#its genuinely extremely frustrating having the same things explained to me multiple times

[gachaparadise]

i've been dabbling with the hot new gacha reverse/1999 and its... okay so far. like everything is presented gorgeously and the battle system seems fun! but i can just tell this is NOT a game that's going last for me >_>

[pink-peony-princess]

Who Said Anything About Tact?

Violet's walk had started out like any other. She was a person of habit,very rarely did she break her routine, and so how she came to be by Old Station Bridge,she couldn't be sure. One thing had led to another, she had noticed the way the late afternoon light was hitting the trees just across the small river, the field behind it backlit perfectly. So perfectly that she'd done what she'd so rarely done before and stopped to take a photo.

She'd been warned about the presence of wolves by her mother so many times before, the whole town of Mercy Falls knew about them. There were the Cresent Moon pack, feared amongst wolves, but of zero threat to humans, in fact they were well know to help protect their human neighbours whenever necessary. And then there were the rogues, the mean, vicious, unapologetically violent, wolves that were fixated on taking the town for themselves.

Unfortunately for Violet this was who she came to be in the presence of the day it happened.

She'd taken her photo and had made it no more than 30 metres down the road when she heard the first growl. At first she ignored it, maybe it was a trick of her imagination she thought shaking her head. But she heard it again, this time closer, and she had a weird feeling as though she was being watched.

Before she had time to react, she was hanging just above the ground sharp teeth cutting into her side as she screamed to no effect for the animal to drop her, it shook her the way a dog would shake its prey to kill it, showing no sign of letting her go. She would have sworn she heard a crack of bone, but she couldn't be sure because her whole body felt like one giant punching bag. She called out for help again and again, but it was useless, no one would hear her out here, no one came along here, and for good reason she thought as she let her body go lump, accepting her fate.

Raul and his two betas- one of his brothers Peter and his friend Connor were nearly finished with their evening perimeter run of their lands when they heard it. The unmistakable rumble of growling in the distance. None of the three men recognised the tone, meaning it wasn't one (or several) of their own, which only left one other possibility-rogues.

They listened for a minute before they heard the sound of a woman shouting, begging for help over and over again before just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped.

The three wolves looked at one another before sprinting for the eastern boundary by Old Station Bridge. If there was a human,they were in trouble, there was no way a human could win against one rogue, let alone multiple.

Raul had dealt with his fair share of rogues in his short time as alpha, but nothing would prepare him for what they saw as they came to a stop by the bridge. A pack of 10 wolves were all circling a young brunette woman- from what Raul could see from the glimpses he was catching between the wall of wolves she around the same age as him and his brothers.

He made his way closer, careful not to bring attention to himself or his betas, he wanted the element of surprise.

He was just about to attack when the young woman looked up, as if she sensed help had come. What Raul wasn't expecting as the woman held his gaze was how it would make him feel. Initially Raul registered the terror and pain on the woman's face, the extreme helplessness, and then something hit him. It was the weirdest feeling- like warm tingling butterflies flooding Raul's entire body, his wolf- Knight- was restless, anxious really, begging to be let free, and then it happened, it clicked "Mate, mate, mate!" Knight shouted in Raul's head over and over again. There was a moment or two of elation where neither Raul or this unknown human girl moved before Raul was snapped back to reality by yet another growl from one of the rogues as they continued to circle and a small pitiful whimper from the girl.

There was no way he was going to let his mate get hurt he thought to himself as he lunged forward immediately knocking one of the wolves out of the way. Peter and Connor followed suit, just as easily dispensing another two wolves a good 10 metres from where they'd originally been. Though they got straight back up, poised to attack again.

Raul could see the girl clearly now that the circle had been broken and the sight pulled at his chest, though he wouldn't like to admit it.

The woman had a large gash on her temple which was trickling blood down the side of her head, dropping in a small pool on the ground, along with several puncture marks on her abdomen, which judging by the blood that had saturated her white shirt were deep, not to mention what looked like a very broken right wrist and scrapes covering just about every visible part of her body.

He could feel the anger rising him at what these low lives had done to the girl- his mate! His! Noone else's! And before he could think he was shifting ripping a pair of pants out of the nearest tree (thank the Lord the whole perimeter of their lands had stashes of clothes) and was running over to her.

A deep gutteral growl left his lips, stopping everyone in their tracks.

Even Peter and Connor stopped, they all knew what that growl meant, it was the possessive growl of a mated wolf warning everyone and everything in it's way to stay away- or else.

The girl flinched as Raul continued to growl as the rogues slowly backed up,clearing a path for him to get to her.

"Don't touch me," she begged, eyes wide with fear as she tried to shuffle backwards away from Raul as he bent down in front of her.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Raul spoke gruffly. "I'm trying to help you stop fighting me!" he grumbled, swinging her up into his arms effortlessly as she tried to push against him.

The way she sobbed as he moved her pulled at his heartstrings he had to admit, but right now he had a mission, get her to Shawn his other identical brother and one of the pack doctors before she past out or bled out.

"Let me go." she smacked his chest weakly,making absolutely no impact. Infact Raul barely felt it.

"Stop fighting me!" Raul snapped, feeling frustrated as he ran as fast as his legs would take him in the direction of home.

"I don't even know you! I want to go home!" the girl continued to struggle despite her injuries.

Peter who had been running behind Raul with Connor (both of whom must have shifted without Raul even realising) spoke up.

"Raul, look at her, she's terrified and in pain." Raul could tell without even looking at him that he felt bad for her, he was always such a softie, whereas Raul would rather be tactless and keep his mate alive than worry about being a gentleman.

Raul halted causing Peter to crash into him mid-step.

"Look Peter, I can either do as she asks, or I can save her life, which do you think I'm gonna choose?" he asked pointedly, glaring at his younger brother. He should know what was at stake here, afterall he'd found his mate Betty 6 months before and was absolutely besotted.

"I'm not saying you're not doing the right thing." Peter tried to backpedal. "Just maybe be a little nicer, a little more understanding, think about how you'd feel if you were in her position. She's human. Attacked by rogues and then some strange guy who also happens to be a wolf comes and picks you up and snaps at you when you try to defend yourself as you would."

"I'm trying to help her," Raul snapped again, glaring still.

"I know you are," Peter smiled sympathetically, "all I'm saying is maybe watch your tone."

"I'm sorry," he sighed, looking down at the crying girl in his arms. "My name's Raul, I know you're scared but if you don't let me help you won't be alive to go home," he explained impatiently, still walking.

"But you're a wolf. Why would you help me?" The confusion in her voice genuinely surprised him.

"Not all of us are big bad wolves," he answered, not disclosing the real reason. She was quiet for a minute except for the occasional hiss from pain.

"You are." she looked up at him waiting for a response, but Raul was so shocked that all he could do was laugh.

"You might be right you know."

...

By the time they made it to the pack house the girl, his mate had become lethargic and non- talkative. Raul wouldn't let it show, but he was really starting to panic. When he'd thought so many times before about the possibility of meeting his mate, this was so not what he'd imagined. But here he was carrying a half- limp woman with potentially life-threatening injuries through his house with everyone they came across giving him the same look of shock and confusion.

Peter and Connor had disappeared to put a search party together to deal with the rogues in question. Raul had really been quite forgiving of them over the two years he'd been in charge, but this, this was too far, this he would not forgive, he'd hunt them for the rest of his days if that's what it took to get revenge.

He would never forgive them for what they'd done to his mate. Never.

He made his way up the stairs that led to the pack hospital quicky- it had been decided when he became alpha that a whole floor of the pack house (it was a mansion really if you took the size into account) would be turned into something of a hospital. Not only was it more convenient for everyone in the pack house- rather than going to a GP or hospital they could simply walk upstairs and be seen by a doctor nearly straight away, but it was practical for all the times when werewolves would come home injured from fights or assignments and need immediate medical care. As this woman did now. When Raul reached the top of the stairs and rounded the corner to the door of the hospital he was met with a wall of people and even more curious eyes. Everyone seemed shocked to see their alpha- usually so tough and strong carrying a semi conscious woman as though she might break at any moment.

"Out of the way, fucking move!" he yelled, causing her to whimper as the sound sent shock waves through her skull. Everyone scurried, heads down not game to look their alpha in the eye. They knew just from his stance, let alone his tone that he wasn't kidding around.

"Shawn get your arse in here!" he called as he pushed his way through another door and into the consultation area.

He made his way over to a bed, putting her down as gently as he could, but she still gave a whine of discomfort.

Whether in a half-delirious state or simply trying to distance herself from him, she made a move to try and get off the bed almost immediately but he stopped her, putting a hand on her shoulder.

"Stay," he spoke, a little too harshly, instantly regretting it when he saw her bottom lip quiver slightly. "Sorry," he sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"Who's this?" Shawn asked walking through the door a moment later, he looked between Raul and the young woman on the bed. Up close Raul could see just how pretty she was, chocolate brown eyes and a few freckles here and there. She was perfect he thought.

"Took you long enough," Raul grouched "She's my mate," he spoke quickly, watching as both Shawn and the woman's eyes went wide. Shawn was the first to recover, nodding and waiting for his brother to go on as though he hadn't just mentioned something totally life changing.

"She was attacked by rogues. I'm going to fucking kill them!" he fumed pacing the area.

...

As soon as Violet heard the word 'mate' she began to freak out, her breathing became laboured. She couldn't help but claw at her throat in a desperate attempt to get air. She couldn't have this jerk as a mate, she couldn't leave her home to live with a pack of wolves, she wouldn't.

Shawn rushed over grabbing an oxygen mask and gently placing it on her face.

"That's it, nice slow breathes, you're okay," he encouraged as Raul looked on helplessly.

"Raul, get outside, cool off, you're terrifying her. Look at her," he spoke not bothering to look at his brother, still trying to coax Violet into a semi-normal breathing pattern.

Ordinarily, Raul would have kicked Shawn's arse from here to Mars for talking to him like that, but when he turned to face his mate and saw the tears of fright rolling down her face, the way she clung to his brother's hand, he was brought back to the present. Of course he could be hot-headed and he had a reputation to uphold, but that didn't mean he wanted his mate to be scared of him. Hell that was the last thing he wanted.

"Sorry," he muttered, pushing past Shawn and walking out the door.

They heard a crash of what sounded like a vase, causing Violet to jump again.

"Sorry about him," Shawn apologised. "I promise, he's really not that bad, he's a big softie really, he just gets protective of his loved ones and doesn't necessarily deal with the emotion the best way. I'm Shawn by the way," he smiled.

"V-violet," She looked at him still unsure.

"Can I have a look at your injuries?" he asked.

"Y-yeah," she answered.

He smiled before carefully assessing the surface injuries. Violet was relieved to hear that the bite wounds although nasty weren't life-threatening and would heal 'just fine' although he did get Violet to hold a piece of gauze over the area while he went about setting her up with different what felt like a 100 different leads so he could track her vitals.

"I'm just going to get you hooked up to a few monitors okay. They won't hurt, they're just so I can keep track of your heart rate and oxygen levels, things like that okay?"

She nodded, and Shawn went about making sure the slightly insane amount of leads were properly attached, before coming back over to the bed and pulling a penlight from his breast pocket.

"Looks like you gave yourself a nasty whack here," he commented, trying to be a bit more casual about it to put her at ease.

"Follow my finger," he asked as he turned the light on and shone it towards Violet, immediately making her want to recoil. "Do you remember what day it is?" he asked with a small frown, as he pocketed the light once again.

"Saturday?" she answered feeling very unsure.

"Yeah it is," Shawn smiled sympathetically at her obvious confusion and fear.

Things were quiet for a while except for the rhythmic beeping of the machines attached to Violet which were starting to lull her into sleep

"Knock, knock?" someone tapped at the door gently startling Violet, before a man who looked almost exactly the same as Shawn, except with shorter hair poked his head into the room." Hey, I just came to see how you were? The others just left to track the wolves that attacked you and Raul's downstairs sulking," he smiled as he stepped into the room, dodging Shawn who was now busy getting supplies out to deal with the nasty and numerous wounds covering Violet's body. "I'm Peter," he held out a hand.

She smiled,holding out her left non- injured hand, "Violet."

Shawn walked back over to the bed carrying a load of medical supplies which he placed on the bed beside Violet, it made her feel a bit sick thinking about it, there were bottles of disinfectant, scissors,wipes, packets of what looked like needles and tubing, sheets of protective paper and gloves.

"Try not to focus on what I'm doing, why don't you talk to Peter while I work?" he suggested, kicking a rolling stool in Peter's direction which he sat on before following suit on his own one. "I need to start an I.V. with some antibiotics okay?" he added, before picking up a packet from the bed and ripping it open.

Violet stiffened as what Shawn had said sunk in, an I.V. meant, a needle and Violet was no good with needles, the last time she had to have one she fainted in the reception area of her doctor's.

"It's okay," Shawn tried to calm her, but he could tell that she was only becoming more and more uptight.

"Hold Peter's hand if you want," Shawn suggested seeing the tears pooling in her eyes.

She took Peter's hand immediately in her good one and Shawn went about positioning her arm for the I.V., wiping her arm before lining the needle up and looking up at her. "Sharp scratch," he warned before inserting the needle quickly, but carefully.

She jumped slightly, and gave a small whimper, but overall, she thought, it wasn't too bad.

"There all done," Shawn smiled, getting up to discard the waste into a special bin. "How's your pain? I'm going to give you a local anesthetic when I clean your abdomen and head up, but I can give you a dose of pain relief if you need it," he offered.

"Please," she nodded, a few tears falling down her face.

Shawn nodded again going to get the pain relief when there was another knock on the door, this one was harder than when Peter had knocked to come in. The door opened and Raul came in, not waiting to be invited. Violet noticed straight away how much calmer he looked.

They stared at each other for a moment, before Shawn walked back into the room, stopping when he saw Rau in the doorway.

"You can come in if you're calm enough," Shawn invited him, promoting Raul to step fully into the room and close the door behind him.

"Raul, this is Violet."

Raul smiled a really genuine smile and Violet couldn't help but notice, now that he wasn't being a totally arse, just how handsome he was, how handsome all three of them were- Raul, Shawn and Peter. They were all well built, and extremely tall- towering over Violet's 5'2" frame, with curly brown hair and brown eyes. Raul was by far the most well built and intimidating with a sleeve of tattoos covering his arm and right hand as few scattered on his neck. Up close Violet could see the lip and ear piercings that only added to the tough almost gothic look. The smile on his face a stark contrast to the rest of his appearance.

...

Raul made his way over to the bed slowly, carefully, the last thing he wanted to do was scare Violet anymore than he already had. He wanted to show her the softer side of him, the side that would do anything for his mate, the side that was fiercely protective and loyal. Not the arsehole he showed her when they first met.

Peter stood up and smiled before leaving the room, the rolling stool now vacant. Raul took the opportunity to sit down, still looking at this young woman in awe.

"I'm sorry I was an arse to you," he apologised, looking down at his hands.

Violet didn't say anything, but when Raul looked up, she nodded softly signalling she'd heard him.

"Violet I'm going to start stitching your head up now okay?" Shawn interrupted their little moment.

Raul could see the panic on Violet's face as Shawn spoke and wanted so badly to comfort her, but he wasn't sure how. He felt so much pity and protectiveness at his tiny mate laying helplessly on the bed as Shawn tended to her injuries.

...

"Can I, can I hold your hand?" The softness and tentiveness of the question was so unlike Raul that both Violet and Shawn stopped, stunned momentarily. As much as Violet wanted to say no, just to prove a point that you don't get to be a complete jerk and then backflip and suddenly everything was okay again, she had to admit that an odd sense of calm had washed over her since Raul had entered the room.

She nodded again and he immediately took her hand carefully, sending shockwaves of tingles up both of their bodies. She looked at him panicked, but he just smiled reassuringly, before speaking, "It's the mate connection," he murmured, squeezing her hand gently. It felt odd to be holding someone's hand that she'd barely met and that had been so cold to her previously and yet, it felt so right.

Her thought train was interrupted by a sharp prick and then an intense stinging started on she forehead, before Shawn was pulling up her top revealing the wounds that she'd been holding pressure on. "Deep breath," Shawn warned this time before yet another prick and more stinging, the process was repeating a further two times before he discarded the needle.

"Oww, it's stinging," she whimpered.

"Shawn why'd you have to hurt her!" Raul half growled, though it was nothing on what he'd been like earlier.

"I'm not trying to, I promise, unfortunately it can be a side effect of the anesthetic. It shouldn't last long."

After she was stitched up,and her broken wrist x-rayed and plastered the two men left her to have a moment alone while they spoke outside.

"How bad?" Raul asked folding his arms.

Shawn sighed, "She's badly banged up. She'll need to be on I.V.for at least 24 hours."

"I want her in my room," Raul demanded immediately.

"Did you hear what I said?" Shawn asked.

"Did you hear what I said?" He counted harshly.

"Fine," Shawn sighed. "'I'll set her up in your room. If she agrees."

Raul nodded, a smirk on his face. They both knew he'd won the battle and there was nothing Shawn could do about it.

By the way, what were you thinking, just picking her up and bringing her here before actually talking to her?" he shook his head. "She was terrified." Raul who could hear the disapproval in Shawn's voice didn't take lightly to being spoken to by one of his pack, let alone his own brother.

"One don't talk to me like that, ever again,I might be your brother, but I'm also your Alpha and two I'm sorry, but if I hadn't have done what I did, she would be dead. Maybe that makes me harsh or whatever but I'd rather save my mate and the future luna of our pack than worry about pleasentries."

Shawn wanted to say more, but knew better than to push Raul so he simply said "I'll talk to her about staying with you, stay here." Before he left,not waiting for his reply.

...

As Shawn had expected as soon as he mentioned the idea of being in Raul's room, she shot him down pointing out that while he'd been nice to her in the last 30 minutes or so, he'd been a total jerk previously and she didn't want to be stuck with thst.

"I know he wasn't the nicest to you," Shawn agreed, "But I promise he means well, he was stressed and frustrated. He's your mate, it's his job to love and protect you and trust me he will do anything to honour that, even if it means being a bit harsh sometimes. Plus being around him will help you heal quicker, it's something that your body will recognise subconsciously, even for you as a human. It's one of our weird werewolf things. Please," he put his hands together practically begging.

"Fine," she conceeded, but if he's even the slightest bit rude I'm outta there,"

"Deal."

Half an hour later and Violet was situated in the most comfortable bed she'd ever laid in, the smell of Raul (a mixture of Sandalwood and Musk) filling her senses. She had to admit it calmed her, despite her wariness towards him.

"Are you comfortable?" he asked leaning against the doorway arms folding a smile once again gracing his face, making him look so much less scary. She jumped slightly holding a hand to her chest.

"I'm sorry I scared you," he apologised and something in the way he said it told her he wasn't just apologising for now.

"S'okay," she yawned, "but you have zero tact you know," she laughed as he frowned.

"I'm Raul Mendes, alpha of the largest pack in Canada,I can be mean, I can be ruthless,I also protect the ones I love with everything I have. But who said anything about tact? Cause it definitely wasn't me," he laughed, coming over to sit on the bed next to her, careful not to invade her space. As Violet drifted into a dream-state she could have sworn she heard him say "Sleep well, little mate," but of course when she questioned him on it the next day Raul would deny it till he was blue, well red in the face- with embarrassment that is. Maybe he wasn't such a big bad wolf afterall Violet thought.

[crimsonfluidessence]

Prompt 14: Commend

Esredes liked to consider himself someone who could break the world down into things that made sense, or at least identify where they did not.

Everything had to fit neatly into preexisting pieces. This is how one thing operated, this was how another functioned and went. People often defied this in various ways- in romance, especially, for one, throwing themselves at the worst possible matches and declaring it love, or in various other areas that should require logical thinking, and instead he watched everyone flounder.

Esredes himself tried to make sense too, and he liked to think he made perfect sense until a giant wrench was thrown into his entire life, multiple times. An ordinary noble man serving his duty as a Temple Knight, there was nothing to misunderstand. He would fight and die for his city, and that was all there was to it. He wouldn’t leave behind things undone in a trail of misery, it would all wrap up in a neat little bow and be laid into the ground, for he wasn’t composed like a civilian with more to offer.

A soldier that wasn’t a real person, through and gone. Simple.

And then he was a harrier, and then he was a citizen again, and if things hadn’t stopped making sense before, they absolutely did by the time he regained legal person status. Now everyone wanted different things out of him.

During the war, he had at least been exactly as he was before- a soldier, designed to die on the battlefield. Even if his halves got muddled and mixed into a pool of confusion at times, he had that.

But being forced to accept a civilian role left him lost. People told him so many different things, more than usual. “You should be allowed to live your life. You’re a real person, Esredes. You deserve happiness.” Put together, that was the summary of what everyone said- he should try to be a real person now. Ever a skeptic, this did not make sense to Esredes. People weren’t simply born with the capacity to become true people- they either were or were not. He had felt that emptiness inside him for all of his life, and everyone else had noticed he wasn’t real too. You could tell in the way people looked at and responded to you, that they noticed something was missing, no matter how much you tried to shapeshift around it. The insults were just one of many parts of it- stick in the mud or up somewhere specific, no fun, boring, filthy traitor, bastard, disgusting, brat, idiot, snake, manipulative, untrustworthy, and the ever present times heretic was used as an insult, that was just every day, something to absorb to prevent a real person from taking it.

Hm, Esredes thought to himself. No, he didn’t believe what all these people said, but perhaps if only to see if there was a chance in hell of their idea being logical, he considered their arguments, and tried testing them through shapeshifting. “You’re not a monster,” people often told him when he tried to say the obvious. “You’re just someone who fought for what was right and made the hard choices.” Those he loved most would tell him in soft tones how much he meant to them and how he was capable of so much more than he thought. “Please, Esredes. Live for yourself.” How would that ever be possible? He went out every day and people were immediately hostile, even if they didn’t know anything about who he was. They did not see a real person when they looked upon him, and he couldn’t magically make himself one, not like this. Strange things did happen, that was true. Like Heilyn. Heilyn was a useless bastard who hated him for being a heretic who actually did something. There was no convincing Heilyn otherwise- how could he after he had manipulated his son into helping him?

Except Esredes kept forgetting Heilyn was one of those people who never made sense. "I just don't understand why we can't just both give each other more of a chance.” Heilyn had told him during those first couple weeks of them being stuck together in the same job, with Esredes trying to torment him into quitting. “That goes for both sides. I was an ass in the past sure, but... doesn't wanting to make up for that count for something?" "You want to make up for it?" Esredes asked back with an eyebrow raise. "What motivation would you have for that besides that you're forced to now that you can't get rid of me?" "Trying to be a better person? Right my wrongs? I actually care? All of the above?" Esredes’ brow raised up even further. “You actually care about what.” “You, this, all of it?” Heilyn spoke as if this was supposed to be obvious. “Is there something wrong with that?” “…Yes? That doesn’t make any sense.” God, why did this broken stupid tall man constantly fail to have any form of sense? It frustrated him to no end. “Explain which part doesn’t make sense and I’ll gladly explain it to you.” "You claiming you care about me. I don't get it. Are you really suggesting that you give any ounce of a shit about the man you've put a dagger to, insulted relentlessly, know berated your son, and sold your soul to as your last ditch way out? Because that... is just straight up lying to yourself to make this situation more tolerable. Even I know you better than that." "And if I'm not lying? What then Esredes? I... learned a thing or two from Alastor. Changed my mind a little. Thus, I want to make up for past things said. Its that simple." Esredes just stared at Heilyn for a moment. "...Nope. That still makes the least amount of sense possible." Heilyn shook his head. “Did I... not phrase that right? I thought I was finally getting better at my shitty phrasing." "I... I don't even know. Phrasing or not, that just doesn't make sense." "I'm... pretty sure I spoke plainly? I've been told I don't make sense often because I don't do that. Or... wait. Do you just not believe it at all?" "No I don't believe it all. What reason would I have to? You already know how horrible I am." "I learned? I listened? Perceptions can change feelings you know." "What the hell are you talking about. We didn't speak between you asking me for help and now. And in that time, you've seen and heard nothing except me insulting you. You still believe me to be the devil you sold your soul to willingly." Because Heilyn could be nothing but a fucking idiot. "Alastor didn't," Heilyn replied plainly as he looked across the table at Esredes’ eyes with conviction. "He didn't and told me all that he could about you. Insisting I shouldn't hate. So I listened, and I learned, and my perception changed."

Still, he didn’t want to get it. A few days later and Esredes was bringing up the same thing. "So. You claim to have changed your mind... after Alastor told you. Which must have been after it happened. And yet, you still acknowledged me as only a devil when you sold yourself to me. You were only using me as a way out. So, I still don't really have, any sort of reason to believe you. And so I suppose that is my question. Why, Heilyn? Why does nothing about you ever make any sense? Why is it that you think in such an incomprehensibly impulsive way that I have no hope of understanding? How are you supposed to work, really? Is there any method to the madness, to how you just flounder and scream in your own head? This is a genuine question, I assure you."

