#this one is doing numbers over on twitter and the version i put here got nada so

[elibean]

oh babe you don't even know the half of it

[sophiethewitch1]

What We Want - Chpt. 5 - Meet The Adams Family

In Which A Romantic Breaks The Universe

(Yandere!batboys x f!reader) 18+ MDNI!

SUMMARY

Another lonely birthday, another empty year. You miss your family. You're late for your bills and rent, and even then, you got robbed last Tuesday.

Still, you buy yourself a cupcake, because you need it. I mean, hey. What's dessert for if not to get over cheating boyfriends and dead relatives?

As you blow out the candle, watching the clock switch from 11:59 pm to midnight of the next day, you make a wish.

And because the world doesn't like to make much sense, it comes true. Your life is suddenly flipped on a dime, and you're stuck trying to catch up with it. Fantasy becomes reality. You're a Wayne now, apparently. Or you used to be. You're loved, you're rich, you're talented and powerful.

Well, sort of. Careful what you wish for, right?

(TRIGGER WARNINGS AND MASTERLIST HERE)

PREV - NEXT

The first thing you’d done when you woke up, still somehow in the Wayne manor, was pull out not-your phone and check the date. When it tells you that you are not, in fact, in some weird version of a time loop, you feel some measure of relief. The second thing you do is look your own damn name up on Google. There were over 3 million results. You have a Wikipedia page. If that hadn’t made you want to gag, the press from last night had you bumbling your way into the ensuite bathroom and puking into the toilet.

It’s still sitting on the bathroom floor, nauseous and achy and sweaty, your mouth washed out but still tasting foul, that you continue your research.

It’s just as you had suspected, your family was dead. Still dead. Well, shit. In the light of day, you supposed that made more sense. That there was no real reason to assume otherwise. You hadn’t for most of yesterday, but as soon as you’d thought that maybe there was a chance, your hopes had been dashed. Which was good, rip the bandaid off and all.

It was good. Things were good. They were fine, you were fine. You really wish you were a better liar.

Again you wash your mouth out. Root around the cabinets for some medical-grade mouthwash, do it again, and then you throw yourself into the shower. Again. You notice the soap smells like whoever’s clothes you stole. Refreshing and awakening, that mint and earth again. You think you can detect something floral in it too. It’s still masculine, but…

Wow, you are such a freak! You put down the fucking soap and manage to resist the urge to slam your head into the tiles. Your headache was bad enough already.

When you leave the bathroom, you glance at the door, and then down at your towel. Guess you’re stealing some more apparel. You find a Superman shirt, give it a judging glance, and then pick out a black T-shirt with ‘The Beatles’ across the front, and some sweatpants. You have to roll up the pant legs so you don’t trip and fall flat on your face.

One hand scrolling through Twitter and TikTok and Reddit and every single piece of social media you could find, getting the people’s source of news and you get the high overlords’ one when you turn on the huge TV attached to the wall. The remote kind of confuses you at first, but you manage to find the good ol’ Gotham news channel.

Immediately, you’re greeted by your miserable mascara-streaked face. You turn the TV off. You take a deep breath. Turn it back on. Luckily it’s not just you getting your private moment of trauma blasted open in the media. Your party had been filled with Gotham’s elite, after all. You weren’t the only rich idiot left crying by the side of the road.

You weren’t the only one who had to suffer. There had been twenty-eight casualties, in total. A small amount, considering the man behind the deaths. The Joker wasn’t known for his cleanliness. You tell yourself that, and yet still, you can’t make them just numbers. They’d been standing right next to you, after all. All in the same boat, all waiting for the axe to swing, secretly hoping you’re the one who lives to the next day. Only one of the party guests had been shot, and that’s because you think they’d personally pissed off the Joker. That’s what Twitter says, anyway. There were multiple video recordings of the altercation, and it didn’t look like he’d been the smartest banana in the bunch. The TV is a lot sweeter on the dead soul.

You feel sorry for all the dead. You still don’t think this rich heir should be the face you see, though. When you check his name, you find several forgotten assault cases. Assault, rape, just like that disappearing bastard had tried to do to you. That female janitor you’d seen shot had done more for this city than that guy ever had.

Did her family know? Did she have a family? Someone to mourn her? You’d never thought about that before. How many people out there wouldn’t have anyone to even remember them?

It’s none of your business, in the end.

After a whiles more research, you switch the TV off and tuck your cracked phone into the sweatpants. You know where your mother’s grave is, on the west side of the estate. Wikipedia knew all, which was now kind of creepy to you as it knew all about you as well. Really, you couldn’t believe it. Your mother, buried with the Waynes? You’d always thought she should find someone new, someone who’d appreciate her, unlike your father who had dipped as soon as Sam was born.

You couldn’t even remember the guy. Still, you remembered that he’d smelled bad and made your Mum do everything, and was just generally all around the worst choice for a husband.

But, Jesus Christ, Bruce Wayne? Absolute insanity. You had no idea how the two of them would’ve even met. Let alone fall in love and get married. Your mother was one of the loveliest women on earth but… they had absolutely nothing in common, other than having troublesome kids. And you hadn’t seen her getting lovey-dovey with the other PTA mums.

You walk out of the room you’ve borrowed and into the hallway. In the light of day, the Wayne manor is much less creepy, and you can find it in yourself to appreciate the antique space. Warm sunlight falls over dark oak furniture, illuminating your bare feet as you walk along the Persian rug. Your fingers trail along all the tiny little decorations, some annoying part of you demanding you leave traces of yourself behind. Your fingerprints dirty an old clock, a golden candelabra, a lamp and a tiny spinning globe.

You might’ve gotten lost in a place this huge if you couldn’t hear people’s voices floating down the halls. They were too far away for you to be able to tell what they were saying, but you could still hear them. They’re to the west, so you’re definitely going to have to go past them.

You follow the voices and eventually come to a stop in a hallway. You can smell food. Good, real food. The type that makes your instant-ramen-powered body salivate. The people are in the kitchen, right around the corner. You duck your head and quickly sneak past the mostly closed doorway. On the other side, you pause, your curious self unable to leave just yet.

“She needs help,” Bruce says, and you mentally curse. Balls. You didn’t want to hear this. You guess this was instant karma for snooping. Maybe they weren’t talking about you?

Why did that sound very unlikely…

“She went through a lot last night,” he continues, which, well, yes, you did go through a lot, “And he said that she saw a woman get shot right in front of her. It makes sense if she doesn’t want to talk yet.”

He? Who’s he? Who ratted you out? Wait, dumb question, the four other witnesses who saw the janitor get shot. You were still pretty sure the Waynes weren’t supposed to know that, but everybody knew those GCPD pigs were always just a dollar away from whatever you wanted them to do. It’s not surprising that the Waynes know details only the police should know at the moment.

…It is a bit disappointing, though. You chose to have hope in them, that they’d gotten that information legally. Your fatal obsession with the Waynes wasn’t going to disappear after one miserable party. You wished it would.

“She was acting strange before that,” Timothy Jackson Drake’s smooth voice drifts from the kitchen. You were still a little starry-eyed over him, which was… bad, you think. It’d definitely make whatever relationship the two of you had been forced into a whole lot more difficult. It did not need to be any more difficult.

“Are you accusing her of something?” Bruce Thomas Wayne’s voice is gravelly in comparison, angry, maybe. Also, ‘accusing’? What could he even be accusing you of? It was pretty obvious you weren’t capable of anything nefarious, you were far too stupid for that. You were a plastic bag drifting along the Gotham river, barely able to affect which direction you flowed in.

“God no. And I definitely wouldn’t do it with her listening, that’d be rude.”

Your breath hitches, and you push off from the wall. Busted, damn. Your face feels unbelievably hot. As you leave, you can hear Mr Wayne scolding his adopted son. You walk until you can’t hear their voices anymore, and then a little further, finding an exit door.

You stumble out onto a stone staircase, probably a servants’ one in the olden days. You move down it, hand gripping the railing. You’re barely conscious of where you’re going. There’s a path that leads away from the stone manor and further into the estate, and you follow it. When you spot a small gated area, with stone obelisks and angel statues, you veer off the path and onto the grass.

Hissing out a breath, it’s only now you realise you went outside without any shoes on. Your toes curl in the cold, wet grass. It’s a miserable feeling, and you want to walk right back inside. And then you think about the awkward conversation waiting for you, take a breath and keep going. The gates swing open easily under your hand, the golden embossed ‘W’ glinting in the light.

A guardian angel stands before you. Its stone face is disapproving, glaring down at you from above. ‘Interloper,’ it calls you, but you move past it without pausing. It’s pretty obvious which graves are the new ones and which are the old ones. They’re all clean and well-kept, but the ones to the left have dates going back hundreds of years, and the ones to the right only decades. Your eyes follow the rows of graves. Thomas Wayne, Martha Wayne…

Your breath whistles out of you, nearly muffled by the grey morning wind.

And your mother. She has a different last name, now another Wayne. Your siblings don’t, which makes sense. You’re surprised to find many of your extended family also in this graveyard. Your grandmother. Your uncle and aunt. A few of your cousins.

It’s cold this morning, and you’re out here with only a thin T-shirt on. Shivering, you rub your palms against your bare arms. It doesn’t do much. Still, you don’t want to go inside yet. Instead, you crouch in front of Sam’s grave, eyes reading the tiny epitaph. It’s not the one you wrote.

‘Beloved Son and Brother.’

Simple, clean-cut, formal… unfamiliar, you suppose. Yours had been much more flowery, ‘All the colour in the world is gone without you’. It was a bit silly, but you’d never said you were a poet. You’d just known you’d wanted something that represented them, if poorly.

Sam was a beloved son and brother. But that wasn’t who he chose to be. He liked colours. He’d change his favourite every other day, so he liked everything rainbow. It made it easier to choose which one he’d like next, he said. You were always buying him more and more coloured pencils because he’d wear them all down to the tips, he dyed the cat a bright red headache, much to your mother’s horror, and considered it his personal job to make every single birthday, christmas, and easter card. He’d paint on the walls in washable markers, and you’d often been the one to volunteer to help him get it all down. In school, he always had the best art project out of the entire class, even if you were slightly biased.

He was a colourful kid. He wasn’t… a plain grey tombstone. Nothing to help remember him, because you were always losing more and more of their precious memories.

The others had similarly impersonal graves. Just what they were, not who. Mother, sister. Nothing that spoke of how they’d lived their lives, what the world had lost when they’d died. It was… you didn’t think it was right. It was a disaster, really. Even when you’d had to rely on the Wanye Foundation donations, you’d managed a better resting place than this.

You suppose you’d never gotten them into the Wayne family’s personal graveyard, though. That was a bit of an upgrade, you guess.

“You need to come back inside. You’re worrying my father.”

“Jesus Christ!” you shriek, leaping backward. Your foot catches on one of the cobblestones, and you end up tipping back farther than you mean to, your ass bruising against the ground. You bump another gravestone, and there’s a horrible moment where it gives a little and you think it’s going to knock over.

It doesn’t. A shining miracle on your day.

From your slightly wet seat on the ground, you look up, finding one such Damian Al Ghul-Wayne. His towering height is the first thing you notice, second his stunning emerald green eyes. Both were incredibly shocking in their own ways, but his height really was almost dizzying. Perfect brown skin and a stylish 'long on the top, short on the sides’ black haircut, paired with the sort of face some European model might have, all come together to make sure you feel as pathetic as possible. His posh-looking outfit doesn’t help.

Neither does the fact he just watches you. He doesn’t even pretend to bend over to help you up. Which you’re sort of grateful for, honestly. It’d just make you more embarrassed. You didn’t know if you could hold the hand of your celebrity crush and… well, be normal. Pretend to be normal. You weren’t doing a very good job of it anyway.

You have to wonder, which was the worst introduction? The drunk, the bloody, or the one where you fell on your ass? God, you really are screwing this all the way up. You wonder how you’re inevitably going to make it even worse. There’s a part of you that desperately doesn’t want to meet any of the other Waynes, even as another part of you is screaming that it needs to.

If they knew they had a fangirl in their graveyard, you’re sure they’d kick you out. That was why you were lying about everything, not because you had intimacy issues.

Stop thinking, you idiot! You’re only making things more difficult for yourself with all your worrying and fretting. And maybe you should get off the ground, you looked stupid. You push to your feet, wiping your dirtied hands on the sweats.

He still doesn’t say anything when you stand, still just staring at you. His open staring is far too intimidating, so you scrounge for something to say.

“Your father? You- Is he alright?” you stammer over your words, giving Damian Wayne an awkward smile. He doesn’t return it, instead canting his head towards one of the windows.

You look toward where Damian Wayne gestured to, find nothing but an empty window frame, and then back to the ridiculously tall man. You swear, the guy had grown like a bean pole. He had to be something ridiculous, like 6’5, or maybe more. You were fairly certain you’d been taller than him at twelve, or thirteen, whenever it was he was first introduced to the world as Damian Wayne. Now, now… not so much.

“There’s nobody in there?” you ask, like you’re questioning your sanity. You are.

“My father’s shy,” He says, coolly shrugging one shoulder.

What. Bruce Wayne? Shy? Was he joking or something?

Damian Wayne stares down at you with narrowed green eyes, and dark brows in a harsh frown. His arms are crossed over his rich kid sweater, shiny black shoes tapping against the cobbles. That’s not the face of someone who makes jokes, you think.

You swallow, mind whirring as you try desperately to fix this conversation, “Right. Okay. I’ll… I’ll come back inside, then. Sorry for bothering you guys.”

He keeps staring at you. He doesn’t seem bothered.

“Sorry for bothering him?” you correct.

Damian gives one slow, cat-like blink of his eyes, and then turns with a tsk and walks away. It takes you a moment to realise you’re meant to follow him. It takes you even longer to actually catch up with him because he’s so fucking tall.

On TV he didn’t look this tall. You feel kind of betrayed, which is weird.

As you’re walking along, getting closer back to the manor, a stick or something pokes you in the foot. You curse, grabbing your foot. Thankfully you don’t start bleeding or something. You’d already be tracking dirt all over the inside of the impeccable space, you didn’t want to bring blood in as well. It takes a moment for you to realise the sound of Damian’s footsteps crunching in the grass has stopped, and you glance up.

He’s staring right at you again. He looks even less impressed with you, raising an eyebrow and mouth ticking downward. You put your foot down and tuck your hands behind your back in a very obvious anxious display.

“You went outside not wearing any shoes?” Damian Wayne asks, incredulous.

“I was… yeah, I forgot to,” you say, shrugging your shoulders. Not your best moment, but you weren’t really having any of those today. Or yesterday. Or the day before. Maybe you should stop thinking about that, actually.

“That’s disgusting,” The young Wayne sneers, and then turns and gives you his shoulder.

You think your heart maybe cracks a little. Well, they do say to never meet your idols. Maybe whoever wrote that quote had you in mind specifically, because now you were in… this situation. Ex-step-sister. If that was a thing. Your Wikipedia page said that you said that a lot, very insistent that you had absolutely nothing to do with the Waynes.

…It didn’t really look like you had nothing to do with the Waynes, from an outsider's perspective. Which obviously didn’t make any sense, since you were… you. You were not an outsider, not anymore.

This was too complicated. You needed a coffee. With like, so much sugar it’ll make you bounce from the walls.

Damian strides up the side entrance’s staircase and through the door, leaving it open for you to follow through. You hesitate at the doorway, looking over your shoulder to the graveyard. The statue calls you names in the distance, and although you feel like a stranger who doesn’t belong here, you manage to step back into the house.

You force yourself to walk through the hallway and into the kitchen, fists clenched tight at your side and your shoulders bunched up to your ears. Bruce Thomas Wayne, Timothy Jackson Drake, and the butler from earlier. Damian Al Ghul Wayne steps around the trio, picking some drink from the counter and moving to sit at the dining table at the edge of the room. There’s an open book on the table that he starts flicking through, and well, apparently that’s the end of your first conversation with the youngest Wayne.

You did… well, alright might be pushing it. You're still going to say you did alright.

