#we know pq has been attempted before

[walking-fnaf-encyclopedia]

n. not to sound like a conspiracy theorist. but do we have like.. undeniable confirmation that ruin is a sequel. like.. ANY? at all? any dates? any references directly to sb?

anything?

[wu-sisyphus-gang]

Motion Sickness Chapter 86

I asked out a girl and got rejected today. Stay safe, gentlemen. Ladies already know.

pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq

(Weiss's PoV)

"What happened to him?" I asked. I watched Cloud get carted away on a stretcher.

"Emerald summoned an image of Salem with her semblance." Penny stated in her informative tone. "He started to seize. I think the illusion triggered him somehow. Cinder used the cover it provided to make her escape."

"Without Mercury," Yang tapped the body of the warrior with her foot.

"Cloud killed him," Penny murmured. "He drove his blade through his chest. He died almost instantly. You can see the wound."

I could. A great blade had been jabbed under Mercury's ribs and out the other side. Cloud's broadsword was stained with Mercury's blood.

"So what? Cloud can't even look at Salem without having some kind of episode?" Yang asked.

"The image was a bit intense, even to me. Afterwards he started to ramble. I think he was trying to tell me she was in his mind," Penny told us. "He couldn't get the words out, though. I think she was using the opportunity to attack him. To start another of her hacking attempts."

"I hope he's okay…" Ruby mumbled. "He didn't handle meeting his sisters very well. This probably wasn't good for him."

"I thought he was going to die," Penny informed us, devoid of nearly all emotion.

"It was that bad?" I asked.

"He was really seizing and frothing at the mouth," Penny said. "I must report to Ironwood now. Excuse me."

She stepped away and took off like a jet. She soared overhead and in the direction of the academy.

"It's bad if he can't even look at her without having epilepsy. I don't think he'll be able to fight her. At least not physically. Not unless he gets much stronger mentally," I said. "When we fight her it'll have to be without Cloud's help."

"When we fight her…" Ruby trailed off. "I don't know how we'll be able to do it without Cloud. But if he really can't look at her then he'll never be able to help us."

"Maybe he'll get stronger," Blake said. She sounded like she didn't believe it, though.

"His meds aren't working," Ruby murmured. "They're supposed to prevent this but it doesn't seem like they did anything. Maybe we should let him go back to self medicating. He was doing relatively okay before he got on these meds. At least according to him."

"I don't know… all the doctors think that's a bad idea," I returned uneasily. "But maybe some of those meds he's on are just making things worse."

"At least he got Mercury. That's another bad guy down and in Cloud's pocket," Yang said. "He's not useless."

"He would be in a fight against Salem," Blake muttered. She was right. "He can't fight in his condition."

"He might know more. We should ask him when he wakes up," Ruby murmured.

I couldn't even be mad about him getting in this fight. He had support. He let us know what was happening. It even seemed like he had grounds to say that he'd been winning based on Mercury's corpse. It just still wasn't enough. Salem had exploited a tiny advantage over him and it sounded like he'd almost died over it.

It was… unrighteously unfair. He'd done everything right. It just hadn't been enough. Salem was ruthless. Cloud often described her as a goddess. He said he felt like a dog next to her. I wondered how true that was. Salem was old, she had magic, she was on another level, even from the maidens. It sure seemed like she was unbeatable when she toppled Cloud so easily.

It was easy to drown in the hopelessness of it. Cloud was, for all his strength, vulnerable. And he was the only of his siblings on our side and they might all have magic too. It was seven against one in that department and that didn't even count the wicked witch, Salem, herself.

She had power over his mind and probably spades of other powers and she controlled the Grimm which at all times outnumbered the Cetra. It was bleak when you looked at things like that. From that perspective I could understand why Cloud felt so helpless. He was just one man and he couldn't even do enough magic to turn a needle into a feather and he was supposed to fight a goddess; one that needed little more than to be looked upon by him and he'd start to crumble.

Ruby's dreams of an extra large family seemed so distant and even more impossible. She wanted so much and Cloud would die in this fight against Salem in all likelihood. That was if he didn't turn on us again, this time for keeps like his sisters and side with his mother against the world.

He was shattered despite all his power. It seemed like he hadn't even begun to heal with Ruby's and my help. I wasn't sure we were doing anything for him. I wasn't sure he was doing more than delaying the inevitable. I wanted to be doing more. I wanted to be helping him for real. But what did that even mean and how could I accomplish that?

I could only love him as best as I was able even if it wasn't very much.

"Ruby…" I trailed. "Things don't look good for Cloud."

"I know, Weiss."

"I don't know how to get you what you want. I don't know how to save him from this."

Ruby let out a long sigh. "I… I know. But I'm not about to give up on him. Even if the odds are stacked against him. I won't give up. Tell me that you're with me."

"I am. I'm just… I'm scared for him. If he can't do this much, what can he do? It wasn't even like she looked at him. He looked at her. That's all it took to unwind him. She's… she's laying traps in his mind."

"She's worming her way into his subconscious. That's what he always says," Ruby muttered. "How do you resist something like that? It's horrible."

"It's psychic warfare. Maybe we need to come at it from a different angle."

"What do you mean?" Ruby wondered.

"I have… maybe an idea." Or the start of one. "We need to help him to not hate himself. We need to build a place in his mind that's secure. Without her influence."

"Can we do that?"

"I don't know. But we have to try, don't we. Otherwise we may as well give him up right now."

pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq

"I had them," Cloud said from the hospital bed when he woke up. Ruby and I were beside him. I took his hand in both of mine. Rough calluses against my soft skin. I could feel his aura. Golden and tinged with blue. It was furious. "Penny and I, that is. We fucking had then and they slipped away. It was all my fault. I let her in. I gave her an opening into my thoughts."

"Is that how she got you?" Ruby asked.

"I… I was reminded of her. It made me think of her and she sort of… she penned me in. She corralled me. Once I started I couldn't stop. Once I thought of her it opened up the connection between us even wider. Like a damn bursting. I couldn't shut that faucet off. She just crawled right into me."

"Cloud, we want to help you. Weiss says she has an idea. One that could help you resist Salem."

Cloud looked up at me. Doubt and curiosity, both were well earned from his perspective.

"We want to build a place in your mind free of her influence. A sort of sanctum. A place where you can always retreat to if you need to and know that she isn't there," I told him. "Everyday we will spend time with you and we'll work on it together. It won't be time wasted even if we do fail."

"I...I could see how that could help. I just don't know where to start."

"Start with us and the time we've spent together," I said. "Start with Beacon and your time spent with Pyrrha. Just lay back and remember. Salem wasn't there then. She doesn't own that. You do."

"Pyrrha…" Cloud whispered. He shuddered a little. He got goosebumps down his arm where I held him.

"Breathe and relax," Ruby whispered. She stroked his head and lifted it up and set it in her lap. "Breathe and relax, Cloud. Salem isn't here right now. You're safe."

"Am I?" He didn't ask rhetorically. He seemed genuinely curious about whether he was free of her.

"Reach out to where she attacked you and see if you can feel her," I walked him through it like a meditation.

His breath hissed out. His blue eyes were a touch wild. "She's there. I can feel her. Mother…"

"Now come back to us. Is there a difference? Can you feel a difference?" I asked.

"I…" he breathed. He strained to relax, his eyes shut in focus. "I can feel a difference. There's a place where she is and there's a place where I am. But we're connected."

"Come back and be with us. You're safe here. We won't let you hurt anyone. You can relax," I whispered.

His eyelids fluttered at the sound of my voice.

"Can you stop me?" He wondered, purely wondering.

"Of course we can. And besides," Ruby said. "I don't believe that you would hurt us. I believe in you."

"We'll spend time with you every day and work on this. On where you can and can't feel her. We'll be with you every step of the way," I informed him patiently. My voice was as soft and melodic as I could make it without actually singing, though it came close at times. I wanted him relaxed and I patiently walked him through the exercise like I honestly knew what I was doing rather than just guessing. But it was the best I could do. It was all I could do.

I may not know what I was doing in full but he didn't really need to know that. I needed him to have this. Even if it didn't work for what we wanted it wasn't time spent in vain.

It was time spent trying to help him. That could mean everything to me and Ruby.

"I can feel her in the corner of my mind. Her tentacles are pulling at me. They want me to go to her," he whispered. "They call to me. They beckon at me."

"Now come back to us. Listen to the sound of my voice. You're safe here. We will guard you," I murmured. "We won't let you go. Not to her or to anyone. There will be no reunion."

"No reunion...What if I do something awful again?" He breathed. His eyes still slammed shut. "What if I hurt you?"

"You could never hurt us, Cloud, we know you could never do it," Ruby whispered. "Just like you could never hurt Ren and Nora." The breath whistled out of him. "That was all Salem. It was all her. Not you. Never you. It is not your fault. It's your mother messing with your head that's to blame."

Cloud's eyes flickered underneath closed lids. It looked like he might fall asleep. I took that as a good sign. I wanted him to be that relaxed. It was when he was tensed and panicked that Salem would have the most power over him, I believed.

"Surround her," I encouraged. "Be the one to box her in rather than the other way around. This is your mind. No one owns it or knows it more thoroughly than you do. This is where you reside."

He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth. He did it again. Then a third time.

"She calls out to me… I can feel not just her, but my sisters as well. They're there. I feel them. I was always able to," he sounded a little relaxed. His voice was deep and smouldering.

"They aren't important. Build your walls. Breath deep. We have you here." I squeezed his hand tightly. I pulled his hand to my chest and hugged it like I was hugging him.

"We'll do this every day. You can talk to us about the things that you feel when we do it," Ruby stroked her hands through his hair. One over the other in a continuous wave. Down and back. Down and back. All over his scalp. "Or if you don't feel like talking we can do that too."

"I… maybe I could get used to this." He muttered. His eyes still closed. He seemed on the edge of sleep. Maybe he'd get some actual rest for once with our help.

I could only do what I could for him.

Ruby bent down and kissed his forehead.

pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq

It was after one of our sessions with him that he transfigured the needle.

His head had been in my lap while Ruby sat straddling his wide body. He lay his head back and relaxed while we murmured our way through the exercise. Feeling out where Salem was and where he was in relation to that. His eyes moved like he was in REM sleep while I whispered in his ears.

Time spent with him was not time wasted. That was one of the perks of doing this. The three of us were just spending our time together. Even if for the most part it was time spent in relaxed silence.

He'd gotten up and shifted his attention to the needle. Shifting on his arms until he rose from the bunk. His eyes blurred and half awake and his hair in messy spikes. It gave him a handsome bedraggled look as he plopped down to focus on his next project. At first he didn't seem focused enough but his eyes fluttered closed and he began a wordless chant. His lips moved but he said nothing.

I was sure the needle was another experiment in helping Cloud with his focus in his battle against Salem. The way he said he was supposed to extend his will must also be a lesson in the sort of control we wanted him to master during our sessions with him.

He was sitting at his desk with his hand outstretched towards the needle. His eyes shut in focus as he worked. His lips moving soundlessly as he attempted the transformation. His aura flickered, relaxed and calm and jumped out over the needle. Then the needle began to wobble.

Ruby and I watched, enraptured, as the needle twisted and turned in place. Then it started to shift. It grew longer and more slender.  It started to curve like a bow and though the hole in top never vanished, spikes grew from its side in a metallic curtain.

The prunes of the feather grew into place but the material never changed. It remained metallic with the spindles of hair like structures growing down from it.

When that was done Cloud slumped back in the chair and opened his eyes.

He reached out one hand and picked up the iron feather. The head of the needle had grown long and bent. The hole was still present but the shape of it as a whole had changed. He tossed it once into the air. "Well what do you know," he whispered. His will and mind had been enough to cause the needle to transform. His focus was sharp enough to transmute the shape if not the material.

"Cloud…" Ruby whispered. "You did it…"

He dropped the metallic feather and it clunked against the desk duly. Metallic cillia shone in the soft light that trickled in through the window.

"It's clunky. But it's mine," he whistled.

"You have magic," I breathed.

"What does it feel like?" Ruby asked.

"It's… it's not so different from aura. Not really. I think. Maybe that's still holding me back but it feels about the same. Not real easy to distinguish the two." He sighed.

I picked the feather up and ran my thumb along the edge of the hairs. It was sharp enough to cut oneself on. It was, well, as sharp as a needle point.

"Can the maidens do this type of thing? Or is it all fire and lightning? Like dust." I asked.

"I'm not sure. Magic is confusing," Cloud said. "But whatever it is I have it. I guess I had better let Ozpin know."

"Aren't you proud?" Ruby asked. Cloud mostly sounded bored and tired. Like the feat had exhausted him. "You did it. You changed it."

"I feel like it's less important than any other progress I might have made. But maybe a little." His voice was low and had a sexy little rasp to it with the weary tone.

He reached over and ruffled Ruby's hair and she shone up at him. He didn't dare try that kind of display of affection with me. But he did give my cheek a kiss which I deigned to allow.

"I think it's thanks to these sessions. I think that they're going to save me, if anything will," he said.

"Well with praise like that how can we stop now?" I rolled my eyes. "I suppose we'll have to keep going and see what happens."

pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq

-WG

[chynandri]

A thought I’ve been having about Dirk (I mean, all my thoughts are of Dirk lately. I have Dirk Syndrome which means instead of brain there’s Dirk) is how we get the impression he’s a cool and capable action man. He’s in control. He gets the shit done. He knows what he wants.

I don’t think this is all false, but there’s some instances that go against this infallible impression of Dirk.

Being in control. He pretty much takes over the sburb session’s entry for the alpha kids. He’s badass, he does what the others can’t, he attempts to coach everyone’s character development.

Prior to Sburb, we have some idea of what Dirk was like. Spending years hiding his awake status from the Derse agents, watching over Roxy, and gathering intel - and only begins to wreck their shit in Derse when Calliope advises him to. He readily takes drawing commands from Caliborn. Waiting until he knows Jake and Jane seem willing to believe he’s from the future before telling them. And while he tries to multitask for Sburb, Hal criticizes how he’s not actually good at it since he zones tf out when going Dreamer mode (psh, yeah Dirk why can’t you control two consciousnesses at once like EVERYONE else? Jeez). In Pesterquest, Ult Dirk angrily crosses out Dirk as he’s having a chill bro moment with MSPAReader. Calling himself pathetic for just chilling out with a new friend, he had all this time to get ‘swole in body and mind and wastes it looking wistfully out at the sea.’*

* very appropriate how Ult Dirk references body and mind and not the soul. Prince of Heart/destroyer of soul attitude right there. And Moonsetter’s track art depicted exactly what Ult Dirk is accusing Dirk of doing. And what is Dirk looking wistfully at in the track art? The moon and 3 stars, of which are pale blue pink and green. He’s longing to meet his friends, as he confesses to MSPAReader. All checks out.

And though he tries to set the pace for the Friendship Jam, Dirk allows MSPAReader to choose their friendship activity, how to get to his house, to ask the soul revealing questions, to set more parameters for vulnerability, to zap him, to continue pulling out the stops.

Overall, prior to Sburb, Dirk has been actually... not taking action (those long ass showers? Zoning the FK out!!). And obliging. And while he’s pushy, he doesn’t *completely* take control or assert himself over others. Ult Dirk accuses MSPAReader of bossing him around (while he is ironically, bossing everything around).

Which is why the only true choice gameplay in his PQ route is DIRK’s choice and not MSPAReader’s. The prominent point in the ending where Dirk chooses to trust his friends, as MSPAReader outright says, is that the timeline will be DIRK’s and shaped by what DIRK wants. And Dirk has been expressing to us his big want to make human connections the whole time.

But, Dirk is led by his belief (and self loathing) that he Needs to take control of everyone and everything to get character development, and develop everyone else’s characters in the process. Living in the midst of the big literal and metaphorical barrier between him and history - the ocean - and being unable to change or do anything truly impactful in past and present history (unlike his Bro)... it’s taken a big toll on him. He makes a big deal about history, and things being set in motion before his time, to MSPAReader. Dirk looks at the grand scheme of things, supported by Calliope and Caliborn’s info, and believes he is Meant to embark on an epic story arc that carries the legacy of his Bro and that’s what will give his pathetic isolated life and existence meaning. He’s got to believe this, because - as Britney Spears put it - his loneliness is killing him (and he)/He must confess that he still believes (still believes) -

Further, Hal serves to remind of him of his flaws and what he thinks he needs to change about himself all the time. Stop zoning out. Multitask better. Actually get shit done (even Squarewave calls him out on this lol). Make his friends happy (Hal can give Roxy what she wants - his affection - while Dirk can’t). Have an assured, wholly aligned sense of self. Hal flaunts how he achieves all of this in Dirk’s face, literally. Basically... be perfect, have all the answers (Hal is the AUTO RESPONDER specializing in giving ANSWERS) - but not very human.

Watching too many animes, this kid. ‘Life needs to be painful to matter’ ‘people need to prove themselves to earn the right to exist, to be loved, and get the girl/boy’ - these are all the typical trajectories of a shonen anime. And Dirk’s route can end up being an antithesis of it, as MSPAReader helps him see that just existing is meaningful in itself. People can and do like him for him. It’s ok to not have all the answers. Take that shonen and make it a slice of life!

MSPAReader knows Ult Dirk doesn’t have all his shit together as much as he wants everyone to believe he does. Dirk doesn’t really have all his shit together either - and that’s ok. And those are my thoughts

[ramiedersedreamer]

The Retcon and How Caliborn’s Masterpiece made everything Dubious

I'm going to focus first on the three aspects of the Retcon powers for this breakdown, super 'time travel', teleportation, and later on Canon. I won't get too deep into the effects on the Three pillars of Canon, just Truth. And then at the end my thoughts on Caliborn's Masterpiece and how Caliborn through his Time aspect indirectly caused the misuse of the Retcon ability. Spoilers for Epilogues and Pesterquest too.

I'm so sorry for the long ass post lamo.

John's retcon powers allow him to move himself and anything he touches around the story/narrative itself. It seems like an OP time travel power with no downsides, despite not being time travel at all. Based off of what we've seen it from its use with John and Reader (MSPAR), Retcon gives one the ability to jump to any point in the previously established narrative. That is, any place or time that has been shown/narrated in Homestuck. Even inside Homosuck, a warped fanfiction Caliborn narrated using his control over the story of Homestuck.