Heilyn was silent for a good few moments before he finally sighed and spoke. "So, the answer is probably going to piss you off, but when we met before taking on that bitch, that was the longest period of time I'd spent in this area in ages. I was under a shitton of stress, and on top of that the song was just raging like hell in my ears. I hardly had clarity until the first time Alastor helped kill that monster. Then there was just a bit of sweet relief to ease the mind. Bottom line? I was stressed, and just pissed that nothing was going right all the while just making sure that my stupid son who got accused of murder was okay. The plan wasn't even to come back here until I heard that he had no place to go that was safe aside from my family's manor. Figured he was lost, scared, and needed me, so I took the risks and paid the prices." "Yeah. Yeah, you did. But that still doesn't answer part of the question. Do you understand why it's extremely hard to believe your claims from the other day?" "Oh yeah, I totally understand. My mind... was- is like a storm some days. And I'm like a little boat just trying to make it through. Find the eye of the storm, or have someone guide the boat to it. Alastor told me things, and that started getting me to that place. seeing you again though, while my mind was clear, I think that's when it clicked in a hundred percent on the things he said." And when Esredes asked him to elaborate, he continued on. “Well, one, I can't see Ferrant asking for your help unless he was damned sure you meant no ill will. that meant you were strictly here to help make this city better for heretics and shit post-war, right? Second, they wouldn't even let you in the city if you were as awful as I'd thought you at first. Third..." Heilyn hesitated. "You looked lost. Very lost. A little flicker in your eyes that didn't look at all like before. And I've known that kind of pain all too well myself, so I recognize it quickly. Couldn't hate after seeing that in the slightest." “When the hell did I look lost?” "Its not... a physical look. More like... a feeling you get? When you look at that person? Like... there's something important missing from their very spirit. That sort of thing." "I've always had a lot missing from my spirit. That's nothing new. And certainly not something worth deeming me unhateable." "Then take the rest of it as my answer if you don't want to take that part." "Well at that point, all you're going off of is evidential assumptions. And here's the problem with your logic. If it's based off assumptions, then it breaks apart the moment you're wrong about anything. Therefore you don't actually care, do you? You just want to know something isn't dangerous and going to stab you." Heilyn tilted his head. "Look, you didn't use my Nidhogg notes against me, you were willing to compromise and use the notes system, you realy honestly haven't done anything so far to make me actually think you're too much of a bastard. I'm willing to trust you unless you prove otherwise and frankly? I don't believe you will. You’re fine, in my book at this point.” Still, the conversation went on and on and on. “You have no evidence I’ve changed. What reason do you have to forgive anything? How am I not that shitty given everything else? I don’t believe I meet your definition of not dangerous, you know what I am capable of.” Thing after thing Esredes threw out, forcing Heilyn to continuously keep trying to explain himself, and yet somehow by the end of the conversation, they had come out being nice to one another.

Still, Heilyn was an exception who defied logic. It didn’t matter that Alastor took his apology and said he believed he was good with little effort, or that Yulionne saw the best in him despite what happened, that Ferrant believed wholeheartedly in him, that Murielle’s adopted son of all people came to him and asked if they could talk about everything they had to discuss civilly, that the very man who betrayed him and sold him out as a heretic came around to apologize, or that some people immediately saw him as a heroic or positive figure, included but not limited to an atoning shiny and green celebrity performer, a Garlean defector who Esredes had originally insulted, the one member of the Temple Knight Company that all hated Esredes who for some reason treated him like a real person, and a High Inquisitor of all things who praised him for his independent service before asking it of him.

The fact still remained he was an empty being, and why had the world ceased to make sense so much people kept trying to defy that? Of course his loved ones wanted to insist on a false narrative because they cared about him, but why did all these other people want to tell him so much of why they saw good in him?

Ah, that swirling red fog was annoying to see through. You are, you aren’t. He would continue to watch the most unlikely people come to see what he wanted them to, the others see right what he knew was true, and unknown to himself, he had ceased to make just as much sense as the people around him.

I want to know what it’s like to live. I am delaying the inevitable. When will it finally come? I’m a monster. I’m not a monster, can’t you look around you and see how many worse people are right there? I merely did what was right, and you are assigning more blame to it because it’s not your side. You shouldn’t be around me. You can trust me, I’m here to help you.

I’m still not a real person, was the one thing that remained when the various voices came and passed. As he hyperfocused and leeched on to the next person to come along and give him praise to fill that incessant hunger in that never ending cycle, he certainly must be at peace with it.

The world had stopped making sense. He had stopped making sense. And while Esredes could not fully give up his nature of trying to make sense of things, he ultimately decided to exist in a nebula, for now. Wind blew past him, and dubiety persisted like an old friend, wrapping itself all around the man with a whisper of I told you so.

—-

@thecalmnessandthestorms / @heartofthefury Heilyn, Alastor, Ferrant, Murielle, Trystan (unnamed mention), Raulin (unnamed mention)

@eternal-finis Yulionne

Zenith Alphinoix (unnamed mention)

Fern Cinnieux (unnamed mention)

@emeraldeorzean Kalas (unnamed mention)

Forte Tertia (unnamed mention)

[pants-jones]

Outer Wilds is the best exploration adventure literally ever.(Story Review)

Outer Wilds is a small space exploration game that came out on May 28, 2019, developed by Mobius Digital. It’s gotten multiple awards and there isn’t a second of someone’s voice in the game. I personally found out about it thanks to Jacksepticeye, and he does this thing where he doesn’t explore things in a game enough for me to be satisfied, and it really frustrates me even though I love his content. So, like a normal person, I held that frustration deep within my soul for an entire year until I got my own ps4 and I noticed that they were selling it on the PlayStation store. I remembered very little about the game at that point and going in blind was literally the best part. Ever since I was little, every time a game came out promising endless gameplay or a large world to explore it pretty much never happened.

Like Disney Infinite or whatever that shitshow of a game was called. Surprisingly finite, believe it or not. Same thing with No Mans Sky, even though I’ve heard that it’s improved recently. But this game is perfect when it comes to space exploration. The solar system you reside in isn’t too big, so going from planet to planet isn’t a pain in the ass like No Mans Sky. Each planet has so much to explore, on top of everything you can see in the ice comet that flies through, or the sunstation orbiting the sun at like 40000000 miles an hour, or the literal ghost moon that disappears when you look away. Each planet is extremely unique and has their own dangers, and I could talk for literal hours about each location in the game and the story behind each. Before I actually get into this, there is this one youtuber that has a channel about this game, and he actually explains a lot of the stuff that I didn’t understand or just got wrong on my first playthrough. He’s called The Lore Explorer. You can click his name to go straight to his YouTube channel. 

This is going to be on the story of Outer Wilds. Because I want to talk about the gameplay separately. 

In this game, you play as a member of an alien race called the Hearthians, residing on an earthlike planet called Timber Hearth. Your race is small, but they devote their time to science and exploration of the solar system they reside in and the universe. They want to know the secrets of the universe, to understand it. They’re a peaceful people, like space hillbillies, They don’t have a specific gender, they refer to each other with they/them unless requested otherwise, You are a rookie in their space exploration program, Outer Wilds Ventures. You wake up early at your campfire, eyes looking up at the sky, the giant planet Giants Deep above you. The ancient alien space station orbiting said planet explodes, and a small purple light launches out into the night sky. (This is the best picture I could find)

You get up and meet Slate, a Hearthian that was roasting marshmallows in the campfire next to you. You exchange some dialogue, and you learn they’re the one who made your ship, and that this is gonna be your first voyage into space. They tell you that you have to go to Hornfels, one of Outer Wilds Ventures’ lead scientists, to get the launch codes. You spend some time exploring the small village that your people reside in. You meet up with your old teacher, who taught you about everything you’ll endure up in space. You do one last no-gravity test, before heading up to the Observatory at the highest point of the village. The first thing that greets you is a statue, made by a strange ancient race named the Nomai.

You move on to Hornfels, get the launch codes and walk out the same way you came in, when you freeze and the statue opens its eyes and faces you. It’s eyes light up, and it’s almost like your memories of today are being played back at you. (below is the best picture I could find.)

A Hearthian who works at the observatory watches all of this and approaches you, claiming in shock that they had no idea that the eyes could even open, neverminded that they can grow. 

You move on, on to your ship. You enter and where you go first is up to you, the player.(obviously.) Personally, I decided to do what I think most people would ignore, and explore the planet we all start on, Timber Hearth. And of course, I found some stuff, but that’s for later.

Anyways, it doesn’t matter what you do, but most likely you’ll be going to Timber Hearth’s moon, the Attlerock. It’s an asteroid like moon that you’ll probably see in the sky orbiting the planet from it’s surface. There’s a Hearthian named Esker up there, and they give you their first goal: Find and meet the five founders of Outer Wilds Ventures. You’ve already got one down, since Esker is one of those five. But, ignoring all this, lets assume you made the mistake everyone makes (and I promise you it’s everyone) and you didn’t land where Esker grew trees for oxygen, and you made the dumbest decision to just, forget your space suit. Well, you’d die obviously. Air is important. You obviously suffocate. Dummy.

I genuinely can’t find a way to show you how dying looks in Outer Wilds. Or, the post death. Pretty much, every moment you just experienced gets played in reverse, up until  the very moment you wake up. Then, this Nomai mask is the last thing you see, before you wake up on Timber Hearth again.

I think anyone with an IQ above sand knows that this means you’re in a time loop. It’s obviously because of the statue, and when you go to look at it, it’s eyes are still open. There’s a mystery here, and you will most likely not have any clue how to solve it.  

You’ll go back into space. And you’ll choose any of the five planets in this small solar system to explore. It doesn’t matter which. You’ll learn things abut the Nomai, you might even meet one of the astronauts you were told to meet. None of this matters. Because in 22 minutes after you wake up, you hear a strange loud noise, look to the sun, and realize its collapsing in on itself and exploding. You barely have time to react before you die again and wake up in your village again. And that’s pretty much the opening of the game. If you wanna see the sun explode, click here. It’s pretty cool.

First I wanna start with the fact that this solar system is pretty small, but each planet has so much stuff you could do. I didn’t even mention all the stuff in the observatory, like the rock that moves when you don’t look at it (which is VERY important), the Nomai text that you can translate with the device Hornfels gives you, or the fucking creature that they call an anglerfish that they hold in a tank (which is also very important). I didn’t tell you about the Planet Locator on the Attlerock, or the fact that you can see the ship you use in the Alpha of the game. I want to talk about each planet and location but it would genuinely take me way too long, because the story itself is way way way too long but it’s literally amazing. This game is probably the closest thing to real life in one way; it doesn’t matter what you do. You could throw your ship into the fucking sun and it won’t matter. Inevitability is one of the biggest themes of this game. 

You learn of the Nomai, an ancient race that came to your Solar system on something called The Vessel, but they got split up when they had to use escape pods because of some tragedy. You learn that they’re looking for something called The Eye Of The Universe, an entity older than the universe itself. That space station that blows up every time you wake up? That’s their Probe Launcher, that’s them trying to find that Eye. You learn how they made warp technology and how Black Holes work, you can even create a paradox and break the universe (this is very loud, I’m warning you.) This game takes environmental storytelling to a whole other level, because this race of Nomai is dead and long gone, but their underground catties and escape pods and ships and every piece of research that they have is left behind. They left a fucking Sunstation that orbits the sun at the speed of something really fast, and if you’re good enough at flying (i am not) you could land on the damn thing. Or you could teleport to it using the Nomais warp tech.

I think it’s there that you learn why the sun is dying. Your goal this whole time was to learn why the sun is dying, maybe you can reverse whatever the Nomai did. But the Nomai didn’t do this. Sure, they wanted to make the sun explode, but that was to power their time loop machine, so they could find the Eye easier. But it didn’t work. The sun station was made to blow up the sun and it didn’t work. The sun isn’t blowing up because of the Nomai, it’s dying because it’s just old. It’s old and there is no saving your people or your solar system. You then realize that its not just your solar system that’s dying, but others too. You can see it all the time.

When you’re out in space and see stars suddenly start to glow brighter than before, if you zoom in, you can see that they’re exploding. And not only that, once you find the Nomai’s Vessel (which is hard to do), you can find transmissions from modern Nomai, claiming that the entire universe is dying. There’s nothing you can even do about it.

Before I talk about the Eye itself, I need to explain what a Quantum Object is. A Quantum object is an object that exists in all possible ways until viewed by a conscious. The rock in the observatory I mentioned earlier is one of these objects, and there’s tons of items just like them 

They usually look like this black shard above. The Nomai found these and studied the actual hell out of them, and they learned three things they labeled the rules of quantum objects. The first being, if you are making physical contact with one of these objects and you turn off the lights or lose your vision, you will become quantum like the object. Technically it means until you can see again, you will be everywhere and anywhere at random.

The next rule is that if you take a picture of the quantum object and look away, it will not move. I think this is self explanatory, you’re still technically observing it even if it’s just a picture. And the last rule has more to do with the Quantum Moon. The Quantum Moon is supposed to be the Eye’s moon, but since it’s a quantum object it always appears orbiting random planets in this solar system. 

The Quantum Moon won’t be on any map of the solar system, and it’s by far the second most difficult location to enter and navigate. You’ll only know how after exploring multiple Nomai ruins with text on the walls teaching you the three quantum rules. If you just fly into it, You’ll simply go through the grey smoke and end up on the other side, You need to enforce the second quantum rule (this is called Quantum Imaging btw) and take a picture of it. Then you’ll be able to land on it, though what you find first may be different depending what planet it’s orbiting.

It mirrors the planet it’s orbiting, like when it orbits Timber Hearth the surface of the planet is going to have a lot of trees and grass. If it’s on Giants Deep, which is mostly an aquatic planet with lots of tornadoes and storms, it’ll have a lot of water and smaller tornadoes in the distance. Eventually, you’ll make your way to the Nomai tower on the North Pole of the moon.

From the inside of this tower, you’ll be able to travel with the quantum moon, even getting close to the Eye itself. The Nomai always say that when the moon isn’t visible in this solar system, it has to be at a sixth location, and since the Eye orbits our sun from lightyears away, it’s safe to say that the sixth location is actually the Eye of the Universe. When you enter the tower, you’re going to be turning the lights off and opening the door a lot, since the only other way to tell where you are inside the tower is a mechanism on the wall. But when you’re orbiting the Eye, you won’t be able to exit the tower, since the door will be blocked by the same material that the quantum shards are made of. If I remember correctly, you need to have the tower appear on the South pole of the moon. Then, when you get to the moon’s version of the eye, You can leave the tower and see what it’s like. 

On top of that, you can actually meet the last Nomai. Her name is Solanum, and she is the only Nomai to get this close to the Eye of the universe. The same way that the moon has a sixth location it goes to, she is the secret sixth astronaut that you can meet. She doesn’t speak your language, or at all, which means the Nomai didn’t speak. They communicated using the blue swirls you can see next to her. Those are the swirls that you translate to learn everything they’ve done through out the game. 

Meeting Solanum is a bitter moment, since she claims that she believes she’s been in some sort of in between death and life state for years now. She theorizes that being in such close proximity to the Eye has made her a quantum object, which is why you can find her ship and dead body on all the other locations the Quantum Moon can be at except this one. Above Solanum is a wormhole, where all the clouds are falling into. When you try to enter this wormhole, you fall back into one of the other moons locations, Solanum’s body at your feet. 

Now the Eye of the Universe itself is the most difficult location to get to. It took me around three hours of trying over and over again, because we need to get to it before the 22 minutes run out and the sun explodes. You first need to waste 7 minutes getting a power core from the machine that runs the time loop, so if you die you technically die for good. Then you need to enter the 5th planet and the one I despise the most, Dark Bramble. 

Dark Bramble isn’t a planet. It’s the remains of an icy planet, destroyed by the bramble. Nobody knows where the bramble came from. Nobody knows how it even exists. But it’s there, and it should be the last place you want to enter, because it’s the only place with an actual creature that want to hurt you: The Anglerfish. 

The Anglerfish are giant, blind space fish that will eat anything and have super sensitive hearing. You need to fly past these things in your ship, and you never know what lights are anglerfish and which lights are just more nodes to enter deeper into this pocket dimension.  In Dark Bramble, you can find one of the 3 Nomai Escape pods. The other two landed on planets outside of Bramble, but this one had a much darker fate. 

This is Escape Pod 3. The Nomai in this escape Pod used audio tech to find the distress signal the Vessel was emitting, but there was a problem; they frequency was coming from two different places. The Nomai were scared and running out of oxygen, so they headed towards the closer frequency, leaving lights behind as a trail so they didn’t get lost. Unfortunately when they reach the frequency...

All they find is a seed. The frequency is coming from it, but they went the wrong way. They can’t fit inside it and it hasn’t grown enough for it to be a node they can pass through. So they all died there, floating motionless. You can shoot a scout through the seed, and it’ll land on the Vessel.  Now you have a way to get there.

When you bring the power core, you have to pass through the Anglerfish nest, so you’re pretty much gonna be gliding through the whole thing reaaaally slowly. You can’t outrun the anglerfish, and I never tried touching their eggs so I don’t know what’ll happen if you try that. 

After a lot of slow gliding, you’ll find The Vessel.

You can put the power core inside, and once you enter the coordinates that you can find from the space station orbiting Giant’s Deep, the Vessel will warp to The Eye of the Universe, with an overhead view of it. 

You can take as much time as you like here. You’re way too far for any supernova to affect you. The planet you can see isn’t the eye itself, but it’s more like an orb of the same material that the quantum shards are made of. All the clouds and lights surrounding it is the Eye. I’ll leave a video of someone getting to the Eye right here. When you warp onto the planet above the Eye, you’ll start on the north pole, and start walking towards the south, where the Entrance to the Eye is. When you walk under the clouds, it’ll be dark, with lightning strikes briefly lighting up the area, with random objects appearing due to the eye being the origin of quantum objects. 

(What the wormhole looks like from the outside vs. the entrance.)

I can’t really explain what happens when you fall into it, so I’m gonna leave it at that. This game is a solid 10/10 for me. It is the best exploration space game I’ve ever played, and I’d buy it at full price again just to support those who made it. Also the soundtrack and credits song are amazing. I 100000% recommend it

[silvysartfulness]

3, 4, 10, 15

3. What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway)

Oh... There’s no “always” scene, what scenes get me going varies from story to story, fandom to fandom. On the whole, I’m not that scene-oriented - it is the set-up and context that really get me going? The scenes are just expressions of that! Sorry! XD

There are a whole bunch of scenes I’m looking forward to write, though! In the Roadtrip, I do hope my steam will keep going until I hit the really messy, rewarding parts where the characters actually really start connecting (and yes, that includes the sex!) Especially Xue Yang’s and Song Lan’s relationship has a lot of very juicy things to explore, emotionally and physically down the line - that’s the story bits my brain tends to disappear off to when contemplating future bits of this fic, at least at the moment! :D

4. Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like) 

From the published chapters, I'm very happy with the “teacup” scene from chapter 6 of the Roadtrip! I find it poetic, and I like how it seemingly offers a respite from the turmoil of the ongoing scene - only to then double down and enhance the hurt of it. Causing readers pain can be beautiful. ♥

----

He had owned a little teacup, once, on the Mountain, a treasured delicate thing of white porcelain, and in a careless moment he had dropped it. It had still looked whole, but the next time he poured hot water into it, it had made a tinkling, almost musical sound, the water draining out of it as all the invisible cracks opened at once.

Even then it had still looked like a whole cup, only crackled, and it wasn't until he tried picking it up that it fell into a hundred pieces at his touch.

The roaring storm in his head had reached a crescendo so overwhelming it was almost bleeding into silence, and in that silence, he could hear his heart making that almost musical tinkling sound, shattered, all cracks breaking open at once.

----

From unpublished chapters, I very much like the following little snippet! Xue Yang isn’t one to consciously feel sorry for himself, he likes telling himself how heartless he is, that he can’t be hurt. Which is a blatant lie, and sometimes he just can’t help but wallow in self-pity. ♥

It has all the ingredients I like - there’s hurt, poetic phrasing, multiple vividly visual allegories:

----

There had been a hole in Xiao Xingchen's world after Baixue, ripped out of him to cause hurt - a dug-out trap he'd somehow, ironically, stupidly fallen into himself. A vacant space in Xiao Xingchen's life for him to occupy for a while, knowing that smile, that endless tenderness. He could see the gap close between them now, see it happen, himself forced out like unwanted water from near-drowned lungs.

It hurt.

----

10. How would you describe your writing process? 

“Frustration”..? Writing doesn’t come nearly as naturally to me as drawing, and unless I get lucky and catch a wave, it’s a constant struggle. Especially these days, when my brain has suffered enough burn-outs that I have genuine problems with memory, concentration and executive function.

But the process itself tends to go: Headcanon wildly -> decide that headcanons are interesting enough to make for decent fiction -> sketch a bit and flail about ideas to unsuspecting people to fix visions in mind -> write a very loose outline in separate document -> open word processor -> hope like fuck the characters will be willing to start talking -> trying to get it all to snowball and keep up steam until project is actually finished

15. Which is harder: titles or summaries (or tags)? 

Tags. Tags fill me with dread. Tags feel like the bit where failure will bring purity antis or angry people in general down on my head, enraged, if I get it wrong. Tags give me the same undefined dread as filling in official forms (”What is your name?” I don’t know, I sob. I don’t know anything anymore!) I try?

Summaries are medium-hard, but I cheat and keep mine very short.

Titles, on the other hand, I love titles! For the Roadtrip, I’ve set up a challenge for myself that every chapter title should be able to be interpreted in at least two different ways, preferably more, with multiple layers of meanings and symbolism!

Like the “Sticks and Stones” chapter, for example, that starts very literally with Xue Yang fighting Song Lan with his pointy stick, ending up slammed down on the rocks - but it’s really about the very end of the chapter, and the implied “words can never hurt me” - ironically meant, since it’s Xue Yang’s words that almost kill Xiao Xingchen.

Same with “Poison In The Air” which both refers to the venom between all the characters at that point, and very literal corpse dust on the wind.

“Is it you?” of course paraphrases Xiao Xingchen’s question in Yi City, where he first says it after stabbing Song Lan through the chest, asking for Xue Yang to confirm that he’s alright. And then the same phrase when he’s on his knees, feeling Fuxue and realizing who the fierce corpse beside him is, and he says the same words, this time indicating Song Lan. In that chapter, he constantly sways back and forth in how he relates to them both, consciously leaving his questions undirected, to see which one of them will answer, a wordless “is it you?” aimed at them both.

“Reawakenings” alludes both to Xiao Xingchen regaining consciousness and him and Song Lan reconnecting, a reawakening of their affection (love) ending with them holding hands in sleep. “The Coffin House” is an evil red herring, that would seem to refer to Xue Yang’s and Xiao Xingchen’s past in Yi City, but where the final scene topples that perception on its head, grimly becoming something extremely literal.

Next chapter to be posted is called “Bitter Medicine”. Again to be interpreted both somewhat literally and figuratively. ♥

As for the whole fic itself, I wanted a title that 1: referred back to the Chinese origins of the Untamed, 2: something to do with roads and journeying, and 3: preferably something that captured the general air of the story I wanted to tell. I was very pleased to find the Chinese proverb I ended up using; 天堂有路你不走 地狱无门你闯进来: "Heaven has a road but no-one walks it - Hell has no gate, but men will dig to get there". 

It checks the first two boxes, and the sardonic irony of the whole quote fits these idiots and the way they’ve ended up hurting others but mostly themselves, and how they keep doing so inadvertently as they go along. They’re on the way to some sort of redemption, Heaven - but they’re making each others’ lives Hell as they go. They will get better at balancing things along the way, though - eventually. ♥

I could ramble about these metas forever, and I’m very very happy to have been given an excuse to do so! Thank you!! XD

There’s so much sneaky thought going into this story, and it’s a delight to actually be asked to talk about it! :D

[wish-to-grow-a-garden]

So, I just finished playing Hello Neighbor and I'm here to give it my personal rating because reasons.

First off, I'll admit that the only reason I even was able to beat it was because I used walkthroughs. Without them, I never would have figured out half the shortcuts and mechanics and secrets (more on that later), but I just wanted to see how the game actually turned out in the end because most Youtubers I watched play it kinda gave up after like the 3rd version that got released. That being said...

Overall Game Rating: 6/10

So at its core this game had potential. I WANTED the final version of this game to be better than it was. Would it ever have been the best game ever? I highly doubt it. But it could have been much more noteworthy if it had just *functioned* better. I'm also fully aware that I'm several years late, but man I just need to give my discourse and opinions to someone who isn't 9 or a completely lost parent. Anyways, allow me to explain myself in the good old fashioned Tumblr way of bullets-

The Good

Physical design. Now, this is a completely personal opinion here, but I liked how the game looked. It was colorful, it had its own distinct style. There were very few occasions when I couldn't tell what something was, and most of the time those indistinguishables weren't remotely important. I also like how the writing in the game was scrambled to kinda make it fun and nonsensical, but you could still pretty much tell what it was meant to say.

Story! Guys, the main reason I came back to this game in the first place; the reason I really wanted to see it finished and see what happened in all those chapters that I never saw finished; was because I wanted to get more of the story. I wanted to know what happened, and while I'm still not entirely certain, I have several theories. And all the theories follow the same general track with a few basic deviations, so I'd say that the game did a pretty good job of getting it's focal points across.

The puzzel aspect. I like games that make me (when I'm actually playing seriously and not just playing to get through it) think. And I wasn't using the guide every step of the way, so I had a genuinely good time figuring out what items went to what, and what I could do with certain objects that I couldn't achieve with others. I think the overall idea of "hey, run around this dude's house and work out his overly complicated, Ikea-like home full of coniptions and contraptions" super fun.

