#learning from watching other GMs is wonderful

[the-gamling-dog]

@quiddie it may bring you joy to know that the belligerent salt goblin's cry of "Uppies!" to Binx is now how my wife & I routinely ask each other for assistance off the couch. Or bed. Or sometimes chair, my knees are older than I am.

Anyway, you've brought joy into the world, and people should watch a Court of Fey & Flowers!

[cozage]

Gm!! I saw your inbox was open!! I was hoping to request something with Sanji, Ace n Franky with a selective mute (gender neutral) reader talking to them through their voice for the first time to confess? 👉👈

(Btw I wanted to let you know that your writing has such a grip on my heart, I must have re-read your Sleepy Afternoon hcs at least a hundred times 🥺🫶 and i hope you have a wonderful day!)

So sorry I didn't get a new chapter out today...the holidays kept me busy! Enjoy these sweet short stories instead <3 Characters: gn reader x Sanji, Ace, Franky Cw:  none :) Total word count: 1600

First Words

Sanji

Ever since you joined the crew, you had found yourself gravitating toward the kitchen. 

Being with Sanji was easy. He never pestered you with questions or asked you to speak. If he did ask questions, they were always non-invasive, yes-or-no questions that you could answer with a shake of your head. 

You realized you had feelings for him when he came into the kitchen one morning, dark shadows under his eyes. And before he began cooking, he signed good morning to you. You had signed back the same phrase before you realized that he had signed, not spoken. 

He beamed with pride as your eyes widened in shock. 

“You learned how to sign?” you signed quickly. 

He focused intensely as he watched the way your hands moved, and then slowly nodded. 

“I stayed up all night trying to learn the basics. I figured it’s lonely up there in your head.” He tapped his temple with his forefinger for effect. “I’m not very good yet, but I’ll try my best to follow you if you ever feel like communicating.”

You gave a soft nod, the thought making your eyes shine. Even just the effort of knowing good morning made your heart swell. 

As the days went on, Sanji got better at sign language. So much better that he indirectly became your translator for the rest of the crew if you ever felt like adding to the conversation. He came to your defense whenever Luffy begged you to speak, and helped make sure your voice was heard without ever judging you. 

As the two of you were sitting out on the deck one night under the stars, you decided you couldn’t hold it in anymore. You had to tell him. 

“I have to tell you something,” you signed.

Sanji stood up a little straighter, looking at you with slight concern. “What is it, my love?”

“I think-” you paused your signing. Saying the words with your hands didn’t seem right. You trusted Sanji with everything. You wanted to tell him. You wanted to say it. Out loud. 

“I think-” you whispered softly, your voice raw from time unused. But you grew more confident when you spoke again. “I think I might just be in love with you, Sanji.”

You could see him struggling to understand your words; the fact that you had spoken was enough to send him into shock. 

And then he leaned in and kissed you. 

You melted under his touch. Your body craved the feeling of his skin as he held your face against his. 

“I love you too, my dear,” he whispered back. “And my name on your lips is sweeter than anything I could ever cook up.”

Ace

Ace didn’t mind that you didn’t speak a lot. Or speak at all. He did enough talking for the both of you. 

Still, you liked being around him. At meals, you often found yourself sitting next to him. At parties, he was often at your door, dragging you out onto the deck to have a few beers with everyone. 

You liked how he could bring people together. He was always the life of the party anywhere you went. You enjoyed his warmth, both through his devil fruit ability and personality. 

You often found yourself staring at him, admiring everything about him. You knew every other person on the ship was doing the same thing. So even when his eyes locked onto yours and the two of you had silent conversations, you did your best to ignore that ache in your chest. He was loved by everyone. You weren’t special. 

“Thank you for coming tonight,” Ace said, taking a seat next to you on the deck. “I know you didn’t want to, and I know these parties can be overwhelming. So thanks for coming for me.”

You shook your head slightly, smiling softly. It’s no big deal.

“It is a big deal! You-” the rest of his sentence was cut off by a few of your crewmates screaming at each other and everyone cheering loudly. 

“Come on,” Ace mumbled, rising to his feet and holding out his hand for you. “Let’s go somewhere quieter. I can’t hear myself think here.”

You smiled and nodded, taking his hand. It was loud and overwhelming. You were here for Ace, to celebrate him being promoted. But that didn’t mean you liked being around crowds or rowdiness. 

There was only one place that was quiet on a night like tonight: the crow’s nest. So the two of you quietly snuck up the ladder and hid away from everyone. A moment of quiet amongst the sea of noise. 

“It's so peaceful up here,” Ace said softly. “I love it up here.”

You hummed in agreement. “I love you.”

Both of you froze. You hadn’t even been thinking about a confession. It had come out entirely on its own. 

You could feel Ace’s sharp gaze on you. “What?”

You cleared your throat, ignoring the heat on your face. “The view. I love the view.”

“You’re speaking.”

You finally looked at him, your voice rough. “I speak sometimes.”

“Never to me!” Ace ran his hand through his hair and took a long drink from the bottle in his hand. “You’ve never spoken to me!”

“I-” you stopped. You hadn’t spoken much since you had joined the crew. Only to Pops, really. And only whenever you were asked a direct question. Ace had probably never heard your voice. “I thought you had. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize!” Ace said, laughing. “I just want to hear more of it! Tell me a story! Your voice is- is like-” he struggled for words, and then he smiled as his eyes locked onto yours. “It’s like a breath of fresh air.”

“It is not,” you smiled at his words, though. “You just feel that way because we can breathe up here without smelling our lovely crewmates.”

Ace barked out a laugh. “Stunning and funny. You really are the total package.”

You quieted at that. A true compliment from Ace didn’t happen often, and you could feel the blush creeping its way through your face. 

Instead, you laid back and turned your head toward the sky, choosing to watch the stars instead. You were almost asleep when Ace spoke again.

“I love you too, you know.”

Franky

You liked being in the workshop with Franky. Franky never tried to get you to speak. Most of the time it was too loud in there to hold a conversation anyway. The extent of your conversation was him asking you to get a tool for him, and you silently retrieving it. 

You weren’t sure it changed into something more, but you began watching him closely as he worked. After a day or two, he began explaining what he was building and all the steps that went into it. It wasn’t long before you were working on the bench next to him. 

Some days, Franky was chatty. He talked about his home, his old life, and other projects he had done. Sometimes he asked you simple questions about your past, but he never pried too deep. 

That’s what you liked most about Franky. Everything had been on your terms, and Franky had always received your decisions enthusiastically. He always supported you when you wanted to help him build a bench, but he also encouraged you to take rest days when you simply wanted to observe. 

Franky was always on your side. No matter what you decided, he was going to agree. He was your biggest fan, always cheering you on. 

And as his strong arms wrapped around you, both of you holding the torch to weld two pieces of metal together, you realized the heat on your face wasn’t just from the flame. 

Franky pulled his welding helmet up. “So, do you like welding?”

You nodded. “I think I like you more, Franky.”

Franky’s mouth fell open in shock. For once, you had stunned him into silence. Only the hum of the generator buzzed in the air. 

The silence made you feel strange, and words began falling out of your mouth in an attempt to fill it. 

“You’re so kind and supportive to me and you always help me learn new things. You’ve been so amazing and patient these past few weeks and you’re always so encouraging and…I just…I like you a lot, Franky, and I was just thinking about how I wanted to tell you and then it just…came out.”

Franky was still staring at you, awestruck. “You can speak?” 

You covered your face. He was missing the whole point. Maybe he would forget the words you had actually said. 

He seemed to remember your words at that exact moment. “Me? You like me?”

A small smile creeped across your face. No backing down now. “Yes, I do.”

“Super!” His words made you laugh. “I’ve liked you for quite some time as well. Just didn’t tell you because I didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable.”

Your smile finally widened, full and genuine. “You’re the place I feel most comfortable, Franky.”

He gently wrapped his arms around you, pulling you in for an embrace. “And I will never stop being that for you, I swear it.”

[mliter]

Elsword.

I was about 11. I was in despair in the basement of my new home, because it finally set it that i've moved away from all of my friends to some boring town in rural Canada (as i saw it then).

I saw an ad for this game when i was trying to distract myself. I wasn't sure what it was, i think i clicked on it by accident. The initial trailer that popped up on the page that i was on caught my attention. I usually stay away from MMORPGs because i found their gameplay to be mostly boring. But in this one, you hit stuff. This had combos. Skills. I would later learn that there was movement tech specific to each character. The enemies actually reacted to what you were doing when it happened. it was a 2D beat em up! It was so cool. Looking back, i was looking for more of a fighting game experience.

I booted up the game on my shitty acer laptop and gave the game a shot. It wouldn't hurt. I didnt have anything to do. At the time, there were 7 characters, including the newly released Ara. I picked Elsword. The kid with the sword. The other characters seemed too complicated for me. As i played, i got really excited. The gameplay was so much fun. The dungeons were amazing. The bosses were epic. Using skills was awesome. There were so many cool looking players. The customization was on another level. The character models looked just fine on their own, but the player expression here was elite. The community formed around the small areas of this game felt like a neighborhood. You could recognize people just like that. I discovered what classes were, and was wondering how everyone was changing into them. I took a visit to Elwiki, and looked at the classes that were available to me. At the time, a new class, Sheath Knight came out. He was a dual wielding knight with a talking sword by the name of conwell. I think i remember the moment i finished the grueling class quest. I was beyond excited. I would later make my tumblr account, as the GMs of the game updated their playerbase through their tumblr blog. From then on, my dedication was cemented.

The game had a bustling competitive scene. I found that the skilled players had the unreal movement, and insane combos. My favorite players to watch were Zero (Amazon (?)). He was a skilled Blade Master player. His combos were exquisite, and his ability to hold onto the last pixel of HP before turning it in. He also involved a lot of sound effects and commentary on his videos as he played making his videos so much fun to watch.

Another player was Rebelliel. or known as Rebel. I wholeheartedly believe that this person was the greatest Rune Slayer player of. all. time. His skill was rarely matched. I loved watching his videos. He would find himself in the most disadvantageous of situations, always managing to bring it back every. time. He also utilized many sound effects in his videos, making sure to include a familiar song for one skill. Wind Blade.

Watching him use this to me was like watching a superhero do their signature move, or a football player do celebration they're known for. It was so awesome to me.

There are many other amazing players, such as Kirbyblader, a legendary NA Blade Master player, due to his mastery of the character on a technical level. There was also spergus, an elsword player i really liked to watch. And there was one of the greatest. Je Hae Gwon. He was a very skilled and stacked player. He was playing the newest raids, the newest classes, the newest dungeons and dominating in all of them. He was just. good. His videos were entertaining. I remember them coming out around the times i would come back from school. I remember conversing with the people in the comments of a lot of these videos, and having them explain the korean memes that would be used in them. It was some of my first exposure to the korean internet, learning it's memes, and standout websites. It was cool.

one technique i found myself being proud of mastering was the X drop. People did this in the middle of combos to reset the internal count that automatically knocks players over so they don't die in one combo. You could keep your combo going off of this and do serious damage. Many of these techniques were muscle memory to me. I found this especially cool to see on Elsword, Raven, and Chung players. Witnessing all of this lead me to start making youtube videos in the same style, with my friends or without. I wasn't very good at the game. I only made it to S rank. But it was fun. Part of me wishes i could go back to those simpler times. running around fields, and wasting my time in the practice sparring rooms.

Elsword's character design and art in general is immaculate. Each character has so much thought put into them, even with the game cycling through lead artists throughout the years. I found myself enveloped in the well designed world. The skill cut ins were the most impressive to me. They had so much energy. They would occupy space in my brain back then. I wholeheartedly believe this game's art is some of the most impressive and greatest i have ever seen from a video game. Like it's gameplay, It shaped my influences, standards and my tastes.

I became obsessed with these characters, and found out that they made comics! I read them all and went to a certain community on the internet to post them. After a verbal lashing, i ended up meeting people on there. A lot of them were about my age. We ended up playing the game together. From then on, it was history. I played this game for years, finally stopping around the tail end of the 2010s. I still hang out with them today. We somehow just, stuck together. We're all adults now. We ended up growing up alongside each other. I don't think I've never conveyed it, but they all are truly are one of the greatest treasures of my life.

Nowadays, the game isn't what it used to be. All of the people I've mentioned in this blog post have moved on. Started families, are playing other games, or have left us.

I met some people which i consider childhood friends through this game. This game shaped my tastes, influenced me and set standards for video games. This game is a key part of my childhood. i spent countless hours playing it, and had endless fun during it's peak period. I'm happy i was around for that. Everyone has that game. This is mine.

[druidx]

OC Favourites Tag Game

Thanks for the tag @writingonesdreams :D

Tagging back: @strosmkai-rum @spacetimewraithwrites @wildswrites @tetrodotoxincs @odysseywritings @ayzrules @morganwriteblr @my-writblr @bexminx @writingingraves @dreamwishing @aalinaaaaaa @wardenoftheabyss @pleaseloathemyveryexistence @jaguarthecat @catharticallysarcastic @bread-of-death @bluegreystarstuff

Rules: Post your top 3 favorite facts about your top 5 favorite characters. What makes them your favorites? What is so great about them?

~ Elowyn O’Toreguarde (Fighting Fantasy World of Titan)

Elo is my top fave because she's so ridiculously put-upon. She's an accidental Mary-Sue who constantly finds herself neck-deep in trouble, and half the time she's the one who put herself there! Her story arc, triumphs and tragedies were fun to play through at first, but tiring and I find she's more fun to write.

Facts about Elo:

She started out as a simple Watchman, destined to become a Detective. However, her path changed drastically, and started to hear the Call to become a Paladin.

She changed her name from Featherdown when she came of age to help her embrace her future, rather than dwelling on the past.

When Elo was blessed by the goddess Kerellim, part of her blessing was to glow when giving impassioned speeches. Both I, the player, and the GM find this hilarious; Elo does not. She finds it embarrassing, but learns to wield it as the tool the goddess intended.

~ Farren Breakwood (Fighting Fantasy World of Titan)

Farren is Elo's Watch partner, best friend, confidant and mentor. He's my second fave because he's Elo's perfect foil, and just a lovely guy to boot. He's funny, caring and wise. He's got a good line on bad jokes, his banter is en pointe, and his interactions are amazing to write. Half the time he's as bad as Elo, when it comes to getting into trouble, and half the time he's the one pulling others from the fire.

Facts about Farren:

He's amazing with kids and young adults, and always seems to know just what to say to help them through a tough time.

He's a highly skilled detective. He knows Toreguard like the back of his hand, and exactly who to talk to for the intel he needs.

He enjoys the simple things in life: A hearty bowl of stew, a slice of cake and a pint of bitter.

~ Aderyn Griffiths (TESIV: Oblivion, Modern AU)

Aderyn is fun in the same way Elo is fun. She's a moderate disaster, 80% filled with angst and trauma and pretending she isn't, and talks in a way that's really fun to write. Also "cursing like a sailor" is a defining character trait.

Facts about Aderyn:

She lives in her car, a beat up 1980's Land Rover Defender.

Part of her character voice is she cannot say "okay"; it becomes "right, yeah, sure". Did I mention she swears like a trucker?

She was hired by the Grey Fox at 17, because she broke into the wrong house.

~ Talis Omelian (TESIV: Oblivion)

So soft! So sweet! So fluffy! My most precious baby baker boi <3<3<3 He's so cute and adorable and wonderful and sunshiny, you just want to pinch his cheeks and coo. You could just eat him up, he's so adorable. ... And that entire display would have him blushing and mumbling at his feet ^.^

Facts about Talis:

He is an excellent pastry chef, who specialises in lore-friendly patisserie.

He strongly cares about people, and wants to help even though he's not a fighter or a mage or anyone important.

He leaves stale bread and unsold cakes in a barrel behind the bakery. If Mistress Embertame knows, she doesn't say anything. If Rindir ever asked, it's to keep mice out of the shop. In actuality it's for the beggars

[raksha-the-demon]

You don't have to answer this, I understand I can look up most of this stuff, but I wondered if you had any advice for playing DnD? My friend 'suggested' me as someone who could act as DM for a campaign among a wider group of friends - I made it clear I had no experience but I was interested in learning how. I do have the starter kit instructions. It's just a little intimidating, people seem to take this quite seriously? (I might have been on anon but I asked you about vampires a while ago)

First of all I love talking about TTRPGs pls ask me all of the questions always.

Second, I absolutely have advice, starting with "check out Matt Colville's Running the Game videos on Youtube". You don't need to watch them all before your first session (hell, you don't have to watch them all, period) but they're full of tips and tricks that I have personally found very useful. But the most important bit of advice from those videos is that running games is fun, and you can do it. Because it is, and you can.

