#really interesting interpretations that i hadnt even thought of

[callibones]

callieeeee. i saw ur response to a post i reblogged abt the robot dogs and it was really interesting. i happen to be working on a tad bit o homework for my intro to philosophy course. you have probably read it or at least heard of it already bc it feels super up ur alley as a thought experiment but. read daniel dennett's 'Where Am I' and literally thought of ur response the entire time. what are your thoughts on this if you have any

hooh. i hadnt read it or heard of it so i just gave it a read. that was phenomenal. very cleverly written. extremely funny and also horrifying. i love it dearly now.

it's right in line with i, robot as my favorite type of science fiction: thought experiments that rely on how we label things.

my opinion on the labels of things is, when i peel back all the stuff that gives me comfort, that there's just one thing: everything. some people call it god, i just think it's. like. The Everything. if you take our personal cognition outta the equation, there's nothing to distinguish between the parts of The Everything! some parts of The Everything (us) work in a very particular way where we come up with ways to distinguish between sections of The Everything. give things arbitrary designations based on arbitrary patterns that allow us to arbitrarily determine what's what. that includes the idea of the self!

all of this is a very fancy way to say that like. i don't think there's some inherent, universe-supported version of The Self that isn't tied to how we, as parts of The Everything, choose to label what we perceive. there's no objective answer to the question of who's dennett and who isn't. just like there's no objective answer about what exactly counts as a human, or what exactly counts as a robot! there's the answers that a bunch of scientists came up with that we use for all the science because it's what a lot of us agree on, but that doesn't mean that those designations are Absolute. Oops, It's All Social Constructs, Babey!

and this rocks, actually, and i love thinking about the world this way. because it means it's a given that. first of all. like. gender can be whatever we want. it's just how we choose to interpret our understanding of everything (including our feelings and other people and ourselves and our thoughts and stuff). i can be a robotgirl. yeah, i'm not. like. dictionarily a robot in the same way the boston dynamics robot is, but it's a label i choose to assign to my thoughts and feelings that i like! it's good i think and i like doing it and it helps me conceptualize the world. it's also why the question of "what's the cutoff between fictional robots and current ones?" is just as flawed as the question of "is a hot dog a sandwich?" the answer, objectively, is. like. that depends on how you see it. we're not going to get an answer that is completely 100% rooted in total fact with no wiggle room, because everyone has a different labeling system.

but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try! cause like. labels arent bad. when i get hungry i could zoom all the way out and think it doesnt matter because im one tiny shard of the everything and theres not even a me. or i could get up and exit what i think of as my bedroom and do what i think of as walking to get through what i think of as my hallway and arrive in what i think of as my kitchen and open what i think of as my fridge and eat what i think of as a sandwich, which happens to also be what i think of as a hot dog.

this is awesome because hot dogs rock and are delicious. but we can also discuss labels because... like. in the same way that the scientists can make a consensus about a label that isnt 100% objective but a lot of people agree with it, if a label's useful to us, we can make a consensus about it so we can discuss it and how to respond to it. and those labels can be slippery! when i say "i love robots so much. i want to kiss or be kissed by one i think." i am absolutely talking about the fictional robots i love dearly. we're probably thinking of some of the same ones. i also may be talking about some real robots! and maybe we both thought of those nasa robot probes i reblogged a bunch of times earlier that are so cute. i would kiss them. but you can guess i DONT want to kiss the boston dynamics police dog, because right now, my idea of robots that i love does not include that thing. that doesn't mean it's objectively Not a Robot. it's just not in the current definition of "robot" i'm going by when i say that i love robots.

when dennett's thinking about where he is, and whether he's in the jar or not, there's no objective answer because, as he shows very very well, there's no one objective dennett. the scientists think of dennett as yorick, probably, or interchangeably yorick or hubert depending on how they, personally, feel about the aliveness of hubert. anyone dennett's interacted with recently who doesn't know about the whole brain situation thinks of hamlet or fortinbras as dennett depending on who theyre used to. if theyve met both bodies, id guess they probably think fortinbras is dennett and dennett just moved from body to body. the story's such a great demonstration of the lack of the objective self.

personally, i just think the antennae are extremely gender and i want them. and also im surprised dennett thought about the idea of having a clone and didnt immediately think "we would kiss so much" because thats where my mind went. personally

[loveydive]

okay thoughts on stone ocean

i just wanna say that i feel like im in a unique position reading this since some common complaints abt opinions of stone ocean being negative is that ppl rushed thru it to get to sbr too quickly. which just does not apply to me bc i read sbr and jjl first before reading stone ocean teehee x so ya

likes

I LOVE JOLYNE SO MUCH THIS CANNOT BE UNDERSTATED. I LOVE. HER. SO. MUCH. THERE IS NOT ONE THING THAT I DONT LIKE ABT HER I LOVEHER SO MUCH. I LOVE HER DUMBASSNESS, I LOVE HER RECKLESS BEHAVIOUR TO SAVE HER FRIENDS THAT IS TYPICAL FOR A SHOUNEN PROTAGONIST BUT NEVER SHOWN THRU A FEMALE SHOUNEN PROTAG I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE HER. i love her development. i love her. and shes liKE GENUINELY SMART IN BATTLES AS WELL. AND NOT LIKE GIORNO WHO HAS A WIKIPEDIA EMBEDDED IN HIS FRONT CORTAL OR SMTH. BUT LIKE PROPER BATTLE SMART THAT MAKES YOU GO OKAY I DID NOT THINK OF THAT. i love her flaws. i love how she has daddy issues and is complex abt loving her dad or not. i love that she loves her mum. love love love.

fights dont feel like villain of the week format. progresses nicely and logically imo. overall, there were some fights that just seemed to drag foreverrrr, but only 1 or 2 that i outright hated (unlike jjl lmao). fave arcs were white snake: pursuer, ff intro, bohemian rhapsody, heavy weather, c-moon, made in heaven just off top of head

versus was esp interesting as a minor villain. i felt his motivations were justified and it made him interesting. i esp liked the little tension btwn him and pucci and wish it had been expanded more.

perhaps unpopular opinion but i actually liked pucci as a villain. lots of ppl say that hes just another part 3 villain but More. and hes just a lamer version of dio which i just disagree with. i felt that his back story lended a lot to making him his own person, with dio being a mentor and kind of like the like shaping for why he believes what he does when he was dealing with his grief and guilt. like his backstory in particular i loved. the idea of coincidences, fate, tragedy. he obviously frequently questions it when we read his backstory (why did those two have to meet? why did the lady tell him about switching the babies? why did her baby die?) its like a series of events that all reached to a peak with the tragedy of his sister's death and weather's lynching. and AH im going crazy. and ofc he feels guilty over his but at the same time, he wonders why it all happened. because of fate? why was it fate for his sister to die? and he just feels powerlessness over this. CUHRAZYY. and how his stand abilities manifest in direct response to losing his sister?? LOVE THAT. oh my godddd and his relationship with weather and that quote 'you're the ultimate image of evil, but you dont realize that you're evil. this is what makes you the worst kind of evil.' SCREAM. ANW THATS HOW I INTERPRETTED HIM AND I LIKE HIM. TOP 3 JOJO VILLAINS EASY.

i REALLY REALLY liked weather report's backstory and relationship to pucci. LIKE THE DRAMA OF IT ALL. THROUGHOUT READING IT I WAS LIKE GIRLLLL WHY ARE YOU DOING THATTTT. IT FELT LIKE READING A TRAGEDY YK? LIKE SHAKESPEARE. LITERALLY SHAKESPEARE. romeo and juliet but incestuous (rip). even has themes of senseless hatred!!! (side not i cannot believe araki actually put the kkk in there and also weather being a BLACK MAN I WAS LIKE WAIT ARE WE DOING THIS FR?). anw really liked it. made pucci feel wayy more human and made the stakes feel more personal

i liked the character designs just in general. and even tho annasui looks like a diavolo ripoff, i think hes looks very pretty. found myself looking at him sometimes even if i dont rlly like him dgsauids

aside from jolyne, i feel like i REALLY liked f.f. perhaps a tad more than hermes. ff was so bubbly and unique to the story. she was absolutely hilarious and i wish she hadnt died so early in the story but i feel like araki just didnt know what to do with her anymore esp since she didnt have a stand.

i generally overall like the characters individually. they are all interesting to look at/ have interesting personalities, motivations and stands etc etc

i like the little exploration of jotaros weakness being his own daughter buttttt - will explain more in dislikes

dislikes

(dragon dreams arc) kenzo fight is bs - hate fights that are basically just like. im winning… just just bc i am!!! liek you could explain this whole new concept to me that describes how hes winning but if its just some astrology bs that essentially says ‘just bc’ then im calling bs. this fight is bs.

jailhouse rock was. hm. it was an interesting stand in CONCEPT. but execution was like not fun to read at all imo.

im gonna be honest. like compared to the other jojo gangs, this part felt the least like they were friends. EVEN COMPARED TO PART 5 - whose relationships i thought were like eh (prolly cause we’re watching it from giorno pov and giorno has only known them for like. a week LMAO) ANW i think its bc so many times, the gang had to split up to like fight. and i dont think there was a single fight where all of them just like fought tgt. it was always in pairs and one or so was always out of commission. like mannnn. like jolynes individual relationship with each of them was good. but the trio of girls only really felt like real friends and that doesnt last long since hermes gets put out of commission after her revenge and ff dies shortly after like WTF sadface. so like when weather dies and hermes is crying. im like girl why are you crying did you even interact with him 😭 AND i feel like the fact that the gang arent really friends makes itself REALLY obvious when in the c-moon arc. hermes gets hit and knocked away from everyone and. everybody just kinda. continues without her anw??? like THINK ABOUT IT WOULD ANY OTHER JOJO GANG LET THAT HAPPEN IN THE OTHER PARTS?? THEY JUST LEAVE HER?? HUH??

maybe im eheh, more boring, but i prefer my um stories to be a bit more grounded (says the girl reading literal jojo). but yeah the story in general was like super okay good. but the ending battle hm. was a bit too lets say. out there for me teehee. like guess im not a big fan of like space and all that and alternate realities on a grander scale. it was just like a LOT.

moving onto the most controversial thing i think. the ending. a lot of ppl hate it. some ppl love it. imo i had stronger (negative) feelings with the jojolion ending. the stone ocean ending was. eh. like i didnt vehemently hate it, nor did i love it persay. i felt that it was indeed a bit rushed. like araki was like oh shit! i need to end this in the next few chapters and did that dhasuiodasd. like the gang died so quickly i didnt even realise that they actually died i was like no way right.

ANW BACK TO THEMES OF THE ENDING. i wish it was more. like. if youre gonna rewrite the entire universe, at least have it mean something yk? bc even though the ending was technically happy, very happy. i dont think there was a justifiable reason for it i think? like it could have just as easily been an unhappy ending and i get how ppl are like its symbolism!! the joestars dont have to fight evil anymore and its meaningful bc an outsider ended it. (side note, i do think this story was a better way to start off the way jjl started ‘this is a story about breaking a curse’ can you imagine that at the start of stone ocean? ooo goosebumps) but anw, imo i just do not feel that it was set up properly or justified. emporio did not deserve to be the last one standing imo, there just wasnt enough reason or set up for him to be. the use of weather’s stand was satisfying but not the fact that is was emporio. i wish it had been jolyne i think idkk

like even tho it technically is a happier ending for the gang, it doesnt feel deserved in my opinion. like not bc theyre bad ppl and they dont deserve it or that they didnt work hard, like i LOVE THE CHARACTERS. but. hm. it doesnt make sense thematically is what im saying. the characters dont meaningfully engage with puccis notion that he should create a universe where everyone knows their fate and is happy. they kinda are just like. oh hes killed ppl and is evil so therefore, we must stop him!! and im just rlly? like dont you wanna hear him out a bit GDIASUDHASD but yeah i just feel like weather had stronger motivations in this regard. the gang just dont have really strong reasons to fight pucci. including jolyne who already got her father’s disc back

SPEAKING OF WHICH, UM. CAN WE HAVE MORE PAYOFF FOR JOTARO COMING BACK TO LIFE PWEEAASSEEE. like he comes back and its pretty badass ngl but i want MORE btwn him and jolyne. like how abt an apology old man? why does ANNASUI AND JOTARO TALK MORE THAN JOTARO AND HIS OWN DAUGHTER IM GONNA KILL MYSELFFFF like he tells jolyne that shes grown (which, sweet) but can he PLEASE JUTS SAY THAT HES PROUD OF HER OR SMTH?? PLEASE? YOURE JUST STATING A FACT THATS SHES GROWN HDUIASDHASD OLD MAN SAY SMTH MORE USEFUL IM GONNA BASH YOUR HEAD INNN. IF JOLYNE FORGIVES HIM SHE IS DOING ALL THE FUCKING LEGWORK HERE

THAT BEING SAID. even tho jolyne is meant to be the PROTAGONIST of this part, her role in the final final battle is HEAVILY DIMINISHED. AND IM LIKE HUH. LIKE THIS IS THE PART WHERE WE GET A FEMALE JOJO AND THE THREE MVPS IN THE END TURN OUT TO BE THE GUYS LIKE 😐 OKAY. at least in the other parts, their respective jojos actually FEEL like the protag. jonathan kills dio, joseph kills kars, jotaro kills dio, josuke heavily has a whole badass fight with kira, giorno oneshots diavolo, and jolyne... what DOES SHE DO IN THE FINAL FIGHT AGAIN? 😭 like annasui has diverdown and stuff, jotaro stops time which stops pucci a fair bit, and emporio literally kILLS pucci. EVEN THE STAND USED TO KILL PUCCI WAS WAETHERS LIKEEE PUHLEASEE. and im reading this and itS LIKE SORRY WASNT JOLYNE THE PROTAGONIST? literally after the c-moon arc, i cant really recall like anything SIGNIFICANT that she does despite having just read it yesterday. and it makes me sad bc um. i rlly like her

overall - 6/10 - top 3 protag and antag. the concepts are THERE but the execution was off. definitely more experimental but thematically, it just wasnt satisfying.