Multiple ways to reach endings. Now, mainly this applied to Act 2 in my experience because Act 1 seemed pretty straightforward and Act 3 had me frustrated for so many days to the point where I couldn't really appreciate its options (more on that in a bit), but I'm sure there were deviating paths there as well. Point is, I saw 3 seperate ways of escaping the Neighbor's house in act 2, and I just sorta thought that was cool. And considering I'm playing for myself, and guiding (playing) two children through their own files, I managed to get two of those 3 escapes. The endings were the same, but still, it's cool.

The secrets and optional pathways. There were several rooms that I never actually managed to get into when i was playing through just because I wasn't secret I hunting. But I DID take notice of them, plus there were quite a few that I just happened to find my way into during my run arounds, and I explored because hey! Secrets! And I'm sure there was a ton of extra story material I missed because I neglected a lot of them, but I can appreciate a game that leaves its little hidden details as something you sort of have to work for. If I ever find the patience and the time one day, maybe I'll go back for them.

Audio warnings. Okay okay, so I was a big dummy and played through the first 2 Acts without any sound, and only plugged in headphones for the second half of Act 3. But once I did, having the music pick up in warning when the neighbor spotted me, or being able to hear the mannequins coming was very nice.

The minigames/cut scenes. And I'm not including the Fear rooms in this because I did not take anywhere near as much intrest or enjoyment out of those. I mean the things you were just mean to sorta run through. The bits where you could see the neighbor at his lowest. The bits that showed that maybe, maybe this dude that you've been cussing out the entire game is actually just some dude who had a really tough run, and just ended up snapping. The bits that kinda make you feel bad for barging into his home and shattering all his windows and just being a general dick. The bit at the very end got me especially- when he's trapped in the room by the shadow figure, and he sorta looks out the window at you, and then just stands dejectedly in the corner. I wanted to help him. I REALLY wanted to help him. I felt bad leaving.

The Bad

Limited functionality. Oh my lord, if this game hadn't been so effing glitchy the whole way through, I might have been able to give it a 7 or 8 out of 10. But it just...didn't. There were so many times when things would just vanish from my inventory and I'd have to reload, or the puzzle wouldn't solve the way it was meant to and I'd have to Macgyver my way around it. There were also several times where I would be trying to hide in a locker/closet, and my character would get stuck in the door of said locker/closet. Half the time it would get me caught, and half the time I'd have to button mash for several minutes before I could get free. The worst possible glitch I had during my whole experience was when I was trying to get up to the roof garden in Act 3. My walkthrough told me I had to get in the trolley and stop it just before a ledge to jump up. The problem is THE TROLLEY WOULDN'T STOP. Every time I tried, I'd either glitch through the front and get hit and die, or it would just completely break the train and it would just go into constant motion, not even making its programmed stops at the different stations.

Ridiculous enemy sightline triggers. Listen, Act 2 in particular was absolute HELL to get through the first time (and even unnecessarily difficult after I took the lids through it the 2nd and 3rd times) because the neighbor could be like 3 blocks down and inside his local "Murderous Psycos Anonymous" meeting, and yet the moment I step foot in his yard he's on a dead sprint to my location. And don't even get me STARTED on the mannequins in the Fear rooms. Their sightline triggers were so ridiculously unfair that if I hadn't had the sound triggers telling me they were coming, I never would have gotten past those rooms. But the sensitivity could have even been brushed off, if it were even remotely consistent. There were other times when I would be standing directly in front of the Neighbor, shining a flashlight in his eyes and staring him head on, and yet because I was crouched and slightly out of his sightline (this happened several times in the basement of Act 1.)

Pointless enemy boundaries. By this, I mean that the Neighbor is (apparently) meant to stop at the boundaires of his property when he's chasing you and you run off home. But he doesn't . In fact, quite often I couldn't get him to back off until I was actually physically in my house with the door closed.

Extremely unclear puzzle solutions. The main reason I opted to use the walkthroughs instead of working my way through the game myself? Because without them, it would have been damn near impossible. There were so many times that I was preforming the solution to a problem and I was just like "...really?". Requiring the player to interact with one of hundreds of completely repetative and indistinguishable paintings, having to glitch a shoe through a box to switch a lever, making a specific space match a painting on the wall to open a box that was down the hall and outside...it was just kind of ridiculous. I personally wouldn't have even guessed the the umbrellas could be used as floatation devices until maybe several hours into the game, if ever at all. When you have to many objects that seem unqiue but are actually just more props to toss around, it gets kinda hard to distinguish what is actually useful and what isn't.

The Iffy

The final boss. ...okay, I have to actually admit that I had a fun time being teeny and launching nerf darts and bottle rockets at the Neighbor. Especially after all the pain of getting through Act 2. (He actually didn't bother me much in Act 3.) But like...what was it? His household was weighing on his back or whatever. The reminders of his kids were causing him pain. Okay, okay, cool....but like...there wasn't any better setting for it? There was no better way to pull it off? I was legitimately just running around and doing things just to inconvenience the tall man in front of me. I died so many times just trying to work out the toaster puzzle until I got all...like, 600 umbrellas. I don't know, it was just strange execution.

The Fear Room Powerups. I didn't know the fear rooms were necessary. I didn't know they gave you powerups. Had I not read the walkthroughs, I never would have figured it out. And even AFTER I beat them, I didn't work out that I had power ups until last minute. There was no acknowledgment that I had gained a new power, save for the sneakily worded achievements. However, I did appreciate them while I had them. They let me Macgyver my way around even more.

The seemingly unexplorable. There were doors upon doors that I wanted to get through. And doors upon doors that seemed to have no actual entrances. No secret methods. No special actions. They were just doors. Taunting me. Is it possible I missed something? Absolutely, I'd bet on it. But all I'm saying is I ran around that house a lot in all three levels, and there were some things that I was just never able to work out.

The Conclusion

Hello Neighbor is a game for the patient and the crafty. I enjoyed it. I would have enjoyed it more if it were more functional and made even a lick of sense gameplay wise. But while it isn't anywhere near the best game I've ever played, it isn't the worst either. Its playable enough if you're willing to work around its defects. I'd suggest it for a rainy day, or an especially quarentined week.

[commentaryvorg]

Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 4.14

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time, as trial 4 (trial 4!!!!) kicked into high gear upon Gonta being accused, Kaito unflinchingly believed in Gonta’s innocence until he suddenly didn’t and then immediately started running away from the truth, Shuichi did not run away from the truth and continued to heroically try and face it, Kokichi completely dropped the ball on emotionally tormenting Kaito over this kind of thing because he was too busy making everything about himself, and Kaito started making arguments he knew weren’t true in an attempt to sound like he’s just being logical and not running away from anything and most definitely isn’t weaker than Shuichi.

We just finished the Debate Scrum, meaning that everyone has (supposedly) acknowledged the possibility that Gonta could have done it.

Gonta:  “But… Gonta telling truth… Gonta… r-really not culprit…”

Himiko:  “I… s-still don’t think Gonta’s lying…”

Himiko also apparently has a decent intuition for this! You’d think Kaito would be the first one to keep stressing this point and not her, but it seems Kaito is too busy hurting over the fact that Shuichi is clearly stronger than him to want to say something that’ll continue to make him look bad at facing the truth.

Kokichi:  “But… didn’t I tell you guys already? If you’re planning to expose a liar, then you have to corner then psychologically… Only then will they reveal their true self as a liar – hiding beneath a layer of deceit!”

Kokichi says “didn’t I tell you already” here because this is him quoting word-for-word something he originally said during trial 2 when he was trying to turn Kaito against Maki, which is a neat callback to that. This trial has a lot of thematic similarities with that one; there’s probably going to be a small bonus ramble about this.

Kokichi:  “That’s why it hurts my heart to persecute Gonta like this!”

I’m probably going to sound very unlike my usual self here, but… I think this sentiment of Kokichi’s might be genuine? I believe this moment is supposed to be a sign of the vague semblance of a decent person deep inside Kokichi clawing its way to the surface for a brief second and expressing the fact that he actually does hate that he’s doing this to Gonta.

I have specific reasons for thinking this that will come up in time, and I feel like I have to mention that to justify this interpretation, because without those reasons, this moment alone really wouldn’t do much to make me think that Kokichi actually means this. He says this literally straight after the previous part that I quoted. Kokichi has not really started to truly persecute Gonta and try to psychologically corner him yet, so if there was ever a moment in which the vaguely decent person inside Kokichi would be forced out of him for just a second, then it feels to me like it would take something more extreme and stressful than this. For the longest time, I did assume that this had to be just another lie, because of the way it’s presented.

Kokichi:  “Gonta! If you understand, then do it right! Make logical arguments for the truth!”

Either way, I said it was “briefly”, because in the very next sentence, Kokichi proceeds to… persecute Gonta, aka do the exact thing that he just claimed it was hurting him to do. Good job shoving that vague decency of yours right back down deep inside you and ignoring it like you’ve been doing this whole time, Kokichi.

From the perspective of the majority of Kokichi that’s just a dick and doesn’t care about Gonta, it makes sense why he’s getting so frustrated now – because he still doesn’t realise Gonta has forgotten everything, and he was hoping this would be a more “fun” battle of Gonta trying to defend himself than simply him repeating that he didn’t do it over and over again. Maybe he’s even kind of unnerved at the way Gonta is still apparently managing to keep up his “lie” of not knowing anything at all even now.

Kokichi:  “I’m sick of hearing you say you don’t know! God, why are you so dumb!?”

Gonta:  “Gonta just wanna help everyone! Like true gentleman!”

Kokichi:  “You’re a true gentleman!? More like a true nincompoop!”

Kokichi’s starting to sound really angry and frustrated here, which is in part him genuinely being frustrated at Gonta not giving the right reactions, but also could partly be a sign that being this awful to Gonta is stressing him out because of the vaguely decent part of him that doesn’t want to be doing this. Which is why I feel that now, after he’s begun to persecute Gonta and do something so stressful that’s hurting him deep down, would be the right time for him to have that moment of sudden stark honesty about his feelings, not beforehand.

Kokichi feeling like this when he’s bullying Gonta but not when he’s been bullying anyone else is perhaps partly down to the fact that Gonta is so open and honest about the distress this is causing him, making it much harder for Kokichi to tell himself he’s not being a terrible person, whereas the other people he’s been jabbing at mostly try to hide how much it gets to them (hi, Kaito). Then there’s the fact that he knows he’s getting Gonta killed by doing this, which is far worse than any of his usual low-level dickery. But it’s also probably in part just because it’s Gonta. Again, more on that later.

Himiko:  “Hey! Now that’s just bullying!”

Kokichi:  “…Bullying? Yeah, so what? That’s what you do in this game, right?”

It really doesn’t have to be. The only person who ever talked about it being necessary to psychologically corner people and persecute them until they slip up in order to reach the truth was… oh, right. You, Kokichi.

Kokichi essentially expressing the sentiment of “so long as everyone else is a bully, that makes it okay for me to be a bully too” sure explains a lot of things about him, by the way.

(Also remember how it was once hinted at that Himiko has been a victim of bullying herself. That might be why she’s the one to speak up to protest about Kokichi doing so to Gonta.)

Kokichi:  “You guys blame and gang up on me, but now you’re going to pretend to be good people?”

That’s one hell of a victim complex you’ve got there, dude.

I can believe that maybe once upon a time in Kokichi’s past (the past that we’re never going to learn anything concrete about because psh, who needs to properly understand why Kokichi acts this way), he was genuinely victimised and ganged upon in a way that he didn’t deserve. That would explain why he’s so quick to play the victim here and act like that’s what everyone else is doing to him now. But no – in this instance, he very much does deserve it. People are blaming him because he told lies that were only going to get in the way of reaching the truth and having everyone survive, and because, even if Gonta did do it, that is very clearly still partly Kokichi’s fault for manipulating him into it somehow (he’s already basically admitted as much). Blaming someone for doing bad things that they very clearly did does not make the person doing the blaming a bad person, especially not in this killing game where doing so is necessary to survive. Kokichi’s just trying to deflect all guilt from his conscience so he can keep telling himself he’s done nothing wrong, despite the fact that he has essentially killed two people and the second of those murders is currently in progress right now.

But no, you brought this upon yourself, Kokichi. If you really hate being blamed and “ganged up on” so much (which here is really just multiple people happening to have the same opinion of him; no-one is making deliberate use of their strength in numbers to oppress him), then maybe you should have acted in a way which doesn’t blatantly warrant it.

Himiko:  “N-No… I never ganged up—”

Kokichi:  “Gonta, argue back already!”

Also note how as soon as Himiko tries to point out that no ganging up has been happening (and if she’s been bullied herself, she should know quite well what real ganging up looks like just as much as Kokichi should), Kokichi immediately shifts back to persecuting Gonta rather than admit that he might be wrong.

Kokichi:  “Just make an excuse or… whatever!”

Kaito:  “Stop it!!! That’s enough!”

Kaito is Done with Kokichi’s bullshit and cannot bear to listen to him continually trying to hurt Gonta like this. I love the way he blurts this out out of nowhere, not to make any kind of argument but just because he wants this awfulness to stop.

Kaito:  “I don’t want to survive if it means I have to stoop to your level.”

Kaito means every single word of this. If the only way for him to survive would be to compromise everything he believes in and become someone like Kokichi who constantly hides their true intentions and is willing to hurt other people just to protect themselves, Kaito would rather die as himself than live as that person.

This is a very important line, and very similar to the time Kaede said, “Do you really think I’d kill someone just to get out?”. Kaede never actually broke those words of hers, and Kaito isn’t going to break these.

(In case you wondered just how relevant to Kaito’s overall story this line is, Heartless Journey, aka chapter 5’s theme aka the closest thing this game has to a theme for Kaito, is playing right now.)

Kokichi: ��“Ooh, that’s a low blow right there…”

Yeah, it is. Kaito was simply stating the truth and not actively trying to make it a low blow, because he’s not Kokichi, but given how desperately Kaito wants to live, this is definitely a measure of just how disgusted he is by everything Kokichi stands for.

Kokichi:  “Then just die in a hole for all I care! We wanna live, so stop getting in our way!”

…Do you want to live, Kokichi? I thought your master plan that you’re working towards involves getting yourself killed. If you wanted to live, co-operating with everyone in escaping this place would have been the best way to do that, you know. You’re the one who’s been getting in the way of everybody else’s survival.

(Turns out Kaito is in fact going to die in a hole – one that’s even deeper than the diameter of the Earth. SPACE.)

Maki:  “Quit it. If you don’t shut your mouth, then I’ll shut it for you… permanently.”

Technically, Maki could actually do this right now with no repercussions. Gonta is currently the blackened, so if anyone else was murdered before his execution took place then it would come under the “if there are two murders at once, only the first one to be discovered will count” rule.

Gonta:  “Sorry… It Gonta’s fault everyone so upset…”

No, it’s not, Gonta! Just because they’re arguing over you doesn’t mean that the argument happening is your fault. It’s Kokichi’s.

(And okay, it is partially Gonta’s fault in terms of the Gonta who murdered Miu and gave Kokichi a reason to do this, but that’s not the Gonta who’s standing here.)

Gonta:  “Cuz Gonta not know anything! Really!”

Kokichi:  “Cut it out already! That’s all you’ve been saying this whole time!”

Yeah, Kokichi, maybe there’s a reason for that. Maybe you should have noticed this forever ago, since you’re the one person who knows how he should have been acting, instead of assuming that he’s somehow been an amazing liar (because obviously everyone’s good at lying) until just now when he suddenly became terrible at it.

Shuichi:  “Did… Gonta get into an accident in the Virtual World?”

It’s also interesting to note that literally everyone has been participating in this big argument just now in at least some way (even though Keebo’s only contribution was to tell Maki to calm down, and Tsumugi also only had one line) – except for Shuichi. He was silent throughout the whole thing and speaks up now to present a concrete theory and move the actual logic along. He is very much coming across like the only person here who has their shit together.

Kaito:  “He doesn’t… remember?”

I like how Kaito is the one to most vocally react to this theory, because this would turn everything on its head for him if it were true.

I mentioned this last post when Kaito confidently asserted that Gonta isn’t lying: Kaito’s way of seeing the truth is through his intuition of people rather than through empirical evidence. He believes in people he wants to believe in because him “wanting to believe” happens when his intuition is telling him they’re a good person, and he has enough faith in that intuition that he can basically accept it as fact, even if he has no idea how to explain why he feels that way.

Kaito’s principles about believing in people also make a point that if he gets betrayed, that’s his fault for misjudging someone. But for him to acknowledge that he made a mistake in his original judgement, he needs to see something new in that person’s behaviour that makes him realise what their true colours are – because that instinctive judgement is still how he perceives things.

Both previous times that someone he believed in has been the culprit, that’s exactly what happened. In trial 1, Kaito was one of the first people other than Shuichi to notice Kaede acting in a way that suggested she did it. The only reason he still struggled to accept her guilt was because she was otherwise still acting like the same person who always cared about them, and he didn’t realise at the time that she could have done it for selfless reasons. Plus, crucially, he did manage to accept that she’d done it before her motive was explained, because he could still see that from the way she was acting. And in trial 2, while I’m sure Kaito wanted to believe in Kirumi as someone who’d always been helping everyone, he picked up on the fact that she was determined to protect an “everyone” who wasn’t everyone in here, and from that he could presumably accept that she was desperate enough to kill over it. Not only that, but she was acting considerably more forceful and desperate once she was the main suspect in a way that made it clear it really was her, and while Kaito wasn’t explicitly shown reacting to that, that’s definitely something that would have shifted his judgement of her.

If Gonta remembered committing the murder and was trying to cover it up, there would absolutely have been something noticeably off about his behaviour that hinted at that, something nervous and agitated and painfully desperate that Kaito would definitely have picked up on by now. He wouldn’t have attributed it to Gonta being the murderer until Kokichi mentioned it, but upon hearing that, it would make sense to him. This would still have been a struggle for Kaito to accept, but no more of one than it was in Kaede’s case, where he managed it in the end.

However, as things stand, Kaito hasn’t picked up on any such behaviour that might hint that Gonta is the culprit, which until just now he could tell himself means that Gonta surely can’t have done it, because he’s that confident in his intuition. But now that memory loss has been suggested, suddenly there’s another explanation for why he can’t see any hint of guilt in Gonta’s behaviour that still makes that guilt quite possible from Kaito’s point of view.

Kaito:  “What do you mean he doesn’t remember!? He’s just confused!”

And so Kaito almost immediately goes on to insist that that’s definitely not what’s happening, because Gonta being the culprit would be so agonisingly painful that he just can’t allow it to be possible.

Gonta:  “Memory or no memory… Gonta never hurt anyone!”

Meanwhile, of course Gonta couldn’t possibly conceive of any circumstance in which he would hurt anyone, even having accepted that he might have forgotten about something that happened.

Tsumugi:  “Gonta’s definitely not the culprit!”

Gonta:  “Gonta not culprit!”

Kaito:  “No way Gonta’s the culprit!”

This is also quite clearly the best Mass Panic Debate in the game! All the others just have three different suspects all going “I’m not the culprit!”, saying the same words but meaning three different things with them, but this one delightfully turns that on its head and has all three people saying and meaning exactly the same thing.

The point of a Mass Panic Debate is supposed to be to illustrate how things have gotten so heated that people are shouting over each other, but honestly in every other instance it feels kind of forced that people would get so worked up over being one of at least three potential suspects that they’d scramble to defend themselves so desperately. But in this case it works much better, since there is only one possible suspect right now, and things have already reached boiling point over it. If ever there was actually a time for a trial mechanic based around characters being incredibly worked up, it’s now.

This trial has both of my favourite Rebuttal Showdowns, my favourite Debate Scrum, my favourite Mass Panic Debate, and, as I’m sure you can already imagine, my favourite Argument Armament coming up. Trial 4 is by far the best trial at utilising the full potential of the narrative-driven trial minigames to enhance the drama and character dynamics going on.

Gonta:  “Gonta is gentleman! Gentlemen protect friends!”

How on earth could you put a weak spot on this as if it could possibly be untrue, game. That is just cruel.

Kokichi:  “Your lies aren’t protecting anyone, you know.”

Stop being a dick, Kokichi. You’ve finally accepted that he doesn’t remember; you know he isn’t lying. And if he did still remember and was still lying, then he would be doing so in an attempt to protect everyone. Fuck you.

Tsumugi’s whole argument is also just insisting that Gonta would never hurt anyone, and, again, credit to her for actually being committed to this bit, because it sounds genuine. Everything else about the “character” she’s been playing has been very vaguely defined, leading to her doing stuff like saying she thinks that someone is innocent for no particular reason since she secretly knows who the real culprit is, and flip-flopping over whether a resurrected Rantaro did it in case 3 just to mess with Kaito. But there has been a consistent thread of her being on Gonta’s side this whole time. Maybe he’s her favourite character.

It’s also noteworthy that this would be the first case in which Tsumugi probably didn’t know who the culprit was going into the trial, because this case isn’t her story – it’s Kokichi’s. Still, I think that with her detachment from this whole thing, she probably has accepted that Gonta did it now, especially since it would make the best possible story if he did (and because she’s the only one who currently knows what his motive would be). So she’s just deliberately contributing to the heartwrenching nature of that story by continuing to pretend to be someone who believes in him and can’t bear to think he could kill anyone.

That said, I feel like it would have had more of an impact if the third most adamant person here was Himiko instead of Tsumugi. Gonta helped her quite a bit through her issues at the end of last chapter and the beginning of this one, even outside of the optional bonus scene, so it’d make her character arc still feel relevant if that resulted in her being noticeably one of the most passionate people about this. Himiko does believe in Gonta as things stand, but it’s not really emphasised very much.

Kaito:  “If there was a glitch… it should have affected all of us! But because we’re all okay… that means there was no glitch!”

Meanwhile, Kaito is the only person making a logical argument. He’s not joining in with the insistence that Gonta would simply never hurt anyone even though I’m sure he wants to, because he knows that logical arguments are necessary in order to not sound like he’s running away from the truth.

Gonta and even Tsumugi aren’t bothering to address the memory loss angle, because that doesn’t really change anything about the fact that they believe Gonta would never kill anyone. It doesn’t change anything about the objective evidence which points to Gonta being the culprit either, since the evidence has nothing to do with how the Gonta standing in front of us is behaving. But this means everything to Kaito. If Gonta doesn’t remember, then despite how very definitely he isn’t lying, suddenly his guilt wouldn’t seem so impossible to Kaito at all.

Shuichi:  (I know it sounds crazy, it’s no wonder it’s hard to believe… But… this is the truth…)

Shuichi is still keeping the fact that he’s finding this difficult to accept restricted to his inner monologue. On the surface, he’s just looking like he can face the truth without any struggle at all.

Oh, and – Kaito Refutations: 6!

Kokichi:  “If he mixed the consciousness and memory cords, then there’d be an error with memory. Like… an error that won’t let you bring your avatar’s memories to the real world…”

Kaito:  “Wh-What!?”

I adore that they chose to use this sprite for Kaito’s reaction here. I’m pretty sure he only ever looks this utterly horrified at two other points in the story – after Gonta’s execution, and upon seeing the “outside world”. Kaito has very good reason to look equally horrified here upon realising that Gonta really did lose his memory. Not only does this make it suddenly possible in Kaito’s eyes that Gonta could have done it, it also conversely means that actually accepting Gonta did it is going to be almost impossible for him. Kaito’s way of perceiving and understanding the truth is through his instinctive judgement of people – but if Gonta forgot everything, then the Gonta who actually participated in the events of the case and may or may not have killed Miu isn’t here. If Gonta really did do it, Kaito would never be able to “see” that. He’s just going to have to believe that Gonta did something awful with no “proof” – not what he instinctively uses as proof, that is – and there’s no way Kaito could ever do that.

The out-universe writers didn’t only choose to have Gonta lose his memory because it’s heartbreaking from Gonta’s point of view (and therefore for everyone else in their sympathy towards Gonta) in that he’s technically still innocent – it’s also a crucial part of why Kaito in particular has such a big problem with facing this truth. If it wasn’t for this, Kaito might have been able to accept it.

Himiko:  “I said it over and over!” [gesturing with her right hand] “Right is the hand you hold your chopsticks in!”

Gonta:  [raising his left hand] “Oh, but Gonta hold chopsticks with this hand…”

And here we have the most unique and clever use of a character’s left-handedness in a murder mystery ever.

This isn’t about Gonta being stupid. This is a problem of language. He was raised for most of his childhood speaking his forest family’s language such that he apparently doesn’t know which directions the human words “left” and “right” refer to. When they were talking about where to put the cords, Gonta must have been hesitant to speak up to ask what those words meant because he assumed it was something he was supposed to know and didn’t want to sound stupid and get in everybody’s way. Then Himiko helpfully told him which hand “right” is, so he didn’t have to!

(It’s actually possible that his forest language doesn’t even have direct equivalents to those words. I gather that there are some aboriginal languages that refer to direction in absolute terms rather than relative, meaning that people will always talk about things using compass directions regardless of which direction they’re personally facing. Your right hand could for example be “your north hand” or “your south hand” depending on which way you’re facing, even though it’s the same hand, and there is no concept of “right”. Maybe Gonta’s forest language was like that too.)

Apparently Gonta is also unaware of the fact that his left-handedness is uncommon, otherwise he would have realised that Himiko might not be talking about the hand he uses and made sure to clarify it. Either his forest culture never really made a big deal of handedness in general, or Reptites are predominantly left-handed, so that Gonta never realised he was unusual for humans. There you go, I figured out some Chrono Trigger lore which is totally canon, right.