I’m not going to go in to a ton of specific advice about rules, or what kinds of modules you should run (aside from “you should run a short level one module rather than committing to a whole campaign right off the bat”) because that advice is already explained in a million places, including Colville’s videos and probably your starter kit as well. Instead I want to talk about how intimidating it can be to GM, because I think that’s something everyone deals with. It can be very scary to step behind the screen and take over running the game, because it feels like all the pressure is on you. What happens if you fuck up?

Well I’ve got great news, because fucking up does not matter. Seriously. Half the time the players won’t even notice, and the other half they won’t mind because it’s just a game and you’re all collaborating to have fun together. Misread a rule? If it’s a big deal you can retcon what happened, otherwise who cares? Accidentally make an encounter way too difficult? The bad guys decide to take prisoners instead of killing anybody, and now you’ve got a jailbreak adventure. Accidentally let the players do something completely encounter-breaking? Congratulations, they will never forget how cool that moment was or how awesome they felt doing it. (Seriously, just ask @ultranos or @birger-wuvs-elsa about the Flour Incident.)

You don’t have to take this super seriously. You don’t have to remember the rules perfectly, or always stay in character. You can say “hey I don’t understand this rule, hold on.” You can disallow things that make sense, because it’s not covered in the module and you’re not comfortable going off-script yet. You can do something, realize it was dumb, and then rewind and do something else. And you can allow the same for your players, too. 

At the end of the day, this game is about a bunch of people sitting around playing make-believe. So just tap into your inner five-year-old and go play.

[emmasether]

you came out of the blue

archiveofourown

summary: su-ae has a hard time processing her new relationship. she isn't convinced it won't turn to vapour in her hands, or disappear the second she looks away.

is this is what a genuine relationship feels like?

words: 2.7k

part 1

a/n: HERE IS THE SEQUEL :D be prepared for me projecting onto soo-ae

—

<GO EUNHYEOK>

gm

go out with me today?

The messages sit prettily on Su-ae's phone. It's the first thing she sees that morning. For a second she's confused, and thinks last night might've been some elaborate hoax, or a dream she conjured. But his name stands out in her notifications, making itself known. The two of them are okay again. They're more than okay.

When she gets up to get ready, Su-ae feels light on her feet, like they just barely brush against the floor instead of press under gravity with her full weight.

<SHIM SU-AE>

sure! :)

-`♡´-

It's not until they leave the street vendor with their fish cakes that Su-ae realizes she is on a date. Okay okay... maybe "go out with me today" should have been a dead give away, but Eunhyeok was blunt and spoke very literally sometimes! And Su-ae was still having a hard time grasping the legitimacy of this new reality where the two of them are genuinely together.

His hand envelops hers the entire time. It's such a foreign sensation to be wanted all the time, to not wring another person dry just by being herself. She almost cringes from it, but she never wants it to stop.

They weren't too far from her apartment complex, and so it shouldn't come as a shock to her when Ra-im is around the corner walking with some other kids.

She and Eunhyeok both stop in their tracks. Ra-im's eyes are wide as if she can't believe what she's seeing. As always, she finds her composure gracefully.

"Oh, hello, funny running into you here," she doesn't look Su-ae's way, dismissing her.

Eunhyeok simply mutters, "Yeah," and offers nothing more.

A boy beside Ra-im with highlights gives them a smug look, "When did this happen?" 

Maybe it's ingrained into her head to expect disrespect, because despite his confession the day before, Su-ae is stunned when Eunhyeok speaks.

"Yesterday. We're going now."

Ra-im's face is a statue, hard and stoic.

"Only yesterday?" The boy says, "What was the last few weeks then huh? Oh I bet—"

"Shut up," Eunhyeok says with mild annoyance. His friend feigns offence.

"Rude as always, you're gonna make me cry, you know that?"

Eunhyeok smirked, "Looking forward to it."

"JINYOUNG DO YOU SEE HOW HE TREATS ME!" He whined to another guy with them.

"Oh stop being ridiculous," her sister laughs.

The group of them erupted in conversation, Su-ae watched as if on the outside of a two way mirror. She could only see them and they could only see themselves.

This is Ra-im's world. Her friends are his friends, there is a string that ties them together, something that keeps them in orbit. Su-ae can't deny this. She does not belong to that crowd, and would look stupid trying to force her way in.

Don't forget who you are. Don't get ahead of yourself, she thinks. Another, angrier part of her demands, Who am I? Finally, Not one of them. 

Su-ae feels like a child who is shushed when trying to join adult conversations, someone who is pleasantly tolerated rather than embraced. She has no right to be here, really, to even want someone like Eunhyeok.

Her mind spirals in this single moment, and she wonders if she'll be learning Minu's lesson over again with him.

But then the grip on her hand tightened and her eyes find Eunhyeok.

"We're going now," he was looking at her but speaking loud enough for them all to hear. He turns the two of them around leave.

"Must our time together be so short?!" Shouted his friend, he was certainly one for theatrics.

Eunhyeok didn't spear him a glance, "Stop obsessing over me."

And they disappeared down the street.

-`♡´-

The next day is the first day of school where she and Eunhyeok will be dating. Officially. Publicly. She feels a little sick. There's no secret operation to sit between them anymore. No more games. It's the first day of something new.

He's sitting in her desk partner's chair as they arrived to class early. Eunhyeok talks about a movie he saw last week.

"We should go see it together," he says. She raises her brows.

"You want to watch it twice?"

"If you come with me, yeah." Her face breaks out a grin, which makes him smile back at her.

His knee stays pressed against her thigh, a replacement when she took her hand from him earlier to polish her notes from the previous week. It seems Eunhyeok must always maintain a point of contact between them when possible. The behaviour is so jarring to her she doesn't know how to react other than to let him do what he pleases and try not to blush too much.

Su-ae is not used to being wanted. She is grateful for her parents and friends whom she loves dearly, but when it came to relationships, she resigned herself to the fact that maybe there was just something wrong with her. Everyone else was born to be loved, and she wasn't. It only became more heartbreaking when confronted with the mysterious CEO, who claims that it is better to be dead than unloved.

A voice still nagged in the back of her mind, reminding her of her love points and how they still have not increased.

Does Eunheyok not like her, or is there something else going on?

It seems more cruel for her to believe, after all this time they’d spent together, that Eunheyok is the type of person who could manipulate and humiliate a girl this acutely, from months of flirting and bonding to a fictitious confession. She couldn’t in good conscience degrade his character like that. She would have to try and trust him more than her love points and the word of the anonymous CEO.

Easier said than done.

More students pile in, one of the boys who hang around Eunhyeok stops in his tracks when he sees them. Which is strange, since there is nothing incriminating about their behaviour aside from the fact that they’re sitting together.

“Hyeok…” Wooshik sang, a sly smirk on his face. The pair looked up at him and he pointed to his mouth. Soo-ae looked between them confused, then she saw it, and her face flushed. Around the corner of Eunhyeok’s mouth, Su-ae’s pink lip tint was smudged on his skin. Flushed, she lets out a choked sound and slaps her palm over his mouth, as if their classmate was a baby who lacked object permanence and would forget the whole thing.

Eunhyeok mumbled something beneath her hand that sounded like, “What?” His eyebrows lifted in mild interest.

“Nothing! Nothing!” she laughed awkwardly, aggressively wiping the corner of his mouth. She wondered if she looked as crazy as she felt.

Wooshik gave a hearty laugh, obviously enjoying himself. He bowed mockingly, and backed away. “Don’t let me spoil your fun!”

After that, it became public knowledge around school within a few hours. Her friends, whom she’d already let know earlier in their group chat, told her about how Eunhyeok and Su-ae’s names were heard in quite a few passing conversations. And she felt a few intense stares in the halls.

That being said, the day goes on peacefully. Eunhyeok stops by her table for a few minutes at lunch to talk to her, and endures endless teasing from her friends before departing. When Su-ae spills juice on her bandage just before fourth period, he misses the start of class to bring her to the nurse’s office to have it rewrapped. When school finishes, he says goodbye to his friends to their dismay, but he won’t be hanging out with them this time. She stares at him blankly in a confused daze when he says he’ll walk her home instead.

It’s all so disorienting. She feels like someone being prescribed glasses for the first time, where the world looks sharper and more vibrant, and they can’t grasp that this is the real world everyone else has been seeing, that it’s been kept from them for so long. She thinks, now that she’s had a taste of it, now that she’s jumped into the sea and found that she will not sink, that she can in fact float, she will never go back to land.

And from the middle of the ocean, it's endless. Eunhyeok is endless.

-`♡´-

When she comes home, Ra-im is waiting for her. She must have taken the bus or got a ride to have gotten there first.

“So, it’s official with Eunhyeok then?” She’s leaned against the wall, just next to Soo-ae’s bedroom door.

Su-ae curls her fists at her sides. “Yes.”

“I didn’t think you liked him.”

“Do you?”

Ra-im is silent. Then, “Don’t you think it might be better to stay single for a while? I saw how hurt you were after Minu. Are you really going to be okay?”

She sounds so sincere that for a second Su-ae believes her, that her sister isn’t this manipulative and selfish person. That her feelings towards her are nothing but pure. She wants it to be true. And then she remembers who set the disaster with Minu in motion in the first place. Of course, Minu also shared half the blame. But his betrayal didn’t hurt nearly as much as Ra-im’s, one of the people she loved the most in this world. Someone she imagined she’d stand side by side with for the rest of her life.

Su-ae doesn’t know if they will ever get their friendship back the way it was before. And she hates her for that more than anything else, Minu’s loss would wash over her and disappear, but Ra-im’s could haunt her forever. And she snaps.

"I like Eunhyeok and he likes me,” she raises her voice. “What I do, who I date, is none of your business, not anymore!” She takes a deep breath and tries to calm down, and then speaks very quietly. “I don't owe you anything, not my loyalty, not my friendship and certainly not my trust. You broke those things. You did. So now you have to deal with it."

She thinks that maybe Ra-im will play coy again, but from the expression on her face, she knows she won’t. There’s no hiding anymore, any attempt of denial, of innocence, wouldn’t be believed. Her sister looks at her as if there is a crack in her stone mask, and behind it is not malice, but shame. Her blue eyes gloss over and a part of Su-ae wants to forgive her immediately.

Instead, she walks to her room. “Don’t bother me for the rest of the day.” And clicks the door shut. She should feel proud of herself, but her chest heaves and tightens under some invisible weight. It hurts.

-`♡´-

The next few days pass quickly. She’s at Eunhyeok’s house, they’d just come from school.

His parents weren’t home, but she still noticed tension in his body as soon as they entered the front door, like he would turn a corner and his dad would be there waiting. They had grabbed a wooden bowl of tangerines from the kitchen island before going to his room, and it wasn’t till he closed the door that his shoulders slumped back down, at ease.

Which brought them to this, sitting on his bed, Eunhyeok peels the orange skin off the fruit and hands half of the slices to Soo-ae. She takes them, her finger brushing his and tingling from their warmth. She’s reading a book from his shelf aloud, “…but the sensitive boy who feels much and knows little is the most unfortunate creature under the sun, because he is torn between two forces.” She looks up at Eunheyok, who’s fingernails are yellow and smell of citrus. He stares at nothing in particular. She asks, “But how long can you go on like that?”

His eyes meet hers. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” her mouth quirks and half smile, self-pitying. “When you feel everything and know nothing, the bubble you live in has to burst pretty quickly.”

They both know this lesson well. She can’t help but feel a twinge of doubt in Eunhyeok, even if just for a second. She knows it’s something she has to unlearn now, but it happens regardless, the fear that she’s left one bubble for another, that this is too good to be true and she will do something stupid to break the spell.

And because she is who she is, and not a completely transformed person now that she’s in a new relationship, she picks that thread until the whole seam comes loose, and she’s suffocated by hypotheticals where she once again is not good enough.

She thinks of her sister, and how they’re polar opposites. Su-ae doesn't think she's ugly, but she also doesn't think she's a memorable type of pretty. She's a face that's meant to blur in a crowd, not stand out. She's not like Ra-im.

Su-ae places the rest of her tangerine slices into the bowl, having lost her appetite. She goes on reading, but her voice is quiet now, a disenchanted mumble. Eunhyeok picks up on it immediately, which only makes the swelling her her throat worse. This is what Minu meant, he was right about you. 

But then he pulls her to lay down with him, book and fruit forgotten. Arms circle around her until they’re pressed together, and she thinks she feels a kiss pressed to the crown of her head, but isn't sure.

This is nothing like Eunhyeok. Or maybe it is and he's been holding back. Maybe it is and she missed it.

All she knows is that enveloped in his warmth, she feels safe. Safe from her sister waiting at home, from Minu, from judgemental eyes, even from the CEO. And most of all, from herself, her own mind. Because now everything comes to a pause, the rest of world holds its breath, and the two of them can exist in a vacuum removed from the millions of little things that plague their lives. Right here, she is not torn between two forces.

-`♡´-

The day before she has to perform for the class, she meets Eunhyeok in their classroom during lunch.

She’s already sitting at the piano bench, eyes locked on the black and white keys as if she could bend them to her will and make the sounds she wants. She doesn’t hear Eunhyeok come in, but she feels his breath on her ear when he leans down behind her.

In a whisper, “Hi.” And he kisses her cheek, taking a seat beside her. Her whole body bursts into flames.

“Hi!” it comes out in a squeak. She thinks, I don’t ever want to get used to that. 

“Go ahead,” he says. They’d been practicing every day for the last week. She had gotten a lot better with his help, and could play the entire song decently if she slowed down the tempo.

Su-ae took a steady breath, straightened her back, knowing she would unconsciously start slouching halfway through the song anyway. Her fingers danced across the ivory keys, slowly, methodically. She treated them with care, pressing gently, but firm enough to keep the notes loud enough. If you had told her when she first tried her hand at this song that she’d be playing it smoothly weeks later, she wouldn’t believe it.

The last notes fade. She’s smiling wide, her cheeks hurt.

“You should keep playing,” Eunhyeok says, with one hand he plays a simple tune on the end of the right side. “After tomorrow. I’ll show you more songs if you want.”

She lets out a laugh that sounds more like a scoff and shakes her head. “You’d get sick of me.” She’s mostly joking.

Not for the first time, Eunhyeok sees right through her. He lifts her bangs off her face so she has nowhere to hide and gives her a serious look, she wants to look away from the intensity of it. Then his hand slides to the back of her neck. “Not happening, trust me.” And he kisses her, giving her that same feeling he always does. After a show when the curtains finally close and everyone embraces and cheers, the car ride at sunset when you’re a child coming home from the amusement park. The good ending tied in a bow.

He pulls away a few inches and asks again. “Trust me.”

Su-ae thinks despite all the forces working against her, she can.

[buzzdixonwriter]

Yesterday Looks At Tomorrow: METROPOLIS (1927)

“We are all interested in the future because that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives.” -- motto of GM’s Futurama exhibit for the 1939-40 World’s Fair as later co-opted by Criswell for Plan 9 From Outer Space.

Predicting the future is hard -- and if you’re going to do it in front of a camera, expensive.

Film makers like dystopian post-apocalyptic stories because they can film them in empty wastelands and run down urban areas, filling them with lots of action and stunts.

Why these worlds are the way they are is almost never explored.

Other times they offer the merest glimpse of the future before yanking the curtain shut, typically in stories where characters travel back in time to address future problems in our  present / their past (Cyborg 2087 is a good example of this).

When film makers go all in for a futuristic production, they tend to focus their stories rather tightly on their protagonist/s, which is great for making the story more relatable, but tend to ignore the broader implications of their themes (looking at you, Blade Runner).

Rarely -- very rarely -- do film makers attempt epic stories with epic values, both visual and philosophical.

The golden age for this sort of thing lay between the two world wars, when exhausted populations longed for some sort of stable utopia to meet the needs of the many while avoiding the conflicts that previously laid waste to the planet.

This found expression in various forms:  Communism, socialism, fascism, technocracy, even the Esperanto movement.

It also found form in three science fiction films, each aiming to express Big Ideas in a Big Way, each succeeding -- or failing -- in similar yet different ways.

(For those who may be wondering, no, we will not be looking at Just Imagine or the serial Buck Rogers In The 25th Century.  In both cases those futures are just backdrop for jokes or exotic flavor, not a serious look at what the actual future might hold…or demand.)

. . .

First out of the gate, Metropolis.

I’ve already written quite extensively on this film (and for the record, I will reference here the most complete recently restored versions; the two public domain versions found on bargain basement DVDs are both virtually incomprehensible).

In many ways, Metropolis is the least forward looking of the three movies we’re examining.  It’s a story of labor vs capital told through a Romeo & Juliet flavored love story with a few fantastical elements added.

