#there are ways to measure a warp without a board but i hate them

[handweavers]

had to get a new warping board for my loom bc mine broke several months ago and i haven't had the energy or will to fix it (it's a handmade wooden one my late stepdad made for me, so i WILL fix it i have to fix it for sentimental reasons but i just can't right now) so after putting it off for ages i finally bit the bullet and ordered a new one. i hate how expensive this equipment is it's literally just 4 pieces of wood with dowels wym it's $160 kms. whatever i can finally weave again

[myhockeyworld87]

Bubble Wrapped - Part 1

Word Count: 2,683

POV: Reader

Warnings: Language

Notes: Ok so here is basically our introduction to the Bubble Wrapped story. I have no timeline for this thing or even if it will continue, you guys let me know. As a background, this story will be about life inside Hotel X. In case you don’t know the teams inside Hotel X are the Bruins, Capitals, Flyers, Penguins and Lightning. So here we go, Happy Reading!

You'd been shocked when Hotel X had been picked as one of the hotels for the NHL to stay at when they resumed play in Toronto. Even more so when you were asked if you would take over the management of the place over the next several weeks. "Listen (Y/N) we know we are asking a lot. You'll have to live at the hotel with all the players as the NHL is really trying to keep everyone in this little bubble."

 "I understand. I've already talked to Carly about putting different measures in place when the Maple Leafs came to us before submitting their proposal." Carly was another member of the hotel staff, that served as one of their concierges. She knew the ins and outs of the city and could get tickets or dinner reservations on the drop of a dime. That was all before COVID though. Now, some restaurants were still closed and shows hadn't resumed yet. What once was a bustling city, had come to a dead stop over the last several months, though things were starting to get back to normal; well the new normal that is.

 "So we heard." You hoped the blush that crept up your cheeks couldn't be seen on the zoom call as that had become their new form of communication with you. "You've dealt with the players before, we know you can handle it. Though this time it'll be completely different with five or six teams staying there." Most of the players had always been super nice to the staff, though there were a few that could be demanding at times. You prayed they'd all push their egos aside, at least while in the hotel, though somehow you doubted that. "I think you're familiar with the NHL's protocol on their reopening, but we'll email you everything once we get it. Start putting together the staff that you want. Just some core people that you'll need."

 "I've got the right people in mind, don't worry."

 The call went for a bit longer going over specifics. The only benefit out of the whole thing was that they were giving you the Presidential Suite to stay in. Honestly, it was the least they could do; you thought. Of course, the called ending with them saying, "Don't let us down."

 As soon as it ended you called Carly making sure she was on board. "I'm just saying Car that many hockey players in the hotel; the testosterone is going to be flying around."

 "So what you're telling me is you've already packed an extra-large box of condoms."

 "Carly!" You shouted at your friend. "That's not what I was saying at all."

 "Come on (Y/N), I know you're one of Seguin's regulars when he's in Toronto."

 "I'm one of them because I can keep my mouth shut." It was true that when Tyler was in town during the summer or on a road trip the two of you always hooked up. Sort of a no strings attached relationship, though you did talk from time to time. "Besides he's not even going to be in Toronto. He's in the Edmonton bubble."

 "Oh, I didn't realize." Carly despite being from Canada was not a hockey lover, though she did appreciate the men who played the sport. "Well, maybe you should call him and get the scoop. You know find out who we need to be aware of."

 It wasn't a bad idea, not that you were going to ask him who to sleep with, but maybe it would help get a handle on who was going to be problematic, as there was no way you wanted to let the owners of the hotel down. You had a lot riding on this and after all, you couldn't put bitter rivals in one hotel and not expect some drama. "You're right. I am going to call him."

 "Ooo good, let me know what he says and if we should get more than one box of those condoms."

 You shook your head at your friend before hanging up and dialing Tyler's number. "Hey beautiful, long time no talk," Tyler said and you could almost hear the smile in his voice.

 "Hey Ty, how's quarantine life going?"

 "Ugh, don't get me started. I was not meant to be locked in my house without hockey for this long." Tyler wasn't meant to stay put anywhere too long, including relationships.

 "Well, hockey's almost back so there's that."

 "Yeah, I'm pumped about it, though I wish I was staying in Toronto instead. I know some fun that we could get up to since I have to stay in the bubble." He paused and you could clearly tell he was running different sex scenarios in his head. "I'm assuming your working at the hotel."

 "Yeah, it's kind of why I called. I'm one of the ones trapped in the bubble with you guys."

 Tyler groaned. "So, you called to ask me who you should hook up with? Cause babe, I'm not sure I'm willing to share you like that."

 "Shut up Ty, you know we're not like that. You couldn't stay faithful to one woman if you tried." Part of the reason the two of you got along so good, was the fact that you called him out on his bullshit.

 "I might if I could drag you with me everywhere." You giggled at the insinuation of being taken everywhere just so you could keep him satisfied. "You're definitely gifted with many talents (Y/N)."

 "You're not so bad yourself, but we're getting away from why I called."

 "You mean you didn't call to have phone sex with me," and you could hear his pout.

 "No, I didn't call for that. I was just curious if you had any idea who was going to give me problems while we're in this so-called bubble. I'm trying to be preemptive here."

 "Ok, but if I give you some information you at least have to promise to send me a pic of your tits." You mentally rolled your eyes at him; the boy was a horndog.

 "Fine, now spill some tea."

 "Spill some tea, what is this a gossip blog or something."

 "You're avoiding the question Ty, and I'm putting on a sweatshirt." He groaned.

 "Alright, don't get your panties in a bunch…or maybe do." It never ended with him. "I don't know a lot about some of the younger guys that are newer in the league, but my guess is they're all horny little bastards. Hell, I was when I first got in the league."

 "You still are."

 "Touché." He answered before continuing on. "So, like I probably don't have to mention the rivalries to you, but like Caps and Pens hate each other, the Flyers and Pens hate each other. Doesn't everyone just hate the Pens?"

 "I think you either love them or hate them."

 "That's true," he agreed with your statement. "The Flyers and the Caps hate each other as well and don't get me started with who hates the Bruins. Wow, who really put them all in your hotel?"

 "I'd like to know that as well." It seemed like whoever did, had a warped sense of humor and you were now going to be stuck handling the mess that they'd made. "So, basically what you're saying is that it'll be an all-out brawl at times that I'll have to clean up after."

 "Sorry babe, but I think it could be. On the bright side, we're supposed to stay on our own floors."

 "Like that's going to happen." Maybe you should designate elevators or something because you could just see Alex Ovechkin and Claude Giroux getting in one at the same time and by the time, they got to your lobby they'd both be bloody and beaten. "Anything else I should know?"

 "You seriously want me to go there?"

 "I mean...if you want to." You certainly weren't going to ask but if he offered the information you'd tuck it away for later that's for sure.

 He sighed heavily, "You know I hate this, but like Tom Wilson gets around that's for sure and I've heard that Travis Konecny does as well. If I'm being honest there's maybe been a girl or two that's compared us."

 "Really?"

 "That doesn't mean you have to be one of them, though if you are…you better tell them I'm better."

 "Don't worry Ty, I'll sing your praises. I promise." Obviously, you wouldn't be doing that but it didn't hurt to stroke his ego a bit. "Anyone, to avoid?"

 "Marchy!"

 "Dude, he was like one of your best friends. Why would you say that?"

 "Because I know him. Stay away he's trouble." The fact that you could almost see the look on his face as he was telling you was comical.

 "Fine."

 "Oh and stay away from Carter Hart." The name sounded familiar.

 "The goalie from Philly? Why?"

 "Because you'll corrupt him." You burst out laughing and Ty joined you. "He's too innocent for you."

 "Dually noted, as I do not want to be known as the corruptor of innocents." You searched your mind thinking of anything else you could ask since you had him on the phone. "What about Crosby?"

 "Sid?" and he just couldn't stop laughing; you could even hear him try to catch his breath.

 "Why is that so funny? The man is hot Tyler, whether you want to admit it or not."

 He got serious as he asked, "Who's hotter him or me?"

 Thank god you weren't on FaceTime, so you could answer him without your features giving you away. "You are Ty, of course."

 "I thought so, but like the guy is hockey twenty-four seven. There's no way he's going to be thinking about getting laid."

 "That's disappointing."

 "He's about the only one that I'd give you permission to fuck, only because I know it would be impossible for you to accomplish, even given all your talents." You could hear the mischievous tone in his voice.

 "Hmmm, are you willing to bet on that?"

 "What? Like bet, you'll fuck Crosby in the bubble?"

 "Yeah." Did it really sound like such an unattainable accomplishment?

 "What's the wager?"

 "Winner flies out when this whole COVID shit is done and is the other's sex slave for twenty-four hours."

 "Oh, you are on, baby. I can already see you handcuffed to my bed in some skimpy lingerie." He cackled at the thought and it fueled your resolve to win this bet.

 "Don't be so sure about that."

 "And how am I to know that you actually slept with him?"

 Well, this would be tricky. "Well, it's not like I'm videoing it."

 "No, but that gives me ideas for when I win." Maybe you should be rethinking this gamble.

 "What do you want his underwear?"

 "Nah, you could get that in the laundry. But I'm sure you could sneak a pic of him sleeping." God that sounded creepy but if it meant you had Ty as your slave for a day, it'd be worth it and you'd never show it to anyone else but him and even then you weren't going to send it to him, though he didn't need to know that now.

 "Ok, it's a bet then."

 "Too bad we can't kiss on it."

 "Oh, you'll be doing more than kissing when I win, Seguin." Mentally you started packing sexy outfits to take into the bubble with you while thinking of all the things you'd have Tyler do the next time you saw him. "On that note, I better get my ass to work and make this hotel ready for these guys."

 "Fine, I'll let you go as long as you promise to FaceTime me at some point during this bubble thing."

 "I'm sure I'll have a night open for you at some point." You teased.

 "Woman, you better."

 "No worries Ty, you're still my main man; when you're in town."

 "That's right baby, good luck."

 "Thanks for all the info, Ty. We'll catch up soon and good luck in the playoffs."

 You were just about to hang up when you heard him yell. "Don't forget my titty picture."

 All you could do was shake your head and click end call, though you being a woman of your word, you snapped a quick pic and sent it off to him; to which he responded with a drool face emoji.

 The next couple of weeks were a literal whirlwind as you moved into the hotel's presidential suite and got things ready. Beds were moved out so that some rooms that had two queens now had one king in them. The hotel was disinfected from top to bottom. If felt like you were wearing a hazmat suit all the time during this process. A week before the players arrived the NHL staff did, making sure everything was in order and making sure you had things set up for daily COVID testing. Of course, you had everything well in hand and organized per their instructions, though with a few tweaks that made the process more efficient. Overall, they seemed impressed with everything that you had done.

 All that preparation lead up to the big day, July 26th, when the teams moved in. The league had them spread out so that no two teams were checking in at that same time. Tampa Bay was the first in as they traveled the furthest. "You look nervous. Why are you nervous?" Carly's voice came up from behind you as you saw the bus pulling in through the gates.

 "There's a lot riding on this Car, and if anything goes wrong; you know it's going to be my head that rolls."

 "You're going to do great; this whole thing is going to be smooth like a bubble." She started to giggle. "See what I did there…bubble." You rolled your eyes at your friend but did let out a little snort of laughter at her pun. "Well, here they come."

 You straightened your jacket and smoothed down your skirt, before throwing your mask up to go meet your first arrivals. "Gentlemen, welcome to Hotel X." You tried to speak a little louder than normal hoping the mask didn't muffle your words. "We're excited to have you all here. I'm (Y/N) manager here during your stay, anything you need, feel free to call me any time of day." More of the guys filtered in while you spoke to Coach Cooper and a few of the players.

 "Anytime huh?" you heard someone mumble in the background and a couple of the guys snickered. It was hard not to roll your eyes as you knew they were focusing on them with your face partially covered. Someone else said, "She can manage me anytime." That was until someone cleared their throat, effectively silencing them.

 "Now if you'll follow me, let's get you all checked in." Tables lined with a welcome packet and lanyard with their ID on it, were off to the side and you were able to shuffle them through with pretty good speed, then sent them off to their rooms before they had to head to testing. Your information was inside every packet, in case you were needed at any point during their stay. It seemed like you no sooner got them in and the area disinfected then the next team, the Capitals, were pulling in, and so the day went on until all five teams were safely ensconced in the hotel. Thankfully you made it through that process without any problems, even though the Bruins flight was late and the Flyers were pulling in right as you got the last players through.

 It wasn't until dinner, that you encountered your first dilemma, getting a text message from Alexis, who was coordinating the meals. It was a simple message, Get to conference room 3. NOW! As fast as your heels could take you, you headed down to where the Capitals were supposed to be having dinner if you remembered the schedule correctly. You never expected to see what you did though when you entered.

[komahinasecretexchange]

Title: Feelings To Write About

Author: @magioftheseas

For: @spaghetti4u

Pairings/Characters: KomaHina + mentioned KamuKoma

Rating/Warnings: G

Prompt: “Hinata or someone else trying to encourage Komaeda into doing something funny to spend the time (going to the beach, playing some game or anything really!)” + “Sharing a bed”

Author’s notes: It’s a pretty lowkey fic, and I ended up having them talk about the WoH because I have fluffy feelings when it comes to them. Cakeland is obviously based off Candyland which I have a lot of nostalgia for. I hope it’s cutesy enough for you!

The weather on Jabberwock wasn’t the perfect, eternal sunshine it had been in the simulation. There were storms and quite harsh ones at that. Hence why when him and Komaeda got caught up in one, he brought Komaeda with him to the hotel for studier shelter rather than just relying on one of their cottages. It was one of those weeks where the others were out trying to fix other parts of the world or meeting with the other sections of the Future Foundation, so the hotel was as vast as it was vacant. Hinata doesn’t try to think about how this scenario is like a million haunted movies and games—he especially doesn’t want to think about games—and instead, he focuses on drying Komaeda’s hair off with several towels.

Komaeda is docile when being fussed over, but he’s still shaking like a leaf. Hinata wraps him in some blankets for good measure, trying to keep a straight face when Komaeda sneezes.

“If we get enough blankets and pillows, this won’t be too bad a place to sleep for the night,” he says, tearing open a tissue packet pulled from Komaeda’s pocket for the other to blow his nose on. Hinata does flash him a smile, playing idly with the wet but still springy curls on his boyfriend’s head. “Do you need anything else to make yourself comfortable?”

“Mm.” A noncommittal hum and a meek shrug. Komaeda’s been in a low mood all day and the storm hadn’t seemed to help measures. Hinata tries to retain a reassuring smile as he tucks silvery strands behind the other’s ear. “It doesn’t really matter.”

I wouldn’t ask if that were true. Hinata bites his tongue. You know I would’ve just decided what to do without you. You probably wouldn’t even care in this state.

“There might be board games,” he found himself saying. “How about we play something to pass the time? You like Go, right?”

Komaeda shrugs again, as if he didn’t carry around go jars all throughout high school and even had them stored in his cottage at that exact moment. Hinata can only sigh and go along with Komaeda’s unstated hesitance.