Gonta:  “Gonta not even go to this ‘Ver-chew-ul World’ place…”

Tsumugi:  “What…?”

Gonta:  “Gonta fall asleep when he put helmet on… When Gonta wake up… Miu dead… Gonta not know what happened…”

And finally everyone listens to Gonta for long enough and Gonta explains himself well enough for them to realise that, oh shit, he literally meant this the whole time. We could have had everyone figure this out earlier if they hadn’t written Gonta off as stupid or if Gonta had been more assertive about things, and it wouldn’t actually have changed that much about how this trial went – everyone would have just been all, “oh, well that’s awkward, guess you can’t be much help here, Gonta,” and continued on regardless. But having it be revealed only now when the fact that Gonta forgot everything suddenly makes it more believable that he’s the culprit (especially to Kaito) is the perfect way to do it.

Gonta:  “But Gonta try his best to understand. Gonta imagine real hard—”

I know you did, Gonta! You’ve been trying so hard to picture everything everyone’s been talking about and still be helpful!

Gonta:  “W-Wait a minute! That lie! Gonta not kill Miu! Cuz… why would Gonta do that!?”

Kaito:  “Yeah, it’s a lie! I’ll never accept this! And besides! Gonta’s got no motive to kill Miu!”

That’s exactly why this is so goddamn hard for both of them – there is no conceivable reason Gonta would ever have done it based on what they know, and so long as Gonta doesn’t remember (and Kokichi doesn’t tell them), they’re never going to think otherwise.

Kokichi:  “…I already gave you my testimony on how I came up with the murder plan.”

Kaito:  “And I’m saying I don’t believe you!”

Shuichi:  “Kokichi, if what you’re saying is true, why did you plan it this way?”

Hah, I like the way it immediately shifts from Kaito’s overemotional anger to Shuichi’s calm and reasoned logic, showing even more the contrast between the two and that Kaito’s way of going about things is not the right way to do this at all.

Monokuma:  “Only the person who actually commits the murder becomes the blackened!”

Keebo:  “Then there’s no incentive to just plan the murder…”

That’s only if the goal is escaping. If someone wanted something other than escape, such as, I don’t know, to kill two people without any repercussions to themselves at all, then there is absolutely incentive to just plan and instigate a murder without personally carrying it out.

Shuichi:  “But Gonta’s such a gentle soul. Why would he agree to this?”

Kaito:  “Hold on! That hasn’t been decided yet!”

Oh, Kaito. Shuichi’s asking basically the same question Kaito just was – questioning what Gonta’s motive would be – but he’s wording it in a way that implies he’s already assuming Gonta did it, and Kaito’s having none of that.

Kokichi:  “Who cares about the motive? Let’s vote for the culprit already.”

I wonder if Kokichi’s trying to skip ahead to the vote now because he knows he’s convinced enough people already. Himself, Shuichi, Keebo and probably Maki by this point are pretty sure Gonta did it. Gonta, Kaito and probably Tsumugi (as far as she’s pretending) aren’t, and I’m not sure about Himiko, but even if Himiko also isn’t, that’d put it at an even split – which is exactly what Kokichi asked Monokuma about at the beginning and learned would still count as a win for the spotless. (Maybe. That bit was more awkward than I originally thought, actually.)

Tsumugi:  “I care about the motive!”

Kokichi:  “Well, I don’t care. Finding the culprit is more important in this class trial. Talking about the motive is meaningless. It’s not necessary for this specific case.”

It wasn’t necessary for any of the other cases either, but that didn’t mean we didn’t talk about it anyway to put everyone’s minds at ease (or not, in Kiyo’s case). I could go on about how much of a dick Kokichi’s being here, but obviously that’s the idea: he knows that not knowing Gonta’s motive makes this more painful for everyone and he’s trying to make a point of how evil he is. That and if they don’t know Gonta’s motive then it’s totally just that this person everyone trusted was actually a horrible backstabber all along and couldn’t possibly have done it for a reason that meant he still deserved their trust, right? – although admittedly he’s not actively trying to get across that point here, because, again, I don’t think doing so by making Gonta a murderer was ever him consciously thinking about that.

Kaito:  “No matter what you say… I’ll never believe your lies.”

Kokichi’s being an inconsiderate dick right now, but he’s not actually lying, because these are the kind of statements that can’t even be lies. Kaito just can’t deal with this and is lashing out at Kokichi, not even for the well-deserved reason that he’s being a terrible fucking person, but for the incorrect notion that he’s lying about all this, because if he is then that means Gonta’s not guilty and that has to be the truth.

Kokichi:  “Shuichi! You’ll be my partner, right!?”

Shuichi:  (…Me?)

Kokichi:  “Because if you don’t face the truth then we’ll all die, riiiiight? And you don’t want that, do you?”

Oh, finally, Kokichi’s actually mentioning the meaningful point that the real reason Shuichi is doing this is to save everyone. Took him long enough.

Kokichi:  “O-kaaay! Let’s begin!”

Kaito:  “Quit screwing around! I’m done putting up with your selfish bullshit!”

Kaito does not want any of this to happen. He knows deep down that Gonta really must have done it and that if this process of elimination that Kokichi’s about to begin happens then it’ll just become even more obviously undeniable – and therefore even more clear that Kaito just isn’t strong enough to face the truth.

Keebo:  “Kaito, we should listen to his explanation. Our lives depend on it.”

Kaito:  “Grh…”

And then not even Kokichi or Shuichi but Keebo points out that Kaito’s inability to face the truth is just going to put everyone’s lives in danger if anyone else decides to go along with it. Kaito’s not happy about having that mentioned.

Kokichi:  “Shuichi, would you care to explain? I doubt they’ll believe it if it came from me.”

I mean, they should believe it no matter who it comes from, because again, it’d be the kind of statement that’s just a statement of facts about the case and cannot be a lie. But Kaito at least would almost certainly refuse to believe it anyway, using the fact that Kokichi said it as an excuse to run away from the part where it’s still objectively true regardless. However, if Shuichi explains it, even Kaito couldn’t deny it, because Kaito knows Shuichi’s always right about everything, and Kokichi of course knows full well that Kaito sees him that way.

Shuichi:  “They couldn’t get to the crime scene, could they?”

Kokichi:  “The bridge from the chapel to the mansion was gone, and only Miu could pass through the wall. The three at the chapel had no way to get to the mansion, so they couldn’t have done it.”

That said, Kokichi still explains most of this himself, and will do this same thing for all of the elimination steps. All he’s doing is getting Shuichi to essentially endorse his statements so that no-one (not even Kaito) can argue. It would have been more painfully jabbing at Kaito’s jealousy if Kokichi had forced Shuichi to explain the whole thing. Come on, Kokichi, you’ve been slipping on this for the entire second half of the trial.

Shuichi:  (The reason why Kaito isn’t a suspect is…)

-      He wouldn’t kill anybody

I like how this is one of the possible answers to write off Kaito. It’s very true! But… it’s also true about Gonta, and yet here we are.

Look at Kaito turning away like this even though it’s currently being explained why he’s innocent – he can’t be happy about that, not now. Perhaps Shuichi looked in Kaito’s direction while saying his part and Kaito couldn’t bear to look him in the eye.

I would also like to point out that this is not the sprite Kaito had the last time he had a text box, and Kokichi is the one speaking here, so Kaito shouldn’t have changed sprites. They put in another exception to the game’s usual coding on this so that Kaito would be painfully facing away from Shuichi as the camera focused on him here!

(Okay, they actually changed everyone’s sprites in this bit while Kokichi is explaining how each of them couldn’t have done it. But shush, it definitely has the most impact with Kaito.)

Himiko:  “Nyeeeh… Kokichi’s completely running the show now.”

Kaito:  “…”

This is the first time this trial that the camera has panned to Kaito saying nothing and it hasn’t been about Shuichi, and I’m disappointed. Shuichi could be the one running the show right now if Kokichi really wanted him to be! That would hurt Kaito more!

Kokichi:  “My synergy with Shuichi is super on point now, so let’s move onto the remaining suspects.”

Yeah, no, that’s not what synergy means. None of this is the two of you working together to figure out something you couldn’t have done alone. This is just you forcing Shuichi to join in with stating facts that you both figured out completely separately.

Side note: what was Kokichi planning to do here if Shuichi and Tsumugi didn’t completely coincidentally happen to be together at the time the crashing sound happened? …Then again, I suppose Shuichi would immediately have run to the dining room and found Tsumugi there anyway so that’d have been good enough.

Kokichi:  “That leaves only Gonta and me as the remaining suspects…”

Kaito:  “Then you’re the culprit!”

Oh, Kaito. You know that’s not true.

Kokichi:  “So then, it’s down to one person. And who was that again?”

Gonta:  “Uh… Uhhh…”

Gontaaaaaaaa. He hasn’t had attention drawn to him at all throughout this whole process of elimination, but apparently what he was doing during it was slowly breaking down sobbing. Even though he doesn’t want to believe he did it, Shuichi says it couldn’t be anyone but him, and Shuichi is always right, isn’t he…?

Kokichi:  “Weeeell? Who is it?”

Kaito:  “Don’t answer, Shuichi! You don’t need to answer that!”

This whole time, while Shuichi has been unflinchingly acknowledging the possibility that Gonta could have done it, he still hasn’t actually stated for certain that he did. Kaito doesn’t want him to answer because if he does, that’ll make it the truth – after all, Shuichi is always right, isn’t he? Not only that, but it’ll be Shuichi very explicitly and directly facing that truth, which is exactly what Kaito can’t do.

Kaito:  “This is all Kokichi’s trap!”

And this is the only thing Kaito can think of that would justify why Shuichi shouldn’t answer that, even though that possibility doesn’t change the fact that this is what the evidence points towards. This is Kokichi’s trap, but it’s a trap that uses the truth.

It is absolutely evil (in a good way) that the game’s creators make you go into the accusation screen and officially accuse a helplessly sobbing Gonta. Every other time they’ve used that screen, it’s been because identifying the culprit was the player figuring out a new fact that hadn’t been established yet. But we’ve been talking about it being Gonta for a while now. This isn’t necessary at all, yet the writers force you to feel just as awful as Shuichi does by making you do this anyway.

(They also force you to face the truth even though it hurts to do, just like Shuichi is doing. Kaito would have stayed on the accusation screen until the time limit ran out and failed the trial. Or repeatedly tried to accuse Kokichi until he ran out of health.)

Shuichi:  “I-It’s… it’s… Gonta.”

Kaito:  “Sh-Shuichi!?”

Sorry, Kaito. Shuichi really is a lot stronger than you are right now.

The last two times Shuichi accused someone he wanted to believe in (by which I mean not Kiyo, why is case 3 even a thing), he had difficulty doing so and needed encouragement to manage it, from Kaede herself in the first case and from Kaito in the second. But now he can do it not only without Kaito’s encouragement but while Kaito is actively trying to discourage him.

Still, Shuichi clearly had some trouble saying that, so it’s not that he’s doing it without struggling over it! But it doesn’t look like Kaito can see past the fact that he did it at all to recognise that.

Kokichi:  “You get it now, right? That’s the truth we were all reaching for. The thing you guys wanted so badly! A truth without any lies!”

Geez, Kokichi, stop sounding so goddamn victimised over this. The only reason everyone wants nothing but the truth right now is because Monokuma decided that we all die if we don’t find it. They’re not doing it to spite you in particular.

Kokichi:  “Miu Iruma’s killer is… Gonta Gokuhara!”

Shuichi:  “…Ah!”

Shuichi is still struggling a little bit with this! He can entertain possibilities and follow the logic wherever it goes, but his issues still make directly accusing people the most difficult part for him.

This is the one time so far that Shuichi has visibly shown difficulty in facing this truth, something that hasn’t just been in his inner monologue. Ideally Kaito would notice this and it might help him just a little… but I don’t think he does. I think he’s too caught up in the fact that Shuichi can face this impossibly painful truth at all while he can’t. All Kaito’s seen this whole trial is Shuichi being an invincible hero who very clearly doesn’t need his help, to the point that that’s the image he’s projecting onto Shuichi even now that it’s not quite the image Shuichi’s giving off.

---

[Next post]

[5darkhorse9]

Meteora

It’s been extremely hard these past weeks since the last time, extremely emotionally challenging, I am always in my head, spinning the same thoughts over and over and wishing I did things differently and said things differently. I really felt like I was going insane. Feeling so stuck because I can’t go back and undo anything, so sad, frustrated and filled with regret because in the end it was always MY CHOICE AND NOBODY ELSE’S to continue in a situation that was bad for me. 

I didn’t keep hooking up with you because it physically felt amazing or I could orgasm hard or anything of that sort. I did because it was you and I was really into you and found it difficult to let go. Because I genuinely enjoyed spending time with you and I found temporary comfort and happiness in that intimacy with you. If we're looking at straight facts, I know you finished each time obviously, but other than the first time we ever hooked up when you took me to your house, you never made me cum, so it really wasn’t about that and I never put any thought into it, just felt nice to be with you like that and have that connection. I didn’t question it because I really liked you. It hit me that at the end of the day, you didn’t really ever deeply get to know me and my body like that and what feels good/what doesn’t. Then the sex happened and we already discussed the first time crap; moving on, the second time we had sex, I know you REALLY tried and I felt better and more connected. The third time was good, I thought I was finally getting to a more comfortable level with you, but I got REALLY drunk emotional after, and the reality of the situation started seeping in. And we had a convo about how empty and sad I feel when you leave and I explained to you the whole addiction analogy I had to you and chasing the highs and then withdrawing, cuz thats exactly what was happening. I was chasing temporary highs because I was so lost and this seemed like the only good thing in my life, but withdrawal hit me so hard each time. Then the last time you came over, reality slapped like a motherfucker and whether I wanted it to or not, my body knew this wasn't right. It wasn’t exactly the best time if I'm being honest, halfway through I wasn’t really into it, but you came over for a reason obv and I wasn't gonna ruin it for you. I’ve been analyzing everything over and over and looking back, I was SO BLIND all this time, and have been lying to myself so much that it’s beyond disturbing. 

In my gut I always knew this whole situation was wrong, but always ignored it, threw everything in the back burner because I had that attachment to you. I got into suppression mode a while ago, and kept lying to myself over and over and chasing temporary highs with you. I bounced back every time that I felt like you hurt me and carried on. I stayed in this toxic situation and participated in the cycle over and over, because of multiple reasons. I didn’t love myself enough to be able to step away from being a side hoe type thing, to walk away simply because I deserve better. Let me start off saying this isn’t intended to be an attack towards you, I'm really mostly dealing with myself and how much I FUCKED up my morals and have lost myself completely while pointing out some truths to you. SO I'm just gonna try to be honest throughout this post.

As much as the first time hurt, I got over it, we talked about that and you were more careful and whatnot the second time, trying different positions over and over, paying attention to my body, which is why that was my favorite time, but after that it was always just....rough. And I get it, from your perspective you thought I was into the whole rough thing, you aren't really with virgins ever, and I was able to always take it without saying anything despite the fact that I literally was not experienced. I let you do your thing and fuck me your way. I’ve always let you be in charge. Thing is, it never stopped hurting. It hurt all the times we had sex, sometimes still a lot, not to the extent of first time, but still hurt. But like being kinda kinky, I would find a weird “pleasure” in the pain, I found it hot, the whole you dominating me thing. Being fucked into oblivion and all that, with the exception of the last time, I enjoyed being in that moment with you, that’s what was hot. Despite having no experience, only having sex a limited amount of times, and having them SO spaced out, I still always let you go full force as much as it hurt and just took it. 

As much as I liked spending time with you, I realized I was never actually able to FULLY relax around you, my body was always tense in some form and I would feel myself tightening up as you would enter me, which I'm sure felt good for you, but it hurt for me. The pain would get better as we got into it but it also contributed to me never having an orgasm. The last time the pain never really got better throughout it, and when I asked you if I could get on top you wouldn't let it happen, that just turned me off and made it hurt even more. I told you “I need a break from your big dick” not to boost your ego, but I didn’t want to ruin the moment and be like “can you stop fucking me it hurts”.... I guess it turned me off that you kept fucking me your way and it took you a while to finally switch, just wasn't into it and then back to that position that you enjoy...at that point I just let you finish, not the best time for me. But what you said after killed it completely. 

We’re sitting there after, and you’re all pleased, I'm just sitting there feeling sore and whatever and we talked about why I couldn’t finish..and you said “well its not me, I don’t have this problem”... basically saying it’s my fault? Not cool honestly, you don’t say that shit to a girl who has always given you and only you her body unconditionally despite the fact that she knew you didn't love her and didn't want to be with her and has done nothing but made you feel good. That coupled with you saying “well jaime cums like twice before I did” and “you're hard to please” literally NOTHING that I want to EVER hear combined with the fact that it never really felt good for me. All that REALLY fucked me up mentally, and the best part was when you leave me alone and I'm sitting on the toilet in pain and crying after making me feel like there was something wrong with me and feeling used...it was one of the worst moments I ever experienced. I started feeling shitty about my body again, like there was something wrong with me sexually but really like it’s the situation with you that was the problem. I can literally cum in minutes just being tuned on and not even looking at porn when I'm alone lol so my body is NOT the problem here. It’s everything about the situation not being right. 

The aftermath has always been hard, each time my back and stomach and vagina hurts for days after, I still bled after each time and always felt nauseous after for days. My vagina gets so inflamed that it hurts to pee until the next day each time.  I should've never had to go through any of that, it’s not normal, but it’s just mostly result of trauma combined with my body NOT being comfortable enough to let go like that and knowing this is a wrong situation. My body was literally screaming at me to stop doing this and I never listened...I was so lost

Honestly, I didn't know better, I didn’t have experience and obviously liking you and the intimacy I could have with you, I was blind and normalized all this, when in fact it wasn’t normal...at all. I would think “maybe this is just how sex is” (it shouldn't be) and I would get through it and want to have that experience and connection with you again because it just felt good to be in that moment, but the sex itself never felt good for me, it was really just about getting to do it with you that’s what was hot. After coming to my senses and looking back, I realized I really just was subconsciously after intimacy and feeling wanted rather than that rough sex, I was just seeking it in the wrong place...

It sucks hearing about how sex feels great and all that but I'm just stuck in “it just hurts - what’s the point of it?” it’s shitty when I hear friends talk about how good it can be, and I just get sad when I think about it... (similar to after first time). It’s one of the shittiest feelings, because I'm a REALLY sexual and horny person, if you had ever gotten me to be comfortable enough around you over time, I'd be a FREAK lol (but we were never together like that and I would just hold back cuz I didn't feel like I could let go at all)

For me to just sit there and keep associating sex with pain/discomfort is just really fucking sad and I know it shouldn't be that way and that makes me shut down, same exact feelings I had after first time. If this situation involved you not having a girlfriend and sneaking and me being able to not feel as wrong and actually be totally comfortable with you, it’d be different. I would feel like I could talk to you about it more and go more slowly at it until I got to that point where it could be rough and all that. But everything about the situation was wrong in every sense and again, you weren't there to just “take things slow” you were trying to fuck lol and I just...let it happen, regrettably. Again, MY CHOICE. That’s the worst part. Also me and you have completely different views of sex and what it means and I always looked past that and tried to go against my instincts because again, my attachment to you.

I think if you build that comfort and care with someone the kinky/rough whatever sex.. it could be amazing...but this situation wasn’t right for me from the gecko. It lacked that true emotional connection I needed and deserved because DUH YOU HAVE A FUCKING GF LOL.  My lack of experience and being so tight, shouldn't have always just jumped into it...NOT what my body needed. Mentally I thought it’s all “hot” and allowed it for the reasons I mentioned, but deep down I just wanted something passionate and kept lying to myself without even thinking about it. In reality, what I needed as a virgin was a few first times of slower, gentle sex until I was READY for the more intense and I wouldn’t have gone through all the horrible shit I went through. But again, I went to the wrong source; that kind of sex would come from a loving boyfriend who cared about me, versus you were in it for a side hookup and NOT responsible for any of that. I know you weren't coming over for some “loving sex” lol... we not like that and like you said before if you wanted that you had ur gf so I never thought to speak up about what I really wanted and just continued... I’m highly disturbed at how I accepted so much less than I deserved because I lacked self love and confidence and I didn’t think I deserved better...I would shut myself down, lie to myself and let you do your way because whatever it was hot in my la la land fucked up fantasy world.

If I had waited for someone that was actually into me and dedicated to me, and I was comfortable and let them explore my body in every way until they fully learned my kinks and the COMMUNICATION was there, I know I could be having amazing sex after a few times, but it was MY choice to continue in this situation and not speak up and it RUINED sex for me and its a choice I will always have to live with as I heal. 

Think about it, all I know about sex now is that it hurts, there’s no comfort after and I'm always left alone. I regret these choices I made but I can’t escape my own thoughts and have to live with it and just grow from the experience. It’s a dead end even if I kept being in this situation with you because it’s like drinking a slow poison. I just have to focus on me and heal from all this and just have to wait for the right guy to come along that loves me genuinely and makes me feel at ease, I think that’s when I will really enjoy sex and see my full potential. It’s a sad and lonely road but that’s how its gonna have to be which really sucks. 

I just needed to spill everything because I am constantly haunted by all these thoughts and trapped in my head and I just can’t do it anymore. I’m saying all this not so you feel bad but so that you know some more background as I don’t usually speak up and obviously you can’t read minds lol so you should know what’s up, and also so that in the future if you think about asking to fuck again that you just don’t, I don’t want you to tell me like before “you’re rejecting me”.. cuz I’m not. I just know if I do this again with you, its just going to feel wrong (for all the reasons I mentioned, including the BIG ONE - being a side piece to someone with a gf).. i’m not going to be comfortable and it’s going to further damage me and delay the healing process. I can't keep sabotaging myself like this...For once I have to do the right thing and I cant keep putting myself in this toxic cycle and situation when it doesn’t benefit me in any way and in fact has destroyed me in the long run. I have to take care of myself and focus on myself and be a better person really, I can eat well and go to the gym every day but what I really have to work on is loving myself and my self worth and KNOW how I deserve such good things and hopefully one day, I will find happiness.

At the end of the day, you're literally the first person I ever gave myself away to like that and as much as I wish it didn’t happen, and I have been upset with you a lot before, really, I am not mad at you or anything because it was always my own choice to partake in a situation I knew was wrong. But life goes on and we get stronger. So I always have and will care about you as a person despite everything I went through and like we said before, we’re still homies/have each other’s back at work type thing, but I hope you can understand where I'm coming from and how I have to finally be better to myself and love that amazing soul that I have (even if you may not see it, I know other people do and the right guy one day will once I let myself be loved by the right person). 

As much as I’ve been lying to myself, I need to feel loved and cared for to really let go/enjoy sex like that, otherwise its gonna keep feeling wrong

Like when you asked if I liked cuddling ..that’s all I want with someone is that closeness but I’m always afraid w you cuz we’re not together like that so I’ve always had to be in the mindset to “detach” and that’s always gone against my emotional nature

And when you said “it doesn’t bother you that I have a gf” no… it always bothered me but I was always too attached and threw that in the back burner and hid most vulnerable feelings from u

Like you said last time “I deserve having someone there for me after the sex for the lovey dovey crap”

If we both single, might be different I wouldn’t feel wrong about the situation and unworthy/ would be at ease with you and cum, but it has always felt wrong with you having a gf 

I can’t do the emotional roller coasters anymore, was finding myself missing someone who I’m always a second option to,  nah dude, it’s so toxic in long run

I enjoy spending time w/you but then you leave and I always felt more alone and empty than ever

Just need to do the right thing even when its hard; you stick to only fucking jamie like she deserves and I just continue on my own and learn to love myself/heal until I meet the right guy one day who is all about me and makes me feel loved

I want a relationship along with that intimacy and to be able to do other things with them, and that was something I could never get from you so can’t keep torturing myself and delaying healing process 

I know this doesn’t change much for you, you fall back into comfort of ur relationship

For me I been trying to just start taking care of myself and feeling low, eating better going to gym and crying until the pain resolves one day

Otherwise nothing changes for me in our dynamic, exactly like we talked about last time - we still homies. Obvs I care about you and think of you, and u can come to me about anything/always here for you and all that.

[starspatter]

Heroes and Thieves, Ch. 11

Title: Heroes and Thieves Fandom/Universe: BTAS, pre/post-RotJ flashback

Summary: A story about second chances, healing, and having hope.

Rating: PG-13, for references to character death, child psychological torture and trauma.

Genre: Romance/Family/Friendship/Hurt/Comfort

Word Count: 4,380 Previous Chapters: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Also on ff.net and AO3.

There was a time when I was alone Nowhere to go and no place to call home My only friend was the man in the moon And even sometimes he would go away, too

-Ruth B, "Lost Boy"

————————–

Before.

“Batman, wait!”

Robin was too late; Batman had already charged ahead by ruthlessly breaking down the door to the house with the sole of his boot.  A low-key villain calling himself “Cluemaster” (whom Robin had incidentally never heard much of until now compared to the likes of Riddler or Joker, having supposedly gone “straight” for a couple years – at least according to Batman) had led them on a lengthy chase, and they ended up pursuing him all the way out to a small neighborhood in the suburbs.  As they infiltrated the dwelling, Robin hastily checked around to make sure no homeowners were present who could be caught in the fray – or worse, taken as collateral.