The 'time travel' specifically operates within the confines of the currently explored narrative only, and is chronologically tied to a different plane of existence. That is our chronology the audience. We never see see a Retcon user jump forward into the narrative, in like a "Procon". Like, they don't hop into their own future to see what happens, and then pop back to change the outcome, at least not without us the audience and the narrative following them and seeing the 'future' ourselves. We don't have a yet to be seen 'future' Recton user popping in to change the current narrative, Masterpiece aside (I will get to this). Actions taken by characters using the Retcon ability is and can be followed by us, the audience as it happens.

A key difference with the Retcon ability that it acts almost nothing like time travel in the comic. With time travel you can create and unwillingly be 'commanded' (or otherwise doomed) as part of time loops that sustains themselves. Loops that can exist before you perform the time travel itself, because the loop has always existed that way because of shenanigans. A future self shows up and tells you "time travel back to this spot in five minutes and tell yourself my exact words" and bam, you got a time loop that you didn't start but you sure as hell gotta finish if you don't want to be doomed. The Retcon ability doesn't work that way at all! There is no surprise visit from yours or the audiences perspective. You won't see from your perspective a future self because that's always going to be you already. You can only be the future self, and all other you's that you meet are your past selves. One day you decided to Retcon yourself back in time and tell your past self to follow your exact actions. No one told you do that before. And it doesn't matter if past you follows your advice or not, because there is no loop just a single series of events you and the audience follow linearly.

This Retcon ability is so powerful that its own power itself is a flaw, because the act of traveling back in time is permanent to any alpha or doomed timelines. There isn't a concept of a doomed time line to clean up any mess you make with the alpha, it just becomes the new alpha shitty or not. At best, can go back in time and retcon your own retcon. Either way a Retcon will leave some sort of mark there, even if no one notices you.

(And as a side note, I have no idea how paradox space handles an alpha time line that is retconned to no longer be alpha. Pre-rectonned ghosts still persist even if the time line has been changed, and a Retcon user can still access other previously retconned-but-no-longer-alpha time lines like John does in the Epilogue. The full extent of un-retconning a time line isn't fully explored either, if possible at all. As soon as John gained his Retcon powers he causes a retcon to the alpha time line by loosing the Ring of Life, which made its way into Arania's hands and caused Game Over, not to mention his hand poking everything in existence. Would John even be able to warp to the original alpha timeline where he didn't loose the ring/get retcon abilities?)

I said above the user can travel to any place and time inside the narrative, and without time travel that just becomes teleportation. There are examples in the comic, and especially Pesterquest, where the Retcon ability is used without retconning anything at all, but just as a means of moving the story forward to a new location (or escaping something). All and all it acts like conventional teleportation. The Retcon user can jump to entirely new places, unseen in the previous narrative or by the User them self. For a practiced User, this can plop them anywhere they desire.

We have two examples of the Retcon not working.

The first explicit one we've seen was in the Candy Epilogue. At some point between collecting up Gamzee and John's attempt to save Dirk, John just straight up can't use the Retcon anymore. I will note here that John is not trying to jump back into the comic or anywhere outside of the Candy Epilogue to save Dirk. He's just trying to pop back a week. I think he also attempts to teleport with it maybe? Been a while. But either way, we can assume for now that he has lost all aspects of the Retcon ability.

The second in Pesterquest when Reader attempts to 'skip' ahead to see Nepeta they are blocked by an entity, T-Poser. Instead of teleporting to her, Reader ends up in some weird place repeatedly, unable to accomplish their goal. Upon regaining the memories of their friends from Friendsim, they are blocked once again from being able to time travel back to them as well. Both teleportation and time travel are blocked. Of note here is that when Reader acquires their powers, it happens inside of the Pesterquest game itself.

Theories!

One possible theory for Candy!John's blocked powers is that he is no longer part of the 'Homestuck Canon', and the House Juju's granted abilities only work inside that Canon. Use of the Retcon cannot jump between two different 'Canons'. When John grabbed Gamzee the 'Canon' split between Meat and Candy was dubious. By the time John wanted to prevent Dirk's death, the 'Canons' were fully split apart. This theory clashes with, or confirms the powers and limitations of Retcon in Pesterquest depending on how you look at it. Aradia states that Reader is in not just a doomed timeline, but a doomed universe. Using their abilities Reader has removed the 'Truth' pillar from the universe in the same way that John not using his ability removed the 'Truth' from Candy. Of course, there can be unknown variables at work here that allow this doomed Pesterquest universe to still have access to the Juju's power that aren't in Candy (like the Juju presenting Reader their powers in the Game/narrative).

John's ability loss could be because anything inside the black hole is cut from any sort of Canon changing power (and maybe John was only able to grab Gamzee because the Candy timeline wasn't fully 'transferred' into the black hole at the time). This would imply that the Retcon power comes from a source, and that it transmits to the user in such a way that it can be blocked off. This would also mean that those who have the Retcon power will always have the ability to use that power, assuming it isn't blocked off.

Alt!Calliope could be using her narrative powers to suppress John's abilities either selectively or completely, preventing the attempt to save Dirk (don't think any further attempts are mentioned?). As noted before John wasn't trying to jump back into the Homestuck or Meat Canon, he was trying to retcon inside Candy and Candy alone when he was stopped. This would mean certain powers can completely suppress the OP Retcon abilities, regardless of the Retcon users will. With this we don't know if Alt!Calliope has removed John's power completely, or if she is just blocking it temporarily and he can continue using the Retcon power once she stops narrating Candy.

This matches up with what we've seen in Pesterquest. Who or whatever is preventing Reader from using their abilities to the full effect of their will. T-Poser even tells Reader "Stop fucking trying to skip ahead. It's not going to work." after several attempts at meeting Nepeta before her chapter was released. This T-Poser, instead of shutting down the powers completely, is selectively allowing the Reader to use it to continue the narrative in PQ. While Readers inability to time travel back into Friendsims to see their friends could be seen as 'not being able to jump between canons', it seems just as likely the T-Posers doing. Another possibility is that when one (who still can use their Retcon powers) trys jumping to another canon they are brought to that strange hallway and T-Poser instead. Maybe T-Poser is the source of the Retcon power instead of a narrater? (Or maybe both, Andrew Hussie)

Finally we come to the conspiracy part of this conspiracy-turned-retcon-mechanics-wordvomit.

I think Caliborn's Masterpiece was a Truth Paradox, and it's why the Epilogues and everything after that point are and should be considered dubiously canon. You can't retcon a story that hasn't happened yet, and yet Caliborn narrated it into some weird Truth of Canon. Caliborn's whole THING is time loops, the undeniable truth and essentiality that these loops must be filled or doomed away. And Caliborn, that fucker, his fault or not applied that concept to the only form of time travel that can't have any loops. Hammered in the square into the circle hole.

John is our anchor in this story, we follow his path as he changes things via Retcon. This is true for the entier comic, and for Reader in Pesterquest. Both our timeline and the Main Character's timeline increment together. Maybe not consistently between updates or whatnot, but our timelines are both always going forward together (Flashbacks don't count shush). In the Masterpiece this isn't true. We have a John from the future show up. An unknown. This John has traveled back from an unknown future story, we do not know him. He could be John five minutes after winning Sburb, June in her 40's, John in his 20's, or ultimate!self June who's been alive for a thousand years. But he isn't our John. Any John/June could fill in that clay doll so long as they possess the Retcon ability (or have some way of showing up with "ghost powers"). Hell, even a look alike could, I double Caliborn would know the difference.Any of those clay dolls could be any version of the characters they represent, or look alikes. To further obscure things, when Caliborn is retelling the tale it isn't from personal experience. He hasn't fought the kids at all and it isn't happening to him as he narrates. No, a screen showed him the supposed battle. "I SAW IT ONCE, ON ONE OF MY PLANET'S MANY SCREENS. THE LAND OF "COLOURS". AND THE LAND OF "MAYHEM"." Can we even trust this supposed retelling of an event that happened on a screen? A screen that may or may not have been showing the truth?All these factors make the Masterpiece highly unreliable. The most unreliable Homestuck has ever been. I'm reminded of Equius's Pesterquest route. The moment Reader decides to hop backwards in time to see how Equius broke his horn, we are not given a single cause. Instead, Reader enters into dubious canonical territory showing multiple canons where Equius lost his horn. I think this exactly what the Masterpiece is, and why it's true form was never shown in the comic. Why it had that weird inconstancy with John's Retcon and why the 'Canon' Meat Epilogue addressed it. Even Candy, by using the power of two entier universes in the form of a blackhole to keep these characters alive in a pocket dimension by addressing it indirectly. Like I said, any John/June could fulfil the requirements that the Masterpiece needs to complete the Story. And all of those June's and John's will be, if narrated, the anchor and the true original future John/June predeterminately retconning the story. Every way Equius lost his horn is true: Every way the Masterpiece is and will be narrated/addressed is true.

[characteroulette]

Hey PQ was pretty good!

so I’m having trouble getting into PQ2 because of several factors, so I thought I’d write a half-think piece, half-essay on why I think the first PQ gets more flak than it deserves. So here’s that.

------

I genuinely don't understand why, when talking about Persona Q, people are always saying things along the lines of, "The gameplay was good, but the characters were trite and the story wasn't that great." Like, as a fan of the Persona series, I genuinely don't understand that assessment.

Not saying PQ is flawless, oh no. There are PLENTY of things in PQ that I have an axe to grind with (the small door scene with the P4 gang, for one), but the overall story? The characters? They're both fine. Good, even, dare I say. And here's my argument as to why:

The returning Persona series characters (from 3 and 4) in PQ do a good job of representing their games and their own personalities, even if a little more light-hearted than their source material,

AND

The story is genuinely in-line with the rest of the Persona/SMT series, even if it ultimately doesn't matter due to time shenanigans (and I'm okay with that).

These are my two points. Just those two. Because these are the two most contested parts of PQ, as far as I can hear, since we all agree that the gameplay is the real breadwinner here hahaha

Anyway.

First, let's talk about the returning characters, since they seem to be the ones who matter most. The P4 cast are generally less griped about (save Chie and Teddie) and I believe this is largely due to the brighter, more hopeful tone of P4 as a whole. (Aaand, in my opinion, they're done a MUCH BIGGER disservice in the Arena games, but no one ever talks about that so let's not bother with those right now.)

P4 was a game about making friends, the hijinx that come from that, and finding the truth about a string of murders and confronting the worst parts of yourself in a harsher world in the process! And it executes this with the appropriate amount of balance between serious moments and comedic relief. The theme colour for the whole game is bright yellow/gold, a happier and more friendly colour which helps remind you that this game is all in good fun.

(Side note here: I honestly think that P5 really failed in this respect, despite my liking its tone slightly more. I just personally like darker-themed games, but P5 was a little too dark and oppressive right out the gate, with hardly a friendly face, which helps make your gradually growing group of friends much more appreciated but also a harder atmosphere for jokes to really land well. Most of the 'funny' sequences felt very undeserved and really dragged because uh guys we literally just fought a rapist, an abusive father figure, and some other fucked-up shit. Can we please acknowledge that a bit more instead of pretending it never happened by laughing at the expense of Ann's autonomy of her body? Especially when she was a target of said rapist??) But that's its own discussion for later.

Really, the fact that most of the P4 gang get out of this with little criticism shows how accepted their caricatures have become. I guess? At least, except for Teddie and Chie.

Teddie being a wannabe Casanova must've been a huge hit with the Japanese audience, because it's just the hill he's going to die on for the writers. There was more to Teddie than his hitting on the girls in P4, believe it or not! (And there's a whole thing about it being brought on by him mimicking the type of behaviour he saw Yukiko's shadow exhibiting, which has a lot of really interesting undertones, but it makes him more swappable with Junpei, so whatever, I guess.) Meanwhile, Chie's not as meat-crazy, either, but I guess it's a better trait for them to roll with than her (cut in the translation) glossed-over sexism.

Both work fine, however, and aren't really too annoying enough to be that egregious. (Though they both go right up to the line sometimes. Teddie more so, but none of the girls playing along really helps show how gross his actions are. Most of the time.)

No, the real complaints I see directed at the characters being 'too cartoonish' are usually reserved for the P3 gang.

P3 is, really, such a bizarre game to go back to now when compared to its two successors. It's dark and hopeless, like P5, but formulaic and mystery, like P4. It's actually a natural progression when looking at its two/three older siblings (both P2s are bleak. As. Hell!), but, at least to me, it's the odd duck of the bunch, being the first to implement this winning formula of being caught in a time limit of a school year and managing spending time exploring this other world. It adds Social Links and social stats with this new time limit and this idea that the Persona and Shadows you fight don't just happen out on the streets in 'normal' circumstances for everyone to see. It pretty much went from an RPG to a management game with RPG elements.

And its emotional, impactful story, like P5, had a lot of tonal whiplash due to the attempts at comedy!

I feel like a lot of people forget this about P3 (and maybe I think more about it because I haven't actually beaten the whole game yet myself), but the story is actually a goddamn mess of tonal confusion. You got kids shooting themselves in the heads and a Social Link dealing with a classmate's crush on his teacher. You got wacky foreign exchange student and kids taking experimental drugs to suppress their Persona and slowly poisoning themselves to death as a side effect. The protagonist is an orphan who lost his parents in a huge, plot-relevant accident... But he's able to date every single girl at the same time and be the most wish fulfillment charming guy if the player so desires.

P3 being messy isn't a bad thing. P4, P5, and even P2 and PQ are all a little messy in their own rights, too. But because P3 was a lot of fans' first in the series, and PQ is just a spin-off, it gets way more flak for this than I feel it deserves.

(I mean, hey. Both P3 and P4 have those classic anime scenes of the boys walking in on the girls while at a hot springs. All PQ's got is an awkward group date scene and the implication that Yosuke and Kanji kissed each other while getting knocked out.) (They all. Have. Problems.)

And I know a lot of this comes down to personal preference. I'm not saying you're wrong for liking P3 or P4 more than PQ. I'm just saying I feel like PQ is often wrongly accused of being worse and less well-written when, really, they're all pretty much on par with each other. (And someone on the team really doesn't understand how to handle large casts of characters sharing the same space...)

But, personally, from everything I've seen from P3, I don't like the way most of the characters get presented to me in the source material. Junpei is way more insufferable in P3 than in PQ and Yukari is way more uninteresting in P3 than in PQ. Really, PQ helped me appreciate these characters more than P3 itself did. And, yes, they're more funny when they're trying to be, too. Because PQ is set up better for comedy than the 'remember you are mortal' tone of P3.

(Which makes dramatic moments hit all the harder when they happen) HEY check that segue! It's time to talk about the story and the two original characters of the game!

So, second point: people say the story isn't very good. To which I wanna ask... "Did you stop playing before defeating the fourth Boss?" Because it really sounds like, to me, everyone who says that didn't actually finish the game and reach all that juicy character development that happens for both sides around the fourth dungeon, where all the issues they've been building up (like Yukari's issue with Mitsuru for the P3 side and Kanji and Ken's awkwardness in the P4 side) start getting resolved in a satisfying way. And it comes with a reveal for the two characters we've been getting to know, Zen and Rei, as well.

(And, from here on in, there be spoilers. You've been warned.)

The two new characters to this game are Zen and Rei, who were in this place before the P3 or P4 gangs were called to the scene. Zen is quiet and a bit unsettlingly dense, but devoted to Rei, who is bubbly and full of life, but terrified of the dungeons you have to traverse. The two have been in this place for (what's implied to be) a very long time and enlist the help of the P3 and P4 teams in order to find a way out through defeating the bosses of each Labyrinth/dungeon. Simple enough, as it also helps the P3 and P4 team's goal of getting out. With each new dungeon, it feels more and more like something about Zen and Rei aren't quite right, but the length of the dungeon and all the team chats help you put it out of your mind each time. Rei can even get kinda annoying with her loudness and big appetite if you don't find her cute (which: how dare you. But yeah, I get it).

And then, at the end of a fiery festival fourth dungeon, you find yourself in a dark tomb at the bottom level. The boss awaiting you is Rei's shadow (a nice callback to the way P4 works) whom she still doesn't accept after you defeat it.

All the locks are gone and the P3 and P4 teams can return to their worlds if they wanted. Except Rei gets kidnapped after Zen reveals that Rei has been dead all along and it was him who trapped them here. It was he who created this place and even he who called both teams here.

And this was a plot twist that I friggin' loved.

It definitely had more impact on me because Zen and Rei easily became my favourites out of the whole cast, to the point of having them on my team for the whole game, but to find out such a fucked up twist is wild! (Seriously! Go watch the cutscene and tell me it isn't super fucked up!) You can say the P3 and P4 twists were shocking (or P5s I guess), but for my money, this is the best reversal of expectations I'd ever seen in a Persona game. In any game, really!

Zen was, in effect, the villain the whole time. His true identity as Chronos, God of time, makes sense with displacing the teams from their own times and the time here being erased once you reach the end. His own power that he sealed away growing impatient and taking matters into its own hands by drawing the teams to this haven displaced from time also makes perfect sense! And the entire climb through the last dungeon is his redemption arc and it makes for a super emotionally investing final dungeon all the way. (Which is great, because I hate every single one of the enemies that appear in this god-forsaken place.) (Even P4 and P5 can't really boast that, I felt very little investment through Izanami's dungeon and Baldabaoth's distortion.)

Of course, if you found Zen and Rei to be annoying and pointless, I can see how this would fall flat for you. The fact that they hinged such an emotional climax on these new characters, characters that don't even matter outside of this game!, was such a risky move. Especially when you consider this is just a fanservice game made basically under the promise of seeing the P3 team interact with the P4 team. But, for me, it really paid off.

And whatever complaints you had with the P3 or P4 characters, I feel like the resolutions to those character moments I mentioned earlier get explored even further during the climb through the final dungeon. From the P3 gang coming together to finally communicate with one another to the P4 gang reconfirming their bonds with one another, it's a really investing and emotional journey. I do wish the writing had been this tight and impactful through more of the game, but I believe it's worth it in the end.

Perhaps this moment comes too late in the game, though. I can definitely see others giving up before reaching this point due to the repetitive nature of the dungeons and the tidbits of character development that are meant to build up to this moment that can be too sparsely placed. (But, really, it's the same from P3 to P5, Social Links don't really add much variety when they can be just as repetitive and boring, just saying. Especially when you get caught in waiting to rank up hell, ugh.) For me, however, this really sealed the deal on this game being an incredible experience that I adored from start to finish. 7/10. Final score.