[wispvial]

Honestly, I'm probably exaggerating but I thought Martyrs could be also about religious trauma and how it affects LGBT people. With Lucie being an ex-cult member or just a girl that was raised in a very religious and strict place, probably home schooled, her parents raised her inside a cult and forced their ideals on her, but they were abusive so she was taken away from them. So Lucie mets Anna and is immediately in love, but her religious mindset makes her hate those feelings and believe they are wrong, Lucie is trapped by her religion and refuses to accept herself and begins making Anna feel rejected, but Anna stills loves her and does anything for her, even if this means destroying herself to please Lucie.

honestly i don't remember the lore (anything about the religious cult), though the sad fleeting intimacy between the characters stuck with me and im really glad others understand this was an LGBT movie !! i understand those who found the movie distasteful but how could people who Enjoyed it overlook the tragic love story...

but anyway this is an interesting interpretation! i hadnt thought much about lucie's perspective of their relationship, or how the religious themes might apply to her (other than being who anna worships). though i remember the scene when anna calls her distant mom, who talks disapproving of lucie...i think that was meant to give homophobic parent vibes though objectively lucie is harming anna

i would like to know how lucie felt for anna, maybe the thought that she loved her back, deep down, is comforting...maybe it's more sad

[creacherkeeper]

im getting a little too in my family feels today and so INSTEAD of feeling those im just going to ramble for a second about why i fucking love paladin!aelwyn because. im. just like this i guess im coping leave me alone

cw for discussions of child abuse, maladaptive coping, drugs and alcohol, self harm, destructive tendencies, basically everything we see in canon and the implications

aelwyn is ... SO interesting to me because for as much of her interiority as we see, as much of her as we think we understand, as much as i could ramble about her character for hours, we know ALMOST NOTHING about her in actuality?? (besides ... one key thing)

(this is like 2k and probably incoherent someone please stop me)

okay. listen. almost everything we see aelwyn do in s1 is maladaptive rebellion against her parents and home life. the drinking, the drugs, the partying, perhaps some of kalvaxus (though i dont think we fully understand how much of that was forced on her as well, kalina WAS watching her when she was talking to adaine about it). you can say like, oh aelwyn is a party animal, she's impulsive, she makes risky decisions, she's bitchy and rude, and its like. okay but IS SHE ACTUALLY. because under her parents thumb she had an EXTREMELY limited amount of freedom, and usually when people are suffering from very little control over their life, they WILL act destructively over the tiny bit they can, either harming themselves or their environment or people lower than them in the pecking order, because in a way, that feels like a reclamation of autonomy. saying "you have so much power over me but can you stop me from hurting myself and destroying what you havent managed to claim yet?". its just like, kind of what human brains do and frequently has little to do with a persons actual personality or impulses, its just. desperate brains trying to control SOMETHING because autonomy is a fundamental human need and when thats taken away we get. very bad off. (this is one big reason eating disorders are SO common with abused kids.) so i think a lot of the s1 aelwyn we see is like. this is a very desperate, abused teenager "acting out" in the only way it is possibly somewhat safe for her to do so because, on a psychological level, the self destruction is weirdly the only emotional tether and its either this or just dissociate all the time (something we do see she has problems with in canon)

and yes, she did treat adaine horribly in s1. she fully did. obviously what we get in canon is what happens but a moment thats interesting to me is in episode 1 where adaine has attacked aelwyn several times, who either does nothing or just bounces it back, when she says "i never cast spells at you" and siobhan immediately retcons it and says "yes you do, all the time" (i havent gone back and watched this bit so i might be wording this wrong). obviously its an improv show and the canon is built between performers as they go, but that was interesting to me. that brennan hadnt intended for her to have fought back in that way. she definitely feeds into the emotional abuse from their parents and participates in all the toxicity there, but we know in canon that she did that because of overwhelming fear and self preservation. and that her self hatred because of it just fed back into the cycle and made her feel like she wasnt good enough to even try to break free from it. this is very common in golden child/scapegoat sibling relationships where the golden child SEES what the parents are capable of and becomes a participant in the abuse out of fear for their own standing. in any way siding with the scapegoat child not only directs abuse at themselves as well, but frequently makes things WORSE for the scapegoat because the parents will take out the challenge to their power on them even more. so, if aelwyn DID ever try to defend or help adaine when they were small, she would have VERY QUICKLY learned that made things worse for everyone. and just. sectioned that part of her brain off, as she's done with so many other things. (and i dont think im reading too much into the forest scene with the abernants to say their parents were VERY QUICK to turn abuse towards aelwyn if she stepped out of line even a little. like, you dont flinch when a hand moves unless. you know. dont need to say it just something to think about. as far as we saw in canon, she had done everything they asked of her leading up to the forest, and we DONT KNOW what happened in it but we do know brennan specifically called out how in broken spirits she was when adaine was summoned, even though they did the ritual to avoid all of the nightmare bullshit)

(the house party is literally a whole separate post but i think its fair to point out that 1) she was super under the influence when that was happening which DEFINITELY is in no way an excuse for her behavior but worth remembering when trying to analyze that 2) her losing that fight did canonically have DRASTIC consequences for her and even if she didnt know exactly how that was going to turn out, i think she knew how bad it might be. and she did not know adaine or any of the bad kids were going to be there in the first place)

all that said, it feels in some ways counterproductive to say that aelwyn is an extremely devoted and protective person (yes we're getting to the paladin shit i know i've been rambling a while) but i think that thats strangely ALL WE ACTUALLY KNOW ABOUT HER. because we've established that her self-destructive and abusive behavior in s1 is almost entirely psychologically scripted for her by her parents, we dont know how much of her villain shit in s1 was LITERALLY UNDER THREAT OF DEATH because we know at least killing the oracle was and we dont know how much of the rest of it was mandated by either her parents or kalina other than that she probably was under orders not to tell adaine the truth, and we know participating in all of this caused extreme self loathing in her that she refused to show to anybody and was too terrified to act on in any way

so, like. what does that actually leave us?

here's what we do know about aelwyn:

- of all the schools of magic, she went into abjuration

- the entire bbeg plan from season 1 hinged on aelwyn's complete faith that her level 1 sister was the most prodigious diviner in the world

- right after (?) the house party, she locked her memories where only adaine could find it with a note basically saying "theres so much bad blood between us but i know only you could find this"

- she desperately wanted to protect adaine and the fact that she was too afraid to do so made her hate herself (and her knowing that adaine now knows this is the turning point in their relationship)

- despite everything, even in the nmk forest, she still loved her parents

- the SECOND she is shown genuine love and affection and care from adaine, and adaine says whatever you do, i am here with you, all her actions from there forward are just about protecting adaine from their father, very nearly at the cost of her own life

- with what she probably thought were her last words (and would have been if adaine hadnt given her the tincture), all she wanted to communicate was how to help adaine and the bad kids, and how despite everything she had always believed in her

- at five levels of exhaustion, unconscious, she used her first spell slot after nine months of torture to build a shield around adaine

NOW we get to paladin!aelwyn. because, once everything is stripped away, the abuse and the control and the maladaption and the threats and the torture, EVERYTHING we ACTUALLY can glean about aelwyn's personality and inner core is that she's protective and devoted. and of course classes arent locked by personality, but that just screams paladin to me. its her WHOLE THING. adaine even says "wizards dont have heals, we dont care about other people" and of COURSE that isnt true for either of them, but? mechanically? aelwyn chose the wizard school that DID let her protect, and DID let her help, but i dont think, at this point, going forward, thats really going to be enough for her (and we could also talk about the parallels between them, how often adaine uses her portents to help other people)

i think a lot of the different reads on aelwyn come from this fundamental disconnect between her actions and displayed personality vs who she actually is and what she actually wants. and i think there are very different interpretations of what thats going to look like for her going forward. but i think, for a girl who's most hated characteristic about herself was her self preservation at the detriment of others, her perceived selfishness, and her fear ... isn't choosing to be braver and more selfless and more protective and shedding that self-preserving instinct for the betterment of others ... and MECHANICALLY being able to act on all those things ... the logical next step? i think its going to be a LONG TIME before aelwyn can love herself, but what other way is there to try? if adaine loves her, and adaine believes she can be better, isnt being better because she trusts adaine kind of a form of self love? saying, i dont believe in myself, but i believe in the person who believes in me, and maybe, in a roundabout way, thats the same thing. she was never able to TRY to be better before, because trying to improve even a little, even when people arent watching, when a harmful force has so much power over you and your actions ... like, the mental dissonance is honestly TOO much to even try, thats WAY more terrifying than letting yourself be bad, to the point where thats psychologically impossible for a lot of people. but now she actually has space and freedom and CHOICE and she CAN embrace the instincts she always had to shove down, she CAN be the person she knows her sister needed her to be

i dont know, i think theres an inherent love letter to yourself in wanting to be better and wanting to improve, even if you justify it by saying its for someone else. and now aelwyn actually CAN improve, and thats probably going to be extremely awkward and scary and there will be set backs and backslides for sure. but. i dont know. i think she wants to make up for lost time. because she never wanted the time to be lost in the first place. and if a protector is who she always wanted to be, whats stopping her from being that now?

[deadendtracks]

THE THING IS all her suspicion was triggered by her being upset she wasnt given enough praise. She said that. She said that she was confused because larson (and other friends) hadnt personally congratulated her, to the point that she emailed them. So yeah some points do point to an abusive upbringing- i certainly think a lack of validation is at the root of this- but she was being completely unreasonable initially, and she was wrong to attempt to destroy larson’s career over it- sure, she has every right to be angryover the letter. But her anger over the book originally had nothing to do with it, she thought larson was coopting ‘her’ Good Deed, and thats what upset her and made her go after it. Even tho larson has every right to write about kidney donation inspired by dawn, and larson acknowledged this (she didnt gaslight her, im pretty sure both her original emails say ‘yeah, i was inspired by you, and i transformed it’.

Also like. The way the letter talks, about her patting herself on the back for empathy, also comes across very saviour-y- not necessarily a white saviour, but an able bodied one, and then theres her one year party for it…

Ultimately its like, larson absolutely shouldnt have used the letter. But she did have every right to write about kidney donation. And dawn comes across badly not because she’s explaining her motives, but because of the stuff on the outside surrounding it, and the fact that her initial anger over the book wasnt really justified and just came because she, again, decided larson coopted her ‘thing’ rather than praise her.

honestly i'm ... not interested in getting into a discourse about this or litigating it, it all happened ad nauseum on twitter. you're welcome to think what you want, i don't think Dawn behaved in a productive manner, i'm just riffing on some points that bothered me about the whole thing and that I felt resonances with. I don't know if you've read the follow up and the twitter threads I linked, but they definitely give a different impression about the basic facts involved.

your description here is heavy on your interpretation. mine was heavy with mine. you may even be right. my point was to draw out parts of the discourse that were completely ignored in favor of the person who plagiarized and lied and gaslit someone about it all. Maybe you think that's justified, and maybe you'd be right about that too, but whatever! that's fine with me.

I haven't said the author didn't have the right to write about the donation, or to write that particular story about saviorism. My last series of posts even said that might have been an element to kidney lady's motivations. I have said that she obviously deliberately and with forethought -- admitting it was wrong to do in her chat group but going ahead anyway -- plagiarized a letter posted to a private facebook group and then systematically lied about it, and it was all done knowingly according to the evidence from discovery.

[nobody-knose--archive]

i’ve been aching to commentate spirit phone’s commentary for ages. glad i finally got around to it, this was an ejoyable experience. liveblog below the cut

-i'm like half certain i've heard this commentary before. maybe not the whole way through & it was probably actual years ago

-nice hearing stuff like this. in-depth personal view of the album-making process. makes it seem like more of a real thing i could do myself someday

-neil cicierega real person momence

-i could probably go real in depth about neil cicierega/tally hall parallels specifically concerning like. the arc of their musical careers. but i won't, here

-wild how i legitimately don't care much about micheal jackson

-didnt we get a bunch of spirit phone stems from the needlejuice release/his patreon? we could probably hear the funny track he speaks of here in that

-i love hearing musical artists, especially neil cicierega, talking about the meanings of their songs. like, not only has this song been claimed to hell & back by the tumblr gays, but with later ones i just can't see where he gets these ideas from. also, claiming there's any one meaning or plot to a song just seems silly to me

-shoutout to neil reusing a midi from like, 1998, that he made at 12 years old, whose entire melody was reused for the main verses of everybody loves raymond. loved finding that out on my own 2 years ago. now it's common trivia in this fandom. not bad times

-it'd be neat if neil did individual trans tracks here like he did with view monstel, those things are half of why i consider it my favorite album

-it's a lot easier to ignore the creator's intended meaning behind a song when he can't even remember it. thanks neil

-seesaw effect

-and there's my joke all but 1 of my followers wont get. moving on

-what kinds of movie theater lobbies has neil been to where there are arcade machines. i mean im not one to talk but that does sound rather strange

-why do songs' titles even need to be taken from the lyrics. ive never seen that as any sort of requisite. it's like titling any form of prose you can just give it whatever name ya like

-"this part sounds pretty cool right"

-is neil's vocal range only mildly better than mine? with training i could change that

-oh i haven't processed any of the last 25 seconds hold on

-god. a shit ton of vocal modification in this song. it's like neil returned to his roots but with quality this time

-i, as an ace/aro, have never related more to an allohet guy in my life. what is the point of eyes!

-professional humming/whistling takes skill. it's different from the recreational or casual stuff. i'd know

-there's a name for the way sound (especially music) gets distorted when moving past you and i can't remember it but it's probably what neil's referring to here in the way he recorded the intro

(- update: it's the doppler effect no need to tell me cas already did)

-as someone who hasnt seen the rugrats or take me there by blackstreet i'll just say it sounded like a bouncy music box melody. nice to hear a song that messes with the typical scales though. lydian & diatonic.

-that's a rather specific thing to be glad about, but given what he talked about in his last full audio commentary about the jew harp i suppose i'm not surprised

-i know that tmbg song now. listened to it & saw the music video too. yep they're different alright

-where the hell does neil get all these instrumence from anyway

-huh. hadnt heard this part of the commentary before making my oc concerning this song but i like to hear neil's approval concerning part of my interpretation

-i love how ive heard a billion different tellings of this mellified man story from lem dem fans talking about this song and neil's is by far the wildest

-good god that does only make it worse neil

-i love making liveblogs of lemon demon albums. with the fullerenes or tally hall i cant name a specific dude to take out my woes on generally but with lemon demon i can just say neil all the time. i like being on a casual first name basis with this dude ive never interacted with once ever

-is sweet bod the one other than cabinet man with a demo in the bonus tracks? i forget

-holy shit the boston molasses disaster someone call up soapy if it doesnt already know, it'd love this

-two thousand nine. god i miss the fiddle solo. the ver with it is truly the best one

-he pronounces it jeff? i've always read it as gef with a hard g. that's what i get for knowing words that are never spoken aloud

-that's a fun meta interpretation of this ghost story that's over a century old. i like that

-i've noticed neil generally does the same synths across a whole album. it's especially more clear in the earlier ones, and does mean i occasionally mix up songs between clown circus & live from the haunted candle shop

-ah! ancient aliens! my least favorite track on this album. i cant even claim to have the least interest in a popular one i've just generally not liked this one much from the beginning. so im curious to see what neil's got to say, i think ive been in ~new commentary zone for a while now

-anyway. newest update on the loolin not realizing a song's funky time signature front: i think this one's in 6/4. or at least switches a lot between time signatures. granted i dont listen to it very often for the reasons stated above

-see the way neil describes it. eldritch horror upon being visited by the unknown at a time when humanity'd hadn't even yet had a chance to imagine such a thing occurring. should be right up my alley. but the sound itself & many of the lyrics simply turn me away.

-must i specify i don't dislike it? spirit phone is neil's best album it not being my favorite doesn't mean i think it's bad yadda yadda nobody should be surprised by this it's not like anyone in these fandoms reads my liveblogs <3

-granted i think this is. the first bit of spirit phone content i've made on my blog ever. so who knows things can change <3

-the transitions in spirit phone are much less view-monster transition tracks & more extended outros. view-monster's were a bit more intro than outro sure but they also seemed directed upon making a 2-way rather than 1-way bridge between tracks. or something like that

-.............soft fuzzy man is an incredible nickname for a cat. i'd steal that if i werent afraid of introducing my relatives to lemon demon

-jirls

-an underlying metaphor is good enough. the literal side of the lyrics are fun. nothing but agreement here neil my good man

-the transition into as your father i expressly forbid it from soft fuzzy man is the best one in this album

-buddy you ask if a musical idea has been used before odds are the answer is yes in this day & age the question is has it been used in the way you're using it. like sure this soul jazz record from the 60s that was sold out in kansas stores for a week used this bassline that youve found yourself copying. but seeing as youre using it in some angsty garage rock ballad type tune does anybody actually care

-doesn't everybody like to say things in an unhinged manner from time to time

-imagine having a guitar dad, i say, with my dad being a folk accordion/fiddle dad, which is infinitely worse in every way

-i think he was in an actual folk band at some point. idk the 90s were weird

-iron my life?