Fortunately the room was empty, aside from their glaringly orange-clad target in the middle of it, reaching for one of the plasti-glass pellets attached to the front of his costume. Batman had already anticipated the move though and launched forward faster than the other, lurching a blurred glove into his opponent’s throat, which caused him to drop the canister as his body was slammed hard against the wall.

“You’re under arrest for multiple counts of grand larceny, Cluemaster.  Or should I say, Arthur Brown?”

With his other hand, he grasped at the bandana covering the lower half of the man’s face, which had already come loose from the force of impact.  He jerked the rest of the kerchief off to expose a snarl under the guise, the owner evidently infuriated by the idea his identity had been so easily discovered.

“Now, where’s the money you stole?”

Arthur sneered.

“Why don’t I give you a clue to its whereabouts, and you can figure it out yourself, since you’re so smart?”

Batman growled as he grabbed his foe’s collar, lifting high into the air, letting free-dangling feet flail frantically.

“I don’t have time for these games.  Either you tell me voluntarily, or I’ll make you confess.”

Robin was getting anxious by the aggressiveness in Batman’s tone; making threats of violence wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, but he’d been out of sorts all night, acting excessively and extremely hostile, leaping into enemy territory with heedless disregard to danger – to himself or those around him.  Sans his usual sangfroid.  He was starting to sound like that time Scarecrow dosed him with a gas that took away all his fear, resulting in Batman almost taking a henchman’s life.  It had taken all of Robin’s strength to haul him back up after Batman cut the line…

The current captive seemed to be getting panicky too, as he quickly changed his attitude, appealing to sympathy instead.

“Listen, I’ve got a wife and kid.  They’re asleep upstairs.  I just needed the cash to help support them.  We’re in a bit of a financial jam, y’see…”

Robin’s conscience wavered, recalling the time they had to prevent a penniless man from holding up a drugstore in order to obtain medicine for his daughter, who was simply sick with a high fever.  Of course this was theft on a much greater scale, but he still couldn’t help having some lingering empathy – especially based on his own past experiences dealing with poverty.

“That's one of the hardest things about this job, Robin.  Sometimes we have to stop someone from doing the wrong thing for the right reason.”

“…Daddy?”

As if on cue, all three revolved towards the top of the staircase, where a young girl with golden curls – probably about his age – was standing in bare feet and violet nightgown, beholding the scene before her with baffled eyes, big and blue and broad.

“Darling, why don’t you go back to bed?”  Arthur choked out, his own eyes bulging as cheeks turned indigo as well.  “You’re just having a bad dream.”

“Arthur?  What’s going on here?  I heard a loud noise…”

Robin swallowed as a woman emerged from behind the adolescent, gripping the girl’s shoulders as she drew her daughter in protectively, eyeing the pair of home intruders with fear and suspicion.  The situation was steadily turning from bad to worse.  He hurriedly bounded up the steps, trying to block at least the shorter one’s view with his arms and cape, acting as both shield and shroud.

“Both of you should stay back…”

Batman’s prey put on a pleading, pathetic look.

“Now now, you wouldn’t hit a guy in front of his family, would you?”

While his quivering lips pouted, his pupils seemed to flash triumphant.  Robin felt a sick chill in his stomach.  Had he set this up just to take advantage of innocent citizens – and his provider status for them – as an alibi?

Whatever the reason, Batman wasn’t falling for it.  While he slowly lowered his fist, he continued to glower viciously at his victim.

“I’m still taking you in. The police will be here soon, they can interrogate you.  And if you don’t admit to them, well…”  He leaned in close, crescent slivers narrowing.  Intimidating.  “They’ll just have to call me.”

With that, he twisted his prisoner around, pressing head harshly against partition again as he slapped a pair of handcuffs on.  Robin sensed the two frightened females peering over his shoulders, crying and clinging to each other as sirens started to wail outside, and the junior one almost looked like she was about to join them.   He thought about reaching out to try and comfort her, but a cold bark from Batman halted him.

“Let’s go, Robin.”

“But Batman-”

“Now.”

He was already halfway out the side exit when he said this, and, after a moment’s hesitation, Robin bit his lip and vaulted over the railing to race after him, cloak whisking out of sight just as officers began filing in.  As they headed back towards the Batmobile parked in the shadows close by, Robin hissed his irritation.

“You know, there were a million other ways you could’ve handled that.”

“I did what was necessary in order to get him to talk.  The police should have an easier time of it now.”

“Yeah, but did you have to do it while his wife and child were watching?  This is exactly the reason Nightwing left you, remember?”

Batman blatantly ignored the bold declaration of disapproval as his pager began to beep: a message from Batgirl, requesting backup.

“Armed robbery in progress, escalated to a hostage situation over on the north side.  We’re needed.”

“Did you even hear what I just said?”

Batman brusquely cut him off.

“We’ll discuss this later, at home.  Now get in the car.”

Robin grumbled, but grudgingly obeyed.

They never did discuss it though.  Concurring collectively, both Batman and Batgirl determined there were too many hired guns in the building, deeming it far too “risky” to bring Robin – the “kid” – along. …Plus it was a school night.  So Batman swung swiftly by the manor on the way, dropping Robin – Tim – off unceremoniously at the front gate despite loud and adamant protests, where Alfred was waiting to pick him up and march him straight on inside to get changed and ready for dinner.

“And ‘don’t forget to do your homework’,’” Tim mimicked Bruce’s reprimanding voice with a querulous whine as the vehicle sped off, leaving him in the dust.  “God, he still treats me like such a child.”

The butler patted his charge’s back consolingly, ushering within.

“Come along, Master Timothy. There are cookies and cocoa waiting for you inside – after you finish with your studies, that is.  We wouldn’t want to spoil your appetite, now would we?”

Tim shot an exasperated expression at the patronizing statement, but acquiesced.  Upon entering, he immediately tore off the mask and tossed it on the table in frustrated anger, flopping sullenly onto the couch without even bothering to remove the rest of the suit.  Alfred tutted, but made no remark as he disappeared into the kitchen, promising food would be served shortly.

As Tim gazed at the fireplace, he stewed over Batman’s earlier reckless – not to mention downright rude – behavior.  How could he even be so cruel and insensitive?  It wasn’t just the bossing around that bugged him, but he was genuinely rather troubled by Bruce’s mental state.  …Truth be told, he had a guess as to the cause for callousness.  He’d noticed a common trend in increasing indiscretion (and intractability) after their latest visit to Arkham, when they stopped by Two-Face’s cell following another escape – and subsequent suicide attempt.  Ever since he’d developed a third personality who judged himself guilty and sentenced to death for his sins, his condition had been gradually worsening.  It was to the point he – and his coin – had to be kept under constant watch and isolated lockdown.

Tim was never really sure how to feel about Two-Face (in the same way his chest was always confused and ached a little whenever he faced Clayface).  The man murdered his father; Tim supposed he should hate him for that. In addition, he’d even once mercilessly electrocuted Nightwing with a wire taser, forcing the senior superhero’s heart to completely stop.  …Had he not promptly administered CPR and literally brought his brother back from the brink of death, he might have lost another family member that day.

But, according to Dick, Bruce and Harvey had been good friends once – which explained why his guardian always bore a grieved semblance whenever they went up against Dent.  …Tim tried to imagine what it must be like, to watch one’s once close companion fight a losing battle against himself.  Clearly it was taking a capricious toll on the old man’s emotional and psychological well-being as well, making him far more mercurial and volatile – prone to violent vagaries.

Yet, even Tim recognized that didn’t excuse him taking it out on others, especially when it interfered with their work.  (Frankly that didn’t seem to be the only thing distracting recently either, given Batman and Batgirl had been ditching him more and more often as of late, citing his “immaturity” as pretense.  …But he didn’t really want to think about that right now.)  He was concerned about that girl as well.  Screw Batman, he should’ve stayed to try and talk to her.  At least give her some reassurance after witnessing such a harrowing event.

Making up his mind, he snatched his domino from the counter and was out the door (cautiously evading the security cameras he knew were watching overhead) just as Alfred came to call him for dinner.  Upon finding the parlor empty, and after exhausting all other options of where the lad might have gone to within the mansion (including underground area), the caretaker finally murmured in alarm.

“…Oh dear.”

…

It took Robin longer to get back by grapple alone, but eventually he made it to his destination. Descending on the rooftop from a nearby tree, he tiptoed towards a single annexed dormer window which jutted prominently from the tiles.  Testing the lucarne’s latch, it luckily wasn’t locked and slid open with relative ease. Silently slipping in, he was greeted almost instantly by an unpredicted punch to the face.

As he was thrown flat onto the bed, survival instinct triggered to roll over and try to fight back, but his own fists arrested when he saw his assailant was the same girl from before, glaring at him with mistrust.

“Who are you?!  Some kind of creepazoid stalker?”

“Whoa, whoa!  It’s me, Robin.  You know, from before?”

She stared at him, realization dawning.

“Oh.  …Sorry.  I didn’t know it was you.”

The way she said it, she still didn’t seem very impressed.

“…I’d hate to be someone you were expecting,” Robin muttered, rubbing at his sore jaw.

She folded her arms firmly.

“So?  What the heck are you doing here?  Again?”

“I- I just wanted to check and see if you were okay, after… all that.”

An eyebrow raised.

“And you thought coming in through the window was the best way to go about it?”

“…In hindsight that might not have been the best plan,” he acknowledged, repentant.  “Sorry.  Being with him tends to rub off on you.  I apologize if he scared you earlier.  He’s really not a bad guy.”

She exhaled, letting her limbs down.

“No, my father is, right? …It’s okay.  I know who and what my dad is.  He deserves to go to jail.”

Robin cocked in confusion at this unanticipated acceptance.

“But… He’s still your dad.”

“Yeah, and I hate him.” Her knuckles clenched, tightening. “He just wanted to use Mom and me to get away with his crimes.  We’re basically just tools, a means to an end for him.  He’s a total class-A jerk.”

Robin blinked, unsure how to respond to that.  He certainly hadn’t been prepared for this outcome.  An uncomfortable hush filled the chamber, which he idly noted details of as he glanced around nervously.  He’d never actually been in a girl’s room before, so he wasn’t sure what to expect.  He supposed the piles of stuffed animals and boy band posters were probably typical, though he was surprised to see some large prints of Superman lining the walls, and a bulletin board covered with newspaper clippings of Batman and Robin – mostly his predecessor – busting the Cluemaster’s previous petty heists.  She apparently wasn’t kidding when she said she had it in for her father.  (…The image felt almost eerily familiar, reminding of the days when he kept a similar chronicle in a corner of his own pops’ apartment, much to the old man’s displeasure.)

“…You’ve got weird taste for a girl,” he mused aloud.

“And you’ve got weird fashion sense for a boy,” she retorted, nose wrinkling.

“Hey, I didn’t design the suit,” he huffed defensively.

“And who did?  Your mom?”

Robin winced a bit, but bit his tongue.  “…Would you believe me if I said Batman?”

She sniffed.  “I mean seriously, what’s with that getup anyway? It’s so bright, it makes you look like a clown.”

Fed up with her criticism, he started to skulk back towards the outlet again.

“Look, I didn’t come here just to be insulted.”

A hand reached out to clasp his wrist, and he rotated to see her regarding him sincerely.

“Sorry, I was just joking. …You don’t have to leave.”

He gulped, blushing a little at the light touch.  The last time a girl held his hand like this for so long, she’d followed with a…

“Um, okay.”  He rubbed the back of his neck uneasily, growing tense as she inclined forward and grinned – before passing him by to hop onto the sill instead, sticking out her tongue at him.

“Ladies first.”

He whirled around in shock as she stepped out over the ledge.

“Hey, what do you think you’re doing?  That’s dangerous, get back here.”

“Relax, I do this all the time.  Besides, you jump around rooftops every night, don’t you?”

He impulsively climbed after her, keeping a careful eye on her footing, hovering close behind in case she fell.  But, true to her word, she did seem to have practiced this pattern many times before, effortlessly picking her way over the slates to the top, where she plopped down and petted the spot next to her.  Indicating invitation.  Tentatively, he took it and traced her wondering sightline to the stars above.

“…You know, I used to dream I’d see the Batman someday.  Drifting across the moon, dark against the night sky…”  She hugged her knees to her breast.  “This is the first time I’ve actually seen him in person.  For a second, I almost thought he was a monster.”

Robin remained quiet as she continued.

“But, my dad’s the real monster.  I know he’s hurt a lot of people – myself and Mom included.  He doesn’t care about us at all.”

“How come she doesn’t just divorce him?”

“She can’t afford a lawyer to kick him out.  He still owns the mortgage on the house.”

She smiled bitterly, drawing circles on the shingles.

“As a kid, I used to think about running away.  Getting on a plane and going somewhere far, far away from here.  Someplace exotic, where no one knows who I am or where I come from – like Africa.  …But, I could never do that to my Mom.  She’d be lonely if I left.  Even though she has some… ‘difficulties’, I still love her.”

She looked at Robin, who was still listening attentively.  Patiently.

“Sorry,” she mumbled in a slightly sheepish manner.  “I’m just making you sit through my random rambling.  I don’t usually get a chance to talk to anyone about this, let alone someone my age.  Having a lame, insane supercriminal for a dad isn’t exactly something I can tell all my friends at school.”

“It’s all right.  I wish there was more I could do to help…”

He replied, feeling as utterly useless – hopeless – as when he came across a bunch of homeless youths in his hunt for Annie after they’d gotten separated, the ragtag group of street rats sleeping together on a filthy mattress in an abandoned shelter; huddled under each other for warmth, sharing but one thin, dingy blanket between them.  (…The kind of neglected kid he could’ve easily ended up as had he not happened to be so lucky, to be “chosen” – caught before he slipped through the cracks into faded obscurity and was overlooked – forgotten – by society.)  There were some things punches and kicks just couldn’t fix.

“You’ve already done more than enough, thanks.  I’m grateful to you both for putting a stop to him.  …Even if it’s probably only temporary.”

“There has to be something that can be done though.”

“Really, you don’t have to go out of your way or anything.  Besides, why do you care so much anyway?”

He shrugged, surveying the distance.  “Maybe it’s because you kinda remind me of someone.”

She scanned his wistful countenance, scrutinizing closely.

“…Was she cute?”

“What- no.  I mean yes.  I mean, uh-” Robin stammered, flushing red as he was abruptly taken aback by the unexpected inquiry.  She giggled in snorting amusement at his oh-so-obvious reaction.

“Relax, Boy Wonder, I’m just teasing you.”

He coughed, regaining composure.

“To be honest, that’s not the only reason.  My dad wasn’t much of a prize either.  …Although he can’t compete with yours.”

“Ehhh?”  She gaped at him in astonished awe.  “But he’s so cool!”

“Huh?”  He puzzled for a beat, then it clicked what she was talking about.  “Oh, you think that Batman’s- no, he’s not my real dad.  I’m not even sure I would even go so far as to call him much of a ‘father figure’ actually.  He’s more like a… mentor?”

It was her turn to listen as he ruminated, reflecting.

“He saved me though. Took me in when I had no place else to go.  Gave me a second chance.  I’ve… done things I’m not exactly proud of either.  If he hadn’t found me, I’d likely be dead or in jail myself right now.”

Sensing a buzzing interruption from his waist – a warning summons from the butler no doubt – he consulted the timestamp in the corner of the display, and cringed upon calculating how much interval had elapsed in his absence.

“…Speaking of which, I should probably get back soon.  Batman’s gonna kill me once he finds out I’m gone without letting anyone know.”

Her forehead creased with contriteness.

“You didn’t have to go that far for me…”

“Hey, don’t sweat it. It’s the least I could do.”

She looked reluctant to end the conversation though.  He wondered if he was the first person she’d ever been this open to about her feelings. …After some thought, he fished around in a pocket and pulled out another spare backup communicator.

“Listen, don’t tell anyone about this; Batman doesn’t like me lending out tech.  But if you ever need anything, you can get in touch with me on this.  I’ll come as soon as I can.  …Only if it’s an emergency though.  He’ll really give me an earful if he finds out I’m using our gadgets for personal stuff.”

She looked down at the device in trepidation.

“Is it really okay for me to have this?”

“Yeah.  It’s no problem, don’t worry.  I know how to keep a secret.  And I’ll definitely stop by again sometime, so we can hang out some more if you want.  Whaddya say?”

Her eyes lit up, and- without warning, she flung her arms around him in an appreciative hug (that very nearly knocked him off balance).

“…Thanks, Robin.”

His hue embarrassed again, but he gently reciprocated the gesture.

“Hey, what are heroes for?”

After an awkwardly long minute, she propelled back from the embrace with a self-conscious laugh.  Once the rapid beating in both their ribs had calmed down (and she’d surreptitiously wiped some tears from her face), she afforded him a somewhat odd look.

“…What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, it’s just… Calling you ‘Robin’ feels kinda weird.  It’s like a girl’s name.”

“Hey, it can be a boy’s name too,” he sulked in indignation.  “Besides, at least it is a name.”

She shook her head, concentrating intently on him as she contemplated.  After a bit, she brightened with sudden brilliance.

“I know!  I’ll call you ‘Peter’ – since you came in through the window.  …And ‘cuz of the tights.”

Robin blanched as she pointed playfully at his leggings.

“…I think I’d rather be called ‘Robin’.”

“Nope,” she cheerfully announced.  “You’re ‘Peter’ to me now.”

Robin sighed, but didn’t object further to the nickname.  It wasn’t like he could tell her his real title.

“Fine.  ‘Peter’ it is then.  …Does that make you ‘Wendy’?”

She smirked with a wink.

“If you want me to be.”

He blinked, clearing his throat as he stood up, almost stumbling over his heels as he backed up in haste.

“Right.  Well then.  Wendy.  …Guess I’ll see you around?”

“Yeah.  See ya.”

“…’Kay, bye.”

“’Kay, bye.”

He waved as he fired his grapple into the branches and swung away, and she merrily returned the motion. Elated, Robin’s spirit soared over heightening city structures back to the estate, performing as many flips and tricks as he could on the way.  …Although come to think of it, he had failed to ask for her actual name.  …Oh, well. There was always next time.

Rather than directly approach the porch or cave entrance, Robin thought about endeavoring to sneak back in through the second-story opening to his own bedroom, so he could pretend he’d been there all along.  …Unfortunately, as soon as he’d made it inside and detached his façade, he bumped straight into a severely stern-looking Bruce towering over him.

“Where the devil have you been?  We’ve been trying to contact you for the past hour.  Barbara’s out there searching all over for you right now.  Meanwhile I’ve had to help Alfred double-check every secret room and passage in the manor.  Do you know how long that takes?”

Tim merely shrugged.

“I went out for a stroll. Is that a crime?”

“In this house, it is. Do I need to start putting a tracer on your utility belt again?”

“No, sir,” he squeaked meekly.

Bruce heaved a grunt.

“Just hurry up and go get changed, young man.  Your dinner’s cold already.  Alfred made soup.  Make sure you apologize to him too, he’s been worried sick.”

“Yeah yeah, I hear ya, old man.”

“And did you finish your homework?”

Tim flinched.  He knew there was something else he’d forgotten.

“You had better get to it if you want to come patrolling with us tomorrow night.”

“I will.”

Before he vanished into the privacy of his enormous closet (which, in his own private opinion, was way too overly spacious – though no one would certainly hear him complain), Tim paused, calling softly back over his shoulder.

“Bruce.”

“What?”

“Thanks… for caring.”

…

About a month later, a couple men dressed in black arrived at the Brown residence, carrying grim, serious auras and stiff briefcases containing various important-looking official documents.  An obstinate Stephanie insisted on sitting down alongside her mother on the sofa as they discreetly disclosed the news she never once conceived she’d get to hear like this:

Her dad was dead.

Apparently he’d cut a deal while in prison, and became a part of something clandestinely known by a select few outside those in power as a “Suicide Squad”.  He’d perished while on a covert mission for the government, and – according to these strange men’s confidential report – he’d died a “heroic sacrifice”.

Stephanie didn’t know how to react.  What to feel. …How she was supposed to feel.

As she sat in her room, trying to write in her diary but coming up blank, her observation shifted to the window still left ajar each evening, through which a mild breeze blew. Opening her desk drawer, she retrieved the hidden miniature handset from the far back, tucked neatly behind all sorts of stationery.  She had avoided using it up to now, afraid of coming off as an annoyance.  …But she hadn’t seen Robin at all since then.  No one had.  Based on what she’d gathered from growing gossip, he’d been fully MIA over the course of the past few weeks, and rumors were starting to spread.  It was like his existence had been entirely erased, simply evaporated off the surface of the earth.  …She was worried about him too.

She pushed the button, hands shaking in mounting apprehension as she elevated to her ear.

There was a long, low hum of crackling static, before someone (presumably) picked up at last.

“…”

“Hello?”

“…Who is this?  How did you get access to this comm line?”

“I’m… a friend of Pet- Robin’s.  Is… he there?”

An extensive gap stretched.

“There is no more Robin.”

The pronouncement was deep. Disturbing.  Definite.

“Do not contact here again.”

With a final click, the other end hung up.

She tried, repeatedly – desperately – to dial back – but the machine seemed to have been remotely disconnected.  Slumping forward in defeat as she let go the last potential link – lifeline – she buried her face in her sleeves, and burst into sobs.

At length, she dried her sniffles and rose, dragging her feet to the wide frame.  Casting one last look of longing out at the pitch gloom, she shut the pane.  …Shutting out pain, and all the brief memories associated with it.

…

She never saw Robin again.

————————–

He sprinkled me in pixie dust and told me to believe Believe in him and believe in me Together we will fly away in a cloud of green To your beautiful destiny As we soared above the town that never loved me I realized I finally had a family

[arcaneranger]

Final Thoughts - Magical Girl Site

I gave this one more than a fair shot.

MagiSite was one of the most widely mocked shows of the spring, with one image in particular (a pair of shoes so edgy that Hot Topic wouldn’t carry them for fear of getting sued) getting passed around like Halloween candy to drive the show’s notoriety up as edgelord crap to be avoided, but the reality is that the edge level here isn’t anything new, and I wouldn’t even say that it’s “trying too hard” in the same way that Akame Ga Kill was. In fact, I liked the premiere for setting up an immediately dark, no-holds-barred show that didn’t hide the blood and violence implied in worlds where people have crazy powers like this (see Re:Creators).

No, the problem here is that the writing just fails to distinguish it by making it a blended frappe of tropes from other currently-popular shows. The plot is very nearly the same as Madoka Magica, and that doesn’t disqualify it on its own, but unlike other lookalikes (primarily Yuki Yuna is a Hero), the writing just does not make up for it.

The central difference is the candidacy for being a magical girl (which is just being female and miserable, apparently, since one of the antagonists suffered nothing worse than a scar, and created all of her own problems very directly), and the fact that these characters were all pushed to the brink already, sort of justifies the dark actions a lot of them end up taking, though some of them are just straight-up crazy and were more or less just waiting for an excuse. I like a lot of this idea, and it could have made for a more promising show.

But the script is just terrible and brings up a lot of issues that don’t make sense. I’ll grant that there were times where I shouted at the screen only for a character to echo my thoughts when things don’t make sense, but you end up with plot holes when you contradict the motivations of your universe.

It’s nothing new for magical girls to be sacrificing themselves in the process of their actions, but here, using magic is slowly but directly killing the girls in question by aging them internally to the point where when examined by doctors, one of the first antagonists is said to be literally an old woman on the inside despite only being a teenager. This is in direct conflict with the fact that there is a magical girl whose power is to heal others, including being able to reverse magical damage on other girls. So what was the point, other than that they needed a few hospital scenes? (The girl herself is also cringy as fuck, because she’s an eyepatch-wearing extreme recluse who cuts herself, takes dozens of Xanax pills at once, and insists that she isn’t emo.)

This isn’t my only plot hole issue, either, because one of the most notable aspects of the premiere is that we are shown that the main character’s brother severely beats her every single day, but when she ends up in the hospital as well, apparently none of the doctors notice the signs of long-term physical abuse. How? She should be bruised all over her stomach and have a cracked rib or two she’s been suffering through, but if all that went away just because he didn’t hit her for a week, I guess the beating just wasn’t as bad as it looked?

The last issue I’ll raise is that when the Starter Villain I mentioned earlier gets her magic sticks taken away from her and gets the plot explained to her along with the main duo, they just go along with it and don’t seem to have an issue hanging around with her despite knowing she has murdered multiple magical girls in cold blood. What?

It’s frustrating, because it’s almost there. It’s almost to what I would call passable, if not enjoyable. There are moments where I was genuinely surprised by the direction (there’s a scene in the sixth episode where two characters, one of whom is Brother-san, are sitting at a table having a pleasant but two-faced conversation, and when the camera cuts to one’s inner monologue basically explaining that he’s being two-faced, I thought it was just a tell-not-show writing mistake since the audience is already aware, but it was followed by a juxtaposition of both of them being facetious and hiding secrets from each other), and the art is minimalistic but not the hardest to look at.

I can tell halfway in, though, that Magical Girl Site just isn’t gonna be able to manage enough of an upswing for me to give it even a seven, so I’m not gonna watch it flail around. 4/10.

[ellana-ravenwood]

“You deserve so much better than..him” - Sam Drake x Reader

Well, thought I’d try my hand at a new fandom...namely : Uncharted. If you guys want more of it just send in your requests ^^. Anyway, I hope you’ll like this “new adventure” huh : 

You can find my masterlist here : @ella-ravenwood-archives

__________________________________________________

It was a warm and sunny day, and everything was just fine. 