“Maybe something new,” he said as we went to the closet where the board games were stored. “Variety is the spice of life.”

Komaeda sneezes behind him and makes no further comments. Fine. That’s fine. Hinata should just focus on deciding—or just grab the first thing that catches his eye and settle with that. Which is what he does. Either the dormant Kamukura Izuru’s kicking him in the mental balls right now or Komaeda’s momentary apathy is contagious.

He could figure out which if he thought about it. He elects not to think as to conserve energy. This is how he lives his life now.

Although the board game he grabbed is—not really to his or to Komaeda’s tastes. He still commits and takes it with him before setting it in front of Komaeda. Komaeda does look at the cover, his mouth twitching.

“Cakeland,” Hinata read aloud. “For ages 4 and up. If I didn’t know any better I’d say this is Usami’s doing.”

“Oh, I’ve seen it before,” Komaeda said, soft and low. “Utsugi-san was fond of it. She always forced me to be Donatsuo. She hated that character most.”

Even without a genius brain, Hinata can tell who that is. The donuts-themed boy with short choppy hair and absurdly large, caramel-colored eyes.

“This was Utsugi-san’s character of choice,” Komaeda recalled, tapping his finger against a happy girl in pink. “Ichigo-hime.”

“So,” Hinata said, trying to keep his tone neutral. “Was this game any good?”

“It’s not very complicated because it’s for kids, ages four and up,” was Komaeda’s dull response.

“We’re not kids but we’re older than four, so we should be fine.”

With all that said, it looked like they were playing Cakeland. Hinata sets up the board—which is even kitschier in design than the box and he picks the character that looked the most normal-ish save for a strange hairstyle—identified by Komaeda as the Baron Maron. Komaeda does look between them and muffle a small snort, and Hinata doesn’t care to ask.

Komaeda picks Donatsuo, although he very lovingly places other pieces aside. Ichigo-hime and a few others who mysteriously had similar color schemes to those troubled kids he babysat all that time ago. As Servant. In Towa. After Enoshima Junko died but they were still all in despair.

That he can even have fond memories at all—

Hinata feels his throat burn with questions, but swallows back and just rolls the dice.

“We’re just both going to get six,” Komaeda said. “What to do?”

Hinata doesn’t say that he could probably get any roll he so wanted, so he just grumbles.

“I’ll go first because it’s in my name. Sound enough logic?”

Komaeda giggled warmly. It strikes a soft chord within him, and his heart may or may not do a flip in appreciation of such a sound.

“Whatever,” Hinata says, drawing a card. “What’s important are these, anyway. Wow, I drew you.” He does flash the card, showcasing Donatsuo with a dorky grin and dual peace signs. “Guess that means I go to your character space. It’s the first one on the map though so it’s not that far ahead.”

“It’s good luck to get that at the beginning of the game but bad luck to get that at the end,” Komaeda said, drawing his own card. He just gets a plain color so he only moves ahead four spaces. “Since your luck is better than mine, I wonder if this is even a fair game…”

“Your luck is still formidable,” Hinata pointed out as he drew. It was green. That was five spaces. “I’d say it breaks to about even.”

“Oh, no,” Komaeda breathed, shaking his head. “No, that’s wrong. Comparing my luck to yours is like comparing a gnat to a swan because both can fly.”

“It’s not…” Hinata sputtered a bit, unsure of what the hell to make of that. “What does that even mean? Komaeda, your—your luck’s on a whole other level. You should know that more than anyone.”

Komaeda just draws. He still hasn’t selected a special card. Hinata ends up drawing the next one, a strange angelic figure named Enjunji, who he just didn’t get good vibes from.

“Kemuri-kun’s favorite,” Komaeda said quietly and Hinata moved further ahead. It was the closest character space in reality, so it still wasn’t impressive.

I have a feeling I know how this is gonna go.

Still, they kept playing.

“You’re still like that, huh,” Hinata mused quietly. “You’re still—really harsh on yourself. That hasn’t changed, but I suppose other things have.”

“Other things?” Komaeda echoed before laughing. “Like what, per say?”

“You’re not as reckless as you used to be,” was the immediate answer. Another draw. Another several steps ahead. Komaeda’s piece was struggling to keep up. “You’re much calmer. You don’t talk about hope and talent all the time.”

“Because,” Komaeda said. “Hope’s Peak—the encapsulation of all of that—was in reality a breeding ground for despair. It was poisoned to the core and I was just too blind to notice.”

We all were, myself especially, Hinata thought, reaching up to touch his temple. He knew Komaeda noticed, but his eyes screwed shut so that he wouldn’t have to see whatever warp Komaeda’s face. I wasn’t just blind, I was so, so fucking stupid.

“You agreed to be with me,” he forced out so that he wouldn’t have to keep thinking about his own failures. “Your old self never would’ve let yourself have any real sense of happiness. At least not something you’d have to maintain, like a relationship.”

Komaeda chuckled. “You mean you would’ve let me reject you?”

“You did reject me,” Hinata reminded him dryly. “Several times. And then you demanded Tsumiki make sure I didn’t have brain damage.”

“Oh, did I?” Komaeda tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Well, I still find your attachment to me nonsensical, especially when I more or less stated I wanted nothing to do with you in the past. But—I suppose you knew that was a lie, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, you’re a liar.” Hinata cracked a smile. “At least when it comes to your feelings. You’re sincere most of the time.”

“The proper word is stupid,” Komaeda said, moving his piece a single space with a nudge from a metallic finger. “I’m stupid.”

“You’re not stupid. Don’t say that. You shouldn’t even think it.”

Hinata’s tone was as serious as it was grim. Komaeda’s self-effacing expression twitched, but he simply ducked his head reservedly.

“It’s in moments like this where you most resemble Kamukura-kun,” he murmured, fringe falling before his eyes and obscuring his gaze. “He’d speak up like this in the past despite being so quiet most of the time.”

Hinata felt a stirring in the back of his head. He held his breath until it went away and all that was left was the pounding in his ears. Even with that, he still knew.

“He cared about you.”

Kamukura doesn’t let him see into those memories often, although he still sometimes imagined it—maybe even dreamed it. Komaeda Nagito, eyes murky with despair and shoulders trembling under the weight of it, smiling up at him.

“He didn’t think to acknowledge it, much less accept it,” he went on, rubbing his digits into his scalp and catching skin flakes and rain droplets under his nails. “I was the same way in the simulation.”

“You both had strong reasoning to be that way, my inherent worthlessness none withstanding.” Komaeda laughed. “I wasn’t exactly in my best frame of mind at either time, although that’s not saying much.”

“Nor was I,” Hinata retorted. “I even denied part of my identity. I was—pathetic. You were right about that.”

Komaeda is quiet, lips twisting. His shoulders shake briefly under a certain kind of weight. Hinata draws his next card, and it’s another character, a studious blue one named Chouchoux.

“You were an ass about it,” he said. “Like, an absolute ass. But, hey, definitely not the worst thing about you at the time. By the way, this one was used for Shingetsu Nagisa, wasn’t it?”

Komaeda nodded, fiddling with his mechanical hand and making a loud series of whirly noises. He drew his card as well. Another plain one, with his piece moving only two spaces ahead.

Hinata draws and it’s a card of a boy in stripes and red, looking fierce and fiery. Torayaki—obviously the favored character of one Daimon Masaru.

“Do you miss them?” he found himself asking. “If so, we can contact Towa City and ask Naegi’s sister how they’re doing. They might even be curious about you.”

“I doubt it,” Komaeda laughed mirthlessly. “And it’s fine. As long as they’re doing well.”

“I don’t think they hated you,” Hinata said. “You took care of them after all.”

“I was a wretched despair.” Komaeda shook his head. “And they were perfectly self-sufficient. I doubt they even think of me anymore—and rightfully so. I only approached them in the first place out of curiosity, not because I saw children who needed protection and guidance.”

“They would’ve killed you if you had,” Hinata can’t help but remind him. “Probably would’ve found that sentiment insulting with all that they’ve been through. They were children and angry ones at that. I don’t blame them, of course…” He trails off. “I don’t think it’d be bad to send a letter now that things have calmed down a little.”

Not to mention—you lit up when talking about them. You’ve been listless lately, and I know. I get it. There’s no particular reason for it, that’s just how depression works sometimes. I still missed your smile, Nagito.

“Just a letter shouldn’t be too bad,” he insisted. “You’ve been practicing your calligraphy with that hand after all.”

The hand in question flexes. No joints pop, it’s just more whirls. Komaeda does smile, but it’s one that is curled up on his face, like a body trying to keep itself warm in the cold.

Hinata draws Ichigo-hime next. At this rate, Komaeda has no chance of winning. But the funny thing about a game like this was that luck of the draw could flip things so easily. There was one last character space, furthest ahead and closest to the end.

“Maybe,” Komaeda says and—as expected, he draws the card.

It’s a young woman dressed in green named Monaka-jou-sama.

Komaeda wins the games just a few turns later.

Outside, it was still storming.

“It’s pretty late, so let’s get ready for bed, Nagito.”

“Okay.”

Hinata goes to find futons while Komaeda puts away the board game. Hinata sets up a couple of makeshift beds and he presses them together. He does pause afterward, wondering if this was right. He heard Komaeda shuffling about, the whirling of his arm, and then, he felt Komaeda sliding the board game back onto the shelf. Thunder rumbles, the trees are being rustled by the wind, and Komaeda lets out a soft whew.

Hinata is still up until the moment he hears the padding of Komaeda’s soft footsteps, and he only truly relaxes when Komaeda’s slim arms encircle his waist, with Komaeda pressing his face into Hinata’s back. He pets Komaeda’s hair with a lop-sided smile, and Komaeda’s cheeks puff.

“You don’t just remember the simulation, right,” he murmured. “You have Kamukura-kun’s memories, too.”

“Technically,” Hinata replied. “Kamukura Izuru has to share them with me first. Sometimes he does. Sometimes he doesn’t.”

Komaeda huffed.

“It’s so complicated, keeping you two separate yet also together. Sometimes I wonder who I’m with.”

I wonder that, too. But what matters is…

“Regardless of who I am, I still love you.” He pats Komaeda’s head. “That much is and always will be clear.”

“Regardless of who you are, I love you, too,” is mumbled into his back.

It’s so soft a sound that Hinata wouldn’t have even heard him if not for the vibrations, but that’s fine. It’s not like he’s ignorant to Komaeda’s feelings. Not anymore.

He ushers Komaeda under the blankets, Komaeda still clinging to his wrist all the while. Chuckling softly, Hinata slips in after him and squeezes Komaeda’s hand. He rubs his thumb against the other’s pulse, only pausing because Komaeda grips him with the mechanical hand. His grip only tightens when Hinata kisses his forehead and then down his face.

“When the storm passes,�� Hinata says, nuzzling along Komaeda’s jawline and pressing another kiss to his cheek where ensuing the blush tinted it pink. “We should send out letters.”

Komaeda ducks his head, but he still accepts the affection that he’s showered with.

“We should also walk along the beach, maybe,” Hinata teases. “See what gets washed up. It might be treasure.”

“You’re a treasure,” Komaeda retorted, flustered. Shoving Hinata’s hands off and his face away, he buried his face into Hinata’s chest, hiding it from further embarrassment. “You’re the worst thing to have ever washed up on that beach.”

Hinata hummed, stroking his hair.

I didn’t technically wash up, but…

“And yet you stayed behind for me.” Hinata hides his smile in those wild white curls. “You’re still here right now.”

Komaeda grumbled but gave no further response. That was fine. Perfectly fine.

Stay with me, alright? Please keep staying with me. He decided against asking that for now for now. Opting instead for, “Sweet dreams, Nagito. I love you.”

[highsviolets]

like real people do, chapter one: obi-wan x handmaiden!reader

summary: in which you and obi-wan stumble into each other’s acquaintance through accidents of honor and pleasure

word count: 3k-ish

cw: brief, brief allusion to body dysmorphia in first paragraph after part one (a). 

A/N: WOW it’s finally here!!! my handmaiden x obi fic!! my first multi chapter!!  anon you are so patient. thank you for bearing with me as i developed this concept and finally got words onto paper. This lil chapter takes place at the beginning of AOTC and sets the scene for all sorts of shenanigans. pls be gentle folkx i am v nervous i hope you love these idiots honorable humans as much as i do. 

*if this is your gif pls lmk!* 

like real people do, a fic by corellians-only 

prologue

Glamor. Satin. Hapan wine and curtseys and a diplomatic accent polishing over your country roots and the knife strapped to your thigh and a propensity to linger in shadows. This is your life, as handmaiden to Senator Padmé Amidala. This is your duty.

Grime. Sweat. Clone armies and custom armour and a commission muddling the balance of peace and deep-rooted affection and unwavering devotion to the Jedi Order. This is Obi-wan’s life, as High General of the Republic. This is his duty.

You meet before the chaos erupts, though, before it spills over the senate security and the temple’s walls and starts incinerating the foundations of life itself.

You meet before the chaos erupts, but your acquaintance is tangled with its aching tendrils. You do not see each other, at first. So many things are in the way. But slowly, gently, acquaintance forms into friend forms into companion forms into lover over cups of tea and night watches and snatched moments of vulnerability in a world that is determined to wrest your soul from your body. Armor and silk and robes are stripped away; duties that once swathed you tightly become more gentle. When you are together it is just you and him, but when you are in the world you are handmaiden and he is general.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves: let us go back to the beginning, when the wholeness was yet separate. Let us go back to the beginning, and meet ourselves anew. Let us go back to the beginning, where everything divines its purpose.

part one (a)

Shimmersilk voile glistens as you turn in the mirror. The tender glow of artificial sun lamps is enraptured by the diaphanous weave, and its metallic threads gleam under such ministrations. It’s a dress that drips with regality. A sense of noblesse oblige seems to ooze from every swish of the cape flowing from your cap sleeves, and you sigh. The act is heavy, and the cape grumbles as your shoulders heave with the motion. Brilliant flickers of gold and silver mock you as you continue to shift from side to side, scrutinizing your body from each angle. Another sigh leaves escapes through your nose, but this one is softer, gentler, more like the gossamer that now encloses you — more like the woman you been trained to be. You will never be as petite or slight as the Senator, but that, you observe, wrangling to adjust one final hairpin into your headpiece, was never quite the point. Your job is to stand in for her ladyship: not to assume her person.

The offending hairpin proves obstinate. You surrender to the cause and submit yourself to an evening of faint wisps of curled hair framing your face. Wisps of hair are too spontaneous. You must be crisp, but it is not about what you want — not in these petty, mundane expressions of living.  

While you have been doing battle a figure has entered the room. It’s one of the Senator’s new Jedi protectors, if the robes are any indication. Without fanfare he approaches you and plucks the pin from your fingers, like he is intimately acquainted with such things and communes with them on a daily basis. Gentle fingers — though, the bruised knuckles tell you they are not immune to struggling against life’s grip — smooth the hair at the crown of your head before he slips the pin into its rightful place, nudging into the golden circlet now held secure. The sleeve of his robe caresses your cheek, obscuring your vision, and you feel with your , rather than see, all of this occur.