....

....

(7 outta 10?? Not perfect??) Well, it's not perfect. Japan's blatant homophobia and sexism really ruins a lot of scenes for me. I'm super salty especially about how the fake marriage scenes are handled so differently from the girl choices to the boy choices. (But you just argued in its favour for 2000 words!) Listen. ALL the Persona games wouldn't receive perfect scores for me for this aspect alone. There are a lot of other factors as well, but they vary from title to title and PQ in particular is guilty of spending too much time focusing on Teddie and Junpei being girl-crazy. And Marie is in this game more than she really should be. UGH.

But I digress.

In conclusion, this game's story and characters are better than most give it credit for. Hopefully, my argument helped you see why I believe this and why I think claiming that both aspects are just 'bad' is lazy.

[shadowtarot]

Thieves in Inaba: Good news- the key has been retrieved! Bad news? A rabbit misleads them through the maze! Also what are in those strange vials? (PQ reference?)

Thieves in Inaba Part 62

The girls run up to the guys, Ren happily twirling the key on his right pointer finger in celebration. 

“Easy as easy gets.” He laughs, his smirk in full force as he places his left hand on his hip.

“You know…we could have just attacked her from the start and bypassed all that bullshitting. She was just a shadow at the end of the day.” Adachi shakes his head.

“That aside…” Yosuke looks around the pool area. “Any of you know where this key goes? We couldn’t find it with the amount of time we had before Ren started fighting.”

“Maybe that door over there?” Rise points to a door on the other side of the pool. Compared to the rest, it has a much more pastel look to it. 

“Oh..that…that would make sense, yeah.” The brown haired Magician lets out an awkward laugh, silently kicking himself for not noticing something so obvious.

“Come on, the more time we waste the more people get trapped.” Minato leads the charge to the door.

Persona Training Center

“W-What’s happening outside?!” 

The trio of rescued links are staring out at the window. Wolf shadows are bashing against what can only be described as a shield of some sort. 

Kou studies the area. It’s nothing but a sea of black and purple. But then amongst the pack, an unconscious man lies in the maw of a wolf. 

“Daisuke, isn’t that…” He starts to ask.

“Yeah, it’s that Kazushi guy from before…wasn’t he supposed to be with the other evacs?” 

Ai starts to back up a bit. “They didn’t…hunt down all those people did they?” She covers her mouth. 

Kou grabs a wooden training sword and tosses another to Daisuke. “We’re going out there!”

“But isn’t that dangerous? We can’t take on that many! We almost died last time we tried to fight them.” 

Ai grabs a bow. “We have to right? We might not have those stupid Perso..whatevers but we can still try to help. Those others aren’t here to help.”

Daisuke takes a deep breath. “Fine, but run back if it gets to hairy.”

The trio run out, dead set on bringing the victim back in.

Tokyo

Sae is looking at news coverage. Shadows have started appearing in larger numbers in the area. They seem to be hunting down something…or someone. She starts to type out what her findings so far…when the TV suddenly closes in on what a Shadow Wolf pack has found.

“What? Who the hell is that?” Her eyes focus on the screen.

“Is that all you got? This is just a warm up for me right now! Come on, try a little harder.” 

A red haired young man with two swords is fighting off the Shadows with little effort.  He laughs, slicing though several. 

“Another Persona user maybe? Interesting…” Sae nods, watching the coverage even closer now.  “Where is he?”

Hollow Forest

Opening the pastel door, the group finds themselves in a maze…with a strangely familiar layout. Yu and Minato look around as they start to walk through it.

“You guys…ever get a feeling that you’ve been somewhere before?” Yosuke asks, looking around the area as well. “Because I swear this feels familiar to me..”

Cards within bushes, and colored tiles abound. This is most certainly somewhere…but where? Akechi shakes his head. 

“If you can’t recall, then perhaps it’s a repressed memory? This is all based around memory correct?” Crow suggests. 

A Rabbit looks at the group, Yu gets a sense of Deja Vu. Carefully walking up to it, the rabbit flees. 

“Something is telling me we need to chase it…” He states to the group. 

“Well? Let’s get chasing.” Minato nods.

The party gives chase to the white rabbit, but it of course keeps fleeing with every attempt to catch it. Eventually the party stumbles upon a door.

One that’s way too tiny for any of them to enter. There’s also a table with bottles full of strange liquid that say “Drink Me”. 

“Okay now I’m getting serious dejavu!” Chie states, placing a hand on her cheek. “Why though? We’ve never been here before!”

Akechi studies the bottle’s contents carefully. “This feels too much like a book…”

“A book? Care to explain, Akechi?” Makoto looks at him hard. 

“Alice in Wonderland.”

Futaba nods, looking around. “Yeah, I was getting that feeling too. But if this is still doing puzzles from the past, then if something says to do it then we probably should right?”

“Drinking an unknown drink? It could be poisoned or something!” Mishima states, not even wanting to grab one. “Just because it might have happened before doesn’t mean it’ll work the same way!”

Ren nods but then sighs. “Well, we could always just refresh our memories on ‘Alice in Wonderland’. What did the drink do in the book?”

“If I’m remembering it right, it shrunk Alice.” Ann states, thinking back. 

Ryuji looks down. “Yo, there’s a tiny ass door here. Think we need to drink that shit to get in then?”

“Seems so…” Minato nods, looking at the drinks. “But it seems there’s only enough for four of us…we need four people to agree to drink it.” 

But who all is willing to take the risk….?

[homesception]

May 31, 2013 - part 1: wherein Lobac eats a cookie.

To be fair, it has been like two hundred years since my last update.  That’s a pretty good nap.  Just means I’m all the more rested to work on new stuff, right?  I mean, I need to keep a spritely pace up if I still plan on catching up to Lobac’s liveblog before said liveblog catches up to the comic.  Which for sure is still an actual thing at all, and not a bit of exclusive humor between friends.

Last time Lobac was getting into some theory crafting and analysis of the classpect system.  I didn’t have much to say about that at the time, particularly not much that wouldn’t qualify as spoilers, so iirc I was mostly just responding with random thoughts and video links, half of which are dead now.  There was a bit left over looking at the troll’s perster names, which was also good stuff, but lacking anything coherent to say about it, I’ll just gloss past the rest of that post, apart from:

Lobac said:

Thank you all for sticking around °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°

As if you could ever get rid of me.  ~{@PQ}~

Moving on, we rejoin the comic with PM visiting the Black Queen to retrieve the mysterious GREEN PACKAGE, which had been impounded by agents of the Black Court as a result of a traffic violation.  The Black Queen cuts an imposing figure, and Lobac is, of course, duly imposed.

later, Lobac said:

Are those… tentacles ( ´ _ ｀) I thought only the imps were affected by the prototypings?

OH SHIT OH SHIT THAT LOOKS SO COOL HOT DAMN (゜▽゜) Wowow look at her joints! Look at all the carapace-y stuff going on there!

These days, Lobac’s soft spot for this particular sort of shiny, black, possibly betentacled monster-type aesthetic is well documented.  I’m pretty sure she would have loved the black queen’s design even if it wasn’t just objectively cool as hell, but that certainly doesn’t hurt.  I’m kind of sad that we never got a proper fight scene out of this particular version of her.

That’s not a spoiler is it?  I’m pretty sure that’s not a spoiler.

Yeah, the random objects the kids threw in the general directions of their seizuresprites are directly affecting the final boss. NOTHING COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG HERE EVERYTHING WILL BE FINE

I don’t see the problem here.  Nothing the kids could possibly put in those sprites could be at all unsettling or dangerous.

haa haa.  hee hee.  hoo hoo.

Her face is so weird though It’s Jaspers-shaped, and her eyes are constantly narrowed, I can’t even tell whether it’s in distaste or amusement

Why not both?

Andrew sure is proud of that hand’s close-up She’s not even dramatically pointing she’s literally just saying “yeah I dunno anything about that kinda shit you best go down there and ask my pretty princess, I mean, subordinate”

It is a pretty great hand, honestly.  I think this particular image gets called back to a few more times yet.

Yeah Rose! You go and fulfill your as of yet unclear vaguely Seering-related destiny

Yeah, Rose!  Get on that, maybe!

ROSE NO YOU ARE 13 THAT IS GONNA TASTE AWFUL TO YOU Heh I legitimately don’t know whether her mom would be proud of or disappointed in her if she could see her now Is this an act of defiance or emulation Just silly teenage antics, probably, but I’d like to think she misses her

Rooooooose Rose nooooooooooooooooo （ ´ω｀） Ehehe I love how the artstyle turns super silly to reflect how upset/surprised she is

These two panels constitute one of the most iconic funny moments in the comic.  It works really well.  Shoot, I should have done the post topper-edit based on these, huh?  Oh, well.  The one I already did took like four hours, mostly due to my extreme rustiness, so I’m not going back now.

Otherwise, I also like to think of Rose missing her mom here.  Maybe not admitting it to herself, but still.  I also still ascribe to the “everything Mom ever did was 110% unironic, Rose made up the whole passive aggressive conflict between them in her head, her mom wasn’t passive agressive she was just a bonkers drunk rich lady” headcannon that I think I spoke about ages ago in this very liveblog.

Anyway, yeah, this is both a hilarious joke and a fantastic little character moment for Rose.  Another contributing factor to Rose being my big early favorite with a seemingly insurmountable head start in the ‘best character’ race.

Actually, lately, since the end of the comic, she’s been gaining ground again for me?  I mean, one of the trolls definitely surpassed her for most of my Homestuck fan life, but... eh, whatever.  There’s no way I can getting into how my feelings about those characters developed over the comics life without being way more spoilery than even I’ve already been, so that kind of talk will have to wait for later.  Even if later means ‘years from now’ or ‘never’.

BOO FUCKING YAH, IT’S THE WHITE QUEEN Or Windswept Questant, for now She’s also as of yet uncorrupted by the kids’ silly sprite shenanigans

Lobac had been waiting for this reveal for a while, I think.

PM: Command John to put the carved tablet into a pyxis.

You follow the command telling you to command John to put the carved tablet in the pyxis and type, “John, put the carved tablet into the pyxis.” You successfully do that, and he successfully does that too. Everyone is friendly and cooperative.

Ah yes, you so rarely get this kind of friendly cooperation from narrators these days

It was a rather uncommonly tidy sequence, for this comic.

Shit I just remembered those typing hands we saw when trying to name Jack, the reader is like a physically present entity??? Maybe???

What prompted this thought?  The earlier black queen hand image hanging in your head, then a bit about narrators entering text, and that old bit just pops up?  It’s cool how brains work, making intuitive connections and all that.

What if we eventually zoom out to reveal a human exile commanding everyone. We’ve only been watching that human mess around up until now. The real story begins when they just suddenly go “whelp that was kinda fun. gotta look for food tho” at an incredibly dramatic moment.They turn away from the console.  And then we watch them slump through the desert for thousands of pages and their journey of introspective self-discovery is the actual story. Yes.

Shit, Lobac just predicted the whole narrative!  No point in continuing this liveblog, I guess.  “[#P%]t

Well, obviously this means that WV has an uncanny knack for distances and PM has one for sounds AR can probably track down crimes by their scent He’s like McGruff the Crime Dog, but a little less fluffy

I used to love McGruff the Crime Dog.  Until I grew up and realized he was a tool of THE MAN.

dear gOD SHE REALLY IS PUTTING JACK IN DRESSES (*≧▽≦)ﾉｼ He and Slick are basically the same person, right? Oh man he is gonna stab the shit out of her one of these days

~{%|%}~

Jack Noir, more like JACK NO. NO YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE OUT THERE MURDERING PEOPLE AND FROLICKING THROUGH THE STREETS WITH YOUR ASSHOLE CREW. WHAT ARE YOU DOING THIS IS PATHETIC o(`д´ ｡)

I’d say this is a “be careful what you wish for” moment, but I think Lobac knew exactly what she was doing here.

Ticket? Oh, this thing. Ha, ha, look at that, you are holding a ticket. How did that get in your hand? It belongs on the desk with the others. No, you are not here to pay a parking ticket. You explain to the frightening man that you are here to pick up that green parcel.

GIVE ME A C! GIVE ME A U! GIVE ME A T AND I AND E! sheeEEEE’S A CUTIE!!!!

Honestly, they’re all cuties.  the cuteness of the entire cast, even the villains mostly, in both visual depiction and personality, really is a big selling point of the whole comic.

There was a time when I wasn’t super into cute things.  I was never viscerally opposed to cuteness, never when through a virulently anti-girly-stuff phase, but these days I’m MUCH more into things being cute.  I just like cute characters!  Sure, I like things that are somber and spooky, but the best is when they’re somber and spooky AND super cute!

Like, Hollow Knight.  That whole game is like exactly my favorite aesthetic these days.  Sad and morose and dark and adorable.

But more often than not homestuck still comes pretty close to that ideal.  You just want to hug the shit out of all of these doofuses, a few stab wounds here or there be damned.  Speaking of stab wounds...

WHOOPS TENSION. THIS IS NOT WHAT I MEANT. I DO NOT ACTUALLY WANT YOU TO START KILLING PEOPLE OK

Maybe Lobac didn’t know what she was asking for earlier.

Wait, the crowns, what the fuck, he wants her to KILL THE KING AND QUEEN??? SHE’S JUST A MAIL LADY ヾ(´･-･｀)ノ”

How does he even know she’s desperate enough to kill people just to get one package?

The PARCEL MISTRESS departs with her mission of double agency. You wonder if she’ll actually be so foolish as to attempt to uphold her end of the lopsided bargain. You make a policy of handing out a REGISWORD and a HITLIST to just about everyone who enters your office. But you never think anyone’s actually going to GO THROUGH with it. 

What a phenomenal asshole That explains that

pretty much.  As for the box itself...

Yeeeeah you’re not actually gonna show me so, go ahead, taunt me, get it over with

PFFFFPFPFPFPFFF WHAT SOMETHING COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS APPARENTLY? NOT AS RIDICULOUS AS HIS FACE THO. Magnificent asshole cutie

Hahah, \[&P%]/

Anyway, at this point the action cuts back to the kids, and that seems a good a time as any to take a break.  I could just save this as a draft and finish the rest of lobac’s post later?  I mean, then I wouldn’t have to take extra time for another panel edit?  But I kind of want to post something now, so I guess well do this one in parts again.  part 2 scheduled for, let’s be ambitious and say may 2022

How did I ever use to have the time for this blogging shit?  I’ve been working on this for like six hours, and only got like a third of the way through one update?  I guess I was just younger then.

I’m so old now.  Time just gets away from me.

And my back hurts all the time.

[engelenaudio]

Reflection 3: Analog emulations: what makes them so popular?

Anyone with some experience in the modern pro audio industry will have heard about the endless debate of analog vs digital. The fact is, as much as digital audio has improved the industry in terms of audio quality and work efficiency, the common consensus amongst professionals is that digital audio lacks the same feeling and vibe that analog audio used to have. As a result, the audio plugin market is flooded with analog emulations of famous hardware processors from decades past, that seemingly combine the efficiency of digital audio while still capturing the essence of analog. I have always been curious as to why emulations are so popular, so in this blog post, I want to document my research into exactly what makes analog so attractive and how plugin emulations attempt to recreate whatever that is.

One of the most talked about features of analog is how good it sounds when pushed to its limits. ‘Mix engineers discovered they could overload magnetic tape machines, tube amps, and transistor-based preamps to create a type of “soft-clipping.” This technique gave recordings sought-after qualities that sounded pleasing.’ (PQ, R., 2018). After some reflection on my knowledge of distortion, I realised that coming from a digital background, I was always told that distortion from overloading was to be avoided, and to ensure I always had enough headroom. However in the analog world the opposite is true, and if applied correctly, overloading electrical and magnetic components would enhance the audio source and make it sound more pleasant. Additionally, looking back on my knowledge before my research, I had known that analog was supposed to sound good, but I didn’t know exactly why, and this was key for me to learn so that I could understand the significance of analog emulations.

My research lead me to discover there is a fundamental difference in the types of distortion provided by analog and digital. Analog creates “Total Harmonic Distortion” (THD) whereas digital tends to create “Inter-Modulation Distortion” (IMD). In his article, (Siau, J., 2010) explains that ‘Harmonic distortion mimics the natural overtones of musical instruments while IMD produces distortion tones that have no harmonic relationship to the music.’ So we see that THD is the more preferable type of distortion as Siau explains further: ‘All musical instruments and human voices produce a rich spectrum of harmonics (also known as overtones). These harmonics give warmth and character to musical sources.’ (Siau, J., 2010). From this, I understood that THD, when used subtly, emphasised the naturally occurring harmonics musical elements in a song, resulting in what most people perceive as pleasant distortion.

Now equipped with the science behind analog distortion, I had a clearer understanding on why analog emulations are so popular. Digital distortion cannot achieve the same sound that analog does. But there are more reasons behind the popularity of analog emulations. Legendary mix engineer Andrew Scheps describes exactly why in an interview: ‘Harmonic distortion is something that really helps shape sounds and glues things together.’, ‘You are not trying to mimic the piece of gear, you are trying to get the same feeling of that distortion but with much more control.’ (Scheps, A., Jeppsson, N., 2018)

This is one of the biggest reasons that long term professionals in the industry, that grew up on purely analog gear, are being swayed by analog emulations. They offer much more control and versatility than their hardware counterparts. Furthermore, there is seemingly no limit to the ability of emulations. Colin McDowell, CEO of McDSP, claims that ‘Anything created in hardware can be recreated in software,’ (Lambert, M., 2010). I personally have very little experience with hardware audio processing, and so when evaluating plugin emulations, it is difficult for me to compare. However, the fact that major names in the industry are releasing emulations under their name and brand, proves to me that these emulations I work with are high quality. One major example of this is the Waves and Chris Lord-Alge collaboration on their emulation of the UA 1176 compressor: the CLA-76. 

I also learnt that many developers of these emulations have taken the opportunity to add quality of life features to them. Where initially I thought most emulations were exact replicas of the hardware versions, It seems only obvious that some the plugins have been updated with these extra features, making them even more useful for their users. If we look again at the CLA-76, it features an ALL button which represents ‘its explosive All-Ratio-Buttons-In mode’ which is what ‘made the original hardware so popular’ (Waves, User Manual), along with a toggle-able option for replicating the mains hum that was present in the original hardware.