Tim Drake gives you a sweet smile, catching your attention. The silky raven hair of his heart-shaped fringe falls over his beautiful, pale face, and for a moment there you totally forget that he’d called you out earlier like that. Which was just, such an odd thing to do. His hand lifts to scratch at the buzz cut under the floppy strands of hair. The movement mesmerises you. You look away from his sky blue eyes, very quickly realising they’re robbing you of the few remaining brain cells you have. And you need those, damn it. Especially because you’d already made the decision to hide from all your problems like a baby. Negative, negative…

“How’re you doing today?” Tim asks you, giving you a friendly greeting. It’s a welcome olive branch.

“I’m good,” you lie like you breathe, eyes glancing around the space. Bruce Wayne has his phone out and a mug of coffee in his hands. He sips from the cup, his focus swallowed by the tiny screen. You glance back over to Damian Wayne. Huh, it really does run in the family.

Your neck prickles, and you glance back at Tim again. You get a brief vision of his tired, unsmiling expression, and then it’s back to the angelic and gentle smile. You smile back at him, a wretched, awful twisting of the lips that you hope doesn’t look like a grimace.

Tim’s smile turns into a grin. It’s really too pretty and makes you shift in your seat uncomfortably. Damn it all, look away!

“Would you like some breakfast, young miss? I’m afraid we’ve run out of pancakes, but I’d be happy to make some more for you,” the butler says in an awfully familiar British accent. You think you know this person, but you can not remember from where. Shit. Your memory was bad on the best of days, much less after… after an event like last night.

Anyway, the food from earlier had been pancakes. Despite the delicious scent, you really didn’t want to make him make any more food for you. You felt like you were intruding as it was.

“Do you have any toast, or… cereal?” you suggest instead, wondering if rich people even bother with cereal. The butler chuckles, and you think, ‘Oh, yeah, probably not’.

“We have both, miss. Master Grayson has a particular fondness for cereal, in fact,” he informs you, which, oh, cool. You did in fact know that, you stalker you. You’d totally forgotten about that weird fact or the weird fact that you knew that weird fact. Dick Grayson has an Instagram where he posts reviews of different cereals, which of course you have notifications on for.

“It’s more of an obsession,” Tim says, resting his palm in his hand as he… continues to stare at you. Nobody else thinks his ogling is strange, so you try to ignore it as well. Try is the choice word.

“I like cereal too. It’s normal,” you say in defence of Dick, a natural and instinctual urge.

And apparently, the fact that you like cereal is fucking shocking, judging from the open-mouth looks the group gives you. Oh no, you’re supposed to hate him, right? You’re supposed to hate them all, actually. What had you called him on your phone? Something about being annoying and a dickhead?

Swallowing your inner scream, you move around the counter and towards the cupboards. Whatever, they’ll have to deal with this new and improved version of you, which didn’t despise everyone in the room. Along with being a terrible liar, you were also pretty bad at keeping secrets.

You don’t want to think about that, so instead you turn to Alfred.

“So,” you start, “Can I see your cereal collection?” you ask, like a totally normal person. Man, this cupboard’s looking pretty head-smashable right now.

This family has more tact than yours did, because they all manage to put their eyes back to what they were doing and pretend you weren’t acting really, really out of character. Rich people. They’re good at overlooking the crazy.

“Of course,” the butler clears his throat, “In here, you’ll find Master Dick’s collection-” score! Not another fan can claim this right, “-and in the fridge a carton of milk. Are you sure I couldn’t serve it for you, miss? I understand you might still be a little…”

His voice trails off. Little what?

He glances at the others and then leans in close like he’s going to tell you a secret. Behind a hand, he whispers, “Hungover.”

Ah. Well, yes, but you were a big girl who could make her cereal, even on hangover days. Kind of embarrassing it was that obvious, though. You were usually better at hiding how much of a mess you were.

“I’ll be fine, thank you,” you say, and the butler nods and backs off. You’re pretty sure at this point that he was the one who called you yesterday morning, but you still couldn’t quite recall his name. When you were out of sight, you’d check your phone for his contact information.

See? You could do this. Stealthy.

As you start perusing through the cereal options, Tim gets up from his spot by the counter and comes to stand next to you at the breakfast bar. He heads straight to the coffee machine, and you glance at it longingly.

It’s one of those cafe-quality fancy espresso makers, with an Italian name embossed in silver on the top. Tim manipulates the machine like a master, which you’re very jealous of because it might as well be alien technology to you. You miss your shitty drip coffee, at least that dingy little machine was loyal to you. Better than George.

“Coffee?” Tim Drake offers, glancing at you. Ah, the starry eyes are back. While Damian Wayne had been a mildly disappointing introduction, Mr. Drake was just reinforcing your celebrity worship. And of course, because your brain works against you, his offer reminds you of the daydreams you’d had on your first twenty-first birthday. Coffee shop au real person fiction- a new low, even for you.

Flustered, you look up at the ceiling. The old mansion is decorated in every single available corner, the plaster above spreading across the entire surface with delicate filigree and pretty curling patterns. It’s gorgeous, absolutely entrancing. That’s what you tell yourself at least.

“Please,” you say, your voice just the slightest bit too quiet. He hears you anyway.

It’s surprisingly domestic. Of course, you don’t know any of these people past face value and Wired YouTube interviews, but… it’s quite indulgent. This is sort of your dream, isn’t it? A full house of people enjoying their morning together. Peaceful bird song drifting in through open windows. The comfort of being around people you trust, not having to perform or put on a show. Well, you are very much putting on a show right now. It’s the thought that counts, or whatever.

“What would you like in it? We have sugar, milk, oat milk, and I like having a few syrups on hand,” Tim chatters excitedly, listing off the different ingredients he has on offer. Your poor ass stares at his rich one, and you are very rudely reminded these people live in different tax brackets than you.

Who the fuck had coffee syrups in their house? You could barely afford the little treats of caramel syrup you get every couple of months. The disappearance of the middle class was one you had witnessed personally.

You rattle off a very basic, bland order. Tim looks sort of disappointed in you which… well, you could be a coffee snob. You just didn’t have the time, usually. A flat white kept you going through the day, you didn’t need anything else. And so, Tim hands you a very bland coffee, and it is god sent. You can’t imagine how good it would be if you had mustered up your courage and asked for some caramel syrup.

Huh, you could be a coffee snob. You could be anything you wanted, really. And your first thought is being a coffee snob. Good God.

“Are you going to be staying?“ Bruce Wayne asks, immediately putting you on the spot. You weren’t ready for this, you were thinking about the coffees you could buy. Oh no, you really aren’t ready for this.

“At least for now, right?” Tim Drake says, just making it all the more stressful. You let out an awkward chuckle, fingers tight around your drink.

“Oh, I don’t want to be an inconvenience-”

Damian Wayne slams his mug down on the table, so hard a crack splinters up its side. He picks the cup up, strides across the kitchen, narrowed green eyes meeting yours for a second, and then he dumps the cup in a secret rubbish can. He murmurs an apology to the butler and then is out of the room.

Okay, well, you certainly feel like an inconvenience.

The butler clears his throat, and says, “Please forgive young master Damian. He’s been having a difficult time recently, I hope you can understand.”

And you think, ‘bitch, a difficult time?! He’s not the one who almost died last night!’ but what you say is, “Of course, I completely understand. I don’t want to bother him anymore so I’d really like to leave today.”

Mr. Wayne laces his fingers together, blue eyes giving you an assessing look.

“Stay for the day, and you can leave tonight. I want to make sure you’re truly alright,” he eventually says, and the mere presence of the man has you yielding to his commands. Didn’t really matter you were an adult who’d managed to survive this long on your own, you were listening to the big scary guy when he told you what to do.

Well, that’s that! You make your cereal and have a very quiet breakfast. You can’t tell if they’re being quiet because you’re here, or if mornings are usually like this. You hope they’re usually like this. Once you’ve finished your very nice cereal (one of the highest rated on Dick’s Instagram) you place the bowl by the sink. You want to wash it, but when you ask Alfred he gives you a look like you kicked his dog. Okay, you’ll just go then.

You’re about to sneak away, when you realise Tim’s staring at you… again…? But this time he seems quite focused on your clothing. His eyes follow the double lines on the side of your sweatpants, before settling on the Beatles logo on your shirt. He hums at it. Raises his brows.

“I’m sorry, I borrowed this because I didn’t have any other clothes. Is there something wrong with me wearing this?” you ask, and then experience a moment of horror, “This doesn’t belong to you, does it?”

“Hmm?” Tim chirps, “Oh, no, don’t worry. It’s not mine.”

And then he turns away from you in a very clear dismissal. Nice, you really wanted to go hide for an hour or two. With one last awkward wave to Bruce Thomas Wayne, you scurry out of the kitchen and back to the bedroom you’d started thinking of as yours. You need to figure out how you're going to handle all this, and you're going to do it alone. Maybe with some dessert, if you can find it. You wouldn't say you think better with sugar running in your veins, but it definitely makes you more willing to deal with the bullshit that is your life. Hopefully it'd work in your new one, too.

-

Tim listens to your retreating footsteps, waiting till you’re far enough away to begin talking to Bruce. Humans were creatures of habit, so you’d probably be going back to the same room you slept in last night. He thinks Damian and him were the only ones who noticed whose shirt you were wearing, B’s off his game today. You’ve really managed to mess him up, to Tim’s delight.

“See? Dames was totally fine with her being here,” Tim says, cheerily enjoying his youngest sibling’s suffering. Bruce sighs, witheringly, lifting his hand to rub against the headache he always has. He’s probably noticed the excited, slightly fanatic gleam that’s entered into Tim’s eyes.

It was sort of obvious. This was all so exciting! You’d come back, sporting absolutely none of the defensive vitriol you usually have, and ate breakfast together. You took a coffee out of Tim’s hands. You’d willingly spoken to the devil, who everybody in the family knew hated you as much as you hated him, and even more than that-

You’d spoken to Bruce. Tim was sporting the idea that you’d gotten head trauma, at this point in time.

“Okay, fine. You get the mission, but-” Tim has to resist the urge to clap his hands together like a gleeful child “-but no extra cameras. I’m serious, Tim, if I find out you’ve invaded her privacy just after she’s starting to warm up to us again-”

“She wouldn’t know,” Tim complains, cutting the Bat off with a roll of his eyes.

“She’s smarter than you’d think,” Bruce shakes his head. Tim has to disagree, after the catastrophe that was last night. Unless of course, you were just playing with them all. So many options, it’s dizzying.

“We’ll shelve that argument for later. So, I want full control of the case, and in turn, I’ll do another two weeks as CEO,” Tim waves off Bruce’s complaints, going straight into haggling. The CEO position was tossed between the two of them like a hot potato, and it was one of Tim’s favourite bargaining tools.

“I am absolutely not agreeing to that, a month and nothing less.”

“This is why half your children don’t talk to you, but sure, whatever. Chase away your last, loyal loving son-”

“My God, Tim. Three fucking weeks, and if I hear another word I will hand this matter over to Grayson,” Bruce sighs, sounding a bit defeated.

Tim gives an offended gasp, placing his hand against his chest. And then he realises Bruce might actually be serious, and freaks out a bit.

“He’d be bad for it. Far too personally involved. You definitely don’t want to do that,” he says, leg bouncing under the table. Of course, the Bat notices, but he doesn’t mention it. He wouldn’t take this from Tim, they both knew he was getting too frazzled around the edges. He needed something to focus on, to ground him.

You were the perfect project. He loved his projects.

“I am aware. But the girls are out of town, and uncontactable. And I think if I gave Damian this assignment the two of them would kill each other.”

“No Jason option, sir?” Tim says because he’s a shit-stirrer and wants to get to work.

Tim succeeds in chasing Bruce away. He’s left to have his coffee in peace as the old man quickly flees the room at the mention of the son he's on the worst terms with. For the next few hours, Tim taps away on his computer, enjoying his time.

And when the front doors open, his ears prick, and a decidedly evil grin spreads on his face.

“I’m home!” Dick calls out, words travelling through the grand manor.

Tim gets up from his seat and wanders leisurely to the main hall, where Dick stands. He’s got a suitcase by his side, filled with all the things he’s brought up from the Blud. When he spots Tim, Dick’s face spreads in a familiar sunny smile. He quickly rushes to Tim’s side, swallowing the younger brother in a hug. Tim groans at the tight squeezing.

Despite his clinginess, it was good to see him. His tanned skin glowed healthily, and his curly black hair was messy over his brow. Sapphire blue eyes sparkled. He was happy to be home, despite everything that was going on. Dick always looked like he’d just gotten back from a run because he usually had. It was hard to get the guy to sit still for even a minute, much less stop parkouring over every imaginable surface.

“Tim! How’s it been? Ah, it’s so good to be home,” Dick starts, and again, Tim groans. When Dick starts yammering he never stops.

“I’m good, man. We can talk later, you should go put your things away before Alfred does,” Tim reminds Dick, and Dick pouts. It was a general rule that unless it was cooking, the family wasn’t supposed to rely on Alfred for everything.

“Alright, alright. I’ll be down in a minute! I have so much to tell you,” Dick relents, hand lifting to mess with his hair. Tim pushes him off, glaring at the man, and Dick laughs.

Tim gives Dick a tired wave as the gymnast bounds up the stairs to his bedroom. Tim watches him disappear down the hallways, and thinks, ‘I wish I could see this happen.’ He sighs, guess he’ll just have to hear Dick retell the story later. The distant sound of your shrieking voice has him chuckling. Yeah, he’ll hear about it later, he’s sure.

MASTERLIST - NEXT

[shonpota]

Twitter Re acquisition Startegy Things that can be done to get Elon out from Twitter for good

(It is can, and it doesn't meant to be taken seriously anyway)

Please be kind when commenting and reblogging

Everything here are just options, not step by step:

Twitter blue or not, whenever Elon tweet something just make spam of pollings with questions or rephrased of "Do you want Elon Musk to be in Twitter in any job title? Yes or no." If you are afraid of getting accounts, then make dummy accounts. Remember to always vote "no" 😆 we can do it! Flood Elon's reply tweet sections woth that polling and nothing more, only interact with polling and like other polling with alike question to fight against bootlickers algorithm.

^This question is basically improved version of Elon's polling about whether he should step down from CEO position. Which he used the "no" As to move to other job position. This improved question will leave him no space to slip to other job position or even to just exist in Twitter.

Gather information about former twitter employees, make a group chat with them. Ask them about new and old twitter, the good and the bad. Make articles about it, go publish it everywhere.

Make all public posts settings on other social media about how bad twitter is for business and advertisements, tag local and international news and other influencers and request them to do the same.

Make one day or few days without twitter campaign to make social interest in it goes down, notify any local and international news media about this so they put it on news to make twitter popularity goes down and harms also humiliated Elon's megalomaniac and egomaniac side.

😇 Alternative "Good guy" Route😇 : Work together with HQ building owner (because Elon is renting it) to kick Elon out but keep everything intact.

Warning: ?? Unknown??

👽 🍹 Raid 51 But In HQ 🍹👽: Let's hold a gathering party to goes into Twitter San Fransisco HQ on Market Street! Go get barbecue, ice cream, juices, cold snacks and hold a picnic there and try to hold it in the HQ too (you can ask the building owner to open up the door cuz Elon doesn't pay the office) . The polices and armies will less likely arrest such a peaceful fun raid. Go feed the workers and passerby but not Elon.

If this is done then hold an open public job open requests to everyone in around the world and US to be engineers, website and logo designers, codings, etc. Twitter has branches around the countries

DELETE ELON MUSK ACCOUNT/S. Ban his phone number and e-mail.

If possible: Collect money to set a lawyer against him. Remember that Elon is stupid enough to challenge Wachtell (a big name in lawyer world). Go open public fundraising. Demand a high cost compensation from Elon.

News that hold information about lay offs:

More idea to try! 💡 if possible, you can ask the journalist in the news about name details of who got lay off

CEO: Parag Agrawal

Chief Financial Officer: Ned Segal

Head of Legal Policy: Vijaya Gadde

There are also people who get unemployed in Ghana as told in CNBC, the journalist who interviewed is Elliot Smith.