“All of this” happens without sound, without breathing almost, as though the two of you have entered a vacuum that warps both space and time and sound.

The man takes a step back and paints himself with an apologetic smile, clasping his hands together in the privacy of his robe and offering you a half-bow.

“I apologize for the liberty, your ladyship.” The Jedi’s voice is precise. “I do hope I wasn’t too forward.” He announces every syllable, acknowledges every idiosyncratic whimsy, each grammatical proclamation.

You meet his gaze in the mirror, and despite the shadows casting about, you can detect the openness, the earnestness of his gaze. He holds no tension in his face, or anywhere else in his body, for that matter. It has been a long while since you have seen someone so at peace. Perhaps, hidden under the cloak, his fingers are grasping at themselves, trying to be rid of the vestiges of forbidden touches.

A half-smile graces your painted lips and you incline your head. The movement cuts but a short arc in the air’s currents, just as you have been taught. “It is no matter.” You toy with the idea of letting him continue to believe you are Padmé, the thought careening through your mind like a model airspeeder run amok. You let the thought crash. It is above you to engage in such petty games, you decide. Padmé would not do it, and it is your job to act as she does. Besides, the Jedi would know, wouldn’t he? Can’t they read minds with the Force? That’s what fisherman in your village used to say when you would let your feet dangle off the docks and graze the surface of the water and watch the boats come in with the day’s catch.

So you turn, then, the cape twisting behind you, and address him face-to-face. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Master Jedi.” You gesture to your twinkling gown. “I am not the Senator.” You catch the tail end of his frown as you avert your gaze, fixating on some unseen object just out of sight. “I am but one of her ladyship’s handmaidens.” You hear the clipped tone of your voice, the way every word is measured like cups of flour, like the yards of fabric for this dress, and you think you hate it, but you cannot tell.

“Oh, I am sorry.” The apology is sincere and bookmarked with amusement, and he rocks back on his heels. It seems he is laughing at his own mistake. “I must however, inquire after the whereabouts of her ladyship. The council has requested that my padawan and I escort her to this evening’s function.” The Jedi’s hands drop to his sides and the robes that shield them follow.

“I’m afraid the Senator has already departed,” you say, making for the exit. The Jedi matches your stride. “She left with another Jedi some twenty standard minutes ago. I presume it was your padawan, Master Jedi?”

“Blast!” he murmurs, but you hear his swearing and duck your head to hide your grin. “I’m sorry,” he apologizes again, throwing a glance your way. “I’m afraid my padawan has a mind of his own.”

“I think the Senator and your padawan will get along famously, then,” you remark wryly. You have reached the landing pad and are about to bid him a good evening when he climbs into the shuttle and extends a hand to guide you.

“May I be of assistance?”

Skin meets skin for the second time that evening. At this rate you will be more acquainted with his body than your own, and as you sense his muscles grow taut when you shift your weight to board, an unfamiliar sensation embeds itself among the metallic threads. It feels like when you have to receive the Chancellor when Padmé is away on business, or when you act as decoy traveling to and from Theed, but more subtle, more inviting.

“Thank you, Master Jedi.” Skin breathes on skin for one, two heartbeats and then the contact withers and he drops your hand.

A silence nestles over the two of you as the pilot races you over to the function. It persists as he helps you exit the shuttle and delicately rearranges your cape, ensuring the shimmersilk is matches the beams of fractured stars.

Obi-wan does not know why he does this; he does not understand why he feels the nudging of the Force to offer his arm like he is a chivalrous courtier, but he obeys. It is his duty to obey the will of the Force, so he does.

part one (b)

The function teems with lifeforms, and each one spars for attention. They are wrapped in chiffon and decked in damask robes and fine crystals compete for light so they can shine that much brighter. It’s some gala ostensibly designed to raise credits for a struggling cause, and it is like all the rest. A pathetic excuse for most Senators to say they are dedicated to more than greed.

To you, it reeks of Coruscanti power; to him, it stinks of politics.

The Jedi Master spots the Senator and her Jedi protector before you do, and he steers you in their directly, swiftly sidestepping curious glances and intoxicated beings. You manage to snag a glass of something from a passing tray.

He bows again, deeply. His hair seems to blend in with the crowd — it is copper and gold and refined.

“My lady,” he intones, and his voice sparkles like the gem-encrusted champagne flute in Padmé’s hand.

“It’s lovely to see you again, Master Kenobi.” She looks up at the gangly teenager by her side. Rich chocolate and licorice colored robes complement the Senator’s wine-colored gown. It’s a striking image, despite the youth’s awkwardness, here in the blurry illumination of the cavernous room.  

Padmé breaks into a full smile as she spots you lingering at Kenobi’s side. “I see you’ve met my handmaiden.”

“I suppose I have,” he says, examining you anew, “although I’m afraid introductions got swept away in the excitement.”

You think he sounds as unaffected by “the excitement" as one could possibly be, and the duplicity gnaws on your gentility.

You sip while Padmé sweeps together strands of lore about your service, about your loyalty, about your selflessness. The beverage is sweet and sparkling, rather like your gown, and like your dress, it feels sticky and cloying and altogether fake for something that tries so hard to be real. But you smile and nod and once more his skin melts into yours as he shakes your hand.

“The honor,” he says in that voice colored with melody, “is all mine.” You look into his cerulean eyes and wish, dimly, in that part of your brain untouched by starlight, that he had said pleasure.

Padmé’s eyes flicker between you and him, but the moment has passed. She pulls you away, citing the need for diplomatic business and brushes aside her escorts with a firmness she seems to have possessed since birth.

The pair of you wander through the crowd. You are always one step behind, always letting her be the first person they see. She is wearing her favorite designer tonight, and you wonder, taking another sip as she holds court with Bail Organa, why she has commissioned such a work of art for tonight’s event.

Like yourself, the Senator has opted for airy materials matched with splendor. And yet, her garb lacks your ethereality: the deep burgundy smacks of something firmly rooted in rich soil even as you strain heavenward. Tulle and satin are artfully draped over her lithe form, and beaded crystals cover her from head to toe. An open back reveals creamy skin. More than one being in the hall has dragged their eyes over the Senator’s body, straining to glimpse more, more, more, in the dim light.

The Senator pays them no mind. When she concludes her business with Organa, she refreshes her glass, and yours, and tucks you in her side. You begin to walk. It is an aimless thing, but not purposeful — now is when you see who is here, and who is not, who is watching, who pretends to look away, and who slips out unnoticed.

“How did you meet Master Kenobi?” you ask.

“Oh, it was years ago.” Padmé drinks. “I was still Queen at the time.”

“And?” Back in those days, she had retained at least a dozen of Naboo’s finest young women. Now, it’s just you and few others.

“And that was when we met,” she announces. “He’s very famous, you know. So is his padawan, Anakin Skywalker. They’ve protected at least half the galaxy.”

Confusion contorts your features, carving rivers in your forehead. “I’ve never heard of them.”

Padmé laughs, but the expression is faint, almost undetectable. Senators do not typically jest with their bodyguards. “That’s because you think anyone who reports on the Jedi is a gossip-mongering snob and you refuse to read anything about them.” She squeezes your arm and drops her voice to a whisper. “Don’t know know they’re the ones who write all the good stuff?”

“All…the good stuff,” you echo, voice flat and uncomprehending.

Padmé simply rolls her eyes and resume her stride. “They’re in charge of my security now, with Captain Typho. I expect that you’ll be working closing with Master Kenobi. Please help him fulfill his mandate from the Council in anyway you can.”

The mere suggestion of working with that man twists your insides. It’s the same feeling from earlier, swirling and basing into unease. Work with a Jedi? A famous one? The ache anxiety you are used to. It is familiar and it is your unwelcome companion but you have made peace with each other. This — this is something new. This is a grinding jaw and a drawbridge heart and hot and cold dueling for dominance in your stomach and something so strangely akin to anger. You drink more champagne to mask the disconcerting sensation.

part one (c)

The Senator is being pulled away, now, to a group of prominent Senators to discuss the new child labor protection regulations. She does her job and you do yours, melting into the shadows, embracing them, keeping eyes on all those who gather near to your mistress.

Master Kenobi’s sudden appearance at your side does not surprise you, though perhaps it should.

“Are you quite sure you’re able to keep watch on her ladyship from this distance?” His words are no longer melodic. They come to your ears dry and flinty, the way rocks feel without the rain to abate their constancy.

“Quite.” You fail to elaborate because there is simply nothing more to say.

“Your disguise is quite effective. You must pass along my compliments to Captain Typho and the rest of the security team.” He tries again, but you refuse to be endeared. He is stubborn, just like you — he resists being broken down by your cool acidity.

“Thank you, Master Kenobi.” You finally meet his gaze. “I was worried it would be too intricate, but the Senator assured me I had selected the perfect piece. It’s just enough like her for people to not look twice.”

“You engineered this?” Master Kenobi’s body is static, but his face swells with vivacity. A minuscule gesture to the left, an arching eyebrow, a corner of his mouth quirks upwards, ascending to meet his eyes.

“It’s my job,” you return, but the pH of your tone has neutralized somewhat. You are uncomfortable, so you try to tease him. “Maybe one day I can show you how to use all the weapons I have under this gown, and you will believe I can do my job.”

You regret the tawdry joke immediately when he shifts and looks away. “I’m sorry I’ve offended you, my lady.” Master Kenobi analyzes you, then the Senator, and sighs heavily. “I see you have everything well in hand. I shall bid you good evening, then, my lady.” He bows and exits in a boiling mass of robes, his padawan not far behind. Anakin Skywalker lingers on the threshold, gazing into the crowd, eyes frantic, but his Master beckons and he follows obediently.

part one (d)

It is not until early morning, during that brief moment between night and dawn, that you are able to think clearly about the strange feeling gurgling in your chest.

You think of Master Kenobi and his sentimental hair and the caramel of his accent. You wonder about his hands grazing yours, how your fingers curled so naturally around his, the ghost of fingertips in your hair. You consider his attempts at gallantry, at his fealty to his duty, to Padmé embrace of his presence and her lavish praise.

And you ask yourself what would it have been like, if he were just a boy, and you were just a girl, and maybe if he had danced with you he could have respected you more, and maybe if you had been less defensive he would have been more contrite, and you laugh at yourself.

Silly girl, you think as sleep nibbles at your vision. Those are not our kind of dreams.

tbc.

[moviesrotbrains]

DANIEL ISN’T REAL... but I’m so very glad this film exists.

After dealing with increasing anxiety and fearing a grip on reality, a college freshman turns to his childhood imaginary friend for comfort and confidence boosting… only to realize that his much cooler and carefree pretend buddy has an unsettling violent darkness about him. Could Daniel possibly be something more than a figment of his imagination?

DANIEL ISN’T REAL is an utterly surreal fever dream, channeling the best in cosmic horror, body horror, and psychological horror while also taking a bold look at deeper issues. It comes from Elijah Wood’s SpectreVision imprint, the same company that gave us such gems as MANDY, A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT, and COLOR OUT OF SPACE...  and this one’s right up there with those modern classics. And you can watch it now on SHUDDER!

Full review and some seriously kickass poster art below:

Directed by Adam Egypt Mortimer (and based on Brian DeLeeuw’s book, In This Way I Was Saved), DANIEL ISN’T REAL is a wonderfully fantastical ride through fucked up subject matter. It tackles mental illness, trauma, dual nature, identity, male toxicity, and empathy… with a good amount of Lovecraftian madness and trippy, yet terrifically disgusting Cronenberg-esque visuals thrown in for good measure.

It’s an engaging story too, about a young man, Luke, overwhelmed with life as his mother’s mental health condition worsens. He’s dealing with that on top of everything else college kids go through, lack of confidence, anxiety, etc. There’s also a fear of his own sanity. He keeps hallucinating and blanking out. His therapist suggests that maybe he should try to tap into that creativity he had as a child, where he’d regularly play for hours on end with his imaginary friend, “Daniel”. Only things got very weird and unsettling the last time he played pretend with his fictional playmate.

Once Daniel re-enters his life, things start to change. Luke’s mother issues get better. Luke suddenly feels more confident in life. Luke is finally doing well with girls. Luke’s getting creative again with photography... and all of his problems seem to go away… Only Daniel seems to want more credit and recognition. And Daniel seems to be getting angrier. And that’s when things get really fucking messed up.

This film is wonderfully acted by a mix of up-and-comers and veterans of the scene. Luke is played by Miles Robbins (HALLOWEEN 2018) and gives that immediate likeable and kind, yet also meek, portrayal that perfectly conveys what kind of a person that Luke is. There’s a lot of range in emotion in this performance, from hurt and confused to confident, to something else entirely. I always get a kick at seeing an actor completely flip their performance and style midway and totally embody something else, and this film has that and more.

Contrasting that likability and meekness is Daniel (played by Patrick Schwarzenegger, SCREAM QUEENS), the titular imaginary friend who’s pure Freudian Id. He’s cool, slick, charismatic, and always knows the right thing that Luke should say, or do, to get ahead. He’s helpful… when he wants to be… but he also has a lot of darkness. A scary darkness that seems to stem from… something else. Patrick excels when he taps into this dark alias. He’s evil as fuck. There’s a sinister glee in his manner. Epitome of “Chaotic Evil”. He’s such a great asshole. He really kicks it into gear when the audience fully know what we’re dealing with… 

Yet even then, nothing is over explained. And that’s the beauty of this film. There is no expository dialogue or wasted scene. Everything is laid out there and the actors just bring it. This film lives in a world of it’s own and the audience is a passenger for the unholy ride. It’s a very slick flick full of world building and the kind of outstanding performances that really make everything shine.

Rounding out the supporting cast is Luke’s troubled mother (veteran Mary Stuart Masterson, who powerfully played a similar and memorable role in BENNY & JUNE), Sasha Lane (HELLBOY) as the love interest, artist, and really, the heart and soul of the film, and Hannah Marks (DIRK GENTLY) as the other girl faced with Luke’s dark side. again, all perfectly played and perfectly cast, giving a much needed balance in this heavy film.

And it’s a very heavy film. The story was a deeply personal one for Mortimer (as he explained to us in 2019, when he brought the film to the Montreal FANTASIA film fest). The director drew from his own experiences from his youth, when a friend was similarly dealing with mental health issues. Mortimer had to help him, because his friend was “falling off the rails”, with no one around really helping him out, “not friends or professionals”. He talked of his friend’s life being in ruins, and how it just “spiraled off into mania”. 

That experience deeply impacted Mortimer. It was from this that Mortimer wanted to make a film about empathy and compassion for people going through severe mental illness issues. While Luke’s troubles stem from something more, the parallels are still there to people in real life going through non-otherworldy issues. The overall sense of helplessness, and a desire to be understood and taken seriously, is still there, and still a universal theme. Especially right now.

This film also tackles a lot more than just matters of wellness. Mortimer also wanted the film to deal with the “increasing danger” young men are in these days. “The Dangers they face and the danger many are to themselves”. 

