. He and Veronica parked and you took the spot next to them, the three of you immediately climbed out of your vehicles and started setting up the blankets. the spots around you started quickly filling up as just about every person in Riverdale arrived in the gravel lot for the Twilights final showing. 

Kevin and Veronica settled in as you pulled out your sketchbook, an empty page staring back at you, but you had a plan for it. You grabbed your pencil and started recording what you saw in graphite and paper, The twilights curtain call. The people of riverdale moving around you, the soft glow of the screen, casting everything in shadows. You knew things were happening around you; Cheryl climbing in with Kevin and Veronica, Bettys mom showing up and dragging off Archies dad. But you were focused on this scene, not anyone elses.  

For almost two hours you sketched, shaded, and erased. until you had something that reflected what you were trying to capture. You carefully tore it from your sketchbook as the movie began to roll the credits in the background. You folded the page and scrawled a note on the back.

'a little piece of home. --(y/n)'

As people started to pack up their things and go home, you walked to the projector house and looked at the paper in your hands again, the words on the back staring back at you as you slipped the drawing under the door and knocked, before turning and walking away to join the line of people leaving the drive in for the last time.

But even as you climbed into your truck, you couldn't shake the feeling the twilight drive-in wouldn't be the only thing changing in Riverdale.

Tags list: @letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked @deanackles67 @thejourneyofabrokenheart @bbyhansol143 @half-and-halfxx @yummyphoenix39 @scrolling-my-life away @littlefrenchbird

[weekendwarriorblog]

WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND September 6, 2019  - LINDA RONSTADT: THE SOUND OF MY VOICE,  SUPER SIZE ME 2: HOLY CHICKEN! and IT: CHAPTER TWO

Lots of COLONS -- there, you happy Edward Havens? :) -- in this week’s featured movies, huh?

Although summer still has a couple weeks left according to a couple of my co-workers, the fall movie season officially starts this weekend, but before we get to the wide releases, I want to talk about the fantastic doc LINDA RONSTADT: THE SOUND OF MY VOICE (Greenwich Entertainment), which opens at New York’s Film Forum on Friday. Directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, this movie really surprised me, because I never considered myself a fan of Ronstandt, despite listening to a lot of AM Top 40 radio in the ‘70s – yes, I was alive back then. I know I don’t look it, but I’m old.

This movie gave me goosebumps hearing Ronstadt at the beginning of her career, the archival footage of her performances making it blatantly obvious how talented she was and why she became so popular, something that wasn’t nearly as evident hearing songs like “Blue Bayou” on the radio.  What’s even more amazing about Ronstadt is that I didn’t hear about much of her work in the ‘80s, as she started doing more unconventional things like honoring the traditional Mexican music of her father. I mean, she was just an amazing artist but she started drifting away as MTV made major stars out of much less-talented singers. And then of course, there’s the Parkinson’s Disease that made it impossible for her to sing and kudos to the filmmakers for actually catching a rare singing moment with her family. This movie honestly got me quite teary-eyed as it went along, because you watch this amazing talent having her greatest asset taken away from her by this horrible illness.

Anyway, this is another music doc that I highly recommend checking out if it plays at a theater near you as it continues a long run of solid music docs we’ve been getting so far this year. (Oddly, David Crosby was supposed to be in this movie, too, but I don’t remember seeing him in it, but saw his credit at the end. Weird.)

Another doc opening in New York, L.A. and Chicago before expanding further on Sept. 13 is Morgan Spurlock’s SUPER SIZE ME 2: HOLY CHICKEN!... and yes, the irony of Spurlock still calling his movie something that includes the words “Me, too” in it is a little more than ironic, since it was the movement that took him down just a few weeks after the movie premiered at the Toronto Film Festival (which is where I first saw it). But honestly, Spurlock took himself out, as he came forward and admitted a few things from his own past, which basically got the movie dropped by YouTube Red, who had just bought it. Two years later and I’m not sure how I feel about the movie, but when I saw it back then, I thought it was a worthy successor to Spurlock’s Oscar-nominated film. This time around, Spurlock wants to set up a healthier fast food option, choosing a chicken sandwich place but also wanting to stick to some of the guidelines by making the chickens organic and free-range, something that he finds is more difficult than he initially thinks.

I generally like Morgan Spurlock’s docs, which generally includes himself as a personality, similar to the work of his peer Michael Moore, but Spurlock doesn’t always make super-serious docs and always keeps him mind on the entertainment aspect of going to the movies, and in that sense Super Size Me 2 is as entertaining as some of his past films.

Super Size Me 2 is opening at the Cinema Village in New York and Laemmle Music Hall in L.A. on Friday.

The only new wide release this weekend is New Line/Warner Bros’ IT: CHAPTER TWO, which I’m sure I’ll be writing about a lot over at The Beat, so go click on those links so that they’ll continue hiring me to write more stuff! You can read my review here and an interview with actor James Ransone over at The Beat.