(Fig 1.1: CLA-76 Compressor / Limiter)

My goal for the near future is to begin building my own audio plugins, and this research has been vital for helping me understand the current trends in the audio plugin market and why they exist. This will allow me to apply relevant knowledge to my own work for a competitive edge in this professional industry.

References:

PQ, R., (2018). WHAT IS AUDIO SATURATION AND HOW IT IMPROVES YOUR MIX. [Online] 2018. Available from: https://iconcollective.edu/audio-saturation/#:~:text=Audio%20saturation%20is%20the%20essence,hardware%20sound%20musical%20and%20pleasing.&text=Saturation%20is%20a%20subtle%20form,through%20various%20pieces%20of%20hardware. [Accessed: 20th November 2020]

Siau, J., (2010). THE UNIQUE EVILS OF DIGITAL AUDIO AND HOW TO DEFEAT THEM. [Online] 2010. Available from: https://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/application_notes/13124137-the-unique-evils-of-digital-audio-and-how-to-defeat-them [Accessed: 20th November 2020]

Jeppsson, N., (2018). ANDREW SCHEPS - CHARACTER VS CLARITY, QUIET TIMES, MIXING ON HEADPHONES AND MUCH MORE. [Online] 2018. Available from: https://www.youraudiosolutions.com/interview-articles/andrew-scheps-character-vs-clarity-quiet-times-mixing-on-headphones-and-much-more [Accessed: 20th November 2020]

Lambert, M., (2010). Plug-in Modelling. [Online] 2010. Available from: https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/plug-modelling [Accessed: 20th November 2020]

Waves. CLA-76: User Manual. [Online]. Available from: https://www.waves.com/1lib/pdf/plugins/cla-76-compressor-limiter.pdf [Accessed: 21st November 2020]

Figures:

Figure 1.1:  'CLA-76 Compressor / Limiter’ , Waves [Online] Available from: https://www.waves.com/plugins/cla-76-compressor-limiter [Accessed: 21st November 2020]

[hopefulfestivaltastemaker]

Lessons from a software project

I am adding to my usual weekly rotation of posts to write about a software project that I recently (almost) finished. I want to get my thoughts down now while it is fresh in my mind.

Project Overview

The project is a bug tracker. It is online here. The GitHub repo is here. It is a simple, classic bug tracker. The app allows teams to define several projects and maintain a list of outstanding issues for each project, assigned by user. Project managers and issue owners can mark issues as complete. An individual could use it as a personal to-do list as well. The mail element of the technology stack are as follows.

- React frontend, generated with create-react-app. It is a single page app with all the app’s functionality. It is implemented on GitHub pages.

- Auth0 for authentication.

- A Node backend. It handles api calls to the database. It is deployed on an Amazon Web Services EC2 t2.micro instance running Amazon Linux 2.

- PostgresQL database. It stores user data and data about teams, projects, and issues. It is implemented with an Amazon RDS t3.micro instance.

- SB Admin 2, a Bootstrap theme, for styling.

The purpose of this project is to serve as a portfolio piece indicating that I am capable of full stack development. As such I think it is a good step and the best full stack project I have done so far, but I think I can do better next time. Some of the ways I can do better are detailed below.

Functionality

The functionality of the app is fairly limited relative to what I wanted. It allows creation and deletion of teams, projects, and issues, as well as completion of issues by their owners. I would have liked to add timestamps for issue creation and due date; some sorting functionality; and mechanisms for modifying teams, projects, and issues without deleting and recreating them, but I ran out of time that I was willing to devote to the project.

I’ve tested the project extensively locally, but there are so many variables in the deployment that I don’t know how it is going to survive in the wild. We will see.

There are a couple things that I don’t think are quite right but do not seem to be major problems and that I gave up worrying about. For one thing, the front end seems to be firing off more API calls than I think it should be. I’m pretty sure it has something to do with React’s useEffect being triggered more often than I want, but I did not figure out the precise reason in the course of investigating. There were a couple of icons that are part of the SB Admin 2 theme that for whatever reason I couldn’t get to appear properly, and I gave up on those.

Development

The main challenge in development was locally wiring up the various pieces. The actual programming of the app wasn’t too hard. This was my first project with PostgresQL, and I found the system to be straightforward enough. It was also my first attempt to use Auth0. I found the system to be challenging to use, though it provides much more functionality and ease of use for user than any authentication that I would be able to develop myself.

I have used Node many times before. I like it and find it straightforward. The app in this case is fairly simple and primarily serves the function of interfacing between the front end and the database. In theory I think I could have made database calls directly from the front end, but that doesn’t seem like a good design decision.

I’ve done a few React apps, all with create-react-app. I think that was a mistake. I’ve been using create-react-app as a crutch. The system brings about some serious bloatware. The next time I do something with React, I should find an alternative way to develop and deploy the app. Beyond that, my system of passing parameters through the app is also a bit of a mess. I believe Redux would help streamline that process, and Redux is on my todo list, but it is not something I am familiar with yet. I used a few class components, but I think I should have just kicked that habit and done everything with function components; I see no reason why I couldn’t have.

SB Admin 2 was a pleasure to use. Design isn’t my strongest suit, nor is it primarily what I wanted to illustrate with this project. Going off the project template, I found it easy to make an app that looks presentable. I’m a little dissatisfied with the color scheme, which has something of that “corporate kindergarten” aesthetic to it, but that is acceptable.

Deployment

Actually putting this thing online so others could use it was a major time sink and source of frustration learning experience. I noted in last week’s blog post that this endeavor falls under the job description of a DevOps person, which is not what I am aspiring to be. DevOps is its own form of problem solving, which for the right person could be a lot fun. It also commands a market premium for people who have those skills. I now see very clearly why.

I made a very big mistake that I will not be repeating on future projects. I tried to develop everything locally and get full app functionality locally before taking on deployment. Worse, I tried to treat the entire project as a single package. I was not, for instance, planning on using AWS RDS for the database. I had set up PostgresQL on my local machine and tried to do the same on the EC2 instance. I was also planning on building and running the React frontend out of the same instance.

Almost none of this worked. I installed PostgresQL on the EC2 instance, and it seemed to work for a while, but after a while I couldn’t connect at all. Repeatedly uninstalling and reinstalling the database just caused the DevOps gods to laugh. It was only then that I decided to separate the database to RDS. Even then, somehow the pq module (the Node modules that connects to a PostgresQL database) got borked and I had to uninstall and reinstall it to get that working.

I also tried to run the Node and React apps out of a single concurrently instance. Again, it worked fine locally but failed on deployment. I still don’t fully understand why it didn’t work. Part of the problem was security. For whatever reason React wanted to build to an HTTP instead of an HTTPS deploy, which Chrome flagged as a security hazard. I struggled to figure out how to add an SSL certificate and that only seemed to partially solve the problem. Then I got a CORS (cross-origin resource sharing) error. I tried modifying the Node app to an HTTPS instead of an HTTP server, but that didn’t seem to solve the problem. Even now I’m still not sure it is working right. My browser loads the front end all right but still gives me a security flag.

There was also an issue of the proxy in packages.json not working. Again, it worked fine in dev but just flat out refused to work on the deploy. I gave up trying to figure out why and just started doing full URLs in the fetch requests.

It is obvious in retrospect, and for future projects, that I should have done one or both of two things:

1) Go for a modular design from the beginning. Now all the major pieces are in different places (except I deployed SB Admin 2 with the front end), and that leaves fewer opportunities for conflict. There was no reason not to plan it out that way from the beginning.

2) Figure out the deploy process at the outset. This is the “walking skeleton” methodology. I would add only the minimal “hello world” substance to each piece, then fully ship the project to demonstrate a working architecture. Then I go about building out the pieces. Had I done this at the start, it would have saved me a great deal of stress later on.

Some General Thoughts

The difficulty of a project grows superlinearly in the number of mutually interrelated components. This is probably the same basic mechanism that causes complex infrastructure projects to almost always go over schedule and budget. Modularity needs to be a watchword. I’ve learned my lesson on that.

In general I was pretty happy with AWS. The performance seems to be quite good. It wasn’t too hard to use. The AWS console is huge and can be difficult to navigate. Their system of traffic access rules is a bit confusing but was manageable.

People often complain about JavaScript development. I think the problem is not with JavaScript itself, but with the NPM zoo. Despite the allegedly modular design of NPM packages, the inscrutable chain of dependencies are such that they are inherently non-modular in practice. Reproducibility is a serious problem. Security is a problem. There are vulnerabilities such as shown in the left-pad incident. The system leads to bloatware. It fosters a bad habit of programmers pulling in packages for simple functions they could easily write themselves. The multiplicity of potential clashes between packages of different versions is a factor driving the development of virtual machines and containerization, tools which introduce their own inefficiencies through abstraction. There has got to be a better way. I wonder if there exists anything that be for JavaScript what Acaconda is for Python. There certainly should be.

Security and networking are two things that are important and I just don’t understand very well yet. I think this process would have been easier if I knew what was going on when those bugs came up.

What’s Ahead

For now I am taking a breather to celebrate the completion of this project. While there are some deficiencies in this latest project, I think the place to correct them is on the next project, rather than try to push this one any further. Eventually I want to plan out and execute another full stack project. I don’t know what it will look like yet, but it should be something more interesting than a bug tracker.

In the meantime, I am working through a JavaScript bootcamp and have fallen behind on the projects there. For my next portfolio piece, I want to do something more algorithms-oriented, where the challenge will be in the actual coding rather than in the DevOps.

[thisdaynews]

Trudeau victory prompts ‘Wexit’ talk in Canada’s West

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/trudeau-victory-prompts-wexit-talk-in-canadas-west/

Trudeau victory prompts ‘Wexit’ talk in Canada’s West

“Is it real? Yeah. People are mad,” Randy Hoback, a Conservative Party member of Parliament in central Saskatchewan told POLITICO. “I’ve never seen it like this.”

Citizens in the Western provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan agitated for political change in Ottawa over the last year as attempts to build a coastal pipeline expansion continued to falter and as farmers got trounced by trade tiffs with China.

They got what they wanted in their region — Conservatives swept all but one parliamentary seat in the elections, leaving Trudeau’s Liberals with virtually no presence in Canada’s oil country. But it didn’t translate to new federal leadership, as Trudeau’s party dominated in Eastern Canadian cities, including Toronto and Montreal, and still commands a strong plurality of seats in Parliament.

The result: talk of a break with the rest of Canada — dubbed “ Wexit” on social media — is accelerating as some in the western part of the country say enough is enough.

A Trudeau spokesperson said the government is considering ways to incorporate western perspectives into the incoming government. Some pundits are suggesting he should take the rare step — for Canada — of appointing an unelected person to the Cabinet he’ll swear in on Nov. 20 to ensure that oil country’s views are heard.

The elections also breathed new life into a Québécois separatist party previously believed to have been extinguished in the East. The Bloc Québécois reinvented itself — by downplaying talk of independence, ironically — and more than tripled its seat-count from 10 to 32.

Long the two most restive regions of Canada’s federations, Alberta and Quebec have often shared similar complaints about an intrusive federal government; Quebec’s concerns, in particular, occasionally dominated the national agenda as the province nearly left Canada.

But the political dynamics in western Canada are driving the conversation in Ottawa this week. And at the heart of the West’s disillusionment is the oil industry, which is a major driver of the nation’s economy.

Politicians in Alberta and Saskatchewan say the livelihoods of many of their residents are under attack from Ottawa, given the Trudeau government’s focus on shrinking Canada’s carbon footprint to combat climate change.

“I think this is maybe a little bit more serious,” said University of Calgary political scientist Barry Cooper. “And because so much of it is symbolized in this kind of concatenation of environmentalism and basic anti-Alberta sentiments, it might actually lead to something.”

The head of the province, Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, regularly joins in the Ottawa-bashing, including last week when he blamed the Trudeau-led economy for his own budget cuts.

Kenney has obliquely nodded at separatist sentiments since coming into power last spring, though he used the months before the federal election to call on Canadians to vote Trudeau’s party out of power, rather than pushing for his province to go it alone.

With the results in, Kenney is calling out Ottawa as unsupportive during the province’s economic downturn and imploring Albertans to “be self-reliant.”

Kenney faces a complex dual challenge: Being seen as fighting for Alberta without letting nationalist passions rage out of control. David Cameron famously got burned trying to simultaneously fan, and contain, those nationalist flames, with the result being Brexit.”

Trudeau will need to overcome the perception in Western Canada that he campaigned against Alberta and Saskatchewan in the final days before the election if he wants to prevent alienation from growing, Hoback said.

Westerners will be watching to see whether he appoints anyone from those provinces to Cabinet, and, if so, whether he opts for a mayor who represents one of the few urban centers of the prairies or for someone hailing from a rural area.

“This government has to now really take Western Canada seriously, or it’s going to lose it,” Hoback said.

The day after the election, Kenney promised to appoint a panel of “eminent Albertans” to conduct a deep-dive into the province’s position within Canada and to come up with ideas on how to “fight for fairness in the confederation.”

Duane Bratt, a political science professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary, said the panel is a smart move for Kenney because it provides an outlet to Albertans venting about separatism.

“He can focus then on governing … and he will assign this panel to deal with all the anger,” Bratt said.

To the east, these are actually lean times for Quebec’s once-mighty independence movement.

That French-speaking nationalist cause once brought huge crowds into the streets and also packed far more formidable political power than anything currently existing in Alberta.

Five times, the province elected a provincial party devoted to achieving independence from Canada. It’s held two referendums on the issue, and in the most recent, in 1995, Quebecers came within one percentage point of voting to leave Canada.

But the formerly powerful provincial party, the Parti Québécois, has sunk to fourth place in the provincial legislature.

Support for independence, which decades ago had soared into the high-50s, languished in the low-30s in surveys over the last few years.

One academic who studies opinion polling and has analyzed hundreds of surveys on Quebec independence since the 1970s says the movement is at its nadir.

“You know that sovereignty is low when pollsters don’t ask the question anymore,” said Claire Durand of the University of Montreal.

Some of the PQ’s senior members have quit to form other parties, including the current premier of Quebec, who runs a soft-right government that never talks about separation.

So how did a federal version of the separatist party triple its seat-count in Monday’s election and re-emerge as a political force that potentially cost Trudeau a parliamentary majority?

By not talking about separation at all.

The Bloc Québécois, historically seen as a minor-league adjunct to the PQ and a messenger for separatists’ complaints to the federal Parliament, was on the verge of extinction. But in this campaign, it managed to reinvent itself.

The new party leader, Yves-François Blanchet, took up every cause promoted by popular Quebec Premier François Legault.

But a telling moment occurred during Blanchet’s triumphant election-night speech: Supporters began chanting the old Quebec independence slogan, “On veut un pays! (We want a country!)” and Blanchet replied, “Me too,” before he smothered those embers with a wet blanket: “For this time, the achievement of [independence] is not our mandate.”

Quebec’s and Alberta’s independence movements differ fundamentally in that the francophone province’s issues have always revolved around identity and culture, whereas Alberta’s has always been political, Bratt said.

“But when people see Quebec opposed to pipelines and receiving equalization [payments], you can understand where that anger comes from,” he said. “It’s like, we’re paying you, and you’re running low-cost daycare and stopping Alberta’s resources from getting to market, but you’ll take our money. And that’s a big problem.”

The University of Calgary’s Cooper says Alberta has the economic ability to achieve independence, unlike Quebec. And being independent from Ottawa would give the region more latitude to insist on things like building pipelines to the British Columbia coast, he said — or else Vancouver doesn’t get gas deliveries, or every train traveling from east to west gets stopped for inspection in a newly independent Alberta.

Still, Alberta is landlocked and there would be huge costs in transitioning away from Canada, Bratt notes. And even though Alberta’s economy has been sluggish for the last five years, its economy still outperforms much of the rest of the country.

But there’s another factor at play in Alberta’s anger: The prime minister is a Trudeau.

Albertans still recoil at the memory of the National Energy Program, which was instituted by Justin Trudeau’s father, the late Pierre Elliott Trudeau. That policy was geared toward handing Ottawa more control over Canada’s oil industry.

What remains to be seen is the extent to which separatist passions die down as Canadians gets further away from Election Day or continue to simmer — and how the country’s politicians, both federal and provincial, respond to that.

“I love my country. I’m proud of what Canada has been and what it can be together. We are the strongest together, so I’m going to fight for a unified Canada,” said Hoback, the Conservative MP.

“Unfortunately, I don’t get to control the chess board. Justin Trudeau does,” he added. “We’ll see what he does. The ball’s in his court.”

Read More

[lovesaadiqa]

Positive Intelligence

Picked up a book.. Montana was reading at work yesterday + I really mean reading, like ignoring her tables kind of reading.  I was inspired, I haven't read a book all year, its September!!!  Social media has been a large source of stagnation for me and 3 hours of scrolling this morning made me curse myself for not doing what I know I should .. paying more attention to my life than other’s.  Out of guilt, I decided to read and really just picked the book on the top of the stack lol.

Positive Intelligence By: Shirzad Chamine

Chapter One:

Initially bored out my wits with the intro and most of the first chapter, I forced myself to keep going.  Decided to journal (that’s what Tumblr is for me versus a blogging community) my interpretation of each chapter.  As I neared the end of chapter one, im intrigued by the comparison of IQ (cognitive intelligence), EQ (emotional intelligence) and PQ (positive intelligence).  I recognized IQ from school and equating it with how dumb a person is lol.  I've heard of EQ but only in reference to the way people behave when they are hurt.  To be completely honest I feel I should be reading a book on EQ but here we are PQ.  PQ, as described by Shirzad, is a measurement of your mind working both for you and against you.  My interest peaked!! I know for sure for sure my PQ is low because I am a very worrisome person who believes “all good things come to an end” versus thinking “bad times don’t last always.  At the end of the chapter there is an inquiry to help me correlate what the book is saying and how it applies to my own life.  