Mortimer talked about them, “Living in a world where men have been driven insane by society. A society where many men are both the product and the villain of it.” A lot of this is seen on film when Luke battles for control with Daniel. Daniel representing that alpha and that Id. Luke grasping for control and trying to be that voice of compassion and reason. It’s a wonderful character study that is only heightened by the horror elements that come into play.

And yes, it’s an absolute horror fan’s delight and it’s visually stunning to boot, mixing psychological & psychedelic horror together. It felt like I was watching HELLRAISER again for the first time, but if that film was shoved in a blender with FIGHT CLUB, JACOB’S LADDER, and copious amounts of mind altering drugs. But comparing it to anything else does no justice to the wholly original eye-gasmic feast set before us. I keep saying this, but it truly is an utterly wonderful surreal fever dream. It’s so very layered and out there. 

It’s refreshing to see new films like this come about with something to say and looking as great as it does. Yes, this film looks very different from most things that are currently out there, with it’s violet texture throughout, and otherworldly feel. Mortimer, who came from a music video background, wanted his second feature to have a distinct look to it, saying that the “violet hue throughout had a very futuristic and contemporary colour about it”. He wanted to create the feeling of a manic episode, and overwhelm the viewer with colours and density. 

And he totally does. It’s such a beautiful looking film, and one you’ll definitely go back to just to soak in the wonderful hypnotic visuals. Much like MANDY, from the year before, DANIEL is a cinematic treat for your eyeballs.

And there’s also some deeply messed up visuals that mix in with that beauty. The FX on a whole are amazingly bizarre. There are visuals that are so jaw-droppingly good that you’ll permanently have them etched in your brain. It’s the kind of film where you’re watching and you immediately want to rewind and see that scene again.

From faces being merged into each other in a pink tentacled mess of VIDEODROME-esque flesh, to other visages literally being mangled like putty! Pure body terror. People crawling into other people’s mouths– I could go on, but I don’t want to spoil it. It’s icky and wonderful all at once.

And I can’t go on about the FX without mentioning the nightmarish and hellish creature design by Martin Astles (who also worked on the brutal and classic nightmare fuel that is EVENT HORIZON). The creature FX are so fucking out there, each very distinct and very memorable. The kind of things that if you confronted them in real life you’d be quick to claw them out your own eyes. 

One beast looks like a hellish death beast with a fleshy castle for a head-- an absolute architectural artifice. Mortimer said they attempted to convey that a whole universe was in its face, and it existed outside space and time. Another Face looking like piercing bullets poking through the flesh and protruding from his cheeks, like a moment frozen in time. They’re all so freakishly creative and disturbing. I can’t even describe them right. I’m not sure I want to, but they’re seared into my mind. Body Horror and Cosmic Horror at their best.

In addition to the visuals, this film also brings it on the sound design and score front. It’s got an incredible score by Warp Records act Clark. It contains synthy goodness along with manipulations of actual orchestral pieces. And it was Clark’s first time working on a film score, something Mortimer preferred. 

He wanted someone that wasn’t used to working on horror films, or films in general, so they’d throw everything they had into it from the get go. Mortimer told Clark to make it sound like Bernard Herrmann got stuck in some horrible industrial accident. A relentless sonic assault that tries to capture that same feel that Clint Mansell did with REQUIEM FOR A DREAM. The results are a superb original work of music that completely enhances and already spectacular looking film.

I was a fan of Mortimer’s SOME KIND OF HATE when I caught it six years ago at FANTASIA FEST, but DANIEL is an entirely different beast and next level filmmaking. He’s easily grown as a filmmaker and I’m totally on board to see more. I can’t wait to see what he tackles next, because DANIEL was easily one of my top Fantasia picks for 2019.

DANIEL ISN’T REAL is one of those dark films that will most likely be seen as a cult classic in a few years, right up there with DONNIE DARKO and movies of a similar ilk. It’s full of so much imagination and gusto, all while tackling important issues and core themes. All that and it remains highly watchable and engaging. It’ll satisfy any horror junkie while also winning over fans of thought provoking art. Daniel isn’t real, but I’m glad it exists.

-Theo Radomski, Movies Rot Brains 

Seriously how fucking awesome are these posters?  Why can’t more horror films hire the people that made these posters? Why can’t film in general hire these people to make better promo art? 

This article was previously seen on Mobtreal.com

[royalreef]

Words: 1,629 Warnings (HEAVY): Body horror, gore, death, torture, general heavy horror content.

Here it is... The drabble that I promised I would write for New Years’, but then I had to send my computer off, and I didn’t get it back until after 2020 was already here, so... Yeah! Not quite as detailed or long as I would like, but I’ve had much less time to work on it.

So, here. A late gift, from me to you, on some tasty lore hints about Miranda, the Merkingdom, and what the fuck these fish have been up to in the ocean. Enjoy!

                                           -------------------------------

[CLASSIFIED – 0.3]

Translated from Modified Irides-Abyssal to English by Deluge-Tongue, Model Tlk’resh, Unit 971004772. Property of the Vanderbilt Empire under Decree CX-K-076-2.

     “And did Princess Laudanda say why she thought it was imperative for this particular addition to be grafted now?”

     Beneath the shifting mass of half-remembered facial features, Miranda almost thought she saw a twitch of fear along the senior overseer’s fins. It could never be proven, whether it be their shifting features or the lack of memory of who it was – but she had a keen idea what it was that they were feeling.

     Changes this big always had to be approved by an immediate member of the royal family. While Laudanda might’ve ordered for the grafting, one royal or another had to bear witness and approve of it, as that was how the credentials worked. How they had to work. Amanda and Laudanda were probably both already watching other processes, back in the kingdom.

     For all that the family was, all five Vanderbilts, operating as the highest titles within the Merkingdom – it was expected as any noble line that they held no bond beyond their power. It was genuinely even expected of them to care little for each other, beyond as ways to get ahead in the world, and to not do so was often seen as weakness. Hence why Miranda and Bellanda had to hide most of their sibling bond when in the eyes of the sea. Otherwise it’d be sharpened and turned against them.

     Even familial love was taboo to royals.

     And that meant, though one princess would demand it, the others did not always have to follow through. Even impartially relaying this information could result in the senior overseer losing things they could not afford to lose.

     All the better reason, too. They had seen and done Miranda’s sins for her. They knew of the fates worse than death.

     “Your Royal Highness, she did not speak in detail of it. Only that our operations on the western front were getting too close to Hell’s proximity, and that a recent foray might prove difficult otherwise. I’m sure further documentation will come through.” The voice shifter turned the usual luting notes of the language into something harsher, warped noise like hydrothermal vents through the deep sea, changing their voice and flattening their tone, but keeping the meaning there. It buzzed in Miranda’s earfins like a fly. The noise was grating. “Our stock should be enough to foster the growth and incorporation – but we will need to replenish.”

     “Have the gathering spots been discovered?”

     “No. We should be able to fully replace the loss within a month and a half.”

     Good news, at least. Still, what Laudanda demanded was pricy, and imps could only fill the gaps so much. Miranda was already risking it, as being close to the landfolk meant they knew her too and might start to understand hints that they otherwise would’ve never seen. But they still had a sample size of one, and that was easy to utilize when almost all of them would’ve never directly interacted with the Merkingdom to begin with.

     They didn’t know the true depth of the royal arsenal.

     Miranda mulled it over for a moment, clicking her claws against her arm. She’d have to organize a few lures, a few ambushes, a few disappearances when none could see – but it could be done.

      The loss would have to be taken, it seemed. Better to be armed to the teeth and need it to annihilate an enemy, than to lack and be defenseless when they did attack, after all. That was the entire point of having these measures, after all. Why their prices had to be paid.

     After her pause, Miranda sighed, the sound instantly edited out of her speech, and approved. “If we can replace it within a season, then I’ll have the resistances added. Take the offerings from Block 4-16 and pull the supply from storage. I’ll be there in 45.”

     “Yes, Your Royal Highness.”

     It was an unforgiving task sometimes, but this job was just another natural part of Miranda’s own title. It came in the territory. The overseer turned and left, while Miranda finished up on checking the rest of recent activities.

      Someday, she assured herself – she’d get used to this.

     That terror in her gut would flee.

     Someday.

       Down Miranda was shuttled in her private drop, led into the deepest depths of her castle. A place no guest could ever find, no psychic could ever scribe, no god could ever foresee. It took scarcely a few minutes, but the distance travelled still showed in how Miri waited a moment to readjust to walking, like when she had first come to land and learned what gravity felt like.

     Her dignity gathered, or what little the thaumaturgical protection robes offered her, and made her way from the loading docks. The last living guards were stationed here. It was a personal checkpoint, a creature with eyes and sense to make sure no one unapproved was making their way past. For Miranda, all it took was a scan of her biometrics and a pass of her credentials. Then, she strolled her way past the gargantuan gates of steel and hydraulics, and entered the ritual barriers.

     It was a bit of a walk to the innermost level; Miranda’s destination. Her path was naught but a single tightrope of a bridge, dwarfed by the great walls around her. Built of steel and lead and concrete and things far stranger – they took the shape of spheres around each other. A nesting doll for the horrors within, with the single bridge threading through, and the crown princess making her way within.

     Her only company was the faint shimmer of the ritual sigils cut into the walls of the spheres, pulsing like they were alive.

     In a way, they were.

     That was made apparent, as Miranda’s walk grew on. Distant at first, then closer, like a forest of bleached redwoods, came the shape of spires of bone. They strung the layers of spherical chambers together, keeping them suspended, veins of purple and red pushing into the innermost layers of the ritual boundary walls.

     They too, with honeycomb marrow in the shape of spells, kept the entity they contained within so distant and far from the world many miles above.

     To a visiting guest, the innermost barrier, nestled tightly in the bone growths, might have been an ominous warning as to what lay within.

     But Miranda had seen far, far more horrifying than this, and so the terror that settled into her gut was mundane. Almost familiar.

     Into the ritual circle she stepped.

     The offerings were already in place – strapped to vertical boards, facing each other, only blindfolds to spare them mercy. A cyclops and a werewolf, both of which Miranda had kept gathered for a while now.

     Those that none would miss when they vanished mysteriously in the night. The Merkingdom was good at finding those undesirables and removing them from existence.

     Fresh bodies were always needed in these depths.

     The demonic flesh, requested by Laudanda, was already in place. Impressions of faces, of limbs, of entities that used to live, were shaped into otherwise featureless pillars and arranged around the outermost rim of the ritual space. From there, they fed into the centerpiece by veins like tarry ink that wound through the floor, completing the space. All the while they pulsed sickly, deeper into the shuttering supply, pulsating in iridescent colors unlike that which really existed.

     Miranda tried not to look too hard at them.

     There, nested in the heart of this corrupt magick, lay the abomination.

     It was the misshapen form of a teratoma, left to grow and grow and spread without control.

     Cancer of the real.

     The crown’s great destroyers.

     Thousands of other additions had already joined in. Lives tossed in, fed to it, and left to grow, to become one with the corrupt. Indeed, there were the fins and gills and teeth of merfolk, already replicated and mutated by the entity – but other monsters were there too. Vertebrates and not, animals, plants, and beasts alike. All were consumed. All were destroyed. All were made one.

     Even machinery had not been spared, by the sight of metal plates, of wires, of pistols and gun barrels and screens.

     The marriage of all things, and its nightmarish bastard child too.

     Distorted faces, ripped apart by their own internal growth, jaws and ribs and muscle thrown in without care to where they connected, organs without cause, without meaning. Wires that twisted into nerves and nerves that twisted into wires. Eyes that burst like pimples from the ends of tongues, a latticework of bone and steel and chitin where muscle had yet to grow over before being threaded through with another layer, limbs with too many toothed joints, wings that could never lift the bloated body off the ground, stomachs that ripped into nails and tendons.

     Creatures set to replicate without care, grown over and over once fed in. A great, evil, sick thing, made of misery, knowing only hate, here to destroy all it could.

     A primordial terror seethed in Miranda’s own bones at the sight of it.

     Something itched in her head, hidden in her memories.

     That which should not be.

      It did not move. No heartbeat, no lift of breath, not the faintest sign of movement. Yet it lived, even beyond what life truly was, what it could ever be. In a state of suspended animation.

     Paused. Turned off.

     For now.

     The Crown Princess Miranda Vanderbilt stepped forward, her servants following her lead, lifting arms up to the ceiling of rotten and foul magic, wicked blades in hand and claw.

     Mercilessly, they set upon the offerings.

      The ritual had begun.

[redscullyrevival]

N(ot)stalgia: DISCO 2.0

Something I’ve not personally seen anyone talk about with Star Trek Discovery, although I’ve no doubt many are, is the role nostalgia plays in the series. 

Sometimes at war, sometimes a crutch, sometimes reflective but mostly deconstructive; nostalgia is near constantly present within DISCO’s production. Present within the media as it is created and relayed to its audience as well as present within large portions of the audience themselves, from within their own expectations and beliefs on what Star Trek “is” (and perhaps most vocally on what the franchise “is not”). Star Trek Discovery is not all that concerned with restorative nostalgia, the series does not excessively lean on invoking comforting throw-back feelings with the intent of recreating the franchise's past tone. And then there’s season 2 episode 8 “If Memory Serves”. 

OH BOY. Oh wow. Okay.

“If Memory Serves” is a double down boot stomp of an episode that I’m sure has been turning heads for its use of interweaving, updating, and altering the classic two parter “The Menagerie” (and thus the un-aired-but-widely-known pilot episode “The Cage”) and I’m positive some misguided individual is out there referring to all this as a “reference” and yes I kind of want to die a little knowing that’s happening but I’ll struggle through. Sigh.

The first season of DISCO dug deep and did some drastic nostalgia tweaking and even (dare I say) went so far as to weaponize nostalgia and all the expectations audiences brought with them about what Star Trek “was” and “means” and “does” as a pop culture storytelling institution.  

It was a long-term re-haul of many, many aspects of the Star Trek TV franchise and it made many, many people very uncomfortable. Not me, I friggin’ dug it, but I am admittedly a contrary asshole. 

Blahblah lots of folks right now are probably thinking about Captain Lorca and for good reason - so lets look at Lorca and how he was used to snap the audience’s nostalgic Trek lens. Spoliers ahead.

Captain Lorca (played by Jason Isaacs) was revealed to be from the Mirror Universe, as in the slap-on-a-beard-and-be-mean-universe. If you know Star Trek you know the Mirror Universe.

But in the beginning, we all sat around ho-humming over Lorca’s motivations and choices. Over what we wanted to believe about him. The viewership was VERY busy interpreting Lorca and working the character into our own individual understandings on what we know and want from a Star Trek television show.

As it happens Captain Lorca is one of the most Trekkie characters ever by default of his universal origins while simultaneously being an approach to the evils of the Mirror Universe (AKA What We Don’t Want Humanity To Be™) as we’ve never seen it before.