LIMITED RELEASES

Because it’s early September and there is a big wide release, there isn’t as much to talk about as far as limited releases.

Apparently, Janice Engel’s doc Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins (Magnolia) was released in Texas last weekend, which makes sense since that’s where journalist Molly Ivins is from, but it will open in New York and L.A. this weekend as well. I wasn’t as big a fan of this doc as the ones above just because Molly Ivins just felt like she was trying to do a stand-up comedy routine. In other words, the film lacked the depth I would have hoped from a political figure.

Chelsea Stardust’s Satanic Panic (RLJE Films), written by my good friends Grady Hendrix and Ted Geoghegan, that follows Hayley Griffith’s Sam, a pizza delivery driver whose last stop of the day is to a group of Satanists looking for someone to sacrifice. Yup, that sounds like something Grady and Ted (who wrote Ted’s second movie Mohawk) might come up with. So Sam must fend off witches and demonic creatures before she can end her shift. The film also stars Ruby Modine, Rebecca Romijn, Arden Myrin and Jerry O’Connell. It will be released in select theaters and On Demand Friday after premiering at the Overlook Film Festival and playing Fantasia in Montreal in July.

Two more movies opening at the Cinema Village(and other theaters) is Rowan Athale’s Strange but True (Lionsgate Premiere), a star-studded thriller based on John Searles’ novel, starring Margaret Qualley from Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood as the ex-girlfriend of a dead high schooler who shows up at his family’s house claiming that she’s pregnant with his child (five years after her boyfriend Ronnie’s death). Ronnie’s mother is played by the great Amy Ryan and brother by Nick Robinson, and the movie also stars Greg Kinnear, Brian Cox and Blythe Danner, which makes you wonder why this is being four-walled and most likely getting a typical Lionsgate Premiere VOD release.

Paul Taublieb’s doc Blink of an Eye (1091) is an inside look at the Daytona 500 in 2001, featuring Michael Waltrip and Dale Earnhardt Jr, and that’s about all I know about it. Waltrip is a perennial underdog who broke his 462-race losing streak just before the 2001 racing season, but when his best friend the older Dale Earnhardt crashes in the last lap of the Daytona 500, he steps up to race against Dale’s son, Dale Jr.

Opening at the Roxy Cinema in New York this week is Michael Oblowitz’s surfing doc Heavy Water, which follows surfer Nathan Fletcher, whose brother is credited for introducing punk rock skateboarding techniques to the sport. That’s about all I know about that one.

Since actor/filmmaker Justin Chon (The Twilight Sagaand Gook) will be in Toronto this weekend with Wayne Wang’s new movie (which is premiering there), he probably won’t be doing many opening weekend QnAs for his new movie Ms. Purple (Oscilloscope), which opens in L.A. at the Landmark Nuarton Friday and at the Quad in New York on Sept. 13. This one is a drama about a brother and sister (Teddy Lee and Tiffany Chu) who seemingly are stuck in Koreatown after being abandoned by their mother and raised by their father, who is dying. It sounds like a real hoot.

Opening in New York and L.A. is Simnon Hunter’s Edie (Music Box Films), starring 86-year-old legend Sheila Hancock as a widow about to be forced into  retirement home for her last days but wanting to do one last climbing trip before she dies.

The Bollywood film Chhichhore(FIP), directed by Nitesh Tiwari (Dangal), will also open on Friday in top markets, taking place in a hostel filled with interesting and unique characters who go on a journey together.

Coming to theaters for one night only (i.e. Thursday) is Melanie Martinez’s musical K-12 (Abramorama/Atlantic) about a girl named Cry Baby who is sent to a disturbing sleepaway school where she is bullied until she finds a friend who helps her fight against the Principal and his “wicked staff.” I haven’t seen this but having suffered through Slaughterhouse Rulez I’m slightly dubious.

LOCAL FESTIVALS

Not local, but the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) starts this week. It’s my favorite film festival on the world (after maybe Oxford) but I can’t afford to go for a second year in a row, so instead of writing about it, I’m just gonna spend the next week and a half sulking and writing about other things. L

REPERTORY

Since it’s September, a new month and a movie season, I’m welcoming a new addition to this section…

ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE BROOKLYN (NYC)

I went to see Hitchcock’s Vertigo in 70mm over the past and saw that they’re starting to do a lot more rep. programs tying to upcoming new releases by directors like Pedro Almodovar and Bong Joon-ho, so I’m going to start including some of their screenings and hoping they won’t disappoint me like the New Bev has the last few months. (And hopefully I can include the brand-new L.A. Drafthouse soon, as well.) The problem is that very often, the rep screenings might sell out before I have a chance to write about them, similar to the New Bev, actually.