You were in a giddy good mood, and waiting here, on this comfortable forrest ground, for Sam’s signal. 

Looking out in the wild, trying to spot your boyfriend’s message, with Nadine and Chloe right beside you, was exactly what you wanted to do right at this moment, on your birthday...

Yeah. No. 

It was raining like cats and dogs. You were hiding ou in a cave but by the time you ran in there when it first started to rain, you were already soaked and it was too damn cold and humid for you to dry. Oh you hated the feeling of the fabric of your clothes sticking to your skin, freezing you to the bones. 

Sam was taking ages to signal you to join him and you were starting to get extremely worried and Nadine ? Oh man, Nadine. 

You could feel her intense eyes burning a hole in your back, as she was seated behind you, against the wall, staring at you while you were scanning your surrounding in hope to see any signs from Sam. 

You had absolutely no idea why she kept just staring like that, making you uncomfortable, but ever since the night before, she hasn’t been very discreet about it. You tried to talk about it, but it always resulting in her looking away and totally ignoring you, making an almost silent “tt”, and you didn’t understand it ! 

So far, you and her were getting along so well ! 

Few months back, a certain Chloe Frazer, one of Nate’s old friend, came to you and Sam to ask for your help. 

Long story short, after multiple perilous adventures, you guys found the precious Tusk of Ganesh, and this all story helped you and Nadine become genuine friends so...Why was she totally blowing you off right now ? And staring at you as if you were crazy ? 

And goddammit why was Sam not signaling you ! 

Worst. Birthday. Ever. 

And as water was falling across your face, and  everywhere really, making you shivering, you snapped. 

Enough was enough. 

You startled Chloe who was standing next to you as you turned around aggressively and, with a voice full of frustration asked Nadine : 

-Ok what’s the deal ? 

She tried to act surprised, but she quickly realized you weren’t buying it. Oh no. You noticed. You know you’re not crazy. You know she stared. You know she snobbed you Hell, it was fairly obvious ! You were far from being an idiot after all ! And here it is again, she makes this small face of disdain, and look away...

You cross your arms, waiting for her answer, before she finally says : 

-It’s nothing really. Nothing important. 

You roll your eyes to the sky and, after a deep sigh, you say :

-Nothing ? Are you fucking kidding me Nad’ ? I swear to God if you don’t tell me what’s wrong right now, I will...

There’s a hint of fear in her eyes, as you start your threat. 

And it’s kind of satisfying really, after everything that happened between the two of you on the day you met. 

Let’s just say that, the first time you and her ever saw each other, it didn’t really go well...She underestimated you, and you hated being underestimated. 

Things blew out of proportion, as you were both quite hot headed, and you ended up fighting...you totally kicked her ass (though it didn’t mean you didn’t walk away from the fight with a bloody nose, bruised ribs and a busted knee). 

Ever since, she tended to try to be on your good side. 

So as you start to loose patience, soaking wet and cold on your goddamn birthday, she cuts you off and finally tells you what’s been bothering her. She’s not about to take chances right now, as you’re already in the worst mood possible, and so she says : 

-Alright alright. It’s just that I was...I was wondering like...I...You’re with...You’re really with him ? 

-With who ? 

-You’re with Sam Drake ? 

The question surprises you so much that you stay silent for a few minutes, stunned. You don’t even look out for Sam’s signal anymore, and that’s proof enough you’re just...very confused. 

Was this really the reason why she kept staring like that ? Why she ignored you and...Uh really ?! After an eternity, you finally manage to say : 

-What ? 

-You’re dating Sam Drake ? 

-Hum, yeah. Yeah I am. Since a while really. 

She almost gasps, and you’re more confused than ever. You don’t have time to say anything else though, as she continues : 

-But you...You...You deserve so much better than...Him. He can be such an asshole and he’s a huge opportunist and...how ? Why ? You deserve so much better than Samuel Drake, (YN). I don’t understand. 

You can’t help the small smile creeping on your face. Oh if you won a penny every time someone told you that...You’d have like, at least 2 whole dollars. 

Nadine is looking at you expectantly, waiting for an answer, and you give it to her : 

-Oh come on Nad’, you know he isn’t like that. Yes, sure, he’s kind of an ass sometimes...We used to drive each other crazy at the beginning. But...He’s really better than you think he is. And you know that. 

Nadine scoffs, and Chloe just rolls her eyes before focusing back on the amazonian forrest unfolding below you guys, trying to spot any sign from Sam.

Your shoreline friend says : 

-You know what I mean. How long have you been together anyway ? How the hell did it happen ? I always imagined him to be so...so...you know ! 

You laugh this time. OH yes. You know. You definitely know. Many people wrongly thought Sam was a Don Juan...He used to, true. He used to flirt with every women he met and he had more sex than most men but...Ever since he met you, everything changed. Hell, everything you met him everything changed. And it happened so...Well, neither you nor him expected this. 

-We’ve been together for a few years. I’m frankly kinda surprised you only noticed yesterday we were together...

-Well, I always thought you two were rather close, and touchy feely, but it’s only when I saw him shove his damn tongue down your throat yesterday, behind the hostel, that I finally understood...

-Oh Nadine, you can be so observant and yet so oblivious sometimes...Ok, let me tell you the story. Stop me if you don’t want me to. So, here we go, everything started when I finally got the guts to go speak to my dad...

************

Life has never been easy and calm. And that was a good thing. 

You were raised by your mother, always on the road as her job as an archeologist/researcher (which meant she was always out of museums, looking for new artifacts and such) took her everywhere in the World, and there was no way she’d leave you behind. 

Only one day, she went where you couldn’t follow...Cancer. 

It killed her in a month. And here you were, all alone, and lost. You were a grown woman, and followed the same path your mom took but...Without her, you didn’t really know what to do ! 

And from this loneliness and pain, came a crazy idea. 

Your mother raised you, but she never hid who your real father was. 

His name was Victor Sullivan, but from your understanding everyone called him just “Sully”. And from what your mom said about him he was...quite special. A treasure hunter. Archeologists’ worst ennemies. 

Him and your mom met ages ago and had a small but passionate fling (ew) and...Well, nine months later here you were. Your mom never told him about you, and you understood why. She explained. With a man like that ? You could never have a normal life. 

Not that following your archeologist of a mother around was a normal life but...at least everything she was doing was legal. But now...now, as you mom was gone, you wished she had told him. Because it would have made your life exponentially easier. 

Because then, you wouldn’t have to go and knock on his door to tell him you were his daughter. You don’t even know why you thought this would be a good idea but...without your mom you were lost, and though you never met him, you just figured that the next best thing was your dad ? 

************

Your timing couldn’t have been worst. 

But, that was all you. It seemed like you were cursed with that : “always in the wrong place at the wrong moment” thing. 

It took you WEEKS to find where “Victor Sullivan”, your biological father, was. 

The trail first lead you to the Rossi estate...To a Rossi Estate, infamous for its art black market, and with walls littered with bullets impacts ! You were always rather good to bullshit your way through things and, without even mentioning your father’s name, you gathered that there was an incident the night before at the estate. 

An object they were selling at a private auction was stolen, and a violent encounter between the thief and guards ensued. Someone talked about rumors the thieves being a certain “Nathan Drake” and “Sully”, famous in the treasure hunting business...

You tracked him down to Scotland, but missed him there too, and got fucking shot at by shoreline mercenaries ! They apologized for almost killing you when they realized you were “merely a civilian” who was just “at the wrong place the wrong moment”. 

Your step then took you to Madagascar, but you missed him there too. And then...Well, then you finally found him. 

Or rather, found his motel room. You watched from afar as he and two men were coming toward their room and decided it was your time. 

But really. It wasn’t. Such bad timing...Long story short, you basically ended up bursting into their motel room and yelled that you were Sully’s daughter (thinking it was just easier to rip the bandaid fast, hoping they wouldn’t shoot you because you’d scared the hell out of them bursting in like that), right when a certain Nathan Drake, who would become one of your best friend, was revealing to his wife that he had a brother, and has been lying to her about his job for the past few months...

Oh the mess it was. Everything was so confusing and after a lot of “who the hell are you ?” and “I don’t know you, who are you ?” meaning a lot of differnet things, Sully ended up telling you he’d be back and ran after Elena to make sure she was Ok, while Nathan was sulking and...Oh the mess. 

Of course it wasn’t really your fault, things would have been a mess anyway but...you felt awful, thinking that you probably handled that very poorly. Sitting outside of the motel room, waiting patiently and anxiously for your father to come back, Sam startled you as he sat down beside you. 

-So...You’re Sully’s secret daughter uh ? 

-And you spend those last fifteen years behind bars somewhere in Panama uh ? Own lots of money to a mob boss ? 

-Well princess, I feel like Destiny made us meet today. Feel like we were made to talk to each other you know ? I’m Sam, by the way. Sam Drake. 

He tells you, as he shoves his cigaret in his mouth and extend his hand so you can shake it. And if you were totally honest with you, it’s in that moment, right there, as you smile to him and shake his hand that you kinda started to fall for him. 

-(Y/N). (Y/N) (Y/L/N). 

You answer, smiling back. 

-Beautiful name. So, (Y/N) (Y/L/N), what’s your story uh ? 

-Oh Sam Drake, I’ll only tell you what’s mine if you talk first. 

-Isn’t there a saying that goes : “ladies first” ?

-We’re in 2017 man, this changed. 

-But I’m a gentleman. 

-I’m sure you are, which is why you’ll talk first. 

-Oh...It’s like that uh ? 

-Yup. 

-Well ok then. 

The smug smile you gave him made him almost melt on the spot, and the intense and serious gaze he laid on you made you blush like crazy...

Of course, it was a constant battle between you and him to know who fell for the other one first so you’d never say it but...Yes. As you met his beautiful hazel eyes with yours, and shook his hand. As he smiled at you and shamelessly flirted with you while you knew nothing about him ? You already had a massive crush on Sam Drake. 

You knew it was a bad idea right away, his charming ways giving him up. It was clear he was the “flirty” kind, the “one night stand” kind. Somehow, you felt like he was that kind of man that was afraid of commitment but...you couldn’t help it. A crush you had. But again, you’d never tell him that it happened that fast...

Little did you know he fell for you the instant you bursted in their motel room, yelling you were Sully’s daughter...You were so beautiful. So intriguing. There was something about you that instantly drown him to you, even more than he was drawn to lost cities and treasures...

************

It was...Surprising. 

When Sully came back, and after making some plans to go get this mysterious treasure they were trying to talk discreetly about (though you quickly guessed it was the legendary pirate Avery’s treasure), he immediately went to you and...

Things weren’t awkward. Things weren’t weird. He instantly knew who your mother was by looking at you, saying you looked so much like her. Except the eyes. You had his. And by the look in those eyes of yours...He knew you were saying the truth. 

A daughter. He had a daughter. He admitted to you he never expected that but...Well, you were there right ? He wouldn’t ignore you. Besides, he told you jokingly, you were already a grown up, he would have to change diaper or anything, so he was totally fine ! 

He spoke so fondly of your mother that you felt tears welling up in your eyes...To him, it seemed that it wasn’t just a one night stand, that it could have evolved in something more but she left. Your mom left, thinking he was one of those charmer that was afraid of commitment and...Well, he respected her choice. Never saw her again. He was pretty sure she was avoiding him, thinking he saw her more than once, out of the corner of his eyes, on an archeologic place. 

Things went much smoother than you’d think and...Oh the relief to not be alone anymore. Sure you and him weren’t instantly close, relationship took time to build but...still. Besides, you didn’t know it yet but what he said about having feelings for your mother and her not trusting him...it would help you greatly one day. 

************

You fought like hell to go with them, but they refused. You weren’t trained to fight or anything, you could get hurt, and this was a personal matter. You had to admit you got a bit hurt when they told you that, but...well, you didn’t know them since very long. Only a few days. Of course their personal matter had nothing to do with you. 

Besides, when Sully told you he wasn’t about to loose you while he just found you, you couldn’t resist. And when Sam jokingly added that he couldn’t loose such a beauty as you either, and that neither of them could be worried about you while being out there, you smiled, thinking he was just joking (he wasn’t, his heart was beating so fast when he told you that, afraid you’d come and he would really have to worry...which was ridiculous because he only knew you since a few days ago !), trying to light up the atmosphere. And so you stayed behind when shit went down in “Libertalia”, and you knew you’d regret it forever. 

Libertalia ! The great lost pirate city ! But then again, when they all came back, your father, Sam, Nate and Elena...you thought maybe it was for the best. 

And that’s when things really started. 

************

From the get go, there was an undeniable attraction between you and Sam. Something neither of you could explain. Something that drawn both of you to the other, that made you want to spend time together...And oh the blessing it was that you started to stick around with your father for his adventures, and his new business partner was...Sam. 

Under your dad’s suspicious eyes, you and Drake grew so close...You made each other laugh, you killed him with your talk back and witty answers while his jokes always made you burst into crazy laughter. You never let him walk on your feet or be overprotective and God he loved that ! He was flirty and charming and seemed to genuinely care about you and...Well, it felt great. 

You never really had an actual relationship, too busy with work. And...It was Sam. The only one you ever met who understood truly the pain of loosing a mother, and having an absent father. Who understood how difficult it was to let go off of things, to move on...You never met anyone that understood you so well. And he never either. Even Nate didn’t always understand him...but you ? 

You understood why he didn’t come back to Nate right after Rafe came to free him from the Panamian prison. You understood why he couldn’t let Libertalia go. You understood why he couldn’t retire just yet. You understood his pain and traumas and...It felt so good to have someone that didn’t pity him you know ? Whenever he talked about Panama, people were always : “Oh poor Sam, he lost 13 years of his life”, while you asked him stuffs like wether or not he managed to find cigarets there, and how was it to not have sex for that long...

How could he resist you ? How could he resist such a woman ? Someone who understood him so fully and didn’t even take any of his shit ? Someone who never really answered to his flirting and yet...oh yet...Yes. 

How could he resist you ? 

************

Insufferable. He was insufferable. 

And as you hear your dad’s plane leave the island he dropped you and Sam on, you couldn’t help but think about it over and over again. 

Goddamn know-it-all. And the worst was that he was right ! You were both working on an enigma to know the location of a treasure and...he got it right before you. And he was being an ass about it ! Smirking smugly at you every damn seconds...This is probably why it all happened really. 

You weren’t focused enough. You weren’t paying attention enough. And as it often happen in those cases...You fell. Hard. 

Not literally. Though you almost fell a few time as you two were climbing a temple to the treasure. No. You just didn’t notice...you didn’t notice armed men coming towards you as you were following Sam from afar. 

It was really stupid of you. Every time you were on the verge of finding important treasures, there were always other hunters, more ruthless and such than you, Sam, or your dad. And...oh. Oh those particularly ruthless. 

The last thing you remember seeing is Sam turning around to look at you smugly once again and...his expression turning to pure fear. Then everything went black. 

************

You opened your eyes to find yourself in a cave, wrapped in...Sam’s coat ? Way too big for you, as this man was a damn giant really. 

And it hurts. It hurt around your chest. You stir and...You let out a whimper of pain that attracts Sam’s attention. 

He was right there, next to you, putting some more wood in a small fire. And his face is riddled with worry...He crawls to you and takes your hand, squeezing it, and there’s so many emotions shared in that instant...You try to speak, but you can’t, and she brushes calloused fingers softly against your cheek before saying : 

-Sh sh sh. Rest (Y/N). I called your dad, he’s coming as fast as possible. It’s just there’s a storm right now and it’s dangerous to fly...Don’t worry, I reassured him. You made it. Barely though...You gave us quite a fright (Y/N). You gave me quite a fright. 

In a croaked and weak voice you say : 

-I thought the great Sam Drake was never scared...

He smiles weakly at you, and sits down beside you, still holding your hand as his other brush your cheek lovingly and, oh it feels so good. 

-I’m not afraid of a lot. But I’m definitely afraid of loosing the people I love. 

You don’t even have the energy to blush and he continues : 

-You know, I’ve grown quite fond of your...presence. I’m going to be honest, at first all my flirting was just that, harmless flirting but now...Now I’m only half-joking. I wish...Uh. Cheesy isn’t my thing. I don’t know how to tell you that...That I was scared shitless when I saw you get shot. That my heart never raced that much, and that...Uh. I guess I just care about you you know ? 

Of course he wasn’t going to tell you “I love you”, though his tender gestures toward you are screaming it, though the way he avoids your gaze is pouring of it...He does love you. But he’s not ready. He’s not ready to tell you. Besides, what if you don’t say it back ? You’d definitely don’t say it back. And when you gently chuckle and say : 

-Aw that’s cute Sammy. 

Calling him of the nickname he hates so much...He knows he did right not telling you he loved you. You wouldn’t have taken him seriously. You heard too many of his stories when he talked about girls he slept with and how he was a “no strings attached” kind of guy to take him seriously if he told you he loved you. 

And yet. And yet after months of knowing you, and your friendship growing so naturally...he couldn’t deny it. He knew you were the one. He loved you. But he just couldn’t say it. 

-Thank you...

You whisper as you drift back to unconsciousness.

-You’re welcome. 

He answers, but you’re already asleep again...He brushes some strand of hair behind your ears and gently kisses your forehead, letting out a sigh. 

Well, he was totally doomed. 

************

Sully came back for the both of you, sheltering you to the point you almost told him to fuck off...you hated when people were being overprotective but...Well, he was your father, and in a few months you both developed a strong father/daughter relationship. You were more alike than you initially thought. 

It took you a few days to recover enough to walk again and leave the hospital, and as your dad went to buy some fruits and snacks to the local market, you went out of your hotel room to go and sit next to Sam, outside, as he was smoking his cigaret. 

He glanced at you and rolled his eyes : 

-Aren’t you suppose to be resting princess ? 

-I rested enough Sam. I’m tired of staying in bed. 

-This makes no sense. 

-Shut up. 

He looks away from you and smile, his gaze loosing itself in the beautiful landscape in front of you. You get closer to him and make a move to grab at his cigaret but he takes it away from you. You frown at him but before you can say anything he says : 

-Uh uh. No poison for you (Y/N), it’ll kill you. 

-You know Sam, it’ll kill you too. 

-Yes, but I’m not you. I can’t let you do that you know ?

-Oh, right, because you “care about me”. 

You say in your jokey way, the one you always use when orally jousting with Sam but...The way his smile drop and how he looks away...What’s wrong ? 

And suddenly, it hits you. 

“I care about you”. This...He said it as he was caressing your cheek, and holding your hand, worries all over his features. 

“I care about you”. This wasn’t a joke to lighten up the mood. This was...This was real. 

“I care about you”. The realization of it all hits you right in the face and...You take his chin between your fingers and force him to turn his head to look at you. 

You’re not ready to say it either, those three dreaded words but...

-I care about you too, Sam. 

You whisper, and he can barely hears you. But when your lips are brushing his softly. When your hand moves from his cheek to around his neck...He’s sure you said it too. 

“I care about you”. Yes. You care about each other. You love each other. But that, you can’t say it. Neither of you can. 

The kiss turn heated, as you let him slip his tongue in your mouth and...you can feel him guiding you back to his bedroom. And you let him. Because you want it. Because you’ve wanted it for a long time...And though you’re ready to get your heart broken...You do it anyway. 

You don’t realize that this day, he made love to you. That he didn’t just fuck you, as he would with other women. Oh no. He made love to you, meaning every last bit of it...When he woke up though, you were gone. 

************

You left a letter to your father, and as he read it, it reminded him of bad memories years before, when your mom left him a letter too. 

You left one for Sam too. Similar to your father’s, but not quite. Your words were the same than your mom’s. You needed to go away for your sake. You needed to lead a normal life, trouble free. 

You added, on your dad’s letter , in a post-scriptum, that you weren’t pregnant...and that made Sully laughs. But oh, years before he didn’t do anything to run after your mother while he should, he wasn’t about to let Sam make the same mistake. 

************

-Are you ready to go, Sam ? 

Sully knew that his partner wasn’t ready to go, that his partner was still tortured by memories of you...Sully knew. And he had a plan. 

Victor Sullivan wasn’t a man to walk around the bush. Something you inherited of him (as was proof the day you bursted into his motel room to tell him you were his daughter). No, Victor Sullivan wasn’t one to waste time, as he knew the importance of it, and so he said : 

-You should go after her. 

Sam looked up from his bag and gave the older man a questioning look. Sully rolled his eyes and continued : 

-You know what I mean. You should go after her, after (Y/N). It’s my kid and I don’t want to actually know what happened between you but...Ever since you guys met, before Libertalia, and though you didn’t even know each other, it was fairly obvious something was sparkling between you two. And after ? Oh man I’ve been third wheeling you two for months ! So...Go after her. 

-I don’t know what you’re talking ab...

-Oh trust me kid, you don’t wanna go there. I know what I’m talking about. Years ago, I made the mistake to let her mother go, even though I was in love. Hell, she was probably the only woman I loved. I made the mistake to let her go and there isn’t a day I’m not regretting it ! Life could have been different. I would probably still have chased treasure and such...but when I’d come home, I would have had a wife and daughter greeting me, instead of a half-asleep Nate that passed out on my couch. Don’t get me wrong I love your brother like a son but...Well, eventually even him left. And I was alone. I am alone. Believe me, you don’t want that. Just run after her. What you got to loose ? 

Everything. He had everything to loose. And this is why he ran after you...

************

You couldn’t quite believe it, when you saw him arrive, covered in dirt and such, on one of the burial site you were working on. 

You couldn’t quite believe it, when you listen to his story. How he tracked you for the past weeks. How you were damn difficult to find. How he crawled through mud and soil to find you because the place you were in was only accessible by helicopter and he didn’t have a fucking helicopter, so he found a way...which meant getting dirty. 

-The Hell are you doing here Sam ? 

-I...I had to see you. I had to...I just had to come and see you. 

-And you couldn’t wait for me to get back on land that was easier to access ? 

-No. No I couldn’t. 

You couldn’t quite believe it when he repeated to you what your father said. You couldn’t quite believe it when he dared to say it...When he turned to you, got hold of your cheeks in his hands and said : 

-I love you. 

He...Dared...to...do...it...Him.

Sam “I’m afraid of commitment” Drake. Sam “I only have one night stand” Drake. Him. He told you he loved you. And his hazel eyes were so full of honesty...Your heart speak before your mind. 

-I love you too. 

Because how couldn’t you say it back ? He travelled for weeks, and went through so much to find you...He went through so many troubles that...Well yes. He could only love you, chasing after you like that, as he usually chased treasure. 

You were his greatest discovery. His greatest treasure. He told you so, and he talked about you with the same passion he talked about goddamn Libertalia, or any other lost cities and ancient treasures ! 

He talked about you, to you, as if you truly was all he wanted and needed and...in that moment, you were. As long as you were around, things would be good. Sure he would still chase after treasures and such, for the thrill of the adventure but...he couldn’t do it without you. And he told you so. He told you everything he had on his heart. Everything. 

He never talked like that to anyone else before...And oh the sweet taste of your lips on his is the best feeling ever. You don’t even mind the fact that he tastes like mud...You loved him. 

You were his greatest discovery. His most precious treasure. 

************

As you were telling the story to Nadine, you could see a slight sparkle in her eyes. You were selling her a dream, something she’d deny wanting but that was still there...She eyed Chloe and you understand. 

She felt something for the indian woman, but she would never say out loud that she was almost jealous of your relationship with Sam. Of the fact he chased after you like that, like he’d chase after the biggest treasure of them all. 

She envied you to have someone that loved you like that. And you wanted to tell her that you knew Chloe felt the same way but...you thought it wasn’t your place. That they needed to sort their relationship out by themselves. And if you had to be the “Sully” of the story later on, then so be it, but for now, you were just finishing your story. 

This all happened quite a few years ago. And you never left each other ever since. Sure there were...Difficult moments. You almost broke up a few times because things weren’t always easy. But what linked you and Sam ? It was true love. Even in the worst of moments you’d stick up for each other, and you’d be there. Because you were perfect for each other. 

A match hand made in Heaven. 

You talked about how sweet Sam was, behind closed door. How attentionate and how he always made you feel like a damn queen. You talked about how you’d look out for each other, and how you’d never be alone as long as the other was still alive...You talked about all of it, defending the love of your life against Nadine’s unfair comment about you deserving better than him. 

You were just finishing your story when finally, FINALLY, you spotted Sam’s flash light signaling you in morse code. 

It took you less than twenty minutes to join him, and before he could tell you anything about his findings you punched him in the shoulder. 

-Outch ! What was that for ?! 

-For worrying me. 

-You know, most women would greet their man with a kiss, instead of a punch, for worrying them. And damn nasty punch at that, it’s gonna bruise...

You give him a small smile and oh, his fake anger leaves him right away...he can’t even act annoyed when you smile at him like that. You go on your tip toe to softly brush his lips with yours (neither of you were too much on PDA, and knowing Nadine...). You pull away and...

What is he hiding behind his back ? Only one of his hand went to wrap itself around your waist, usually, both his arms would be around you. You pull away a bit more and, with a wide smile, he puts his hidden hand from behind his back in front of you and...

Flowers. A bunch of beautiful flowers, a most tasteful bouquet you must say. And a small gem. You look up at him a bit confused, and he explains :

-Happy birthday love. I’m sorry I dragged you out there in the pouring rain on your special day...I promise I’ll make it up to you. In the meantime, found those flowers and this stone that made me think of you so...Here. For you. Now let’s go, we gotta a treasure to find. 