It’s basically a story set in the early part of the 20th century and as such firmly rooted in the vocabulary of Marx.

SPECIAL NOTE TO ALL THE MAGAS READING THIS:  No, that does not make Metropolis a Marxist film, much less one espousing communism or socialism; it merely describes the cultural background it arose from.  If this is too complicated for you to grasp, go watch Revenge Of The Sith again.

Metropolis the city operates pretty much the way all major cities and nations operate even today:  There’s a rich oligarchy on top, there are masses of laborers doing the grunt work that makes everything possible, there’s a thin barrier of middle class management that keep the two separate (but lives in constant dread of being cast down once again into the depths – quite literally in this film).

The main plotline involves Maria, a prophetess / pastor / social worker of the lower city, raising the consciousness of both the labor class and the ruling class to what we would call today social justice.  Freder, son of the wealthy city manager of Metropolis, hears her messages, comes down to the catacombs to see for himself, is horrified by what he learns, and -- after obligatorily falling in love with Maria -- tries to convince his father to improve the workers’ conditions.

Dear old dad, however, doesn’t want the established order monkeyed with so he consults with Rotwang, as mad a scientist as one could hope to find, to build a robot double of Maria to destroy her reputation among the workers.

What dear old dad doesn’t realize is that Rotwang carries an enormous hate-on against him for marrying the woman the scientist once loved (Freder’s now deceased mom) and so in revenge programs the evil robot Maria to stir the workers to rebellion that will bring Metropolis crashing down (if you’ve only seen the public domain versions with their absolutely incomprehensible motives, you’re going, “Holy cow -- now that makes sense!  Evil and crazy sense, but at least some sort of sense.”).

Before they wrap all this up, we are treated to some of the most eye-popping and still impressive visuals from the silent era.  The rebellious workers learn too late that their orgy of anarchy and violence has destroyed their homes and almost their children, the oligarchs learn the workers have them by the throat and cojones, and both sides agree to simmer down and find a more equitable future for all.

No denying the ending is somewhat sappy and saccharine, but again, remember the era.  Weimar Germany was like an aerialist doing a headstand atop a flagpole in a hurricane, and film maker Friz Lang & co. were doing their best to warn people of things to come if they didn’t take the current situation seriously and take steps to address a multitude of issues.

The Nazis watched Metropolis very studiously, and took away a lot of lessons about moving masses of people, staging enormous spectacles, and spurring otherwise sane and rational people into paroxysm of violence while otherwise ignoring the heart and soul of the film.

How well did it predict the future? As noted, despite all the high tech (for the era) geegaws, Metropolis remains rooted in the world of 1927.  It is beautiful, inspiring, and moving, but its foresight is sadly lacking.

This does not make it a bad film.  Quite the contrary, that adds a bittersweet tinge to Metropolis, and in a way more evocative of Camelot.

It did accurately show the rising gulf between the wealthy and poor would acerbate conditions for everyone and eventually lead to a situation where nihilistic rebellion is not merely possible but appears desirable to many.

Is it a Big Film with Big Ideas? Yes.  As noted earlier, despite focusing on Freder and Maria’s immediate problems, it covers a broad range of interrelated ideas.  And it’s not about one or two people making an important decision, it’s about literally entire classes coming to terms with a new reality.

© Buzz Dixon

[felassan]

Check out this video interview with Mark Darrah, ‘On Anthem’s Launch, Dev Advice, And Leaving BioWare’. It’s interesting and pretty substantial. He talks about a bunch of different things, including his YouTube channel, things BioWare could’ve done differently, crunch, whether he’ll write a book about his gamedev experiences, gamedev pitfalls, Anthem’s troubled development, the development of projects he worked on including DA2, cancelled projects (and what happened to them) including Jade Empire 2 / ‘Jade Modern’ / Revolver and Mass Effect: Corsair, the reasons why he left BioWare and Dragon Age 4.

I recc giving the whole thing a watch, but if you’re not able to, here are the Dragon Age 4-related quotes and other especially interesting-to-me portions transcribed for ur convenience! (under a cut due to length):

Mark: "There is a tendency for projects that are small to think they're amazing, because it's so much easier. Like when I ran Sonic [Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood] - it was a 20 person team - it's just so much easier to make things go smoothly than when you have a 200 person team. So I think that we've made progress, but as Dragon Age pivots into production and that team gets bigger and bigger, it will be interesting to see if that's true or if it's just the blindness of being a small team. Like when Inquisition was in the throes of shipping, both Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem would love to talk about how they were 'doing things right!' and then they fell in totally different holes, but still fell in a bunch of holes after Inquisition shipped. So I do think that there is a hubris that comes from a project in early development where you feel like this time you've figured it out."

---    Mark: “As Dragon Age [4] was moving towards production, I could see that like, the team, I've been told by people that they've never met a team that more wants to be in production than Dragon Age team. But what ended up happening was, in order for the team to really explore the space properly, we had to sort've train them to be in pre-production. But that meant that that team no longer really wanted to be in production, they wanted to be in pre-production. And so, looking at what was going to be required to pivot that team into production, it wasn't a challenge that I thought I was up to any longer. I think that team, once they get into the mindset, is capable of moving entire mountains, and will move entire mountains, but they need someone that can lead them through that."

Interviewer: “Yeah, from the outside it's striking that you and Casey Hudson left at the same time. It sort’ve definitely implies a ‘fuck this’ moment for the two of you. If it was just you saying ‘I can’t do it’ then it’s understandable.”

Mark: “Yeah, no, I mean, it’s hilarious, because, we definitely were not coordinated. That was, as near as I can determine, there was nothing that triggered us on the same moment other than maybe just a sort’ve mounting, just, like, this friction, being at the, I would say, the GM and EP, the point at which the [something?] friction and the project friction meet, and you’re just sort of grinding there. But I don’t think there was a massive injection of anything late last year that triggered that. Not that I can point to. For me, yeah, I do think it was, weirdly, a coincidence. Casey and I have stayed in touch, we didn’t leave to go form a studio together or anything.”

---

Interviewer: “Are you being torn apart a little bit internally about that pressure of, ‘I know if I just made a video that said, The Secrets of Dragon Age - not even Dragon Age 4, whatever the hell that thing’s called at this point - but just, The Secrets of Dragon Age: Origins’, like, you know that  audience surely would show up. I imagine there’s that community that’s screaming at you, like, ‘Tell us something we don’t know about Dragon Age, tell us about the future!!’, versus, trying to play it a little more straight and actually offer gamedev advice.”

Mark: “Yeah, for sure, absolutely, like, looking at, there is an entire segment of YouTube which is ‘Dragon Age fans talking about Dragon theories and watching the trailers and picking them apart’ and I could do that, and that would be, I feel like that would almost destructive to everybody, because I could deflate all the theories, some of which are completely completely wrong, some of which are amazingly right. But I think, like, I don’t think the community actually wants that. They might sort’ve think they do, but I think if I just sort’ve pulled away the curtain, I think it’d be like, ‘Ohh.. but now what are we gonna talk about? :(’ Like I don’t think that anybody wants that honestly. It would be great for my metrics but I don’t think anyone really wants that.”

Interviewer: “And not to offer you advice, but like I think there’s somewhere in the middle. Like when they have the next teaser trailer for the next Dragon Age project, you could do a reaction video to that and it would be your most viewed thing by a mile, and you wouldn’t be stepping on anybody’s toes.”

Mark: “Yeah, I have thought about that exact thing. Cause we’ve now moved, I think, beyond the horizon of anything that comes out of Dragon Age at this point, like if they’re at EA Play, and I don’t know if they’re at EA Play or not, then whatever that is will be something that I didn’t have anything to do with, so we’re reaching the point where I can now, I feel like, start to provide, yeah, reaction videos from the perspective of, an incredibly well-informed outsider.”

---

Interviewer: “And you must know, even though you’re not inside the studio, like, just have an appreciation how much that [MELE’s good success and good reception] can do for the studio’s morale. I’d imagine it’s just night and day.”

Mark: “Oh, absolutely, like. Andromeda and Anthem being the last two things before the remaster, that is a cloud that hangs above the studio for sure.”

Interviewer: “Yeah, I mean I remember visiting for Dragon Age: Inquisition, it must have been, and it was still, like, the Mass Effect 3 ending, I feel like, even visiting the studio for two days, you could feel that like, funk, of just like ‘ugh, good Christ, we’ve gotten the crap kicked out of us’.”

Mark: “Yeah, I mean. The Mass endings is an interesting one for me. Because, it’s not the choices I would have made to end the game, but those are the choices that were made. I wonder... I don’t like ultimatums, and I feel like with Mass 3, the team kind’ve gave into an ultimatum. The community was so angry that we then released new better endings to ‘fix it’, and it’s not that that’s a bad piece of content, that’s a good piece of content, but I just worry that, the internet today, seems almost like... a reaction to the Mass 3 endings. Almost like, the internet learned that if you just yell loud enough you get what you want. And I don’t think that’s real, because it’s Mass Effect, it’s not Star Wars.”

Interviewer: “But I mean, if it wasn’t the ending of Mass Effect 3, it would have been something else in that era of Voices On The Internet Being So loud that it causes a big company to pivot and be like ‘Okay, we’ll try and make you a little bit happier, please just relax everybody’.”

Mark: “Yeah, totally. So I mean, I don’t think Mass Effect bears the brunt of the blame of toxic fan culture. But certainly it’s one of the very first examples of that culture managing to make something happen.”

---

Mark: “Now I do feel that maybe I overlearned that lesson, because, something that I did a lot on Anthem was talk about how, you know, ‘this is not a BioWare-style game, this is not gonna have the storytelling that you’re used to’. And I think maybe I overstressed that. I do think that at the end of the day where we are with Anthem today, if you were a BioWare fan that liked all our other games, and you play Anthem with an eye to playing it as a storytelling game, it’s certainly not our best, but it’s not bad.”

Interviewer: “So Anthem marketing and messaging was hurt because you were overlearning the lessons from Sonic, that’s the takeaway?”

Mark: “I do think so. I do think that like, I don’t think it was from the marketing perspective, but I do think that both Casey and I overstressed [that]. We didn’t want people to get mad at us for making a game that wasn’t a very good storytelling game, so we wanted to get ahead of that message and say like, ‘it’s not a very strong storytelling game, it’s a game about all this other stuff’, but, at the end of the day, it is a storytelling game, it’s still in there. And those are the people that stayed away. And if those people hadn't stayed away, I’m not saying the game would have suddenly done [awesome], but it would’ve softened the narrative a little bit, I think.”

Interviewer: “Yeah, yeah. I mean, I’m sure you understand this better than anybody, but that’s such a loaded term to say ‘This is a BioWare-style game’, and obviously there’s that era of EA where they were trying to say that every project within EA was a ‘BioWare-style’ game and so, it’s interesting to hear you kind’ve, hemming and hawwing about how much to lean into, ‘no no, this one is 100% BioWare, this one is 73% BioWare’ - it’s such a murky thing.”

Mark: “It absolutely is, I mean, and I even said these things. Like we made MDK2, well, we made it, so I mean is that a ‘BioWare-style’ game? Is Baldur’s Gate a ‘BioWare-style’ game? But if it is, then how is Mass Effect a ‘BioWare-style’ game, and certainly I don’t think anyone would argue that Mass Effect is not a ‘BioWare-style’ game. So that term has to evolve as the studio continues. But I think for whatever reason, for a variety of reasons, I guess, with Anthem we were worried that maybe we’d pushed it a bit too far. And then I guess we did.”

Interviewer: “Did you enjoy any part of working on Anthem, or was it just a matter of putting out so many fires that it was just nothing but stress til the end?”

Mark: “It was stressful for me. I mean. I have a weird - the last ten years of my career at BioWare seemed to involve a lot of helping people land their planes. And that’s what Anthem was for me, I wasn't there from the beginning. I was helping to land it. I think there’s a satisfaction that comes with landing a game, with finishing a product, and I felt that with Anthem as well, and there were a lot of talented people on that project that I’d never worked with before, and that was great. It was great to, y’know, figure out these people that had only ever worked on a Mass Effect, that I’d never worked with before, their skills and abilities. I really like understanding the strengths and weaknesses of a person and building around that. I didn’t really have an opportunity on Anthem to do that because y’know, we were just trying to get the plane on the ground, but I think, having learned about what those people could do, that’s very gratifying because it lets you imagine what you could do with them in the future.” 

Interviewer: “Yeah, if things aligned magically, but for you you realized it never was gonna align, and it was always just right on the horizon of being able to cobble this amazing talent together and focus it down.”

Mark: “Yeah, I mean - I think that I, the mistake that I made on Anthem, I think the biggest mistake, was I’m used to getting a team that pushes back on me in a certain way. So as I’m sort’ve pushing the stick down to get the plane to hit the runway, I’m used to pushing it sort’ve too far, because I know that the team is gonna push it back and then we’re gonna end up where it should be. And I think that given the state of the team on Anthem when I came on, and given the differences in personalities of the leaders there, versus the ones that I’d been working with for ten years, that’s not what happened. I think if anything, I pushed it down, and then they grabbed it and pulled it even further, because they were desperate for help in decision-making, and I was providing decisions. And they were grabbing onto that, and so I thought we were on this glide slope [motions], I was aiming at this glide slope expecting that we were gonna be like [this], but instead we were like [this], and so we, yeah, we landed that pretty rough. But, I mean, it was my call, I’m the one that said we shouldn’t push to move this, not because I thought it was perfect, but because the only path I could see to making it way better was moving it a lot. And when you’re in the last eight, nine weeks of a project, I could only see like, if we were gonna move it, we [would] have to move it like a year. And that’s - in a public corporation that’s a hard argument to make.”

---

Mark: “One of the most expensive things a project can do is slip. Because, your team, when you do that your team is at its maximum size, so if you got 200 people working on a project and you move a month, well that’s 200 staff months, you just got a bunch more expensive just by moving a month. Whereas actually adding more people, well if you only got a month left, to add 200 staff months to a project, you gotta add 200 people, that’s a lotta people. Moving the date is one of the most expensive, and you can reach a point where it’s like, look, it’s not worth it, if we move the date it’s gonna cost more to continue this project than it’s gonna make, so we’re not gonna. But rarely is that the case, you’ve already spent the money you’ve spent, so the only cost that matters is the cost going forward.”

Interviewer: “So, do you regret not pushing for Anthem to be delayed a year or was it good just to get something on the ground so that we could start building to take it off again with a living game?”

Mark: “Yeah, honestly, I don’t regret it, the [team/game?] was tired and it didn’t have another year in it, and I think a lot of the things that are super obvious now, some of them we knew, some of them we knew, like the balance, we had done one, clean balance pass, by having QA come in and hotseat their way through the game over Christmas break. Like literally playing the game 24 hours a day. We’d done basically that once. So we knew that, we knew that. But a lot of the other things kind’ve only came out once it was out in peoples’ hands. I think the path that I wasn’t capable of seeing at the time that could’ve maybe resulted in a better game would’ve been to put it into beta, like a real beta, in the state that it was in, and run it like that and then release it a year later. But I don’t know if there was the will to do that frankly. There might be now... I think Anthem taught EA a lot of lessons.”

Mark: “[on Cyberpunk] I think many of the same things happened there [as with Anthem]. They had a team that was tired and it wasn’t ready but they couldn’t see the path to getting it more ready. If the team is too tired, just taking another two months just isn’t gonna get you what you think it’s gonna get you.” [source]

[dmsden]

The Role of Critical Role - How a podcast made D&D cool

Hullo, Gentle Readers. With the rare 5th Monday this month, it’s time for a freestyle article, and I wanted to talk about something that has been an incredible influence on D&D for a few years now. Maybe you’ve watched or listened to it all (I have). Maybe you’ve never seen it, but you’ve wondered about this “Mercer Effect” thing. Odds are, however, if you play D&D, you’re at least aware of Critical Role.

Critical Role wasn’t the first actual play D&D podcast, but it is, arguably, the most influential. With two massively consumed campaigns in podcast form, innumerable one-shots, a campaign-setting book that was published by Wizards of the Coast themselves, their own game-publishing company, comic books, art books, and a forthcoming TV series on Amazon that was funded by a Kickstarter that raised over eleven million dollars, Critical Role has made a heck of an impression on the gaming landscape.

It has been noted elsewhere that Critical Role has demonstrated its influence over the gaming community in a number of ways. I look to the example of Firbolgs as proof. When they debuted as a 5th edition playable race in Volo’s Guide to Monsters, there wasn’t much fanfare. When we got to know Pumat Sol, Nila, and, of course, Caduceus Clay in Critical Role Campaign 2, the popularity of the race skyrocketed. Suddenly everyone I knew had one in their campaign, and art of Firbolg characters online proliferated faster than a Myconid colony!