Hating other races and being aggressive and enjoying war and breeding a society hostile towards ideas of equality, justice, cooperation, and peace are pretty straight forward no-nos. Turns out though, and this is the real kicker, that the initial unease Lorca brought onto Discovery wasn’t just (entirely) the writers getting through their sea legs but a nice long con: 

The evils of the Mirror Universe have now been expanded to psychological and emotional abuse with sexual predatory behavior and unsustainable environmental practices thrown in for good measure. Which was a much-needed update my friends.

And I say “update” but in a lot of ways it’s an insertion. A clarification. Or, as I first sated, an expansion. We could look at DISCO as re-writing Star Trek lore because that’s, ya know, what it is doing - but we can also more specifically look at DISCO as a project in nostalgic alteration.

Hey, guess what?! Spock’s sister has always been a black woman.

From our outward understanding yes, we know Michael Burnham is a ~new~ character in a ~new~ Star Trek show. None of us are confused on how any of this story telling is working. These are new stories. 

The function of these stories though? I can’t help but think the audience is pretty torn up on that front.

Something inherent in experiencing Star Trek Discovery is how the show’s narrative future hails from our actual historical past. The utopia of the original series is dated and stale and disingenuous without a nostalgic/contextual lens firmly set in place. The function of many Star Trek Discovery stories is that of a much-needed blood transfusion: Bringing new life to old withered limbs.

Does this mean that Star Trek Discovery is seeking to recontextualize Star Trek? Yes and no but mostly no in my opinion. LOL, sorry, but it’s complicated! As most nostalgia driven works are.

Nostalgic Cinema is a real subset of critical film studies and has only grown in recent years but nostalgia isn’t anything new to media or the human experience. The general consensus is that nostalgic media tries to visually replicate time periods in human history (or the markers of media from a particular time period, what Marc Le Sueur dubbed “deliberate archaism”), but primarily acts as a bridge to idolized youthful emotionality and/or simplified “truths”. 

Marc Le Sueur’s “Theory Number Five: Anatomy of Nostalgic Films: Heritage and Method” was published in 1977 and was one of the first major academic and critical looks into the role nostalgia plays in cinema and by extension our connection to and perception of art. In the 1990s Svetlana Boym and Fredric Jameson further pushed ideas of nostalgia in literature and late capitalism respectably (which of course made its way onto visual media).

Le Sueur and Boym saw nostalgia as two classifiable categories, restorative or reflective. Restorative nostalgia attempts to recapture and revitalize an imagined past while reflective nostalgia is marked by a wistful longing for what has been lost to time.

In “The Future of Nostalgia” Svetlana Boym wrote “Nostalgia inevitably reappears as a defense mechanism in a time of accelerated rhythms of life and historical upheavals.” She goes on to suggest that our attraction to nostalgia (either restorative or reflective) is often times less about actually trying to reclaim a vanished past but rather a conscious resistance to an unknown and potentially threatening future.

The bulk of nostalgic media can easily be seen to tie into Boym’s observations; most media isn’t concerned with or about the personal and effective uses of nostalgia as a lived experience/real feeling among individuals but instead more focused on a particularly stylized, sanitized, and simplified view of history. Nostalgia in media is typically a presentation on the present day's romanticized fantasy of the past, void of contradictions and unsolvable uncertainties of the focused time period's lived reality, so as to soften or even avoid the creator’s and audience’s confusing present and unknown future.

In 2005 film critic and historian Pam Cook explored nostalgia in her book “Screening the Past: Memory and Nostalgia in Cinema” which collected seventeen of her short essays from 1976 to 1999 that focus on memory, identity, and nostalgia not only within their subject matter but within Cook’s viewpoint of revisiting her own body of work. Early on Cook laid out a more optimistic outlook on nostalgia in media:

“Rather than being seen as a reactionary, regressive condition imbued with sentimentality, it can be perceived as a way of coming to terms with the past, as enabling it to be exorcised in order that society, and individuals, can move on. In other words, while not necessarily progressive in itself, nostalgia can form part of a transition to progress and modernity. The suspension of disbelief is central to this transition, as nostalgia is predicated on a dialect between longing for something idealized that has been lost, and an acknowledgement that this idealized something can never be retrieved in actuality, and can only be accessed through images.”

The Star Trek of 1966 didn’t air in a peaceful time free from social and political turmoil. In fact, the original series itself was a kind of attempt at Future Nostalgia: A projected desire for what humanity could be if we survive and make changes to the then-contemporary world the show was directly commenting on. 

Star Trek’s original series today, as media that has survived and gained weight within the American pop cultural landscape, certainly feels warm, inviting, and reflective of an America long gone and shattered - and that’s because, now, it is. 

Time moves forward and warps and bends our media and our experiences to media and the most warped and most bendy of all are those storytelling institutions that outlive and outlast the era and people who first created and first experienced it. 

Recreating Star Trek visually, tonally, and thematically would be straight nostalgic vampirism and is obviously not what DISCO is doing. But that doesn’t mean Star Trek Discovery is not not a nostalgic piece even though it looks, feels, and is thematically different than the 1966 original show.

Real quick, let’s get back to this week’s episode, “If Memory Serves”!

... Honestly though, do I need to connect these dots? We all get it right? We’re all on board with this entire thing from the name of the episode, to its direct use and alterations of the original series, and then the not-so-subtle reveal that the season’s big plot point, the Red Angel, is a time traveler re-writing history. Like. We get it, right?

This is where Discovery has yet again doubled down on its storytelling functionality; this is Spock y’all. This is Pike. This is for real happening. Michael has helped shape the Spock character we will see later on in the “future” (our collective past).

And while we’re here, check out Mr. Spock! The Spock of Discovery is not dripping with nostalgic slime, he’s sharp and clean to an almost shocking degree. The series makes little effort in acting as though we should have a pre-determined fondness for the character outside of his relationship to Michael. Which is absolutely NUTS. But in a good way, in my opinion! 

The search for Spock (lawl) within Discovery has been on a surface level the literal search for the character within the narrative space of this new series. They gotta find that dude.

The search for Spock within Discovery has also been a form of re-defining the character not through audience expectation of What They Know and Remember but What They Don’t Know and Have No Basis For.

And the series accomplished it within the framework of places, characters, and events that are old, new, the same, and different all at once. I believe that’s a lot of intentional wibbly wobbly timey wimey paratextual stuff taking precedence for the sake of promoting a new view on Star Trek’s (and our own) past, primarily for the sake of moving beyond it. 

I don’t think it’s just ‘haha, reference!’ that the first shots we see of Vina (an original series character) in Star Trek Discovery’s “If Memory Serves” is that of her high heeled glass slippers. It’s jarring and weird and even laughable. Vina’s hair and makeup are also deliberate archaisms within the series the character is currently in, airing in the year it is. It reminded me of another nostalgia ridden TV series that would often implement a similar absurdist approach towards viewer nostalgia.

Mad Men had a lot of fun presenting a visually accurate but sterile version of the past not so as to suggest things were better in the 1960s but so that the series could better magnify (and even exasperate) American disillusionment.

One of my favorite examples of nostalgic absurdity in Mad Men is when Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) stands in a crowded office building jokingly pointing a gun at unflinching women.

What's the goal of having Pete do this? Is it to show we were... better then? We were more innocent? Is this deeply inappropriate "joke" suddenly OK because it's 1960, or is it even within context creepy, horrifying, and in incredible bad taste? Do we need the characters to recognize the absurdity of Pete's actions for us to validate them as absurd or are we being invited to make that evaluation ourselves in the here and now outside of the character's reality?

What Pete does is creepy and weird if the characters acknowledge it or not just as much as it is, admittedly, darkly humorous for the audience to witness at all.

But that's because it's not really a set up for comparing and contrasting how much we as a country have lost or gained in the wake of mass shootings but rather that of an audience being able to recognize a total D-bag, even through time.

Pete and his gun aren't a direct focus of the show's nostalgia but they are certainly a product of it and a bit of the point is that Pete gets away with doing what he does because it's a story, yeah, but PRIMARILY due to the audience assumption of "well, it was the 1960s". Its within that suspension of disbelief living at the core of all the many absurdist moments that make up Mad Men where the series bit by bit wedges in its most critical theme: Nostalgia is bullshit.

Through its intentional juxtaposition of accurately ‘recreating’ the past and high co-dependency on its contemporary audience’s views, Mad Men suggests that the best we can do as a society, as a country, is see the similarities between the past and now and decide what is worth keeping, progressing, or discarding entirely. The series delights in uncomfortably positioning the audience to view the weird ass shit it's characters do (littering, chain smoking, drinking and driving, slapping women's butts, letting children play with plastic bags over their heads to name a basic few), not so as to suggest that the past was "better" than today but so as to highlight the ways that we as a society have already deemed the past to be inefficient, ineffective, and cruel.

The series uses the same audience awareness principle to highlight the ways in which nostalgia cannot hide nor brighten our shortcomings and continued failures. There are just as many (if not more) moments in the series that are not presented as contrasting absurdity but comparative harrowing familiarity; those areas of our cultural makeup we have not adequately progressed or left behind.

Sure, in the 1960s everyone could smoke everywhere (very ew, look how far we’ve come) but women still had to internally balance if they could afford looking like a humorless bitch when confronting workplace sexual harassment (haha, whoops!). 

America’s past in Mad Men is terrifying and weird as well as frustratingly still present, as smoke soaked into our current attitudes and culture. What America’s past isn’t in Mad Men is purely seductive nostalgia for the sake of simplifying the present.

Le Sueur, Boym, and Cook all propagate that the cinematic image/use of nostalgia is that of double exposure, two images projected onto an audience’s perception and experience (1. contemporary recreation 2. of the past) - and that sure as hell makes up the building blocks of Discovery even though we’re all cognitively aware every aspect of the series is new and it takes place “in the future”. Discovery uses the franchise’s past as an adaptive functional mirror with which to compare and contrast our contemporary reality rather than merely repeating experiences and ideas reflective of a time long gone.

Vina’s shoes, her entire aesthetic down to her backstory aren’t just counter to the tone and aesthetic of Discovery but to the sensibilities of the contemporary audience; we are all very aware that Vina hasn’t literally been plucked out of 1966 and plopped into this new series. Again, none of us are confused on how any of this story telling is working. We’re aware these are new stories. But what is the function of Vina in this new story? What is the purpose of all the unease her presence brings into “If Memory Serves”?

Vina, way back in 1966, was written to choose a life of illusion among aliens siphoning her memories and emotions rather than accept and become a part of the present. The Keeper tells Pike, “She has an illusion and you have reality. May you find your way as pleasant” as they once again cover up Vina’s hunched back and scarred face with youthful and desirable 1960s beauty standards. As we all know Pike himself will go on later to choose this exact fate. He will succumb to the same choice.

“When dreams become more important than reality, you give up travel, building, creating," Vina tells us of the Talosians in “The Cage”, episode zero of Star Trek. “You even forget how to repair the machines left behind by your ancestors. You just sit living and reliving other lives left behind in the thought records.”

I’m having a serious and very real Look-Into-The-Camera-Moment here my friends. We’re all on board, yeah? Are the dots sufficiently and fully aligned? God I hope so. “If Memory Serves” is pulling a helluva fine “To Serve Man” word play pals:

If our memories perform our duties and live our lives for us, we become trapped. Discovery’s purpose for pulling in original series characters, and these characters in particular and all the narrative context sliding along in with them, is to suggest that we (and the franchise itself) need to move past our attachments to the original series and its rusty ideas and simplistic hopes for the future.  

Vina and Pike are already lost causes, we know this. We gain power in knowing this. The re-framing of these characters as being more tragic than romantic, with Discovery reflecting their longing as kinda creepy and disconnected with Vina more siren than innocent the series can push past the past and grab on to a new understanding of this classic episode’s elements and what it can mean for us watching Star Trek made in 2019.

A purely DISCO inversion of all this is poor Dr. Culber who has a complete lack of emotional connection to the past, who can remember moments and events but can’t make them give off any feelings of relevancy or incorporate them into who he is as a person. Culber is just as trapped as Vina and what Pike will (possibly?) become. The inch by inch nature of his recovery will depend on, as a pissed off Burnham tells the Talosians, if he can learn to “survive another way.” 

Yeah. That might be some thematic intent we’ve picked up on skip. We’re legit through the looking glass now huh? Up is down and down is up and nostalgia ain’t what it used to be! Hype.      

As such, in its own way, Discovery is fairly critical of Star Trek and by extension a bulk of its audience and their personal reasons and motivations for tuning in. It makes a lot of sense that Lorca and “If Memory Serves” among many other production choices and aspects chafe some viewers. 

I’m of the opinion that the shiny pristine nostalgic pedestal sculpture that is STAR TREK should be filed and chipped and shaved and grated here and there just as much as more contemporary substance should be added and stuffed back into it. 

What’s the goddamn point of any of this if not to further progress the bar of reflecting and projecting the human experience onto a future better than that one envisioned in 1966? In 1987? In 1993? And, at the end of the day, isn’t THAT more authentically “Star Trek” than simply an episodic narrative structure, glitter effect transporters, and a captain’s log? 

[violethowler]

Alchemists and Paladins

This analysis is derived from @leakinghate‘s Seek Truth in Darkness post that breaks down the "errors” and discrepancies in Season 8 that point to the version we got in December being cut up and frankensteined back together in post-production. 

One of my big disappointments is that we never got on-screen acknowledgement of Shiro’s connection to the Black Lion following Season 6 despite the fact that he was still wearing the Black Paladin colors. While re-reading Leaking Hate’s meta, a few ideas occurred to me that helped me formulate a theory about Black Paladin!Shiro in Season 8.

Despite Shiro moving on from being the Black Paladin to being captain of the Atlas, the show persistently keeps everyone in their original uniform colors. While it could just be down to staying true to the original 80s show, the visual adherence to the Season 1 configuration is a pattern that persists all the way into at least Season 7, and a few times in Season 8. There are multiple times where the team is arranged according to the lion configuration, but Lance is still in the left leg spot that Allura, as Blue Paladin, should be in, even though he’s now flying the red lion (ex: the astral plane in S5E3). The same is also done for the red lion itself (ex: the roar during Shiro’s rebirth in S6E7) a few times in at least Season 6 and 7. Even in Season 8 itself we still see characters positioned according to the season 1 configuration:

Keith is on Shiro’s right side and Pidge is on his left, exactly like the Paladin configuration in Seasons 1-2. 

The marketing also emphasizes the original team lineup: 

In one of the two promo images released at NYCC, the team arrangement from left to right is Lance, Allura, Keith, Shiro, Pidge, Hunk. The incorrect order for the current pilot configuration, but still in the right order for the Season 1 configuration. 

The big NYCC poster shows the team, from left to right, as Hunk, Pidge, Shiro, Keith, Lance, Allura. Left leg, left arm, head, right arm, right leg. The correct order for both the Season 1-2 configuration, and the 80s configuration.

And in terms of the textual narrative, even in their new positions post-Season 3, Keith, Shiro, and Lance thrive in their new positions by relying on the textual attributes of their previous ones. Shiro’s battlefield promotion to captain of the Atlas comes from him acting a textbook black paladin: a born leader, in control, “someone whose men will follow without hesitation.” 