And with a last kiss (lasting a bit too long for Nadine’s taste), he leaves again in  a perfect “Sam” way. He’ve always been like that. Especially in public. He would do something extremely sweet and then brush it off with a joke or something. And as he leaves, followed by Chloe who gave you a knowing look, you can’t help but clutch those flowers and this small green stone, smiling to yourself. 

You turn to Nadine and...You can see it in her eyes. After your little story and this...She knows. 

She knows Sam Drake definitely deserves to be with someone like you. 

Fin. 

________________________ I’m sorry for the shitiness of this story. I wanted to get it right and I couldn’t even do that...Sorry. Oh my this is all over the place, so bad. Anyway. I wrote that. Sorry again, damn I messed up my first fic about Uncharted.

[barberclipperszrpd685-blog]

The Definitive Guide to Salon Supplies

Some Known Incorrect Statements About Barber Shop Supplies Hair Salon Supplies Things To Know Before You Buy9 Simple Techniques For Barber Shop Chairs

Excellent top quality hair clips, at excellent list cost. Professional retail brand names are superior brand names as well as you do not desire your client who just acquired a hair shampoo for $25 in your hair salon to not obtain a premium bag to place it in. Here's a good price and quality alternative. Ask your item provider for shopping bags.

Another good worth for money thing. Black Multiple-use Latex gloves from Hair salon Care. You need a selection of combs as well as brushes for your beauty parlor. There's several kinds of brushes. Below are the 6 most common ones in the hair stylists toolkit. The paddle brush is optimal for de-tangling and smoothing naturally straight hair.

Round brushes are commonly made with metal as well as warmth up during coiffure and also provide a curl desire result. You use it to tame frizz as well as to produce all-natural bounce to the hair. My favorit is the ceramic round brush from ghd. Vented brushes has area in between the bristles to enable air to flow.

Little Known Facts About Salon Furniture.

You simply need a standard brush for this. If you have budget plan, I 'd rather buy a top quality round brush and also keep this simple. The Conair brush below will certainly do the task at an extremely inexpensive. The cushioned brush generally has a rubber cushion with boar or nylon bristles and are utilized on completely dry hair for smoothing.

A Biased View of Barber Supplies

If you still have budget, I recommend the cushioned brush from Philipps. The rattail comb has a narrow managed that is utilized for styling the hair. The tail is made use of for separating and also sectioning the hair throughout the hair designing process. Below is a premium quality, warmth resistant comb for professional designing that I suggest.

This assistance detangling the hair without hair befalling. Your scissors are arguably the stylist's most important tools as well as a main product in this salon equipment listing. Let me take you with a few points to take into consideration prior to getting a set of new shears first and you'll after that also get my individual suggestions.

The 8-Minute Rule for Barber Supplies Wholesale

A longer one (over 6 inch) benefit the standard trims as well as for achieving tidy cut. When cutting a bob for instance, you'll intend to have a longer scissor. A great recommendation when purchasing a long scissor is that it must have to do with the very same length as your hand.

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About Barber Furniture

Table of ContentsThe Best Strategy To Use For Hair Salon FurnitureSalon Equipment Fundamentals Explained

There are two usual types of blending/thinning shears: The 40-44 tooth mixing shear is used for blending, tapering, and texturizing which are common reducing techniques for males. There is additionally the vast tooth scissor which normally has 28 teeth as well as is utilized when texturizing really thick hair. Specialist hair scissors cost around $100 but can range completely from $20 up to $600.

The Roc-It dog line offers a versatile collection of reducing devices at promotional pricing without compromising Centrix performance and creative thinking. Below you obtain genuine value for cash. High high quality Japanese steel at a really affordable price. Not surprising that this is one of the most prominent professional scissors. If you want both a straight shear as well as a blending, you can obtain the set with both scissors at a value cost.

In this area I'll reveal you what you require to recognize. I'll also recommend both a high top quality as well as value optiocn for every tool as I understand it can be challenging to afford the best if you're just launching your hair salon. For all grooming devices you wish to ensure you get something from a high quality brand name that also uses a product warranty as it's common that they break also if you buy excellent high quality.

Barber Shop Equipment For Sale Can Be Fun For Anyone

See This Report about Hairdressing Tools

It's much simpler to recommend a sale to a client that they've seen you are using it yourself in the salon which they additionally experienced during their service. Actually, re-selling electrical devices can be a terrific source of profits for your salon as they generally have a high rate (compared to care as well as styling items) which provides you an excellent cash margin on the products.

This is most likely the electrical device you'll collaborate with one of the most so get something good:-RRB-. Think about the weight of the hair clothes dryer as well as the sound. This is something that can easily be forgotten and ultimately be the important things that will frustrate you one of the most. A professional hair clothes dryer prices somewhere in between $70 as well as $200 but there are also brand names that costs up to $450 (e.g Dyson Super Sonic).

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Facts About Hairdressing Equipment And Products Revealed

Table of ContentsThe Best Guide To Barber Shop SuppliesSome Of Barber Shop SuppliesThings about Hair Cutting Equipment

It offers flexible warmth and also air flow and likewise sound decrease. Perfect if you're simply starting. After blow clothes dryer, the hair straightener is possibly what you'll use one of the most. With the ideal product you can do a whole lot greater than just correcting the alignment of hair however you can likewise use it to form excellent curls.

You ought to prepare to pay around $120 and also $250 for an excellent professional hair straightener. There is one straightener that, in my point of view, is the outright finest you can obtain and also this is the Platinum+ styler by ghd. Yet it's likewise rather pricey. Below you'll discover my advised stylers that likewise include a reduced price option in case you're on a spending plan.

Hair Supplies - Questions

Excitement About Barber Shop Supplies

In this manner you constantly have the ideal designing temperature level for finest outcome without damaging the hair. An excellent value-for-money styler that is simple to make use of and offer smooth silky hair result. The most prominent styler on Amazon today. In a similar way to a straightener, when choosing a curling iron you Click to find out more must make certain it runs at the best temperature level and also features good warranty.

The Ultimate Guide To Beauty Salon Equipment

An expert hair curler costs somewhere in between $50 and also $200. Likewise when it comes to curlers, I would recommend ghd as well as their Curl Iron as well as Crinkle Wand. They are built making use of a comparable warmth technology as the Platinum+ hair straightener I shared above so it provides the optimal styling temperature level and also result.

Simply the very best. If you have the budget. Among the most prominent options after ghd. You'll need a good hair clipper to cut, shape, as well as make your clients hair. When buying a clipper you intend to see to it it has an effective electric motor and self sharpening stainless swipe blades.

Excellent ones are normally additionally a little bit more expensive. A good career hair clipper will cost you between $120 as well as $220. There's 2 hair clipper brands that constantly supply Wahl and Andis. If you're like me and also prefer a cordless clipper, I 'd go for the Wahl model below. Here you obtain good value for cash with a clipper that'll stick with you for long.

Little Known Facts About Hair Equipment.

If you're okay to collaborate with a cable, you'll be very pleased with these. There's a couple of various sorts of chairs that you'll need in your beauty parlor. Picking the ideal beauty salon chair boils down to develop and what will be useful for the sort https://www.washingtonpost.com/newssearch/?query=hairdressing equipment and products of solution you execute in the hair salon.

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Our Salon Equipment Wholesale Ideas

Table of ContentsThe Best Strategy To Use For Hair Supplies10 Easy Facts About Hairdressing Equipment For Sale ShownHair Equipment Can Be Fun For EveryoneAn Unbiased View of Barber Shop Chairs

You intend to your chairs to look great likewise in a couple of years from now. If you can not afford top quality due to the fact that you're just beginning, I prefer to not purchase anything and also instead try to deal with a short-term option till you can manage a chair of descent top quality.

Actually, you'll save cash by picking one with great natural leather material from begin that will certainly be a lot more durable as well as you do not need to replace it in just a years time. Poor chair top quality also includes adversely to the experience you want to give your client as it will be less comfy and also stability may be compromised.

Hair Supplies Can Be Fun For Anyone

Thus, you wish to ensure the chair has the attributes you require to execute your services. You'll require a hydraulic designing chair to ensure that you can efficiently readjust the placement of your customer when functioning. If you're using barber solutions you'll likewise require to be able to turn the chair.

There are various types of chair designs and also you ought to select something that opts for your salon. Comparable to when picking the best designing terminal, I would certainly not obtain too imaginative right here. I would certainly concentrate on timeless top quality right here vs. what's fashionable right currently. This will last you longer as well as additionally maintain its worth better.

Not known Facts About Hairdressing Equipment For Sale

The chair that is right for your hair salon is very specific. I have summarized right here the two customer chairs that currently hold the highest possible score for beauty parlor as well as barbers as well as the very best ranked stylist chair with matt. This is just one of one of the most popular chairs with an easy as well as clean layout.

How Barber Shop Chairs can Save You Time, Stress, and Money.

Straightforward, functional, saddle stool with hydraulic change support. Leading ranked on Amazon.com. You and your coworkers invest long hrs in the beauty parlor. This leading ranked anti-fatigue mat is the option to weary feet. If you're proficient at marketing your hair salon, you probably have an Instagram or various other social media sites account where you showcase your job.

Our Barber Chairs Diaries

Barber Supplies Wholesale Fundamentals Explained

If you're severe concerning enhancing your beauty parlor's Instagram, I also recommend you to look into the social networks tools that grow your salon service right here. Many mobile phones today allow you to take really good pictures which in most cases is sufficient for your salon's social accounts. However, the 2nd essential thing for excellent images is the light.

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Barber Tools Fundamentals Explained

Table of ContentsSome

[pink-peony-princess]

Teaser of 'Who Said Anything About Tact?':

Violet's walk had started out like any other. She was a person of habit,very rarely did she break her routine, and so how she came to be by Old Station Bridge,she couldn't be sure. One thing had led to another, she had noticed the way the late afternoon light was hitting the trees just across the small river, the field behind it backlit perfectly. So perfectly that she'd done what she'd so rarely done before and stopped to take a photo.

She'd been warned about the presence of wolves by her mother so many times before, the whole town of Mercy Falls knew about them. There were the Cresent Moon pack, feared amongst wolves, but of zero threat to humans, in fact they were well know to help protect their human neighbours whenever necessary. And then there were the rogues, the mean, vicious, unapologetically violent, wolves that were fixated on taking the town for themselves.

Unfortunately for Violet this was who she came to be in the presence of the day it happened.

She'd taken her photo and had made it no more than 30 metres down the road when she heard the first growl. At first she ignored it, maybe it was a trick of her imagination she thought shaking her head. But she heard it again, this time closer, and she had a weird feeling as though she was being watched.

Before she had time to react, she was hanging just above the ground sharp teeth cutting into her side as she screamed to no effect for the animal to drop her, it shook her the way a dog would shake its prey to kill it, showing no sign of letting her go. She would have sworn she heard a crack of bone, but she couldn't be sure because her whole body felt like one giant punching bag. She called out for help again and again, but it was useless, no one would hear her out here, no one came along here, and for good reason she thought as she let her body go lump, accepting her fate.

...

Raul and his two betas- one of his brothers Peter and his friend Connor were nearly finished with their evening perimeter run of their lands when they heard it. The unmistakable rumble of growling in the distance. None of the three men recognised the tone, meaning it wasn't one (or several) of their own, which only left one other possibility-rogues.

They listened for a minute before they heard the sound of a woman shouting, begging for help over and over again before just as suddenly as it had started, it stopped.

The three wolves looked at one another before sprinting for the eastern boundary by Old Station Bridge. If there was a human,they were in trouble, there was no way a human could win against one rogue, let alone multiple.

Raul had dealt with his fair share of rogues in his short time as alpha, but nothing would prepare him for what they saw as they came to a stop by the bridge. A pack of 10 wolves were all circling a young woman- from what Raul could see from the glimpses he was catching between the wall of wolves around the same age as him and his brothers.

He made his way closer, careful not to bring attention to himself or his betas,he wanted the element of surprise.

He was just about to attack when the young woman looked up, as if she sensed help had come. What Raul wasn't expecting as the woman held his gaze was how it would make him feel. Initially Raul registered the terror and pain on the woman's face, the extreme helplessness, and then something hit him. It was the weirdest feeling- like warm tingling butterflies flooding Raul's entire body, his wolf- Knight- was restless, anxious really, begging to be let free, and then it happened, it clicked "Mate,mate, mate!" Knight shouted in Raul's head over and over again. There was a moment or two of elation where neither Raul or this unknown human girl moved before Raul was snapped back to reality by yet another growl from one of the rogues as they continued to circle and a small pitiful whimper from the girl.

There was no way he was going to let his mate get hurt he thought to himself as he lunged forward immediately knocking one of the wolves out of the way. Peter and Connor followed suit, just as easily dispensing another two wolves a good 10 metres from where they'd originally been. Though they got straight back up, poised to attack again.

Raul could see the girl clearly now that the circle had been broken and the sight pulled at his chest, though he wouldn't like to admit it.

The woman had a large gash on her temple which was trickling blood down the side of her head, dropping in a small pool on the ground, along with several puncture marks on her abdomen, which judging by the blood that had saturated her white shirt were deep, not to mention what looked like a broken wrist and scrapes covering just about every visible part of her body.

He could feel the anger rising him at what these low lives had done to the girl- his mate! His! Noone else's and before he could think he was shifting ripping a pair of pants out of the nearest tree (thank the Lord the whole perimeter of their lands had stashes of clothes) and was running over to her.

A deep gutteral growl left his lips, stopping everyone in their tracks.

Even Peter and Connor stopped, everyone knew what that growl meant, it was the possessive growl of a mated wolf warning everyone and everything in it's way to stay away- or else.

The girl flinched as Raul continued to growl as the rogues slowly backed up,clearing a path for him to get to her.

"Don't touch me," she begged, eyes wide with fear as she tried to shuffle backwards away from Raul as he bent down in front of her.

"I'm not going to hurt you," Raul spoke gruffly. "I'm trying to help you stop fighting me!" he grumbled, swinging her up into his arms effortlessly.

The way she sobbed as he moved her pulled at his heartstrings he had to admit, but right now he had a mission, get her to Shawn his other identical brother and one of the pack doctors before she past out or bled out.

"Let me go." she smacked his chest weakly,making absolutely no impact. Infact Raul barely felt it.

"Stop fighting me!" Raul snapped, feeling frustrated as he ran as fast as his legs would take him in the direction of home.

"I don't even know you!I want to go home!" the girl continued to struggle despite her injuries.

Peter who had been running behind Raul with Connor (both of whom must have shifted without Raul even realising) spoke up.

"Raul, look at her, she's terrified and in pain." Raul could tell without even looking at him that he felt bad for her, he was always such a softie, whereas Raul would rather be tactless and keep his mate alive than worry about being a gentleman.

Raul halted causing Peter to crash into him mid-step.

"Look Peter,I can either do as she asks,or I can save her life, which do you think I'm gonna choose?" he asked pointedly, glaring at his younger brother.He should know what was at stake here, afterall he'd found his mate Betty 6 months before and was absolutely besotted.

"I'm not saying you're not doing the right thing." Peter tried to backpedal. "Just maybe be a little nicer, a little more understanding, think about how you'd feel if you were in her position. She's human. Attacked by rogues and then some strange guy who also happens to be a wolf comes and picks you up and snaps at you when you try to defend yourself as you would."

"I'm trying to help her," Raul snapped again, glaring still.

"I know you are," Peter smiled sympathetically, "all I'm saying is maybe watch your tone."

"I'm sorry," he sighed, looking down at the crying girl in his arms. "My name's Raul, I know you're scared but if you don't let me help you won't be alive to go home," he explained impatiently, still walking.

"But you're a wolf. Why would you help me?" The confusion in her voice genuinely surprised him.

"Not all of us are big bad wolves," he answered. She was quiet for a minute except for the occasional hiss from pain.

"You are." she looked up at him waiting for a response, but Raul was so shocked that all he could do was laugh.

[entergamingxp]

Superliminal Review — Shifting My Perspective on Puzzles

July 6, 2020 12:00 PM EST

Superliminal is an inventive joy of a puzzle title and makes for a perfect way to reenter the puzzle genre as a whole.

Let me preface this review with this – I am not good at puzzle games, and Superliminal is very much a puzzle game. In fact, I’ve mostly avoided the genre as it’s typically not my speed. Simply put, I’m not extremely interested in puzzle games. If you asked me to name one from the last decade I’d answer with Professor Layton, skipping over many other fantastic titles that have also come out.

That may be why I was so surprised when I finished Superliminal in just a couple of sessions, having enjoyed every minute of it. It’s not your average puzzle game though as it’s not very complex and it leans heavily on a narrative delivered through radios placed at each level. However, what makes Superliminal truly unique isn’t its gameplay or story, but rather the way it uses both to impart a clear-cut message onto its player.

In Superliminal, you play as someone who has signed up for an experimental form of dream therapy. The entire game plays out in the character’s subconscious, which led me to question the things that I would find lying around. Chess pieces, dollhouses, and soda machines clutter this strange, 90s office-themed dreamscape, but they all have their purpose. Most of these random objects feed into the game’s mind-bending main feature – changing the size of something depending on your perspective.

“What makes Superliminal truly unique isn’t its gameplay or story, but rather the way it uses both to impart a clear-cut message onto its player.”

It’s a difficult concept to explain, so here are the layman’s terms. If you pick something up, it’s always going to be placed against the surface furthest from where you’re looking at. However, the item remains the same size from where you saw it. If you pick up a can of soda that’s 2 feet away from you and place it at the end of a room, the result is the biggest can of soda you’ve ever seen. It takes a while to understand the rules of this mechanic; how things can be placed, how to change their size, and how objects react to one another.

One of the things I really appreciated about Superliminal was this laissez-faire approach. At no point does the game tell you what to do, how its mechanics work, or what approach may be the best. Instead, you’re thrown straight into the mind-bending halls of your character’s brain to sort it out. For most puzzle games, I would have found an issue with this. Toying around with a game’s mechanics is easy for me when it’s clear what they are, but going in without knowing anything is a different story.

One room, in particular, stumped me – the door leading out of it was a brick wall, but cracks in the room’s walls let me peek outside and see the exit. It took me about fifteen minutes to figure out the walls could be knocked down with a large enough object. The frustration I felt with the puzzle was immediately replaced with sheer joy and satisfaction when the solution finally clicked, which was a common sensation I experienced playing the game.

This hands-off approach is one of the many things about Superliminal’s gameplay that ties into its narrative. Over the course of the game, you’re directed by Dr. Glenn Pierce, who attempts to guide you as you move from one dream to another. However, it’s important to remember that your character is undergoing a special kind of therapy this whole time. In it, the good Doc fills the role of your usual psychiatrist, while the game’s mechanics are the tools being taken away from this extensive, trippy session. And like the therapy I’ve experienced, it’s up to you to use those tools when situations arise. The therapy motif of Superliminal extends even to its name, which is based on the word “liminal” which relates to the transitional point of a process, or change. Simply put, over the course of the game, your character is in the midst of a process of change.

This all ties back to the main fixation of Superliminal – perspective – which influences every part of the game. As if messing with how handled objects react wasn’t enough, the game is filled with tricks of the eye, ranging from your classic room that gets smaller the further you go into it to hallways that feed into themselves. Superliminal does something a lot of games are afraid to do – it abandons the rules of reality. Even in Mario game,s what goes up eventually comes down, but that’s not always true in Superliminal. Directions become subjective, distance becomes meaningless, and the laws of physics are often thrown out the window.

Taking away these limitations left the game with a distinctively unique art style, especially towards its end. I won’t detail the scenery too much as it’s a pleasure to go through if you’re unaware. I will say though that the ways that light and dark are used lead to some gorgeous and clever puzzles. I had to yell after walking through the shadow of a filing cabinet into the next room because it was just brilliant.

“Superliminal is more than worth your time.”

Of course, these artistic choices come with their fair share of downsides. Those with vertigo, or really any inner ear problems, will likely want to stay far away from Superliminal. I even experienced mild nausea on one occasion when I was tricked into thinking up was straight ahead. Likewise, the game hasn’t quite got its physics figured out. It turns out that throwing the laws of physics out the window comes with some drawbacks. I ended up falling through the floor, sending myself flying, or sending objects flying multiple times during my nearly three-hour-long playthrough.

What may have bothered me the most out of this shortlist of grievances was Superliminal’s playtime. I enjoyed my time with the game, and as it reached its end, with its dreamscape reality destabilizing more and more, I found myself hoping the end wasn’t coming. But as the game delivered its final and most blatant messages and the credits began to roll, I figured it was for the best. Although it’s unlikely that I revisit the game, I felt that in my time with it I had experienced everything I was meant to.

Superliminal is the first puzzle game that I’ve played in a long time and I came away from it genuinely wanting more. Everything about it, from its innovative puzzles to its surrealist art style, and even its unusual soundtrack, is exciting. Even when the game floundered, when puzzles weren’t clearly laid out or the game’s physics engine had a conniption, my annoyance was often quickly replaced with another more positive emotion. I can’t stress this enough, as a puzzle game fan or not, Superliminal is more than worth your time.

July 6, 2020 12:00 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/07/superliminal-review-shifting-my-perspective-on-puzzles/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=superliminal-review-shifting-my-perspective-on-puzzles

[sensitivitysensitivity]

books i read summer 2018!

so, here’s all of the books that i read over the time of like, end of may to august, including my star rating as well as a short synopsis and a brief little paragraph about what i thought about it while i watch comedians in cars getting coffee. don’t read my reviews if you don’t want ANY spoilers. the reviews aren’t spoilery, it just has some hints to the end and such. 

i. the hate u give by angie thomas

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

the hate u give is about a young african american girl named starr who is present when her childhood best friend is tragically murdered in an unwarranted act of police brutality, and how she finds her voice and the strength to speak out about the matter of police brutality with the support of her family and friends, as well as finding out who her real supporters are.

i adored this book with every last bit of my heart. the characters are absolutely hysterical, as well as strong and inspiring. i even loved starr’s stereotypical white boyfriend (who is being played by KJ Apa in the film adaption coming out this year and i literally yelled). i loved the way the book incorporated social media and such without making it seem as if teenagers are simply media obsessed. it really showed many different perspectives and sides to arguments that make you think, as well as inspire you to stand up for something you believe in.

ii. emergency contact by mary h.k choi

★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

emergency contact follows two college students who are seemingly lost in life, dealing with issues in their respective lives, who meet under strange and awkward circumstances, and take a liking to one another and start a friendship that consists almost entirely of text messages as they help one another through their woes of life, and develop feelings for one another cause yanno its a YA romance.

i didn’t NOT enjoy this book, but it wasn’t my favorite. i found penny’s character kind of annoying, and really rude sometimes, and i didn’t really love her dynamic with any of the characters, including sam who is the guy she is texting throughout the book. i really liked how realistic it was, kind of giving a real look into how life works i guess? i thought sam’s storyline with his ex girlfriend was incredibly dramatic and unneeded and it frustrated me, and the end of the story literally wasn’t affected at all by that storyline, it was just not needed. at all. like the ending was like cute and sam was cool but it was just kinda not as good as everyone online said it was. if it would’ve ended differently it would’ve gotten two stars lol.

iii. every day by david levithan

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

every day is the story of a genderless character that goes by the name of a, who jumps around from body to body every day into the life of somebody else, but they meet a girl, rhiannon, while in someone else’s life and they fall in love with her, and they then spend every day finding ways back to her

that was real hard to explain okay, but i really, really enjoyed this book. i found some aspects a little repetitive and it took some time to get to the point, but it was such a sweet story, and i loved getting to know each of the characters that a used as a host, and i enjoyed figuring out which characters that i liked more. i also liked the slight thrill of the kid who is trying to get a caught, as well as the ‘reverend’ who has the same condition as a, but learns to control it. i usually don’t like an open ending, but i liked this one since it implies a goes away to find out how to control himself and get back to rhiannon. overall i enjoyed it, and it was fun to read and get to know the characters, but i gained nothing from reading it because the ending was open and it felt like there was no actual point. i don’t know it was good.

iv. play me backwards by adam selzer

★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

play me backwards is a really freaking weird story about the misadventures of leon who finds out his childhood girlfriend is possibly going to come visit, and is pushed down a rabbit hole of weird tasks he is sent to do by his best friend stan, who apparently is actually satan, such as finding the white grape slushee, date a popular girl, and listen to the full audio book of moby dick, all the while spending almost all of his time at the run down ice cream shop he works at. honestly that’s the best i can do the book is super freaking strange?

the weird thing about this book is that i actually really enjoyed reading it, and i actually really liked the character of leon, but i genuinely had no idea what the hell was going on the entire time. he was just kind of running around, like messing around with his girlfriend he didn’t like, thinking about some british girl, and being a lowkey satanist. like i have no idea what the point was, i honestly don’t even know what it was about. leon was a relatable character and he was funny, and i enjoyed his point of view, but the book was bad. the idea sucked and i felt like i was wasting my time reading it. but i had a fictional crush on leon and the ending like kinda forced itself into having a point, even though it was a stretch, so two stars only for leon. but i liked it. i don’t know. 

v. eliza and her monsters by francesca zappia

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

eliza and her monsters is about a young girl, eliza, who writes/draws a world renound web comic, monstrous sea, but remains completely anonymous except to her three best online friends and her family, but then she befriends the new student at school, wallace, and she finds out he is that he is the most popular fanfiction writer for her webcomic, she finds it harder and harder to keep her secret as she falls in love. 