It can be argued also that Critical Role also boosted the overall popularity of D&D 5E. Yes, there had been D&D podcasts before...the Ac Inq podcasts, for example...but CR was different. Here you had this large cast of incredibly funny, charismatic, and, to be honest, really good-looking folks playing D&D. Their skills as voice actors and improvisational performers stood them in good stead, making the game a true pleasure to listen to. And yes, I’ve groaned at some of the things they’ve done as a player and GM myself, but, overall, they’re so darned likeable that they won my attentions and got me to watch and/or listen to hundreds of hours of game play. 

I think the reason Critical Role was so successful was that it showed audiences a group of people playing D&D that was more diverse than we’d seen in other popular podcasts. There were more women, for one thing, and there was good queer representation. But it also showed them to be just a bunch of dorks. Talented, funny, attractive dorks, yes...but dorks none the less. It demystified the game, making it clear that it wasn’t this crazy complicated thing, but just some cool storytelling around a table. Some people did accents, but many people in the group didn’t. They joked around and cracked each other up. They made mistakes and apologized. They asked questions. They weren’t perfect, and it made the game incredibly appealing and so much more accessible than I think a lot of people would’ve guessed.

You don’t have to like Critical Role, but I don’t think you can dismiss it, for good or for ill. On the one hand, it’s invited more people into our hobby, and I think that’s a good thing. On the other hand, I do worry that it generates unreasonable expectations in some players, specifically in what to expect from their DMs. Now, I’m not personally worried; I have over 40 years of experience, and I have confidence in my skills at running a good game. Newer DMs, however, might feel like they have a lot to live up to, and they might never start, thinking there’s no way to measure up to Matt Mercer’s skills.

If you’re a DM, and you’re worrying about living up to Matt, then please read this. Matt’s an excellent DM, but he’s not fallible. I’ve heard him make rules calls that’ve made me cringe, even as I respect him making them in the moment, because that’s sometimes what you have to do. He does a lot of great accents, but you don’t need to do accents or be an actor to make memorable NPCs. He’s fantastic at improv, but that’s something that can be learned. Your players don’t need Matt Mercer; they need you. And I’m pretty sure Matt would be the first person to tell you that, because he seems like a fantastically nice guy.

So love it or leave it, Critical Role is likely here to stay. You can enjoy it or ignore it, but I don’t think you can just discount it. I’m personally loving it, and I hope they keep giving great content. I can’t wait to see what they play in Season 3! Until then, keep on rolling those dice!

[inkdemonapologist]

Tfw it’s like 6am and your penpal shows up at your hotel room but he’s like partially a demon and also won’t stop smiling????

Hi again Allison we’re all Very Normal

[BatIM Call of Cthulhu Masterpost]

ANYWAY HAVE SOME, OUT-OF-CONTEXT QUOTES for Session 6!!

[Sammy is played by me, Joey is played by Boo (inkyvendingmachine), Henry is played by Maf (inkcryptid), Jack is played by Mochi (whatyouwantedmetosee) and Thren (haunted-hijinxer) is our GM!]

[GM] You said you were there for... inSPECTION?? [Jack] In hindsight, that must've been a HECK of a Fast Talk considering half the group is in pyjamas.

[Henry] It wouldn't be the first time someone tried to sacrifice Henry.

[GM] *about Sammy's sacrifice attempts* He was very polite about it. [Sammy] Yeah, he was! [Henry] He was very polite, he gets points for politeness. [GM] And then he got yelled at, so unfairly! By someone. [Sammy] And then melted! So everyone was on the whole very rude about it. It's your own fault he's like this now.

[GM] We'll say it's ajar, how about that? [Joey] Oh, I thought it was a door.

[Sammy] You can spend Luck!! [Jack] Do I want to use Luck points, though? Here's the problem, I'm the person who finishes the JRPG with twelve thousand healing items, and has used TWO. [Sammy] Here's my counterargument: if your Luck gets really low, you start failing Luck checks, and bad things happen to your character. [Jack] ...that's a perfect counterargument, I'm going to do it.

[GM] You both spot the hat with the press card! Lying on the floor, over by one corner of the sliding doors. [Jack] Oh that's BETTER than taking sanity damage! [Sammy] EMOTIONAL DAMAGE!

[Joey] There's another jug of space juice. [Sammy] I don't want space juice!! I WANT PAINT.

[Henry] *tired* Hey, Sam. [Sammy] What providence, my little sheep! [Henry] ...Good to see you too.

[Sammy] Go into the other room and introduce yourself! [Joey] With two hats on. [Sammy] ASSERT DOMINANCE!

[Jack] Jack is going to take the hat. He's going to have, uh, at least one emotion. [Jack] Maybe more [Jack] Imagine

[Joey] Joey is immediately going to clamp his hand onto Sammy's shoulder, and ask him if he can feel it. [Sammy] UHHH? His... hand...? [Joey] Not-- No, the stone. [Sammy] OH

[Jack] Jack, how are you going to communicate this if one of your hands is taken up by a hat? [Joey] Interpretative dance! [Sammy] Put hat in elbow while writing, you can juggle stuff, [Henry] Put the hat on. Over your other hat.

[Sammy] Sammy will scurry with or without the sheep, but they are his navigation system, so,

[Joey] That is a place we are known to be by the people who tried to... murder us?? Or something. Snake us??????? [Jack] (Snurder.) [Joey] Snurder us.

[Henry] We're just gonna grab our stuff and head out and... let you finish dealing with the sNAKE, I guess!! [Jack] (the snake has already been dealt with!) [Henry] Okay, but the aftermath of the snake! The snaftermath.

[Sammy] In case we get grabbed by an Angel [Sammy] the much less well-liked sequel to Touched by an Angel,

[Sammy] You traitorous sheep, this is not what I asked you for! [Joey] Do you want to die. Is that what you’re interested in?! Just, sacrificing yourself, without doing the proper rituals, not getting anything done--?! [Sammy] What do you know of proper rituals?! [GM] (....quite a lot, actually,) [Joey] Yeah! Much more than you do! And I will make an intimidation roll! [Jack] Boys,... you’re both pretty,... it’s okay....

[Joey] We’re pretty sure there’s Angels.... does she know how to kill them. [Jack] What a first thing to—! No pleasantries, no “please excuse the fact that I’m grinning and have weird eyes and also Sammy has weird eyes and also I have a tail,”

[GM, speaking for Allison] She would like to know what all this is about! [Joey] We’re having problems— [Sammy] He tried to contain something that should not be contained!! [Joey] Shut up, Sammy! We’re having problems!

[Joey] Joey is just going to quickly explain that he.................... [Joey] *mumbling to himself* how do you explain this???

[Joey] Um... I guess he’s going to mentally ping Bendy and ask him how he would describe himself? Like... what was his job, I guess?? Security??? [GM] Bendy says that he’s an eldritch construct that was defending a cult... and now he is something else! That he doesn’t have a word for. [Jack] !! He’s a FRIEND now!!! [GM] He’s friend-shaped! But not at the moment. [Joey] No, right now he’s Joey-shaped.

[Sammy] I mean the whole body is garbage but you apparently want Sammy to wear clothes, so whatever.

[GM] Allison adds that she thinks she might have a connection to get you guys in to the party, if you need that -- [Joey] Wouldn't hurt! [GM] -- so long as you don't mind pretending to be the help! [Joey] ...hm,,,

[Joey] Admittedly, having two angles would be better than one. [GM] Two angels, what? [Sammy] There's an "I can be your angle or yuor devil" joke somewhere in this campaign...

[Sammy] Well, we've learned how to bind an angel, [Jack] Gotta teach the angel proper binding techniques!

[Sammy] Sammy will thank Allison for her help. [Joey] Oh god, there IS something wrong with him!

[Joey] Let's go get Norman tied up in this more! So we can hire him later!!

[Sammy] Jack over there like "I hope it doesn't taste bad" meanwhile Sammy's been grimacing as he swallows paint for the last two hours, [GM] Ink is much better, didn't you know! [Sammy] Ink is better... this tastes wrong... [Joey] I just really love the idea of Sammy longingly looking at Joey's flask like, "aw, you have the good medicine, mine tastes like the terrible cherry crap!"

[GM] So you all have shots with Allison! Space juice shots. [Jack] What a way to start the morning!

[Jack] These boys are gonna heckin' pass out! [GM] They got, what, maybe 3 hours of sleep? [Jack] And all of Jack's sleep last night was sat upright in bed, with his glasses on, surrounded by notes, [Henry] sounds like college [Jack] You're exactly right, Jack's sleep was exactly like college! He was stressed, he didn't sleep for very long, he was surrounded by notes, Pete was there,

[Joey] *saying farewell to Allison* Keep yourself safe; don't go out where we're going. [Joey] Unless we don't return, then pLEASE COME OUT AND FIND US,

[GM] Norman says, "Oh, I see you're back with your friends, Smiley." [Jack] I love the concept of Norman calling Sammy "Smiley," and then Prophet Sammy, in response to this, smiles, and Norman has no idea if this is like, weird? or some kind of strange power move to assert dominance.

[GM, as Norman] When I said I saw things happening on the 2nd, you're the one that went pale! [Joey] How's Prophet Sammy's cONCEPT OF TIME, [Sammy] Not great!!!! [Sammy] I don't think he... knows when the 2nd was.

[Sammy] Forgive my memory. That doesn’t ring a bell! [Joey] He's... a little affected right now. [Norman] ...you don't say...

[Joey] Listen. I have $75 here for you, to take us out to the lake, as soon as possible. [a couple minutes of googling later] [Jack] That's equivalent to $1,464. Joey. [Sammy] CAN YOU IMAGINE?? "We need you to take us to the lake please" "Alright, but explain to me what's going on?" "SORRY, the guy who said that is clearly HIGH OUT OF HIS MIND, here's A THOUSAND DOLLARS, take us to the lake please!" [Jack] its a trip to the lake, what could it cost, $75 [Joey] *laughing* I should've looked up how much money I was saying before I was saying it, [Sammy] No, no, I think this is accurate to JOEY DREW

[Henry] Henry is just watching everything happening... [Sammy] Henry is waiting for the next video game breadcrumb trail to show up. [Henry] YEAH, [Jack] “Oh! Looks like I need to put three gears in this thing!”

[Sammy] I'm so angry on Sammy's behalf that you've made him meet two different people like this.

[Joey] If he does ask for money later, Joey's going to give it to him, because he has no concept of.... money.... [Sammy] No concept of GIVING OUT ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS [Jack] Can Joey Drew meet me, in real life, please? [Joey] I don't know if you want that to happen,, that might be more of a curse,,, [Jack] I'll take a curse! Gimme money! [Sammy] vOICE OF EVERY JDS EMPLOYEE

[GM] And you've got suits, and dress shoes...... [Sammy] We are not dressed for this. [Sammy] ...We are more dressed for it than we were earlier. I promise you, Norman, this is a step up, believe it or not.

[Sammy] Probably making a face because it tastes bad. [Henry] Tastes like paint! [GM] The cab driver might just wonder if that's a new drink this year. [Sammy] If nobody jumped on top of Sammy to stop him from using his mouth, he would probably say something with vibes of "this is beyond your comprehension" [Joey] Joey might try to stop that, and instead just be like, “Yes. It is.” [Henry] He's high. Don't worry about it. [Jack] Driver's just like "oh, I should try some of that when I get off work, seems like a good time!" [Sammy] You should! It'll open your eyes! [Sammy] (I'll stop evangelising the cab driver now.)

[Henry] Henry is: Sims Tense Moodlet.

[Joey] Joey instantly does not like this, and it is apparent on his face, if Sammy can see it in the mist. [Sammy] Probably not! [Jack] You could say he mist it!

[Henry] We need to hurry—! [Sammy] *screaming* THATS WHAT IVE BEEN SAYING!!!!!!

[Sammy] Sammy will be, sort of... whispering reassurance? I don't know how reassuring it actually is, [Henry] I'm sorry Sam, nothing about you is reassuring right now. [Sammy] Just kind of like, hush hush, come my sheep, that sort of thing, [Joey] Prophet ASMR Channel! [Jack] I'm sure Jack would appreciate this actually, it's a shame he's not the one getting this, [Joey] No, he's getting whatever comfort Joey can offer, which, uh, [Sammy] Well, and I will say, he's not like, whispering it in Henry's ear, like-- [Jack] I don't think Sammy in any form is capable of whispering. [Sammy] ...y'know [Sammy] that's fair

[Sammy] Well everyone's doing alright! We're doing great, it's going great! [Jack] Nooooo! No going great! I want more insanities! [Jack] ...I can stop at any time, I swear.

[Sammy] We can hold Norman's hand if you want, like, that's up to you. [Joey] Roll for gay, Norman! [Henry] Take him to dinner first,

[Sammy] This is such a bad idea that we're having.

[Joey] Joey is probably at this point holding onto someone else to guide him, and more in his head than not. [Sammy] Sammy's out of hands at this point, Joey, so you'll just have to figure this out. [Sammy] Got his hands full of sheep.

[Joey] Did Norman drink the juice. [GM] Did he...? Did he...... I think he was convinced enough by “this drink will save your life” that he does take a drink! [Joey] I'll roll intimidation if that helps! [GM] Yeah, you can roll to see how quickly he does it, or if he drinks enough of it. [Joey] *rolls* That's an EXTREME SUCCESS. [GM] Well, there we go; there's a preview, Norman, of your work environment!

[little-diable]

Witches brew - Jasper Hale (fluff)

Request by anon: Hi!! So I know it's pretty short notice so no pressure especially if it's not something u wanna write but it's my birthday tomorrow!! So I was wondering if it was possible for you to do a jasper imagine where like the reader is his mate and shes a witch and they meet when shes out collecting herbs, and hes out with friends or well family and she knows what they are right away but isn't scared and it's just super cute and reader is a smart ass and sassy. Sorry that's so long and messy thank you!!

Happy Birthday lovely anon!! Maybe a few of you are lotr fans and will notice something... Enjoy my loves. xxx 

(y/gm/n)= your grandmothers name

A few stars were dancing across the night sky as (y/n) made her way through the forest, mind set on a specific place, a place where she was sure, that she’d find whatever she was looking for. (Y/n) was too focused on her task, to feel the little thorns that were molesting her legs, not noticing the way a bit of blood was oozing out of the wounds. 

(Y/n) came to a sudden halt, she crouched down in front of the Athelas plant,  eyes focused on the blossoms, her hands were moving like they were on autopilot, slowly picking the flowers apart, carefully putting them into different jars. She could still remember her grandmother telling her all bout the plant, the different brews she’d have to mix up, in order to unfold its magic power. 

Her grandmother had been a witch, just like (y/n), she had taught her everything she knew by now, told her all about magical creatures and how she’d be able to protect herself, something she was incredibly proud of. (Y/n) missed her grandmother, missed to have somebody to talk to, somebody that would understand what she was struggling with. 

The witch was still too focused on the Athelas plant, to notice that somebody, or rather a few somebodies, were nearing. The whole Cullen clan was standing behind (y/n), watching the girl mindlessly looking at the plants, “she’s bleeding”, Alice couldn’t stop herself from speaking up, hands covering her nose, trying to switch her focus away from the heavenly smell.  

Alices voice ripped (y/n) out of her state, her head whipped around, eyes finding seven pairs of golden eyes watching her, the pale skin made her realize, who was standing in front of her. Vampires. A smile tugged on (y/n)s lips as she rose to her feet, “you must be the Cullen family.”, she wasn’t a stranger to the towns gossip. 

“I’m Carlisle Cullen and that's my family,-”, the blonde haired man took a step forward, hand reached out for her to take, a tight smile on his lips, “-, we are sorry to disturb you. We certainly didn’t expect, to come across somebody, in this part of the forest.”. (Y/n) firmly shook his hand, chuckling as she took in the state his family was currently in, eyes dropping down to the shirt from the bulky looking boy, blood was smeared all across the fabric.  

“(Y/n) (Y/l/n). Seems as if I’ve disturbed your hunting session, I’m sorry.”, she bowed down to pick up her basket, eyes wandering across the Cullens shocked expressions. “Well, you should probably clean up a bit nicer, the next time you approach somebody, after you’ve been hunting.”, she pointed her finger towards Emmetts shirt, a smirk on her lips. 

“You must be (y/gm/n) granddaughter.”, Carlisle took in her features, he had read all about her family before, about the witches traditions. (Y/n) nodded her head “yes”, eyes finding the golden ones of Jasper, she felt her heart flutter as he smiled at her, a tingling sensation shot through her.  