For news about the lay off, The Verge, Euronews, etc can be used.

HQ Location:

Xspace office

https://maps.app.goo.gl/XxtfQNmz3sNp4H1W6

Tesla Factories

Potential Allies for Twitter Take over:

Microsoft:

Meta

Wachtell

Warning: Don't publish this in Twitter, on DMs is fine. It is better if Elon Musk doesn't know about this so he can't prepare anything. Make sure that each accounts unfollowed and block elon musk Twitter too.

Oh anyway a good read:

[rpgsandbox]

So this appeared on twitter the other day, a challenge for 2023.

A blog post fleshed out the idea a bit more:

#Dungeon23

A dungeon room a day for all of 2023.

The other day I posted on twitter about a cool little project I’m working on for 2023. Essentially, I’m doing a dungeon room a day, every day, and keeping track of it in a little weekly calendar.

Why?

Well, I love dungeons and megadungeon play, but writing a megadungeon is difficult! It takes a lot of energy and it’s hard to know when to work on it and for how long. This simplifies things.

A dungeon room a day, every day, for 2023. That’s 365 rooms. I’ll do a level a month, so 12 levels. Every week is a little area of 7 rooms, so I can keep my focus small.

I’m using the amazing Hobonichi Weeks which if you don’t know is a great little notebook designed by the writer of the Earthbound/Mother game series. It’s got great paper, and the Weeks version is the smaller more portable notebook. Essentially on a single spread you’ve got seven days on the left and then an open piece of graph paper on the right. That’s perfect for a key of seven rooms and a map. Here’s another one that ship’s from the US. Got a worldbuilder’s notebook you’ve been dying to use? Now’s the time.

You don’t have to use this notebook, don’t get hung up on the details here. Any old notebook will do. I just happen to have an addiction to Japanese stationery and no real need to journal, so this is what I’m doing, dungeon as journal.

There’s some great things you can do here too: instead of room numbers, you can number them with the date. This makes rooms pretty easy to find and reference within your notebook. Don’t need a megadungeon? Try twelve small dungeons! The point is to do a little bit of writing a day. Some tips:

Don’t overthink it. Don’t make a grand plan, just sit down each day and focus on writing a good dungeon room.

Generators are your friend. The point isn’t to get stuck writing the perfect room, the point is to write a room. Randomize the monster, treasure, whatever items you need. Use “Tricks, Traps, and Empty Rooms,” by Courtney Campbell. There’s a billion d100 lists on Elfmaids & Octopi. Take rooms from dungeons you love. Just get the rooms down on paper.

If you can’t think of what to write that day just write “Empty Room,” see how easy that is?

365 rooms written like “3 orcs, 25 gold pieces.” is better than 5 rooms written like “In this beautiful hand carved obsidian room sit 3 orcs arguing over a dice game. 25gp sit on the table, each of them…” See what I’m getting at? The goal is the finish line. Just get to the finish line. Trust me.

If you want to keep up with my progress on Twitter, mastodon, or cohost, use the hashtag #dungeon23. Post your results too! Post a room a day on twitter so other people can steal it and put it in their journals! Become a collector of rooms, you don’t have to be the well.

The greatest creative advice I ever got was “have something to show for your time.” I’ve found a lot of success on always shipping projects every year. This is one of those projects, once you realize you can create a dungeon of this magnitude, your whole world opens up with what you can do. And it’s insanely fun too!

#dungeon23, I’ll see you on the other side.

P.S.

Need a weekly prompt to carry you through? Here’s 52 prompts to keep you motivated:

Ancient

Death

Sunken

Love

Empire

Heavy

Rural

Darkness

Bloom

Rust

Noise

Childhood

Time

Excess

Decay

City

Factory

Flood

Sleep

Cold

Ash

Touch

Meat

Solitude

Growth

Greed

Luck

Fall

Pit

Chaos

Laughter

Smoke

Forgotten

Library

Ocean

Song

Roots

Bones

Hangman

Blood

Prophet

Idol

Door

Light

Stars

Bridge

Mask

Cut

Sacrifice

Incense

Rise

Gold

[thebroccolination]

Is it okay if you go into greater detail about Win's personality, fears, and insecurities?

OKAY SO.

Win's my favorite character! I love him deeply! And I've been enjoying his character growth in Between Us more than anything.

The interesting thing about following him as a character is that there're different versions of him with similarities and differences: currently unfinished Hemp Rope, his brief appearances in UWMA, the specials, and now the ongoing main series (currently episode four).

His character in Hemp Rope is hard for me to get a read on because we only have unofficial translations and an incomplete story, so a lot of his motivations and emotional interiority are missing nuances.

Here, have the most beautiful image ever drawn of Win, taken from the Twitter account of the official Red Thread mangaka:

Meanwhile, UWMA is tricky as well because as Boun has said, he put a lot of his own personality into the performance because he didn't have a layered character to study. He kind of created his own version of Win out of necessity. He only had about an hour total onscreen, and apart from his stairwell scene giving Dean advice, he didn't have much of an impact on the plot, so he wasn't a central character with a lot of detail.

That said, we got some crucial moments in his scenes with Team that helped us understand what kind of person he is.

So! When I wrote WinTeam fic over the past two and a half years, I used a composite of his characters in Hemp Rope and UWMA. The flirtatious side we see in UWMA, the nurturing side we see in Hemp Rope, etc.

The specials weren't meant to be canon, and honestly someone on here recently called them unofficial workshops, which…yes?! That's a brilliant way to think of them, I think. The feedback they got on the specials (mainly that they were portraying BounPrem more than WinTeam) probably helped them focus their performances in the main series.

So now we're seeing the main series unfold, and since Win has a full development arc to go through now, it's a lot easier for me to see all of these little nuances. He's a full-fledged, multilayered character! One of the leads! YAY FOR MY SON. <3

His core fear seems to be that he's going to be alone forever, and while he seems resigned to it in episode one, he still clearly has some hope by the fact that he's grabbed onto Team with both hands. Even though he also has no idea what to do to keep him, he wants Team.

I think he also has a craving for validation. That "Team helps Win feel wanted" from the synopsis has been an ongoing chant in my head for the past two years, and it's fascinating to see it play out onscreen. I want to see his interactions with his parents before I go too deep into analyzing anything with his family, but it's pretty telling already that no one's actually sat down with View – a sixteen-year-old – and explained what's expected of him. Not until Win did.

Win's mother seems to be the one who nurtures Wan, but then you have scenes where Wan is criticizing both of their parents when he talks to Tul and Win. (Maybe because she doesn't stand up for him strongly enough to his father?) I thought it was fascinating that Wan views Win as the favorite, but he doesn't seem to hold any serious resentment toward him. My guess is it's because of this "rule" Win apparently made up: they're equals to him. Even if their parents have chosen a favorite (unconsciously or not), Win isn't using that leverage over his brothers.

He's even enforced that same equality with food. Maybe it's a conscious or unconscious response to their parents making their favoritism obvious? Or it's just something he thinks is the right thing to do in general. I'm waiting on more scenes with his family, because right now I feel like it could be a number of things.

Basically, my dear Anon, I'm in the middle of a whole new Win Phawin analysis stage. I knew my characterization of him would change with his series, and I'm delighted by what we've gotten so far. :')

I hope this was what you were hoping for!

[lovesongbracket]

Reminder: Vote based on the song, not the artist or specific recording! The tracks referenced are the original artist, aside from a few rare cases where a cover is the most widely known.

Lyrics, videos, info, and notable covers under the cut. (Spotify playlist available in pinned post)

Chasing Cars

Written By: Jonny Quinn, Paul Wilson, Tom Simpson, Nathan Connolly & Gary Lightbody

Artist: Snow Patrol

Released: 2006

Cover included: The Wind and the Wave, 2015

This slow-building ballad is Snow Patrol’s biggest-selling single. A main driving force behind the song’s success was its inclusion at the end of the Grey’s Anatomy Season 2 finale. In an interview with Take 5 Gary Lightbody says: “The track wasn’t even featured on the iTunes top 100, and then an hour after the show, it was number 1. So that’s the impact of TV right there." About the song, he said in a interview with Rolling Stone: “It’s the purest love song that I’ve ever written. There’s no knife-in-the-back twist. When I read these lyrics back, I was like, ‘Oh, that’s weird.’ All the other love songs I’ve written have a dark edge."

[Verse 1] We'll do it all Everything On our own We don't need Anything or anyone [Chorus] If I lay here If I just lay here Would you lie with me and just forget the world? [Verse 2] I don't quite know How to say How I feel Those three words Are said too much They're not enough [Chorus] If I lay here If I just lay here Would you lie with me and just forget the world? Forget what we're told Before we get too old Show me a garden that's burstin' into life [Verse 3] Let's waste time Chasing cars Around our heads I need your grace To remind me To find my own [Chorus] If I lay here If I just lay here Would you lie with me and just forget the world? Forget what we're told Before we get too old Show me a garden that's burstin' into life [Bridge] All that I am All that I ever was Is here in your perfect eyes, they're all I can see I don't know where Confused about how, as well Just know that these things will never change for us at all [Chorus] If I lay here If I just lay here Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Wildest Dreams

Written By: Shellback, Max Martin & Taylor Swift

Artist: Taylor Swift

Released: 2014 (re-recorded 2021)

Alternate versions included: Grammy Museum, 2015; 1989 World Tour, 2015

The ninth track and fifth single on 1989 is about Swift hoping her lover will remember their best moments after they’re over. It expresses mixed feelings: hoping that they last, but knowing that they’ll end. In the US, the song reached number five, becoming her fifth consecutive top ten from 1989. Swift spoke to Rolling Stone about how this song differs from her previous love songs: “I think the way I used to approach relationships was very idealistic. I used to go into them thinking, ‘Maybe this is the one – we’ll get married and have a family, this could be forever’. Whereas now I go in thinking, ‘How long do we have on the clock – before something comes along and puts a wrench in it, or your publicist calls and says this isn’t a good idea?” Swift suddenly released the re-recording of 2014’s “Wildest Dreams” after the original version became part of a viral TikTok trend in the summer of 2021. Swift explained on Twitter following the release: “Hi! Saw you guys got Wildest Dreams trending on Tiktok, thought you should have my version”

[Verse 1] He said, "Let's get out of this town Drive out of the city, away from the crowds" I thought, "Heaven can't help me now" Nothing lasts forever But this is gonna take me down [Pre-Chorus] He's so tall and handsome as hell He's so bad, but he does it so well I can see the end as it begins My one condition is [Chorus] Say you'll remember me Standin' in a nice dress Starin' at the sunset, babe Red lips and rosy cheeks Say you'll see me again Even if it's just in your Wildest dreams, ah, ha Wildest dreams, ah, ha [Verse 2] I said, "No one has to know what wе do" His hands are in my hair, his clothes are in my room And his voicе is a familiar sound Nothin' lasts forever But this is gettin' good now [Pre-Chorus] He's so tall and handsome as hell He's so bad, but he does it so well And when we've had our very last kiss My last request it is [Chorus] Say you'll remember me Standin' in a nice dress Starin' at the sunset, babe Red lips and rosy cheeks Say you'll see me again Even if it's just in your Wildest dreams, ah, ha (Ha, ha) Wildest dreams, ah, ha [Bridge] You'll see me in hindsight Tangled up with you all night Burnin' it down Someday, when you leave me I bet these memories Follow you around You'll see me in hindsight Tangled up with you all night Burnin' (Burnin') it (It) down (Down) Someday, when you leave me I bet these memories Follow (Follow) you (You) around (Around) (Follow you around) [Chorus] Say you'll remember me Standing in a nice dress Starin' at the sunset, babe Red lips and rosy cheeks Say you'll see me again Even if it's just pretend Say you'll remember me Standin' in a nice dress Starin' at the sunset, babe Red lips and rosy cheeks Say you'll see me again Even if it's just in your (Just pretend, just pretend) Wildest dreams, ah, ha (Ah-ah) In your wildest dreams, ah, ha Even if it's just in your In your wildest dreams, ah, ha In your wildest dreams, ah, ha

[romancomicsnews]

Who should play Mr. Fantastic in the MCU?

With the upcoming MCU Fantastic Four movie set for 2025, as soon as the writer's strike comes to an end, we will likely get our cast for the film dropped. Before that time comes, I thought I would give me two cents for who should play each role, starting with our leading man.

Perhaps the most over fan casted character in the past year, Reed Richards is a particularly hard nail to hit on the head. While the characteristics are simple enough, smartest man in world, leader of the fantastic, emotionally distant, maybe a bit awkward, borderline mad scientist, all of those traits can easily be attributed to a number of different actors.

Depending on how you want to play it, there has been a number of fantastic (pun intended) options thrown around the rumor mill: Penn Badgley, John Krasinski returning, Glenn Howerton, William Jackson Harper, Adam Driver, Matt Smith, and oh so many more.

While I like a lot of these and really wouldn't be upset with most of them, I thought I'd throw my three ideas in the ring.

I will also say, my initial pick was William Jackson Harper, but twitter and one of my favorite Fan Casters Nando V Movies (go check out their YouTube channel) already casted him. But if he got it, I would be very pleased.

Finally, I'll preface, I am going for originality. There have been SO many picks for Mr. Fantastic. I tried so desperately hard to pick actors I haven't heard brought up who can do an amazing job.

First, as always, let's look back and three renditions we got:

Ioan Gruffudd

I don't have strong feelings about this particular version of the character. He hit the notes he needed to but there really wasn't alot for him or Jessica Alba to do in the film.

Gruffudd did a solid job at playing the straight man, letting Evans and Chiklis play off of him fairly well.

He was also fairly good at playing a realistic nerd. He didn't feel like someone who was on the football team, which other Fantastics lacked. We need someone who can feel believably awkward. More Maguire less Garfield.

Miles Teller

*sigh* Fan4stic is definitely a movie.

Miles Teller and the cast do what they can with what they were given, but there isn't much for me to dissect here. Teller does a good job with the awkward nerdiness, but he lacks the believable confidence to be a leader. Fantastic should be confident in his intelligence, Teller wasn't there yet.

We need someone who can believably be a leader.

John Krasinski

I think for what he is given, Krasinski does a solid job at a particular kind of Mr. Fantastic. That is to say, he is a Mr. Fantastic who has done his three movies and has learned the importance of family and connecting with people and taking care of others.

That being said, as a flawed Fantastic, he's boring. Yes he is strong, confident, and feels like a leader, but that's all I'll give him.

So clearly, we don't have a lot to work with as far as definitive versions of the character goes.

What ethnicity is Mr. Fantastic?

Mr. Fantastic does not have a particular ethnic identity in the comics. There is one piece of comic lure that I think is interesting when discussing Mr. Fantastic, particularly in the MCU.

You see one of Reed Richards descendants is Nathaniel Richards, a time travelling super-genius from the 31st century, wo becomes a supervillain warlord known as..

Kang the Conqueror.

While his lineage is sometimes questionable, I think this wrinkle puts a potential for people of color playing this role.

However, Kang could be mixed, and with the fact Mr. Fantastic isn't really any particular ethnicity, I think casting anyone is okay.

Other Stipulations

Mr. Fantastic may be one of the major leads of the MCU moving forward. We are casting the main enemy of Galactus, Doctor Doom, and maybe even Kang. We are looking for a Downey or Evans, someone great.

As the leader of the Fantastic Four, we need someone who can believably be the smartest person in the room. With his powers, his intelligence, and his borderline madness when it comes to science, Mr. Fantastic should feel like a threat to someone like Doom.

I'm looking for someone in their mid 30s to mid 40s. He needs to feel older than Johnny but young enough to keep this going for awhile.

We need someone confident who could lead the team but can be a little awkward to be around. Almost Batman like.

I'd like taller and lanky as far as look goes, and if they can grow a nice beard that's a plus. Any ethnicity is good.

As always, I'm looking for someone who hasn't played a major superhero role.

Let's get into it:

3. Dev Patel

Kicking off our list with the safest choice, Dev Patel is one of those actors you're surprised isn't already a superhero. From roles in the Green Knight, Slumdog Millionaire, and Modern Love, Patel is a fan favorite actor with range to compete with the big names. At 33, He is the youngest person on my list and most qualified for the job.