Chapter One inquiry:  if you could significantly improve one important thing, personally or professionally, as a result of reading this book, what would it be?  Keep that goal in mind as you read this book.  ||  Personally I believe I am a quitter by way of procrastination.  I personally and professionally need to learn how to follow through.  I convince myself over a period of time that “this won't work for me" or “I'll never be _____ or as good as ________” and completely just stop.  I want my self talk to be encouraging and motivating.  I let any little butmp in the road cause me to pull over.. toxic trait!  This has to change!

Chapter two:

Good luck prying this book from my hands.  Needless to say, I am happy I continued reading.  This chapter helps me to understand how we have two ways of thinking, sabotage + sage.  Sabotage we develop as children to prevent physical and emotional harm which we should rid by adulthood.. Sage the power, positive, deeper, wiser you.  The chapter identifies 10 sabotagers to help you understand which one(s) control you.  This chapter goes on to tell you how to change your mind from sabotage to sage and provides an example of a man and his team who all learned to do this together to increase the success of a billion dollar company.  The methods seem wacky but you have to be a fool to believe I won't try.  Won’t go into much depth (buy the book) but Shirzad goes on to say the easiest way to change your mind is to label each thought;  useful, neutral or harmful and the to call out the sabotager.  For example:  Thought “your are not good enough” I respond by thinking or saying (I'll be saying it out loud personally) “there goes the Judge telling me im not good enough”.  The Judge is one of the 10 sabotagers.  This is vital for me because so much of how I think is a shit ton of underlying factors I don't know exist.  Reading is fundamental because I would have never recognized the voice of the Judge as being harmful.  I always believed that telling myself im not good enough would force to me to work harder but the truth is, I coerced myself, over the years to believe im mediocre, average at best!  This is ground breaking for me + I want to personally challenge myself to do this all day today before moving on the next chapter.  Labeling my thoughts is genius, this is so cohesive with my personal goal of being more mindful.

Chapter two inquiry:  what do you find energizing, hopeful or exciting about Positive Intelligence?  What are you skeptical about?  How would you know if you skepticism were generated by a saboteur trying to stay in power?  ||  I know how vital changing your mind is to growth, maturity and overall personal development.  I’ve experienced this in a very mild manner with regards to perspective and was blown away.  It’s really a gift from God + an outer body experience to see your old self succumb to a new you by way of thinking differently + being present in the mind the surrender to the process.  So in short I am excited, hopeful and energized that I don't have to wing it.. this book provides the formula, the methods and evokes the mental awareness for me to experience my mind changing and completely being one with the me I can't see.. all that inner shit!  Im skeptical about my consistency cause it’s always been an issue for me but even writing this allows me to see the saboteur  named Restless (the sabotager who is always lookin for new excitement, losing focus + providing endless distraction)  Ha!  I get it, I get it!!!!  I called her out!!! 

Chapter three:

This chapter, unadulterated perspective.  Allow me to document the four major part of this book that hit home for me.  1. There is a subtitled portion in chapter three labeled The Problem With Saboteurs.  In order to survive we needed umbilical cords at birth, milk as babies, itty bitty teeth until our mouths grow develop the permanent ones, even casts for broken bones.  However, as we matured, all of these grew obsolete and we rid ourselves of them naturally.  Can you image if we didn't, lmaoooo.  Its funny to picture it in my head but our minds develop in the same way EXCEPT, they do not naturally rid themselves as we age!!!  Mentally and emotionally, a shit ton of us don't realize we’re  still attached to the umbilical cord, drinking baby milk, using toddler teeth and have never taken the cast off of healed injuries... in our late 30′s and 40′s!!!!!  Bruh, this made me feel pitiful because im not exempt!  The thinking patterns and emotional behaviors necessary for me to survive my childhood are the same ridiculous techniques I use in my adulthood.  The saying “..but when I became a man, I put all those childish things away.” pops smooth into my head!!! 2. The book compares people to hatched sea turtles.  The very first thing they do is make there way to the ocean floor for safety, physical survival.  We do this as kids as also, but we do it both physically and MENTALLY!  Mind blown comprehending this.  3.  The book describes our saboteurs as a snowman to say they melt when exposed to light.  This insinuates that all it takes to chance your negative thoughts is awareness.  All I have to do is recognize the thought and label is using one of the 10 saboteurs described in the book.  Im so excited for this!!!  

Chapter three inquiry:  a saboteur served a purpose - to protect you physically or helped you survive emotionally.  How did you Judge and your top accomplice saboteur help you in your youth?  ||  I've used my judge to shield myself from an abusive parent for emotional survival.  I won't go too much into the details (I'll leave it for another time).  Promise to update this after some deep thinking.  I’ve blacked out much of my trauma and early life as to cope better and progress forward.  I knew at some point in my life I would have to dig up my past but I definitely believed it would have been with a shrink versus a book.  I’ll see what I can do.  I am journaling this to help someone else and myself, but as of right now.. im not ready to relive most of what I know I have to share. 

Chapter four:

Decided to walk and read this chapter but due the heat index, said walk took place on the treadmill in the basement of my building.  Thank goodness it was empty because this chapter made me cry, twice.  Touching a bit on self judgement, judging others and judging circumstances.  The writer exposes a part of me I have never truly acknowledged.  I don’t always love myself unless there is a reason attached to it such as accomplishment, awesome behavior, etc.  It was difficult to read that I am to love myself just for being!  Just because I am me; undefined by flaws or accomplishment, good behavior or social rank.  Unconditional love is the only love there is, love without conditions for being exactly who I am.  My brain is warped but im hopeful it will bring about an abundance of change to the way I treat myself when undergoing difficulty.  I also decided a name for my Judge, she’s The Liar.  My Liar is stong and brutal and means me no good.  My liar is NOT me.  There is a portion of this chapter that is vital to my life, well two!!!  The first is so powerful, I am tearing up just thinking about it.. “You will be happen when...”  My Liar is the biggest scammer ever.  I AM HAPPY NOW!  Damn it if my Liar doesn’t tell me, “you can be happy when your business is successful, when you move into a penthouse, when you’re married...” Shirzad writes that my Liar will always renegoitate my when as I achieve it.  I will be happy when I save $10k and as soon as I have $9,999 dollars all of a sudden, I will be happen when I purchase a home.  Man if this didn't strike a cord.  I will be chasing happiness my entire life living in misery with a life someone else is when’ing for!  Who cut the onion bro? The second very vital part of the chapter is when the writer analyzes the difference between judging and discernment.  This will need to be revisited as I attempt to weaken my saboteurs because it’s a thin line between judging and discerning.

Chapter four inquiry:  what would change, at work or in your personal life, if your Judge’s voice were significantly weakened?  ||  OPTIMISM for sure!!!! I would be less apprehensive about tough decisions. I’d be more eager to try new things and hopeful for every circumstance I have to undergo.  I shelter myself from many things because I am so afraid to fail or have an unfavorable outcome.  I be ducking “feelings” and can vividly hear myself telling myself in previous situations that “I don't want to feel anything”, “I don't feel like it”.  That is for the dead and I realized I am the dead walking!  Life is to be felt I just need to get to a place where fear isn’t holding me hostage and realize I can survive whatever I feel.  Writing this provoked a question I posed to myself, why don’t you want to feel? I hold onto the shit im supposed to let go and the emotional warfare makes it so difficult to learn what the feeling is there to teach me.  I am super dramatic and I can see how the Victim is actively assisting my Liar.  I’d be able to keep a job, lol.. yeah issa a problem.  On a personal level, I believe I'd be more aware of what the universe is trying to teach and can significantly alter the energy I put out.  God has me in awe, this book wasn’t random.  The timing was’t random.  I am ready and the unconditional love God has for me, has once again reminded me that I am entitled to love, just because I am me.  Chills bro.

Chapter five:

This chapter compares the Saboteur to the Sage.  It goes on to discuss example of when both he and others where faced with what seemed to be extreme tragedy or life altering situations with sage.  In my opinion is summarizes how to constantly look on the bright side.  An part of this stated that when something unfavorable happens, we tend to believe the outcome “good or bad” and reassures which every you believe in your mind will ultimately solidify the situation according to your beliefs about it.  This sent me into deep thought.. I reflected back to when a “bad” situation turned out for my greater good.  This has happened countless time but the most prevalent was my living situation in the previous two years.  I went from paying nothing and getting kicked out without notice, to an invite as a roomie for $200 but was tortured in that situation.  I moved into a unit (work, live, stay) for $500 but now shower only bird baths for 3 months to now renting a condo for $1000.  I had to initially but put out on my ass for this ball to get rolling.  I would have never voluntarily moved from paying no rent to $1000.  I’d built up so much resentment towards the homeowner and carried it all the way to this chapter and because learning about the sage, which works for my greater good, I can let it go.  I had not realized and still don’t, how much unnecessary baggage I carry that affects only me.  You better trust and believe the day I moved out, angry and hateful, that the homeowner went to work and carried on with his life, not giving a single fuck about how I felt.  This book is doing a great work in me, turning my thoughts and beliefs in to learning opportunities.  Now be fully aware of how both the saboteurs and my sage works, I plan to revisit all my buried bullshit to evaluate how what I thought to be “bad” turned out for my good.  A positive poised mind.  Healthy thought processes.  Meditation.  Acceptance.  Change.  My liar keeps telling me, this process (saboteur to sage) will take a long time to do.. it’s imperative I remind myself to stay committed to implenting what im learning and do the work.  My entire life I have boxed the outcomes of situations either bad or good depending of the favorability of them.  What the fuck can I loose by looking at everything as a outlet for opportunity and personal development.  I cannot put my gratitude into words.  Im in utter awe that I have carried this book around for at least 3 years, from boxes to storage units, to book piles to my finger and it is life.  Im so in love with the possibility of me changing sooner than later and orchestrating my own mental health.  I will do the work!

Chapter five inquiry:  pick one thing in your life, whether at work or at home, that’s causing you particularly high distress right now.  Try the Three-Gift technique on it:  think of at least three ways the problem could turn into a gift and opportunity at some point in the future.

In fear of my living situation since I moved to Atlanta, homelessness scared the living day lights out of me.  I took off an entire month in July this year to go home to be with Zette (I missed him) and found it super difficult to find a job as quickly as I usually do, normally a week tops.  I took until the end of August to land a position and the money is shit.  I have a pretty ok savings account that I vowed not to touch until I were purchasing property.  So im stuck with 2 months of unpaid rent which is threatening to make me withdrawal money from my “house account”.  As this month closes in on me, I have been losing sleep about it, also afraid to burden my guy (whom I know has a lot on his plate) with my tab.  1. Gift One - forces me to work harder at growing my business to create real income so that working for someone else becomes the supplement versus my primary source of income.  2.  Use my sage gifts to to work on my reoccurring panic attacks, this is a fine opportunity to put to use all that I've learned in this book.  In doing this I can train myself on a small scale how to increase my PQ.  Weaken my liar who tells me if I spend my saved money I'll never get it back, allowing me to believe in myself, the power of my sage and open my eyes to very thing that got me in this condo.. hard work, resilience and the ability to go forward despite what may lie ahead.  3.  Prepare better in the future financially for trips, vacations or any unexpected event that may cause me unemployment.  

Chapter six:

This chapter describes each sage power (there are 5), what inhibit them, when to use them, and provides a game to play when is time to use them.  Some of these I understood 100% while others left me scratching my head.  At the end of the chapter, it provides an example through scenarios where one person had to utilize all of them individually in order to keep her job.  This caused even more confusion for me but I will keep at at it and reread the entire book if I need to, seriously.

Chapter six inquiry:  what is one area of your work or life where could use some fresh and creative new perspective?  Play the “yes.. and...” game by writing idea after idea nonstop for ten minutes without any evaluation along the way.

How to build clientele:

Flyers on in public areas, offering a free return services, consistency on social media posts, do a live tutorials or classes for a limited time, offering a discount to the people in my building, reaching out to a mentor to work under as an understudy, advertise to low income students at all the colleges around town, hash tagging colleges with my services, strengthen my brand, make booking easier and automatic, specials for new clients and returning clients, ads on google, facebook and craigslist, offering specials to the businesses surround me, take better pictures, get a logo, offer classes every month, promote the classes same as I do the service, offer lash classes on craigslist  or google, retain a celeb for services, lash for free at least once per week, create a way to brand, practice is more important than the money right now, learn differnt lashes styles and how to execute them, get more consistent sets, lash once per day even on the mannequin, offer out of state client special or last minute deals,  offer to lash as a donation to the community, offer free lash specials for prom season, graduation and courthouse marriages, talk about your business at least once per day, learn hygiene, maintenance, and sanitation thoroughly, educate clients, brand your shampoo and lash bags with embroidery machine, get a logo, learn new ways to keep professionalism at its peak, get, learn and implement better customer service skills, make your lash bed feel like a hotel California king, get classic lashing service time under 120 minutes, do traveling lash services like a feature lash tech in other peoples salons, offer traveling lash services per day or week to new nailery’s, hair salons and men, advertise during pride in midtown, let clients know you service men, study tutorials on youtube and practice more, diversify your clientele, add and learn more lash and brow services, offer and brand supplies to student, advertise lash classes to your clients, they may want to invest in themselves, get or create a uniform for yourself, open a parlor to teach/train and rent out stations... 11 minutes!!!

Chapter seven:

This is the chapter I’ve been waitin for!!!  This chapter taught me how to switch from my survivor brain to my sage brain in tens seconds.  This is necessary and the timing of this chapter was flawless.  I went out last night for Monday night football, got a little too drunk, relapsed on my old ways of being and lashed out on my guy for no reason of his own.  I was angry, woke up angry, refused to settle my mind, or label my saboteurs.  Tense all day, pinned up energy for no reason.. shit I didn’t even want to read the book today!!  It got real for real, then this chapter a physical way to switch my mind from inner turmoil to physical appreciation.  The book suggests I do this 100 times per day, 21 days in a row to rewire the way my brain sorts information.  I will do this!  I can do this.  I deserve this.

Chapter seven inquiry:  are you willing to promis yourself that you’ll do a hundred PQ reps every dat?  If so, what might your saboteurs try to tell you in the coming dats to talk you out of it?  ||  I am all in!  My outlook on “problems” is definitely more inviting as I eagerly look forward to changing my mind.  You just cannot measure where you are without the test.  My saboteurs will attempt to convince me 21 days is too long or that when I do a PQ workout I may not be able to hush the noise.  Either way im doing this for the full 21 days.  I know somedays I will not remember to get my points but I will commit a workout to each day im lacking to rack up points.  

[wu-sisyphus-gang]

Motion Sickness Chapter 29

pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq

(Weiss POV)

Jaune approached me with a backflip.

He flew across the ground, sword and shield in hand, reversed, floating tractionless, and backflipped at me.

Whatever machinations he had in his mind led him to using the shield with a longsword rather than the titanic broadsword. His shield was a giant lowercase 't' shape as he flew about.

I waved my weapon through the air and pinpricks of light followed it. The light hovering in place before it flickered out in a projectile at him.

He flipped past the projectiles without blocking them and slashed at me twice with the straight blade, it was a little over three feet long. I had to engage him with Myrtnaster directly. My own weapon was shorter than his. In a battle of straight range I'd lose.

I tried to fence at him but he was strong enough to shove my weapon out of the way and send me spinning. I didn't fight the motion, I wanted the space from him. I summoned part of my knight. Just the right arm and his sword, I grunted with the exertion of the summoning.

Jaune caught the massive sword on his shield. He had to brace with both hands behind his shield, but he held. It was his turn to grunt with exertion. He spent his semblance, and threw the blade off of him. He looked visibly upset about spending his semblance on a defensive manner. His face was dark and scrunched in a scowl. He had to take physical steps on his next assault against me.

Imagine.

Jaune wasn't like he used to be. That much was obvious from even our little chats. His and Yang's fight just drew it out and this, our sparring match, was icing on the cake. He had a strategic mind second to none of us and his instincts were sharp and finely tuned towards the Grimm according to Ruby. He'd read the Knuckelavee with little more to go on than footprints. It wasn't his experience with the Grimm but a preternatural sixth sense about where it would go, how it would fight. A true hunter's sense.

Now with his semblance and strength he had the power to back that up. He was a threat. A real honest to Gods threat.

He met me again but without his Limit Break he wasn't fast enough to out-spar me. I fenced him with thrusts that met his shield and he tried to counter attack from behind it with a strike that I blocked but sent my teeth ringing. I couldn't imagine trying to block constantly like Yang had when his semblance was active. He was unearthly strong even without it and it only made him stronger while active by an order of magnitude, according to Ruby.

I couldn't believe that Ruby had found a boyfriend before I did. It was unbelievable! And she'd had sex-

Jaune hammered me like a nail with his shield. Then he clipped me with his weapon.

I'd gotten distracted.

I gathered a glyph behind me and in front of me behind Jaune then darted between it Jaune and the next glyph then I summoned another, and another. I tore into his aura, ripping into it as I darted from one glyph to the next. I did damage until I activated his own semblance. Then he reached out and tried to grab me by his shield hand.

I'd seen that before and dodged it but I had to back off. I summoned my knight, this time I had enough spare breaths to call forth the entire body of the knight. Jaune stared it down with a growl and rolled his shield wrist, checking both of our aura instead of focusing on the fight at hand.

The nerve!

The knight paced forward and tried to crush Jaune but he flew out of the way, low to the ground. He jumped and slammed his shield into my knight's chest. It rocked the silver specter. My knight fell right to its knees but it punched Jaune center of mass with a fist nearly as large as he was.

He rolled with it.

Could he just stay down?

He met the blue and white figure again which was slow to rise unlike Jaune who became a blue blur. He hit my knight with a five hit attack that held Jaune in mid-air while he slashed and carved blue calligraphy into the knight. It collapsed into dissolving white light and I fell with it. My aura was nearly exhausted. I leaned on Myrtnaster which had been stabbed into the ground. Jaune came falling down on me with both hands on his sword in a massive overhead strike. He faltered when he saw I'd fallen and he nearly fell on his face in his attempt to cancel the attack he already had momentum behind.

Maybe he was still a little clumsy.

"You out?" He asked like he didn't already know. Ruby had insisted we hook up our scrolls to Jaune's so he could monitor us in a real fight.

I panted and nodded up at him and he offered me his shield hand. He easily pulled me to my feet.

"Thanks."

"No problem," he dismissed.

"About you and Ruby…”

He grinned. It was a quiet proud grin. Like he was proud of what she and him were. I wondered if Neptune had ever grinned like that about me. I rather doubted it. “What about us?” He asked.