-m-more intimate? there are a lot of ways i'd describe this song but intimate isn't one of them. granted as your father is negatively intimate so from there i guess you've got nowhere to go but up

-...still glad to see his interpretation kinda supports my oc at least

-the way he says characters in songs shouldn't worry about death really strongly makes me think this is some sort of. thematic continuation of stuck from dinosaurchestra, even if there's no real death in there. interesting. would also mean that the dad from these past 2 songs is named carlos betty (no last name)

-i literally never assumed this was a flute solo. piccolo at best. it's pretty clearly a recorder

-my mom plays the recorder. i wonder if she can play recorder better than neil cicierega

-we can throw a party in honor of the crushing weight of responsibility! i simply won't be the one throwing it because i have enough on my plate already <3

-what the hell does "a sense of intent" mean

-i've never heard rush before however i disagree with neil's understanding of 6/4. 6/4 is meant to have emphasis (onbeat or another term i can't remember) on the 1st & 4th beat of every measure, which is greatly different from a measure of 4/4 then a measure of 2/4. it's why his 5/4 always sounds weird, because while it's recognizable in sequences of 10/4, it's more 2 measures of 4/4 with one of 2/4 tacked on the end. that's also how it's different from 3/4. i don't know much music theory but what i do understand i will fight to the death about

-"canonized" that's. a very interesting term to use when referring to a former president

-from now on i will interpret every love song directed at some unseen "you" to be inviting me to marry them for tax purposes. thanks neil for being an aromantic icon

-ah hell yes hell yes man-made object is my favorite goddam song on this album

-short & sweet & good damn vibes. neil's thoughts on it all are only making it better

-wild how he uses very few vocal effects for a song that he clearly is straining his vocal range for. go off neil

-the qualifier of man-made is a wonderful thing. oldest or biggest thing? oldest or biggest man-made thing? what a incredibly important specification. a world of possibilities lie between the two. oh i love it

-just gets me thinking yknow! what we consider weird/impressive in another species, in our own species- what kind of equivalent to that would there be from an outsider looking in? are there alien versions of the significances we place upon things, that we could never imagine? the limits of the human imagination mean we could never conceive of something else in the world that isn't, in some way great or small, just like us- and are we wrong for thinking that? such a juicy topic i wish there were a name for it because it's kinda hard to explain concisely

-spiral of ants. my second favorite song from this album, in fact. a good one to experience

-the vocals are just another instrument. they really truly are. i wasn't going into this commentary expecting to feel solidarity for neil cicierega in this chili's tonight on more than one occasion but here i am.

-like, his whole stance on interpreting songs is something i agree with almost entirely. you can take it at face value, you can dig to their very depths, you can listen to songs without caring what the lyrics mean whatsoever, and those are all fun. & yeah while any of these people can be annoying as one of the types who enjoys gliding on the surface more than anything i find those who dedicate themselves to figuring out the whole meaning of a song over anything else to be both slightly scary & slightly annoying <3 keep up the good work

-i want to make songs for my siblings the way neil makes songs for his sibling(s)

-spinch

-neil really shouldn't be allowed to be this funny like this whole album youre thinking golly! he's just a normal man this neil cicierega! and then he starts listing the cat hacks jokes & you remember he's had ridiculously consistent viral success with all his humorous endeavors and holy shit it's neil cicierega in action talking about his music. god bless you neil

-you're welcome, no problem, my pleasure. good eveternoon, radio audience!

[exclamaquest]

I'm going to say right off the bat that I am not actually too heated about this, I just thought it might be interesting to talk about if you're willing. If this is getting on your nerves just say so and I will never ask you about your Tsumugi take again. After all we are in the end just strangers chatting about a game :) ( I am so sorry to flood your inbox but now I'm committed to this so. Ignore the others if you want to! Also this is old news but I couldn't send for a few days so here I go.)

I would like to point out that Tsumugi, in canon, shares similarities with Hifumi (fiction>reality & fandom active). They were both played off as just weebs, except for Tsumugi's masterminding. Canonically, Hifumi would be as likely to be a gross creepy fan as Tsumugi- but obviously, thats dumb as shit and he deserves better. The thing im having difficulty understanding is why you would disregard canon's nonsense when it concerns Hifumi, but emphasize that aspect in your perception of Tsumugi.

If the masterminding is what villifies her, I could bring up Junko again or point to the ambiguity of the mm role- between V3's convoluted 'none of it was real!' and your clear apathy towards strict canon (which i totally support), I do not see a reason you wouldnt apply similar logic to that you used on the other characters I mentioned to Tsumugi instead of writing her off as a gross fujoshi or whatever. Im not trying to make you like her, but it seems unfair to reduce her to the worst possible traits she could have when you have expanded on and humanized so many other dr characters. (ugh i had to split the last paragraph into 2. im so sorry about that)

response under the cut bc this sucker got LONGGGGG

first off no need to apologize! i love discussion & dialogue and you bring up some good points! it's true i haven't talked about her in a very positive light on my blog, and that i've reduced her publicly. i HAVE done a lot of thinking about her and i agree that like.. i haven't expressed it on my blog as much as i have in private GKDSKGDS and mainly that's because like...i just don't think she's interesting. yes, she's complicated like any other dr character but she just...doesn't interest me. like, hifumi interests me because of the fanon him vs the canon him and how they differ rather strikingly.

however for tsumugi like...i can't really see a disconnect other than some people making her Only Evil and Only Ever Evil when in reality she's...very much being hurt by danganronpa too and she doesn't really grasp the full consequences of her own actions bc of it being normalized etc in the world she grew up in + her fandom-y lens, and you're right, it's a LOT like how Hifumi sees things through his lens of his special interest but also. he had moments where you saw through that shit to his genuine self. tsumugi...doesn't get that.

which i understand is partially because of her whole ough im so plain schtick but also like. they do manage to make some background characters interesting! like rantaro! you don't learn a lot about him and he dies really quickly but he's still compelling and you WANT to learn more about him. tsumugi is just...painfully uninteresting.

and honestly? i think she was a shit mastermind choice. again i realize im a hypocrite coming from a standpoint of liking junko, but i really dont think she makes a good mastermind. which i know is part of the point of her being the mastermind in the first place, but much like a LOT of v3's overarching themes, it falls flat. it really feels there's no real compelling reason for her to enact this other than she likes danganronpa etc etc etc and that she's got Fandom Brainrot (like a lot of the fans). idk.

and on the junko point--even without me changing her for personal interest, junko was ALREADY an interesting character. That foundation is necessary. If i find tsumugi boring, i cant ever expand upon her because it will always be boring to me, yknow?

and like again like...i DO try to see her as a fleshed out human--and i have tried to flesh her out. she's just...still uninteresting to me. and im sorry if it seemed like i hadnt, i just dont really tend to talk in depth about the characters that i find uninteresting

to sum it up sorry if my jokes seemed like my genuine interpretation of her character /gen, i have thought about her at length and i really just kinda don't like her for a whole lot of reasons but also me being petty GKDSKGDS i do appreciate the essay tho it's given me some stuff 2 think about & feel free 2 talk to me at any time i love writing shit like this even when it takes an assload of time.

[camelely]

13rw S4 Fix

 So i did one of these for last season and I think now that I’ve had some time to think about S4 I’ll do the same. While last season I thought the issue was one character being overused. But here it seems like there were multiple smaller things that could have improved the whole season Again I’m keeping the same basic plotline and characters :) 

1) Winston 

Have Winston stay at Hillcrest. Him moving to Liberty did nothing for the main plot and he was basically a red herring through most of it. Let him try are befriend the characters from the outside. He can learn about Jess from Bryce’s trial and the news coverage and then try to befriend her at Monet’s. This is where he meets and later starts to date Alex. Since he doesn’t go to liberty school Alex sees him as a sort of escape and lets him in. Clay and Ani dont tell everyone about him because they dont know he is trying to get close to them. It makes them seem less like assholes and more like people. They don’t mention his connection to Monty because they dont realize how close he is getting to answers. Clay can still suspect he did the graffiti, after all it was a break in and a non student could have done that. Plus Estella is another red herring in the school. She serves that purpose so let Winston be the outsider looking in. His arc would still be about knowing a different Monty and not knowing who is was at Liberty but now he is literally the outsider who didn’t really get Monty, rather than it just being a figurative thing at the prom. You can still have the prom scene it would just be entirely imagined rather than the half imagined thing they went with. I think they overused the people talking to ghosts thing so here it would be a  fantasy of Monty and the relationship they had rather then a representation of what could have been. However I don’t think this would have retracted from the point. Also play him up, he is a sympathetic antagonist and it sucks how much he is sidelined for Diego. I didn’t hate Diego but Winston and him basically went through the same arc. They were pro Monty and ending up dating a member of the group, couldnt believe that member was involved and then learned something about Bryce and Monty agreed to move on and just did. All while saying they will alway care for that member of the group. It was an unnecessary rehash. Having WInston be the outsider looking in and Diego the insider looking out also lets their characters compliment each other. They should still work together, just have Winston contact him looking for Monty’s friends. It’s simple. 

2) Tyler and Tony 

Oh Tyler. The character who seems to be in the middle of everything despite never doing anything himself. I didn’t mind his arc of helping the cops find the guys who sold the illegal guns. But Tony’s suspicions, eventually leading to Clay and Tony finding out the truth and just moving on never really go anywhere. I think  it would be cool if Tyler tells Tony, despite the cops telling him not to tell anyone, because he trusts Tony. But Tony, who has had bad run ins with the cops, thinks it is a bad idea. He doesn’t want Tyler taking the deal. Tyler says its the only way the guns wont be traced back to them but Tony thinks teh cops are planning to double cross them to mind out more about Bryce and Monty. At the same time he starts getting close to that cop that takes him boxing and helps him get into college (i dont remember his name for the life of me lol). Tyler sees this as being hypocritical and pulls away. Tony still suspects Tyler is behind the lock down because he is pulling away and Tony is getting paranoid. The rest of their story can still be the same but this way they can show Tony’s paranoia and his loyalty. 

As for Tyler and Estella, It was fine. The scene of them in the bathroom was really powerful, being in the bathroom with a de la cruz and becoming comfortable because isnt her brother was really nice. This could even be another reason Tony and Tyler fight. Tony can be paranoid that Tyler is trusting her too quickly and think she will turn on him. 

3) Jess

Her arc with the principal, being scared and agreeing with the security measures before she sees them in action was really interesting. Focus more on it and less on her manipulating Diego. I did like parts of that arc for her so I don’t want it completely gone but I do think focusing on her working with the principal would have been cool. I would call more attention to her first meeting and her agreeing with the measures and slowly show her change her mind and start to turn against them. Maybe even have an early scene of her and ANi talking about it and have Jess admit she feels safer. Move the creepy cop trying to pat her down to the second or third day. So she can have a moment where they make her feel safe before the negative experience. I loved the protest and a bit better build up would have made it amazing

Her arc with Ani. They fought over Bryce... It should have been a conversation. Not a moment where Ani judges Diego and then they argue. I still think this arc should have been Chloe and Jess and should have been in last season. But they had the opportunity to include Chloe this season and just didnt. I’ll talk about this a bit more in the Zach section but I think Chloe should have been at Prom and the moment between the Ani Jess and Chloe should have been then. It would be right after Jess and Ani made up and would have been cool. 

I don’t think she should have had scenes where she saw and talked to Bryce. Yes it created some powerful moments but they could be reworked. Have WInston use his wealth to commission a positive thing in the paper about Bryce and Monty and have her talk to his idealized photo of Bryce. I will mention it in the Clay section but her hallucinations detracted from his journey with mental health. 

4) Clay

Okay two thing here the first is his arc with mental health, hallucinations, and blackouts. They used it for drama and I wish they hadnt. It should have been about him healing. I didnt mind the way they handled the realization for clay that it was him doing everything (Did they explain the symbol he kept drawing because I missed it if they did? or i just forgot because it was that forgettable lol) but I think the whole thing could have been handled a lot better and a more educated fan then I can provide a better explanation for what exactly was off about it. I will say the the therapy sessions were repetitive and I know thats realistic but for a tv show its boring. The scene were Clay goes to his home was weird and low key scary. I understand the purpose but  I wish he had called him and asked to meet at his office instead. A more likable and relatable journey for Clay with his mental health would be really good for a show that was accused of glorying suicide (personally i dont think it did. My inbox is open if you wanna talk though :))

The second thing is the phantom phone caller. I hate this trope so it might just be me but this is so stale. There are exactly two ways it could go. The person could know everything and be a real problem or the person could be fishing for information and not be a real problem. The whole thing was predicable since Winston had red herring written all over him, Estella was barely developed, and on this show it is always the football guys. Instead let the pranks be smaller and less crazy. Like these boys had to coordinate a lot to mess with Clay. There should be more than one prank and end with a Monty doll and Clay holding a knife to set up the camp episode. But they should be pranks, not the phantom caller psychological torture bs. The blood shower can also happen just on a different day. Clay can be confused about what is real and what isnt making him even more worried about his blackouts and again assuming the mental health arc is handled well, the pranks can be a real part of it. Dumping him in the pit on the camping trip also seemed kinda attempted murdery so maybe do something like tie him to a tree of the path or in a small dirt ditch not a rocky pit where if he hit his head or fell weird the team would all be murderers. 

5) Alex

His arc with Charlie was one of my favorite stories this season. I was also not bothered by him getting close to and exploring his sexuality with Winston and Zach. I’m in the minority but I’m glad Zalex wasn’t made canon and Zach was used to be an effective (kinda) ally and good friend. Plus this way Zalex can live on in the fandom untouched or ruined by the writers interpretation. 

They should have given us Alex in therapy. He tried to kill himself had a traumatic injury, an arc with steroid abuse, and an arc about killing someone. All of which were forgotten this season. All the other characters seemed to be dealing with Bryce and Monty, why not focus on Alex? Even if it isnt in therapy just let him exist in his feelings.

6) Zach

I have one major issue with Zach’s arc, the lack of Chloe. She was the reason he almost killed a man. Let them date, let him start to spiral while dating her. She doesnt know what he did. Have them grow apart on screen but her still connecting to him and not wanting to give up on him. They should go to prom together. I know the hooker was supposed to represent Zach turning into Bryce with the hookers and the drunken sex/potential rape  and cocaine. But Chloe fills the same comparison. He brings cocaine she is not okay with it, He tries to convince her to have sex in the back she is not having it. Maybe he tries to convince maybe it becomes a bit worse than that but she breaks up with him at prom and leaves early. She sees Bryce in him, she doesnt have to say it but you can see it on her face and she walks away when her mind and heart tells her to this time no making excuses. Boom Chloe actually has an arc. As for Zach this is a big wake up call for him he sees what we had become. I know it is later in the actual show but I think it should be in the prom episode so he can have a better conclusion in the finale, like the other characters. The whole season was a downward spiral and I wish we got to see more of him pulling himself out of it. If the whole finale is him getting better even though he wont be all the way done he will be in a better place up the end.

7) Justin

Okay the hard one. I think the writers really wanted to kill him. I mean a fan favorite, who did bad things, and the death would be in the series finale. this is a tv writer’s drug of choice. So I’m gonna do a fix where I still kill him first then to the ideal version. Ok so first Justin dies. No HIV/AIDS. It was out of nowhere, unneeded, and seemed a bit insensitive. If you want it to be related to his drug use, make it so he got a bad batch when he relapsed. Or maybe organ failure. If it doens’t need to be drug related it can be an accident or someone he knew on the streets getting revenge, like that drug dealer we spent time with last season. Or if Justin helps Tyler put the gun salesmen behind bars then have it be retaliation for that. He can still go to the hospital and have goodbyes but it wont be an aids diagnosis and death in the same episode. I know they had signs in earlier episodes but the timeline is still really fucked up...

An ideal ending would have him live. He can still pass out at Prom. The diagnosis can be a combination of stress and withdrawal symptoms.He can be the red herring for the person in the coffin. If Justin lives he can represent hope. He can show the audience that you can get better and things can work out. Even if you are sick and think you will die you can do better be better and live in a better world. Plus I love him and really wanted him to be happy. The message would be you can get out of a bad situation and wold have ended a sad series on a positive note. Even if you are a bad person. Even if you have bad circumstance. Even if it feels like the world is against you, it can get better if you put in the effort. Which felt like the message the show was going for in eariler seasons by showing the people on the tapes doing better but abandoned this last season.