He has played intelligent in roles like in Chappie, has done dangerous in the Green Knight, and villains in roles like Zuko (sorry I had to bring up The Last Airbender).

My worry with Patel is he may be a little too likeable. I want a character we can warm up to, which is hard balance. He also seems like an actor who could potentially be great as a different character. Maybe even Doctor Doom.

I definitely think he has the chops and the potential to be a great lead, not just for the Fantastic Four but the MCU.

2. Zachary Quinto

When casting in Sci-Fi, it's always good to cast someone who has pull in nerd circles.

Known for roles in Star Trek, Heroes, American Horror Story and Invincible, Zachary Quinto is always a treat to watch.

He was originally my top choice to play Doctor Strange in the MCU, but I think for those same reasons, he could do an excellent Mr. Fantastic.

Zachary Quinto is great at playing characters just a little off from human. Spock is a great example of this, but I'd look closer at Robot from Invincible. He displays real emotion through a robotic voice throughout the show, and quickly became my favorite character. I think bringing a little humanity to Reed can help us follow and grow with him as the movies progress.

Quinto also has a solid background in playing villains. He has voiced Lex Luthor, and even played a superpowered serial killer, Sylar, in the hit NBC series Heroes. I think having someone who can play a villain be beneficial to Reed, as he often feels closer to a villain than a hero.

My biggest concern with Quinto is age. At 46, he feels a bit older than I would prefer. Not that that should be a problem, but a younger Reed we can see grow into Mr. Fantastic is preferred.

Quinto also isn't typically a leading man. I'm not sure if I can see him leading the MCU in the same way I see Patel.

I think it would be a curveball pick that fans could get behind and end up loving.

1. Jerrod Carmichael

If I had a nickel for every time I casted a comedian known for stand-up over acting as my leading man, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice.

Jerrod Carmichael is one of my favorite comedians and writers working today. Known for his stand-up specials, the Carmichael show, and smaller roles in The Disaster Artist, Mid90s, and Transformers the Last Knight, Carmichael really came on my radar as an actor and a writer in his amazing movie On the Count of Three.

Also Directed by Carmichael, the film centers around two friends who decide they want to kill themselves after one last day of righting wrongs and tying up loose ends. It's an incredibly bleak, well acted, and at times funny movie, full of sadness and pain.

In the film Carmichael taps into a sadness and alienation I think would be perfect for Reed. In the film, he feels dangerous and alone.

We also known Jerrod can do comedy and likeable, which could eventually translate to a more balanced Reed Richards.

He also has a talent for writing. His stand-up special Rothaniel won him an Emmy in 2022. Imagine what he could do with Fantastic Four Screenplay.

Carmichael will also be starring in Poor Things, a new movie starring Emma Stone which appears to be getting buzz. Clearly he is expanding his acting portfolio, and the MCU is a great place to start.

I think if you want a surprise pick who can act, direct, do comedy, and write, Carmichael feels like the choice that would get people talking. I think he is the type of artist who should be leading big things like the MCU, and would look damn good wearing the 4 on his chest.

Thank you for reading! If you'd like to support me you can:

Follow me at www.facebook.com/romancomicsnews

Follow me on Twitter @diegoleonroman

Follow me on Threads @romanleondiego

Help me pay my student loans by donating!

[yukidragon]

SDJ Headcanons

I got a request to hear some of my headcanons for the vanilla universe of my fandom noodling with Something’s Wrong With Sunny Day Jack. Well, maybe vanilla isn’t quite accurate considering we’ve got quite a bit of spice with our resident yandere Jack. Maybe more like vanilla mixed with caramel and fudge.

Anyway, these are some thoughts that more than likely are going to show up in my fanfic, Sunshine in Hell, if they haven’t already. So, uh, spoiler warning I guess?

To start with, I will have to say that this headcanon started building from the classic demo, where a number of details are different from the extended demo. Not to say that I’m ignoring things the extended demo added or changed. This is to say that Sunshine in Hell’s continuity will be slightly different from the classic and extended versions, like the two versions of the game are slightly different from one another, and will likely be different from the fully released game. I pieced together a lot of hints sprinkled throughout Jambeebot’s twitter, and have formed a few ideas about where the plot might be going. It might not be how it actually turns out, but why not run with them in my fic?

Originally I didn’t have anything in mind for y/n other than the classic namable first person MC playthrough. Hell, originally I didn’t plan on writing fic or fan art at all. Then I started developing some headcanons because Jack is so interesting and appealing, and I thought, ya know what, why not use this as an opportunity to do some character designing? I can even challenge myself with details that I struggled with in the past, like curly hair, plus size body type, and intricate tattoos. I picked the name Alice because Jack is a common name in literature, so why not go with another common one for his sunshine? It also became pretty fitting for different reasons as the headcanons slowly bloomed outward and Alice started developing a life of her own.

Just as a heads up, these are current headcanon thoughts. They might wind up getting changed by the time I actually get them written down for Sunshine in Hell. Some things have already changed since my initial headcanons as I’ve started writing and since more information came out after all. So just think of a few of these as fun possibilities for the future~

Now then, let’s go for the specific headcanon bits. I’ll put them under a cut and sort them by character. This isn’t all the headcanon stuff of course. I can make a follow up post with more, but here’s some of the bigger ones floating around in my head. Oh, heads up, some of these headcanons will be 18+ only, going into pretty dark and/or spicy places, but then again, that’s the type of game SDJ is. You have been warned.

Oh, and of course I can’t forget to tag @channydraws because I’m serving up some SDJ content over here.

Jack

Jack loves Alice. Full stop. Yes, this is a canon fact that Jack loves his sunshine, but I’mma emphasize that the man has fallen so gosh darn hard for Alice that it’s almost scary.

Speaking of which, the man is desperate for Alice’s love. It’s not just because he loves her, but because he’s convinced that she needs him to love her. He could feel it calling to him while he was still trapped in the hell of that VHS tape he was cursed to. He needs her to love him, not just because he loves her, but because her love is the only thing that’ll save him from being damned to that hell all over again.

Other people played the tape before, not just Alice, but not many. Jack experienced this happening and to him it was the closest to relief from his hellish damnation he could find. It was like reliving his memories... then the ending of that incident would tear him apart all over again.

Jack doesn’t remember the incident itself because it was so painful, he blocked it out.

Jack blocked out a lot of painful things from his past. It’s part of why he’s currently Jack and not Joseph anymore.

Might as well give my headcanon here of the incident itself - Jack was murdered by someone from his past before he reinvented himself from unloved delinquent Joseph Cullman to actor Joseph Haberdae.

Changing himself after abandoning his past is something Jack has done before... and the incident was such a trauma that he did it again, clinging to the Jack persona... the only version of him who was actually loved.

Well... unless I go with the death and rebirth plot point I’m sort of half-considering for Alice. If I go that route then Joseph was loved... he just lost that love to tragedy and it played a part in him running away to begin with. Might just save that for an AU though.

Regardless, Joseph wasn’t loved by his parents. They kept up appearances, even lied that they loved him, but they didn’t, not really. They ignored him, were into drinking and coffee, sometimes even physically abusive when he acted up... but at least they paid attention to him then.

Joseph acted up in a desperate bid for attention. It was the only way he knew how to get people to stop looking through him as though he didn’t exist.

This included teachers and his peers. Joseph wasn’t exactly the greatest person at this age...

You know that image where Jack talks to the crying guy with the knife? Well, Joseph has some experience with the things he says there... such as phrases like “burden to the class” and “worthless.”

Needless to say, his relationships with his peers were... not the best.

This is why there was one person who would never forget Joseph. This person nursed a grudge hunt him down to the set of the SunnyTime Crew and there, well... a lot of traumatic things happened as skeletons Joseph had buried were dug up and exposed for everyone to see.

Between the murder and unsettling past details about their beloved lead actor, the studio decided it was best to bury the whole show in the aftermath of what happened.

Little is remembered about the SunnyTime Crew show in the present, mostly rumors that became ghost stories and then creepypasta. Tapes and official merchandise are hard to come by, but they are still out there hidden away in places... waiting for someone to dig them up.

That’s how the VHS wound up in the thrift store after all. Someone got a copy of the incident before it was scrubbed... and decided to keep it as a little snuff film for personal amusement. The tape got rewatched a lot and it... definitely had an affect on Jack.

The tape was sold on accident by a relative of the sicko who kept it in their private collection. They thought it was just old junk that was worth getting at least a few pennies for it rather than just chucking it into the trash.

How Jack got into the tape in the first place was a mixture of the trauma of what happened, Jack himself unable to handle the way he died or being forgotten... and possibly a curse from a murderer who was bitter enough to nurse a grudge for a decade and hunt Joseph down to get revenge in such a public and cruel way.

Jack remembers very little, suppressed by trauma. He clung to his persona as Jack to keep his sanity, to be a person who is “clean” and worthy of loving.

Jack is what he thinks he should be, what type of person who can be loved. It’s not a mask so much as who he is desperate to be.

Jack will do whatever it takes to be loved. He will need time to understand that he doesn’t have to work so hard to earn Alice’s love, as his sincere feelings are enough to sway her heart.

On that note, Jack will be delighted that he and Alice bond so quickly without him having to resort to... desperate methods. His sweet sunshine responds to his sincerity, proving just how special their bond is and how right it is to love her.

Yes, this basically means Alice is doing a kiss/yes route. Spoilers, I guess?

Jack wanted to make friends with other people too, as many as possible. Alice would always be his best friend and number one in his heart, of course. That’s obvious. A pity that no one can see/hear/touch him...

Needless to say, that makes him all the more desperate for Alice’s love.

I fully plan on Sunshine in Hell having a happy ending where Jack and Alice help each other heal from their respective scars and they can be happy together. Spoilers I guess?

Also, yes, some of that healing will involve sexy times. Jack is touch starved to the extreme, and he just can’t get enough of Alice’s soft warmth...

Alice

To briefly touch on the rebirth plot line I may or may not add in, Alice’s name in her past life would be Mary. She would’ve been Joseph’s childhood friend and the only one who showed him any affection, and she related to him in having shitty parents, just hers were rich and didn’t like punk delinquents like Joseph... especially since their daughter had a big crush on said bad boy. Unfortunately she also had a disease that the doctors never found a cure for and she died from it not long before Joseph finally ran away. This ties in with the bloody pills and scalpel imagery in the opening screen.

Alice has a medical condition that 40 years ago would’ve killed her. Fortunately, in the present with modern medical technology, it’s treatable with medication. She keeps the pills in the safe in her bedroom and takes them daily.

Yes it’s the same disease she would’ve had as Mary if I go the rebirth route.

Alice will eventually keep the tape in the safe to keep Jack safe.

Alice has albinism, which she inherited from her dad who also has albinism. This makes her more prone to getting sunburned and makes her dislike the sun more.

Alice also dislikes alcohol. She tolerated it because her friends enjoyed it, but she hated how it made her feel. She won’t drink at all in the present day, not even socially.

Alice had a pastel goth phase in college, complete with dyed pink hair, until classes got to be too much for her to keep up with the look.

College was exhausting for Alice and she struggled with her major.

The major she wound up taking wasn’t actually what she was passionate about, but it was what she felt was most realistic for her to attain at least a decent future.

Alice likes to draw.

Alice’s parents are really nice. Her mom is a bit of a flake, but very loving. Her father is very affectionate and at times her parents remind her of Gomez and Morticia. They were also childhood sweethearts who are still madly in love as adults... which colored her view of her relationship with her own childhood friend, Ian.

Alice really did see a future with Ian. She hoped someday they would get married and they would have children together just like her parents, but...

Well, in school, Alice wasn’t very popular.... to put it mildly. Kids can be cruel, especially to those who are unusual. She was bullied all throughout her school days until she reached college age.

The reasons Alice was bullied were mainly due to her appearance (pasty pale and chubby) and the fact that when she was little she was pretty nonverbal.

It took many years for Alice to get better at talking to people. Part of her therapy to develop her verbal skills included using a puppet to speak for her.

Yes, this is where the puppet in her concept sheet, Honey Bunny, comes in. She still has that puppet even after all this time, though it’s currently tucked away in a box. Yes, Jack will eventually have the pleasure of meeting Honey Bunny.

Alice is the oldest child with at least two younger siblings. They haven’t been fully developed yet.

Alice is a survivor of SA and that greatly affected how she deals with intimacy and feelings of being trapped.

Alice currently suffers from very low self-esteem. Between a past of being bullied for her looks and personality, the SA incident, and being betrayed by the person she trusted with her heart...

Alice did forgive Ian and she did try again... but ultimately ended things after she realized that she just couldn’t forget what happened and she couldn’t stop feeling like she wasn’t “enough” for him.

Alice doesn’t think anyone would be attracted to her, not really. With Ian, it was a special case, where they grew up together and things developed over time. What she had with Ian was something that happened only once in a lifetime... and it all fell apart.

In the present Alice is lonely. She’s given up on being loved but still feels empty and wishes desperately for it... and that wish summoned Jack.

Alice is an empathetic person, and it has gotten her in trouble in the past trying to help people because she felt sorry for them... even if they didn’t necessarily deserve it. It’s something that Jack is concerned about now that he’s there even if he benefitted the most from her being too kind for her own good sometimes...

Alice chose to save Jack. She doesn’t remember it because the process of saving him required giving him a piece of her soul. He gave her a piece of his in return. This is why she’s the only one who can see, hear, and touch him. While she didn’t fully consider all the implications of this choice at the time, the soul trapped in the tape was so desperate and suffering so much, and she was the only one in the whole world who could save him from hell... she couldn’t live with herself if she just chose to leave him damned when she could do something to save him... and he did promise he would never hurt her, never do anything she didn’t want to do...

This piece of each other’s souls is why Jack and Alice can feel each other’s emotions as well as overhear thoughts. Alice doesn’t remember this ability, and Jack doesn’t want to tell her for fear of scaring her. After all, she doesn’t remember the agreement they made and she was so scared when she woke up without remembering what happened...

This agreement can be ended frighteningly easy. It’s part of how Jack got Alice to agree in the first place. If one of them doesn’t want him to be there... then it’s all over.

Alice can feel Jack’s love for her and responds to it very strongly, even if she’s unaware that it’s happening. It’s why even though only a day has passed, she feels the need to take care of him.

Needless to say, all Jack really needs to do is love Alice and be patient with her. She likes him and wants the love he is offering her so desperately... She’s just going to need time to heal from her scars...

Speaking of scars, the scar on her forehead is from the night Ian cheated on her.

Ian

With that, let’s turn our attention to the cheater in question. Why did he do it? Well, he was lonely. He had moved someplace all on his own and no longer had someone to support him by his side all the time, someone to reassure him and tell him he was beautiful and worth loving and desirable...

Until, guess what, his glow up finally was paying off. People started flirting with him at the college and, hey, what’s the harm in flirting back a little? It’s just paying a compliment and it felt good. He told Alice about the new friends he made there on campus and it was all innocent...

And dang were some of these people hotties. Skinny ladies with big boobs just like the animes... and they were flirting with him like he was the protagonist of a harem isekai story.

You know the song “Say No to This” in Hamilton? Ian had the same vibe going when he finally gave in to his base desires.

He didn’t know what happened! One moment he’s having a nice time with his new friend at the college and he was so lonely without Alice and suddenly they were kissing and it felt so good and she wanted him and for a while he forgot that he was lonely and missing his girlfriend...

Then post-nut clarity hit and he was like OH SHIT.

Ian really hoped that if he confessed right away, the damage wouldn’t be so bad, right? It was just a mistake. Alice has always forgiven him for his mistakes. She forgave him when he got too rough during sex despite her issues due to SA, so this can’t be much different. She herself said there was nothing that would make her not love him when he was down on himself thinking he would never be worthy of love or attractive...

Ian has self-confidence issues out the wazoo. He was bullied as a kid, had his looks insulted, and generally was treated like garbage by the other kids. Being the center of attention and desired as an adult is a new experience for him... one that, unfortunately went to his head... both the one on his shoulders and the one between his legs.