All of this indicated that we should have seen a return to the S1-2 configuration at least once in Season 8, but in the edited version we got in December at least, that never happened.

But if it was meant to happen in the original cut of Season 8, there is logistically only one place for this to happen: The Storming the Pyramid Sequence, as #TeamPurpleLion calls it. 

Leaking Hate has laid out a detailed, episode by episode breakdown of all the evidence of cuts and editing in the version of Season 8 released in December, and extrapolates a likely outline of what was supposed to happen based on what was edited, the story structure of the series overall, and the plot points introduced in the first half of the season that were subsequently left hanging.

Multiple plot points indicate that Lotor was still alive inside Sincline and was supposed to be rescued before the final battle:

Despite it ceasing to be relevant after Honerva’s flashback episode, there are two shots in “Genesis” depicting first the Atlas and then Coalition ships flying towards the Altean Colony planet. No one comments on this unexplained detour.

The other Alteans serving Honerva besides the ones who were held aboard the Atlas in the second half, Merla, and the other two Robeast pilots, are nowhere to be seen when Coran and Slav board the pyramid in “The Zenith”. Honerva’s comments about how only the two other Robeast pilots remained loyal indicate they all defected en masse, but we are not shown this.

When the Atlas arrives in Altea’s solar system, the first interior shots of the Atlas bridge have pink lighting accompanied by Lotor’s theme music, while the rest of the scenes in this section of “Uncharted Regions” have golden lighting.

“Uncharted Regions” opens with Honerva declaring that the Paladins know her plans is an advantage, echoing her son’s words before he tricks Voltron into retrieving the Sincline comet in S3E4, indicating that she intends to trick them into helping her. Her next appearance shows her in her new mech scanning for her perfect reality. She is then shown inside the pyramid saying that Allura is awake. There is no explanation for how she got back to the pyramid and changed back into her Altean garb despite the battle happening outside, nor do we learn why Allura is even necessary for her plans. The call back indicates that Honerva needs to accomplish something with Altean Alchemy that Allura can do that she cannot. 

There are at least two split-screen shots that are so heavily cropped to the point that Allura, Lance, and/or Hunk’s faces get cut off at the edge of the screen. If there were no other characters who needed to be removed, the shot would have been planned so that those cut-offs never happened.

There’s a total of 11 shots in the last three episodes where a character is off model, and their proportions are always wrong for a human but just right for a supposedly-dead-Lotor. (Things that give it away include broad shoulders, the character’s head being too small for the size the body is drawn, elongated arms, legs twice the length of the upper body, and in some shots, fangs.)

Lotor has no shadow when he appears alongside the deceased original paladins in the final episode, and his image is simply a stock photo from the official website with the leg slightly warped to hide the lack of shadow.

Lotor being healed and rescued neatly explains why Honerva needed Allura and considered the Paladins knowing her plans to be an advantage (because she cheated the trials of Oriande, she doesn’t have the power to heal Lotor herself, but Allura does, as demonstrated with the dead forest in “Launch Date”), where the remaining Alteans vanished to (they abandon Honerva after Lotor rejects her), and why the Atlas apparently makes a detour to the Colony (the Alteans  need to be dropped off somewhere safe before Lotor, Voltorn, and the Atlas can go back to face Honerva for the final battle).

But there are two things that still got me thinking about this outline:

With how powerful the Altean robeasts are shown in S7 and S8, it raises the question of how Allura was able to get from the Atlas to the pyramid without being spotted by Merla or the two other robeast pilots. Even if the Atlas was keeping them occupied, “Lion’s Pride Part 2” and “Genesis” have shown how much of a challenge it is for the Atlas and Voltron to defeat even a single Altean robeast, let alone multiple. So, somebody needs to form Voltron and keep the Robeasts busy so that Allura can storm the pyramid for her alchemist vs. alchemist rematch with Honerva in the first place.

As Leaking Hate mentions in their meta, many of the shots with a character having Lotor’s proportions are in paladin armor. Given the damage shown to Lotor’s uniform, in order for him to have something to wear in the final battle, it’s implied that he’s wearing what used to be the Black Paladin armor that Shiro wore during the first half of Season 7.

My argument is that if the visual adherence to the color scheme of the lions the team started out in was supposed to go anywhere, the only logical place for it to occur is during the sequence where they assault the pyramid and rescue Lotor:

Lance could volunteer to fly Blue so Allura can go rescue Lotor, Keith steps back into Red so Lance can fly blue, and Shiro steps back into the Black Lion to lead the team one more time.

Leaking Hate’s meta pointed out how the Beta-Four-Ex-Seven coordinates have pink lighting in the backdrop, fitting with Allura’s color scheme as well.

Since this is indicated to be the site of the big Alchemist vs. Alchemist rematch between Honerva and Allura, it would beautifully parallel their previous fight at the end of season 2: Voltron fighting a mecha created by Honerva (Zarkon’s armor, the Robeasts) while Allura faces the witch directly.

If Shiro wore the Black Paladin armor into battle one last time, then handed it off to Lotor for the final battle against Honerva, it would make a nice call back to when he gave Lotor the Black Bayard to use against Zarkon in “Blood Duel”.

It would also, in a way, be a nice callback to his line in S6E3 “I don’t know what’s more fulfilling than being a paladin” by showing that while he has found things that are just as fulfilling, he is still just as much a paladin as the others.  

In “Tailing a Comet” back in Season 3, Lance expresses thet Blue would take him back in a second if he asked, but he doesn’t want to stand in the way of Allura’s growth. If he pilots the Blue Lion while she fights Honerva, Lance would be stepping back into the role of Blue Paladin so that Allura can continue her growth and do something that only she can do.

While this part is hazier, an additional parallel that occurred to me would be if Allura was accompanied by a pair of Galra each time she confronted Honerva: in Season 2, she was accompanied by Kolivan and Antok. Considering their absence from the plot after Genesis, perhaps Acxa and Zethrid would have accompanied Allura to face Honerva in Season 8? 

While I can understand why some people thought the ship had potential, there was one detail I kept seeing everyone ignore that convinced me that Lance and Allura would never have worked out as a long-term relationship no matter what happened with Lotor. Leaving aside the fact that Allura doesn’t appear to be as interested in the relationship as Lance is, Alteans have already been established to have a life span measured in centuries. Coran himself is over six hundred years old, and Allura’s probably at least a century or two herself. Short of pulling some species-changing magic out of thin air to make Lance actually Altean and not just give him the markings, Allura is going to outlive Lance by several lifetimes regardless of their relationship status.

Throughout the season we got in December, Lance questions Allura’s choices. Hate’s meta outlines how Lance’s arc was meant to lead to him supporting her decisions. In addition to supporting Allura verbally when she argues for the rescue mission, he would be supporting her physically by offering to take her place in the Blue Lion for that battle, because while they are both Blue Paladins (just as Shiro and Kieth are The Black Paladins), rescuing and healing Lotor is something that only she can do.

It would also be an excellent reversal of an earlier point in the season: in Clear Day, Lance signing his name on all the Blue Lion plushies even though the current Blue Paladin is Allura feels like him selfishly trying to claim Allura as his own, while for the rescue mission, he physically “reclaims” the Blue Lion out of selflessness to both literally and symbolically let her go.

This is part educated guess and part wishful thinking on my part because I’m still salty that the visual adherence to the Season 1 configuration never went anywhere. There is no guarantee that any of this happened in the original cut of Season 8. But if the visual emphasis on the season 1 pilot configuration long after we’ve switched over to the one from the 80s was supposed to have any payoff, there is only one place in the original cut of Season 8 where it could realistically work. 

If you want to see what the original cut of the season looked like, then I highly recommend you sign the petition and and start writing letters to WEP. 

[butmaybeitwasnt]

slow dumb show

author: emily / simplyprologue rating: teen word count: ~2,000 archive warnings: none summary:  Dean's stuck in his head. Seth is trying to figure out his heart. (Post-RAW 11/6/17.)

read the fic here on AO3 or continue under the cut

“I wanna hurry home to you Put on a slow, dumb show for you and crack you up So you can put a blue ribbon on my brain God, I'm very, very frightening, I'll overdo it”

-- Slow Show, The National

There’ll be a rematch, Dean thinks. It’s one of the many thoughts in his brain right now, a hazy muddle of sensation and feeling and words. There’ll be a rematch, but it’s all messed up with Cesaro’s arms locked around his waist, the canvas under his nails as he tried to claw his way towards Seth while the referee windmilled his arm to a three count. The immediate confusion and the blistering anger, the shouts of the crowd as Sheamus drop kicked Seth in the head. What if he had turned around, what if he had remained in the ring, not gone for a chair?

There’ll be a rematch, but it means nothing when the doctor tells Seth he doesn’t have a concussion, but to lay low for a day or two. A bruise is blooming on Seth’s temple, the first flush of a wound, red and pink and fringing with purple. Thoughtlessly, disgust roiling in his belly, Dean folds his arms across his chest, folds in on himself entirely.

“Well,” Seth mumbles, pressing an ice pack to his head. “Better me than you.”

Dean twists his lips into a silent snarl.

“I owed you one, at least,” Seth continues as they leave the arena, heading towards the car that will take them back to their hotel room. “Hell in a Cell, and that’s just — just the beginning. Or the ending. Depends on how you look at it, I guess.”

Owed you one, Dean echoes inside his head. It gets twisted and warped, becomes a cruel mockery imposed over his memory of last week’s match, his own body supine in the ring after Kane’s tombstone — and then Seth’s warm weight on top of him, his bad shoulder cradled between their chests. The stretched-out seconds of warmth and security, the stinging pain of his elbow and back, then the bereftness, the following fear as Seth was lifted off of him. The reverberation as Seth was slammed down feet from him. Their hands, reaching towards each other blindly.

The tag titles are gone, the Survivor Series match with it.

His head is a shit show, and he knows it, can’t do anything about it right now. Can’t do anything but sit stock-still in the car as it stop-goes in late night traffic, his hands clenching his knees and his teeth clenching in his mouth. If he looks at Seth he think he might vomit, might kiss him, might say those words hanging around in the back of his mouth, the ones he’s been swallowing down for years now, three more words anchoring down into all the chaos inside his head.

Seth sits apart from him, the distance measured in slow breaths and frustrated sighs and stop lights.

He opens his mouth to say something, after nearly twenty minutes of silence — but the driver pulls up to the hotel, and Dean jumps out of the vehicle the second it lurches to a stop. Bags, he thinks. It’s a simple thought, straight forward. Get the bags.

“Hey, are you—?” Seth asks, once they’re in the elevator.

Two keycards. Two rooms.

Seth doesn’t seem mad, Dean thinks. They’ve been sharing a room more often than not, as often as they dare to come close to admitting that they’re not confronting whatever this thing is between them, as red and new and mottled as the contusion on Seth’s face. He wants to kiss it, Dean thinks, a soft brush of his mouth against Seth’s skin. He balls his fists at his side, banging his knuckles on their suitcases.

Take care of Seth.

The door to Seth’s hotel room unlocks with a mechanical snick.

Dean drags in their luggage, leaving it in a haphazard pile near the door; losing his grace, Seth walks heavily, his body dragging along his as he moves past. As if he was shocked, Dean stops, looks up, watches as Seth gingerly lowers himself down onto the bed.

“Your head,” he says.

Seth waves him off, or tries to. There’s an expression on his face that Dean can’t quite place. “Nah it’s — it’s not that bad. I’ll sleep it off.”

Standing there in the half light, he finds himself incapable of knowing what to do with his hands. He rarely thinks about touch; the entire spectrum of it encompasses their lives. There isn’t a moment where he couldn’t describe what Seth’s skin feels like, dimpling under a caress. Or how his body buckles and rolls when it accepts a hit, how his muscles ripple and still as his palm skirts over his chest, a bicep, his thigh.

Seth squints, hands clasped between his open legs.

“Are you going?” he asks, almost cautious.

Dean blinks back at him.

Is he? He realizes he hadn’t thought about that. Even if Seth didn’t want to share a bed tonight, he would sleep on the floor just so he could lie awake, make sure his breathing remained even and he wasn’t bleeding into his skull.

“Do you want me to stay?” he asks.

Seth swears under his breath, eyes fluttering closed. Tiredly, he carded a hand through his hair, avoiding the tender side of his head. “Jesus, Dean, why wouldn’t I?”

He shrugs.

“Do you wanna stay?” Seth asks.

Discomfort surfaces in his chest in tiny pinpricks. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“It’s been a rough night,” he says with a shrug, trying to appear unperturbed but too exhausted, too weary to carry the act. “I don’t know what you need after rough nights anymore. If it’s a bar, or if you need to call Roman, or hell, if you need to find someone to pour into your bed and be gone by morning—”

“Really?”

Is this really what Seth thinks, after all this time? After five years and then three, and then this summer and then their bodies, crashing into each other in the ring like two colliding stars, their arms around each other for the first time in celestial eons. Entire worlds had been born, and lived, and died as they fought and found their ways back to each other.

“I don’t know, Dean. You’re not exactly giving me much to — the whole night, since the moment Sheamus and Cesaro took the belts off of us, you’ve barely looked at me.” Seth looks down at his interlaced fingers, and Dean startles, realizing that Seth is holding his own hands so that he wouldn’t reach out for him. “You didn’t exactly get into this by choice.”

“Do you think I wanna leave? After everything, after we got the Shield back together, and you think I’m gonna go somewhere?”

“Roman’s been out almost three weeks now, and even in that time everything’s changed.”

That everything hangs heavily between them. No, not everything, he would say if he was feeling more combative. But now, at this late hour, his body caught up in the press of exertion and time zone calculus and adrenaline — he’s truly not. He doesn’t want to fight with Seth. Hasn’t for months now. But yes everything, maybe, if he considers him and Seth a constant. And he does. He maybe always has. But Roman’s sudden illness, and the Siege and Shane McMahon’s violent insecurities, and the continual rippling effects from everything that happened at TLC. Everything else.

“You really think I’m gonna just—”

He can’t just think — but maybe that was Seth’s miscalculation in the first place, Dean thinks, back when they were younger and more desperate to prove themselves. When Seth was thinking six steps ahead, seven, ten, a whole hopscotch board of jumps and skips and throwing stones. Like child’s play, he betrayed them.

Before someone else made everything change.

Dean’s heart leaps into his throat, and again, he feels sick.

“Hear me out. Please.” Please, Seth asks again, with just his eyes. Then, hesitating, he unlaces his hands, reaching out for one of Dean’s, pulling him down to sit beside him on the bed. “I’m just saying that… I know you follow your heart. That’s who you are. And I’m the — the Architect. I never do anything without thinking five steps ahead.” He looks almost ashamed, but manages a crooked grin anyway. “Well, tonight Sheamus and Cesaro were six steps ahead, and we lost. I don’t know where my head is. Especially, since...” With testing fingers, he palpates the edge of the bruise. “Yeah, that hurts.”

Dean takes Seth’s hand, pulling it back down into the space between them.

“So you wanna know where my heart is?” he asks, slowly, so that the words I love you don’t just tumble out after them.

“Yeah.”

Seth nods, looking like a man desperate for something to make sense.