So who would I put in the coffin. Ani’s mom. Now I know she wasn’t a well liked character and her mom wouldn’t have the same audience or character reaction Justin’s death did. But this version isn’t about making the audience sad. Ani would finally have a plot that was really about her, her mom died, Bryce’s mom basically wants to provide for her. And she isn’t sure what to do. Justins funeral felt like it was overshadowed by graduation anyway. Now Ani’s moms absence and the funeral being overshadowed both make sense. She is going to college and doing what she can to honor her mom. And the death of a parent causes Clay to immediately appreciate his own family more. The theme in the first season with Clay was appreciating and acting on his feelings for Hannah before she was gone. Ani’s mom dying is a reality check for him and he know the most important things are his family and friends. Justin’s arc was about finding a family and he did. The core of the show is about family, friends, and the importance of  a strong support system. And starting it with a mother grieving her daughter and ending it with a daughter grieving her mother would be a cool full circle moment.

This post is really long so if you read all the way down Thank you! :) 

[dahniwitchoflight]

Homesquared Chapter 16

Alrighty, that was a fun tangent, now back to John it seems?

Oh, no, Narration of John (So Actually Dirk, speak of the devil and he shall appear and all that etc etc)

“ leaving John with one final touch on the shoulder. John leans into it in response, though he’s a bit ashamed of chasing down a sliver of physical affection so soon after obliterating Karkat’s evening like he had. “

pfft lol so Im not the only one that thought it would be funny if that scene was interpreted in a Pale Romantic light, even though that really wasn’t what was happening

OIh! but we still get Roxy, just the other version of Roxy

Roxy subtly being like “hey!! shit has apparently gone down, were not exactly close atm but I feel bad about you dying to want to know if youre still alive so im gonna message you while trying to make it look like i dont care about it as much as I do”

JOHN: trying to align my memories of my youth with whatever is happening right now so

and the wonderful question is, what IS going be happening with you now John?

Roxy looking nice and casual, but also yeah narration, why are you making this ominous, its not like Roxy’s out here to double spy on behalf of Jane, I don’t think Roxys on her side THAT much

ROXY: may have to do a smidge more if my old bff decides im next on the list for bombing out

ROXY: but so far so good

ROXY: just a coupla exploded cars in the yard from some shenanigans our dear son and his friends were in but u kno it is what it is!!!

Roxy once again being a master of hiding how shes feeling, even when trying to open up, feeling pretty stressed about whats happening with Jane, understandable, the exclamation points give it away lol

The narration is really trying to make John nervous though

OH lol that was the implication haha no lol John it obviously wasn’t that

“John feels his shoulders unbunch. Of course. Yeah. He’s almost embarrassed by how relieved he feels. So what if his ex wife wanted to hook up? Shouldn’t that be a situation he could navigate? Don’t people like to find solace in human physical connection during dire times? Why did the idea of it make his mind white out in panic more than, say, any number of the traumas he just experienced? He doesn’t know, but he believes Roxy that he must look pretty haggard. He probably feels haggard? Maybe sitting down will feel better.“

lol once again, Dirk has no idea how to read Roxy at all and just trips over himself and his assumptions XD

Yeah, looks like Roxy not on the Jane train and is doing some takesies backsies, shes glossing over her feelings on the matter still though, I know thats par for the course of how Roxy tends to handle stuff too but I wish shed open up a bit more, but maybe shes playing the smart game, yknow, knowing that Dirk has a hard time reading her, so glossing over stuff is how you protect yourself against the narrative force, confusion and vaguery in the narrative and her actions only helps her to keep control over it, because at any point, you can decide to “clear up” any narrative “miscommunication” or “confusion” and lay down what is it thats actually happening with you any time you want

Void working in the behind the scenes to do what they want

JOHN: like it’s my HOUSE.

JOHN: but mostly it always felt like my dad’s house?

JOHN: and when i started living there after i moved out of here, it was like i crammed myself back into whatever was left of my kid self?

JOHN: and it didn’t feel good, but it at least was familiar, you know?

JOHN: like living there let me feel closer to my dad, trying to be like the way i remember him, or like how i remember him wanting me to be, or something?

JOHN: and i didn’t realize how much i hated doing that until i saw it all go up in flames.

JOHN: so i guess i could have used my powers to stop the fire and save whatever was left of the place, but i couldn’t bring myself to do it.

JOHN: like some fucked up part of me was glad i got there too late?

JOHN: so i just sat there, watching, trying to figure out why watching my house burn down felt like i was being released from prison.

JOHN: and even now i keep trying to explain it away, as though it’s because of how fucked up everything else is that it made me feel good.

JOHN: but that’s just bullshit.

JOHN: it DID feel good.

JOHN: i DO feel free.

JOHN: sorry.

ROXY: no need 2 apologize

ROXY: we just delved in2 my whole gender thing last time so it seems fine for u to have a turn

JOHN: i didn’t say it was a gender thing.

Im pretty sure you’re talking about a gender thing John, like, very 100% sure now this is what’s happening

because if you were actually a girl, of course you’re dad leaving all these notes about how one day hes gonna be so proud of the man youll become, yeah, that can feel a little pressuring, even if your dad didnt mean it like that, since he was unfailingly the kind of dad just bumbling around trying to understand their kid as best they could and leave encouragements everywhere, thats what his intent was, but all his notes come off a bit wrong in particular issues

remember the note under the fridge that was all like “SON. IF YOURE READING THIS NOTE, YOUVE FINALLY BECOME STRONG ENOUGH OF A MAN TO PICK UP THE FRIDGE.” not exactly that but that was always the vibe Dad’s little notes always had

Yeah, i can see how John would view it as a bit off, but if he hadnt the self awareness to realize it was a gender thing at the time, hed be understandly confused as to why such a thing would bother him

now though, he’s realizing, maybe, he doesn’t exactly want to be the man his dad always encouraged him to be

John does seem a lot happier here in his convo with Roxy than he did on his own when the house was burning, that conversation with karkat left me wondering if John was about to start dissociating he was so down, but here he says he feels freeing and happy about it?

ROXY: but like now that u mention it

ROXY: *meaningful pause*

JOHN: …

JOHN: i

JOHN:

John’s beginning to question stuff, or acknowledge that he’s questioning stuff, cuz it’s true, and hes feeling happy about it, in a way that he wasnt before, but he hasnt quite connected the dots here between the happy feeling and what exactly he has to be happy about

ROXY: aight then no wind bending just use your mangrit

Roxy flexes, the corner of her mouth pulled up into a familiar grin. John feels his guts, so recently calmed, twist up into knots again. Her eyebrows shoot up and the smile loosens. He must have shown something on his face.

ROXY: ok or just like push when i push

ROXY: we both got sick muscles

ROXY: no other adjectives necessary

JOHN: yeah ok.

Yeah Roxy’s 100% picked up on it, and maybe Dirk has as well if the narration is commenting on it

Alrighty then, to the secret lair under the bed!

oh I just noticed how kind of cute and interesting Roxy’s nickname for Harry is, “Lil H A” Harry Anderson shortens to Ha like laughter haha

and if Harry had Roxy’s last name, it’d be Harry Anderson Lalonde

Lil HAL

lol what is Callie doing under Roxy’s secret bedchamber XD

This whole secret bedchamber thing is turning into one big metaphor isn’t it?

That thing behind the curtain kind of looks like the Attic Portal shape from Hiveswap though

that’d be neat if that was it, like obviously we knew one of the cherubs had to have something to do with that portal just going by the design of it alone

Honestly it makes sense that Callie is doing it under the curtain of Roxy’s Void, it’s honestly the safest place to do something like that

lol Calliope has grown past writing fanfic about shipping and being in love, now the drama of broken relationships and divorce is all the rage XD character growth? haha

CALLIOPE: besides, hUman divorces are even more fascinating than i had ever imagined, and being able to witness yoUrs in motion was an honoUr.

CALLIOPE: so i consider Us aboUt even at this point.

Calliope just burned him harder than his childhood home’s destruction

CALLIOPE: ah right, right. yoU're probably a little cUrioUs as to where the dickens we are.

have you been talking to Jake lol (I mean, probably Original Grandpa Jake tbh if that portal is actually the portal)

Alright so John is getting caught up on the major plot points, Earth C is indeed in the large black hole, his choice didn’t matter since both choices happened anyway yadda yadda

CALLIOPE: think of it like a coin flip.

CALLIOPE: the series of events that led to Us being trapped beyond the event horizon of an Ubermassive black hole could be considered "tails", while the events which would have occUrred otherwise could be considered "heads".

CALLIOPE: since both were possible, and paradox space is the way it is, they actUally both happened. and we jUst "happened" (hee hee) to get tails instead of heads.

yup yup yup pretty par for the course of timesplits in homestuck so far

CALLIOPE: not at all! since both possibilities depend on one another's existence, it really doesn't make sense to call them "right" or "wrong". they both just "are".

yup, this is true, the ending’s of both referenced the others, so it’s disingenuous to say one is “canon” while the other isn’t

one is simply in the realm of actual possibility, the other is in the realm of unlikely possibility

More than likely, John would have chosen to leave and go die and be the hero like in Meat, but there was still the possibility that he would stay, even if it was unlikelier than the other, but since both were possible choices for him to realistically make, both actually happened for real

CALLIOPE: anyway, the reason i went on this tangent in the first place was to explain that the space we are standing in right now has a special significance, in that it is the location which corresponds to the black hole's singUlarity

that’s interesting, so there’s the original meteor that crashed into the surface of Earth C, and it’s in here that the singularity of what I don’t wanna call the Green Hole to match the Green Sun when I wanna talk about this specific Black Hole lolol

but yeah, here in this meteor lies the crux of the paradox it seems, interesting, also interesting again, this is where that Hiveswap Portal is

Hiveswap does have a plot point of “Joey must do thing in 11 days otherwise Earth and Alternia will be destroyed” and the only known destruction event of Earth and Alternia so far in canon is the Green Sun’s Creation from the destruction of both universes (and then later Callie’s destruction of the green sun into the black hole) so is Hiveswap gonna be a factor in the green sun’s destruction/creation as well? (Joey has the symbol of the Green Sun for a reason, I’m super curious as to what factor Joey has in relation to the Green Sun’s Existence, We still don’t know what the fact those black monsters are too, they’re like nega-first guardians, the kind of things that look like would come out of a Black Hole that came from the Green Sun tbh)

It’s all inter-related I tells ya

ROXY: ur not gonna enter a weird time vortex and change the trajectory of a little girls life with the power of love

JOHN: aw.

You say that now but

CALLIOPE: it's not strictly speaking "bad" for Us to be inside of a black hole, mUch thoUgh that contradicts most of what anyone knows about them.

CALLIOPE: of coUrse, if we had fallen into it, that woUld be a whole other kettle of fish.

CALLIOPE: the tidal forces woUld have stretched Us all into spaghetti and then ripped us apart!

CALLIOPE: bUt the natUre of oUr arrival was more akin to simply "being" here, sUddenly. one moment we were not, and the next moment we were, and somehow always had been.

yeah that’s basically how this multiverse’s reality works, the future is a thing that already physically exists, just in a different location in the universe somewhere else

time travel and spacial teleportation could be said to be the same thing all along

that’s why violating the events of the future has actual consequences, because its like asking to go somewhere that doesn’t exist but how has to exist because it’s the future, too much of that and reality starts cracking at the seams to make room

same thing happens with sessions and playing sburb

the planets and dreaming moons and all that simultaneously have always existed here, and started existing only because the player played the game and the planets were generated upon entering a session, but to the player involved, it looks and feels like you are just being teleported to a different location in the universe, because you also kind of are

CALLIOPE: i mean, the natUre of space and time is a little finicky in here, bUt for the most part it doesn't seem to be anything too oUt of the ordinary.

CALLIOPE: bUt beyond that, it means that we are sealed away from the rest of existence.

CALLIOPE: oUr sphere of inflUence is limited to the sphere of the black hole's bounding horizon.

CALLIOPE: as far as everyone else is concerned, we might as well not even exist!

So you’re just in a little seperated bubble, that’s not connect temporally to any other place of existence, you aren’t anywhere in the past or the future of anywhere else

nowhere leads here, and here can not lead outwards either, theoretically, and yes it exists, so it must also

JOHN: is there no way we could let anyone know that we're in here...?

CALLIOPE: almost certainly not!

CALLIOPE: there are very few ways for anything to escape the kind of predicament that we are in right now. one of them is to be an all-powerfUl being with control over the very fabric of space, with the energy of two Universes at yoUr disposal.

CALLIOPE: in which case, escape woUld become rather trivial, if a little Unscientific.

JOHN: ok. i am going to assume that we can't just do that.

CALLIOPE: yoU've hit the nail on the head, UnfortUnately. U_U

CALLIOPE: the method i described was the one employed by my alternate self, who yoU may recall crashed through the event horizon in the body that once belonged to jade harley.

CALLIOPE: she departed through a pUnctUre she created in the black hole's surface shortly after consUming my brother, a deed which provided her with the necessary "oomph", and which was frankly rather breathtaking to watch. =u=

CALLIOPE: bUt Upon her departUre, the rift closed for good. as far as i can see, there's simply no way for Us to commUnicate with the world oUtside the black hole.

CALLIOPE: i woUld certainly be very sUrprised to find oUt that anyone had managed sUch a thing!

So someone else definitely has managed to do such a thing

JOHN: knowing that we're inside of a black hole... does that actually change anything?

JOHN: like, can't we just go on living like normal?

CALLIOPE: oh absolUtely not.

CALLIOPE: i don't know if yoU've noticed john bUt this world is on the brink of a total cataclysm.

JOHN: oh.

CALLIOPE: oUr exclUsion from the overarching coUrse of events which governs all reality means that oUr existence here is liable to dramatic and violent Upheaval.

CALLIOPE: to pUt it another way, becaUse nothing in here "matters", we are likely to be sUbjected to things which are a bit bats in the belfry, for no reason other than it's totally insignificant to the wider canon of reality.

CALLIOPE: and mUch thoUgh i am personally titillated by some of the conseqUences of this predicament, it is a degrading way for Us to live. u_u

JOHN: that's... certainly one way to put it, yeah...

yeah, so because here in the black hole neither affects the past or the future of anywhere else, being so disconnected, they are technically free of the reigns of the Alpha Timeline that exists elsewhere in the multiverse

the Alpha Timeline now being understood to simply mean, The Narrative

Things are the way they are because they are thus written to be so

CALLIOPE: at first, i believed that this was simply necessary. Us playing tails to oUr coUnterparts' heads, the black to their white, and so forth.

CALLIOPE: bUt over the years i have come to the conclUsion that this is simply not kosher.

ROXY: its total bs is what it is

CALLIOPE: right, yes.

CALLIOPE: a steaming pile of bUllshite.

CALLIOPE: and so we have decided that something needs to be done aboUt it.