The Cullens had invited her into their home, curious to get to know the witch, witches were rare in this part of the world, something you wouldn’t come across every day. “Would you stop staring at me like I'm some kind of weird animal.”, (y/n) shot Rosalie a glare, already getting annoyed with the way the blonde haired vampire was staring at her, not missing the way Edward and Jasper were smirking at (y/n).  

It didn’t take her long to pull most of the Cullens, besides Rosalie, into her charm, they were intrigued by her, especially Jasper, he couldn’t get rid of the feeling, that (y/n) could take on a big role in his life. Carlisle was impressed with her knowledge about herbs and plants, being able to learn a few new things from her, Esme enjoyed to have somebody near, that she could cook for, a massive smile on her lips every time she got to use her kitchen. 

Even Jasper and (y/n) got to know each other better over the past weeks, she was just as mesmerized with him. He couldn't stop himself from wanting to be close to her, even if he’d just watch her brew another potion, “come on, it’s your turn.” (y/n) pulled on his hand, trying to ignore the tingling feeling. She began to explain to him, what he should add into the jar, how many times he’d have to stir it, chuckling every time he messed something up. 

A groan left him as he managed to mess it up again, “seems as if I’m a hopeless case, darlin’.”, golden eyes finding her (y/e/c) ones, (y/n) grasped his forearm, front pressed against his side, showing him how to stir the potion. She felt her breath hitch in her chest as she realized that he was still looking at her, eyes switching between her eyes and her lips. “You should concentrate on the jar, Jasper.”, (y/n) whispered as she looked into his golden eyes, her stirring came to a halt as he dipped his head down, whispering a small “sorry”, before pressing his cold lips against hers.  

(Y/n) had to let go of the spoon, hands grasping his face, trying to pull him even closer. She felt her insides burning, sparks were running up her limbs as he kept on kissing her, enjoying the way she was melting into his touch. By now it was quite obvious to the whole clan, that (y/n) was Jaspers mate, even Rosalie felt happy for her brother, Jasper deserved to have somebody by his side, that would love him till eternity.   

[amesstm]

Nice Receive!

WC: ~2K

A/N: So... I couldn’t figure out Social Dummy, because I am a dummy :D And since no one told me if they wanted an actual schedule or not, we will now work around my work hours which is a lot because my gm is evil :)

~series masterlist~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The weekend passed quickly with much needed rest being earned. Yet, there was that voice in the back of your mind urging you to do some form of exercising. After all, this was your last year in high school and the last time you could go to nationals.  

In fact, your volleyball team had been mourning the loss of their libero loudly in the group chat. Everyone joked that they would have to take down the 189.5cm man somehow. It seems that you had an army now, with your cousin Yu as its commanding general.  

For now, that wasn’t your concern because all you could think about was the upcoming exams. Yuki was studying more often with her boyfriend, which meant that you had the dorm room to yourself. Even Yuki was putting her studies before her volleyball practices because she skipped the one yesterday. So here you were with your text books and notes all laid out before you as if the words would jump off of the page and into your brain.

But after an hour of trying to focus on what was literally right in front of you, you gave up from the sensory overload. You sighed and collapsed onto your bed, hoping that the bed would swallow you. You closed your eyes and breathed slowly to prompt your muscles to relax. Perhaps you should start meditating.  

A soft knock interrupted your thoughts, immediately causing the irritation to return. But you opened the door and saw it was your whole volleyball team. Of course, the coach wasn’t there, but the manager looked like she led the brigade to your room.  

Your manager Tamako bowed with a smile, “We come in peace.”

She held up a pompompurin kotatsu plushie and you quickly forgot about your past irritation. You waddled towards her and clutched the plushie in your arms. “I accept your peace offering.”

The volleyball team cramped into your small room. The first-year opposite hitter Hana leaned in with wide curious eyes like that of a newborn baby, “Is it true that you and Ushijima-san like each other?”

Hana’s adoptive-mother, second year setter Karin shushed her, “They don’t know it yet!”

Hana poured and whined, “But it’s so obvious!”

You tilted your head and blinked, “What do you mean?”

Captain Hoshimi, the mountainous middle blocker, sighed, “You two are so oblivious.”

“Anyways,” Tamako cleared her throat, “Yuki says that she knows you’re dying to be on the court again. Obviously you can’t but you can watch!”

A part of you felt bad, knowing that Yuki was worried about you this whole time. You were about to open your mouth but she added, “Hoshimi has noise-canceling headphones.”

“Oh, okay that should work!” You grinned and sprung with life.  

Finally, you were able to be in the gym again. It wasn’t a formal practice, so everyone was just playing together. Unfortunately, you still had to sit on the bench. Of course, you were used to it since you were the liberal and weren’t always on the court; but every time the ball hit the floor, you couldn’t help but think that you could’ve gotten it.  

You watched Hoshimi block Hana with great speed and height. Although Hana had immense talent for her age, she needed much refining. You were sure that Tamako’s fast scribbling was notating all of this down even if she was off-duty.  

Still, you couldn’t hear what was going on. Everything you absorbed was purely on seeing the ball fly or land and feeling the vibrations of the ball landing or being smacked. So, you also didn’t hear someone approaching you and calling out your name. 

A light tap on your shoulder finally caught your attention. You whipped your head to see Ushijima talking to you, but you only saw his lips moving. Although you couldn’t hear, you said, “I can’t hear you. These are sound-proof.”

He nodded and sat down next to you instead of trying to find a way of communicating. It’s not like you two could learn some form of sign language or Morse code in a few minutes.  

Yet, there was that comforting silence. Sure, you were always flustered around Ushijima but now? Now, you’re on a different playing field – or court for this scenario. The embarrassment and hesitation scattered away, and the confident and radiant personality Ushijima always heard of came to light.  

After Hoshimi’s team won the set, Hana came panting to see how you were doing. She also wanted to check on her ship but that’s besides the point. Karin wandered towards you three, like a mother hovering around her chick. You decided that it’d be safe to remove the headphones since there weren’t ball smacking across the court now. “You guys did really well!”

“Did I?” Hana asked, red from huffing. “I think I could do so much better.”

“Try opening up your shoulders to Karin more,” you said, making the young spiker tilt her head. “You limit your options when you close yourself off from your setter. You’re only a few centimeters taller than me, but you’re still considered short on the court. Opening yourself up should make a difference.”

Ushijima watched you, observing the way you speak like a coach. No, nothing like Coach Tanji. On the contrary, your advice was constructive and kind, but still precise. Your voice’s volume didn’t raise above speaking level, which was another big difference. In the short time that Ushijima was considered “short”, he had to learn how to spike in ways similar to how you would have to.  

Once you were done advising Hana on what to do, the next set began. Soon, Hana was scoring more points. With each one, she would smile at you with all the brightness of the sun. You would smile back and raise your thumbs up in pride.  

Tamako tapped on your shoulder and asked if you could follow her a bit towards the back. You whispered in Ushijima’s ear, “I’ll be right back.”

It took him a minute to process that you were just that close to him that he could feel your lips almost on his earlobe. After controlling his rush of emotions, he nodded. Ushijima wondered what you two were talking about. Maybe it had to do with Hana’s improvement or the earliest you could return to playing. Either way, Ushijima continued watching the girls play, waiting for you to return to his side.

Hana soon excelled quickly, getting in quick spikes that couldn’t be received soon enough to get back into play. They’d smack onto the floor and then fly away. As Hana got more and more in the game, her spikes became quicker but also more forceful. There was no doubt that Hana would become the ace of the girls team when she got even better.  

But then one of her balls went astray. Ushijima noticed that this ball had a certain angle to it as she hit it at a cross. Knowing where the ball would go next, Ushijima rushed off of the bench just as the ball was about to hit you. He managed to receive the ball in time.  

On the other hand, you were also prepared to come in contact with the ball as you placed yourself in position. Of course, you might’ve been scolded for playing before you were allowed to, but you were sure that you could handle it. But Ushijima got to it before you could.  

After his dig, the ball bounced back into court but no one went to catch it. He looked behind towards you, eyes wandering over your face to see if you were shaken. Yet you didn’t look fazed at all. Instead, you grinned, “Nice receive!”  

Now, you definitely noticed a change in Ushijima’s stance. His shoulders drooped in relief and his features softened. His eyes looked at you as if you were the only one he cared about.

“Are you okay, Y/N?” Hana asked, running towards you in worry. Her eyebrows furrowed slightly as she examined your state.  

You shook your head with a soft chuckle, “I’m fine, Hana. That was a really good spike!”

Hana crumbled underneath your compliments. Then, she turned towards Ushijima and bowed deeply from her hips. “Thank you for receiving the ball before it could hit her!”

Ushijima stated with seriousness etched into every centimeter on his face, “I won’t let another ball hit her ever again.”

To the team, it was practically a declaration of protecting you – which they swooned over. To you, it sounded like he didn’t want you playing. “But I’m the libero?”

With your confusion, the team sighed with dejection. Hoshimi groaned, “You’re so dumb.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” You complained, eyes aimed towards Hoshimi.  

“We’ll tell you when you’re older,” Karin said, sticking out her tongue.

“I’m literally older than you,” you replied with a raised eyebrow.  

“And denser, too,” Karin jabbed back, earning a snicker from Hana who followed her mother’s behavior.  

You rolled your eyes, choosing to ignore the duo. “Anyways, I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

You returned the headphones to Hoshimi and started to walk towards the exit. But you felt a presence behind you and saw Ushijima looking at you expectantly. “May I walk with you?”

“Of course,” you smiled.  

As you two walked, you were surprisingly calm. Perhaps that moment in the gym reminded you that the superstar of Japan was just another human being. Of course, he was someone with fans who would do anything to be with him and recruiters who would fight to have him on their team. But something about him seemed more human to you.  

Another thing that surprised you was that Ushijima was a slow walker. Perhaps you were always used to walking fast because you always rushed to catch up to your taller friends, but walking with Ushijima was a different pace. Now you could take the time to absorb the scenery around you.

When you approached a ledge that had a brilliant view of the sunset, you just looked at it in awe. Was the sunset always this beautiful? Japan was known as the Country of the Rising Sun. Then again, you wouldn’t be awake enough to enjoy the sunrise even if you were awake.  

But this sunset? You actually took the time to look at it. You didn’t walk past it like you would usually do because the sun would always set. But as the pinks and oranges cascaded from the sun to the rich purples and indigo of the night sky, you couldn’t just walk away. “Has it always been this beautiful?”

Ushijima noticed that you stopped to admire the sunset, so he stopped, too; but all he could look at was you. Something about the way the spring breeze brushed your hair away from your face so the golden hour could paint your features was captivating. “Always.”

You looked behind your shoulder to see that Ushijima got closer to you. “Haha, sorry. I didn’t realize that I had stopped.”

“No, it’s fine.” Ushijima said, opting to sit on a rock that laid along the side of the road. “Sit with me, we can watch it longer.”

You took the opportunity to sit on the rock closest to him. Again, with that comforting silence. There was no need to speak because you two could just enjoy each other’s company. Then Ushijima spoke, “Will you play volleyball professionally?”

Of course, you had contemplated it but it didn’t seem completely viable. Sure, you were among the top three liberos in the country. Yes, you would love to continue playing the sport that you’ve dedicated so much time to. But could you really do that? “I’m not sure, yet.”

Ushijima’s gaze left the sunset to look at you, so you returned his gaze. “It’d be a waste of talent not to.”

The breath you were intaking halted dramatically. “You’re right. It would be.”

“Will you at least play in university?” Ushijima asked, hopeful that you would at least continue then.  

“Absolutely,” you chuckled. “I don’t want to say goodbye to years of my life just yet.”

“You should play professionally,” Ushijima stated, his confidence in your ability making your heart flutter. For some reason, the sentence felt really familiar but you couldn’t remember why.  

Anyways, you didn’t know what to say. When you finally spoke, it was to say goodnight. Ushijima left you at your dorm room and with plenty to think about.  

When you finally collapsed onto your bed, you pulled out your phone. There was a notification from Hana. You opened your phone to see it was a picture of you and Ushijima watching the sunset. Underneath was a caption saying, “Nice receive ;)”

[finalfantasy7]

Letting go

Despite all the crying, all the pain, all the disappointment that came from that little bookstore, I’m still scared of letting it go. Honest to god afraid of allowing it to become a distant memory where I can barely make out most of the details.

Little did I know going in I would barely register as a real job, strictly viewing it as a seasonal gig, only to leave it with bleeding heart strings.

I remember how at first I didn’t allow myself to see it as a long term gig, not after only staying as a seasonal at a previous location (a decision that admittedly ended up being a strike against my confidence). And yet, as the holiday season came closer to ending, the more anxious I became about being kept on passed the holiday season. It only became worse as I started to bond with the team there. Everyone and everything seemed to click. I very quickly found myself in a new “comfort zone” and much like love, it’s beautiful to experience and even scarier to lose.

What I failed to realize until now, was I had personally laid down the structure of the home I now associate with that environment. Yes, my colleagues were each as warm as they were individuals; each carrying a back full of personalized arrows and hearts full of dreams and fears alike. But looking back, so many of them highlighted how their kindness was not cheap and for some, certainly wasn’t free.

I now understand what [redacted] means when she says I seem to be the “glue” between people. A substance whose sole purpose is to hold things together and tightly at that. That being said, there are few cases of universal glue. No, in fact there’s specific types of glue for specific materials. I am nowhere near being a universal glue but I seem to be a decent brand for people…or at least those who can afford to be a bit vulnerable and honest.

To this day I will rave about my former coworkers, even more so about the ones I still keep in contact with today. But I’m now starting to see that the bookstore was home to me for a bit BECAUSE I made it home. I could have come in day in and day out and never looked back but I didn’t, at the time it almost felt like I couldn’t. How could I? When a small, insecure being was being suddenly labeled with tags and titles they had never heard before.

I wasn’t “[dead name]” when I stepped through those blue doors but “Finn Acosta”. Nor longer was I this lost entity, a ball of failure, fears and anxieties. No, I was now “Finn”; an attractive, fashionable leader who always seemed to “really see” people for who they were. But even at the time these words read hollow, not because I didn’t believe the genuine sentiment behind them but simply because I didn’t see that person looking back at me in the mirror. They unfortunately went from compliments to a heavy mask I felt I needed to wear, to proudly carry and maintain lest I seek to disappoint everyone.

There was a time period when “life was good” at work. I had recently been hired and I was hungry. You wanted to teach me how to make a table? Let’s do it. Need help with overnight inventory? Something I’ve never done before? I’m game. Wanna teach me how to rearrange every decorative piece on a table? Can’t wait. I suppose this time period could accurately be labeled as “Finn was bubbly” here or at least that’s how one manager described it when discussing how much I had changed by the end of my bookstore career. Managers seem to like this time period as much as I did. I used to think I was happy here and I suppose I was and yet, looking back it all seems so Illusionary? Perhaps our image of happiness changes more throughout our lives than we’d like to admit. But here I was in a relationship which I believed at the time was perfect, was in a workplace I believed was perfect and was starting to carry a new outlook of myself I had, you guessed it, deemed as perfect.

I sometimes wonder if I had the opportunity would I go back in time and warn that version of myself about the storm that was starting to brew? No, I don’t think I would. Even with the knowledge I have now, nothing could have prepared me for what was about to unfold, not really. Plus, who am I to rip off those rose coloured glasses off my past self- she was genuinely as happy as she could have been. I feel weirdly maternal towards that person. I know they were doing their best….unfortunately their best would soon be crushed by reality, more specifically, the flaws and beauty of what it means to be human.

Now going into my second year of psyche I can confidently say reading about humans and experiencing them are very different. To read about projection and have it’s description neatly grouped in small bullet points is very different from someone angrily shutting down your greeting because they’re having a bad day. I experienced a lot of projection at work and equally threw in my own.

It’s fascinating to think I experienced both appreciation and questioning of personality all at once in the same environment. I would be commended on how understanding I could be but equally questioned on how I couldn’t view things as more black and white the same people. How could you see only grays, is what I’d heard in my mind. Where was the fire? Where was the anger? Did it mean I didn’t care? Perhaps I simply didn’t give enough thought to these topics? But that wasn’t the case at all. For months on end I would ruminate about work; everything from issues of health and safety, union processing, to the well being of my coworkers.

This was my pack and I needed to care for it as best as I could…so I did. Someone didn’t feel comfortable addressing concerns to management? I’d do it for them. Let me check in with everyone I saw to see how they were. You look tired, allow me to buy you a coffee. Let me send out feedback forms to see what people need. Remember, each and everyone one of you matters and deserves nothing but care. Oh wait, management is also made up of human beings so I should also extend all this to them. Let me do this, let me do that, I will do this, I will do that. Eventually I became a husk of the person I started off at the beginning of the year. I felt bitter and broken. To put it frankly, I was exhausted.