Ian was the only friend who consistently hung out with Alice. They were two “losers” at school who stuck together. It was almost natural that feelings would develop between them.

Alice and Ian both struggled with shyness, fumbling with crossing the line from friendship to lovers. Their relationship really was sweet... but not without its issues...

Ian apologizes a lot. A lot a lot. It gets to the point where Alice spent a lot of time just reassuring him. He missed that terribly when he went to his dream school and had to leave her behind.

Unfortunately, flattery and lust served as temporary, if empty substitutes...

Ian greatly regrets what he did, what he lost, and he’s determined to fix things... Alice did forgive him and gave him a second chance. They’re just on a break. Just a break. If he gives her a little space, but makes sure she never forgets him, if he just does the right thing to prove that they belong together, then everything can go back to normal...

Although, confidentially, the cheating wasn’t their only issue that made Alice see that ending the relationship was the best thing she could do for the both of them.

Shaun

Let’s hop off the cheater train and board the cat daddy express, shall we? Dude is a bro of the highest order, a Grade A pal.

Shaun met Alice when they shared a class in college. He thought she was cute and so sweet. He would’ve asked her out, but then he found out she had a boyfriend and, oof, heartbreak. Still, he sincerely was happy to be friends with her, and he liked Ian and was happy to make friends with the dude.

Until the night Ian made a frantic phone call to Shaun to check on Alice since she wasn’t answering her phone and he thinks she’s hurt and he’s the only one with a spare key to their place!

Shaun got Alice to the hospital that night. Turns out alcohol can’t make you forget heartbreak even if you drink enough of it to get alcohol poisoning and wind up bashing your head on broken glass. It was a pretty traumatic sight for him to come across, and he was so relieved when he heard the news that she would be alright.

Naturally this put Ian on Shaun’s shit list after finding out why Alice drowned herself in booze that night.

Shaun was the MVP, and his friendship with Alice strengthened in the aftermath... and he was one of the people who helped her see that forgiving Ian was the worst choice she could make for both her and Ian. He was there to support her decision to break things off for good and was her shoulder to cry on during her heartbreak.

Shaun and Alice bonded in college over liking the goth aesthetic and cats. At least half the posters in Alice’s apartment are from Shaun.

Shaun, sadly, had very poor timing when it comes to anything romantic with Alice. He came into the picture when Alice was already deeply in love with Ian. Alice couldn’t even think about dating after the breakup, let alone risk their relationship by letting it change. Then he had to move away for his own degree to become a director... and when he finally moves back into the area, his bad timing shows up again as he finds Alice once more has a boyfriend...

Shaun has mixed feelings about Jack. He’s not just suspicious about Jack’s whole deal, but he feels protective of Alice after what she went through.

At the same time HOLY SHIT A REAL LIVE CURSED VIDEO TAPE WITH A REAL LIVE, ER, DEAD GHOST! Or maybe not a ghost but something else? Either way holy shit this is awesome. Shaun is totally geeking out.

Yes, Alice told Shaun about Jack the day he came to stay with her for a while. I already have a little scene written up of Jack and Shaun having a little... chat.

Chances are good that Shaun and Jack will actually become friends, though Jack is definitely going to make sure Shaun remembers who is most important to Alice...

Needless to say, it’s hella awkward for Shaun when Jack makes sure he’s going to hear Alice cry out Jack’s name at least once. Poor guy. Jack is a poor winner isn’t he?

Moon Pie

Fortunately, there's Moon Pie to give Shaun love and cuddles in his hour of need.

Moon Pie is a sweet little blind bundle of floof. Shaun adopted her after seeing her info and pics on a website and fell in love. She is a very affectionate baby and sticks close to her daddy.

Shaun loves Moon Pie to pieces and will commit a violence if anyone were to threaten her.

Alice, too, quickly falls in love with Moon Pie. Pity she doesn’t have the energy or financial stability to adopt a cat of her own yet. Maybe someday... till then, she can be the fun cat aunt.

Initially when I first saw Moon Pie I was going to make her Alice’s cat, but I can’t bring myself to steal a baby away from her daddy, so Alice will have to simply love her from afar. Alas, this is the true tragedy of Something’s Wrong With Sunny Day Jack.

Fortunately, Shaun is the best cat dad a precious bundle of floof like Moon Pie could ask for.

Moon Pie can sense Jack.

Don’t worry, Jack likes Moon Pie and thinks she’s cute. Though he does admittedly get a little jealous when Alice cuddles Moon Pie and gives the baby little smooches.

Moon Pie might or might not have unintentionally provoked Jack to assert his place as number one in Alice’s heart. Good thing she can’t have her innocent eyes besmirched by the things this lusty yandere clown does to his sunshine when Shaun isn’t home!

Moon Pie will nap on Jack at least once. Shaun will take pictures. All of the pictures.

Carol

Carol is at least 5 years older than Alice and worked longer than her at the yogurt place, so she’s an expert on doing as little of her job as she can get away with while still earning a steady paycheck.

She is a worldly lady who leans strongly towards women, but finds guys hot too.

Her eyeliner game is absolutely on point. When not forced to dress as a clown, this lady has style.

An example of that style is how Carol absolutely owns her vitiligo and makes it into a fashion statement.

Carol enjoys teasing Alice and thinks she’s kind of cute sort of like a pet rabbit kind of way. She’s gotten some details about her younger co-worker and has teasingly offered to set Alice up on a blind date with a guy she knows who thinks plus size ladies like her are cute.

They’re not exactly friends, but friendly and they get along well enough. Whether they become friends eventually is up in the air... especially when there’s a very possessive yandere best friend now in the picture.

Nick

Got a crush on the cute lady working at the funky clown yogurt place.

Tried to shoot his shot and unfortunately got shot down instead when she told him she has a boyfriend. That sucks.

In another world, that would only be the start of his worst night ever. Fortunately in the Sunshine in Hell universe, a certain supernatural yandere didn’t see him as enough of a threat to bother with. What wonders a little feeling of security in a relationship can do...

However, just because Nick lucks out in not provoking the yandere haunting treatment doesn’t mean that there won’t be other people who cross the line...

Ho my, this has turned out much longer than I was planning. I’ll save other details for another post. I hope y’all enjoyed me rambling on and let me know if there’s anything you want me to focus on for next time! If you liked any of this stuff, please read Sunshine in Hell and let me know what you think. Your feedback/reviews/comments give me life.

[urara-ashikawa]

good morning gymternet i'm tumblr user urara-ashikawa here to explain why urara was left off the team and why i think that's point blank the stupidest thing JGA has done since leaving mai at home for stuttgart 2019

japan’s worlds selection procedures

the team must be composed of

the top 3 AA finishers at the NHK trophy, which combines its scores with that of the two-day total of the all-japan AA championships in order to get the final standings

a gymnast A chosen for contribution to the team total points (and must have finished within the top 10 AA at NHK)

a gymnast B chosen for contribution to the team total points (no AA requirement)

japan’s WAG team is as follows:

miyata shoko (NHK trophy winner)

kasahara arisa (NHK trophy second place)

yamada chiharu (NHK trophy third place)

sakaguchi ayaka (NHK trophy fifth place, national beam silver, floor and vault bronze medalist)

fukasawa kokoro (national uneven bars champion)

how gymnasts A and B are selected

“when combined with the three gymnasts selected through criteria 1 for a team total (the three best scores [per apparatus] among the five gymnasts), the two gymnasts (gymnasts A and B combined) who can contribute to the highest total are to be selected.”

I. the “scores” of the three gymnasts selected through criteria 1 on each apparatus are calculated by getting the average of the top 2 scores among three competitions (all-japan AA championships qualifications, finals, and the NHK trophy)

II. the “scores” of the two gymnasts selected through criterias 2 and 3 (that is, gymnasts A and B) on each apparatus are calculated by getting the average of the top 2 scores among five competitions (all-japan AA championships qualifications, finals, the NHK trophy, all-japan event championships qualifications, and finals)

here are my calculations:

as you can see here, shoko, who won NHK and as such was automatically named to the team, only hit UB on 1/3 of the days, which is why her average above (which would be one of the counted UB scores under the japanese algorithm should urara be on the team) is so low, and why kokoro, a UB specialist, got the advantage over urara.

why it is so stupid of jga to leave urara at home

she is the reigning beam world champion. no matter what kind of form she’s in at domestic championships that take place four to six months before worlds (urara only hit the two 14.1+ scores she needed to put her in contention, ended up falling at NHK, event championship QFs, and the EFs), she is still japan WAG's best chance at an individual medal

(half jokingly) anyone who can do a save like she did in kitakyushu quals deserves the benefit of the doubt tbh

shoko is clearly capable of UB scores that are above 13. had her average been 13.3 or higher (not an exact number) urara would have definitely made the team (not to mention that just a month before all-japan AA shoko’s arm was in a cast, which makes it impressive that she even won silver)

i also posted a shortened version of this explanation in a thread on twitter @ryuseisrudi but this is the more detailed version. anyway justice for urara!!! she will most definitely be an alternate for worlds so we’ll see what happens by then. feel free to ask me things!

[demonfox38]

Completed - Baroque

This would probably be the favorite game for "Silent Hill 3"'s Vincent. Ya know. "They looked like monsters to you?" being absolutely the point.

So, you know how you can't trust algorithms? More in the "can't trust corporations to make ethical decisions with them" kind of way this time. Less in the source data sucking kind of way. I bring this up because the YouTube feed algorithm for my account was responsible for me hearing of this game. See, I was actually doing research for "Getsu Fūma Den: Undying Moon", and I think it made a couple of hops into presenting the RagnarRox video for "Baroque" that was released a few weeks ago. Like, "We know you're into survival horror, and we know that you've been researching one particular horror-based rogue-lite game, so here, loser. Watch this."

For once, the machine had my number. I mean, other than 38.

"Baroque" is a hybrid first-person dungeon crawler / rogue-lite video game set in the ruins of an apocalyptic future. Your character is a nameless, mute, amnesiac man blessed with the ability to purify the mutated humans around him. And by purify, it's…basically murder. But it's okay! God gave him the ability to do that after making out with him. Yep, God's real. And in the basement of a tower. And mostly blood vessels / tentacles, but also part anime girl. And going nuts.  Obviously, that's not great. So, your mission is two-fold: sort out your own problems, then sort out God's mental health. No big deal, right?

Yeah, this game is weird. In many, many ways.

The most recent groundswell about this game came as a result of an English translation patch produced in August of 2022 by Twitter user Plissken for the 1999 Playstation port. Not that this is the game's initial release, nor is it the first time this game has been released in English. See, this was originally released on the Sega Saturn in 1998. Then, in 2008, publisher Atlus picked up a third-person version of it for the Playstation 2 and Wii for the American audience, which sandbagged itself on impact. For the moment, this is about as close as the average English speaker can get to the developer's intended vision, barring someone pushing out a Sega Saturn patch or a sudden brain spike in Japanese literacy. Which, hell. If any particular variant of God wants to do that for me, it might be helpful. Throw in some Italian as well.

What's the importance of seeking out the original vision for "Baroque"? Perhaps a lot of its content can be felt out intuitively. I mean, you can't swing a bat without hitting massive religious or mystic content in Japanese works, particularly in those from the 1980s and 90s. The appeal of the original "Baroque" games is absolutely in its raw, esoteric presentation. This was a game that had a physical model sculptor, Goddamnit. These monsters are as real as that Momo puppet was. Its music ranges from industrial sample explosions run amok to Vangelis-adjacent synthetic sweetness. It is a black game with level loading akin to "Silent Hill", all surrounded with weird people doing and saying weird things.

I don't like the argument that first-person games are inherently more horrifying than third-person due to the perspective. I think you can make either work well. But, in this case? Absolutely. You've got to be smashed face-first into this bizarre landscape, lost and disoriented, surrounded by towering creatures ready to kick your ass. That's definitely the appeal of the Sega Saturn and Playstation variants of this game. To put it another way, the difference between playing the PS2/Wii version and this version is the difference between seeing a teenager's airbrushed, Photoshopped replica of Goya's "Saturn Devouring his Son" on a computer and being in Goya's house after his death and looking at it plastered all over the goddamn wall. And then there's 13 more frescos with it.

Also, God, does the English voice acting for the PS2/Wii versions detract from the mood. Although, hearing Michelle Ruff's Fujiko voice come out of a scientist's shoulder-face was hilarious enough for me to actually pick up a Wii copy. There's worse ways to spend $20 USD, right?

I know I keep banging on about the game's aesthetics, but man, I was impressed. Like, most of the enemy design is based on Tarot cards, right? And for 2/3rds of them, I would say that they match well. But then, there's taking into account that the main character's multiple unions with God are responsible for the shape of the world around him, and certain pieces become more striking. There are people with multiple heads conjoined in strange places. Two enemy types are multiple organisms joined together. Oh! And your character is carrying guilt for being the surviving half of a conjoined twin that perished as a result of being physically separated, and you're living through that trauma again by being forced apart from God. Like, goddamn. And it's no wonder why the monster shown in the opening attract screen is the monster based on the Lovers Tarot card. It is two organisms fused into one body with a vaguely pregnant shape that opens into a horrible vagina maw. Congratulations, Eisaku Kato! You nailed the theme of the game in a single enemy type. Well done!

Although, I have to admit that one enemy ended up being goofy to me, but not of its own accord. It's hard to be scary when you look like Mr. Krabs.

Right! Okay. Let's put aside the aesthetic talk for a second and actually talk about the game part of the game. So, what does being a first-person dungeon crawler / rogue-lite mean? It is a lot of word salad, after all. The dungeon in question is presented in a series of floors known as the Nerve Tower (or Neuro Tower, or Nurve Tower, depending on how you want to split hairs.) Static entities exist on each layer. However, the layout of the floor's rooms and its item contents vary from run to run. You have a whopping four statistics to keep track of, including your attack, defense, hit points, and vitality. I think most of these are self-explanatory, but to save some head-scratching, vitality is basically a timer on how long you can remain in game. Statistics can be restored, improved, or degraded based on item usage and enemy attacks. You can also get boons or status ailments, depending on enemy aggression and your items. The big thing is keeping your health above 0. Obviously, if that runs out, you die, lose all of your stuff, and then get pushed into a new loop. But, if you make it to the lowest floor, you also get a stat and inventory wipe before being pushed into another cycle. It's just that this wipe is considered successful.

Now, you are allowed to save certain item types by the use of sense spheres, which pass the item you select back to the surface for use on your next run. And, despite having constant stat wiping, you will notice progress over time. Explicitly, certain characters will ask you for items. Getting them those items will further the plot, potentially opening up new layers to the Nerve Tower. You could play this game infinitely, if you want, but there is a distinct ending condition. Hell, there's even an appropriately named Hell Dungeon if you want to get all Chrysler Building up in this game. Just know that all you've really got to do is heal yourself, then heal God.

Being successful in "Baroque" comes down to three skills:

Recognizing Floor Layout Types

Properly Managing Items

Mitigating Enemy Threats

Of these, floor layout handling is the easiest. You'll get used to knowing who is on what floor, and you have a button for reviewing an auto-filling map when needed. Generally, you'll want to find the important character or device per floor, then get out. (Some characters can be skipped, for what it's worth.) Hell, the only major decision might be deciding when to grind for levels and when to book it as fast as possible to hit the bottom floor.

Item management seems simple on the surface, but has some quirks that you can use to give yourself a boost. You've only got access to 20 items, and at least three or four of those will be dedicated to equipment and plot-critical items. However, you can use items in ways that may not seem readily apparent or useful. Like, sometimes, you get status-restoring items that you may not necessarily want. But, you can also use them up to get a quick health or vitality pick up. (At least, I was abusing Detox and Eyeball injections to get a vitality boost when I didn't need them.) If you have a sword, a box, or even a coat you don't want, you can throw that shit at the enemy for damage! Hell, you can even use certain healing items at full health to give yourself a permanent HP or vitality boost. The one major piece of advice I would give is to always chuck your equipped sword and coat into a sense sphere when you are on the penultimate floor of the tower. (You'll know you're on it when you see an impaled angel.) Keeping at least one good sword and coat may be what propels you the furthest in game. I mean, I ended with a +6 Comet-infected Sterilization Sword and a +2 Beast coat, and I wouldn't say that was a stellar combo. But, hell! It got me to the end.