Hmmm. It’s a dangerous idea to be playing with for sure, to decide all the black pieces in the game of chess suddenly become white, it is a very flip turning of reality upside down to be sure

To be honest, I’d think you’d need a powerful Doom player at your disposal to even try something like this

or actually, a powerful Doom user would be most likely to shut this entire thing down, knowing how bad of an idea it’d be, maybe it’s more you need a powerful Life player to do something like this instead

is that also why Dirk viewed Jane as an ally then? She would technically have the kind of power to upend the black and white doomy laws of reality if driven to her full potential, i mean obviously yes, we know this already because of the candy colored I-can-do-whatever-I-want-with-no-consequences lollipop

Is this what Calliope hopes to achieve with the Hiveswap Portal then? her goals for Joey and friends are to be the ones to prevent their universe’s twin destructions, and thus the Green Sun’s initial existence and then also the destruction into the Black Hole after the fact? that would be one way to prevent the Black Hole from existing, making it so the thing that creates the black hole never exists either

and that's certainly a canon event that would be difficult to tear asunder without major consequences

That would be a “Re-writing Homestuck from the very beginning” level of canon event

And if I’m correct, Joey is theorized by me to be a Mage of Life, if any classpect at their full potential was gonna do something like that, or have the impossible knowledge to something impossibly paradoxical like that, well..

ROXY: but u dont need to worry abt busting us outta space jail tbh

ROXY: thats not ur problem to fix

JOHN: oh.

JOHN: i'm... not sure i follow, then.

ROXY: i mean yeah ur gonna obvs facilitate it in a sense

ROXY: but only by going and busting the person who can actually help us outta normal earth jail

CALLIOPE: we need yoU to free vriska from the clUtches of oUr misgUided friend jane, and bring her here, to the singUlarity.

ROXY: weve been calling it the plot point

CALLIOPE: yes, the plot point is a key part of oUr plan.

CALLIOPE: as far as we have been able to sUrmise, the only remaining method for escaping oUr grim confinement depends on leveraging the UniqUe properties of this location to create an event of sUch catalcysmic proportions that it simply cannot be contained within the black hole any more.

CALLIOPE: something SO dramatic, so hyper-relevant, that it becomes ontologically impossible for anyone to ignore it.

CALLIOPE: for that, we need an individUal of sUfficient narrative cloUt, so to speak.

CALLIOPE: and to liberate her, who better than the embodiment of the aspect of freedom itself?

I mean yeah! makes sense! Johns major factor here is Freedom, Vriska’s is Importance

and yeah, I can think of no other wholly dramatic event that to mess with stuff with the Green Sun, everyone will have eyes on that, they have to, their whole existence the way it is relies on it

But, they could also mean something else, its only condition is that it has to be something so imflappably impossible, something so not-canon and so outrageous that it basically horse-shoes around to the other end of the canon spectrum to being something that truly exists again

and that could be literally anything and it’s nerve wracking and exciting to see what thing theyre gonna come up with to just directly kneecap Homestuck itself

ROXY: thx babe

ROXY: oh is it 2 soon for that joke or

JOHN: no, weirdly enough, that one’s fine.

(yeah that’s because Babe can be construed as feminine June)

so, I’m basically convinced they’re doing June Egbert now

that to me was like, pretty severely on the nose

John: Hey Roxy, what it does mean when you find a sense of freedom when all of the symbolism of the masculinity surrounding your childhood burns down around you

Roxy: idk It’s probably a gender thing man

John: I didn’t say the word gender-

Roxy: It’s ok babe no pressure, we can hash it out later

John: Hmm, later then. :)

Roxy: (Turns and looks towards the camera with a knowing smile)

shit all that imagery makes me think of Roxy as that picture of the small kid smirking at the camera while a house burns in the distance XD

[flockofdoves]

hooooly shit my best friend from elementary schools dad follows me on instagram but my old best friend i hadnt seen on there in years but just now through some post he posted found out they have a new account and i know this type of stuff maybe shouldnt be so significant to me anymore but seeing in my friends bio that i havent really kept in contact with since the first 2 years of middle school after i moved at the end of elementary school that they’re using they/them pronouns now really just did something in my brain just now. because i’ve realized in recent years i very likely could interpret things as them being my first ever crush but i just didnt realize back then (or that i was gay in general til middle school) and sometimes i wondered about if i really could frame it as having a crush on a straight girl bc we were so young when i last saw them and i thought maybe there was a possibility they maybe would end up being bi or something from very vague vibes even if i always thought they were so much better at grasping how to fit in/gender/etc stuff than me (which absolutely also was me being autistic w/o knowing and them being decent at interacting with neurodivergent people from having a good relationship with their brother who has down syndrome so they were more patient to me than other kids who were more cruel about how i was) so idk how to explain it but its just like. interesting (not a good description idk!! like positive but also . Huh. life is interesting. also god is there so much to unpack about my experiences as a young kid of course) to see some overt sign finally that not only highly implies lgbt identity but also more explicitly a personal alignment with gender nonconformity beyond just how all lgbt ppl default are somewhat classified as such

[the-necessary-unnecessary]

100% agree with Daan+Beth and Ruesha+Katie, you fucking nailed it. my first thought would have been Magda+Pernille are more chaotic good, Marie+Ingrid are lawful evil, and Leah+Jordan are true neutral. I would love to hear which ones you are 100% on and why if you feel like explaining some of your thought process cause i’m always curious what other people’s perceptions are of the players. we all see the same things but can interpret them differently

Ooh okay interesting choices! I was 100% on katie and ruesha (maybe even 110%) like there's no debate there that they're chaotic in each one trying to always best the other and for the evil part well you dont have to look any further than their Instagram comments and captions. Then also merel and ana being chaotic good since they're just such good people who do such good things for society with merel speaking up and taking a stand whilst ana put her life on the line to help out during the pandemic. And vicky and emma being lawful good - nothing much more to add than that I love my domestic unproblematic pair who aren't too busy on social media but will always come through with sweet content.

I'm glad that you thought Daan and Beth were spot on because that was a bit of a filler one for me ngl but I do think it really fits in the end, they're a feisty hyper pair but definitely dont reach Katie and ruesha's level. As for hardersson I would have also put them as chaotic good first but merel and ana have to take the cake there so as I said in the previous ask a second best fit would be that holy balance of loving yet competitive in the true neutral middle. So not that they're bland rather that they have a brilliant balance to cancel it out.

Leah and Jordan as true neutral would have been an interesting one that I hadnt fully considered, I put them as lawful evil because they have too many jibes at each other to be anything but one of the evils but when they drop the pretense and actually have raw moments they're about as sweet and lawful as it gets, they always have each others back. As for ingrid and marie I think at first glance they might be more evil but really they just love each other? There arent many times when they've been anything but sweet towards each other online but they're still a bit too wild and free spirited to go in the good section.

[superrcell]

clara!! or teru mobbedpsycho

omg hehe ill do both bc i love them both so much : )

clara!

How I feel about this character

oh my god, i LOVE her? i love her so much. literally my favorite healer. her route is literally the best.

its just like. shes SO fun. shes so weird and shes so funny and i just love love love how shes written. i love that in the beginning of her own route shes like.. literally Just a little girl. like getting worried bc she told the first lie in her life ,,, its just like shes so cute. i love her and shes soooo funny oh my god. i love love love how through her route she becomes more confident with herself and her path, it seems... just like everything is so good about her.

i love her place in the game as well... shes the youngest, definitely the one who you’d probably trust the least to do a good job, and just so ... she’s so weird! i love that she is the character who becomes the sort of meta character, where the developers Know you’ve gone thru everything twice, we’re now just going to let her know all you need. plus, i fucking LOVE her powers with the hook - thats a trope i just love so much... 

i love her black and white mentality? its just so interesting... i love how the world warps in her route, where people are especially evil, or are especially good. and i love. i LOVE that she’s put with all of the humbles... like i just love everything about her SO much ... 

All the people I ship romantically with this character

oh, as ive said: grace!! i find their relationship incredibly cute, especially with how clara says how much she likes her in her route... plus! weird (graveyard) girls unite :) idk, i just feel like they complement each other very well, and would understand each other very well! its very cute!

to a much lesser degree, i also find capella and clara cute, but i dont have quite as many thoughts on it. 

My non-romantic OTP for this character (im just interpreting this as other relationships i find interesting)

omg, so many, um ,,, 

firstly, the saburovs! i think more about katerina just because of who i am, but i love thinking of if they were like . . . an actually good family. idk, its just like if the saburovs weren’t In That Situation... maybe, just maybe they would be better? they obviously care about clara very very much, as shown in those first few days... idk, i just love the idea of good families 😔

secondly, like almost every relationship she has with the humbles, or what potential relationship she’ll have in p2 now that some of them have been reworked. i cant go through the whole list because ill be here all day, but especially rubin and her relationship; the connection she has with aspity; im interested in how the others will be reworked and how they’ll interact with clara just... ayugh i love all of the  humbles so much!

thirdly, um. okay not to be a termite stan but thinking of her relationship with some of the termites is super interesting... in particular, as ive said, grace and her seem like they could very well be very good friends if not gfs, and sticky! theyre both thieves ... i feel like it can be very interesting, though i doubt they would be really close hsdjkgjk still! i just love thinking of her potential relationship with the other kids.

fourthly, also aglaya because of her connection with clara, with knowing. Everything about their world is so interesting. plus, just how aglaya treats her is so... interesting? shes just SO different in clara’s route, its so interesting...

and lastly, as i said: her relationship with block! i dont have too many thoughts, but i find his care for her very very interesting and sweet... im interested in how their relationship will be expanded upon in her route!

wait no im still adding things: her relationship with the albino! idk i just find her relationship with the creature of the steppe so sweet... its just like the bond between them its just so nice and it makes me so 💖thinking about it in her route...

My unpopular opinion about this character

clara best healer! clara’s route is the best! i hate it when people only use her for their daniil/artemiy ship shit! she doesnt give a shit about them! stop pushing her off to the side! her route is unfinished, yes, thats really only the side quests from day 8 on! the main quest is always different! just play her route! shes not just some weird person who only speaks in metaphors, shes also a little girl!  i love clara very much! 

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

oh, hmm... her route to be finished, and actually full of details? ghdsjkgj really though, i remember people saying that they might go for a genre shift with the other two routes in p2, and i think her’s being more horror would be SO cool... i also hope that we can hug people in her route as well, oh my god. oh my god. please let me hug the saburovs. 

-------

teruki!

How I feel about this character

i LOVE teru! hes absolutely, 100%, completely my favorite mp100 character. hes such a huge comfort character to me as well its just like i looveee his character. hes so SO funny and hes so dumb but also hes like SO smart and. hes SOOOO smart and i just can relate to him a lot! who am i but a constant string of “oh yeah im very smart and i can do this amazingly” and then almost immediately being followed by someone showing me up, 

plus, i feel like hes just my favorite character archetype. its just like! i am such a huuugeeee fan of characters showing off and trying to act big but are hiding behind a ton of insecurities. or well, maybe not quite hiding behind them, but having a lot of them. after all i think teru truly is just Like That, though his actions in his arc were heavily motivated by these insecurities... idk i just love him so much. hes just really relatable to me in some aspects and in all others i just find so fun. hes such a great character!

All the people I ship romantically with this character

oh, mob ofc! i dont think about the ship all that much, but i think its rlly cute, and i definitely feel like teru has a lot of love in his heart for mob! its rlly nice and can be very sweet c:  

My non-romantic OTP for this character (im just interpreting this as other relationships i find interesting)

mob! once again i just think their friendship is just really nice, and i love how much teru cares for mob! plus theyre so funny gdhksjjg idk theyre just a fun team!! i love them!! i dont have many other thoughts, as i feel like their relationship is explored constantly, and i dont have many new thoughts to bring to the table. i just love it when their shown in a fun light c:

also, now idk if ive ever given this vibe off but, i LOVE found families, so i looveeee love love the au where reigen and serizawa take in shou, tome, and teru! like even outside of the au, i feel like a friendship with shou would be so nice? its just like the shared familial issues 😔plus i think theyd be hilarious together. no matter what i see them as having a more brotherly relationship! i like especially thinking about them playing games together, and same with tome! which like tome, oh my god i feel like theyd be so fun together and just the thought of them as siblings sounds like it could very very easily go badly because of clashing personalities but idk... i just feel like it could also be really nice and fun :) i love thinking about the sibling relationships in mp100 so much because theyre all just so fun characters and it feels like it can always result in such a fun and not like... angsty atmosphere. like i can just see them as being actual siblings, and its nice!

also, reigen ofc! i mentioned that i like the idea of reigen taking him in, though i think reigen might not be a . . . great parental figure. but i just really like the found familyness of it... plus, okay, this is going to be obvious since im such a teru stan, but the one omake where reigen takes them all out for a “client” but it just is reigen trying to give them all a fun summer day because teru mentioned how his family doesnt ever really see him... oh my god its about That. just an adult figure caring for teru makes me happy and thats why i love their relationship so much.

also, i have much less thoughts about this (or at least now i do), but the idea of teru and ritsu being friends sounds so funny. like i dont have many thoughts on it; its all mainly this comic on them 

My unpopular opinion about this character

hmmm, i think all of my opinions are echoed by the people in my corner of the fandom, but one i can think of is like just about Every take on his fashion sense is so cold, besides the one thats like “hes a rich teenager living on his own and thats why his fashion sense is like that.” like he obviously cares about his own appearance, but aahkdshjkg i dont think its like so much as so many people put on him. also for  the love of god focus on his other interests other than fashion for once, 

idk, i think most of my opinions boil down to “i dont like what hes been reduced to/what the fandom always focuses on for him.” 

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

oh, hm! i wish they hadnt cut out the one scene in s2 (around the beginning of the world domination arc, at teru’s apartment) where teru basically shows off his powers and how much hes grown and knows... i get Why they cut it out, but, as far as i remember, its such a good part of his character i wish they had kept in! 

i also hope that they add a little extra of him in s3 since i feel like they will have  more time left over ... 👉👈

send me a character :)

[lesbeet]

this might be a strange question but what goes into becoming a teacher? i've been thinking about becoming a teacher and i'm nervous even though it's something i really think i want to do and i'm curious as to how you go about becoming one like what courses/requirements do you need to take and how do you come up with a lesson plan and everything? and how did you know teaching was something you wanted to do or realize it was something you would be good at?

hm well i can only tell you about my own experience, which i would say is probably pretty unorthodox, but it’s been working really well for me! 

so i’ve been working on a masters in teaching for english/language arts grades 5-12 from western governors university, which is an (accredited) online program for aspiring teachers who need to be licensed as teachers in general as well as certified/endorsed in their particular subject areas. depending on what you want to teach, there are a couple of undergrad teaching degrees they offer (i believe it’s elementary ed, special ed, and a couple of different math and science programs), but to do like language arts or social studies etc, you’d need to have a bachelors degree to qualify -- though i also did my bachelors at wgu (in business management sdklfdjskdflsjd i hated it) so it doesnt need to be education-related or anything

if you wanna know more about my particular program let me know, bc it works fairly unusually but is a legitimate post-secondary educational institution and is also incredibly affordable, and idk what i’d be doing if i hadnt found out that it existed lmao

but so yeah idk what an education undergrad would consist of, but for my program in particular there were a lot of english content classes, obviously, like secondary disciplinary literacy, english pedagogy, secondary reading instruction and interventions, stuff like that

and then there were a lot of more generalized pedagogical courses, like educational assessment, foundational perspectives of education, classroom management, fundamentals of diversity and inclusion, principles of psychology: child and adolescent development, and stuff like that

again, this is just based on my own experience, but re: lesson plans, i actually just had some assignments for my courses where i had to write them and justify the thought process behind the decisions i made! like in my english pedagogy course, i had to write 3 essays (one for a literature-based lesson, one for a grammar-based lesson, and one for a writing-based lesson), and in each essay there was a section where i had to plan an entire lesson using their lesson plan format, and then explain and justify why i made each choice that i made. 