I’ve never broken down so much in a place of work. I would sit in the corner of the washroom and cry (not too much so we couldn’t stop but enough to get a good sob out). No one ever knew. I know because I’ve now highlighted this to a few former coworkers and they each wear the same look of surprise, sadness and empathy. But why the tears? It was just a part time job and it was…until it wasn’t. Somewhere along the way this part time job truly became something else. I went from clocking in and out, to bringing every person who worked with me home. I packed up their fears in a precious bag and wore it around, how couldn’t I? They were afraid and I was used to carrying around people’s emotions with me. I was even better at wearing a bright toothy smile that hid my own emotions.

At some point I stopped being a CER and started to be..well..I suppose glue. But remember what I said earlier about different types of glue for different materials? Well, you see- management wasn’t particularly fond of the type of glue I was, at least a majority of them didn’t seem to be. You see in the eyes of my leaders, I WAS someone who was just clocking in and out and they weren’t happy with this. You see, the company preferred the type of glue that bonded workers and the company’s “vision”. Workers that were so bonded with that vision that it became almost indistinguishable of where the person started and the sales pitch ended. They wanted you to take work home with you, just not in the way I did. Ironically, because of this I was rated as a low performer; because I didn’t care enough, when all of my peers were telling me the opposite.

But there it was, the other shoe had finally fallen and little Finn isn’t as sturdy as they seem. No, in fact, I remember running out of the performance review in tears, rushing past my coworkers as I digested being told I was a failure (another notch to add to the belt). It’s true when they say, sometimes it’s not the information itself but how it’s delivered. I felt ganged up in the review; mine being the only that required the GM to be present (more like be the one who conducted it but I digress). My mind had completely shut down as my superiors watched me shrink into myself, using the little energy I had to not break down and cry. The surrealism of them joking around about not being able to find a seat in the mall to conduct the review as my mind turned into static. They told me I had “really up days and really down days”, a sentence that may as well be a death sentence if you deal with a form of mental illness. They noticed, they noticed I wasn’t neurotypical, that I was different and not in a good way. You know what hurts the most? These two women were part of a moment of trauma for me and they didn’t even try- for them it was just another day at work. They’ll never know how I spent the next few months psychoanalyzing myself, speaking with professionals to help me find “what I did wrong?”, “why was I a failure?”.

After months of pouring every bit of energy I had towards my team I was told I wasn’t good enough. A part of me wishes I could send this letter to those women, to show them “look what you did to me”. But I feel it would give them another opportunity to dismiss me when I’m most vulnerable, a moment similar to when they glossed over my anxiety disorder, chalking it up to, “I think we’re all anxious right now”.  At the end of everything I’m more hurt than bitter. I’m not a manager, I’m not a leader but I know I would never put someone in such a situation and at the very least I can sleep at night knowing that.

To say my time at the bookstore was a learning experience would be an understatement. One day I was at cash dealing with a customer who clearly wasn’t having a good day and I decided then and there, I needed to leave. So, I finally ripped the rose coloured glasses off and decided to give my two weeks. Those two weeks were the least stressed I had been the entire year. Ironically, I had to leave the bookstore to finally take to heart the kind words that were told to me in it. I remember how I was told at my previous location how incredible it was of how many interpersonal relationships I had made in the short amount of time and it looks like here was no different….but it was. I’m now permanently leaving this company behind and realizing if this is what I can do with a few months, a year, imagine what I can do in a permanent career setting? I think I’ll be just fine; not because I’m “Finn”, not because I’m glue but because I try and maybe, just maybe, that’s enough.

[betterdaysareatoenailaway]

RANDOM REVIEW #2: ANY GIVEN SUNDAY (1999)

“This game has got to be about more than winning. You’re part of something.”  Any Given Sunday (1999), directed by Oliver Stone and featuring Jamie Foxx, Dennis Quaid, Cameron Diaz, Al Pacino, LL Cool J, James Woods, and Matthew Modine, is my favourite sports movie of all time. Of all time.

I’m not betraying my favourite sport by saying this. The Mighty Ducks is a kid’s movie. It’s okay, but it’s not a timeless classic. I don’t like the Slap Shot series, Sudden Death is fun but silly, and the Goon movies were a missed opportunity. The only truly good scene in Goon is the diner scene where Liev Schreiber tells Seann William Scott: “Don’t go trying to be a hockey player. You’ll get your heart ripped out.”

  Such is the sad circumstance of the hockey enforcer. They all want to play, not just fight. Here’s a link to a video in which the most feared fighter in the history of the NHL, Bob Probert, explains that he wanted to be “an offensive threat...like Bobby Orr,” not a fighter: https://youtu.be/4sbxejbMH4g?t=118 Heartbreaking. But not unusual.

Donald Brashear, Marty McSorley, Tie Domi, Stu “The Grim Reaper” Grimson, Frazer McLaren: they all had hockey skills. But they were told they had to fight to remain on the roster, so they fought. As Schreiber says in the film: “You know they just want you to bleed, right?”  If the players don’t bleed, they don’t get to stay on the team. So they fight, and they pay dearly for it later. Many former fighters have CTE or other head injuries that make day-to-day life difficult. The makers of Goon should have taken that scene and run with it. I was so disappointed they didn’t, especially given what happened right around the time the film came out, with the tragic suicides of Wade Belak, Derek Boogaard, and Rick Rypien, all enforcers, all dead in a single summer. So Hollywood hasn’t even made a good hockey movie, let alone a great one. Baseball has a shitload of good films, probably because the slower pace of play makes it easier to film. Moneyball has a terrific home run scene, Rookie of the Year does too. Angels in the Outfield was a big favourite of mine when I was a kid, plus all the Major League films, and Bull Durham. 

Football has two good movies: The Program (1993) and Rudy (1993).    

And football has one masterpiece. The one I am writing about today.

A young Oliver Stone trying not to die in Vietnam. ^ Now, I know Stone is laughed at these days, given his nutty conspiracy theories and shitty behaviour and the marked decline in the quality of his films (although 2012’s Savages was underrated). I know Stone is about as subtle as a sledgehammer, but do you want a football movie to be subtle? Baseball, sure. It’s a game of fine distinctions, but football? Football is war. And war is about steamrolling the enemy, distinctions be damned, which is why Any Given Sunday is such an amazing sports film. I love the way it shows the dark side of football. In fact, the film is so dark that the NFL withdrew their support and cooperation, forcing Stone to create a fictitious league and team to portray what he wanted to portray.

This is not to say the movie is fresh or original. Quite the opposite. Any Given Sunday has��every single sports film cliché you can think of. But precisely because it tries to stuff every single cliché into its runtime, the finished product is not a cliched mess so much as a rich tapestry, a dense cinema verite depiction of the dizzying highs and depressing lows of a professional sports team as it wins, loses, parties, and staggers its way through a difficult season.  Cliché #1: The aging quarterback playing his final year, trying to win one last championship. (Dennis Quaid) 

Sample dialog: Dennis Quaid (lying in a hospital bed severely injured): Don’t give up on me coach. Al Pacino: You’re like a son to me. I’ll never give up on you. ^ I know this sounds awful. But it’s actually fuckin’ great. Cliché #2: The arrogant upstart new player who likes hip hop and won’t respect the old regime. (Jamie Foxx) 

Cliché #3: The walking wounded veteran who could die if he gets hit one more time. Coincidentally, he needs just one more tackle to make his million-dollar bonus for the season. (Lawrence Taylor) 

Cliché #4: The female executive in a man’s world who must assert herself aggressively in order to win the grudging respect of her knuckle-dragging male colleagues (Cameron Diaz). Diaz is fantastic in the role, though she should have had more screen time, given that the main conflict in the film is very much about the new generation, as represented by her and Jamie Foxx, trying to replace the old generation, represented by Al Pacino, Dennis Quaid, Jim Brown, and Lawrence Taylor. Some people think Diaz’s character is too calculating, but here’s the thing: she’s right. Too many sports GMs shell out millions for the player an individual used to be, not the player he presently is. “I am not resigning a 39-year old QB, no matter how good he was,” she tells Pacino’s coach character, and you know what? She’s right. The Leafs’ David Clarkson signing is proof positive of the perils of signing a player based on past performance, not current capability. Diaz’s character is the living embodiment of the question: do you want to win, or do you want to be loyal? Cuz sometimes you can’t do both.

Cliché #5: The team doctor who won’t sacrifice his ethics for the good of the team (Matthew Modine).

Cliché #6: The team doctor who will sacrifice his ethics for the good of the team (James Woods) 

Cliché #7: The grizzled, thrice-divorced coach who has sacrificed everything for his football team, to the detriment of his social and familial life, who must give a stirring speech at some point in the film (Al Pacino…who goes out there and gives the all-time greatest sports movie “we must win this game” speech) 

Cliché #8: The assistant or associate coach who takes a parental interest in his players, playing the good cop to the head coach’s bad cop (former NFL star Jim Brown). 

Best quote: “Who wants to be thinking about blitzes and crossblocks when you’re holding your grandkids in your arms? That’s why I wanna coach high school. Kids don’t know nothing. They just wanna play.” 

Cliché #9: The player who can’t stop doing drugs (L.L. Cool J).

Okay, so the first thing that needs to be talked about is Al Pacino’s legendary locker room speech.  Now, it’s the coach’s job to rile up and inspire the players. But eloquence alone won’t do it. If you use certain big words, you lose them (remember Brian Burke being endlessly mocked by the Toronto media for using the word “truculent?”). The coach must deliver the message in a language the players understand, while still making victory sound lofty and aspirational. This is not an easy thing to accomplish. One of my favourite inspirational lines was spoken by “Iron” Mike Keenan to the New York Rangers before Game 7 against the Vancouver Canucks in 1994. “Win tonight, and we’ll walk together forever.” Oooh that’s gorgeous. But Pacino’s speech is right up there with it. 

“You know, when you get old in life…things get taken from you. That’s parta life. But you only learn that when you start losin’ stuff. You find out…life’s this game of inches. So’s football. In either game – life or football – the margin for error is so small. I mean…one half a step too late or too early and you don’t quite make it…one half second too slow, too fast, you don’t quite catch it. The inches we need are everywhere around us. They’re in every break of the game, every minute, every second. On this team, we fight for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know when we add up all those inches that’s gonna make the fuckin difference between winnin’ and losin’! Between livin’ and dyin’!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_iKg7nutNY  Somehow, against all odds, Any Given Sunday succeeds. It is the Cinderella run of sports movies. You root for the film as you watch it. The dressing room scenes are incredible…the Black players listen to the newest hip hop while a trio of lunkhead white dudes headbang and scream “Hetfield is God.” There is a shower scene where a linebacker, tired of being teased about the size of his penis, tosses his pet alligator into the showers where it terrorizes his tormentors. There is a scene where a halfback has horrible diarrhea, but he’s hooked up to an IV so the doctor (Matthew Modine) has to follow him into the toilet cubicle, crinkling his nose as the player evacuates his bowels. There is a scene where someone loses an eye (the only scene in the film where Stone’s over-the-top approach misses the mark). There are scenes that discuss concussions (which is why the NFL refused to cooperate for the film), where Lawrence Taylor has to sign a waiver absolving the team of responsibility if he is hurt or paralyzed or killed. I wonder how purists and old school football fans reacted to the news that Oliver Stone was making a football film. If they even knew who he was (not totally unlikely…Stone made a string of jingoistic war movies in the 1980s) they probably thought the heavy hands of Oliver would ruin the film, take the poetry out of every play. But the actual football is filmed perfectly. The camera gets nice and low for the tackles. It flies the arcs of perfect spiral passes. It shows the chaos of a defensive line barreling down the field. When Al Pacino asked quarterback Dan Marino (fresh off his own Hollywood experience acting in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective) what it was like to be an NFL QB, Marino said: “Imagine standing on a highway with traffic roaring at you while trying to read Hamlet.” A great explanation. Shoulda made the movie. So the football itself is fabulously done. Much better than what Cameron Crowe did in the few football scenes in Jerry Maguire. The Program had some great football, as did Rudy, but neither come close to the heights of Any Given Sunday. In one of the film’s best scenes, Jamie Foxx insists that his white coaches have routinely placed him in situations where he was doomed to fail or prone to injury, and we believe him because white coaches have been doing that to Black players for decades. Quarterback Doug Williams, who led his Washington Redskins team to a Superbowl victory in 1987, was frequently referred to by even liberal media outlets as a “Black quarterback,” instead of just “quarterback,” as if his skin colour necessitated a qualification. Even now, in 2021, the majority of quarterbacks are white, although the gap is gradually closing. The 2020 season saw the highest number of starting Black quarterbacks, with 10 out of a possible 32.  Quarterback is the most cerebral position on the field, and for a long time there was a racist belief that Black men couldn’t do the job. Foxx’s character is a composite of many of the different Black quarterbacks who came of age in the 1990s, fighting for playing time against white QBs beloved by their fan base, fawned over in hagiographic Sports Illustrated profiles, and protected by the good ol’ boys club of team executives and coaching staff. Foxx’s character isn’t demoted because he can’t play the game. He wins several crucial games for his team en route to the playoffs. He’s demoted because he listens to hip hop in the dressing room, because he recorded a rap song and shot a video for it, and because he’s cocky. Yes, the scene where he asks out Cameron Diaz is sexist, as if her power only comes from her sexuality, not her intelligence and business acumen, but it’s meant to show how overly confident Foxx is, not that he’s a sexist prick. Any Given Sunday isn’t a single issue film. It’s basically an omni-protest piece. It gleefully shows football’s dark side, and there is no director better than Oliver Stone for muck-raking. He’s in full-on investigative journalist mode in Any Given Sunday, showing how and why players play through serious brain injuries. How because they are given opiates, often leading to debilitating addictions (this happens in all contact sports...Colorado Avalanche player Marek Svatos overdosed on heroin a few years after retiring from injuries). As to why, Stone gives two reasons. One, team doctors are paid by the team, not the players, therefore their decisions will benefit the team, not the players. And two, the players themselves are encouraged to underreport injuries and play through them because stats are incentivized. James Woods unethical doctor argues with Modine’s idealistic one because an MRI the latter called for a player to have costs the team $20k. But the player in question, Lawrence Taylor, plays anyway because his contract is stat incentivized and if he makes on more tackle he gets a million dollars. Incentivizing stats leads to players playing hurt. And although I loathe this term, a lazy go-to for film critics, Stone really does give an unflinching account of how this shit happens and why. When Williams is inevitably hurt and lying prone on the field, he woozily warns the paramedics who are placing him on a stretcher to “be careful…I’m worth a million dollars.” It’s tragic, yet you’re happy for him. The film really makes you care about these guys.  Thanks to the smartly written script, the viewer knows that Williams has four kids, and you’re pleased he made his bonus because, in all likelihood, after he retires, his injuries will prevent him from any kind of gainful employment (naturally, they give the TV analyst jobs to retired white players, unless Williams can somehow land the coveted token Black guy gig). Stone is not above fan service, a populist at heart, and he stuffs the film with former and then-current NFL players, a miraculous stunt given the fact that the NFL revoked their cooperation. Personally, I think this was a good thing because it meant Stone didn’t have to compromise (the league wanted editorial say on all issues pertaining to the league…meaning they would have cut the best storyline, which is the playing hurt one). It also meant that they had to rename the team and the league. While I’m sure this took away from the realism for some fans, I’m cool with it. It also allowed the moviemakers to name the team the Sharks, a perfect name for this roving band of predatory capitalist sports executives. In another example of fan service, the call-girl Pacino’s quintessential lonely workaholic character rents a girlfriend experience from is none other than Elizabeth Berkley of Showgirls, who had been unfairly blacklisted after the titular Verhoven/Esterhaz venture, a movie my wife showed me one day while I was dopesick, which I became so transfixed and mesmerized by that I forgot I was. As mentioned above, the only misstep in the film is one of the offshoots of the Playing Hurt arc, where a player loses an eye on the field. Not because he gets poked, but because he gets hit so hard his eye simply falls out. A medic runs onto the field and puts the white globe on ice. Stone cast a player with a glass eye in order to achieve this effect. No CGI! Still, the scene is unconvincing, a tad too over-the-top. But this is Oliver Stone. At least Any Given Sunday’s sole over-the-top moment is a throwaway scene lasting all of thirty seconds. It easily could have been a secondary plot-line in which government officials try to sneak a Cuban football prodigy out of Castro’s communist stronghold but the player is brutally murdered the morning the officials arrive at his apartment to escort him to the private plane. Or else the team GM is revealed to be a massive international cocaine dealer. Or the tight end is one half of a serial killer couple. The film follows its own advice, focusing more on the players growth, particularly Beamon’s (Foxx). The anonymity of the title, Any Given Sunday, elevates the game, not the players. Thank God, the movie doesn’t force Beamon to assimilate into Pacino’s mold. He buys into the team-first philosophy without renouncing his idiosyncratic POV or his fierce individuality. This is a triumph. One of my biggest problems with sports is the flattening effect it can have on creative individuals. Players take media training in order to sound as alike as possible during media interviews, a long row of stoic giants spouting cliches. It’s boring. Which is why media latch onto a loudmouth, even while they scold him for it. All sports are dying for an intelligent mouthpiece who can explain his motivations in a succinct, sound-bite-friendly, manner. Sports are entertainment. As much as I love Sidney Crosby, in my heart I have to go with Alexander Ovechkin because Ovechkin is far more thrilling, both on and off the ice. Unlike almost every other NHL star before him, all of whom were forced to kneel and kiss Don Cherry’s Rock Em Sock Em ring, Ovechkin defiantly told the media he simply did not care about Cherry or Cherry’s disgusting parental reaction to one of Ovie’s more creative goal celebrations (called a “celly” in the biz). On the play in question, Ovechkin scored the goal, then dropped his stick and mimed warming his hands over it, as if his stick were on fire. As cheesy as the celebration appeared to the naked eye, it’s both a funny and accurate notion. Ovechkin was the hottest scorer in the league for many years and his stick was on fire, metaphorically speaking. The only celly I can think of that matches up in terms of creativity and entertainment value came from Teemu Selanne in 1993, who scored a beauty of a goal, threw one of his gloves straight up into the air, then pumped his stick like a shotgun while “shooting” his glove. Of course, Cherry took exception to it. Cherry’s favourite goal celebration features Bobby Orr putting his head down and refraining from raising his hands over his head. Cherry’s idea of an appropriate goal celly is no celly at all. This from a man who claims “we’ve got to sell our game.” But when an arrogant player shows up and he’s not white, he’s in for a shitload of bad press. Foxx’s Beamon illustrates this beautifully when he yells at Pacino after Pacino cuts him for an older QB who has lost four games this season. “Don’t play that racism card with me,” Pacino warns. “Okay…okay…” Foxx nods, “Maybe it’s not racism. Maybe it’s ‘placism’…as in…a brother got to know his place.”