Finally, there's fighting the aptly named Grotesques (and less-aptly named Meta-Beings in the PS2/Wii game. See what I mean about needing the visceral element?) Honestly, fighting monsters may not be as important as you might think. It's definitely a curve where you want to fight a lot in the first half of a cycle, then taper off as your objective floor gets closer. There's no boss to speak of, so you don't have to focus on leveling up in that sense. It's more about getting the monster's personal baroque—a shining pearl—to restore your vitality and continue your play time. Maybe even getting some items, if you're into that. While leveling up does come with a minor health boost, I think you'll get more benefit from proper item management than grinding against Grotesques. Honestly, pick your battles wisely. Learn enemy A.I. and circle strafing, then use it when necessary.

You know what? I blasted by something too fast in that last paragraph. Do you know what a baroque actually is? I mean, I gave a super basic definition, but "shining pearl" isn't entirely correct. Baroque, as it is used with pearls, refers explicitly to pearls that are not the standard spherical shape. They're globby, or they're tear-drop shaped, or basically anything deviant. Baroque, as it refers to art (and what you likely know it from), is a period known for being exceedingly excessive when it comes to ornamentation, detail, and dramatic (often religious) subjects. "Baroque", in quotes, the video game, is a game about deviations from the norm, about a world so different from our own that the character that seems the most relatable to us is a formerly conjoined twin suffering from the loss of his brother. Like, think about this! How many times do you see conjoined twins in video games that aren't portrayed as monsters? God, does that say something fucked up about our media.

Not to say this game is sympathetically perfect when it comes to mental health and trauma. Be prepared for some brain shock if you do some research. There's at least one enemy that has a backstory similar to Angela from "Silent Hill 2", if you need a quiet content warning. You don't really come across it in game, but it's definitely part of the creator's mindset, so…fuck. Shit! Damn, maybe. Son of a bitch. Pick a more elegant curse word and put it here.

I could probably go off on a side tangent on how interesting it is that the women outside of the Nerve Tower lack self-identity while the ones inside are story drivers with immense agency, but hell. I think we've done enough navel gazing for one examination. If you want a brain pick while whacking away at a randomized dungeon filled with psychological horrors based on Tarot iconography, here's your fucking game. It's basically the worst ending of "Silent Hill"'s universe several times over, but honestly, it's not the most frightening place to be, either. It's kind of like how the good ending of "Eversion" is both the main character and their princess turning into monsters and falling in love. It's just how their world is, man.

Those that reject "Baroque"'s world suffer greatly. Those that create it see it as perfect. And most people in that world aren't even sentient enough to grasp its nature.

Fuck, dude. I think playing this game might count for taking a Philosophy course.

[rinisbowen]

so much has come out in the past 24 hours. i need your thoughts!!!

no because anon SO MUCH has come out in the past 24 hours literally... in the last few days too lowkey but especially just- today in general oh my goodness. tumblr's harder bc i feel like i need to be coherent to post here instead of just a dumb sentence like i'd put on twitter... but oh gosh i have so many thoughts... if anyone wants me to talk about something specific though feel free to ask about it specifically

y'all probably already saw my post about nini- she's definitely coming to see frozen in 308, and she's with either val or miss jenn (probably miss jenn just due to y'know- the context of her other scene being with miss jenn, but i mean the hair is similar so i can't say 100%.)

something i noticed with val in the featurette today- she's the one casting the musical, we see her in that one where she looks up kinda like- stay away... she's taking notes but she's also got all those audition sheets in front of her (recognizable due to the polaroids maddox takes of the campers for auditions, and the sheet we see of ricky's on val's clipboard when he's auditioning). we see ej sort of running auditions... so maybe he steps back a bit when he realizes he can't be impartial. or maybe he gets scared bc the pressure and she takes over for that part. i think regardless- this is a good call to have her be the one to pick the roles. it removes the nepotism question.

ej and gina are potentially singing a duet... quite awkwardly as it appears, but they are singing one all the same. i'm on the 'love is an open door' team- bc my money is on jet being the camper that goes missing, and if jet is cast as hans due to his incredible voice, well- maybe ej fills in for him. this duet looking moment goes on in the episode that a camper goes missing so... it would make a lot of sense.

ricky's SONG !!! i love it. you can absolutely tell josh wrote it and it's so good. i'm so excited it's in the first episode because oh my goodness it's so good and i'm glad we don't have to wait much longer. curious to see if maybe josh sings it on the mtv thing he's going on tomorrow. not trying to get my hopes up but... could be cool.

ricky and gina's little moment in that commercial break trailer that played during live with kelly and ryan... well that was a moment for sure when i saw that version of the trailer come on... the hat is giving costume, likely for kristoff, and it's quite likely that they're rehearsing for one of the broadway frozen numbers... given we've had confirmed by josh that there will be at least one they do this season. val is also lurking in the corner it looks like- i'd anticipate this is maybe from 305 aka the campers of shallow lake (hard to say it'd be any of the later ones, but we know pretty certainly it's not 301-304 due to clothing, and tbh especially with val being back there in the corner.. i think it will be. whether this is a staged moment or a resulting consequence of one... that perhaps looks and feels more real than it was meant to... should be interesting.

ummmm... i'm blanking on what else i wanted to bring up. but yeah lots of new stuff. lmk if you've got anything you want to see me discuss

[thecraftyfoxthewriterscorner]

✨Editing Process Insight: A General Overview of My Editing Process

A brief overview of how I start working on a fiction editing project. 🌸

Hey Story Crafters!

If you’ve been keeping up with my Twitter/X feed or with Revise & Resub news, you’ll know that the submission window for #RevPit 2024 officially closed at noon | 12 p.m. yesterday!

For those interested in keeping up with the #RevPit excitement—whether or not you decided to participate this year—there are daily activities you can join in on or observe during the (excruciating) waiting period.

Or you can stay up-to-date by following Revise & Resub on Substack, @ReviseResub on Twitter/X, or r/RevPit on r/eddit.

My Editing Process

In preparation for my #AskTheEditor session, I decided to share a bit of how I approach a new fiction editing project here. And I’m going to do it by comparing my editing approach to one of my hobbies—LEGO building.

My LEGO-building process

I’ve been building LEGOs for a long time, since the first versions of the Millennium Falcon, the Imperial Star Destroyer, and the Death Star II were in circulation—back when the instructions came in one giant, spiralbound booklet (which made it really easy to rip the pages) and none of the bags were numbered. Just picture it: bins and bowls filled with countless pieces of various shapes and sizes, primarily in black and several shades of gray. Sorting through the pieces was more time-consuming than actually building the models.

Since I built those models in middle school—before I refined my LEGO-building process—I can’t say whether or not there was a pattern to how the pieces were packaged. As I got older and LEGO started numbering their bags to make the sorting and building experience more enjoyable, I noticed that there is a pattern to the packaging. Which meant I no longer had to follow the unofficial first steps shown in all the LEGO building instruction booklets: dump out the pieces and sort them. (This was a big relief to my mom, who no longer had to loan out leftover containers or baking trays for my hobby.)

Now, my process is pretty simple:

Unpack the instruction booklet and all the bags.If it’s a big build and the bags are numbered, I organize the bags and put them back in the box in reverse order, so the higher numbered bags are on the bottom.

Start building. I open the bags and pull out the pieces I’ll need to complete the steps on the pages I have open.

In the process of pulling pieces out of the bags and building, I figure out how the pieces are packaged across the bags. So as long as I don’t mangle the bag upon opening, I can keep all the pieces in the bag instead of dumping the pieces out.

Repeat until done. (And sink into a sort of meditative state.)

So, my LEGO-building process is pretty streamlined, and I can reach the finished build relatively quickly (like, over a few days or less, time-wise).

Caption: Photo of LEGO 40463 Easter Bunny build. Alt-text: Photo of a small LEGO build of a cute brown bunny next to a couple of Easter eggs on a green base with flowers.

Caption: Photo of LEGO 10297 Creator Expert Boutique Hotel. Alt-text: Photo of a LEGO build of a hotel made of pink and green pieces.

Back to my editing process…

While I’ve been building LEGOs much longer than I’ve been editing fiction, my ability to refine that process gives me confidence as I continue to develop my editing process. It still undergoes a few tweaks now and then, as I learn how to improve my process with each author I work with.

But the way I start a fiction editing project is the same:

Upon receiving the manuscript (MS) in a Word file, I make a folder for the new project and save all the relevant files for the project (e.g., a developmental editing project folder includes the manuscript with markups, the dev editing tracking sheet, and the editorial letter).

Make sure the MS is formatted to industry standard (i.e., 1-inch margins, 12-point Times New Roman, double-spaced, page numbers).

Apply the “Heading” style to chapter titles to make navigation easier.

Start editing.

Communication

My method of communication is email, all the way.

Email is the best communication method for me to keep in contact with authors and other clients. It makes it easier for me to track what we discussed and when, so I can refer back to an earlier conversation if needed and expand on it.

I’m pretty responsive. I make sure to respond to current clients within 24 hours on weekdays. (I don’t usually respond to emails I receive over the weekend unless a current client has an emergency.)

During a fiction editing project, I have 3 standard emails:

At the start of the project. I send an email to the author saying that I’ve started editing their MS, and that I’ll reach out if I have any questions. I also remind the author to reach out if they have any questions, concerns, or need to share additional information about their MS.

A week before the return date. This email is meant to reassure the author that everything is on track to be returned on the date agreed upon per the contract (which we both agreed to and signed prior to the project start date).

The return date. The editorial package is returned to the author, with a reminder that the author has up to 30 days after the return date to send up to 10 emails to discuss the edits.

Frequency of communication

The frequency of the email communication can vary from author to author. I’ve worked with authors who I didn’t contact outside of the 3 standard emails (and a few follow-up emails), and were perfectly fine with that level of communication. I’ve also worked with authors who preferred weekly check-ins. When I start working with a new author, we decide on which level of communication works best for them and stick with it throughout the duration of the project.

#RevPit 2024 #AskTheEditor sessions

This week the #AskTheEditor sessions for #RevPit 2024 start up! My session is this Thursday, March 21 at 7 p.m. ET on r/eddit. If you’re interested in learning more about my editing process, please drop in! You don’t need to have a r/eddit account to view public threads, so if you want to take a peek at upcoming events like #10Queries, please feel welcome to!

Link: Ask the Editor chats r/eddit thread

If my editing process sounds compatible with your workstyle, please don’t hesitate to get in touch! I’m interested in working with authors of:

Fantasy

Dark Fantasy

Science Fiction

Horror

though I’ve also worked on cozy mysteries too. I’m open to working in most genres if an author and I fit well together, so please get in touch if you’re interested in working with me!

Send me an email!

And that’s it for this week! I hope to chat with some of you on Thursday!

Best,

Leah

Visit The Crafty Fox Editing Services!

Connect with me on social media!

Substack post: https://thecraftyfoxwriterscorner.substack.com/p/editing-process-insight-a-general

[awrldalone]

15th sept 5.27pm

I met a lot of new people, and I went out with a few I already knew. I realize that, for only the second real time in my life, I am in a position of complete anonymity: I know no one, and no one knows me. It should have been the same last year, but I was not alone in the Netherlands. I had my friends. Here too I already know a few people, but it's not the same. They all already have a friend group, they know the lines of the metro by heart, the bars to go to at night, the restaurants to avoid. i am nothing but an old acquaintance to them, not a companion. 

Then, there are the people from my faculty. The first day I saw them I was surprised by how young they were, and even now that I am trying to get to know them better I feel the two years between us. I used to think two years was nothing; I still do, in reality. The people in my classes are like a bag of cheap peaches, with the skin bruised, rough, and all at different stages of maturity. I feel like a completely different fruit, though, and I wonder if I will find my place among them. 

The other night I was petrified at the thought of not being able to. I did not want to blend in, to become a peach too, I just desired to be bought by the same person and thrown in the same bag. We went to a bar, a very dorky place themed around different movies and books and video games, a place in which I would have never stepped foot into alone. I overpaid for a very sweet drink. It was pink, served in a martini glass, and it did not give me the boost I needed. I usually never let myself substitute courage with alcohol, as what's there once you've taken a few sips was already there to begin with, but it usually does help me speak a foreign language. The night was disastrous. We were too many people, and I wished to get to know each and every one – but we just played various boards games. A French version of Cards Against Humanity, Loup-Garou, which is essentially what in Italy we call lupus in fabula, and a game in which everyone but one person had a card with multiple words written on it, each corresponding to a number, and once chosen a number we had to say words linked to the word on the card, and the one without any words in the card had to be smart enough to blend in, to make up words that would make sense. All these games could have been fun, but the awkwardness in the air was so thick you could choke on it if you breathed too deeply. A girl spilled all of her drink on the table, the playing cards were all sticky. 

The place closed early, and we all went home. One of the guys, who lives in front of the bar, asked me if, by chance, I, or somebody else, would like to go up to his apartment. He was awkward too, but he could not mask it well. He has a beard but the face of a child, and I politely declined before heading to the metro. 

I woke up early yesterday. I rolled over in my bed and spent half an hour on twitter, before my phone told me I had ran out of time for the day, and so I got up. At around ten I met up with J. We met last year, it must've already been May or so. I was having lunch with my colleagues from the marketing team, and they were having lunch with their colleagues of the student's newspaper. My first impression of them was terrible, they put up a detestable mean girl façade. M. told me that, to make new friends, it's sometimes easier to just act as if you two have known each other for years and already know everything about your respective pasts. I think that's what they were trying to do, but they just felt rude, bitter for no reason. I ignored them after a bit, I stopped responding and turned to my friends while eating an eggplant sandwich. We bonded in the following days. I was running around the MUN taking pictures, filling in for the odd job here and there, I even took up the role of a delegate for half an hour, with no preparation, and they were interviewing people, reporting on what was being discussed. We talked a lot during the boat party; we shared a few cigarettes and talked, talked, talked as the boat flew on the surface of the Maas.

This time they were lovely; we are even planning to move in together, if we find a good apartment. I think we could become very good friends, perhaps their strategy of treating me like an old friend from the start worked well. I owe them a coffee.

When we left the café we went to the Marais, where they work in some sort of art gallery. It's such a pretty neighborhood, but I still struggle to reconcile all of its contradictions: its queerness with its hatred of poverty, its forwardness with its gentrification. 

I took the metro home, and had lunch quickly. Everything is so far apart here, and although the metro is fast it's not fast enough. Nothing ever is. 

In the afternoon I met up again with some people from my university. We went thrifting, and at first I felt the same uneasiness I had felt the night before. I think I am heavily influenced by the people around me, by their behavior: if they're more introverted, it gets harder for me to talk. Being in a smaller group of people makes it easier, but I always worry that my personality does not shine through when I speak in french.

I ended up buying a Pierre Cardin sweater for fifteen euros, a dirty ashtray I've been trying to make shine all morning, and Jean Cocteau's Les Parents terribles. It was around six something when, in front of a ressourcerie, we said goodbye to each other, with the plan to hang out after dinner at A.'s place. I bought some ginger beer and limes; T. - a very beautiful boy with thin features and a curly head of dark chocolate hair - bought some vodka and violet syrup. 

At home I did the laundry as I cooked. Multi-tasking has become my specialty. I freshened up as the tofu cooked; I put on my leather pants and a psychedelic brown t-shirt, and after eating I left the house with a heavy bag. 

A. lives far away from my place, close to the university, in an apartment smaller than mine but better furnished. Everything in it is new, polished. The space is well used, and I was so surprised by the amount of stocked-up food in her pantry. Mine is always empty, I only buy what I'll eat during the week. I ended up knocking on her door at ten p.m., already thinking about how to manage to get home before the metro closes at one a.m. 