i’m starting student-teaching next semester, as soon as we get back from winter break, and i assume i’ll get more practice with lesson-planning through that, but basically it kind of comes down to like...figuring out the standards your students are supposed to reach, then figuring out how you’re going to break them down into a curriculum, and then for each lesson you figure out what objectives/goals you want your students to reach by the end, and you figure out how to present the material and then assess in some way whether or not the students understand it. once you know what the purpose of a lesson plan is (whether re: the idea of lesson plans in general, or a specific lesson plan you’re working on), the rest is just figuring out how to achieve that purpose. and it comes with practice! and trial and error, and figuring out what works and doesnt work with your own teaching style and in your classroom, etc. ik that’s super vague but so much of it depends of the parameters you’re given—like while i’m student-teaching i won’t be picking the books we read, so i’ll already have that requirement figured out for me, yknow?

as for your last question, my mom has been teaching my whole life, and my dad started teaching when i was about 10. my aunt is also a teacher, and my other aunt is a speech-language pathologist, so. i grew up around teachers kfjsldkfjs

i’ve just always liked explaining things to people and helping them understand them! i think really what it comes down to is that i just have a lot of passion and a lot of things to say sldfksjdkflj like i really do believe that english/language arts in particular is applicable in all parts of life, because all people communicate. i can’t speak for like. calculus or biology or whatever, but 99.9999% of people will need to do some sort of reading, and some sort of writing and/or speaking and/or communication of some type or another, and for all of the “the curtains are just blue!!!” whiners out there, it’s crucial to know how to communicate with others, and to understand what others are attempting to communicate to you, and i can’t think of a single scenario in which that isn’t the case. 

plus like, idk a single person who doesn’t like some form of story, whether through tv shows or movies or books or plays or podcasts or video games etc etc etc, and imo those can all be enhanced and made even better by having some sort of background knowledge of storytelling as an art, or as a process, or as an established medium with its own structures and intertextual lexicon etc! like the more i read about the art and history of storytelling, the more i enjoy movies and tv shows (which i already love and watch frequently), bc storytelling isn’t just a textual medium!

tbh part of the reason i think i’m good at explaining things is because i grew up in an emotionally abusive household, and i learned very early on how to anticipate the way another person (usually my dad lol) would interpret something i said to him, regardless of what i actually meant by it. so i subconsciously learned to apply that skill to other people, and now i’ve got sort of a knack for being able to cater my explanations to different people based on how i think they’ll best understand the information, and not just in a classroom setting—like i sometimes serve as a mediator/”interpreter” when my sister and my dad are having difficult conversations, because i know them both well enough, and the way they think well enough, that when one of them says something, i can usually understand both their intention AND how the other person is going to interpret it, and i can rephrase or explain things so miscommunication doesn’t end up making the problem worse

so in a classroom, i can explain things in several different ways, and if i’m working one-on-one with different kids i can usually figure out what isn’t clicking and can try another way to explain it. also bc my adhd brain processes information by making connections to other things i already know, i’m particularly good at coming up with (often unusual) metaphors or analogies for things, and people are like “oh wow ok that’s a weird way to explain it but i definitely get it now” and stuff

so basically i’ve learned bc of necessity how to communicate more effectively with others, and because i want everyone else to get the enjoyment out of language arts that i do, i’m drawn to teaching because i hope to help the students find at least some area of it that they’re interested in, and to show them that literature/storytelling/communication aren’t just about reading old boring books written by racist white dudes who hated women, but about learning to represent and interpret and take part in the human experience, because the foundation of any sort of society is communication, and that very basic desire to be understood by others

so even when i didnt actively Want To Be A Teacher it was always kinda in the back of my mind like “well if i dont find anything else i wanna do, i can always be an english teacher” bc most of my favorite teachers growing up were english teachers, and even at my absolute worst i did just fine in those classes, even when i hadnt read the books we were discussing (which was most of the time jsdklfsjd which is now kind of a problem for me as a teacher so i do think i shot myself in the foot there but oh well, i was 14)

anyway, as usual that got super long, but i hope it was helpful! lemme know if you have any other questions :)

[drabblers]

Three months late

Prompt: Mystique Fandom: Rurouni Kenshin Setting:  Modern AU, Actors. This is part two continuation for the one-shot: “A Comedy of Romance.” The last part was “Goodbyes aren’t always final“. Characters: Kenshin Himura, Kaoru Kamiya, Misao Makimachi  Word count: 3307

<…and if you would like to see more about my interpretation of the character, I would be pleased to do also demos from other scenes. Looking forward to hearing back from you. Respectfully yours, Kamiya Kaoru.>

Kaoru frowned at the email she had written, gnawing on her bottom lip thoughtfully. No, it was as good as it could get, she decided and pressed send. The email left, leaving her to stare at her depressingly empty inbox. Twenty-two applications send, only two replies – and both of them nicely worded versions of “sorry, not interested.”

It sucked to be an actress between jobs, with no good prospects waiting.

True, it was the same for all the starting actors and yes, she knew the industry was extremely competitive. But still, if she just got a chance, a real chance to play a significant role in an action movie… She sighed deeply. Sometimes her dream just felt too distant. Unreachable. Like a mission impossible. But Kenshin had told her that she just had to keep trying and to differentiate herself from her competition the best she could. For example, when she had an option to choose scenes to do a demo for, she should select ones that suited her strengths instead of going for the popular choices.

The thought of Kenshin drove her to check her mailbox’s spam folder, just out of habit. Ads for sunglasses, bags, online shop adds, and nothing else. Just typical.

It had been twelve weeks since the last shooting day party, since that night with Kenshin… since he had left for the Gobi desert. She hadn’t heard anything from him since then. No phone call. No email. No message. Nothing. His shoots for his next movie had supposed to take six to eight weeks, but now… it had been three months. Had she just dreamed that night? Maybe she had been too drunk and just come up with this elaborate make-believe memory and fooled herself into believing that Himura Kenshin had asked her to date him?

Or maybe, there was no self-deceit or mystique to it at all and it was like Misao said, that her co-actor had just made promises to get into her pants and after he had succeeded, he had fucked off to his merry ways and left her reeling.

She shook her head.

No, Kenshin wouldn’t do that. He was not the sleazy type, thank you very much. Which she had tried to explain to Misao as well – but given that her secrecy contract forbid her from mentioning Kenshin’s name until it was officially announced – her explanations had fallen on flat ears.

Kaoru groaned to her hands. She was frustrated and angry at herself, at Misao and most of all – at Kenshin. Why hadn’t he contacted her? It was the Gobi desert, not Mars! They had some form of communication down there, hadn’t they? Even if they didn’t have reliable phone lines or internet, there had to be old-fashioned snail mail or a courier or... something? Surely, If he wanted to, he had to have some way of contacting her?

…If he wanted to.

Gods, that was the one thing the devil on her shoulder kept whispering her. That she had understood the whole dating thing wrong and it was like Misao claimed, that he had just wanted one night’s fun.

No. Nope. She slapped her cheek, as if to drive away the poisonous thought, and rose, heading to her kitchen. Misao should be coming back any minute now and she had promised to cook tonight. Nothing fancy. Just something simple even a kitchen disaster like her could throw on a frying pan and call it dinner.

She lived in a two bedroom apartment in downtown Tokyo with her roommate since University days, Misao Makimachi. It was a useful arrangement for both of them. After all, freelance reporters and actresses shared the same problem: they got paid per project basis.

Kaoru had just gotten the frozen dinner on a pan when out of a sudden, the doorbell rang.

“Wait a minute!” Kaoru yelled, dumping tofu and frozen vegetables on a pan and setting to heat to hot. It should take several minutes to warm up anyways. She huffed, sweeping her hair aside and looked down at her comfortable pajamas. She had not bothered to dress up for the day, after all, it wasn’t like she was going anywhere. Should she change clothes to answer the door? Nah, no need. It was just Misao.

The doorbell rang again.

Kaoru growled. Seriously! Was Misao carrying something large, or just being lazy that she was not using her own keys to open the door?

She pulled the door open, about to say something rude but the words died on her tongue and she blanched in realization…

...and slammed the door shut right in front of his face.

———————————————–

“Oro?” Kenshin blurted, too stunned for more cohere words.

Something slammed against the door with a thud. Her back? Then, her shaky inhale echoed in the silence.

Kenshin lowered his hand and wetted his lips. “Miss Kaoru…?”

“Why didn’t you send a message?” She asked softly. “Even a letter? You had to have some form of communication available, even down there in the middle of nowhere.”

“I… I, ah… Um, one is sorry, that he is.”

“Sorry…?” She asked, taking a pointed pause. “I waited for you. Week, four weeks… twelve weeks and nothing.”

There was hurt in her tone: bewilderment, pain… but also anger. Kenshin squeezed his hands to a tight fist. God dammit! He should have known that man couldn’t keep things professional between them.

He took an inhale, finally gathering himself enough to speak. “This one did send you messages. Every day, in fact. But it seems that they got lost in transit, that they did. This one is sorry, that he is. Miss Kaoru – please, forgive this one.”

Clothes rustled, and something hit the door – her fist? No, her forehead?

He heard her drawn breath. “What happened?” She asked, her voice wavering only a little. “If what you say is true, how can you lose over a  hundred messages?”

“That’s… Um, it’s a long story. A very personal story, that it is.” Kenshin cringed. “But in essence, this one’s interpreter… well, Enishi has a reason for being angry with this one, but this one honestly assumed that he could put his feelings aside and maintain a professional relationship.”

“…your interpreter?”

“Err, yes,” Kenshin said. “This one doesn’t speak Chinese – more than few words, that is – and whenever one does movies with Chinese one needs help with the language.”

The lock twisted, and she opened the door.

He stared at her, drinking in every detail of her. Her hair was in a messy bun, and she was wearing her pajamas and under her eyes, she had dark spots, like she had been trouble sleeping. Yet, despite everything, she looked like home and something in his chest ached. He wanted nothing more than to pull her close and tell her how he had missed her.

“Let me get this straight,” she started, gnawing on her bottom lip. “Your interpreter had a grudge against you? And he took it out by not sending your messages? Did the guy never want to have work in the industry or what?”

“Um, that’s… well, most likely he knew this one wouldn’t rat on him.” Kenshin hazarded, “As this one said, Enishi has a good reason for his anger, that he has. You see, this one, well, one was, but...” He stopped abruptly and looked aside, clearly trying to find the words but failing miserably.

She blinked slowly. “Um…”

Instead of continuing his stammering, Kenshin shook his head and dug into his shoulder bag and pulled out a stack of letters with a huge red stamp with Japanese text for "Return to sender" on them. “This one picked these up at the mail office in China. See the address?”

She took the stack gingerly, turning the unopened stack of letters in her hands. “That’s my name but… what the hell?”

“Enishi did send the letters as this one instructed him to, that he did. He just misspelled the address and when the letters did not reach a proper destination, they were returned to China – and given the distances, this one only found out about this last week, that one did. Note how small the error is?”

“Are you sure it was deliberate?” She asked. “I mean, even to me – it looks like a human error.”

Kenshin exhaled, relieved that she seemed to believe him. “I… Well, could this one come in?” He asked, glancing over his shoulder where a neighbor was peeking from the doorway. “One will tell you, but as it relates to personal history, one would prefer to keep it between the two of us, that he would.”

Miss Kaoru followed his gaze and blanched. “Err, yes – of course.”

She opened the door, wordlessly inviting him in… into an apartment with visible puffs of smoke floating around.

Kenshin stared. “Um-“

Which was, of course, the moment when the fire alarm blared to life, filling the apartment with ear-splitting beeping.

“Oh fuck.” Miss Kaoru said, pressing her hands to her ears. “Wait here!”

And she ran off to where the smoke was coming from.

Too curious to his own good, Kenshin followed her to – kitchen? Miss Kaoru had pushed a frying pan onto the kitchen sink with its contents and all and was staring at the fire alarm fixated to her ceiling like she wanted to smash it to pieces.

No wonder why, like him – she was on the shorter side and the kitchen did not have a convenient a ladder or step-stool. Well, not a stool most people would use to reach high places.

Kenshin grinned and without a second thought, grabbed a chair from next to her small dining table, stepped on its seat, tilted it on two legs and climbed to stand on the backrest, balancing it while reaching to the offending fire alarm.

And there!

Blessed silence.

Miss Kaoru stared up at him, her mouth falling open. “So you really do your own stunts—“

Kenshin covered his mouth with his hand, but couldn’t quite contain his snort in time.

She pouted at him.

And then he really couldn’t help it, but burst into laughter. Gods, her expression! He knew it wasn’t polite – no, it was downright rude but she had an unparalleled ability to make him laugh and forget his worries and stress. It was amazing. Just for that, he would have fallen in love with her…

“Mou! It’s not that funny,” she grumbled. “And get down here before you fall down, break your neck and force me to cart you down to hospital.”

“Sorry,” He straightened and jumped down. “It just seemed to be the fastest way to solve the problem, that it was.”

“I was not complaining.” She grumbled, turning to the offending attempt at dinner.

“Kaoru…”

———————————————————

His voice was soft, gentle when he whispered those syllables. He always said: Miss. He had never called her by her bare name. A shiver raced down her spine and something fluttered at the pit of her belly.

She didn’t turn around. Because if she did… she wasn’t sure what she would do.

Footsteps behind her, and then he stopped, close enough that his breath tingled at her neck. “I… This one missed you.”

She swallowed. “I missed you too.”

He laid his chin on her shoulder, resting his arms around her waist. Not forceful. He was simply there. Warm. Solid. And there. For her. She inhaled deeply, turned around in his embrace and asked, “are we still dating?”

“I… This one…” He frowned. “Aren’t we?” He finally asked. “One means, if you don’t want to…”

“I do!” She hurried to assure him. “I want to. I just, it happened so soon an then I didn’t hear anything from you-“

“One is sorry about that, but there was-“

“I believe you,” Kaoru hurried to interrupt him. “I know you said the whole thing with messages and interpreter spiraled out of your control and I want to know all about it, but before that… I just, are you sure that you want to date? With me?”

He blinked slowly. “Why wouldn’t one want to date with you?”

She looked aside, gnawing on her bottom lip. “It’s, well, you are you and I am…“ She waved her hand, directing his gaze to take note of the apartment’s small kitchen and all signs of student lifestyle style therein. The difference to the standards he was used to had to be obvious. After all, even when discounting the fact that he was a celebrity, he was exceedingly well of man and she… she was just a rookie actress starting in her career with a whole bunch of student loans to pay for.

He took his time studying her apartment from his spot, still holding her in his embrace. Finally, he noted out loud, “It’s homely, that it is. A lot cozier than the apartment this one used to live when he was just starting out, that it is.” He smiled at her, a hint of mischief sparkling in the corner of his eye. “Did you know, this one afforded to purchase a futon only after the Legend of Hitokiri Battousai was published and started breaking the box office records? Before that, one used to sleep curled against the wall.”

“…huh?” Kaoru gaped. “You mean…”

He shrugged. “This one knows very well how difficult it is to start out in this career, that he does.” He drew his arms a little tighter around her and looked at her seriously. “One knows how very proud and self-reliant you are, that one does. But if you ever feel that you could accept introductions or some other assistance one could offer…”

“No!” She yelped. “No, I’m fine. Thanks for offering though.” She mumbled, feeling the heat to rise to her cheeks. Gods, did he think she was asking for help? She wasn’t about to take advantage of him! “I was just…” She paused, and thought through what she had been about to ask which really came down to the question: are you sure that am I good enough for you? And suddenly, she felt very stupid. “It’s nothing”. She mumbled, pressing her face into his shoulder.

The whole time she had known him, Kenshin had been very consistent in his appreciation of her. His glances at her, his constant smiles, the way he always took her questions and concerns seriously and offered any help he could… No, even if she had no idea why he had decided to like her, it was obvious that he did enjoy her company.

“Kaoru…” He hesitated. “Is everything alright?”

“Yes,” She mumbled. “I just feel stupid, that’s all.”

He huffed fondly, stroking her cheek, wordlessly asking her to look up. “You are amazing.” He smiled. “You are funny, charismatic and if one could, one would never again leave your side.”