“Have you two really, you know…?”

“A couple times. She let me take her.”

“Just like that?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t think for her it was some big decision. You know what I mean? I think… I could be mistaken… but I think some girls put a lot of stock into their first time. And I don’t think she was like that. I think she wanted the intimacy. Why? Did you and Neptune ever do anything?”

"You defeated me, well done." I tried to change the subject.

"Just today. Tomorrow will be different."

"Plus I was out of practice," I justified.

"Of course," he said to my excuse without a hint of sarcasm. "You probably didn't have the time to practice while in Atlas."

Well, not against another opponent. All I had to work on was my semblance. Even that seemed to pale in comparison to the work he had done on himself.

He'd had real opponents. I told myself. He saw actual combat.

"Jaune you fought Salem's agents, correct?"

"Just the one, but yeah. I did."

"What was he like?"

"He was a faunus. A scorpion faunus." He clarified, thinking. He put a hand on his chin. "He fought with his tail. He was fast and cruel. We only beat him because Ruby snuck up on him while he was playing with me."

"Playing with you how?"

"He was torturing me with his weapons, that’s how I got hurt. He wanted to hurt me before he wanted me to die." Jaune reached down to pull up his shirt and revealed a set of bifurcating scars on his chest and stomach. "We cut off his tail. Sent him packing." Hard muscle rippled beneath the orange scars leading up to a broad well-defined chest.

I stared and shook my head. The scars went deep, were jagged, and brutal looking. This was when he self harmed. It was important to remember that.

"So he was murderous." I went on.

Jaune gave me a strained look. He broke eye contact with me and dropped his shirt. I watched the fabric fall over him.

"He was… he was more than murderous. He liked what he was doing. He introduced himself as Tyrian but I've just been calling him 'The Scorpion.'"

"Tyrian." I murmured. "Was that before or after you and Ruby got together."

"A little after." He answered without hesitation. He didn't even seem to think the question was odd.

"What's it like?"

"What's what like?" He gave me a look of pure Jaune confusion.

"Being with Ruby."

"Oh. Uh… it's mostly the same. We hang out. Talk about our feelings. That sort of thing."

"Except you also…" I trailed off.

"We also kiss. Yes."

Buffoon. He knew I was talking about sex.

"You don't need to worry though," he cut in.

"Why would I be worried?" I wondered, a little offended.

"Well she's your partner. I wanted you to know I had no intention of taking that from you." He hesitated a moment. "Or her." He added.

"Oh. I see."

"Isn't that what you were worried about. Seemed like something was bothering you." He squinted his eyebrows at me.

Well yes. It was that my little immature partner was already having sex with her boyfriend, but I was hardly going to get into that with said boyfriend. Then again she was seventeen. Not at all too young for that kind of thing, besides Ruby actively saw combat. It wasn't like I could honestly say it was a step too far for her. It was just odd then, that I hadn't. Hadn't really considered it, even.

Sure Neptune had been good looking but it wasn't like my thoughts had been on that. Well, maybe occasionally. I just had never trusted him enough. He'd flirt with me then run around and flirt with someone else. I suppose Ruby just trusted Jaune and why not? It sounded like he'd regularly put his life on the line for her. Compared to that, sex seemed small.

It wasn't, of course. My whole team stuck our necks out for each other and we were hardly all… well. I suppose it took an extra special something. An attraction as well as trust and Ruby and Jaune had always been close and gotten along well. Maybe it was just inevitable.

"I was just curious. That's all. The timeline."

He seemed content with that. He nodded along, head bobbing at the words.

"I wanted to talk to you a bit more about Cinder." He’d grown silent earlier when we discussed his revenge.

"Please Weiss, I don't want to talk or think anymore about that."

"Would you rather talk to Ruby about it?"

"Maybe." He hedged, but he continued anyway. "I'm just not ready to let go. Letting go of Pyrrha is just too much to ask of me. I want to be able to, even. I want to live without this burning ache. Not even Ruby has been able to dissuade me of what I must do when Cinder and I cross paths." He repeated softly. "What I must do."

"I don't understand. Don't you care about what you and Ruby have?"

"Of course I do." He said flatly.

"You'll lose it."

"Stop it. I already know that." His tone terse.

"Do you? Don't you know how much she cares about you? We all do."

"Please." I found him begging. Begging. For someone who had grown so strong to actually beg for me to stop as though my words were daggers came as a shock. "I'm not ready to let Pyrrha go. I'm not."

I frowned down my nose at him. I sighed off to one side. "Then let us help you. Let Ruby help you."

"She already is. I'll get there, I promise. I just need more time. Look, just because I'm not ready now doesn't mean I won't ever be. Believe me when I say I want to. I want to be that for Ruby. For all of you."

I looked at Jaune and the realization struck me that he had really been through the ringer but maybe he was actually getting better. He'd said he used to be more depressed and Ruby had helped him through that. Maybe I just had to let her. She'd helped me too.

"You'll talk to Ruby more about it?" I half asked, half demanded.

"I will," he vowed.

"Hey!" Yang harassed. "You two done flirting?"

I sputtered slightly, unable to get my words out at the same time Jaune shouted, "fucking maybe! What's it to you?"

"It's getting on dinner time is what it is," Yang bounced back. "Come on in."

"Fair enough." Jaune sighed. "I am hungry."

"I could eat. I suppose." My stomach betrayed me. Nearly a full day of sparring had left me famished, it was natural. Organic even. Nothing to be embarrassed about.

Jaune smiled down at me, he had nearly a whole head and a half of height on me. "Don't worry. I'll never tell. It’s our little secret.”

Heat crept up my neck a little at that.

pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq

Dinner was fish and grilled vegetables. Ren had cooked the flank of salmon up over the course of the afternoon. He was no professional chef but he was good. Grilled broccoli, steamed cauliflower, and salmon steak made a stark contrast to our first dinner here.

It was no less delicious than the soup and noodles the night before.

"Yaaaang stop it."

"But look at how much you've grown." Jaune snuck a peak over at where Yang poked Ruby's sides and took a long, long drink.

I wasn't sure who else noticed it but I sure did. I guess Ren and Nora might already know and whatnot. Then only Qrow mattered to Ruby's plans and Yang was too distracted to see the looks Jaune was giving out.

"You've gained a couple inches too, unlike the Ice Queen."

"Hey," I protested around my own drink. "I've grown plenty. At least as much as Ruby did."

"Not where, well, you know," Yang disagreed.

Jaune actively choked and Nora slapped him on the back. Several hard thumps later and he was back to breathing. I glared around the table daring anyone to agree with Yang, none of them did.

I turned my nose up at Yang, though.

"Soon you'll be just like your big sister." Yang went on in Ruby's direction.

Ruby blanched. Somewhere between a gag and a sigh, I was glad she was at least somewhat on my side. "I certainly hope not."

"What's that mean? I thought you wanted to grow up just like me."

"Yeah when I was like six. When was the last time you were in a stable relationship."

Now it was Yang's turn on the backfoot. "Well…"

"I mean you had the occasional fling back at Signal but at Beacon even Weiss got more action than you."

"What do you mean 'even' me." I sort of already knew the answer.

"Neptune." Ruby replied, intentionally missing the point, I was sure.

"Weiss aside, I got plenty of action."

"The only person you danced with at the dance was Blake. Your own partner. She danced with Sun, too, though."

"I was busy, Blake was in a depression. The whitefang and all that." Yang defended. She huffed and looked around the table but nobody else said anything. Jaune had his head down in his food and Nora was suspiciously quiet. Stones and glass houses and all that.

"So, about this mission." I had to wonder. Changing the subject was just a pleasant bonus. "Isn't about time somebody made some decisions about it."

"Well Jaune was intentionally keeping things free in case somebody had some ideas about it." Ruby explained. "But yeah. No sense in delaying the inevitable."

"I was thinking Ren and I case the joint first." Jaune took a bite of salmon steak. "Get a layout of the interior. Then we wait and slip you girls in when the good Don makes a stop by."

"We could always ambush him when he's coming and going," Ruby returned.

"I thought we'd rather keep the fighting in the streets to a minimum," Jaune disagreed.

"But on the inside, won't they know we don't work there?" I cut in. We couldn't just walk in and pretend to be one of the girls. There was no way it was that simple.

"Maybe. It depends on what kind of outfits you are wearing. From my understanding all the girls wear these bee outfits. Hence the name, Honey Bee Inn." Jaune explained. At Ruby's look he went on. "Qrow told me. I have uh-yet to be inside the establishment."

"We just need to get our hands on a set of those then," Nora slammed her fork on the table. "Preferably more than one."

"This seems ripe for disaster," I chipped in. The entire heist my friends were planning was fit to collapse if just one of a thousand things went wrong.

"Which is why whoever goes in will wear a wire. Qrow and I have been rigging something up," Jaune went on.

"Is there an alternative? We need to get those keys," Yang wondered at me. "We'll just threaten to rip his dick off. That'll make him comply."

"The problem isn't that. It's getting in position to do that," I disagreed. "If it was so easy to threaten and bully him, the Malachites would have done it."

"We need information, then." Ruby concluded. "Jaune, why don't you see what else you can find out about the Don with Qrow. Then the rest of us will have Ren check out the inn and see if we can't smuggle ourselves in. If we can get in once, we can get in twice. Preferably with those costumes the second time."

Ren sighed and Jaune leaned back. "I bet I can find a few people who'll tell me something about him. I'm not sure how much I want to know about his proclivities, though."

"You're not one of the ones getting close to the guy who frequents the brothel." Yang pointed her fork at him. Jaune raised his hands in surrender. "I'm the one getting close to those proclivities."

Gross. Maybe Yang was right about me being prudish and maybe I shouldn't fight her on it. I certainly wanted to be nowhere near the man but I had the feeling I'd be getting closer than I liked to the despicable Don. 

pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq

-WG

[wu-sisyphus-gang]

Motion Sickness Chapter 92

pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq

"Are you sure you won't come visit Blake in the hospital?" Ruby asked me.

"Nah. I'll leave up to your team. Might visit next time, sound fair?"

I took Adam Taurus's weapon. I added to my collection. It was in one corner next to Tyrian's wicked blades.

"I-um I guess," Ruby returned. "I really don't think she'd be bothered by it."

"But can you say that she'd be pleased by it?" I asked rhetorically.

"Well…" she hesitated. Her silver eyes flicked away from mine.

" Ahp , you had to think about it. Trust me. I'll just leave it to you girls for now. Next time. Mayhaps."

"What are you going to do around here?" Ruby asked. "If you're not coming with us, that is."

"I'm going to be with Oscar and Ozpin. Helping Winter Schnee get a handle on her new powers," I returned easily. "Don't worry. I won't get up to any trouble."

"Trouble has a way of finding you, Cloud." Ruby smiled at me good naturedly.

I laughed a little in a low chuckle. "Well if it finds me this time it won't be my fault."

"You don't get along with Winter very well," Weiss cut in.

"She actually doesn't get along with me. I do just fine with her."

"You escalate things with her," Weiss pointed out. "You don't ever try and get things to calm down. You try and rile her up. Stop it."

"Not my fault. She still wants to tango despite how bad it went for her the first time," I returned.

"Just try and not drive her crazy. She's the only real part of my family I get along with." I could sort of get that. I wanted to be on good terms with some of my family. Like my sisters. I wanted to be on good terms with them.

But Saphron… She wanted to fight me. She didn't want to try and resist Mother. She liked her servitude. That was unsettling. Was that all I had waiting for me? And my sisters had met my Mother face to face. The things Mother had done to me she'd done with half a world between us. I hadn't actually met her face to face like my sisters had.

It made me shudder. I had no idea what she could actually do to me in person. She'd been able to dominate my mind like it was nothing through that tentacled Grimm.

"I'll do what I can," I promised half-heartedly. "Give Blake my regards."

They walked out of my little Atlas Academy room with little waves goodbye. They were adorable, with Weiss pulling Ruby along by the hand.

I got up and put my sword on my back. I strode out of the tiny Academy place of stay and made my way to the training room. I found Winter inside already with Oscar leaning on his cane.

"Cloud, good of you to join us," Oscar said in a voice that made it unclear whether it was him or Ozpin talking. I stared at him long and hard for a moment. I desperately tried to decipher who I was talking to before eventually I gave up. It was probably impossible to tell at some points by the very nature of the way that they were becoming one.

I was merging in an odd way with my Mother but hey...At least I wasn't Oscar. He was really becoming one with the enormous alien mind. I could at a minimum divide myself between where I began and where my Mother ended. Oscar didn't have that. He just had a steady blurring of lines as he conjoined with the old wizard.

"It's no problem. Just not sure what light I can shed on the subject that you don't already know." I crossed my arms and stared at Oscar. I still wasn't sure who I was addressing.

"You've fought Cinder the most. You have more insights into her powers than anyone else. Some seasons tend to rhyme with one another. This summer with that other particular spring."

I supposed that made a certain amount of sense.

"Didn't you fight her too?" I asked.

"Yes, when she destroyed Ozpin's body, but her powers were only just settling in then. I fear that most of what she used was her semblance not her maiden powers."

"You know what her semblance is?" I wondered. That would be important information to have for those of us who were looking to kill her.

Like me.

"Pyrokinesis I suspect. But it's only a suspicion." He tapped his cane twice against the ground. His Hazel eyes glowed. "It blends rather well into the maiden powers, I suppose."

"What other powers does Cinder Fall possess?" Winter asked. She cut in for the first time. And it was the first time I'd seen her since she became the maiden. She didn't look or feel any different to my senses. She looked the same as ever, tall and in white.

Oscar stood in silence and seemed content for me to take the lead so I shrugged and answered, "she's got control over wind and lightning like you might with dust. And then she can fly, too. Hard to be sure which comes from which maiden part though. She could fly and control wind before she became spring. The lightning seemed new but it's impossible to tell."

"I understand. You believe my own powers will turn out similarly to Cinder's," Winter noted.

"Precisely," Oscar nodded. "We feel that seasons that take shape around the same time frame are a great deal like the others. This isn't always the case, however. Magic can take all forms. Cloud's powers are nothing like that of any maiden from recent memory."

"But I may have this power over the elements as well and flight," Winter interpreted. "Just like dust, then."

"Yes, why don't you give it a try now? Whatever feels most natural when you reach for the maiden powers," Oscar said.

Winter breathed in deeply and shut her eyes. When she opened them again there was a silvery flare to the sides of her eyes. The same color as her aura had been.

She stretched out a hand…

But nothing happened. Sort of anticlimactic.

"I am unsure where to start. I can feel my new powers but can't quite understand them."

"Why don't you try modifying your semblance. Casting a spell that normally requires dust to execute but just with the powers in hand and your semblance," I suggested. "It's pretty much what I do with my own magic."

Winter gave me an even look at my genuine helpfulness but she nodded. She extended a hand and an enormous glyph radiated to life behind her easily enough. Then lightning flared from it. It wasn't strong or very well directed. But there was a crackle of sparks across it that was vectorless.

Winter dropped panting. She'd been holding her breath as she did it.

"Oh and don't forget to breathe," I snarked. She managed a weak glare back up at me where I stood with my arms crossed.

"You know, Cloud ," she emphasized. "I hardly like you being around my little sister."

"Yeah well I hardly like being alive. We can't all get what we want," I bit back. "Why don't you try it again? With breathing this time, that's important."

She nodded and got back to her feet. She breathed deeply this attempt and her eyes flared with that magical sign of the maidens.

A glyph hovered to life above us and ice came raining down through it. A jagged shard bounced off my aura and I hopped back a step.

"Sorry. I didn't quite manage what I wanted," she snarked back at me.

"Did you want to impale me? Because any time you want to go, sister. Let's go, whenever you're ready."

"Now, now," Ozpin chided. "Ms. Schnee just lost control for a moment. I'm sure it was unintentional."

"See, unintentional," Winter agreed.

"Yeah of course, never would have you pegged for childish," I muttered.

"We are all often not as others expect." She smiled cheerfully.

"Why don't we give flight a shot?" Ozpin asked.

"I am unsure how to begin with that," Winter said. Which was fair enough. You give somebody a bunch of new powers and you couldn't suddenly expect them to know how to use them. Especially with something as vague as the maiden's powers which took different shapes naturally.

"I could just drop you from the roof and see what happens," I cut in. "Experiment."

"Any serious suggestions would be appreciated," she returned smoothly.

"Maybe I was serious," I murmured. "Come find out."

"Well Mr. Strife, how is it that you fly?" Ozpin asked. "It has been some time for me."

"Not really sure. It's sort of subconscious. I just did it while my semblance was active. Then I sort of just imagine moving around once I get up to speed to control it."

"Unhelpful," Winter decided. I felt like she wasn't being super fair on that one.

"Cinder can do it so you better be able to figure it out. Can't let her outperform you, she'll be gunning for you next," I shot. "Try to imagine yourself rising on a pocket of air. That helps me."

"What makes you think she'll come for me?"

"You were the obvious choice for Ironwood to pick as the new maiden. It's an open secret how close the two of you work. I was able to figure it out and there's no reason she won't be able to. You have gotta assume she knows that you're the new maiden or close to it."

She nodded, then she closed her eyes in focus and breathed hard. The wind might have picked up a little in the airtight room. A breeze bustling through but she didn't start to rise up off the ground or anything.

"We will keep at this. You've been more than helpful, Mr. Strife."

"That's exactly what I shoot for."

pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq

"Blake’s going to be okay. She was especially happy with the news that Adam is dead," Weiss informed me later that night around the dinner table.

“Dead as a doorknob,” I agreed. “It’s just a shame that my sisters slipped away.”

“What would you even have done with them had you gotten them?” Weiss asked. “They seemed awfully determined to be on Salem’s side.”

“It’s not their fault. They’re brainwashed,” I defended them partially.

My sisters were a touchy subject. They were a shadow of what I could be. What I would otherwise have been. If Mother had her wicked way. It was hard to hate that. It was in a sense like hating my potential self. There but for a flip of a coin went I. I could still end up like them. I could still become a monster.

Mother's influence on me was still there. It was always pressing. And that was without having ever seen her face to face. The sort of mind magic she could bring to bear against me must be unreal in person. How was I ever going to kill her? Or at least cut her fucking head off and bring her as close to death as she could be brought. I didn't have a clue.