“You really don’t know?”

From his mouth escapes a soft laugh, a low reverberation of his careless cackle. Self-deprecating, and guilty. “No, Dean. Most days I’m not even sure I could pick my own heart out of a line-up. I have complete plausible deniability when it comes to my emotions. I usually rely on you to tell me what I’m feeling.” Dean feels the confusion on his own face, and Seth shakes his head, just barely. “Not… with words. But I know I can follow your lead. You have a good one in there.”

Gently, he taps the pad of his forefinger over Dean’s sternum, eyes earnest and shining in the low light. And that smile, and those teeth, and everything he’s ever loved about Seth when he’s being soft and vulnerable, not hiding behind the veneer of the brash knight, the clever kingslayer.

Dean doesn’t know what to say.

His head’s a mess. It always has been. There are moments, when his emotions run high enough and the stakes are just as high, when he’s in the ring or fighting by his brothers’ sides — there are moments where the words reach around all that he’s feeling and he can get them out, make them neat and orderly, make them make sense.

“I hate myself so much I could be sick right now.”

Seth’s brows furrow together. “What?”

“I let you down.”

“I let you down.” Still gentle, but now firm, Seth frames his face in his hands, stroking his thumbs over his cheekbones as he brings their foreheads together. “We’ve lost titles before. Why does it feel like this?”

Faces so close, he might close his eyes. But he doesn’t. Seth’s face slides out of focus, but he doesn’t close his eyes. The air between them is a careful exchange of breath, their mouths lingering close, but neither daring to move. Not closer, not apart.

He just wants Seth to feel okay. He just wants to feel okay, tonight.

There’ll be a rematch, Dean thinks, maybe next week before Survivor Series or after. But maybe it doesn’t matter, even if it does, because they’ve missed so much together already, punching past landmarks and anniversaries and climbing up and then falling off of cages together. Breaking bones, and brains, and hearts, and he remembers a time where the words did reach, when he could think of nothing but Seth’s destruction and his own, but always together.

Even when he hated him, he stayed.

“We’re gonna burn together,” he says, final. He cups the side of Seth’s head, fingers stroking over his scalp through his damp hair. Holds him in place as he tilts his head just enough to press his lips to the mound of swelling. A breath, more than a kiss.

“But…”

“No. That’s it.”

Don’t you fucking get it? A single thought. A clear thought. He changes the angle, brings their mouths together. A breath, more than a kiss. The skin of their lips cling to each other when he pulls away.

Seth’s eyes are clear; he nods.

“We burn.”

[theartofblissfullydrowning]

Day One: Part 3

Do you know that sometimes I looked at you while we were playing games or you were driving or out somewhere and thought “you know, maybe we could be together. Maybe I need to lighten up a bit?” I’d see you in a different light. It would catch me sometimes while we were laughing about things. I wish you would have stayed a bit to see that video I sent you. It was basically us. Every time I saw you with Alex or Kelsey. I just remembered how it was in the beginning for us. And we talked about that before you left, about how it was a love story. I wish it never ended the way it did and that we ended up living happily ever after. I had no idea how much you loved me until your mom told me you’d always tell her about me and she asked about me all the time. That broke my heart. No one loved me the way you did, you know? I knew that’s why you always hated to see me with other guys. And I really hated to see you with other girls, too. There are things that will always be just ours. 

I wonder if I was on your mind that night and how I would handle things. You knew how attached I was to you. I know you were probably in a different state of mind at the time but I wonder what your last thoughts of me were. I’m sorry I didn’t respond when you messaged me. I have a lot of guilt over that. If I would have been there we could have talked. I hope you didn’t feel like I was ignoring you. I hope I wasn’t a part of this. Hopefully, though, you knew I really loved you. Really, no matter what was happening, all we had was each other, and it was so hard to get through the past few months without you. You were the only person I would really to with things and you weren’t there. You were the reason my heart was broken this time. And then Tee went the day after you and I always thought you’d be there for that. 

I loved you so much and I’m so sorry I didn’t show you that enough before everything happened. But I think you knew. we were both stubborn as shit. We were in other relationships and hated it. I feel like you never connected with Kelsey or Alex. I never really connected with Bryan or Mark. But in all of that we were still there together. They all knew the role we played in each other’s lives and they knew that if we had to decide that we’d choose each other over them. That was the biggest thing with us. You never made me feel like you would choose someone else over me. 

And then you always looked after me and I never gave you enough credit. I remember when you drove all the way to my house after you heard I was in the psych ward for feeling suicidal. And you brought me some of my stuff back but I turned you away. That was so wrong of me to do and I’m sorry. I lost my job and had nowhere to go and you took me in and said “we can figure out rent later”. No one has ever loved me like you did. 

And now I’m the one left to carry on all of our memories on my own and live for both of us. It breaks my heart every time I see you offline for so many days on Steam. It was just 200 the other day I looked. It put a quantifiable measure on it. 200 days without my best friend. 200 days that I’ve been here alone without you. I see games that I wonder if you ever played that I know you would like. I see games that have just come out that you would have loved. You’ll never see the next Elder Scroll or the next season of Game of Thrones. You won’t be at my wedding. (Which was maybe supposed to be our wedding.) But still I feel your spirit in me talking to me when I need someone or just in the back of my head telling me you’re proud of me for things I’m doing now or telling me to be careful with things just like you used to . 

I miss our talks and the memes and the nonsense. I miss having someone to go to when things happened. I miss having someone to vent to about everyday things.I miss having someone to escape reality with and laugh with. I miss the way you smelled and the way your sheeps and pillows smelled when you’d give them to me when I slept on the couch. I miss the margaritas and board games and Neely and Mark Gormley and doing the time warp with you. I miss playing songs on uke and guitar. I miss just laughing. It means a lot to me that I was able to share that with you and that we were able to have so many good times even if the only people we really had were each other. 

That was the hardest part for me. That it was just us. We were the only people we had. We were like twins. We had our own language and so many inside jokes. No one has ever been like you were to me. I’ve never had a best friend for that long and have never been closer to someone or had someone understand me as much as you did. That’s why this hurts so much. I don’t know if I ever will because with us it was so effortless. 

I still have so many sore spots but they’re healing up. It doesn’t mean they won’t still hurt or remind me of you but it’s the little things that remind me of you. So many things. Something every day. Even stupid little things. Memes, songs, words, things everywhere. Every day it’s like I say goodbye to you again but you’re still here in some sort of way. Part of me tells me you want me just to move on and be happy again. That’s what you said in our last conversation, that we’ve all had our low points and that I’ll be in a different place soon but I had no fucking idea how low it could fucking go until you left. I thought I knew sadness, I was a little experienced in grief, but never to this level. I still sit there on the same spot on my bed I was in when your mom messaged me. I remember I had just made some dumplings. It was about 1:30pm on a Wednesday. I had just brought them in my room and sat down and hadn’t taken a bite and your mom messaged me and I was immediately concerned but I jumped and called her as soon as I got that message. My mind immediate went to you had either died or had gone missing and she hadn’t heard from you. And I called her and her voice sounded shaky. I said “what’s going on?” and she said “Kyle passed away.” A knife went though my fucking guts. “What? How?” “He hung himself” She was trying so hard to keep from breaking down. I said “thank you for letting me know” and I sat there in shock for a while. And then I screamed. I texted Bryan to let him know. He was at work. I ordered beer and got smashed and cried and screamed and punched things. Bryan was a little upset. I thought about killing myself too that night because the pain was unbearable. I looked for Derrik online but he hadn’t been on in a long time. I was fucking frantic and a fucking mess. The most I’ve ever been. And I so much wanted to call you or message you or see you because I was so upset because you were the person I would go to and you weren’t there. And then I woke up hungover as shit the next day and Tee couldn’t walk and wouldn’t eat which was her favorite thing to do so I knew it was her time too. I had to take her to the vet and couldn’t even remember what year it was becuase nothing seemed real. It was a double edged sword because I just wanted you to be the or to message you and just let you know because she loved you so much and you loved her too but every time I would pick up my phone to I just had to remember you weren’t there and realized you were lying on some coroner’s table dead. My best friend. My world. My love. Dead. Cold. Alone. 

The first few weeks were a blur. All I did was cry and not sleep because I was terrified to because I was afraid of nightmares or even just dreaming of you and waking up and not having you there. Luckily I had one person there I could talk to who sort of looked after me and we’d only been talking for about a week so it was a lot to dump on him but he got me out of the house and was there and really supportive of me. 

I don’t leave the house now. I can’t drive without thinking of you. I’ve had to drive the roads I used to take to your house and stop myself from breaking the fuck down. I’ve thought about driving to the houses you lived in and just sitting there in the driveway or parking lot and just pretending for a little bit that I was coming to see you and that everything was okay again, just for a moment, forgetting what happened. I’m glad I never went to your house you died in because I probably would have gone there, too. 

It’s been really hard for me to get close to anyone since then. As I’m sure you know. It was never easy before you left. Neither one of us really bonded with anyone other than each other. I’m glad I got to meet Derrick and I hope you really know he came all the way out there and said that was never how he wanted to meet you but that he was glad he was there. I met David, as well. I think I remember you telling me about him. And if you’re still around like I know you are that you know what happened with that and I’m sure you laughed about it but both of us were so broken up and your mom was worried about him and wanted him to be safe so I guess we both just got our minds off things. But I’ve lost friendships and alienated people because of how I am now. I get too drunk and act too obnoxious. You never cared because we always did it together, but I don’t think I ever broke down and screamed at you or sobbed my face off in front of you. You would have never let that happen. 

I wish so much that you were still here. Like I said, I wish I would have messaged you back that night when you messaged me. Not waited so long. We used to joke about offing ourselves all the time but I never thought you’d actually do it. You could have called or messaged me again. I wonder why you didn’t say goodbye. I wish I could see what led up to that or what you doing and thinking. I hope you went out knowing I loved you more than anyone else in my life. I’ve looked at our last conversation so many times and it was probably the most beautiful one we could have had, recounting our friendship and everything. And our whole story. AND how beautiful it was and how we’ve both grown in the past 5 years. I still remember your last few things you said to me. That we were meant to evolve and write our stories. I know that’s what you would have wanted me to do  and I hope you would have done that too but you saying that to me as one of the last things is why I”m still here.

These days I know I have to keep living for the both of us. I have to keep living and keeping our memories alive so they don’t die. I have to carry on your memories. I’m glad I took so many photos of you even though you hated it because I can still look back at all of those moments we shared and have tangible evidence and can look back and put myself back in every one of those moments for a second. From when we went to the strip club with our Blu cigarettes feeling cool with our $12 to the day I found that wedding dress, to our trip to DC, to you calling me on messenger, or us sharing margaritas, and I still have all those videos you hated about you getting the sock out the fan. You hated them but now that’s the only way I can hear your voice and hear your laugh. 

And you know I fucking hated Alex and I still absolutely despise her now. I’m not blaming anything on her but she did not treat you like you deserved to be treated. She didn’t appreciate you. I never really liked her. She was way too young and immature. She was obnoxious and she tries to play it off like you two had a nice time before she left you that night. If she wasn’t so concerned with her friends she wouldn’t have left. Your mom said the two of you got in a fight and I believe that more than anything. I don’t think you did what you did for absolutely no reason. There was something that set it off and I feel like she was a precipitating factor and how she acted at your memorial service was awful and no one like her. And I was the only one to stand up there and actually say something about you. I read my letter and so many people came up and hugged me like I was your family. I basically was. Derrick wanted to get up there but he said he couldn’t and I understand why. I was anxious and it was so fucking hard but I had to do it because of the days we’d talk about how you’d be the only person at my funeral. I know you’d do the same for me. So many people told your mom that my letter really touched them. I have no idea how I was able to get up there and do that but I feel like you were with me that day and you allowed me to be strong, but do you know how hard it was to sit there after all the guests passed by and go look at my best friend reduced to nothing but ashes in a box? And now ashes that sit on my book case? 

I hope you’re proud of me. I know you don’t want me to hurt anymore and you feel a lot of regret over it just in the way that it hurt me and upended my life. It sounds selfish but I know that if you knew how much I’d endured that you wouldn’t have done it, I just know you weren’t in your right mind that night so you didn’t think about it. As much as you don’t want it to hurt it always will. You will always be a part of me. You will always be the one who loved me and knew me the most. Your love was the most unconditional that I’ve ever known. I didn’t even know how deep it was until your mom told me you’d talk about me all the time and she always knew what was going on with my life. 

You have no idea how much I miss you every day. I wear this moonstone ring on my finger in memory of you. I’m going to get those thieves guild shadow mark tattoos we always talked about getting together. And those last words you said “we were meant to evolve and write our stories”. I’ll have the money to do it now with my new job. Maybe I can get them to mix your ashes in with it so I can always carry you with me. 

[mariacedano-blog-blog]