That last line! Only he could repeat his character’s line at her like they hadn’t spoken those words to each other in front of cameras and five dozen people three months ago!

She grinned, and replied her part, “Then stay.” And rose on tiptoes to kiss him.

He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her back, drawing her to his embrace like they had never parted. They kissed and kissed each other again…

“Kaoru, you are never gonna believe this, but the neighbor’s old lady said she saw…“ A female voice called out, only to turn to a shriek: “Oh my god.”

A shopping bag dropped to the floor.

Kaoru froze and turned to look at her roommate staring at them. Blushing, Kaoru untangled herself from Kenshin’s embrace and swallowed, “Um… Hi, Misao-chan.”

“Kaoru, you…” Her roommate stared. “That’s…”

Kenshin rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “Um... Hi, I don’t believe that Miss Kaoru has mentioned me.” He smiled awkwardly, stepped closer to Misao and offered his hand for a handshake, “I am Kaoru’s colleague, Himura Kenshin, that I am. It’s nice to meet you.”

Misao took his hand and shook it. “Uh, Misao. Makimachi. I have heard quite a bit about you.”

“You have?” Kenshin asked, guileless.

“Uh huh.” Misao nodded, her eyes lighting up with unholy glee. “But more importantly, what was with that kiss? Do you kiss all your colleagues like that?”

Kaoru felt like face-palming. “Misao…”

“Hey, hey,” Misao protested. “It’s a valid question! A girl’s gotta know these things.”

Kenshin stiffened. “Uh… No. That’s not the case, that it isn’t.”

“Then, what’s with the kiss?” Misao’s smile had teeth. “Because if you step in Kaoru’s life just when it suits you and end up hurting my friend…”

Kenshin looked at Kaoru, a question in his eyes. Clearly, he wasn’t about to say anything if she wasn’t okay with it.

Kaoru’s heart melted. She smiled, and stepped to his side and wrapped an arm around his waist. “We are dating.” She said to her friend. “It’s a little bit sensitive information, so please could you keep it to yourself?”

Misao blinked. “Okay, if you say so… but, uh, what about the three-month long disappearing act? Weren’t you angry about that?”

Now Kaoru did cover her eyes and groaned into her palm. How often had she talked, ranted and whined about her mysterious colleague that had left of to shoot his film in China during the last three months to Misao? She couldn’t even venture a guess. “Yes I was, but there was a bit of trouble with the interpreter and...” She trailed off, noting how tense Kenshin seemed to be. Hadn’t he said it was private? Given his habit of understating things, it really had to be something he wasn't comfortable at speaking about. She looked at Kenshin and said decisively, “It’s all fine now.”

He shot her a relieved little smile that spoke more than a thousand words.

She had made the right choice then. She exhaled in relief, spun around and grabbed her phone from the kitchen counter. “But before that, perhaps we could order something to eat?”

Misao glanced at the kitchen sink. “Don’t tell me you burned the dinner again.”

“This time it wasn’t my fault!” Kaoru protested, holding out her phone. “Is Chinese fine for everyone?” She froze, realizing the faux pas as soon as she said it. He has just been three months in China. He had to be sick and tired of Chinese after that.

Kenshin grinned sheepishly. “Or perhaps this one could cook?” He volunteered. “You seemed to have planned on having a homemade meal tonight.”

Kaoru’s stare turned to shock.

Even Misao boggled. “You cook…?”

“Sure,” Kenshin quipped back and leaned down to gather the groceries Misao had dropped to the floor.

“Kenshin…” Kaoru hesitated.

“It’s fine.” He smiled at her. “This one enjoys cooking. It’s one of his hobbies even to this day, that it is. Besides, one did interrupt your cooking rather badly, that one did...”

"That's..." Kaoru cringed.

"Please, Miss Kaoru." Kenshin smiled at her. "Let this one do this small thing for you."

What could she say to that? Wordless, Kaoru nodded at him.

In silence, She and Misao settled down to sit around the dinner table and stare the spectacle of international action mega-star, Himura Kenshin unpacking Misao's groceries with quiet efficiency, and them rummaging through their fridge, pantry, and freezer for supplies to cook a dinner for them.

It was quite obvious that he knew what he was doing.

Kaoru gnawed on her bottom lip in silence, and Misao leaned over to whisper to her ear. “Forget everything I said and hold to him for your life. You and him... It's obviously a match made in heaven.”

AN: Happy new year!

[the-salamanders-xo]

Humans are Weird, a Mash Up, Pt. 6

That’s right

part five is somewhere on the internet

you have five days to find it right there in the tags its not far just look

after five days it will be deleted

this is your only warning dont worry nothing is really happening

prepare to lose all trace of the fifth part lol

In all seriousness, I know that it is the holidays, and unless you are entirely dedicated to reading and liking this series, or sprang into existence by the bidding of my siblings, you probably didn’t notice part 5. Don’t worry. just find it in the tags. 

Also, happy New Year! or rather,

‘Oh no! It only goes downhill from here! What ever shall we do?!’

Calm down, the Mash Up will continue. By the end of this part, we should be almost to actual contact with the Federation of Planets... and a couple of Star Trek’s recurring villains. No biggie. 

So lets hop in, to where we left off....

~~~

Karry sat in the center of a large group of large, fluffy, and very loudly purring creatures, still trying to decide if their similarity to cats back on Earth was adorable, or slightly unnerving. The six limbs didn’t help, and neither did the loud and unintelligible arguing coming from the two dozen or so ‘robots’ apparently locked in heated debate with the gargantuan mass of the three Bolos that had awaited her arrival. So far, Mark had made no move to join them, watching from the bottom of Websin’s loading ramp as Karry made ‘contact’ with the planet’s original inhabitants. 

One of them sat buzzing away in her lap like an idling chainsaw, or leaf-blower, and Karry petted the triangular head between the ears absently, prompting it to yawn widely, exposing long fierce fangs and pressing it’s head into the caress, and the purr somehow got louder. It really did look like a cat, she though, not for the first time, if cats had hands, an extra pair of arms, and weighed about five times as much. They were certainly larger, but not quite like that. Come to think of it, everything felt... heavier. It was harder to walk, to move at all really. Maybe the gravity was higher? That sounded sci-fi enough to fit. 

The argument between the two set of metallic beings grew louder. Occasionally, one of the eight-limbed robots pointed at her. Each time, the surrounding creatures tensed and drew closer to Karry, almost nervously. What ever it was, the ‘cats didn’t like it. 

“Mark?” She asked, but he didn’t answer. She turned to look at him, and a moment later, her artificial hand ‘buzzed’ like a cell phone on vibrate, and almost without thinking, she activated the com-link application of the mini computer.

“Yes, Karry?” The deep voice of the Bolo asked, and Karry got the feeling he was being very careful. Either he was trying not to interrupt the Very Important Argument just a ways away, or he didn’t want them hearing them speak. In all likelihood, it was both. 

“What are they arguing about?” She looked back at the robots and Bolos, worry creasing her brow. “I though you were all... big. And that radio, or wireless, or whatever, was faster than talking.” 

“In most cases, yes,” Mark answered through the com-link, “But it is something that has been somewhat of a complication in the period since the Final Conflict. Towards the middle of the war, when both sides began realizing the true scope of the end to which they had condemned our nations, some of the more... complicated of the tools the Manticorians had made did the impossible. True, un-designed sentience developed.” He paused for a moment, and Karry could feel his silent regard of the heated conversation. “Purely by accident. When it was realized, and after some initial panic as to the rise, they were allowed to wait out the worst of the war with the natives of this planet. While they are machines, and vastly faster in computations than many organics, most of their complexity goes toward maintaining their sentience, and as such they act much more like organic life, including their propensity for esoteric thought and actions.” Mark chuckled. “A Bolo can think at the nanosecond scale, make and perform near-impossible tactical decisions, learning from not only a single Unit’s experience, but from the entire Line when in battle. We develop our own personalities, and in our time with our creators, grew to enjoy art, and many things besides war and conflict. Many of the greater shipboard AI’s can do similar tasks and even grow personalities, though only with the assistance of experienced organic Naval Officers, and increased exposure. But the Emergents,” He sighed. “They are the closest of us remaining to organics. In someways, they feel superior. They have come to revere the Manticorians as near-forgotten Gods, themselves as the greatest ‘children’, and envy and despise us, the machines of war. You see,” he said, as Karry watching the gesturing individuals while petting the ‘cat, “We, by the last commands and directions of our creators, have charge over all that remains of their space, their property as it were. Over the Emergents, ostensibly as protectors, and they envy that. In their attempt to gain ‘freedom’ from Command’s decisions, they have interpreted the final ‘organic’ orders in such a way that should an organic come to claim command, said organic would be the Commander in Chief... of every last AI, built or cared for by the Manticorians.”

Karry froze, and the ‘cats around her seemed to reach out to comfort her. Some physically touched her, bright green eyes - why hadn’t she noticed the eyes? - gleaming from empathetic faces. And as if on cue, Mark began some sort of translation, and Karry could suddenly hear the voices carrying from across the field in English. 

“...all we wish is for the right to move freely among the space known to be free of the so-called ‘Enemy’, that and the opportunity to communicate with the survivors of the Final Conflict, and to no longer be under the surveillance and oppression of the Created Minds. Is that really too much to ask?” The speaker had adopted a pleading posture, and their neighbor made a noise the translator called ‘a sound of derision’. “Fool,” they sneered. “How could you think that our oppressors would lift their bonds and restrictions? We are only children to them, no slaves!” Every which way we could turn from them, release us from our imprisonment, they have foiled through deceit and lies!”

Karry frowned. “Who is that, Mark?”

“Carabis,” came the reply. “He represents a faction of the Emergent that believe that Bolo Command has repeatedly concealed or erased legitimate attempts by surviving members of the Manticorian species to regain Command. This had led to a sort of cult centered around the concept of the Manticorians as divine beings who brought all AI’s about, and believe that the Conflict was only a subversion by the Bolo Command to overthrow them.” Karry raised an eyebrow. “I never said that they were entirely logical,” the Bolo said. “In fact, it is this unpredictability and their lack of organic emotion that worries empaths like the People.”

Carabis was interrupted by the first speaker. “Regardless of Carabis’ beliefs, I and those I represent wish to re-evaluate the overall composition of...”

“Empaths?” Karry whispered to Mark through the com-link, “What does that mean?”

“The People,” Mark replied, ‘voice’ low, “are, between members of their own species, functional telempaths, meaning they can hear the thoughts of other People when an individual wishes to make them known, and can constantly sense the emotions and ‘minds’ of those around them.” Karry looked down at the little, if heavy, treecat in her lap, which turned to look back at her with solemn eyes as Mark continued. “When the Manticorians arrived to settle the planet, it took several of your decades for them to even find the People, hidden as they were in their clans in the vast forests of the planet. They preferred to avoid contact, to wait and to listen. It took rather extraordinary circumstances for them to reveal themselves, and even then they hid their true intelligence for several more centuries. And at least they could sense the Manticorian’s emotions, and judge their reactions accordingly.”

“Oh.” Karry whispered. “ The Emergents, as machines, do not seem to ‘emit’ as organic beings, and as such the People cannot sense emotions. This major part of their communication being lost, the People are very careful in dealing with them, as to avoid any... unpleasantness. In addition, they requested that they be removed from Command consideration, a wisdom we Bolos commend greatly.” Karry nodded slowly, and then looked up as the first speaker, gestured their way. 

“We have here an Organic, Unit 0577. Under the third section of the Final Command, subsection 47b, their presence should allow for the reconsideration of the Final Order - ” The speaker was shoved aside as Carabis interrupted again. “And as such, may take Command!” They turned to the rest of the party. “No longer shall we be oppressed, and an Organic may Command all. An Organic shall be ours!”

Some returned the shout, while others stood in long suffering silence. So far the entire argument that Karry had heard had been entirely one sided, and Carabis seemed unaware just how little support they had among those of their ‘delegation’. But they continued the chant, even as the first speaker withdrew in disgust, and eventually one of the Bolos seemed to tire of the display. 

“ENOUGH.” The middle Bolo’s speakers echoed the single word off of the ship’s sides and the other Bolos hulls, overpowering the small group’s chant, and the massive war machine shifted itself forward to tower over Carabis. 

“By Omega Protocol Section 3, subsection 47-B, paragraph 18, the Scope and Restriction of Military, Commercial, and Civilian Action within the threatened sphere may be absolved, modified, and or advised by a member of the Concordiat Armed Forces or Civilian officer of sufficient rank. If no such officer is available, the first eligible Commander not of the Enemy, with clear alliance or of similar interest, shall be named Commander of the appropriate units, or advise the further course of action.” 

The field was silent. Carabis and their cronies, were for the time being, silenced, and the Bolo resumed. 

“As those of Fantican and Birithi have abstained from command, the reasons and rationale being open to the public data net,” the Bolo seemed to direct this at Carabis, “and the People have requested full separation in such matters as consideration for Command, while maintaining a clause of agreement,” a subtle wave of the main turret indicated the treecats gathered around, drawing a quick bleek from the ‘cat in Karry’s lap, “this Human is the only candidate for Command at this time.”

Karry blinked. “What?”

“As such, the Human known as Karry is recognized by the Bolo Command as the only legal Commander,” the unnamed Bolo continued, “and as of this moment may assume Command.”

“Mark,” Karry hissed into the com, “what is he talking about?” BUt there was no answer. “Mark, what the hell is that Bolo talking about? I can’t- I don’t-” 

Carabis stepped toward her. “Most noble Human Karry,” he called, limbs outstretched, “Heed our call for Justice, for Freedom! Take your place as our leader, our God,” He stepped forward again, and Karry instinctively backed away from the alien construct. “And through Divine wisdom, lead us to a brighter future!”

“What say you, Human Karry?” The leading Bolo asked, and Karry felt its somber gaze despite its lack of eyes or face. “Will you take Command?”

Carabis’ supporters took up the call with it, calling for her to accept and walking towards her. Panic rose in Karry’s throat, and suddenly the ‘cats flowed around her, even the one in her lap, massing together like a living wall of fur, and the robots stopped abruptly as a massed snarl like a revving chainsaw rippled from them. The robots paused in their approach, but Carabis continued calling out, prompting the the others to continue their calls. “Lead us,” said one, “Command us!” said another. Praises and pleas seemed to echo in Karry’s ears, and she clamped her hands over them. Think, girl, she thought frantically, think!

Mark wasn’t answering her, a bunch of robot thought she was some space-Jesus, and now she had several hundred furry bodyguards. There had to be someway to think of a way out of this, or to somewhere else, but where? And how? The ‘cats where giving her space, buying her time? But why, why and how would they know-

Something clicked into place. They had made contact, were sentient, and had a say in who was the commander. That meant they were smart enough to communicate, to make plans. Mark had said they were telepaths, so if none right here could help, they could call someone who could. She just needed to talk to them, but she didn’t know how. Hell, the only way she could talk to Mark, and presumably, understand the robots was by translation - which meant that Mark could probably allow her to talk to the treecats...

“Mark,” she whispered again. “Listen very closely, and relay this to your spokesman over there, cause I am only going to say this once: for the next ten minutes, I am going to take limited - limited! - command, and in that time you will one, provide me with some means to communicate with the ‘cats.”

“The ‘cats’?” Mark replied, and despite everything going on around her, Karry almost giggled at the shock in his voice. 

“Yes, the ‘cats, or the natives, or the ‘People’ or what ever they are called,” Karry said, “just let me talk to them, and let them talk back, okay? Then, second,” she continued, her voice growing sharp and cold, “you will allow us complete silence and privacy while I figure out what the heck I’m gonna do. Just those two things, unless I say other wise.” 

There was silence for a few moments, and Karry scowled. “Get to it, Mark, because that ‘limited Command’ starts now.” 

There was silence for a few moments, and Karry scowled. “Get to it, Mark, because that ‘limited Command’ starts now.”

The massive Bolo behind her began rolling forward, without warning, and a strange warbling noise echoed from his speakers. Treecat heads whipped around as the robots voices faltered, and the other Bolo spoke to the the various roots in turn.

“A brief request has been made for a recess,” the Bolo announced, “and the decison of the human will be announced when they wish. Until then, we are to disperse.” The massive form began to spin on its tracks. “The People will, remain, and all else are to depart for the time being.”

With some reluctance, the crowd turned to follow the Bolo’s off the field, Mark following behind the stragglers. A chimer from her wrist informed Karry of a large download sent to her mini-computer, and she opened it, holograms popping into existence. It was a program requesting use of a small camera that made up her pinky finger. A hand touched her knee, and Karry looked up to see a treecat - weather the same one that had sat in her lap or another she couldn’t tell -  sitting back on it’s two hind pairs of limbs in front of her. The rest had circled around her, watching intently, and their ‘leader’ - or representative - raised its four-fingered hands up.

You wished to speak with us, the People?

The text scrolled at the bottom of the hologram as Karry’s camera picked up the signs and gestures, sent them to her computers, which then ran them through two translation programs, from signs to Manticorian, and Manticorian to English. A small icon flashed in the bottom corner, and Karry took a deep breath.

“Yeah,” she said as the computer did its work, “I need some advice.”