“But how are you going to change that?” Yang wondered. “It’s one thing if somebody wants to fight it like you do but they just want to give in.”

“I… I don’t know. But I can’t exactly abandon them or kill them. It wasn’t their fault that this happened to them and besides they're still my… still my family,” I murmured. “You know what I mean? I can’t leave them to that.”

“But if they don’t want to be saved then there’s nothing we can do for them, Cloud.” Yang pointed her fork at me. “You’re different but your sisters seem to want it.”

“I can’t just give up on them,” I protested. “I have… I have so many memories of time spent with them. They matter to me.”

I could remember so much. So much time spent with them. It was all fake but it still made me feel something. Weiss said my feelings were valid it was hard to agree when there was so much fake pressure from Salem.

“But those memories aren’t real. They’re an illusion,” Blake cut in. “The only times you’ve met them they attacked you.”

“Maybe…” I muttered. "It seemed mostly playful though. Like they weren't trying to kill me."

"Playful murder?" Yang asked. "Are you serious or…?"

“Cloud you can’t save people who don’t want to be saved.” Weiss patted my hand. “You need to come up with a real plan to deal with them.”

“I suppose we’ll have to fight them,” I said. “I suppose… that I’ll have to… I’ll have to kill them, if they can’t be saved they can only be put down. It’s what I would want if I fell to my Mother.”

“Do you really mean that, Cloud?” Ruby asked. “That you would want to… you know…”

“Die?” I asked. “Probably, yeah. It's better than being a puppet, you know?”

“I do,” Weiss whispered. “It won’t come to that, we’ll keep you from falling to her.”

"Yeah. I suppose."

"Cloud. We will keep you safe from her. You have to believe in that," Ruby murmured.

"I'm starting to, a little."

And I was. Things had been better with Weiss's and Ruby's help. I'd heard fewer whisperings from my Mother. I'd had fewer command auditory hallucinations. I had a wall erected in my mind between my Mother and I so that less of her spilled over into me. She was like ink in water, spreading out and getting into every gap. Under currents carried her influence every which way only it was inside of me.

It was hard to imagine I'd ever be totally free of her. Her tendrils reached deeply into my mind. I couldn't help but imagine it was the same for my sisters. Only they met her face to face and experienced the kind of magic she could hurt us with for real. It must have been terrible. It must have been beautiful. I imagined giving in for a moment. What it would feel like.

My Mother's influence was unbelievable. It was always present in me but there was a sort of stopping point I'd managed to create that halted her from having total rule over me.

It would feel like nothing else to give into her wishes and do what she wanted. I wasn't sure that sex would be able to compare. And Saphron had made it sound so good. She made it seem so sweet. The way her voice had purred when she talked about submitting. I got that. I really did. I just didn't want it for me. It would me losing everything that I had built up here.

It would mean sacrificing all my friendships and relationships and more. It would cost me my soul. I just couldn't give in even though every day Mother inflicted some new horror onto me. It was agony but I wouldn't have it any other way.

I'd have to immolate all my wishes and desires and dreams to become something else. Something with a new and different and terrible purpose. I'd be a weapon in her hands and nothing more.

I liked having the 'more' it was what made me feel. It made me feel Cetra. I wasn't sure what I'd be without it. So I couldn't give in. But my sisters, they had already slipped under.  

They'd bowed their heads under the surface and they drank from those dark waters deeply. They became something less than Cetra. Saphron had said so herself. It was that which separated me from them and the Grimm too. The Grimm was a part of me but I didn't have to acknowledge it. I didn't have to let it rule me.

Maybe it was nothing and just maybe that was everything. Maybe it was all I needed to resist. I wasn't sure. I couldn't be sure until I ran into her again. It was a trial by fire and nothing else. There was no middle ground.

It meant that I couldn't afford any mistakes when I was next in her presence. It meant I could just collapse and become nothing again like I had before.

I just couldn't tell until next I saw her.  

pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq

-WG

[wu-sisyphus-gang]

Motion Sickness Chapter 81

pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq

"Where were you?" Ruby asked me.

"In town. Down in Mantle. There's this bar I went to a lot when I was a criminal. It's run by this union group," I answered. I shifted slightly in the corner of Team RWBY's room. I leaned against the wall and crossed my arms.

"We don't like it when you just disappear. Anything could have happened," Ruby went on.

"And I heard you were involved with some plot in tandem with the strikes. That was where our people picked you up. In the middle of a crime scene. You're not giving us the full story," Weiss followed her up.

"I worked with the leader of this terrorist group, Dyne, while I was a criminal. His wife died and he went mad from grief. He had this little girl, Marigold. He was talking about killing her. So I showed up and did my job as a huntsman."

"You were working with those terrorists though. Weren't you. When you were a criminal," Yang perceived.

"I was working with a different group of terrorists. But effectively yes. It was my responsibility to clean things up. And they had information I needed. Or could have had information I needed. About my sisters or Cinder. I had to follow up."

"Why didn't you tell us? We would have gone with you!" Ruby exclaimed.

"I know you would've. This wasn't about that. It was about cleaning up my own mess. Ironwood's orders to take the day off be damned."

"He is technically your superior officer," Blake said.

"Maybe. But he needed this kind of thing cleaned up, too."

"But people died," Ruby mumbled.

"People always die," I shot back. "What matters now is that it's over and done with."

"This kind of terrorism is never over and done with," Blake fired at me.

I had to concede the point to her. She would know better than me.

"What should I do next time? Get you four involved in something I can take care of?"

"We're not little girls," Weiss said with some venom. "We deserve to be in the loop."

"I never said you were. I handled it. And when I find my sisters or Cinder I'll let you know just like I let you know back at the hotel that I found out she was in town. But you don't need to be involved in every little errand I run."

"People died and that's an errand to you?" Blake asked.

"Yeah. That's about right. I didn't kill them. I even went out of my way to try and spare them, too. People are just fragile."

"I don't like this. No more secret errands," Weiss told me.

"Fine," I agreed. "I promise to let you know first next time."

"I want you to not do it," Weiss returned. Some heat in her voice. If I wasn't careful this would turn into our first lover's spat. It might be already too late for that.

"I needed to do it. It had to be done. I needed some information that the guy I was with had."

"And what information was that?" Weiss demanded.

"When I sunk your father's ship one of my charges went off prematurely. I needed to know why and who my saboteur was."

"You sunk that ship?" Weiss asked. "Any other terrorist acts you're not telling us?"

"I also caused that mine collapse."

"You're responsible for all the strikes down in Mantle!" Weiss exclaimed. "I can't believe this. And let me guess, you forgot to tell us."

"It hasn't come up! And yeah. I probably am responsible. I was buying future information from Avalanche and Aurum. My criminal contacts in this city. I was building my network. I did far worse than sink a ship and cause a dust mine collapse. I killed people and burned down a building, too. But you already knew that."

"Why'd you burn down that building, Cloud?" Ruby asked.

"It was full of drugs. Aurum's competitors. It was a favor."

"Cloud!" Weiss shouted.

"I'm not a perfect person! I'm not even a good one! You already knew that!"

"What else have you been up to in this city?!" Weiss demanded.

"I think that's about it."

"You think so?"

"Damn, Weiss, I can't remember everything at once and my mind plays tricks on me. I don't remember. Some prisoner break out, too, for that guy, Aurum. But you knew about that too. I didn't even kill anyone with that."

"And you think that makes it better?!" Weiss asked.

"It doesn't make it any worse!"

Her nostrils flared up at me. "I'm tired of you not telling me things. Of you trying to hide things. Like when you wanted to not tell Ruby about your seizures. You don't get to decide what's best for us."

"I didn't even know today would be a problem. They just said they had something they couldn't discuss over the phone. I'm literally telling you all everything. As it comes up. You want my life story? Well, me too."

She glared at me for a moment more. "Fine. But no more tip toeing around the line. You come clean with us. Before. Not after." The 'or else' was implied. I got the memo.

"Did you find out who sabotaged you?" Blake asked.

"The Happy Huntresses. You heard of them? Robyn Hill wanted to shut me down. Adam Taurus was there. When my bomb went off early he thought I was cutting the mission off at the knees and he attacked me. That was when he nearly killed me. Any more questions?"

"What information were you looking for?" Weiss asked.

"Just more dirt on Cinder, Merlot, and my sisters. I've been trying to learn all I can but so far 'nothing much' has pretty much been the word."

"But you know that Cinder is in town. From who?" Weiss questioned me further.

"Aurum. He's a drug lord. He runs The Den where you ambushed me that night. Anybody else?"

They were silent.

"What are we going to do for the rest of the night?" Ruby asked.

"Grill me," I deadpanned.

"You brought this on yourself," Weiss shot back. "If you would have at least told us where you were going that would have been something."

"You would have wanted to come."

"Which ought to tell you something."

"Guys…" Ruby bemoaned. We both shut up.

I sighed after a moment of silence. "Look Weiss. I'm sorry I didn't tell you about it. I'll do more next time."

She rubbed her thighs where she sat with her palms and wouldn't meet my eye. "You had better." I figured that was as close to an 'it's okay' as I was going to get. I took it as such. We weren't ruined over this. It was just a fight. We'd be back to where we were later.

"So seriously what are we going to do for the rest of the night?" Ruby asked again.

"I was going to go get my bike out of impound."

"You bought a bike?" Yang asked.

"Just some wheels to get Neo and I around. Any of you are welcome to come with. It'll probably be boring as hell."

"I'll go with. Can I drive it?" Ruby wondered.

"I don't see why not. I also don't see why." I gave her a teasing grin. She 'pffted' her hair out of her face up at me but she gave me a small smile.

Weiss sighed. "Does it have room for three?"

"Probably if we don't mind getting touchy-feely with one another," I answered.

"We're going dancing again. You mentioned The Den. Is it any good?"

"I never clubbed there. Well not really. About the only thing special about it is all the hard drugs."

"You didn't…" Weiss trailed, slightly threateningly.

"I tried some. I figured it couldn't make things worse." Open honesty being the policy…

"So that's how you know what hyper is like," Weiss sighed. She leaned a hand on her forehead like she had a headache.  

"Is it any good? I always wondered, too. Ow. Don't hit, Blake," Yang muttered.

"I could honestly take it or leave it."

"Leave it," Weiss growled like she was talking to a dog. Which, I mean, fair enough.

"You could give it a try. Tell them Cloud sent you. Get you a bit of a discount," I went on like I hadn't heard her. "It's a bit intense. Bit of a rush. But you can get the same thing with, like, good sex."

"Interesting…" Yang said. "Blake. I said no hitting. You're abusive."

"You'll find out just how abusive I can be," Blake shot back. "No drug use."

"Cloud is there any good weed in this town?" Yang wondered. "I tried some back home. I could use it to open this girl up. Loosen up, Blake."

"Some. Same place. Same people. Got your hook up. I could really use a hit right now, too."

"Tough shit for you, Jau-Cloud. Learn to live without," Weiss grumbled, slipping up on my new name.

"I'm trying but it's not easy."

"Did it really help that much?" Ruby asked.

"Ruby!" Weiss hissed.

"What? If it helped him then… then I want it for him."

"It's a hard maybe, Rubes. Let's keep trying what the doctors have me on for now. But I'm not sure I can take a few more months of this."

"Is it that bad?" Ruby wondered.

"It's not great," I returned with a sigh.

pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq

I got my bike out of impound and was riding it down an empty highway. Our seating order went me, Weiss, then Ruby in the back. They clung to each other then to me super close. It was actually kinda nice. Especially Weiss clinging to my torso after our fight.

It let me at least pretend I was in part forgiven. Even more so when I'd take a turn and feel her arms tighten around my chest. Her fingers trailing across my abdomen and her palms drifting across me.

I checked my rear view mirror. Two other bikes were coming up on me. I slowed down to let them pass, I wasn't in any rush. Then they caught up to me and started to match my speed.

I truly wasn't that suspicious until one of them pulled a sword with two blades. The other whipped out a gauntlet with sharp points on the end. One of the riders, a girl, hovered close to me on her bike. A helmet obscuring her features. Blonde hair breezing through the air behind her.

"Cloud!" Ruby called, her voice barely making it above the wind. "It's them! From Argus!"

I flinched. I drew my sword around Weiss's body and drove with one hand.

I turned my bike sideways and abruptly slowed down in an attempt to lose them. Another girl on a bike rode up on me right then from behind, boxing me in. She yanked up on her bike and front-flipped right over us, bike and all. She pulled her pistol from her waist and pointed it right at my head as she did. Then she fired and the punch from her gun rocked my head back.

I'd gotten a good look at her through her helmet as she did her trick though.

"Saphron?!" I asked. I shouted over the breeze. "You're real?" The one with the gauntlet pulled up on me. I recognized her immediately. "Lavender? You too?"

"Poor big brother. Can't tell reality from fiction." Lavender let out a laugh. Her narrower jaw made her stand out from my memory of my sisters. My head suddenly pounded and I touched it with my sword hand. My sisters…

"Come with us, big brother," another voice said. I recognized it right away. Violet pulled up on my other side with her double blade. Her darker eyes and shapely nose pointed her out. Our swords clashed for a moment. I could feel Ruby and Weiss readying their weapons on the bike behind me as I drove.

Violet tried to catch my weapon with a twist of hers and disarm me. I held fast to my enormous weapon regardless. I slashed at her and she blocked while I drove.

"Come see Mother with us. She'd be happy to see you," Violet giggled. Like it was some private joke. I didn't laugh. I didn't get it.

Lavender punched at me with her gauntlet and I drove the bike to the side on the empty highway and I sliced at her too.

Saphron was pulling up in front of me. She turned around in the seat on her bike and shot me with her pistol again. It was a decent calibre round because it stung.

My head pounded. It hurt like it had when I'd last talked to, "...Mother?" I wondered aloud.

"Come with us, Jaune," Lavender beckoned. "We'll take you to see her." Her voice pierced over the wind as we drove down the empty highway.

"Cloud!" Ruby called. "Stay focused!"

"Cloud?!" Violet laughed. My sword met hers again. The long blade served to keep her double one away. "Is that what they think your name is?"

"I'm…" I flinched like I'd touched a hot stove but with my brain. "I'm Cloud now."

Saphron shot at me twice again. One hit me in the chest, the other pinged off of my bike.  

"Is that what you're calling yourself?" Saphron asked. A note of laughter on her voice. "You'll always be our Jaune."

Ruby stood up on the back of my bike and took a shot at Saphron. It struck asphalt and tore it up. I drove over where she had just shot and the bike went badump .

She fired another shot and hit Saphron in the back. Saphron twisted on her bike so she was driving backwards and took three more shots at us. I heard Ruby cry out in pain. She'd just made herself a bigger target when she stood up.

Lavender came up on me again. She seemed to hesitate. I knew that stance. It was like she was charging something. She was storing a little time away. She punched down at my bike and I swerved to avoid her gauntlet. She swerved down and struck the asphalt and tore a huge chunk of it out in a flash of purple light. Then she threw it at us.

Weiss caught it with her pseudo-telekinesis. A dull black glyph came to life. Then she tossed it over us and at Violet who had to swerve to avoid it.

"Big brother!" Saphron sung out. "Don't you want a family reunion? Everyone can be there. Especially if it's for you."

"Come be with us! Ditch these girls. You don't need them." Lavender called. I clashed with her gauntlet again. Myrtenaster poked out from beside me and met the double blade of Violet.

Saphron shot back at me twice again. She hit me both times with preternatural accuracy.

"Come be with us," Violet purred. Ruby opened fire from her stance on the back of the bike and hit Saphron again. Saphron spun back around to drive straight once more.

My head hurt so bad. It was like talking to Mother again. It pounded with memories. With memory .

"Cloud? Are you alright?" Weiss asked.

"I'm fine," I bit out.

My head whipped back again as Saphron shot me in the skull one more time. Then my blade met Violet's beside me. I shoved her back.

Lavender was driving focused and unmoving. Like she was storing more time away for another devastating attack. Ruby took three shots at her to disrupt her concentration. The first hit her. And the next two hit her bike and caused her to swerve slightly.

Ruby shifted her weapon into its full mode out of just the gun state and took a swipe at Violet while I had her blade engaged.

Saphron shot me three more times. They came at me high impact and hit like .50 caliber bullets. I was pretty sure they were. She tossed an empty clip behind her and reloaded. She then whipped around and threw a knife at me. It buried in my aura up to the hilt and the tip nicked my face, leaving a cut behind before it bounced down into the street.

I flinched to the side. I swerved slightly to the right but that just led me closer to Lavender. I tried to block her purple flaring punch with the wide side of Crocea Mors but the force of it was enough to lift up my whole bike, three passengers and all. It nearly slammed us into Violet. Who in turn took a long slash at the bike that would have crippled us if Weiss hadn't caught us with a glyph and blocked her cut with Myrtenaster.

Saphron shot me in the head again and there was a whoosh of air as I got Limit.

I had had enough. I stabbed Crocea Mors into the asphalt and picked us up off the ground. I swung the bike around without losing momentum and reversed us completely so that we were driving the wrong way. Then I crossed over to the other side of the interstate over one of those entry ways for police. I left my sisters behind, they were driving straight where I'd completely turned around.

"Cloud?" I put my sword away and raised a hand to my head.

“Jaune…”

"...Mother?" I murmured.

"Cloud, snap out of it!" Weiss ordered.

I shook my head. I was trying but my head hurt. And not just from being shot there a couple times.

Behind my eyes pulsed and I shuddered. Weiss wrapped her arms around me tightly.

"It's okay, Cloud. We're here."

pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq

I stumbled off my bike at the garage in Atlas Academy. I fell to my knees. The grimy pavement in the garage mattered little. I felt grimy in my head and in my very soul.

“Come to me…my son… my precious son…”

"Cloud, you recognized them, didn't you." It was Ruby's voice.

"Saphron, Violet, and Lavender," I muttered. "They're real. My sisters are real." I sort of knew that they had been, I could feel it. Like I could feel Mother. But seeing it was a whole next level.

"Cloud? Are you alright?"

"My head hurts. And I hear Mother's voice," I bemoaned. I rubbed my face with the whole of a hand. I got a phantom pain across my entire tongue from when I'd bitten through it.

“Reunion… a family reunion… Just for you.”

"Mother?" I called out.