Much of the Alamo’s rep programming happens on weekdays at 9:30 PM, but as I mentioned, they have some interesting fall series planned.

This week’s “Weird Wednesday” is Drop Dead Fred (1991), starring Rik Mayall of “Young Ones” fame. Monday’s “Video Vortex” is the 1943 Bollywood horror film Son of Dracula, and next Tuesday’s “Terror Tuesday” is the original found footage horror film The Blair Witch Project from 1999. (There’s a free screening of Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of CherbourgWeds night for Alamo Victory members but it’s already sold out.)

METROGRAPH (NYC):

I never thought the Metrograph would bring back its initial charter “A to Z” program with more offerings but sure enough, this week begins Welcome To Metrograph: Redux! On Thursday, it begins with John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 from 1976 and continues Saturday with Ján Kadár’s The Angel Levinefrom 1970. I have never heard of Paulin Soumanou Vieyra but clearly, the programmers at the Metrograph have as they’re playing two shorts programs as well as his 2019 movie Testimony on Sunday and Monday. Also, the Metrograph will continue showing off its love for Anime with a regular engagement for the late Satoshi Kon’s Millennium Actress (2001) after showing Paprika and Perfect Blue the last couple weeks. (You can still see Perfect Blue and Paprika on Thursday, as well as Roehmer’s Le Rayon Vert and Goddard’s Pierrot Le Fou.)  This week’s Late Nites at Metrograph  is René Laloux’s animated Fantastic Planet (1973). Kinda esoteric, no? Playtime: Family Matinees  is Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (2001), so a little more mainstream for the kiddies. Also, some of the Shaw Sisters movies continues through the weekend, and I can recommend both Puppy Love and Starry is the Night, two of my favorites from the series.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

“Marty and Jay’s Double Features” ends on Thursday, so your last options are William Holden’s The Counterfeit Traitor (1962) and Slightly Scarlet  (1956) on Wednesday and Sanjit Ray’s The Music Room  (1958) /Il Post (1961) or Voyage to Italy (1954) and Vincento Minnelli’s The Long, Long Trailer (1954), starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz on Thursday. Joseph Losey’s 1976 Holocaust drama Mr. Klein, the filmmaker’s first French film after being blacklisted in Hollywood, will be screened on DCP starting Friday. Also, “Film Forum Jr.” is BACK this weekend with Buster Keaton’s Our Hospitality  (1923)on Saturday and Sunday morning with live piano accompaniment.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

Egyptian going a bit esoteric this week with “A Short Series about Krzysztof Kieslowski” (which I won’t even try to pronounce), dedicated to the filmmaker behind the famed “Three Colors” trilogy, which will screen (all three chapters!) on Sunday evening. On Thursday, there’s a double feature of A Short Film about Loveand A Short Film about Killing, both from 1988, and they’re both under 90 minutes so no lie in the title. Friday is a double feature of The Double Life of Veronique (1991) and 1981’s Blind Chance.

AERO  (LA):

This week begins the French Noir series “The French Had a Name for it 5” with a number of double features. On Thursday, there’s Quai es Orfèvres (1947) and The Sleeping Car Murder  (1965), Friday is Maigret and the St. Fiacre Case  (1959) and Port du Desire (1955) and Saturday is René Clement’s Purple Noon from 1960 and a double feature of Melodie en Sous-Sol (1962) and The Sicilian Clan  (1969). If it isn’t obvious, I haven’t seen any of them, but I have seen John Waters’ Pink Flamingos, which is the Aero’s Friday night midnight movie. Sunday’s French noir double feature is 1946’s Paniqueand 1947’s Non Coupable. “Heptember Matinees” continues on Tuesday with Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy in Adam’s Rib from 1949.

FILM AT LINCOLN CENTER (NYC):

Friday begins a new series called “Sci-Fi Visionary: Piotr Szulkin”  showing six of the Polish filmmakers films beginning with 1980’s Golemand 1981’s War of the Worlds: Next Century. They’ll also be showing a new 4k restoration of George Nierenberg’s 1982 music documentary Say Amen, Somebody (Milestone Films) about American gospel music starting Friday with QnAs and choir performances following screenings on Friday and Saturday.

IFC CENTER (NYC)

Beginning Weds, the IFC Center will screen the new 4k restoration of David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986), a movie that I feel it’s been showing as part of its midnight series for months… but if I get to this week’s offerings, and there’s the same bullshit I’ve seen every single week, I’m moving this down to the bottom of the rep section. This weekend’s Weekend Classics: Staff Picks Summer 2019 is John Singleton’s 1995 dramas Higher Learning starring Laurence Fishburne, chosen by “Kashif” and “Marilyn,” while Waverly Midnights: Staff Picks Summer 2019 is Scorsese’s 1999 film Bringing out the Dead (chosen by “Luke”), starring Nicolas Cage.Okay, at least this week’s Late Night Favorites: Summer 2019 is Satoshi Kon’s 2006 movie Paprika (2006), which the Metrograph has been playing for weeks, so I’ll spare the IFC Center from punishment … for now.