Before & After Kitchen Renovation on a Budget By looking at these pictures, you would never guess this beautiful kitchen renovation was done on a budget. Debi Traub, an avid cook, founder of the food blog Simply Beautiful Eating, and food contributor for Martha Stewart, was in desperate need to update her tired Toronto kitchen. This is how she describes her old kitchen: “My old kitchen was a disaster zone. The cupboards were literally falling off the ceiling and the interior shelving was so warped, it was a miracle that they held pots and pans without caving in. I had virtually no counter space as the kitchen was small. We demolished the wall between the existing dining area and the kitchen to open up the space, installed a beautiful island with a small sink and ensured that there was plenty of counter and storage space in the new kitchen. I can use so many areas for food prep now. Being a food blogger, stylist and photographer, the island area is now my true dream kitchen prep spot. I wanted to keep the counters clean and uncluttered. I also have two wall ovens which is great for entertaining larger parties. It has improved our lives greatly by having enough space to work in and entertain family friends.” Take a look and get inspired by this incredible “Before & After” kitchen reno! Before & After Kitchen Renovation on a Budget “I chose to renovate the kitchen, dining room, family room, powder room and laundry room all at the same time. The first items that were purchased were my new appliances which were not delivered until the cabinetry was installed. I purchased all the decor items at HomeSense Canada.” Location: Toronto, Ontario. Size in square feet: 2,000 square foot home Years lived in: 30 years Kitchen After: Is it different from before the renovation? YES! The cabinetry is light and airy looking, the drawers are all soft closing, the countertops are marble and very elegant and the hardware is absolutely a dream (all satin brass and a wonderful contrast to the color scheme in the kitchen). How would I describe my kitchen style? Modern Farmhouse/Hamptons Chic. Kitchen Inspiration My inspiration for this renovation was found in various magazines and online: Martha Stewart, Better Homes and Gardens, Style at Home, House Beautiful, House and Home Magazine, Pinterest and Houzz. Layout Although the layout and cabinetry was custom made, I wanted to add a unique look to the display cupboards so I drew out the glass design for the cabinet maker. Cabinet Paint Color The cabinet paint color is “Benjamin Moore CC-20 Decorator’s White”. Organized I have a pantry area for all my baking supplies, a corner lazy Susan for dry goods and cans, two slide out drawers on either side of the cooktop (one for all my spices and the the other for my oils and cooking sprays). The glass cupboards display all the beautiful tableware and glassware. This is something that was very important for me to have as I wanted it to be a visual focal point in the kitchen. Accessories Decor is from HomeSense. Sink Cabinet I am loving the layout of the cabinets flanking the sink. Everything is within reach and organized. Pulls Pulls are from Restoration Hardware – Lugarno Pull in Aged Brass. Knobs Knobs are Restoration Hardware – Aubrey Knob in Aged Brass. Sink Sinks is Silgranit from Blanco. Faucet I went with Newport Brass for all the kitchen sinks, accessories and even the sink flange, because everyone needs a matching sink flange, right? I had no idea that there was even such a word as “flange”, until I asked if there was a such a thing as a brass sink thingy that goes around the drain. Backsplash The backsplash. I now have one of the largest collection of tile samples in the world. I thought I was 100% firm on the one that I wanted until the day the counters were installed. I placed all the samples up against the wall and decided to go back to the drawing board. Since the marble was in a league of it’s own, I didn’t want anything competing with it. Keeping it simple and clean, I went with a white dolomite marble from Sarana Tile. Tip: Choose a backsplash after your counters are installed. The range cooktop is by Dacor. Splurge & Save As far as items go, Debi biggest splurge would be the appliances. Most of the appliances are Dacor. Dimension Dimensions: The entire space measures 21 x 17 now that they removed the wall between the existing kitchen and old dining area. Wall Paint Color The paint. Oh yes, let’s talk about paint. I can only describe this experience by saying that I own more paint samples than you could imagine. It started out as a simple task. I wanted a pure gray for the walls. What does that mean? Well, a pure gray has no undertones at all. No blue. No green. No purple. No red. No brown. NO NOTHING. Just a pure and simple gray. Did I find it? Yes. I had already picked out a beautiful shade of Martha Stewart’s Lava Stone Gray for my kitchen island and wanted something to compliment it. I found the perfect one, Benjamin Moore’s Silver Chain 1472. I took the colour gradation down 75% because I wanted it very light. It is soft, with no hints of any weirdness, and it is gracing my walls throughout the entire main floor. Tip: Most specialty paint stores charge almost double for a sample. Best bet? Big box stores are 50% less. Kitchen Island Paint Color The grey island paint color is Martha Stewart’s Lava Stone Gray. Countertop The countertops. This is another focal point in the kitchen, and one of the first things I chose. I saw a sample of quartz that I liked and thought that it would be the most practical choice, geared for food preparation, spills and the inevitable mess that is the standard state in a food blogger’s kitchen. And then, I fell head over heels in love with a slab of marble that I should not have installed in my kitchen. Marble is as temperamental as a two year old, but as beautiful as a private island in the Caribbean. Countertops are one of the biggest investments you are going to make during a kitchen makeover. Tip: If you do choose marble, please make sure you have it professionally sealed. The prep sink is by Blanco. Bar Faucet is Newport Brass. Lighting The kitchen fixture above the sink are from Joss & Main – currently on sale! Dining Room Before: Debi’s dining room used to be dark and felt isolated from the kitchen area. Dining Room After: The room now feels open, airy and even bigger! Fireplace Before: Debi and her husband worked really hard to transform this space. Fireplace After: I wanted a very fresh look for this renovation and decided to incorporate a DIY project to save money. The fireplace mantlepiece was one focal point that my husband and I created together as a team. My husband is extremely handy and can build and design just about anything so that’s a big plus. The two of us had a vision for this fireplace. We purchased an electric fireplace unit and it’s set into the wall. I’ve never had a mantlepiece so this was one thing I wanted my home as another focal point in the new dining area. We were walking through Home Depot looking at materials to use to build the sides of the fireplace. I chose each piece of wood and my husband built it from scratch. He even made the side panels by hand and created a riveted look with long strips of the material. I spotted barn wood in one area of the store and said, THAT’S MY FIREPLACE MANTLE!. It is a washed light gray and blends with my new hardwood floor. I wanted the top of the fireplace painted the same color as all the cabinetry and fell in love with a mirror I found at HomeSense so I knew it would be perfect above mantle. It was very easy to install the barn wood shelf and I was really excited to use an air gun to nail it together (supervised of course!) Bookcase Decor Isn’t this beautiful? I love the coastal hues and the brass against the crisp white cabinetry. Flooring The flooring manufactured hardwood by Kentwood – Brushed Oak – Color is Angora. It’s really stunning! The flooring. This was one of the hardest decisions ever. I leaned towards a vintage gray-wash hardwood floor throughout the entire main floor, with the exception of the laundry and powder room. My husband hated the idea of that particular wood flooring. We chose a hardwood sample that both of us weren’t crazy about and in the 11th hour, I changed my mind, and went back to the store with him to pick something else. We ended up with exactly what I had seen a million times on Pinterest. THE GRAY-WASH HARDWOOD. My husband’s reasoning for succumbing to the floor I wanted? He said that it looked different in person than in a picture. Tip: If you are installing hardwood in the kitchen, buy a waterproof rug for areas near the sink and dishwasher. Furniture My new dining room table is made from reclaimed wood and I wanted to keep a natural flow with the rustic but chic look of the room. Get the Look: Lighting Crystal Drop Rectangular Chandelier: Pottery Barn. Debi Debi is looking stunning and very happy at her newly renovated home! Let’s Talk about Budget This is what Debi has to say about renovating on a budget: “Final thoughts. Clearly it would be so easy (and more fun) to splurge on everything, but that’s not reality. Every day of our renovation involved making choices, and almost every time it came down to cost. My husband’s renovation spreadsheet was my worst nightmare. If it wasn’t saved on his computer, I would have ripped it up into tiny shreds. When you find something you like, but it is way out of your budget, research comparable items. Perfect example, I wanted specific island & dining room lighting fixtures and searched high and low in every store within driving distance. The prices were out of reach for us. I went online and ordered them from well known home furnishing sites. I saved thousands of dollars by simply surfing the internet. But, there were certain things I wouldn’t budge on. Those are the items that didn’t make it on the spreadsheet. Let’s just say, happy wife, happy life and yes, we are still married.” Interior Design, Decor & Styling – Debi Traub – Simply Beautiful Eating. (Instagram) Kitchen Cabinetry Consultant – Layout & Island Colour – Monaco Interiors ***Photos are a combined effort – Debi Traub @Simplybeautifuleating & Michelle Belsky @MagnoliaStudios Posts of the Week: @cottonstem: Beautiful Homes of Instagram. Trending on Home Bunch: Open-Concept Family Home Design Ideas. Popular on Pinterest:Latest Interior Design Ideas. Fall Decor Newest Fall Post: Instagram Fall Decorating Ideas. Follow Home Bunch on Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram. You can follow my pins here: Pinterest/HomeBunch See more Inspiring Interior Design Ideas in my Archives. Popular Paint Color Posts: The Best Benjamin Moore Paint Colors 2016 Paint Color Ideas for your Home Interior Paint Color and Color Palette Pictures Interior Paint Color and Color Palette Ideas Inspiring Interior Paint Color Ideas Interior Paint Color and Color Palette New 2015 Paint Color Ideas Interior Paint Color Ideas Interior Design Ideas: Paint Color Interior Ideas: Paint Color More Paint Color Ideas Hello, my friends. How are you today? Things are very busy around here and I have a huge to-do list that I wish it didn’t exist. I hope your day is filled with great moments, health and laughter. We’ll talk again tomorrow! with Love, Luciane from HomeBunch.com Follow @HomeBunch: Contact: “For your shopping convenience, this post might contain links to retailers where you can purchase the products (or similar) featured. I make a small commission if you use these links to make your purchase so thank you for your support!”

[wionews]

A Canadian explains fighting in ice hockey for Indians

When I told my Indian colleague that in pro ice hockey players often punch each other in the face, he wouldn't believe me. I was amused, but understood his reluctance. Only one sport in the world allows fist fighting. Say what you will about relations between India and Pakistan, when it comes to cricket there are standards of behaviour.

Ice hockey is different. 

  In pro puck, fighting is supervised 

After two players “drop the gloves”—both a euphemism for fighting and also something literally done so players can connect fist to face—they sit in the penalty box for five minutes. Players from both teams tap their sticks against the boards in a show of support, the fans cheer, and the fighters catch their breath. The five minute penalty they earned is a “major penalty”, opposed to a two minute “minor”.

But since one penalty offsets the other, no team is actually handicapped. That fighting is on the one hand considered “major” enough to warrant a longer penalty, yet results in no actual punishment sums up hockey culture's acceptance of fighting.

Also revealing in this regard is the ease with which the announcer switches from narrating a hockey game to a fight. And how the ref doesn't stop the fight, he supervises it, only intervening after there is a clear winner or when one or both parties seem tired.

  Why do ice hockey players fight?

The basic logic: “Enforcers” protect skilled teammates. Ice hockey is an ultra-fast game played in an enclosed rink by rough men carrying wooden sticks. If a small, skilled guy can't score because players are hacking him, that's no good. Injuries and intimidation is built in to hockey. Formally, there are five ways a hockey stick can be used for assault: Cross-checking, tripping, slashing, hooking and spearing.

So if somebody messes with the skilled guy, the goon sorts him out. A dangerous man is a bigger threat than the referee's whistle. 

Historically, this worked. The mild-mannered ,140-pound Wayne Gretzky scored 2-3 points a game for the Edmonton Oilers in the '80s. Any punk who laid a finger on him dealt with a bloodthirsty animal named Marty McSorley. 

Fighting is like nuclear deterrence: Peace is maintained by keeping a lethal weapon inactive. Everyone knows nuclear warheads are dangerous, but no country wants to get rid of their own while other countries have them. Similarly, no coach wants to get rid of their fighter.

This explains why fighting is so hard to remove from the game, despite modern knowledge about the long-term effects of concussions. It also explains why each professional ice hockey team has at least one player who is noticeably bad at hockey. 

  The "staged" fight

In peacetime when fighting is unnecessary, so are fighters. So two enforcers will fight each other because they simply have nothing else to do. They need to remind the coach of their specialty. Indeed, their only purpose.

Sometimes, before a whistle you can see two players talking. The puck drops and immediately they go at each other. This is the staged fight, probably the fight most puzzling and unnecessary to outsiders. It seems like nothing has preceded the fight, but that isn't quite true.

Even totally useless, staged fights can totally change the momentum of a game. One team gets an adrenaline rush and the game is simply different after. This is sometimes reason alone to fight a guy. 

  Rivalries and score settling

Here is some accepted wisdom in hockey that makes no sense but still is basically a law: It's usually OK to slash someone, but if you slash someone back the ref will see and he'll whistle you for it. Retaliation is the sin, not the slash. So players will take down the guy's number and tag them good later.

It might be next period, it might be next season. It might be a nice legal open-ice hip check, a nasty illegal hit, or a fight. It depends. But what looks on the surface like only senseless violence may be just a reasonable, measured response to senseless violence.

  "Face washing"

Sometimes, two pretty skilled guys bump into each other. They might skate away, but sometimes one gives a shove or a hack. The other doesn't want to take this silently; It signals he can be pushed around. So he shoves back, and things escalate until maybe punches are thrown.

Perhaps they only reach the stage just before a fight, which is the "face wash". When a player wipes another player's face with his open hand, that's a face wash. It doesn't hurt, it's just meant to be demeaning, to goad other players into taking a penalty by protecting their honour. They're common in post-whistle scrums. At the 0:28 mark here is a decent face wash. 

  Sheer goonery:

Lest we think fighting is rough but rational, often it is just brainless goonery.

The retired enforcer Tie Domi--the prototypical meathead goon, bless his heart--used the term "old time hockey" to describe the time he punched a fan in the face. Video of this incident is posted below, as proof it happened and because it's insane. I watched this game live on TV, and while it seems incredible to me now on several levels, it made sense at the time, just a natural expression of my own hatred for Philly and their fans.

  Sport's parallel to nationalism 

I used to be a maniac fan watching games on TV by myself, screaming obscenities in response to grievances mostly imagined. I would stomp around and freak out. I've never punched anybody in my life, outside of ice hockey. I was a lunatic. Canada has many such lunatics.  

Athleticism can be valued for its own sake. Its elegance, imagination and skill is ravishing. The comaraderie as a team grows together and accomplishes their mission can be beautiful. Sports are great! 

But some fans support their team as rabidly and blindly as nationalists do their country. People form allegiance to their country and their sports team often for the same reason: They were born there. Rival countries interpret the same historical event in the exact opposite way, like opposing fans arguing about whether a play was offside after watching the exact same replay.

They both often have a superficial love manifested in the fanatic embrace of symbols (a team logo, a national flag, the myths of each). On the other side is hate for certain teams or countries. Both sides are toxic.

There's overlap in the underlying forces causing conflict between countries and sports teams. Self-identifying with a nation or sports team often carries a germ that warps perspective and creates endless antagonism. With countries it can lead to war. In hockey, to fist fighting.

  My derangement

I have experience being deranged. My Leafs met the Ottawa Senators in the playoffs four times in five years between 2000-'04. I mean it, I hated everything to do with Ottawa. When the Weather Channel reported a storm hit Ottawa, I cheered. This is not an exaggeration, I have a specific memory rejoicing at a weather report.

Being a hockey fan was the closest I've ever got to being racist. Until a few years ago I spelled Ottawa Senators without capitalising either proper noun. The improper grammar stung, but I could not show that team any respect.

I have grown up. Notice, I used capital letters back there. I let go of my hate. I don't "Other" players or teams. Now I have the good sense to understand that, just like people are people wherever country they're from, so every single NHL player is obscenely rich, disgustingly young and physically gifted.  

This past April I watched my Leafs play playoff puck for the first time in years. The hockey was great, but I was silent and enjoying it. I didn't want Washington Capitals players, our opponent, to die. I cheered for the Senators even. The Leafs lost, life went on.   

  Macho tradition vs modern science

If a hippie pacifist weenie like me can be brought to a near murderous rage by hockey, no wonder strapping farmboys brought up in a hyper-masculine war culture to value self-sacrifice and ferocity end up fighting people.

But hockey culture is changing. We know about the long-term impact of concussions now. Fighting is in decline. Even if it isn't entirely eliminated, "rock 'em sock 'em" hockey isn't in vogue. Fighting is less glorified and this is slowly changing the culture.

The rules have changed in recent years to promote skill, not brute toughness. It's welcome. The game has markedly improved. According to hockeyfights.com, in 2002 season, 42 per cent of games had at least one fight. Last year, this was down to 25 per cent. Progress! 

But call it nostalgia, I can't help feel some fondness for the old rough stuff. If today it seems crazy that hockey still allows fighting, 90s and early 2000s puck was really crazy. 

Here are a few wild, classic samples of NHL players dropping the gloves. 

  Exhibit #1-Goalie fights--Felix Potvin vs Ron Hextall, 1993

  Exhibit #2--Goalie + forwards + defenceman fight--Detroit vs Colorado, 1997

  Exhibit #3--"The Brawl", all Ottawa vs all Philadelphia, 2004

(WION)

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