so i read this book in ONE NIGHT. it was really good, and never failed to entertain me. i couldn’t blame eliza for falling in love with wallace cause girl i did too. he was such a cute character and so were her internet friends, and so were all the characters and i loved reading all of the little snipits of the webcomic, it was just adorable, and their love was adorable, and it was just adorable. plus it really puts a nice look on mental illness, and im not talking about eliza, wallace had extreme anxiety and it was very real and i really appreciated it. took away a star because eliza pissed me off on multiple occasions and i found her annoying a lot. other than that rEally great. 

vi. i’ll give you the sun by jandy nelson

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

i’ll give you the sun is told from the perspective of twins noah and jude during two very separate periods of time in their lives, jude telling her story at age sixteen and noah at age thirteen, as they go through life, and falling in love, and family secrets and tragedies as the grow apart and back together.

okay so i didn’t know how to explain this without spoiling it completely, but WOW i loved this book. i genuinely couldn’t decide if i liked noah or jude’s story better, and finally decided on the answer being BOTH. it was so good, so emotional, noah and brian made me sob and so did jude and oliver, and i loved the characters and all the revelations they had and im just rambling and i feel like im making no sense but jesus, this book was amazing and the story was just so absolutely amazing. not a single flaw in this book. absolutely amazing OH ! MY ? GOD! absolute favorite of the summer.

vii. the absolutely true diary of a part time indian by sherman alexie

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

the absolutely true diary of a part time indian is the critically acclaimed novel about a teenage boy, junior, who had many medical issues who lives in an indian reservation, but decides that he is destined for greater things and decides to transfer to the “white school”, and he faces many challenges such as finding his place at this school and the backlash of the other members of the reservation. 

it was very difficult for me to like this book, at first because of the fact that i read it for school, but then ONLY for the fact that i found out about the sexual assault charges against the author, and im so upset i bought the book and essentially supported the author before i was aware olf that, but that doesn’t change that i had to read this for school, and that i actually liked it. it was very aware of racism and a lot of racial stereotypes and provided very raw experiences and the drawings were fun to read. i don’t really wanna go on cause i don’t wanna praise it too much, but i took away a star cause sometimes i found it repetitive and some things simply didn’t have a point, but i liked it. 

viii. a semi-definitive list of worst nightmares by krystal sutherland

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

this book tells the odd story of esther solar, who believes her whole family is cursed by Death, and whatever fear that cripples them throughout life will kill them. but the curse is threatening the life of her twin brother, eugene, she decides to face every fear she has written down on her list of things she must avoid so she never has to face the curse herself, with the help of an unlikely friend, to lure Death to them and reverse the curse. 

so that summary probably little to no sense at all. because the book itself is so difficult to explain, but i actually really enjoyed it. it took me a while to read it, but i loved it. esther was a real character, with so many real flaws, and her ‘friend’ jonah who helped her overcome all of her fears, really brought out the best parts of her, as well as bringing light to the nature of abuse. the book dealt with a lot of real problems, such as mental illness, and does it in such a lovely and sensitive way, but without holding back, as well as showing someone who seemingly had no hope, get better, which i find amazing. the only reason i took a star away was because so many parts dragged on and i got bored sometimes, but overall, it was a great read with so many great characters and it was very whimsical and enjoyable!

ix. crazy rich asians by kevin kwan

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

crazy rich asians follows rachel chu and her boyfriend nick young as he brings her home to his ‘crazy rich’ family that he hasn’t prepared her for at all, and essentially don’t approve of her, as well as it follows everyone in nick’s extended and immediate family as well as some family friends and their extravagant lifestyles as well as all the drama that comes with being that freaking rich. 

okay i adore this book. it was absolutely amazing, and i could barely begin to tell you all of the amazing characters and storylines, each one more interesting and intricate and extravagant than the next. i loved the representation, and accurate representation at that, of the asian culture. it was just great. other than being somewhat hard to follow at times with the constant perspective change, i loved it. the movie was rlly good too lol. 

x. the kissing booth by beth reekles

★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

the kissing booth is the absolutely dreadful story of a young girl, elle evans, and her best friend, lee flynn, as they plan a kissing booth for their high schools fundraiser (for what? i have no clue) and elle ends up kissing her best friends older brother, noah flynn, and by a strange turn of events they fall into a forbidden (because lee makes the rules ig) romance. 

really ended off the summer GREAT with this one! it sucked, it was horrible. there were actual, typos? in the book? it was incredibly sexist, literally making elle seem like a piece of property, and theres MULTIPLE occasions of sexual assault that is glossed over. in fact, the best friend lee assaults her (slapping her butt without permission) and when someone ELSE assaults her he says “no one is allowed to do that but me” thats reason ENOUGH. it’s gross how they both try and control her, and its honestly just bad. the story is all over the place, and it feels like a wattpad book, because it literally is, and i payed six dollars for it. so the jokes on me ig. 

[darwinism00]

Chapter one

CHAPTER ONE The presentation of who we want you to be Definition of Darwinism 1 : a theory of the origin and perpetuation of new species of animals and plants that offspring of a given organism vary, that natural selection favors the survival of some of these variations over others, that new species have arisen and may continue to arise by these processes, and that widely divergent groups of plants and animals have arisen from the same ancestors. Young Keera shifted in her seat, nervously playing with her writing gadget as to keep her fingers busy during this presentation that every high schooler had to sit through on their first day of 7th grade. Her eyes were distracted from the projection screen and her heart felt like it was going to jump out of her chest. She felt like after this maybe her friends, the few she had made at this school in the last year would start noticing things about her that she didn't want them to know. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath trying to focus on not having an outburst just this once. She had done good after all and this was the longest she was able to stay at a school. Dont mess this up now! Keera scolded herself. “Hey Keera you alright girl?” A boy with blue/green eyes and a gigantic grin leans over and nudges her. She jumps over dramatically. He smiles his charming white smile that made his eyes sparkle. She remembered once thinking that when he got older that his eyes would be the first to wrinkle. Laugh lines would surely be the first sign of aging and a good life, for Albo was the happiest boy or person she had ever met. He had a slight accent. His family was from Albania and had moved to America when he was little just before the borders were sealed. He laughed softly at her reaction. “Wow girl I'm not armed.” Keera gave him a sideways glance and his smile infected her. Even with the feelings of anxiety she was having he seemed to still have her smiling. “Quiet class there will be an assessment on this to see how much you were paying attention. This is your American history and very important key elements to your government. Pay attention!” Mrs. Stimack a very conservative pointed woman pointed her last statement at the two of them. They both bit their lips and stifled a giggle and continued their focus to the front of the room where the tv box had the documentary playing on the wall. In the year 2014 News stations had footage, reports and headlines of a new drug sweeping the U.S. Its street name was dirty tar but later was lead back to Afghanistan and was easiest explained to the public as a special strain of Heroin. The News stations claimed that it was cut with a unknown substance and extremely dangerous leading to episodes of aggressive super human delusions and almost always leading to death. There were several reports of people eating each other, lifting cars or jumping off building thinking they could fly. Like most reports this too was swept under the rug after a few months until years later when it was linked to something much larger and historically changing. Keera shifted again restlessly thinking about her mother. God this video couldn't be over soon enough. She thought to herself as she rolled her eyes in frustration. She knew this was coming and that she would have to sit through it eventually but that didn't mean she was going to like it. Besides most students already knew most of this stuff already. It was a part of their day to day life. Keera glances back to Albo who was taking notes. Of course. Keera thought with a smile. He was the perfect student. He got all A’s. He knew multiple languages, was captain of the debate team, class President and was captain of the Soccer and basketball team despite being a bit short for his age. Keera remembered feeling a bit self conscious when she looked down the few inche from her eyes sight to his. His eyes were penetrating and caused her stomach to be uneasy. So much so that she avoided him for the first few month she was here last year. Finally, his charm infected her and they were the best of friends. Because for her that's all she had to offer. Anyone she let get any closer than that died and her heart cracked just thinking about anything happening to Albo. She shook the thought off and continued watching the documentary. The drug not only had massive initial side effects but it also modified something in the D.N.A. and the offsprings of the drug users had certain abilities. One political group wanted to euthanize the ones with abilities for the safety of all. Another wanted them in camps and the third wanted freedom for its people with or without abilities. This disagreement caused a war among the citizens of the United States. This Civil war is now known as the gene war and the most powerful Nation fell to its knees. Pictures of actors dramatically falling to their knees flash to the screen. Keera rolls her eyes and shakes her head with a heavy exhale of breath. “Hey Miss can you keep that heavy breathing down I can't keep my attention.” Keera looked over to Albo as he wiggled his eyebrows at her. She burst into laughter. She couldn't help it. Just then the projection paused and the lights came on. They looked up to Mrs. Stimack standing at the front of the class by the controller panel with her arms crossed and a wicked glare on her face. She was definitely not amused. “Keera if you can't control yourself then I will have to ask you to leave.” Keera presses her lips together and after a brief second she puts on a poker face and shakes her head in understanding. Albo raised his hand with his writing gadget still pressed between his fingers. “Yes Mrs. Stimack I am so sorry. I was asking her a question about the film. The dialect had me confused and I guess my confusion came out funny.” He shrugges innocently. “My apologies I will save my questions for after the Documentary is over.” Mrs. Stimack eyed Albo skeptically knowing that his dialect in the many languages he knew was next to perfect but seeing how he was her favorite student she replied. “Ok Albo that is a good idea. I'll let this go this one time but any more outbursts or disruptions and I will have to separate you two.” Albo smiled his beautiful smile and nodded with eager agreement. “Yes mam.” He said as he gave her a salute. Anyone else doing this might come off as arrogant but with that smile Albo was charming and genuine. Keera felt her once fast beating heart beat skip a beat and float in her chest. He glances towards Keera as Mrs. Stimack walked back to the controller panel on the wall. He leans over and whispers. “Separate us? Never.” He still wore his grin and gave Keera a wink. Keera tried desperately to not look at him. Las Vegas was bombed into a hole in the ground for being found out to be a safe haven for those afflicted and the government crumbled. Other Countries turned their back on the U.S. none of them wanting to risk any tainted getting in over seas and have the same destruction go on. America instated Martial law while the government rebuilt. Three territories arose. The Confederacy, which made up most of the inner, center states. The Union which made up most of the bordering states and the Independency which was made up of just four states, Colorado, Nevada, Louisiana and Florida. These four states were made homes to people who saw both sides of the other two territories and refused to commit to either. “Fence jumpers.” One kid coughed out. “Communists.” Another added in agreement. “Hippies.” A third added in a high pitched squeak until Mrs. Stimack called out in a stern voice. “That is enough! Pay attention or I will give the assessment now.” The room fell silent. “I will take questions at the end.” In the Confederacy they believed that God would show them the way out of this and they integrated religion as law. If you were a citizen of the Confederacy it was mandatory to attend Church every Sunday and donate your Wednesday nights to charity work. As a symbol of your allegiance at the age of 16 you were given a Confederate silver cross to wear as part of the Confederate dress code along with your state issued ID chip in the palm of your hand. Keera glanced down at the palm of her left hand. She was almost 12. She had four more years until she would have to leave. There would be no way for her to stay with what she was and in a Confederate state nonetheless. She glanced to Albo and her chest ached. She had four more years with him. The memory of him enthusiastically telling her that he wanted to be a soldier flooded her mind. This is why she could never let him in. She knew that if she did that he would hate her for what she was and that was worse than almost anything else. Keera blinked back tears and continued the torture of watching the documentary. In the Confederacy you were obligated to go to the Army for a year of training after high school and then attend college if decided after that. Science was accepted but with the acknowledgment that God created all things and any science trying to prove otherwise was forbidden by Confederate law. There was also an election for a Commander in Chief every 5 years which enabled the public to vote for its Confederate leader. Because a lot of the Confederate states consist of farm land they thrive on trade and focus on this skill. In the Union territory they believe in the people's voice as a majority to be most important. They have a council of the Union which consists of a leader from each Union state as a representative. In this territory environment is most important. Recycling is a strict law. Technology is a huge push in the Union states. College is not only free but required. If you opt out then you are required to join the military. Without either you will not be eligible for work. In order to work or travel at the age of 16 when you instate your allegiance to your territory you get a chip in your palm. In a Union state you get a branding on the back of the neck. The symbol of two hands shaking. Because most of the Union states are on the borders their technology and waterways give them an advantage to trade with the Confederates for food. Keera found herself rubbing the back of her neck and noticed that a few students were doing the same. She couldn't imagine being branded even if she tended to believe in the Union states of government more than her own. For now she was stuck. She would probably have to find a way to an Independent state at some point. That's the only way they wouldn't need to chip her. She was scared of being chipped because there were rumors that when you are chipped if you have a genetic default that your chip implant zaps you dead in under a minute. Even though it was most likely malarkey she didn't want to take that chance with her life. She continued rubbing her palm and listened closely to the Independent explanation of government. The Independent states are just that. They are each Independent from government and run on their own individually. After Nevada was bombed and as a gesture of peace all three territories deemed it the first safe zone. It was renamed New Vegas and housed all the new and upcoming technology. College kids from all three territories were allowed safe passage. Louisiana, Colorado and Florida ran off of a point system. Colorado and Louisiana grew crops and canibus to trade with either faction for their needs. In order to get points you had to contribute and thus you got your rations. It was harder to establish this system more than the others but in time everyone just grew accustomed. If they didn't like it they could change to a different faction. So people moved to where they wanted to be. Once you pledge your allegiance however it was very hard to change. Florida functioned on the same point system as well but thrived on fish trade and tourism. Independent territories allow visitors from both Union and Confederate States but no long term visitors like New Vegas and once you pledge your allegiance to an Independent state because they don't require tracking chips you were not allowed to travel outside your state without special paperwork stating you had permission to do so. Damn. Keera thought to herself. She wouldn't be able to leave. She would need to try and research all of them. Keera sunk a little in her seat. Researching anything outside of being a Confederate citizen was almost impossible here. She would find a way or she would just go to the closest one. Nevada wasn't too far from Arizona. Keera thought. I would surely find someone to help her get to an Independent state from there right? The cold feeling of loneliness blanketed her chest like it often did when she tried to come up with a game plan. Keera was completely on her own and had no one to help her. The Nihilist started to arise in her. Fuck it. She cursed. She would do what she had to do and if she went down she would take anyone trying to stop her down with her. This system has taken nearly a decade in a half to establish into what we have today. A very precise unified governing system. All three territories though separate help keep the united states diverse yet segregated. Once a melting pot of angry people forced to live amongst each other we are now a three part governing system with everyone where they belong best. Now a little over 10 years after it all begun the United States has gone through more change than it has in the last 200 years but is finally prospering. With the ones with ailments gone or secluded peace has finally been possible. Music of a marching band crescendos into the credits screen. As the lights came on Keera glanced around the room to the students blinking to adjust their eyes to the light. She was trying to gauge their reactions to the video. She looked to Albo who was staring at her. At first Keera wanted to be self conscious as if the video exposed her in some way. Then Albo licked his lips; eyes penetrating her with concern. “Are you alright?” He asked with so much concern it caught Keeras breath. She exhaled and averted her eyes from his. “Yeah I'm fine. Just tired.” She clears her throat. “Oh i dashur you don't expect me to believe that.” He always called her that. Which meant “darling” when she looked it up one time. Though she secretly loved it she found herself rolling her eyes at it almost impulsively. He laughed softly at her response. “Ok then we talk later ya?” Keera found herself unable to speak so she just shook her head in agreement to make the conversation be over with. “Ok settle down.” Mrs. Stimack called out over the chatter of the room that had erupted once the lights came on. Keera overheard one boy finishing his story to two other boys. “Yeah well my dad said the tainted are all in Puerto Rico in a camp where they belong.” Keera flinched at this statement. Puerto Rico was deemed a safe zone before the bombing of Las Vegas but it ended up just being a trap. Anyone who was taken there was never seen or heard from again. Men in black uniforms would come and tear people from their families and drag them off to this safe zone that people without abilities were not allowed to go. All of them being children. It almost caused a second war but because people that were not affected directly from this and wanted to move on outnumber the ones who did nothing came of their rebellion. “Joseph.” Mrs. Stimack called out to the boy telling the story. “Tainted is a slanderous word for those afflicted with abilities and I do not tolerate slanderous terms in my classroom.” Joseph put his head down in shame for his slip up. Keera had heard that word plenty of times behind closed doors. Her foster family used language worse than that along with other things that would make it easy for her to walk away from this facade of a life. The only thing that made it hard was Albo. She thought about the times they had hung out on roof tops talking about their life plans. Albo was so certain about what he wanted. He was tenacious. His life was planned out like a check list. Not like I want this to happen but what will happen with such certainty. Keera would just shrug and say that she planned on going to college for something. Albo would tease her casual non-commitment type attitude but she figured that deep down he maybe knew she didn't plan on sticking around and pledging her allegiance to Arizona. They never talked about it but when the subject of what they would do after school got brought up he would get this look in his eyes that was unmistakably sad. Albo was always happy and contagiously enthusiastic but in those moments Keera knew that she was going to break his heart and in doing that break her own. Whenever she thought of those moments her heart ached and she would then begin to a wall. “Yes Matthew?” Mrs. Stimack said calling on another student and waking Keera up from her inner tortured dialog. “Is it true that.” He paused looking for the correct words. “The people.” he paused again not knowing how to refer to the people with abilities. Mrs. Stimack answered for him. “People with ailments.” She said nonchalantly. Matthew shook his head in agreement to the term and continued. “Is it true that people with ailments are shipped to Puerto Rico in a camp?” Matthew was a skinny blond haired blue boy with such an innocent expression that Keera almost didn't even feel a stab in her chest when he asked it outloud. Mrs. Stimack answered with a well prepared tone to her voice and a fake smile plastered on her face. Keera had been alive long enough to observe people who despised people with abilities. The slander remark didn't fool her. “Now Matthew that has never been proven to be true. OK?” She shook her head yes as to get him to comply in agreement and to Keeras disbelief Matthew did so. “Ok Mrs. Stimack.” He said with a smile. Did she just hypnotise him? Keera thought to herself. “Yes Mary?” Mrs. Stimack called on the next student with their hand raised. Most of the students that were born into a Confederate state ended up having a biblical name. Students had come to bear these names with pride and arrogance and it annoyed Keera to no end. Mary was a teacher's pet. She had red hair in two tight pigtail braids on each side of her head and a freckled face. “Yes.” She said brushing one braid off of her shoulder like the chip she needed to get off her shoulder Keera thought to herself. “My daddy said that Canada is a Country full of heathens that all have abilities and have children out of wedlock and…” She was cut off. “Let me stop you right there.” Mrs. Stimack said. Mary went on though. “He said it's Sodom and Gomorrah all over again.” Mrs. Stimack put her hand up and Mary’s rebellious look on her face fell into a blank expression. Mrs. Stimack smiled kindly, which looked odd on her wrinkled face that had stress lines from frowning rather than smiling. Her blonde hair was tight on top of her head exposing every one of those lines on her face. “None of that has ever been proven and here in the Confederacy we only acknowledge truth and justice.” The words Truth and justice was recited by the whole class out loud any time they were said in class conversation like a verse at Catholic school. The Canadian border was the last to close, but they are just that. Closed! Therefore we do not acknowledge them. Understand?” She says with a gritted toothed grin. Mary just nodded in agreement. Keera pinched her brows together in shock. She is fucking hypnotizing them? She thought. Keera looked around the room to the other students to see if anyone else noticed what was going on and as far as she could tell no one was catching on. She looked to Albo who had his nose buried in his notes he had taken. Luke who was one of Keera and Albos friends raised his hand tentatively. “Yes Luke.” Mrs Stimack said with a smile but rolled her eyes at the same time already fed up with this routine. “Uh yea.” Luke's voice was shaky and nervous. He was Puerto Rican. After the war begun Puerto Rico was evacuated and his family, who was very religious moved to Arizona and had him and named him Luke by suggestion of the Commander of Chief that said all Confederates should bring biblical names back for the future is within our children and we should give them the holiest path we can. “Yes Luke go ahead.” Mrs. Stimack said with a hint of irritation in her voice. “Yeah what will happen if we don't want to pledge our allegiance?” Everyone turned to stare at him in the back of the class. Keeras heart ached for him knowing how much this bothered him. “I mean do you have to leave?” Mrs. Stimacks head tilted like a puppy's does when it does not understand how something works. “What do you mean not pledge your allegiance? Do you mean switch sides to a Union state?” She laughed at the last part conveying what a joke she thought that would be. “No I mean why do we have to pick a side?” He says in a smaller voice. Keeras stomach started turning at the agony she saw her friend going through. Damn it Luke why did you have to open your mouth! Keera yelled in her own head. “Well you don't. You can move away from your family and everything you know and go live on a commune, in sin with the savages in an independent state.” “Savages?” A crude voice rang out clear as a bell in the classroom. Keera didn't realize it was her own voice until she noticed everyone's gazed shifting to her. Mrs Stimack looked to her as if she was a bug. “Yes I believe savages would be accurate.” Mrs. Stimack’s voice was overly punctual as to convey her conception of knowledge to be much greater than Keeras. “Violent and uncontrolled is an accurate definition of the word savage.” She drew the last word out and flicked her tongue at the end as if it were something dirty she needed to get out of her mouth. Anger started boiling in Keeras stomach and she knew she was skating on a thin line. Keera drew in a deep breath to calm herself. “Just seems like an extreme word for a group of people that want to live their lives without being forced into something that they don't believe in.” Keera could feel herself glare even though she was trying to will herself not to. Mrs. Stimack glared back and stood. Her nice smiling expression was gone. “Really Keera? You mean people who don't believe in God or Jesus and want to live in sin without any consequences. You think savage is too harsh of a term for them.” Her hands were in firsts hung down on each side of her body that was shaking. She paced in front of the class and preached in a strong overpowering raging tone. “John 3:16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.” She glared daggers to Keera daring for a response. “Matthew 7:1-5” was all that left Keeras lips in a firm defying voice. Although every fiber of her being was telling her to stop bringing attention to herself she couldn't help but feed the fire inside her. Her lips curled up into a smirk. Gasps erupted from the room because the scripture she was referencing was about not judging others for you will be judged with the same harshness. “Get out!” Mrs. Stimack roared. Keeras smirk fell into a frown and she swallowed hard. Students that got send to the principle got lashings and although she was not scared of the pain from the lashings she was scared about controlling her ailments as she was punished. “Please.” was all that could leave her lips. She frantically looked to Albo that was looking at her with pain in his eyes. “I will not have you disrupting my class!” Keera did not respond. She had no words that wouldn't just get her into more trouble. She also did not move. She was unable to. She just gripped the sides of her desk trying to control her breathing frozen in fear that she might burn the entire school down if forced to move. Just then Albo stood. “I want to bear her punishment please.” Albo stood at attention. The class was dead silent. “Albo no.” Is all that Keera could say but it was barely audible. “Quiet.” Mrs Stimack spat at Keera. She approached Albo. “Are you sure you want to do this?”She whispered quietly into his ear. Albo stood at attention not looking Mrs. Stimack in her eyes. “Yes mam. I would please like to bear her punishment for her which is stated in the handbook as a viable rule.” Mrs. Stimack leans her gaze back to spot the agony in Keera’s expression. “Yes, but not a rule that I have seen actually practiced.” She then wore a smirk leaning in to whisper into Albos ear again. “You know you are very brave for this.” Albo said nothing. “I favore you but the Principal will make an example of you. You know this right?” Albo says nothing. “You can back out if you want to. Now that you know this Albo.” Albo looks to Keera and winks. “No mam I will not be backing out” He says loud enough for everyone to hear. Mrs. Stimack leans back to look Keera right in the face. “I didn't think you would. Go on then and receive your lashings.” Albo grabs his books and marches out of the classroom. Keera’s eyes glassed over and warm tears rolled uncontrollably down her face. Her chest felt like a hole had been hammered into it. “You should think of this next time you want to disrupt my classroom Keera.” If keera hadn't been so heart broken she knew the room would of exploded at that very moment. Instead she sat extremely quiet; silent tears falling out onto her desk until she had no more tears left to fall. That night Keera snuck out of her room in the attic of her foster parents house and into the upstairs room of Albo that lived just next door. She opened the window that was always unlocked. She had become accustomed to knocking and they meet on the roof never daring to actually go inside his room. She didn't want to give the wrong impression to him. Albo was laying in bed with bandages taped to his back soaked in blood. He lay face down covered in sweat. “Oh my God Albo.” Keera whispered touching his bicep gently from behind not able to see his face yet. “Albo I am so sorry.” She whispered out. Albo took a deep breath in. “Keera you didn't deserve this.” His words were muffled half into the pillow and half because of Albos teeth being grinded together through the pain. Tears Keera didn't think she had welled back into her eyes. She walked around the bed and layed down so that her face and his were facing each other. “You didn't either. Why did you do this for me.” He smiled his enthusiastic grin that was tainted with the pain. “Because i dasure don't you know?” His eyes shot lasers into hers and down into her chest. He raised his hand and touched her cheek. “Ti je dashuria ime” Keeras breath hitched. She wasn't exactly sure what that meant but she was almost 100% sure that he just professed his love to her. He leaned forward to give her a kiss on her forehead and kiss her tears from her eyes. Yeah I'm going to break him. She thought with certainty for there was no future for them but she felt like she couldn't live without him. In that moment Keera felt for the first time ever that she was not alone and it was going to kill her.