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

On Friday night, the museum is showing Douglas Trumbull’s 1983 sci-fi thriller Brainstorm in 70mm, and then on Saturday and Sunday, its showing It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World and Spielberg’s Ready Player One, also in 70mm.

ROXY CINEMA (NYC)

On Thursday, the Roxy is showing Jonathan Demme’s Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense, and then on Saturday and Sunday, it’s showing the Apocalypse Now 40thAnniversary Final Cut.

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART  (LA):

This week’s Friday midnight is Tommy Wiseau’s The Room… again. YAWN.

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

Here I was going to give Tarantino the benefit of the doubt that he’d be back to rep programming in Sept. but why do your job as a programmer when you can just play your latest film and make just as much or more money? Sure, it’s playing The Postman Always Rings Twice from 1946 as the Wednesday matinee the original Disney The Parent Trap (1961), starring Hayley Mills, as the weekend KIDDEE MATINEE. And I do love P.T. Anderson’s Punch Drunk Love, which is playing as the Monday matinee. But otherwise, it’s all Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood all the time. (I guess the Saturday midnight movie is Reservoir Dogs at least?) For this infraction, the New Beverly is being moved to the VERY BOTTOM of this section as punishment, yes, even below the Nuart’s midnight screening.

(NOTE: As of now, it doesn’t seem like the Quad Cinema or BAM in Brooklyn have any new repertory screenings this weekend.)

Next week, the wide releases are STX’s Hustlers and Warners’ The Goldfinch, plus I hear Jillian Bell’s Brittany Runs a Marathon will be expanding even wider. I’ll cover most of those over at The Beat, but I’m sure I’ll have stuff to write about here as well.

[pagerunner-j]

So here’s where I say more than I should about my experience with last week’s Critical Role episode, and it’s still the redacted version, because much of what happened that night is no one else’s business.

Howmsoever.

I tried to watch this episode on VOD, but probably won’t ever finish it. The night it originally aired, I had intended to go visit my ailing father (he'd already been in hospice for four months) and head home before the episode started, but I discovered as soon as I got there that his condition had taken a bad downturn. I ended up staying for some time, until things degraded to the point where the nurse told my mother and me that we really ought to go home, i.e. not be there. We went. He died two hours later.

Again, I’m purposely leaving a lot out here, but: that happened, family time happened, initial attempts at processing, etc., and then I went home. And the, oh, I don’t know, logistics of it all kicked in. The paperwork side of Sorting Everything Out is a weirdly protracted process and it’s nowhere near done, which seems painfully ridiculous when, honestly, the worst has happened and I’d like to deal with that, but, well. Bureaucracy clearly doesn’t end when you’re dead. Seriously, you should see the permits.

anyway. That aside: superficial fandom shit, since a mention of Thursday’s episode crossed my feed again and it sent my thoughts to less superficial places.

I did come back to watch the CR ep not all that long after things happened. Some of that was me being on autopilot, honestly, and I also felt in need of a distraction. I couldn’t focus worth a damn, though. Eventually, I did get to the sequence where they were trying to get information (about something...I can’t even remember what, because that’s how well my brain was working) via speaking with the dead. It didn’t take long before I started feeling vaguely uneasy. Then I looked at the timestamp, counting backwards to what had been going on where I was at the time. I hit pause, stared blankly for a while, then scrubbed forward a couple minutes to get past it. I listened to a bit more, then scrubbed forward again. And again. Eventually I just kinda gave up.

For what it’s worth, I’m oddly glad that what recaps I’ve seen indicated that not a lot of importance happened. If I did miss anything important, holler, but otherwise I think I’m just kind of pretending that that episode doesn’t exist. The most I did today when the YouTube link went around was glance at the title and then unhappily scroll on by. I hope I might be forgiven, considering.

That’s going to be a weird hole in my viewing history, though.

If I did hear right, anyway, I guess next week is the battle royale where everyone kills each other for funsies, because...of course...and then there’s, presumably, one more filler episode before we get to 100, because that’s clearly what’s going on at this point. So I guess I have some bounce-back time. We’ll see how that goes. Results in general over the last couple days have been mixed.

In the meantime, if anyone felt like flinging me funny clips from other episodes, or pictures of cute and fuzzy things (like this, for a random example), or...well, whatever, something cheerful, it really wouldn’t go amiss.

(And as for me, I will go back to not playing Injustice 2 because I got bit by a character de-leveling bug that wiped out everything I did during today’s ill-fated attempt to de-stress. I think I’m waiting for a patch before I put myself through that again. But thanks, Lady Irony! That was on point.)