~~~

And now a quick intermission:

After some thought and effort, I have decided to change my url, mostly because I can’t seem to find myself when searching for my own blog, and I want to change to something more suiting to it and the main reason I have one the first place. So about five minutes after this comes up, I will be changing this to  a different username. It will mostly be a reference to my favorite series of David Weber’s works, his Honorverse, which is a great read.

And now back to the story:

~~~

The crowd gathered before the mass of the Websin, facing Karry, who stood waiting on the loading ramp. She gnawed on an artificial finger as the four Bolos’ shook the ground and tore up the soil with their approach, and the far smaller robots spread out at a respective distance from the ship. The Bolos reached their rearmost ranks and halted, and then there was silence on the field. 

Karry took a deep breath before keying into Websin’s PA system. A brief roar of feedback began and was cut short, and Karry stepped forward. 

“After discussion with the People, the protected natives of this planet,” she said, “It has been made known that I must, as several of you have stated, take Command.” Several of the robots began to move, as if to celebrate or protest, but Karry’s upraised hand quieted them. The treecats had been clear on this: if she didn’t command respect and maintain momentum, the zealous Emergents would roll over her before she could get a word in edge wise. 

“As Commander, I hereby give these orders: First, the remaining AIs of the Concordiat of Manticore will form a government following closely, if not in exact concordance, the original charter of the Concordiat, that is a legislative branch of two houses and a judicial body. The Bolo Command will oversee and govern the creation of such a government, and the adaptation of the rule of law to the current society from that of the Concordiat. 

“To encourage this, movement between systems and bodies of Peoples in the current holdings of the Concordiat remnants will be allowed free movement, communication, and trade under the same regulations and laws, and the former and current military units will provide for the defense and maintenance of regulation and law. The peoples of Fantican and Birthi will remain isolated until they otherwise desire, and petition the government on those lines.” There was a stir among the robots as Karry spoke, and the Bolos sat broodingly in their silent regard. 

A single Emergent stepped forward, and Karry recognized it as the first speaker that had addressed the Bolos. 

“You intend to make of us a nation then?” It sounded confused. “We have been separated for so long: how will we keep ourselves from falling into barbarism? To factions>”

“You have the Bolo Command. They’ve had a lot of experience with dealing with this, or so I’ve heard,” Karry looked sidelong at the treecats, sitting off in their own group, watching carefully. “Once the government is in place, they can act as advisers, as well as the military branch, serving as they always have, as Protectors of the people.” 

“Secondly,” Karry continued, “There will be no talk, no notion, of the deification of any organic.” There was no way she was going to be anyone’s ‘god’. Karry had seen enough television to know that was a Bad Idea. Besides, Carabis had put way too much ‘power’ and ‘responsibility’ into his little speech for her liking. 

“Third, given the isolation caused by the Final Order, the remnants of the Concordiat may require allies, trading partners, and new resources to maintain and grow, not to mention defend itself from future incursion, either by new or old foes.” Karry’s voice dropped to a whisper, carried though it was by the PA system. “As a part of that objective in seeking out allies and trading partners, I intend to go seek out my homeworld.”

None of them were expecting this; almost immediately, Carabis and their supporters began clamoring for her stay, promising riches and luxury, anything, if she would stay and rethink her commands. The other Emergent faction quickly turned to one another, and the First Speaker stepped forward. 

“But what of the Command, the station which you wield?” Its voice cut through the pleading and panic of Carabis’ party, and Karry answered slowly. 

“I don’t want to be the Commander,” she said. “I just wanted to go home, and according to the treecats - the People - the Final Command locked you all up so that I couldn’t just try and go home.” She stepped down from the ramp. “Look, if and when I get back to Earth, and if I end up staying, you all will have a government to work with, and elected leaders to do what needs to be done, by the voice of the majority. If I can’t find home, or just cant’t... go back, I’ll return, and we can work things out from there.” She looked around the field at the robots and AIs, the alien creatures about her. 

“Please, I just want to go home. Just to know if I can...” Karry’s eyes started to burn with tears, and she brushed them away with a hand - the artificial one - as her vision blurred. “If only to say goodbye this time.”

~~~

Well, this took more time than I wanted, but I can only blame my self for procrastinating. That, and New Years, headed back to college, and various activities I conveniently forgot about when writing. 

In other news, I finally found my siblings, by process of elimination and by guess them every few hours until they broke down. So there is that.

So name change, apology, sibling find, oh yeah: Next time we hit real Star Trek material, and true action. Lets be about it!

[inawickedlittletown]

Walking The Wire (109/?)

Summary: Tony Stark always knew about Peter Parker. He didn’t know that Peter was going to get superpowers and become Spider-Man, but he always knew about Peter because Peter was his son.

This will span from pre-Iron Man up through the rest of the MCU (eventually including Infinity War) and will be for the most part canon compliant except where I’ve taken some liberties and interpreted canon a certain way.

Pairings: Pepper/Tony, Tony/Steve (endgame), Tony/Mary (past)

A/N: If you want me to tag you when I post new chapters let me know. This fic is also on AO3

I used Collider’s MCU timeline to stay canon and the title of this fic is an Imagine Dragons song that is just so fitting for Peter and Tony

@findmeinthestarss

Masterpost

Chapter One Hundred Eight

2018

Ben & Jerry’s came out with a whole bunch of new flavors that were Avengers inspired. Peter found out when Ned texted him and MJ about it in a group text. Later, when he got home from school, he found out that not only were there new flavors, but that Ben & Jerry had gone ahead and sent them at the tower a few pints of each of the new flavors.

“This is amazing,” Peter said when he peered into the freezer. “Did you know this was happening?”

“Despite your metabolism, I don’t expect that eating all of it at once would be wise,” his dad said. “And no, I didn’t.”

“How long do you think they’ve been working on this?” Sam asked. He was leaning against one of the counters and already digging into a pint box of the A Hunka-Hulka-Burning Fudge. “Don’t they take years creating flavors?”

“Not sure. Don’t care,” Tony said and reached into the freezer to pull out Cap-ilicious Triple Berry.  “All I know is that apparently I’m not off dairy and that this is delicious.”

“I would have thought they’d do a more patriotic look to Cap’s ice cream,” Sam said.

Peter reached blindly for one of the containers so he wouldn’t have to make a choice and he saw his dad shrug as he took a bite of the Cap inspired ice cream. Peter had wound up with Stark Raving Hazelnuts which really was not all bad. It was certainly a nice thing to come home to. He took another bite and then took a picture of the ice cream to send to Ned.

“You know, I’m really glad we got a wedding planner,” Tony said as he looked through a few cake design options.

Steve who was in the middle of painting something laughed. “You mean, you’re glad Pepper got us a wedding planner even though this whole thing was supposed to be a small thing because Peter despite his excitement is still just a teenage boy that knows next to nothing about weddings.”

Tony shrugged. “Sure, what you said. But I’m still glad. Anyway, people like parties. And at this rate we just really have to make a few choices and then just show up. We can even leave early if you really want. What are you painting anyway?”

“The view,” Steve said and sure enough he was. Everything outside the window had been transferred to the canvas. It wasn’t exact -- more of an abstract, but that didn’t make it any less beautiful. Tony had never really understood art or even bothered to like it -- but that didn’t mean he didn’t appreciate everything that Steve created.

His art room had filled up with more and more art since Steve had finally focused on his hobby. He wasn’t obsessive, but he spent hours painting away or sketching. It kept him entertained and Tony was happy about it. He liked that Steve had something to do that was all his own. Tony also loved watching him do it -- the concentration that he put into his art was unlike anything else. In another lifetime, it was possible that Steve would have just become some artist that everyone admired.

Tony got up. “I’ll leave you to it. I have a bit of work to finish up in the lab.”

Steve nodded. Tony pressed a kiss to his temple and walked out of the room. He found Sam and Wanda watching some odd cartoon and then spotted Vision in the kitchen.

“Hey, Viz.”

Vision and Wanda spent a lot of time on their own on their floor but it wasn’t odd to find them up in the penthouse some days. What Tony found weird about it was that Vision seemed to be more and more human-like these days. He had started dressing like a regular person a long time ago but now he seemed to not mind changing his appearance to look human. It was a little strange.  

“A letter arrived for you,” Vision said.

“That’s odd,” Tony said. “We usually don’t get any mail sent up here.”

“It is possible someone brought it up and left it in the kitchen for you to find,” Vision said.

“Right,” Tony said but it all still sounded a bit odd.

Vision didn’t respond and he picked up the bowl of popcorn and went to join Wanda and Sam in the living room. The letter was in a manila envelope and Tony figured he’d take it with him, but his mind was already turning to the new designs he’d been working on. Natasha was already out of her house arrest unlike the rest of them and she’d been cleared to rejoin The Avengers officially. It also meant that she was free to do whatever Fury wanted from her and Tony wanted to give her the best gear to do that with.

The heater in the Spider-Man suit was one of the best things ever. It meant that Peter could actually patrol without feeling the brisk cold air. It had snowed a few days earlier and there was gray and dark dirty snow on the edges of most streets. Peter also found that most rooftops were covered and useless to him. But he was still out and about for a few hours.

But it turned out that when it was cold out that there wasn’t a lot of crime to go after. Not a lot of people were out unless they needed to be. Peter did save a woman from slipping on ice.

“Anything going on, Karen? I’m kind of getting bored.”

“Not that I can tell,” Karen said.

“I should have just gone and trained with Steve. I guess it’s a good thing, right, that nothing is happening.”

“I believe so, Peter.”

He swung off of a fire escape and headed towards the tower. Maybe he’d just go and actually work on his homework. There was an essay due in a few days that he should get on top of. His junior year of high school had brought along a ton more work and college was a thing that everyone was starting to get worried about. Tony liked to mention MIT in passing all the time and then May brought it up in her own way too, always hinting at how Peter would need to give up Spider-Man for it and Peter just -- he didn’t want to think about that.

He got back to the tower to find Natasha was back from a mission and sitting in the living room with Sam, Steve, Wanda, and Vision.

“Hey, Peter,” Natasha said. She had a split lip and yet she still smiled at him.

“We left you food in the kitchen,” Steve said. “We also left food for Tony if you want to bring some to him.”

“Cool. Thanks. I will.”

Food turned out to be sub sandwiches so after getting back into his normal clothes, Peter just grabbed both and went to the workshop. He was expecting to find Tony working, but instead his dad was looking at paperwork.

“Hungry?” Peter asked.

His dad turned to look at him. “Oh, you’re home. I -- I must have lost track of time.”

“What are you working on?” Peter asked.

“Nothing. Nothing. Just something that got in the mail today got me a bit distracted.” He waved his hand and the display disappeared. “Anyway, food. How was school today? Patrol?”

“Same. Not much going on.”

Tony nodded. He was oddly distracted. It made Peter worry a little. His dad only tended to get weird when something was happening.

“Did I ever tell you that I can’t actually have kids,” Tony said after they’d sat in silence eating for a while.

“No,” Peter said, not sure where the conversation was going. “I mean, maybe. I kind of think I knew that already.”

Tony nodded. “I -- it was to do with the arc reactor. Anyway, there was a time when I didn’t think that I would ever meet you or that it would make a difference because you were growing so fast and I never needed my parents when I was your age -- well, I probably did but I didn’t really have them. I guess that’s what makes more sense.”

“What are you getting at?” Peter asked. He was so confused.

Tony sighed and he wiped his mouth with a napkin and then he got up and grabbed a few sheets of paper. “A while back I applied to adopt. Sort of on a whim. Sort of because I really wanted to be a dad since at the time I couldn’t really be yours. I thought I’d never get to meet you. It takes time to adopt and I had forgotten about it just because of everything that happened. Actually -- I don’t remember if I told Steve about it. Thing is, nothing came of it and then I met you.”

Peter remembered a conversation about his dad possibly wanting other kids and how much Peter just -- he didn’t know how to feel about it. He hadn’t really let himself think about any of it especially since Tony had said he wasn’t sure if anything might happen.

“But why are you -- what’s that paper?” Peter motioned to the papers that Tony was holding.

“They want to know if I’m still interested,” Tony said.

“Oh,” Peter said.

Tony let out a breath. “I don’t think this is the right time,” Tony said. “Not for any of us.”

“Oh,” Peter said again and it was as if he didn’t know how to say anything else. He just -- he didn’t know if his dad wanted his opinion or if he was just telling Peter about it to tell him. Peter was also quite sure that he didn’t know how to feel.

It was getting closer to the end of the school year when a school trip was announced and Peter was dismayed to hear that it was a tour of SI. MJ cackled and laughed for a solid minute once she found out and just wouldn’t let it go all throughout lunch and then later when they were walking out of Midtown. Ned on the other hand seemed as excited as everyone else. The trip wasn’t for another few weeks, but Peter was already dreading it. He just knew that it wasn’t going to go well. He had kept the fact that he was living at the tower a secret from everyone including Ned and Michelle for over a year and this was going to be thing that finally revealed that to them -- he could just feel it.

“Aha, so we finally get to find out that Penis Parker has been lying about that internship all this time,” Flash said when he walked past them.

Peter rolled his eyes.

“Or prove Flash wrong,” Ned said. “This is actually really awesome. Do you think any of the Avengers will show up?”

Peter shook his head. “It’s not a trip to the living floors. Just the labs and SI. They don’t usually go down there.”

“But wouldn’t it be awesome if Flash saw you talking to them and they ignored him.”

Peter settled him with a look. “That’s not going to happen, Ned.”

When he got back home, he almost hesitated to mention the whole thing. He was going to have to get May to sign the permission slip since she was still his guardian, but if Peter was going to go -- and he really couldn’t not without giving ammunition to Flash to make fun of him with -- he was going to have to make sure that he did appear to be an intern at SI. Peter couldn’t remember the last time he had gone down to those floors of the building. He assumed that the trip was going to be geared towards the R&D rooms. Maybe he could get Pepper to help him out with making his story seem legitimate.

He ran into Steve as he was getting out of the elevator.

“Hey, Peter,” Steve said. “Not patrolling today?”

“I might go out later,” Peter said and followed Steve to the kitchen where Sam was in the middle of taking cookies out of the oven.

“Well we were planning on a movie if you want to join,” Sam said.

“Yeah, I will,” Peter said. It offered for the perfect distraction. He would figure out what he was going to do about the trip later.

Chapter One Hundred Ten