Here is the original theatrical trailer, featuring Garbage’s classic “Push It.”

Above Lawrence Taylor begs Matthew Modine for Cortazone.  There’s also a great scene where Pacino is trying to figure out where he has gone wrong and Diaz just looks at him. “You got old,” she says simply. No enterprise is more cruel to an aging human being than sports. And this movie makes football a big giant corporate machine that chews players up and spits them out, injured and drug addicted, after four or five years. Those who play for a decade are lucky. This is still how the NFL works. And the NHL is increasingly becoming a young man’s game. Experience matters less and less.

When I started watching hockey in the 90s, players regularly competed into their late 30s. Not so anymore. Players peak at 23-24 now, and are often out of the league by age 35. Thornton and Chelois are exceptions, not the rule. After more than two hours, Any Given Sunday finally lurches across the finish line, bravely refusing to give its viewers a traditional happy ending, in the great tradition of underdog sports films like Rocky and Rudy. The bombshell dropped by Pacino’s character at the end feels less surprising than inevitable, but by now the movie has explored so much of professional sports' seedy underbelly that you're glad it's over. The film is great but exhausting. Stone seems to be advancing the notion that the sport itself is pure, but the people in it are corrupt. If money weren’t involved, the game would be played for its own sake.

I agree with this. People playing pond hockey are engaging in wholesome fun, not necessarily practicing to make a professional league. Commerce corrupts the purity of the game, and the extent to which it corrupts is directly proportional to how badly the individual in question needs the commerce. Of course, the sport is highly racialized, with people in positions of authority white, and those being told what to do with their bodies Black.

Any Given Sunday is an important film, but it never sacrifices entertainment for the sake of moralizing. That it pulls off such a strong moralistic stance is a testament to the actors, who are all incredible, and the material, which is among the strongest of Stone’s career.

He never really made a great movie after this one. So check it out sometime.

[littlemisswolfie]

Hope That You Fall In Love (And It Hurts So Bad)

Part II>

Somehow I never posted this here oops--

I’ve always loved @umisabaku ‘s Designation: Miracle fic series on Ao3, and I love to see a half-Canadian protagonist in anime because no one ever thinks being half-Canadian is cool, so I love Sk8: The Infinity, and I figured, hey! Why not combine them! And this happened.

TW for  mentions of child experimentation and torture, a scene where it is heavily implied Nanako trades sexual favors in exchange for custody of Langa, a few scenes where Langa has nightmares, a brief moment of Langa having a panic attack, non-graphic descriptions of Oliver developing liver cancer, discussions of death and funeral arrangements, a non-graphic scene of Oliver dying, and the beginnings of Langa's depression.

Ao3

Hasegawa Nanako didn’t quite know what she was getting into when she got contracted by a private company straight out of nursing school. She was young and trusting and desperate for money after her parents died and left her with their debts, and the recruiter from Teiko Industries handed her a quote that was three times the average pay for nurses, so she took the job. She signed the stacks of NDAs, went through with the extensive background checks and drug tests, and underwent a psych evaluation before she even stepped foot into the lab that would change her entire life.

She wants to quit as soon as she figures out what was really going on. Human experimentation, torture, training children to be assassins… the whole thing makes her skin crawl. But, again, she really needs the money. No other job she could get right out of school would pay enough to chip away at her parents’ debt and pay for her apartment and car and food. So, with a heavy heart, she shows up for her shift five nights a week, and she’s assigned to the hospital ward that cared for Generation Infinity.

They’re the youngest generation so far. Eight years younger than Generation Miracle, which, Nanako learns from a particularly chatty coworker, was the most successful Generation by far. “They’re almost all Successes,” the other nurse says, cheery, like they’re talking about some sports game or a litter of kittens instead of living, breathing children. “They just had to scrap O394, but the others are all still promising. Well, maybe not B452, but still. That’s six out of fourteen! Imagine that.”

Nanako doesn’t want to imagine that. The thought makes her stomach churn. The casual talk of killing children…

“Maybe Infinity will be even better!” the coworker chatters on. “If our Orange Three can actually fly… think they’d give us a raise?”

*

The Project she sees most often during her shift is GI-B423.

Nanako knows there isn’t much hope for him. He’s only two years old, but he’s barely developed even the slightest invisibility. He doesn’t even display any Latent Overflow, which was supposed to be inherent in every Project. The scientists still make him wear the shock bracelets (horrible things, Nanako wanted to rip them off of him with her bare hands) and still send him to that torture chamber they stole from Orwell, but he’s already a Failure in their eyes.

To Nanako, he’s a baby. He’s tall for his age, with curious eyes and an unfillable stomach and a wonderful smile when she could wrench one out of him. He winds up in the hospital ward so often because of his reckless behavior. He tries to copy everything the other Projects do, particularly GI-O376’s jumping and GI-B531’s speed, and even when he doesn’t hurt himself trying something stupid, his heart rate elevates and he gets shocked.

“You should be more careful,” she says to him one night as she patches up a scratch he got when he scraped  his arm on the wall of his cell trying to touch the ceiling. “I’d hate to see them hurt you for being reckless.”

Those eyes, too smart for a toddler, stare into her soul. “You’re worried about me?”

“Yes.” There’s no use denying it. Even if she didn’t care too much about this child who will probably be killed by the time he’s ten years old, it would be cruel to deny caring for a boy this young. And maybe she’s selfish, for feeling like this about GI-B423 and not the other children, but the scientists care about them plenty. They are Successes.

GI-B423 will never be a Success. So she has to care about him, because no one else will.

*

Nanako quickly comes to realize she’s one of the only people in Teiko that thinks of the Projects as human. This lets her see things no one else does.

So, a few years after she starts working, she notices GM-B425 is planning something.

She’s sure he’s fooling the others. The scientists and doctors and contractors think of these children as weapons, unfeeling, unthinking save for their direct orders. The Miracle Projects are generally allowed free reign of the facility as long as they stay out of the private offices and labs, so Nanako will take her time at the vending machines to watch them, and she notices the way GM-B452 watches everyone else. He’s the closest thing to a Success a Black will ever be, Nanako has heard, but he’s still going to be scrapped soon.

Nanako knows what desperation looks like.

She makes a choice.

*

“Let me get this straight,” says Honda-san, the director of Generation Infinity. He’s an older man, probably pushing sixty, with graying black hair and dark, mean eyes. He’s watched her with a predatory gaze from the first time they met when she first started. Nanako’s always known she’s a pretty woman, one of the few things her mother gave her, so it wasn’t like she was unused to attention from old, greasy men. “You want to resign, and instead of a severance package, you want to take GI-B423 with you?”

“Yes, sir.” Nanako’s wearing her best dress (and if it’s cut just low enough to be flattering, well, that’s just a bonus) and she did her make-up and she is being as polite as she can possibly be. “I’ve made more than enough money here to pay off my parents’ debts, and I was never cut out for work like this in the first place, so I see no reason to continue in my current position when you could hire someone more suited for the role.” She’s been saving since the day she started working. She never eats out, she doesn’t go out drinking, and she takes five minute showers. She’s debt-free, with savings to spare.

“And GI-B423?” Honda-san leans forward on his hands, his wrinkled brow furrowing further. “What use could he have to you?”

Nanako inhales and brings a hand to her stomach. “I’ll never be able to have children,” she says, the truth burning her throat. “I had to get a hysterectomy due to my endometriosis. I’ve come to care for GI-B423 as my own child, and you know as well as I do that he’ll never be a Success. If anything, he’s more noticeable than the other members of his Generation. Why spend the resources continuing to believe he’ll develop the abilities you would need him to? Why dissect him as if anything about him could better future Projects?” The words sting, tasting sour in her mouth. She hates saying these things about GI-B423, but it’s what she needs to do. “If you can get him on my family register, that’s all I ask. We’ll leave the country, and you’ll never hear from us again.”

Honda-san makes a considering noise, and, after a moment, he places his hand on her bare knee. His wedding band glints in the overhead light. “I might be persuaded.”

Nanako tries to smile.

*

Later that night, as Nanako is slipping her dress back up over her shoulders in the room of the love hotel Honda-san rented for the evening, Honda-san says, “What name did you want for him?”

“Langa,” Nanako says. “His name is Hasegawa Langa.”

*

Langa is confused, at first. “Where are we going?” he asks Nanako when she loads him and his meager belongings into her car. He’s never been out on a mission, so this is probably the first time he’s ever seen a car. “Does R0132 know where I am? He’ll get mad if I’m not at training.” He rubs at his wrists, finally free of those awful shock bracelets, like he can’t believe they’re gone.

“I don’t work here anymore,” she tells him. “I quit. Do you know what adoption means? It means I’m going to take care of you from now on.”

“So… I don’t live here?”

“No. And you’ll never have to do training again, or wear your shock bracelets, or go to Room 101. You can eat as much as you want. And you have a name.”

“A name?”

“Yes. Your name is Hasegawa Langa. You’re my son, now, and I’m your mother, and that means I’ll love you and take care of you for the rest of your life.”

Langa blinks. Then, he says, “Okay,” and he lets her buckle him in.

*

Two days later, they’re on a plane to Canada.

*

A month after that, nestled in their new apartment in Squamish, Nanako holds Langa in her lap and they watch, together, as Generation Miracle escapes from Teiko.

“Will they come for us, Mom?” Langa asks.

She squeezes him around the middle, perhaps a little too tight. “No, honey. As long as we keep our secret a secret, we’ll be fine.”

 Nanako hopes she’s right.

*

The military never ends up knocking on their door, and Nanako thanks God for small mercies. She and Langa are doing everything they can to blend in, like normal immigrants. Nanako’s working at a nursing home, and Langa is enrolled at the local Catholic school, and they both attend Mass on Sundays and Wednesdays. Nanako makes friends with the other women in the apartment building and she tells them all that Langa’s father got her pregnant and walked out on her, so that’s why he’s not in the picture, and Langa dutifully goes along with the sentiment when asked. Langa isn’t making a lot of friends, and that would worry Nanako, but mostly she’s glad that it means there’s no danger of Langa accidentally telling a kindergartener with no filter about his time at Teiko.

He still gets nightmares, sometimes. Nanako never saw the inside of Room 101, and she wishes Langa never had, either. She never let him see the press images of how the JSDF found Teiko when they went hunting for the scientists, because that would only make the fear worse. Hell, she woke up in the middle of the night sometimes, catapulted out of a dream of fire and screaming, bloody children, guilty that she couldn’t save the rest of them, guilty that she only loved Langa and not the others, and she’ll never make Langa feel that, too. He has enough on his shoulders as it is.

Then, for Langa’s first Christmas outside of Teiko’s walls, Nanako uses up all the PTO she’s saved and they take a trip to a ski lodge, and there they meet Oliver Campbell.

*

Oliver, as it turns out, also lives in Squamish, as he tells Nanako one night over boozy hot chocolate after Langa has been put to bed. “I’m a firefighter,” he says, “though, when I was younger, I wanted to be a pro snowboarder.”

“I could never,” Nanako laughs. “That’s a little too dangerous for me.” Then, because the alcohol makes speaking secrets easier, she says, “Langa would probably love it, though. He’s always been an adrenaline junkie.”

Oliver looks surprised. “He seems like such a quiet kid.”

“Oh, you should’ve seen him when he was—when we still lived in Japan. Scrapes and broken bones everywhere.”

“Well, then, he’s lucky he had such an amazing mother to patch him up.”

Heat floods Nanako’s cheeks. “What good would my nursing license do if I couldn’t even take care of my own kid?”

“And… Langa’s father?”

“Not in the picture. It’s just the two of us.” Please don’t ask anymore, she begs. There’s something about Oliver that makes her want to be completely honest, and that could end very, very poorly.

“Ah,” he says, instead, “I’m sorry about that. Wherever he is, he’s really missing out.”

Nanako thinks of Honda-san, of his leer and his sweaty hands and his potbelly dragging against her back, and says, “We’re better off without him, trust me.”

*

The next day, Oliver starts teaching Langa how to snowboard. Just like Nanako thought, he takes to it like a fish to water, and even when he falls, the snow cushions his landing, so he just laughs and jumps right back up to try again. She watches from the sidelines and smiles, feeling warm, because this is what Langa deserves. He deserves to be a normal kid.

*

“When are you guys going home?” Oliver asks over dinner one night, a few days into their stay at the ski lodge. They’re having breakfast for dinner, a phenomenon Langa was very pleased to learn about, and Nanako ordered him three helpings of Eggs Benedict.

Langa is too busy shovelling peameal bacon into his mouth like he’s never eaten in his life to answer, so Nanako says, “Boxing Day. We don’t have any family in the area, so we’re just doing Christmas here.”

Oliver leans back in his chair. “That reminds me! Why did you guys move here, anyway? If you don’t have family here, I mean.”

Langa only barely doesn’t tense up, and Nanako promises to give him extra dessert for his restraint. “We needed a fresh start,” Nanako says. “I got pregnant with him while I was still in nursing school, and by the time I graduated, my parents had both died, and I got saddled with their debts. We stayed in Japan long enough to pay the debts off and save enough money to move, and we just… left. Where we went didn’t matter much, honestly, as long as it wasn’t Japan.”

“Your English is pretty good,” Oliver notes. He genuinely just sounds curious. “Both of you, actually. If I didn’t know you were immigrants, I would think English was Langa’s first language.”

Langa swallows a huge mouthful of English muffin and egg and says, “I know French, too! And some other languages.”

Nanako takes back her internal promise of extra dessert as Oliver’s eyebrows migrate up towards his hairline. “That’s very impressive,” he says. “Where’d you learn all those?”

Langa shrugs. “Around.”

“We learn English all throughout school, in Japan,” Nanako cuts in. “When I knew we were going to move abroad, I taught Langa, too. And he started teaching himself French when we decided on Canada. He’s a quick study when it comes to languages.” Oliver still looks a little unsure, so she rushes to change the subject. “When are you leaving the lodge, Oliver?”

“I’m checking out of my room on Christmas Eve. My parents always throw a big Christmas party at their cabin in Princeton every year, with all the aunts and uncles and cousins. It’s a riot, especially when we play Pass the Ace.”

“Pass the Ace?” Langa asks. “What’s that?”

A playful glint enters Oliver’s eye. “Oh, Langa, my boy, do you have any loonies on you?”

*

The three of them spend the next few days together. Langa wakes Nanako up as soon as the sun rises and they go downstairs to meet up with Oliver, who spends the rest of the morning teaching Langa how to snowboard. Then they go to the bunny slopes to toboggan, and at night, they eat dinner together, and Oliver and Nanako stay up long after Langa goes to bed to drink and talk.