"He's delirious," it was Weiss's voice. I felt her arms wrap under mine. "Gods he's heavy. Help me, Ruby."

“Everyone will be there…”

"Everyone will be there. At the reunion," I murmured. "All my sisters. And Mother."

"What are your other sisters' names?" Ruby asked.

“Iris, Kolumbine, Juniper, Lily…”

"Iris, Kolumbine, Juniper, and Lily," I repeated Mother's voice outloud for Ruby.

"Someone has a flower fetish," Weiss grumbled.

"Step-father must have thought he was being funny. They're… they're all like different models. Different makes. Like cars."

"What's his name?" Ruby wondered. Trying to keep me focused.

"I don't… I don't know." I picked myself up and out of their arms. I took two steps and almost fell again. I pitched and swayed on my feet. I rubbed my face. My head ached.

"How many times were you shot?" Weiss asked. "You've got a nasty cut."

"A couple. She really kept bouncing them off my skull." She had rung my bell with those bullets. Then with that knife.

"Are you going to be alright?" Ruby asked.

"If I…"

“Go to the reunion…”  

"...no…" I murmured. I cut that thought off.

"No?" Ruby asked, concerned.

"Yes?" I realized I was having a conversation with myself. "As alright as I ever am."

"That doesn't sound promising," Weiss murmured.

"They knew your old name," Ruby followed her up, speaking softly.

"Mother must have told them."

"Salem," Weiss softly corrected.

"No… yes…" I breathed. "Salem. My sisters are real. I… I don't know if I can face them. I don't think I'm strong enough. There's seven of them. And I'm just the bad batch."

"Don't think like that," Ruby whispered. "You're not alone, either."

"Let's get him inside. Put him to bed."

"No. Please. Anything but that. She gets me when I sleep," I pleaded. "I'm not strong enough. Not for this. I don't know if I can resist the urge to go to the reunion."

"What's the reunion, Cloud?" Ruby asked.

"My summoning. She calls out to me from so far away." I realized I made no sense to anyone but myself. "Don't you see? She calls to me." Distantly I realized I sounded a lot like Dyne.

"He's going mad." Weiss murmured.

"What do we do?" Ruby whispered back sounding desperate.

"What can we do?" Weiss wondered back.

"How can I save my sisters when I can't even save myself?" I laughed. "Salem has them. She has them. She'll get me too."

"Cloud, listen to us. Can you hear us?" It was Ruby's voice. I heard it so I nodded. "That is not going to happen to you," she went on. "We'll keep you from losing yourself."

"Cloud if you ever feel like you're going to lose yourself we'll be there for you. And we'll help you save your sisters, too. You need to sleep though. We'll be right there for you when you wake up," Weiss reassured.

"How can you know that?"

"Which part?" Weiss asked.

"Any of it," I shot back.

Ruby came up to me and took both my hands in hers. "Because I believe it. We're going to save you."

I choked back a sob. But I nodded. "Don't let me go to the reunion," I begged.

"We won't," Weiss promised.

"Whatever I say and do… And don't let me kill myself."

"Well we especially won't do that," Weiss went on, she smiled slightly. She reached up and touched my face. I almost couldn't look down into her ice blue eyes.

"My head just hurts," I complained as they started to walk me to my room. "It hurts like I'd talked to her again."

"Does it always cause you pain?"

"It did last time. And she made me bite my tongue off. Almost completely."

"You didn't tell us that," Ruby murmured.

"I thought I was going to die from the pain," I confessed. "My head is full of these… these memories. I don't know if they're real. What does it mean for a memory to be real anyways? How can you tell? I have so many memories of living and playing with my sisters. They can't be real though."

I remembered when my sisters braided my hair in Shion. I remembered walking in the rain alone with Kolumbine when we were both just little kids. Just flashes of spending time with the short haired Iris before school one morning. I even knew that I'd fought this boy who pulled on Lily's pigtails. It came to fists over it. Little Lily… my little Lily. I could recall Saphron and I eating my Mother's cookies in the kitchen once. My little sister, a little shortstack. Absolutely adorable with big blue eyes and shoulder length golden hair.

I was going to be sick to my stomach.

And my Mother, she'd been a beautiful blonde woman in a flowing white dress with pale wispy blue eyes like crystal.

But I couldn't recall my father's face or anything about him. That's how I knew it was fake. It was glaring and obvious but only once I knew where to look.

And my Mother… she was always wearing that same dress. White and drifting in every little breeze with golden trimmings to match her pale straw colored locks. That same dress… Burned into my mind. Roaring across my skull. It had been planted there by her. By my Mother. It was all fake. It had to be. I didn't have a childhood.

She was always wearing that same white and golden dress. Always.

pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq

-WG

[wu-sisyphus-gang]

Motion Sickness 180: Temptations (in the city)

pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq

We got pizza in the shopping center we were in and sat down for our lunch. Ruby got straight cheese and Weiss got peperoni and I got a garbage pizza. Weiss sat down and took a fork and knife to her slice on her plate. 

“Sometimes, Weiss, you make me want to flip tables and over the smallest things,” I said. 

“What do you mean?”

“Who eats pizza with a fork and knife. It’s pissing me off. Just pick it up and eat it.”

“It’s greasy. This dress is nice.”

“It’s. Pizza. Pick it up. And eat it,” I demanded. 

“What will you do if I don’t?” She challenged.

“I’m going to make you.”

“You think you can make me?”

“Yeah. Do it. Force my hand.”

“Make. Me,” Weiss took an elegant bite of pizza with her fork and gave me a cheeky grin. 

“Wow. The sexual tension you two have over the slightest things is absolutely crazy,” Ruby pointed out. “How often does this happen?”

“Occasionally,” I confessed.

“You should have been here when he took me out drinking,” Weiss agreed. “I got him really riled up.”

“This sounds like a story…” Ruby trailed. 

“We went out drinking together and she teased me like the whole night. She says ‘make me’ like that and she knows that I will make her beg. I’ve done it before. I’ll do it again. She likes it when I make her.”

“Only because I make you want me that bad. It goes to show that even when you’re the one in control, you’re not the one in control,” she gave a little shrug and a small smirk. 

I gestured at her with the business end of my pizza slice. “Smirk all you want with that little mouth. I’m going to grab you by the hair and make you use it.”

“Don’t be vulgar. You crossed the line,” Weiss tisked. 

“That wasn’t a ‘no.’”

“It certainly wasn’t a ‘yes.’” 

“I bet I could make you beg to suck my-”

“Alright! Okay. Maybe you can,” Weiss cut me off. “This reminds me, we have to take Ruby out drinking.”

“Yeah. Fuck me sideways I bet she turns into a chatterbox.”

“What? Are you trying to say I’m chatty?” Ruby pouted. 

“Quite the noise maker,” Weiss pointed with her fork. 

“Only when you’re relaxed. And I bet if I got you nice and relaxed you would talk my ears off.”

“And you want that?” Ruby asked.

“Yes,” Weiss agreed immediately with a sip of water. Even the way she sipped her water pissed me off. Pinkies up? Seriously? We’re in a mall.

“Yeah. I could listen to you talk about weapons or some other bullshit all day,” I agreed. “I bet you either start chatting about your special interests or you get all sleepy and adorable. I know Weiss turns into an utter tease.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Weiss asked.

“Not if you’re willing to take what you deserve,” I informed her. 

“Oh and I suppose you’ll give me what I deserve?”

“I will seriously make you beg. Can your pride take that, darling?”

“We’ll have to see.”

“Do it. Make me make you.”

“What if I told you that it isn’t a punishment.”

“I’ll have to do it harder.”

“Be gentle…” Ruby pleaded.

“With you, sweetheart, maybe. I make no promises because you’re such a snack I might have to devour you. You taunt and tease me.”

“How do I tease and taunt you?” Ruby wondered.

“You have the audacity to sit there and look like that and breath. It sexually frustrates me. You’re not a little girl anymore. You could at least act like you know that but instead you walk around looking absolutely delicious without a thought in your head about how hungry you’re making me.”

“Really?”

“Really. Ruby,” Weiss sighed. “You do it to me too. You make me want to make you wet.”

“Really?” Ruby repeated.

“She has no idea. And then she’s all like ‘be gentle.’ In that pouty adorable voice. How am I supposed to be gentle with that? She makes me want to be rough with her when she begs me to be gentle.”

“Like this?” Weiss asked. She took a second to prepare herself and reset for her attempt. She opened her eyes and batted them up at me. “Won’t you please be gentle with me? I don’t know that I could take it if you were rough…”

I took a long drink of water and stared her down. They were both waiting for me. I had to say something. 

“Yeah. A little like that. Except she is all genuine. You know what I mean? I know that you want me to actually be rough with you.”

“The fact I want you to be gentle with me makes you want to play rough?” Ruby asked. 

“Little bit. It’s a little bit sexy.”

“You shouldn’t have told me this…” Weiss muttered. “I already had everything I needed to drive you crazy. I didn’t know the ‘innocent princess’ bit would have so much appeal.”

“You utter fool. I want you to tease me. I like it when you tease me,” I pointed out. “Do it again and I will wrap your pretty little mouth around me.”

“Oh, I don’t know if I could handle that…”

“You’re a grown woman. You’ll be fine.”

“And you’ll be able to treat me like a woman?”

“I’ll treat you like an absolute princess. On her wedding night.”

“Hm,” Weiss gave that dainty shrug but her cheeks were a touch rosey. 

“You two need to bang.”

“And we’re gonna,” I promised. “It’s on my to do list. Right after we spit roast you.” 

“Why me?” Ruby whined. 

“Because you’ll love it. All that attention on you. You would lose your mind and I want to watch,” Weiss took another little bite of pizza with her fork. “Jaune told me about some time in Mistral where he made you look at him while you finished and I have never wanted anything more.”

“Her eyes got half closed and deep like she was flirting with passing out,” I said. “Her mouth dropped in a little ‘o’ like she was just a little surprised at her own body.”

“Mmm,” Weiss sighed and put her fork down and looked away. “Yeah. I’ll have some of that please and thank you.”

“You guys…”

“Poor thing,” Weiss pitied. 

“Don’t worry, we’ll take such good care of you, Rubes.”

“Will we?” Weiss asked.

“We’ll take her apart together, darling. I’ll let you be dominant for a bit.”

“I don’t need your permission,” Weiss returned. 

“Yeah you do,” I promised. “Or else it will be you I take apart. And why not? Ruby will do whatever I say. Maybe it should be you in the middle. That sounds like fun, I could set that up.”

“No, I want to do Ruby.”

“Beg,” I ordered. I glanced across the table to where Ruby sat next to Weiss. Ruby looked at Weiss with a look of something like amazement and shock at what I said. 

“You really like it when I beg, don’t you?” Weiss sighed. 

“You really like it when I make you, don’t you?” I returned. “It turns you on. Go on. Beg for me to share Ruby with you.”

“Does this feed your ego?” Weiss wondered. “Maybe Ruby and I should put you in the middle. Right Ruby?”

Ruby said nothing. I laughed. Yeah, it really fed my ego. Ruby said fucking nothing and Weiss glanced over at her and realized she was on her own. My ego just ate a feast when the realization hit her and she just swallowed. She wouldn’t get any support from Ruby. She looked back over at me and where I was just smiling.

“Go on,” I whispered.

She licked her lips. 

“Please,” she murmured quietly. She looked me in the eye and I knew that she knew what she was doing to me. “Please let me watch you take Ruby. Let me take Ruby with you.” She begged. Suddenly the front of my pants was awfully tight. 

“Yeah. This is going to be a lot of fun,” I said. I took a drink of water. 

“Was that a yes?” Weiss pleaded.

“Maybe you can earn a ‘yes,’” I agreed halfheartedly.

Weiss flicked her hair back and swished her chin to the side with her eyes closed. Then she ran a hand up my thigh under the table. The flat of her tiny palms stopped about midway up my knee. She looked back over at me with doe eyes. 

“Maybe you have some ideas?” She asked imploringly. 

“Wow…” Ruby trailed. Her cheeks were a real dark red. 

“Does our little banter turn you on? Sweetheart?” I asked. 

“Um…”

“Maybe she feels neglected,” Weiss asked. I felt Weiss’s hand slide off my leg. From her posture she ran her fingers up the inside of Ruby’s right thigh before coming to a rest. She slowly rubbed a circle into Ruby’s leg and Ruby turned as crimson as the tips of her hair. 

“Ah…” she actually panted. “Weiss please…we’re in public...”

“I haven’t done anything yet,” Weiss leaned over and bit Ruby’s ear gently by the lobe. 

Ruby let out a squeak and turned even darker. I leaned back and watched in fascination. “Poor Rubes. She just wants a little attention. Not too much. I asked you a question, sweetheart.”

“I don’t…”

“You don’t remember?”

She nodded a little. Weiss kissed her cheek. 

“I only asked you it a moment ago. Are you a little distracted maybe?”

“Um…”

“Come on Ruby, answer the question. Focus up,” Weiss pressed. “You need to pay attention.”

“Wh-what wa-was the question?”

“Does our banter turn you on? Does it get you wet?”

“Oh…” Ruby gasped at something Weiss did under the table. “Weiss-ss…” 

“Don’t worry, Jaune. I’ll fact check.”

“Well, does it Ruby?”

“I like it. It’s fun listening to you two…” she muttered. “I liked when you made her beg. That turned me on.”

“I think she likes all the attention. Do you like it, Ruby?”

“I-I-I…no…”

“She’s lying,” Weiss informed me. “She likes it.” Weiss did something and Ruby jumped in her tight yoga pants.

“Y-y-you guys… it isn’t funny.”

“It’s a little funny,” I disagreed. 

“But it’s even more sexy,” Weiss whispered right in her ear. 

“Do you like teasing us? Rubes?”

“I-I-I’m not teasing you guys. You guys are the ones teasing me...”

“I recently learned some things about the female form,” I began. “I learned that it’s possible to make it hurt so good. I learned that for girls a good orgasm really can make you wax and wane out of consciousness. Now, I’m not an expert but it seems to me that when a girl finishes her next orgasm is even closer and more intense. How many times in a row would you have to finish before we started flirting with that line?”

“I-I-I-I....” Ruby stuttered off. “Weiss please…”

“You know? I’m curious too? Two or three gets pretty intense. Five or six would start to hurt. But it would hurt in a way that you kinda sorta want to keep going, if that makes sense. I’m not sure what would happen if you hit double digits.”

Ruby let out a low moan and shivered. 

“What do you say? Rubes? Want to shoot for ten?”

“Ten?” Ruby asked, sounding shocked. Her mouth transitioned into a little ‘o’ from whatever Weiss was doing to her.

“Like that? Was that how she did it?” Weiss asked.

“Yeah. It was a little like that. Except I was worried she was about to pass out. Look at her taunting us. She wants us to take her. Why else would she bait us like this?”

“She wants it. If she didn’t want it then she wouldn’t be flushing like that.”

“You’re… Weiss is the one teasing me. Weiss please you don’t have to take his side…”

“But I want to…”

“Weiss please…”

“Do you think we could make her beg for ten orgasms?” I asked. “Or would it just start to hurt at that point?”

“I don’t know. It definitely starts to draw the line between pain and pleasure. I bet we could. I bet we could make her beg for it. We could make her want double digits.”

“Well, sweetheart? Won’t you beg us for it?”

“Please… no… I don’t want it.”

“She is lying. She’s very much lying.” Weiss informed me. 

“Is that true? Would you lie to me Ruby?” I wondered. “Really? You think she’s lying, Weiss?”

“She is definitely lying. She wants it. I guarantee it.” 

“How can you tell?” I wondered.

“Oh, Jaune, a girl just knows.”

“Huh. Ruby, sweetheart, why would you lie like that? It’s only going to make things harder for you. Do you want us to make it harder for you? Is that why you did that?”

“I… don’t know. I… I don’t know if I can do ten. Ten is a lot. You guys. Would you do ten? Weiss?”

“I don’t know. I want to see what it does to you first.”

“I’m not your guinea pig!”

“But you want it. Let’s start with one. Just one. And then we’ll go from there. We have that whole big bed to break in. I think you want it. Won’t you ask me for it, Ruby? Ask me to put your little body through the gauntlet. Go on.”

“Weiss don’t help him… We could work together… Don’t take his side… Not against me… please…”

“But I want to help him. Do you really think we could overpower him together? Not a chance and it’s either you or me. He’ll do it to me if I don’t help him do it to you. You’ll do whatever he tells you in the bedroom. You two would take me apart. You would side with him against me. Why shouldn’t I take my chance against you? That’s only fair and I want to watch. I want to see what we can really do to you. I’m curious. I want to know.”

“But Weiss please…”

“Kinda scary. Isn’t it? Ten? Kinda exciting, though. I’m really not sure what’s going to happen once we start putting you through the paces. But I bet we can make you want it. I bet we can make you beg for it. That’s all we want. We want you to beg for it. Won’t you beg us for it, Ruby?”

“Please Weiss. We can beat him. He’ll do whatever we tell him too.”

“We can’t make him Ruby. I riled him up. He’s going to eat one of us. He’s hungry. He’s curious. He wants to know. And I do too. And I kinda don’t want it to be me. That means it’s going to be you. And you know what? You’re going to love it. You love all the attention on you. We’re going to pick you to pieces and you’re going to love it and you’re going to beg for it and you’re going to thank us for it. Don’t you want to thank me, Ruby? For this opportunity?”

Ruby shuddered and looked down at her plate. “Thank you, Weiss. And…”

“And?” Weiss pressed. Ruby gasped and trembled. 

“Please make me finish ten times. I want to know. I want you both to devour me. Please give it to me ten times in a row. Please give it to me until I choke, and pass out, and beg you to stop. Please keep going anyways. Won’t you? Please?”

“That’s a good girl,” I said. “We’re going to take such good care of you.”

Ruby shivered a little. She reached over with both hands and cupped Weiss’s face and kissed her hard. She let out a little moan as she did and she whined. She hunted for Weiss’s lower  lip but Weiss took her time and found Ruby’s own and cupped it between hers. Then she entered her pink slender tongue into Ruby’s mouth and Ruby sighed and closed her lips around Weiss’s tongue and sucked on it gently the way she did mine. Weiss pushed down harder and Ruby groaned. 

I smirked slightly and stretched both hands over my head. 

Tonight was going to be a lot of fun. 

pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq

-WG