I was not the last to arrive, Li. was still not there, but I saw Le. sitting on the couch, wearing the sweater vest he had bought earlier, and T. on the carpet, his legs crossed and his back to the wall. 

[cont. on the 17th September 2023, 8.37pm]

That night we ended up staying awake till dawn, drinking moscow mules and violet vodka sodas, sitting on the carpet and laughing at nothing and everything. 

We always talked in french, and I was surprised I could understand everything they said. Because we were not a lot of people, I could talk, cautiously. I still have to walk on the eggshells of grammar whenever I make up a phrase in my head, even at a store or at a café. It's terrifying to order a coffee and have the barista not realize what you want. Maybe it's because of the noise, maybe because of the low voice and whispered wish, maybe it's because I just, simply, said it wrong, pronounced it with too thick of an accent.

T. told me that my accent is foreign, but not necessarily Italian, or English like another guy said I sound like at times. 

At 5.30am T. and I decided we would leave. Le. and Li. stayed, asleep in A.'s bed, next to her among the green pillows and the soft comforter.

We took the first metro. The entrance was open despite it being too early for the first train, so we walked down the stairs and sat alone on the green plastic chair of the stop. We had sobered up by then, but we were so tired that it did not feel like it. The metro was full, silent workers commuting to work filling up all of the seats. 

-c.

[blizzardsuplex]

CW: mention of substance abuse, discussion of death

My fiction brain isn't doing so hot right now, so I wrote a casual (and untitled) essay instead about jazz, poetry, and professional wrestling (LOL). Thank you @mobiblackout for the conversation this afternoon that inspired me to try and write this down in the first place. <3

When it comes to jazz, I'm mainly a clarinet enjoyer (Buddy DeFranco my beloved). Today, though—totally on a whim—I put on some Bill Evans.

In truth, I don't know much about the guy, save for three things: the first is that he's an incredibly influential jazz pianist. The second is that, for most of his life, he abused heroin. The third…

If you look on his Wikipedia page, there's a section in the biography labeled “After LaFaro’s death”. The very sparse first paragraph reads:

Scott LaFaro being the bassist (double bass, not bass guitar) of the original lineup of the Bill Evans Trio, alongside Evans and the drummer Paul Motian. Going to his Wikipedia page, you get (besides a note that his brief career and life still left him one of the most important jazz bassists ever) a little more about his death and its aftermath:

That second to the last sentence in particular intrigued me—not the least because it had no citation. That, plus the fact it didn't seem that many people visited his page often, meant it was fertile ground for someone to freely make stuff up. I mean, doesn't it sound like the kind of reaction to a death a novel or a biopic would have? Too poignant a tribute, too picturesque a portrait of grief, to be real: an artist willingly (“obsessively”, even) reliving a memory over and over.

Fortunately for my curiosity, and unfortunately for my world-weary mid 20s skepticism, the third to the last line had a source. Not just any random source, either, but an article published in The New Yorker about “jazz's perfect afternoon”: June 25, 1961, when the Bill Evans Trio played (and were recorded live at) the Village Vanguard club, ten days before Scott LaFaro’s fatal car accident. It looked like an interesting article, so I searched up “bill evans I loves you porgy” on YouTube, ended up finding the very version recorded over 60 years ago, and got to reading.

Ah, I thought after seeing that last paragraph, while an audience of probably mostly dead people applauded three definitely dead men. So it wasn't made up. In fact, Wikipedia did what it did almost as well as outright lying on more obscure pages: kind of understating what actually happened.

I replayed the video—it’s a great track—and began to think. ~~~

There's that line from WandaVision that made people go insane, right? “What is grief but love enduring”? A memorable quote, for sure, if (apparently) a contentious one; my older sister told me that no less than Richard Silkin weighed in on X-open parenthesis-formerly-Twitter-close parenthesis.

Being the fencesitter I am, I'm unsure what judgment to pass. On one hand, I'm usually a little wary of any blanket statements regarding experiences as diverse and personal as love or grief. On the other, the sheer number of people it resonated with is no joke; I'm not here to condemn what consoles in hard times.

And, if I had a third hand and a belly in any color but yellow, maybe I'd say grief is (for some) just the first step. Okay, so it's a feeling you're, well, feeling. Does it truly endure if it stays inside you, a mortal being, bottled up? Is it truly love if it isn't expressed—in a smile, in a word, in something you create—to a recipient beyond yourself?

~~~

I'm that person who, when discovering something new that interests me, wants to tell others and ask their thoughts about it immediately. With the internet (and making online friends who are either night owls or in closer timezones), that can be done more easily than ever—which is why I ended up outright changing the entire topic of conversation with a “lucky” friend from pro wrestling to jazz (with permission!)

Rumi/Shams coded, they told me; what, I thought, like the poet? I'd heard of him, of course, read a few translated verses here and there and liked them well enough, but I knew little about the context of his work, even less about his actual life.

My mind was nonetheless still firmly in knowledge sponge mode, and so I asked my friend to explain. Helpfully, they sent me the pertinent sections of both Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī and Shams-i Tabrīzī’s Wikipedia pages:

I could see why these two had been brought to my friend's mind after I'd told them about Evans and LaFaro: another relationship that inspired great creativity; another abrupt, devastating disappearance; another piece of art in memoriam. While Bill Evans almost always played I Loves You Porgy with no accompaniment from the accident onwards, however, a call with no response, Rumi added to the world where there once was nothing:

A moment of happiness, you and I sitting on the verandah, apparently two, but one in soul, you and I. We feel the flowing water of life here, you and I, with the garden's beauty and the birds singing. The stars will be watching us, and we will show them what it is to be a thin crescent moon. You and I unselfed, will be together, indifferent to idle speculation, you and I. The parrots of heaven will be cracking sugar as we laugh together, you and I. In one form upon this earth, and in another form in a timeless sweet land.

I am a sculptor, a molder of form. In every moment I shape an idol. But then, in front of you, I melt them down I can rouse a hundred forms and fill them with spirit, but when I look into your face, I want to throw them in the fire. My souls spills into yours and is blended. Because my soul has absorbed your fragrance, I cherish it. Every drop of blood I spill informs the earth, I merge with my Beloved when I participate in love. In this house of mud and water, my heart has fallen to ruins. Enter this house, my Love, or let me leave.

When poetry hits, it really hits; knowing a little more context than I did now, I got actual goosebumps. And, after the initial emotional reaction, with the Bill Evans Trio still playing in the background, I got to thinking again.

This reminds me of a third thing, I told my friend.

~~~ To express your love is all well and good—let the people you care about know you care about them. But what if whatever, or whoever, you're expressing that love to is a hundred percent gone?

I don't necessarily mean death, but I don't mean people in the process of phasing out of your life, either. The slow decline hurts like a bitch, too, but that's not what I want to talk about here. I'm talking a sudden, violent vacating of a space in your life, once-reserved and, from this point until your last breath, never occupied in quite the same way again. In other words: an unexpected and permanent absence.

And when faced with that absence, in that tear in your world, what do you do? Ignore it? Paper over it? Neither will give you the response desired, or indeed a response. Try and fill that hole in exactly, like there was never a hole at all? As Fiona Apple sang, “nobody can replace anybody else”—and no thing can, either.