Nanako’s surprised at how easy it feels to be around Oliver. Even before she started working at Teiko, her dating life wasn’t exactly active. Sure, she’d hooked up with a few guys in college, and she had a boyfriend in high school, but there was never a connection, not like this.

“Here,” he says, the night of the 23rd, “let me give you my number.”

“Really?” Nanako asks, even though she’s already pulling her phone out of her pocket.

Oliver gives her a confused look. “Yeah? I mean, unless you didn’t want to meet up back in Squamish—”

“No, I do!” Nanako rushes to correct. “I do. It’s just… I mean, with Langa…”

“Hey.” Oliver reaches across the table to take one of her hands. “Langa’s a great kid. Any guy who got scared away by him isn’t worth the time of day. I like you, and I like Langa, and I would love nothing more than to get to know the both of you better, if you would allow it.”

Nanako flushes again. She likes this feeling, like someone is looking at her and seeing her and still liking it. She knows she shouldn’t, that Langa’s secret could be in jeopardy if she gets too close to the wrong guy, but she can’t help it. “I think I will,” she says. “Langa would probably never forgive me if I took his snowboarding teacher from him.”

And Oliver laughs, and it’s one of the most beautiful sounds she’s ever heard, right under Langa calling her “Mom.”

*

She and Oliver start officially dating not too long after Christmas. He’ll come to the nursing home with Tim Hortons when she’s working twelves, and he picks Langa up from school and helps him with his homework, and he invites the two of them over for dinner at least twice a week because he knows Nanako is often too busy to cook. When it comes time to celebrate Langa’s birthday, Oliver buys him a brand new snowboard, and Langa throws his arms around his neck and chants “thank you”s into his hair.

He brings them to his parents’ cabin for Victoria Day, and his family is just as kind as him. His nieces and nephews do their best to include Langa in their games, but they don’t push when she shies away and hangs out by the buffet table instead, and his mother, Barbara, hugs Nanako like she’s an old friend rather than a stranger.

“Hey, Langa, wanna swim?” Oliver’s dad, Ray, asks, gesturing to the small pond nearby. Some of the other kids are already splashing around in it, and it is getting warm, so it’s no wonder he’s suggesting it.

Nanako tenses, but Langa just shakes his head. “I don’t swim very often,” he says in that serious way of his, and she releases the breath she was holding. She’s never taken him swimming since she adopted him, because she can’t be certain no one will see the GI-B423 brand on his upper thigh. He doesn’t have many scars, other than the faint ones around his wrists he usually wears long-sleeved shirts to bulky bracelets to cover up, but that one in particular would be very hard to explain away.

Oliver gives her a curious look, but she just shrugs like she’s seen other parents do when their kids are acting weird, and he gives her that lopsided smile and everything is okay again.

*

A month later, Nanako terminates the lease on her and Langa’s apartment, and they move their things into the small house Oliver owns. Langa’s a little confused about why Nanako says he can’t sleep with her as often as he used to now that they’re living with Oliver, but he doesn’t complain. After her, Oliver is his favorite person in the whole world.

*

They go to the ski lodge again for Christmas, and Langa barely stays off the slopes the whole time. He’s only seven now, but he snowboards better than people three times his age and with a decade more experience.

“He’s a prodigy,” Oliver says, watching him jump a worryingly high way into the air. “He could go pro.”

Nanako hopes he doesn’t. She doesn’t want him to attract too much attention to himself. “Maybe,” she says. “But he’s a little too spacey for that, I think.” Oliver laughs and puts an arm around her waist, letting her melt into his side. “Maybe.”

*

That Christmas, surrounded by the Campbell clan, Oliver gets down on one knee and asks Nanako to be his wife. Nanako can see Langa over Oliver’s shoulder, bobbing his head up and down like a bobblehead, and she lets out a wet laugh and says “yes.”

*

It’s a quiet wedding, at the cabin in Princeton, with just Oliver’s family and some of Nanako’s friends from work. They include Langa in all of their wedding photos, and he hugs Oliver and calls him “Dad” and Oliver almost cries.

This is it, Nanako decides. This is all she needs. Her husband and their son and the life they’ve made for themselves.

As long as no one finds out about Teiko.

*

Langa’s been very good about keeping it all a secret. He never talks about Teiko, or his Generation, or the powers that should have developed but never did. He doesn’t take his bracelets off around anyone, even Oliver, and when he has his nightmares, he quietly wakes Nanako up so she can slip out of bed and comfort him until he falls back to sleep.

Things aren’t perfect, but they work.

Until Generation Miracle is put back into the spotlight.

*

Nanako studiously never brings up the Miracles. Sometimes people will ask if she has an opinion on them, and she always says no. If a news segment is playing and talking about them, she’ll change the channel or turn the TV off. It’s been harder to ignore all the media attention lately, since Teiko’s more insidious designs are suddenly being brought to light. She’s not sure who is suddenly talking, or why, but she’s more than happy to bury her head in the sand and pretend it doesn’t concern her.

Until one day, when she gets home from work, and sees Oliver and Langa sitting on the couch and watching as a teenage boy with light blue hair and a calm fury Nanako only ever saw in one person says, “All we have ever wanted to do is be free.”

Nanako lunges for the remote to change the channel. Oliver squawks in surprise, but she kneels in front of Langa, who’s sitting rigid, like a stone, and takes his hands and says, “Are you okay, sweetie?”

He nods robotically, and she winces. He’s retreating. That’s not good. “Hey, baby, breathe for me, okay? In for four, hold for five, out for six. Just like we used to.”

Langa sets about his breathing exercises, and Oliver stands up, looking more concerned than she’s ever seen him look. “What’s going on? He got all quiet as soon as that news segment started.”

“Oliver, it’s a long story—”

“If my son is having a—a panic attack, or something, I think I deserve to know why!”

This is what she’s always dreaded. She has to come up with something. If she brushes him off, he’s just going to keep digging, but if she says something too complicated, she won’t remember what she said later and it will bite her in the ass. I shouldn’t have gotten him involved, she thinks, mournfully, already picturing the divorce proceedings and custody battle and Langa missing the only father he’s ever known. I knew it was too risky.

“GI-B423.” Langa gasps, and Nanako whips her head up towards him.

“Langa—” she starts, panic rising in her chest, at the same time Oliver says, “What?”

“My designation,” Langa says, he’s still clearly upset. “GI-B423. The twenty-third Black Four Project in Generation Infinity. Failed experiment. GI-B423…” He continues muttering, clearly back in that awful place, and Nanako throws her arms around him.

“Shh, baby,” she coos, rocking him back and forth, feeling him tremble against her. “That’s not you anymore, remember? You’re Hasegawa Langa. You’re eight years old, you’re in year three, and you live with your mom and dad in Squamish, British Columbia.”

She repeats this mantra a few times, drowning out Langa’s, until he stops trembling so much. His little hands grip her scrub top like she’s a liferaft in the middle of the ocean. She’s no stranger to this feeling; most of his nightmares result in a similar embrace. Her neck is damp from his tears and snot, but she keeps on rocking him, letting him cry himself out until he falls asleep.

Throughout it all, Oliver watches, silent.

*

Nanako carries Langa to bed and tucks him in for an impromptu nap, and braces herself for the awful conversation she knows she has to have.

Oliver is still sitting on the couch, silent, staring at the wall behind the TV. “Well,” he says, before Nanako has a chance to say anything, “a few things make more sense now.”

“Oliver…”

He looks at her, meeting her worried gaze, and sighs, opening his arms. She falls into his embrace readily, collapsing against his side. In his arms, she feels safe, like nothing can touch her here. “Tell me your story,” he says, playing with her wedding band, and she does.

*

Nanako won’t say things are perfect after Oliver learns Langa’s secret, but they’re certainly easier.  

Now, when Langa has his nightmares, he can crawl into bed in between his parents and not have to worry about revealing anything he shouldn’t. Oliver’s always been better at calming him down, too, so having his help in soothing Langa’s nightmares is a huge deal. Nanako doesn’t have to be on the lookout for evil scientists or government agents all on her own anymore, now that Oliver is also keeping an eye out.

The three of them sit on the couch together to watch the coverage of the Special Diet, and when the Miracles are declared not dangerous, Nanako almost cries.

Maybe they can finally be free.

*

And so, the years pass.

Things are never perfect. They wouldn’t have been perfect if Langa wasn’t a genetically engineered child designed to be an assassin, but even then, things are a normal amount of imperfection. Langa still has trouble connecting with kids his own age, but not in a weird way, just a kid way. Nanako and Oliver have their odd disagreements, though they never go to bed angry. Oliver goes out drinking with his coworkers from the fire station more often than Nanako would like, but he never drives drunk and never gets angry or abusive, so she doesn’t try to make him stop. They get enough money to buy a larger house just outside of Squamish, and Nanako starts up a garden in the backyard in the spring and summer. In the winter, they spend more and more time on the mountain as Langa falls more in love with snowboarding.

And he does love snowboarding. He’s always pushing himself to go faster, jump higher, do more. Nanako is nervous that he might want to go pro, but he never brings the possibility up. He just wants to snowboard with his dad. He doesn’t care about the money or the glory or anything else. As long as he has his board and the snow and Oliver, he’s happy.

And then Oliver gets his diagnosis.

*

It starts small. He’s less hungry than he used to be, “But your food is as delicious as it’s always been!” he says with a flirty wink. The fifteen-year-old Langa rolls his eyes.

Then, he starts losing weight. He was always fit, with not a lot of fat on him, so when he starts losing weight, Nanako gets concerned. “You’re not trying to diet or anything, right?” she asks, staring at his narrower chest.

He shakes his head. “I’m probably just getting old, honey. We didn’t get to go on the slopes much this winter. I’ll start jogging to get my muscle mass back up, if that’ll make you happy.”

Langa goes on these runs with him. He’s always been an active kid, since Teiko was training them to be super soldiers, so he always has too much energy. The extra activity is good for him.

Oliver, on the other hand, doesn’t benefit as much from their daily jogs. He keeps losing weight, and every once in a while, he complains of abdominal pain. “No, Nanako, I’m not going to the doctor,” he says when she gives him a worried look. “It’s probably nothing.”

Then, on Canada Day, Nanako is woken up when Oliver bolts out of bed to be violently sick in their ensuite bathroom and notices his skin is jaundiced, and the next day she packs up him and Langa and they all go to the hospital together.

*

Liver cancer.

Stage 4.

Treatment options.

Life expectancy.

Langa shuts down.

*

Oliver deteriorates quickly after that.

He’s in the hospital more often than not, and when he’s admitted two weeks before Thanksgiving, everyone knows it’s for the last time. Nanako and Langa are there as often as they can be, sitting with him and holding his hand and desperately trying to pretend he’s not about to leave him forever. The nurses even buy Langa a cake when the three of them all collectively forget his sixteenth birthday.

When Langa is at school or sleeping in the waiting room, Nanako and Oliver go over his will. He’s leaving everything to Nanako, of course, but he says she should let his cousins come and take a look at family photos after she decides what she wants to keep. He also writes a letter for Langa, but doesn’t let Nanako read it. “It’s for him,” he says. “He should be the first one to read it.

“I don’t want a funeral,” he tells her, voice weak. “Don’t spend your money on that. Don’t make Langa go through that. Cremate me and bury me next to my grandparents, and go out to lunch after.”

“Okay,” she says.

“I wish this wasn’t happening.” For the first time since he got his diagnosis, Oliver starts to cry. “I don’t want to leave you and Langa. I want to see him grow up and fall in love. I want to see your hair turn gray.”

“I want that, too,” she says. She grips his hand tightly and lets her own tears roll down her cheeks. “How am I going to do this without you?”

He tries to crack one of his crooked grins. “You’re a smart lady. You’ll figure it out.”

*

A few nights later, Nanako and Langa are woken in the middle of the night, and they rush to the hospital. They get there in time for each of them to hold one of Oliver’s hands as he takes his last breath.

*

Like Oliver wanted, he’s cremated and buried in Princeton, next to his grandparents in the Campbell family plot. His parents take them out for lunch at a Swiss Chalet, and Langa barely eats. He has the letter Oliver wrote him clenched in his fist. He hasn’t read it yet; the envelope is still sealed.

Nanako won’t push. He’ll read it when he’s ready.

*

They go up the mountain that winter.

Langa stands at the top of the slope and stares down it. He does this for twenty minutes, and walks back to the lodge.

*

“We can’t stay here,” Nanako tells Barbara a few weeks after Christmas. “It’s—it’s killing Langa, being  here without Oliver. He’s not eating, he’s barely sleeping…” She chokes back a sob, and melts into the warm embrace her mother-in-law offers her.

“You’ll always be family,” Barbara assures her. “Do what you need to do. We’ll always be here if you need us.”

*

“I’m thinking we should move back to Japan,” Nanako says to Langa later that night. She doesn’t really want to go back to Japan, but Teiko is gone. For good, now that the Miracles thwarted their attempt to build a new one near Hawaii not long after the Special Diet. There’s no reason not to go there, when that’s where they came from and the country in the world most comfortable with mutant children.

Langa, still blank, says, “Okay,” and then nothing else for the rest of the night.

*

They sell the house, find an apartment in Okinawa, say goodbye to the Campbells, and get on a plane to the country they fled almost ten years ago.

I hope I’m doing the right thing, Oliver.

[oldtimefamilybaseball]

One of my favorite things to do during the offseason (beyond catching up on some movies, books, and -- gasp -- watch a few other sports, too. Sorry, Rogers Hornsby, but there’s just too much good stuff out there in the world!) is taking a time machine to another baseball season. You can pull up YouTube and just type in “Rangers 1992″ and be presented with some random game where you have no idea what you’re going to get. Yeah, that means we’re getting plenty of Dickie Thon -- one of my favorite names to ever exist. 

Or you can just watch some old VHS highlight reels (or even better, blooper ones) people uploaded without express written consent. Or you can grab a huge stack of old Smith and Street Baseball Guides -- a co-worker sent me his collection of about 20 years recently -- and dive in. 

Sure, you may know the broad strokes. You know who won the World Series, you know who won the MVPs, but there’s all the nuance you miss. There’s the bit players who had a good month or two and everyone at the time was wondering if he would break out. 

There are interviews that have been lost to time -- never archived for the web, never memorialized in a book of baseball quotes, never added to a plaque at Cooperstown -- and they can provide so much joy. Like, say, that George Brett didn’t hit .400 in 1980 because he wasn’t drinking four to five beers after every game. 

So, if you find yourself missing baseball, head to eBay and grab a giant stack of old mags and transport yourself into another baseball season. 

But you should also make sure you read stuff from this year -- specifically stuff I wrote. (See how smooth this transition was?) Here are some of the things I’ve worked on recently: 

Baseball’s oldest living player turns 100. Eddie Robinson has seen and done everything in baseball. He was playing when Ruth’s number was retired, he won the Indians’ last World Series (quite literally, too, driving in the winning run in Game 6), was the GM when Hank Aaron hit his 715th and was scouting when McGwire hit 62. I spoke to Robinson for about an hour before his 100th birthday. 

Jameson Taillon is obsessed with coffee -- but he also loves people. The offseason is the best time to get to know ballplayers a little more as they get to let their guard down and talk about things that aren’t arm-slot related or about the game last night. So, I got to chat with the Pirates ace about coffee -- his favorite shops, the best brews, the small changes you can make to improve yours -- and also learned that what Taillon loves most of all is getting to know people. 

Cody Bellinger is Otta Sluggasson in “Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla.” I’ve yet to play any Assassin’s Creed, but the fact that an MVP Award winner AND World Series champ plays a hilariously baseball-themed viking character makes it much more likely that I’ll try it out soon enough. I spoke with Bellinger while he’s rehabbing Arizona to learn about how he got the gig and what it’s like being baseball’s biggest meme. 

Dick Allen was one of the coolest to ever play. I never got to watch Dick Allen play, but he was always one of my favorites. The mutton chops, the glasses, the big swing and willingness to push back against a Philadelphia media that couldn’t accept a Black star. Allen passed away last week, so I wrote about what made him such a compelling star. 

Finally, here are a few pieces I didn’t write, but which I highly recommend: 

Billy Wagner learned how to throw lefty. Wagner somehow managed to throw over 100 mph WITH HIS LESS DOMINANT ARM. I can’t even write my name legibly with my left. 

The Ringless Teams!  Not going to lie -- I’m completely shocked that Dusty has NEVER won the World Series. 

Get to know Red Sox reliever Connor Seabold. He’s a changeup artist -- that’s cool. But he’s also an artist artist.