But, if that's the case, where does the love go?

~~~

Do you know who Plum Mariko is? I asked my friend.

Nope.

A joshi wrestler active in the 90s. Inventor of the stretch plum submission (used now by one Eddie Kingston). She died in the ring from a back bump.

Damn… they replied.

The fatal move was a Liger bomb given by Mayumi Ozaki. She'd done it a million times, and Plum knew how to take it, but this was the final straw after a bunch of wear and tear. 

They held a memorial show, I continued. The main event was Cuty Suzuki and Dynamite Kansai (two big names) versus Ozaki and…Plum Mariko. She, or rather her picture, gets an entrance, her parents are at ringside with another photo, all that.

Then the match begins. It is in essence, of course, a handicap match: Ozaki getting beat up for minutes in front of a mostly-quiet crowd, building up heat that never resolves for a partner who can't tag in. After Ozaki gets pinned and the roster gets in for the ten bell salute, everyone's stone-faced or crying. And for years, at least (I don't know if they still run it now) Ozaki’s promotion did a Plum Mariko-branded memorial show.

I don't know what to say, my friend told me after a few moments. If something similar happens right now…the other person would be crushed for life.

Yeah, I said. In my browser, the audience of the Village Vanguard clap one final time. I pray it never does. ~~~ Questions, questions—and no answers. No universal ones, anyway. As much as I'd love to say Art is love, or grief, or any other emotion immortalized, I don't think I can with a straight face. Sometimes people just want to make things. Sometimes things that are made, regardless of depth of emotion or intent, are forgotten. And is professional wrestling even art?—

So, instead of either deflecting with more questions or being brave enough to give a straight answer, here is an observation:

These are three stories about three different people from three different fields, cultures, and time periods, but they're still connected, both by great loss and getting something like closure from creative expression. Whether memorial shows, or leaving space for a killer baseline, or breaking out into spontaneous verse and song; Art may not have all the answers, but it can help. 

…or maybe it's not about what is expressed, specifically. Maybe it's simply the fact that the act of creating something is what was shared between them. Individual pieces or even whole bodies of work may fade into obscurity—but as long as jazz, or poetry, or professional wrestling, or your field, exists as a whole? So can the love you both channeled and you can still channel into it, even if the only person to recognize it is you. 

It's in Bill Evans saying fondly, five years after LaFaro’s death, that he played like “everything was bubbling over”. It's in Mayumi Ozaki, after the match, looking at Plum's ring gear and saying “if I see her costume, not before long I feel that I have to keep on persevering”. And it's in what Rumi said upon going back to Damascus and not finding Shams there:

Why should I seek? I am the same as He. His essence speaks through me. I have been looking for myself!

[musclesandhammering]

Every Single Issue I Have With S*lki (It’s Not Just The Selfcest)

Here goes. I threatened to post this a few days ago and never did, but I just saw a s*lki stan Twitter account claim that Loki caring about Sylvie more than the whole multiverse was a Good And Romantic thing and it pushed me over the fucking edge, so now you all have to read this. I’ve divided it into categories cause there’s just THAT much.

OOC Bullshit

• First and foremost, no amount of mental gymnastics you do will ever make me believe that this specific Loki- the one that just invaded New York, that just came off a year of Thanos Torture, that just got done being influenced by the sceptre, that was literally in the middle of a crisis already, and then on top of that went through all the trauma of Ep 1- would even be worried about a romantic relationship. That would be the furthest thing from his mind. Go back and watch how he acted in Avengers- you think that guy would abandon his previous mission to become a snivelling simp for a girl he’d just met 3 days prior? Yeah, there’s no universe in which that makes sense.

• “It’s very in character for Loki to fall in love with himself lololol-“ NO, it’s literally not. Out of all the characters in the mcu, I don’t think I can think of anyone that genuinely hates themselves more than Loki. He even referred to all his other male variants as “monsters” and said meeting them was “a nightmare” in this series. He’s got so much self-loathing, plus the fact that he genuinely thinks himself to be an evil backstabbing scourge- so there’s no evidence at all suggesting that he would ever develop a fondness for, or even be inclined to trust, another version of himself, after only knowing them for 3 days.

• Building on that, the whole concept of Loki falling in love with a version of himself just feeds into the annoying ass misconception that he’s a narcissist. No matter which way you stack it, he’s not. If you’re referring to NPD, he doesn’t fit the criteria, and if you’re saying “narcissist” just as a slang term meaning “selfish and arrogant”, that still doesn’t accurately describe him. But when creators like Waldron and Herron do things like having him fall in love with himself, it makes it so much easier for casual viewers to think that he is.

Shitty LGBT Rep

• It’s kinda sus that Loki’s are allegedly genderfluid and yet the only female-presenting variant we see (and apparently the only female-presenting variant there is, cause the male Loki’s all seemed unfamiliar with the concept) is treated as some kind of mind-bogglingly special paradox. Also very sus that, out of all the Loki variants, the one our Loki falls in love with just so happens to be the only female one. What a coincidence.

• The fact that the creators of the show went around bragging about Loki’s bisexuality and Marvel purposefully (lbr) allowed stories about Loki possibly having a male love interest to circulate, specifically enticing queer viewers to watch the show (you know, the definition of queerbaiting), and then instead of having a male love interest (Loki was the first queer main character, so it was the perfect opportunity) they gave us *gestures to this dumpster fire* this… it’s just a middle finger to LGBT fans. The fact that they would rather have this relationship with all its myriad of problems than have a gay relationship is just……. Very telling.

• While him being with a woman obviously doesn’t refute his bisexuality, the fact that they showed/talked about him being interested in 3 different women (flight attendant, Sylvie, Sif) and never even hinted at him being attracted to a man, definitely makes it seem like they were trying to cover up his bisexuality to smooth things over with the more homophobic viewers. You know? It’s like “I know you’re pissed that we sorta confirmed Loki as bi, so we promise we’ll never mention it again! Or even hint at it! As a matter of fact, we’ll give him lots of female lovies and make him seem as straight as possible! That’ll take your mind off of that horrible crumb of queer rep, right? Please please please keep giving us your money!!!”

• Aside from all the other issues, at its core, the biggest reason why I think I’m so irritated with s*lki is that it took one of the most interesting, complex, and diverse characters in cinema atm and squished him into a tired ass unnecessary heteronormative subplot…. Like literally every. single. other. protagonist. ever. Loki is such a unique character, and it’s so so so incredibly disappointing that they stuck him into that same boring cookie cutter romance that happens to every other character in every other movie I’ve ever seen. It’s a disservice, and it’s honestly just not compelling or entertaining at all.

Thematic Issues Galore

• His arc didn’t need a romance. With anyone. It was unnecessary and it didn’t make sense plot-wise. In fact, one of the reasons he was my fav prior to this was because he was the only big-name mcu character whose story wasn’t muddied-up by a romance that didn’t need to be there. So much for that.

• He wasn’t emotionally ready for a romantic relationship with anyone. Hell, just a genuine friendship would’ve been pushing it for him at this point. He was in such a bad state that any relationship he got into would’ve been toxic and unhealthy for both him and the other person, and it doesn’t make sense why the writers would want to put him in one when there were so many cons and essentially no pros (other than “Uwu aren’t they cute together”).

• Sylvie’s character in general was unnecessary and Loki’s character was robbed just by her being there. The whole show became about her post-Ep 2. They spent most of the time giving her backstory, building her up, telling us how awesome she is, trying to convince us to like her, etc when what they really needed to be doing was building Loki up- cause I gotta say, if I had to describe TVA!Loki in a few words, they would be Flat, Boring, and Weak.

• The romance overtakes the plot. They spend time portraying their supposed connection that could’ve been spent adding depth and complexity to literally any of the characters. They make the big Nexus Event them giving each other googly eyes on Lamentis when it could’ve been so many other way more profound things that speak to the fundamental nature of Loki’s. They have the climax of the finale be “oh no she betrayed him to kill He Who Remains” when it could’ve been something way more compelling (Loki having a moral crisis over whether or not to kill HWR, Loki contemplating the state of the multiverse and weighing the pros and cons of freedom vs order, Loki looking into some What If situations and getting emotional about what could’ve been regarding his family, Loki realising the gravity of HWR’s offer and finally coming to terms with how important he is to the universal cycle, etc etc). The entire plot suffered in favour of a romance that half of us didn’t even want.

• It essentially reduced all of Loki’s potential character growth down to “He did it for his crush.” He seemed to at least have some motivations of his own in Ep 1-2 (feeble as they were) but after Sylvie showed up in Ep 3, literally every action he took was just him being a simp for her. Why did he lie in the interrogation? To try to protect Sylvie. Why did he fight the minutemen and Timekeepers? To survive kinda, but mostly cause it was important to Sylvie. Why did he get pruned? Cause he got distracted trying to confess his crush to Sylvie. Why did he try to get out of The Void? Cause he thought Sylvie needed him. Why did he stay in The Void? Cause Sylvie was staying. Why did he try to enchant Alioth? Cause Sylvie told him to. Why did the multiverse get cracked open, leading to an infinite number of Kangs waging war on all of existence? Cause Loki didn’t wanna hurt Sylvie in their fight at the Citadel and then get distracted by her kissing him. It’s uninteresting and honestly pretty embarrassing.

• Throughout their “relationship arc” the writers do their absolute damndest to convince us that we should like Sylvie more than Loki. And you know what? It’s the most hypocritical shit I’ve ever seen. They preach and preach about how Sylvie’s life has been so difficult/we should feel bad for her/she had it so bad/poor poor sylvie/she had it SO much worse than pampered prince Loki…. But then they never even touch on any of Loki’s trauma of hardships (the ones that have been ignored for literally 3 movies now). They frame Sylvie as a good person and a Freedom Fighter after she spent literal decades/centuries mass-murdering brainwashed TVA agents and showing exactly zero remorse for it….. but then they make it their mission to constantly remind us that Loki is a terrible person and constantly put him in situations where he’s forced to acknowledge his wrongdoings/show remorse/admit to how “evil” he is for being a mass murderer for like 2 years. They show him on-screen having a wider range of powers than her, and perpetuate his whole shtick of being a “master manipulator” or whatever….. But then they make Sylvie “the brawn” more competent, intelligent, and physically capable than him. Tell me how it’s a good thing for a ship to be so narratively biased toward one character.

Missed Opportunities

• If they absolutely had to have a romance subplot, then they could’ve paired Loki with one of the characters that have already been established OR one of the characters that were a big part of the whole TVA storyline anyway. It would’ve been so interesting if they’d revealed that Loki had a history with some of the players from previous films (Sif and Fandral both come to mind). It also would’ve been really interesting if they’d given Loki a love interest that actually had some allegiance to the TVA as a whole (Mobius maybe, but not necessarily. It also could’ve been Renslayer or B-15). Hell, imo it would’ve been cool if they’d followed through with that “See you again someday” line that he said to the flight attendant in Ep 1. ALL of these characters have way more chemistry with him than Sylvie, and they were also already relevant to the plot without wasting half the show to give background info on them.

• If they absolutely had to have a hetero-presenting love story involving an enchantress-type figure, then there’s a whole Enchantress (Amora) that was actually Loki’s love interest in the comics. Plus, fans have been screaming for Amora to appear in the mcu for years. Plus, Tom literally pitched an Amora/Loki storyline way back in 2012-13. Also, Lorelei (another enchantress) is also one of Loki’s love interests in the comics, and she already exists in the mcu (she was on Agents of SHIELD). There were several different established characters for them to choose from. Creating a whole knew amalgamation of a character and going with the “she’s a Loki variant” storyline was just completely unnecessary and made no sense.

• They completely robbed us of a Chaos Twins dynamic. Had they handled Sylvie better and not forced her and Loki to smooch, the two of them could’ve had a really really complex and interesting sibling relationship. Loki could’ve stepped into Thor’s shoes and sort of used that new role to gain some self importance, and Sylvie could’ve finally had somebody to look out for her/teach her magic/be there for her. It would’ve been very aesthetically pleasing, the vibes would’ve been out of this world, it would’ve been way more profound than this bs, and frankly it would’ve been much more entertaining to watch.

• Loki’s relationship (read: obsession) with Sylvie completely overshadows all Loki’s other relationships in the show. Loki and Mobius were literally the focal point of the series in Ep 1-2, but after Sylvie showed up in Ep 3, they barely had any interactions with each other, and Mobius pretty much faded to the background entirely. Loki had the beginnings of a pretty interesting antagonistic relationship with Renslayer (with her wanting him pruned, then arguing with Mobius that he couldn’t be trusted), but after Sylvie showed up the dynamic shifted to focus on the history between her and Ravonna. Loki and B-15 started off very badly and openly disliked each other throughout Ep 1-2, and then in the end of Ep 2, Loki showed a little bit of concern for her when she was possessed, hinting that they might be inching toward a reconciliation- especially considering how obvious it was that Loki was gonna uncover the TVA’s sins eventually. There was so much potential for him to be the one to give her her memories back and convince her to change sides, but no, of course that honor went to Sylvie. In fact, after Sylvie showed up, Loki and B-15 never even spoke to each other again.

Various S*lki Fails

• If they were trying to convince us that this affection was mutual, they completely failed. There’s nothing I’ve seen that even hints at Sylvie feeling the same way about Loki that he does about her. At most, I’d say she has a slight endearment to him. She finds him likeable and she’s grudgingly fond of him, but she definitely isn’t in love with the guy. Maybe she thinks he’s cute and hopes that he gets out of this mess alright, but her mission obviously comes before him- whereas, it’s been confirmed multiple times that Loki cares about her above anything else. She doesn’t trust him, she looks at him like he’s an incompetent fool half the time, she shows little to no reaction during most of his confession moments, and she kissed him as a means to distract him so that she could get him out of her way. Look, all I’m saying is, when you get into a relationship where one of you is way more invested than the other, it never ends well.

• This goes without saying for a lot of us, but the selfcest is just straight up odd and cringey. If you’re cool with that sort of thing, fine! People can ship what they want! But don’t pretend it’s not at least a little bit uncomfortable. Yes, I know they’re not technically siblings so it’s not technically incest, and they’re also not technically the exact same person, but they’re similar enough that it makes things weird. And yes I know selfcest can’t happen in real life, so there’s no way to judge it morally, but neither can most of the other stuff that happens in these shows/movies (the Snap, Loki destroying jotunheim, superhero with powers being held accountable, mind control) and yet we still find ways to judge their morality, because they all mirror real-world events. (The snap= genocide; Loki destroying Jotunheim= bombing other countries; superhero accountability= weapons accountability; mind control= grooming and coercion). And lbr the closest real-world mirror to two versions of the same person (who may or may not share DNA, family, backgrounds, physical and emotion characteristics) being romantically involved with one another is incest. And you can be ok with that if you want- that’s your prerogative- but don’t get pissy just cause a lot of us are squicked out by it.

• The whole mirror metaphor (learning self love via each other) thing just fell completely flat. First of all, having Loki learn to love himself by looking at someone who mirrors him did not, in any way shape or form, require them to be romantically involved. But they were. Of course. Secondly, the creators have contradicted themselves so many times on whether Loki and Sylvie are the same or not, that it doesn’t even really register to the viewer that the mirroring thing was what they were going for. Finally, Loki and Sylvie are shown to have so little in common- and to have only the most bare minimum of similarities personality-wise- that it doesn’t even make sense that Loki would “learn to love himself through loving her”. Like? They’re nothing alike. So how would he make the connection that he himself is actually pretty cool, based on her alone? There’s virtually nothing in her that reflects him.

• I know the objective of the entire show was to convince us of how awesome and unique Sylvie is, but honestly her relationship with Loki just did the opposite. A hallmark of a Mary Sue is having her constantly upstage the male lead, and then having him instantly fall madly in love with her anyway. And that’s.. exactly what happened here. Everything they’re doing to try to force her character to be more stan-able is really just forcing her to look more like their self-insert OC. Which is exactly what she is. It would’ve been so much more satisfying if she didn’t have to try so hard to look cool, if they didn’t have to try so hard to make her backstory tear-inducing, if they didn’t have to turn our protagonist into a snivelling simp just to prove how incredible she supposedly is. Very much #GirlBoss energy and we all know how performative and cheap that is.

• The entire thing was too rushed, there was too little build-up, and it was nowhere near believable. As stated above, it’s ridiculously unlikely that Loki would canonically even be interested in Sylvie, and this show did nothing to explain why he was. He just suddenly was. There was nothing they showed us as viewers that would justify a guy as closed-off and preoccupied as Loki falling head-over-heels for a girl he just met. Their was no explanation, no big revelation, no reasoning, it just… kinda happened. And I’m also severely skeptical of any love story that has the characters go in this deep after only 3 45-minute episodes of exposition.

I’m sure there’s other stuff, so if anyone thinks of anything, let me know and I’ll be more than happy to add it. Tagging @janetsnakehole02 @raifenlf @natures-marvel and @brightredsunset800 for expressing interest. This is all your faults.

[qqueenofhades]

Okay. Got some (or many) Tuesday morning thoughts, after a full week of /waves hand/ This.

There’s a certain sort of comment I often see on Twitter/social media in general, usually in response to some kind of obvious climate disaster. An oil tanker catches on fire, or some government orders the clear-cutting of priceless old-growth forest, or something similar. That’s all it takes for the Twitterati to leap in with their pithy one-liners: “good thing I got a paper straw today,” or “good thing I rode my bicycle today” or etc. The underlying implication is that since huge disasters are happening every day-- and that the corporations and conglomerations who cause them do absolutely everything to duck responsibility, “greenwash” their brands, or otherwise self-righteously shovel the onus onto individual people to save the planet -- there’s absolutely no point in doing the small things. Why should I, personally, get a paper straw at Starbucks, if someone’s going to spill millions of gallons of oil into the ocean? It doesn’t matter, we’re all fucked anyway. Or so the simple and seductive logic goes.

Except those comments are starting to drive me crazy, even more than usual, because we’ve all been looking at proof that it fucking matters to do those things. I’m not remotely about to draw a comparison between a Westerner getting a recyclable straw and the hell that the Ukrainians are going through right now, but there’s something to be said about the mindset of the Western (particularly the American) left that needs calling out here, and which is obvious in the way the global public is reacting to the crisis. It’s obvious to a lot of people that the American left has been losing its way for a long time, and is splintering into smaller and smaller camps that mostly spend their time attacking each other, attacking Democratic elected leaders (while often being oddly silent about Republican ones) and otherwise running down every attempt to actually put together a functional coalition, because Can’t You See It’s Not Enough, I Am Too Good For Your Flawed Efforts. Since leftists and liberals are the kind of people who think about the injustices in the world, and usually do care about them, it’s easy to get paralyzed by the number and weight of them, the voracity and violence of the bad actors, and just decide that the solution is to give up, but in a snarky, world-weary way that is guaranteed to get you lots of easy likes and retweets from the echo chamber living in that same mindset. It’s quick validation and it feels good to be justified in your beliefs, so the mindset spreads and reinforces itself. Most people on social media want other people on social media to like them, so they do the same thing. On and on it goes.

Hot take time, but “entities bigger than me are doing bad things and I as one person cannot stop that, so I should just do nothing and shame other people for thinking that doing anything is possible” is the leftist/progressivist version of “any attempt to make me wear a mask or get a vaccine or take responsibility for the safety of others is DESTROYING MUH FREEDOMS!!” Both rely on a cynical underlying message that you, yourself, and you are the only thing that matters in the world, that you are the only thing that could either make a difference or be unforgivably inconvenienced, and is massively, profoundly selfish in a way that we’re literally seeing the real-time disproval of. Before this week, would anyone, anywhere, have laid odds on the Ukrainians lasting even this long against the supposedly invincible Russians? If they just threw up their hands and said, “there’s not enough of us, they’re too powerful, there’s no point doing anything, it doesn’t matter?” would we be in this situation, where it’s been over a week, they’re still valiantly holding out, and the entire world is on their side? I think not.

Instead, they looked at that massive, devouring war machine run by a madman, performed a collective Slavic shrug, and went to work building homemade Molotov cocktails and collecting AK-47s. I’m not glorifying war, and I’m not glorifying their trauma, and I’m not saying that the fanboys who dream of armed uprisings (from whatever side of the political spectrum) are in the right, or any of the usual other disclosures you have to put due to people absolutely determined to read everything in the worst possible light. I’m saying they just fucking decided not to take it and to do something, even if they, personally, had never done it before. And now cracks are appearing all over the seemingly invincible Russian military and Putin regime, the world is heaping the Ukrainians with money and supplies and support and adoration, even the bad actors who are still bad are realizing that it’s better for their popularity to act like they’re on board, and President Zelenskyy is an idolized international superhero (and apparently, heartthrob). No matter what ultimately happens, whether he survives this or God forbid not, that guy is going to have statues put up of him for the rest of time, and it’s because as we have all heard, he (reportedly), when asked if he wanted to get the hell out of Dodge and save himself, a choice he could easily have made, said hell no. The fight is here. I need ammo, not a ride.

Hot take time the second, but being snarky, nihilistic, and hopeless with a lot of other snarky, nihilistic, hopeless people isn’t a substitute for actual, genuine community-building. It’s fun and it gets you validation and it’s easy to say it -- and definitely much easier than actually taking action to change things, since that might demand commitment, dedication, and genuine sacrifice. It’s easy to change the subject and point out all the (very real) bad things the West has done and engage in bad faith and whataboutism and the Oppression Olympics and every other goddamn imaginable deflection, diversion, and cynicism. None of this actually helps. And if that is all you’re doing, maybe think again.

With Biden’s SOTU coming up tonight, I expect there will be the usual avalanche of leftist complaints about things he said, didn’t say, should have said, shouldn’t have said, and so forth. Maybe (and yes, I know, I ask for the moon here) just maybe, the focus should be on upholding the message and pushing harder. The world wants this. The world needs this. If it didn’t want to hear it, there wouldn’t have been such a response in a way that literally nobody expected. It just needed somebody to be the first to push back against the “everything is helpless and there’s no point” narrative and actually. give. a damn. Then Ukraine, with the eyes of the entire world on them due to a unique confluence of historical, political, and cultural circumstances, did exactly that, and boom.

Yet again: this isn’t to make the Ukrainians into a trite moral lesson for the West, or act like their suffering is only meaningful because it’s given such a sharp jolt to everyone else. But conversations are finally being held that have been needed for years, and have been put off for one reason or another (usually greed, self-interest, and cowardice). People are looking at each other, and their own institutions, and their own politicians, and a lot of them are deciding to do something about it, wherever in the world they’re located and whatever it is that they can do. Yes, they’re only individual people doing one thing. But all of a sudden, we have this massive blue-and-yellow-colored tidal wave rising up and fearlessly defying a dictator who is clearly engaged in a desperate last-gasp scramble for ultimate power and might just bring about his own downfall as a result. It’s foolish to act like this isn’t a potentially seismic global turning point, and it’s foolish to snipe at people who see that and are realizing that this is history in the making. Current events are just the history that’s happening now, and which give you, yourself, the person, the chance to decide what you would do when faced with that. Not as a hypothetical. Not as a thought exercise. Now.

These are terrible times beyond a doubt. But there have been terrible times before. Pretty much everyone has been struggling with the agonizing burden of how to be a conscious and compassionate creature in a world that seems laden with endless, pointless, gleeful cruelty. It’s the entire human experience down thousands of years, which is why it’s even more baffling that such large segments of the population have shrugged and gone “nah, no point, me myself and I is the only thing that matters.” This is when you have to look to history, and you have to actually learn from it, and not just the parts that comfort you and confirm your pre-existing beliefs. During the Cold War, people lived with a nuclear shadow over their heads for longer than I’ve been alive. There was the same exact fear, for years and years, that some tiny mistake or miscalculation or misinterpretation might end the world. They made it through then. We can make it through now. We just have to fucking give a damn.

And to the usual Tumblr crowd who likes to throw out the “wow must be nice to be neurotypical” etc: hahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahhaha. I’m significantly autistic, have had crippling anxiety and depression for my entire life, and have been passively to-more-than-passively suicidal for several extended periods. Believe me, I know the seductive desire to just go to sleep and give up and make the suffering stop. I have wrestled for years about how to deal with the disasters we’re all dealing with now, and what the hell to think about the future, or how to plan for it at all. I still don’t have any concrete answers. I just know that I’m fucking trying, and I no longer have any patience for people who not only deliberately and damagingly refuse to do the same, but urge others to join them.

The end.

P.S. If you like this post, don’t just like it, reblog it. This isn’t the usual “reblog or you’re a bad person” Tumblr guilt trip. You don’t have to do a damn thing. It’s your blog and it’s your choice. But if you think the message is worth talking about, SAY SO. I guarantee you’ll find that a lot of other people feel the same. Just because social media has the herd mentality where you want to look good and fit in with what the popular kids are saying, just like high school, doesn’t mean that you have to stay in your silo and feel ashamed of saying what you think. The people who would shame you for it are not remotely worth your time.